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The Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant (also known as the '''Wading River Nuclear Power Plant''') was a General Electric Boiling Water Reactor located in Wading River , Suffolk County , Long Island , New York , 60 miles east of Manhattan . The plant was designed to produce 540 Megawatt s, later changed to 820. The plant was conceived by the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) and was built between 1973 and 1984. Originally set in an area dominated by potato fields, by the time the plant was ready to operate the urban area had grown out to encroach on the site. Since the Emergency Planning Zones crossed both of the highways leading off the island, the populace was concerned that in the event of an accident evacuation would be impossible. After the 1979 Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl accidents, public opposition to the plant rose significantly. The plant did undergo low power testing, but never produced any commercial electric power, due to the fact that New York Governor Mario Cuomo 's representatives did not sign the Emergency Evacuation Plan. This meant that it could not receive a full power license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), though it did receive a low power license. On May 19 , 1989 , LILCO agreed not to operate the plant in a deal with the state under which most of the $6 billion cost of the unused plant was passed on to the consumers. The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), headed by Richard Kessel, was created in 1986 specifically to buy the plant from LILCO (which it did in 1992 ). The plant was fully decommissioned in 1994. PROPOSAL On April 13 , 1965 , LILCO announced the Wading River Nuclear Plant, the first and only Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island (although there had been nuclear research and multiple research reactors at Brookhaven National Laboratory ). At the time demand for electricity was increasing more than 10 percent per year on Long Island and the Atomic Energy Commission was strongly pushing all power companies to use nuclear power. With that in mind, LILCO planned several more plants on Long Island, one in affluent Lloyd Harbor . However, the residents there managed to kill the proposal in 1969 with a well funded opposition. In 1968, LILCO decided to increase the size of the plant from 540 to 820 megawatts. They also decided to build two more reactors in Jamesport . Those reactors never got beyond the drawing board stage but this helped delay and increase the costs of the plant. PROBLEMS The management of the construction was so bad that the planned 1973 completion date became an embarrassment. The projected final cost started to approach $2 billion by the late 1970s, due to low worker productivity and design changes ordered by the NRC. As discussed in '' probe, which aired 24 March 1985. There were many Whistleblowers who emerged at various times in the long Wading River saga. When opposition began to form, the disdainful treatment that LILCO gave to the opposition only increased their resolve. The delays gave them plenty of time to organize and inform the public. It also highlighted the company's incompetence, which did not reassure the public of their ability to safely operate the plant. The first small anti-Shoreham demonstration took place in June 1976. THREE MILE ISLAND The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island heralded a new chapter for Shoreham, one that began the process that ended the project. The anti-nuclear movement was energized and 15,000 protesters met at Shoreham in June of that year, the largest demonstration in Long Island history. Even worse for LILCO was the decision by NRC in light of Three Mile Island to require that operators of nuclear plants would have to work out evacuation plans in cooperation with state and local governments. OPPOSITION The popular movement opposing operation of the Shoreham plant was one of the most diverse, sustained and ultimately successful of the many regional coalitions opposing particular nuclear projects. Just a few of the groups involved were The Lloyd Harbor Study Group (founded when the plant was set to be built in Lloyd Harbor , near Huntington ), The Long Island Farm Bureau , The Long Island Safe Energy Coalition and its newsletter Chain Reaction, Safe'n Sound with its Sound Times newspaper, the S.H.A.D. Alliance (modeled on New Hampshire's Clamshell Alliance ), and the Shoreham Opponents Coalition. Strong media support came from Suffolk Life newspapers and several local weekly papers. Early and significant political backing from several town boards of eastern Suffolk Country. The Suffolk County Legislature was a prime battleground, and finally emerged in the 1980s as the most active and effective organization within the movement. ( Newsday 's online archives offer some historical background.) CLOSURE Long Island's political and business leaders, originally strong supporters of the plant, began to change their minds. On February 17, 1983, the Suffolk County Legislature announced with a 15-1 vote that the county could not be safely evacuated. Just before the vote, the newly elected governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, stated that he had ordered state officials not to approve any LILCO-sponsored evacuation plan. LILCO's own estimates of power consumption on Long Island now questioned if Shoreham was needed, since the large yearly increases of the 1960s had not continued. Still, they pressed on and completed the plant in 1984. Although LILCO won federal permission for low-power tests in 1985, an operating license would be impossible to obtain without local and state cooperation with evacuation planning. That same year Hurricane Gloria hit Long Island. Despite the fact that the storm was much weaker than predicted, it still took LILCO up to two weeks to restore power. This demonstration of incompetence was one of the final nails in the coffin of the plant. LILCO attempted to find legal ways around the NRC regulation, considering many options, including asking the U.S. Congress to pass a law allowing them to impose a plan upon the state and local governments against their wishes. Even as it became increasingly obvious the plant would never open, LILCO performed low power testing, thereby making Decommissioning a necessity. After more than two years of negotiations, Governor Cuomo and LILCO came to an agreement on February 28, 1989 that closed the plant and made ratepayers responsible for most of Shoreham's $6 billion price tag, more than 85 times higher than the original estimate. SEE ALSO REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS |
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