A federal judge on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to pay more than $103 million to the owners of three retired nuclear power plants for failing to meet its legal mandate to remove spent nuclear fuel from the properties.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims Senior Judge Nancy Firestone ruled that the federal government must pay $40.74 million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., $34.43 million to Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., and $28.09 million to Yankee Atomic Electric Co., which owns Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts.
Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Department of Energy was supposed to begin accepting spent fuel from commercial reactors for disposal by Jan. 31, 1998. It has not yet taken any of that radioactive waste, and the planned repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada remains bitterly contested.
Maine Yankee went through decommissioning from 1997 to 2005. Connecticut Yankee was decommissioned from 1996 to 2004. Yankee Rowe closed in 1992, with decommissioning finishing in 2007.
“This case is now the fourth in what will be likely a series of many more cases over the government’s continuing breach of the Standard Contract at the three different sites owned by the Yankees,” Firestone wrote in her ruling for summary judgment.
Both sides have acknowledged the federal government owes the Yankee companies the $103 million, according to Firestone’s ruling. However, the federal government said summary judgment should be withheld while the sides contest another $1 million allegedly owed the Yankees in a related case. Details on the $1 million were not listed in Firestone’s ruling.
“The Yankees argue, and the court agrees, that there is no just reason for delay for entry of a final judgment. Where, as here, the government has stipulated to its liability for a specific dollar amount of damages and prejudgment interest is not available, justice requires that the Yankees receive their payments without delay,” she wrote.
The federal government has already paid more than $6 billion over its waste disposal liabilities, and payments are expected to exceed $30 billion.
