Three
Mile Island Alert, Inc.
Statement of Three
Mile Island Alert*
Re: “Economic and
System Reliability Benefits of the Three Mile Island Generating Station”
(Harrisburg, Pa) - Three Mile
Island Alert, Inc. (“TMIA”) critiqued a economic report commissioned by the
owners and operators of Three Mile Island. (“TMI”) Eric Epstein, Chairman of
TMIA stated: “TMI has actually had a declining impact on the local economy
since Exelon purchased the plant.” Epstein noted:
* TMI’s “fair market value”
according to Exelon is $5 million, and the Company successfully sued Dauphin
County to reduce
the amount of taxes it pays by $360,016 a year. GPU
Nuclear’s annual tax contribution was $506,956 while Exelon pays $146,940
per year.
* Prior to the sale of TMI-1,
GPU Nuclear employed 804 full-time employees. As of July 2, 2006, Exelon's
staffing numbers were listed at 520; TMI now says the number of employees is
closer to 60o. Either way, the community has lost at least 204 full-time
tax payers since Exelon rolled into to town.
Mr. Epstein added, “This
Report does not factor the $5.5 billion in “stranded nuclear
costs” recovered by Exelon through a ratepayer tax known as the Competitive
Transition Cost or the projected $1 billion dollar price tag for the
decommissioning and decontamination of Three Mile Island Unit-1. The Report
also ignores subsidized insurance rates, rad waste storage fees, and
billions of gallons of virtually free water underwritten by area
residents and taxpayers.”
Epstein concluded, “To
make matters worse, local residents are still paying for the meltdown at
TMI-2. On September 20, 1995, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed a
lower court’s decision, and sided with GPU in allowing the Company to charge
rate payers for the TMI-2 accident. The decision ignored the financial facts
of the case: TMI-2 was built at a cost to rate payers of $700 million and
had been on line for 90 days, or 1/120 of its planned operating lifetime,
when the March 1979 accident began. One billion was been spent to defuel the
plant, which now lays in idle shutdown, i.e., Post-Defueling Monitored
Storage.”
_____
*
Three Mile Island Alert,
Inc. is a safe-energy organization based in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania and founded in 1977. TMIA monitors Peach Bottom, Susquehanna,
and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations.