Rejected by federal regulators, environmental groups have taken their opposition to new reactors at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle to a federal appeals court.
On Wednesday the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League filed the appeal aimed at suspending the combined license the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted in February for the two Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors. The appeal followed the NRC’s rejection on Monday of a similar request made to the agency.
The environmental groups’ argument hangs on its contention that the project’s environmental impact statement (EIS) should be amended to address Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi accident and ongoing changes in NRC regulations in response to it.
In a motion filed with the court, the groups argued, “NEPA [the National Environmental Policy Act] forbids the commission from issuing a reactor license unless and until it has taken a “hard look” at the environmental impacts of that licensing action. Even where the NRC has concluded that a proposed reactor operation meets its basic safety requirements, NEPA still requires the NRC to consider cost-effective alternatives for avoiding or mitigating environmental impacts that are reasonably foreseeable and yet not covered by safety regulations. … Having conceded through its statements and actions that the Fukushima Task Force Report presents new and significant information, the NRC is bound as a matter of law to supplement the EIS for Vogtle."
A spokesman for Southern Co., which is heading up the project, told Bloomberg he is confident the NRC complied with federal requirements during the licensing process.