March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

CMP will retain its interest in Maine Yankee > Stockholder plan to divest ownership in nuclear reactor overwhelmingly defeated

AUGUSTA — Central Maine Power Co. shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal Wednesday to divest the utility’s controlling interest in the Maine Yankee nuclear plant.

The plan, advanced by Ann Burke of Cape Elizabeth, garnered 8.9 percent of the 2.4 million votes of shareholders during their annual meeting at the Augusta Civic Center. Most of the votes were cast by proxy.

Speaking in favor of the proposal, Bill Linnell of the Committee for a Safe Energy Future said the best time to sell the 24-year-old plant is now, while it is operating.

The Wiscasset reactor was shut down for most of last year while thousands of cracked steam generator pipes were being repaired in the largest project of its kind ever undertaken at a nuclear plant.

“If the plant broke down again,” Linnell told about 500 shareholders, “where would you and I be as investors?”

Linnell suggested that investors face unknown costs of decommissioning the plant, whose operating license expires in 2008. He acknowledged that he would prefer to see the plant shut down now.

CMP President David Flanagan called the proposed divestiture of the utility’s 38 percent ownership “a fire sale, a forced sale that would not be in the interest of shareholders or the people of the state of Maine.”

While acknowledging problems the plant has encountered, Flanagan said an independent review has shown that the repaired steam generator tubes are performing “well in excess of expectations.”

Flanagan also said the plant provides a low-cost source of power at 3 cents per kilowatt hour that could not be replaced over the long term at the same cost.

Shareholder Patrick McTeague of West Bath said plant safety, not investors’ interests, should be the chief issue in deciding the plant’s fate. A sale, he said, would not necessarily enhance safety.

“Frankly, the motion, when you think about it, is a bit ludicrous,” said McTeague. But he said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should continue to scrutinize safety standards and practices at the plant.

A recent report by the NRC inspector general cited weaknesses in NRC staff oversight as the plant prepared for refueling and increasing its power output following the generator tube repairs.

CMP said the repairs and replacement power costs reduced its 1995 earnings by about 70 cents a share to 86 cents.

In his address to shareholders, Flanagan said the utility remains committed to stabilizing rates through measures that include an austerity program and negotiations to get out of expensive contracts with non-utility generators.

In the last two years, “we have wrestled the demon of runaway prices to the ground,” said Flanagan.

He said Maine’s largest electric utility, which has 516,000 customers, is actively preparing for the “inevitable” transition to a competitive energy market, but will insist on a fair transition.

Flanagan said utility investors must be compensated fully for postponed costs and future obligations that have been mandated by the state as part of any utility deregulation plan that emerges from an ongoing review by the Public Utilities Commission.

“These stranded costs were, are and will remain the moral obligation of our government to the companies and the shareholders who were compelled to carry out its social welfare and energy programs,” said Flanagan.


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