TVA OKs $71.7 million for Watts Bar

TVA OKs $71.7 million for Watts Bar
Board draws fire from critics

By Jerry Dean
News-Sentinel staff writer

The TVA board of directors approved a $71.7 million contract Wednesday for completion of Watts Bar nuclear power plant's Unit 1. But the board then drew fire from agency critics at a public comment portion of the meeting.

The board routinely approved a supplemental contract for TVA's controversial nuclear plant — then listened as Stephen A. Smith of the Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Coalition, Cielo and Leaf Myczack of the Riverkeeper Project and Edward A. Slavin Jr. of Houston criticized TVA on several issues.

Smith zeroed in on the contract, saying "the fix is in" on funds for finishing the plant. A board report said Watts Bar work had a 90 percent chance of September completion with a May 1996 start-up date. The board-approved sum pays added costs of Watts Bar construction, engineering and start-up.

Smith, who doubted a September deadline could be met, urged TVA not to add millions to $7 billion in costs for a plant he said would be "contaminating, unreliable."

"The minute you flip the switch, the site's contaminated," he said.

Smith urged the board not to compound TVA's problems by adding the need for Watts Bar's eventual decommissioning and decontamination. Wednesday's contract approval, he said, ensured TVA would "throw more money" at Watts Bar.

Cielo Myczack of Chattanooga, co-director of the Riverkeeper Project, criticized TVA for not interceding in river shipment of clearcut hardwood timber to chip mills. That, she said, means hardwoods are lost just so pulpwood can be moved cheaply on the Tenn-Tom Waterway — then exported to Asia through Mobile, Ala.

"It's open season on hardwoods," Myczack said. Harvesting for multinational markets, she said, denudes hills, invites floods and erosion and damages water quality. As pines replace hardwoods, she said, "forests no longer support the Valley's traditional economies."

A TVA spokesman said the agency had no ability to control landowners' use of private property. But Myczack said lack of policy governing hardwood removal "left the door wide open" to exploitation of resources.

A TVA spokesman said the agency had no ability to control landowners' use of private property. But Myczack said lack of policy governing hardwood removal "left the door wide open" to exploitation of resources.

Her husband, Leaf Myczack, criticized TVA's release of "trash slicks" through Wilson and Fort Loudoun dams. TVA, he said, has but does not use a prototype skimmer used to remove floating trash from behind dams.

A TVA spokesman said the skimmer device proved costly and inefficient at removing volumes of trash.

TVA's $3.5 million advertising campaign also came under attack from Slavin, who got no response when he asked board members the campaign's purpose.

"When S. David Freeman was chairman," Slavin said, "anyone could ask a question, and the chairman would look you in the eye and answer. In 1980, something happened. (Chairman Marvin) Runyon decided the board would no longer answer questions.

"Now," he added, "board members sit and stolidly look at people in public sessions. We elected Bill Clinton in 1992," Slavin added. "When (Vice President) Al Gore held town meetings, he always answered questions . . . Still, the TVA board is sitting there, looking at watches, folding arms."

Slavin said: "Remember who appointed you. You work for Bill Clinton, Al Gore and the American people."

Of recent TVA ads, he said: "Your commercials (are) lousy. . . . You tell people in the Valley, if they want cheaper electricity, make it yourself . . . after you hooked them on (all-electric) homes."