For a third time, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has awarded a payment by the U.S. Department of Energy for electric ratepayers for the government’s failure to take possession of waste from the Yankee Atomic plant in Rowe, along with its Connecticut and Maine Yankee counterparts.
The Rowe plant, which shut down in 1992 and was formally decommissioned 15 years later, leaving in place 15 dry casks of spent nuclear fuel along with one cask of “greater than class C” waste, was one of three Yankee plants owned by a consortium of electric utilities, including what was then New England Power Co. and Western Massachusetts Electric Co.
Their successors, including Eversource and National Grid, will be among the utilities distributing to ratepayers Yankee Atomic Electric Co.’s $19.6 million settlement — part of $76.8 million in total damages for the three decommissioned plants, according to formulas determined by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities and other state public utility commissions.
Thursday’s Federal Claims decision represents damages the three plant’s owners incurred from 2009 through 2012.
In announcing the awards Friday, Wayne Norton, president of Yankee Atomic Electric Co., Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. and Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co. said, “We urge the federal government to fulfill its commitment to remove this material from our sites without further delay.”
The Courts have previously awarded the three companies approximately $395.4 million for the two prior periods for DOE’s failure to meet its contractual obligations.
Because the utilities have reconfigured themselves through the years, said Robert Capstrick, a spokesmen for the Yankee companies, and because each state will decide on plans for reimbursing ratepayers, there’s no clear way of knowing how much will flow back to the individual customers.