Obama taps Yucca Mtn critic to lead nuclear agency

[Commentary:  U.S. nuclear power has just been delivered yet another setback.  Gregory Jaczko hurt the growth of renewable nuclear power and green energy growth and now he is replaced with Allison Macfarlane who is fully endorsed by Harry Reid.  Anyone endorsed by Harry Reid is hardly an ally of nuclear power in the United States.  Expect more delays, cost run ups, regulations, and energy prices to continue to soar.]

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Moving quickly to stem a controversy, President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated an expert on nuclear waste to lead the federal agency that regulates the nation's nuclear power plants.
Allison Macfarlane, who served on a presidential commission that studied new strategies to manage nuclear waste, would replace Gregory Jaczko as head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Jaczko announced his resignation Monday after a tumultuous three-year tenure in which he pushed for sweeping safety reforms but came under fire for an unyielding management style that fellow commissioners and agency employees described as bullying.
A White House spokesman said Obama believes Macfarlane is the right person to lead the commission, calling her a highly regarded expert who has spent years analyzing nuclear issues.
Macfarlane "understands the role that nuclear power must play in our nation's energy future while ensuring that we are always taking steps to produce this important energy source safely and securely," White House spokesman Clark Stevens said.
Stevens called the NRC crucial to protecting public health and safety and said Obama hopes the Senate considers her nomination quickly.
Macfarlane, 48, an associate professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., wrote a book in 2006 that raised technical questions about a proposed nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is the leading congressional opponent of the Yucca site, praised Macfarlane as someone who will make nuclear safety a top priority. Macfarlane's education and experience, especially her service on the blue-ribbon commission on nuclear waste, make her qualified to lead the NRC "for the foreseeable future," Reid said in a statement.


Reid said he continues to have concerns about Republican Kristine Svinicki, who has been nominated by Obama for a new term on the commission, but added that he believes Svinicki and Macfarlane should be considered together, continuing a recent Senate tradition of considering NRC nominees from opposing parties at the same time.
Svinicki, a nuclear engineer and former Senate GOP aide, was among four NRC commissioners who publicly criticized Jaczko's management style last year. The commissioners — two Democrats and two Republicans — sent a letter to the White House last fall expressing "grave concern" about Jaczko' s actions, which they said were abusive and "causing serious damage" to the commission.
No disciplinary action was taken against Jaczko, who has strongly denied the allegations.
Jaczko, a Democrat, announced his resignation ahead of a potentially blistering report due out soon from the agency's inspector general, which has been investigating Jaczko's actions for more than a year.
A former Reid aide, Jaczko led a strong response to the nuclear disaster in Japan and was a favorite of industry watchdogs, who called his emphasis on safety a refreshing change from previous agency chiefs who were close to the nuclear industry or who came from it.
But scientists, fellow commissioners and many rank-and-file staffers said Jaczko had created a chilled working environment at the NRC, which oversees safety at the nation's 104 commercial nuclear reactors.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, called Macfarlane "an active contributor to policy debates in the nuclear energy field for many years" and urged the Senate to confirm her nomination as soon as possible.
"It would not serve the public interest to have her nomination linger," the group said. "We urge the Senate to confirm both Commissioner Svinicki and Professor Macfarlane expeditiously."
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment Committee, said Macfarlane's background and experience demonstrate a strong commitment to safety — a commitment she called especially important in the wake of the nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
Boxer said she will schedule a joint hearing on the two NRC nominees in June.
Per Peterson, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California, served with Macfarlane on the nuclear waste commission, which was appointed by the Obama administration to make recommendations on how the nation should store and dispose of more than 71,000 tons of radioactive waste at dozens of sites across the country.
"I think she will be effective in leadership" of the NRC, "mainly because she listens," Peterson said of Macfarlane.
In a 2009 interview with Technology Review, Macfarlane acknowledged that most of the objections to the never-completed Yucca Mountain site were political, but added: "The technical objections are serious and real."
The area near Yucca Mountain is seismically and volcanically active, she said, adding that spent nuclear fuel could be stored safely at nuclear plants for decades.
The presidential panel recommended that the government start looking immediately for an alternative to Yucca Mountain. The report also recommended that responsibility for managing nuclear waste be transferred to a new organization, independent of the Energy Department.

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NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko to tour Palisades nuclear power plant this week

By Fritz Klug | fklug@mlive.comThe Kalamazoo Gazette
COVERT, MI — Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko will tour the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert this week.

 

The tour will take place Friday, said NRC Midwest spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng. Palisades is one of the four-worst performing plants in the country as classified by the NRC and had several documented problems last year.

The announcement comes the same day that Jaczko said he would step down from his position at the agency. It comes after mounting criticisms of the NRC chairman's three-year tenure, including this from The New York Times:

...Dr. Jaczko’s management of the agency rubbed his fellow commissioners the wrong way. Last year, all four of them — two Democrats and two Republicans — sent a letter to the White House chief of staff complaining about his management style...The commission’s chief internal investigator also said that Dr. Jaczko was “not forthcoming” with his colleagues about the Yucca Mountain project, although his allies in Congress fiercely denied this.

U.S. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, has been one of the strongest proponents of the Yucca Mountain project in the House. Funding for the nuclear waste repository was cut by President Barack Obama's administration.

 

Mitlyng said the resignation and the tour are not related. The tour of Palisades has been in the work for a while now and is part of a weeklong tour of other plants across the country.

 

The announcement comes the same day that Charles A. Casto was named as the new administrator of the NRC's Region III office, which oversees plants that include Palisades. Casto was the lead NRC and U.S. ambassador who provided support to the Japanese government after the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster. He was at the site from March 2011 to February, 2012. He replaces Cynthia Pederson, who was the interim director.

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Head of US nuclear safety agency to step down

WASHINGTON – The embattled chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission resigned Monday after a tumultuous three-year tenure in which he pushed for sweeping safety reforms but came under fire for an unyielding management style that fellow commissioners and agency employees described as bullying.
Gregory Jaczko stepped down ahead of a potentially blistering report due out soon from the agency's inspector general, which has been investigating his actions for more than a year.
Jaczko, 41, led a strong response to the nuclear disaster in Japan and was a favorite of industry watchdogs, who called his emphasis on safety a refreshing change from previous agency chiefs who were close to the nuclear industry or who came from it.
But scientists, fellow commissioners and many rank-and-file staffers said Jaczko had created a chilled working environment at the NRC, which oversees safety at the nation's 104 commercial nuclear reactors.
In an extraordinary public rebuke, four fellow commissioners sat next to Jaczko last December and told Congress he was an intimidating bully whose actions could compromise the nation's nuclear safety. The four commissioners said women at the agency felt especially threatened.
The commissioners — two Democrats and two Republicans — sent a letter to the White House last fall expressing "grave concern" about Jaczko' s actions, which they said were "causing serious damage" to the commission.


No disciplinary action was taken against Jaczko, who strongly denied the allegations.
An inspector general's report released last summer said Jaczko had intimidated staff members who disagreed with him and withheld information from members of the commission to manipulate their decisions on critical votes. A follow-up report is due in the next few weeks.
Jaczko said in a written statement that it was the right time to step down, adding that he hoped his successor would keep a strong focus on safety. Jaczko said he will continue to lead the commission until his successor is confirmed.
Jaczko did not mention the bullying allegations in his statement, but said he was "truly humbled by the agency's success" in responding to issues ranging from the Japan crisis to severe incidents at U.S. reactors caused by flooding, earthquakes and tornadoes. "In addition to this vigilant oversight, together we identified and began to implement lessons learned from Fukushima and completed our rigorous safety reviews for the first new reactor licenses in 30 years," he said.
White House spokesman Clark Stevens said Monday that President Barack Obama appreciates Jaczko's service and intends to nominate a new chairman soon.
Jaczko, a Democrat and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, was the agency's public face during its response last year to an earthquake and tsunami that triggered nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan. He also took responsibility for recommending that U.S. citizens living in Japan evacuate an area larger than what U.S. communities near nuclear facilities prepare for, a decision that lawmakers and the NRC's advisory board questioned.
Jaczko, who has served on the NRC since 2005, was named by Obama to lead the independent agency in 2009. Since then, he has made a series of decisions to delay or halt work on a proposed nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, a project Obama had made a campaign promise to kill.
Jaczko's actions have been criticized by congressional Republicans, his own scientific staff and the NRC's inspector general. The IG report found that Jaczko acted within his authority and broke no laws. But it also concluded that to get his way on the issue, he failed to be forthcoming with other commissioners.
Reid, the leading opponent of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, praised Jaczko's service to the commission on Monday.
"He dedicated his tenure to improving the safety of nuclear energy, and his leadership during the Fukushima nuclear crisis protected millions of Americans," Reid said in a statement.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the senior Republican on the Senate Environment Committee, said Jaczko's decision to resign was the right one. With his resignation, "the NRC can focus on its mission of safety without the distractions of Jaczko's inappropriate behavior," Inhofe said.
Janet Kotra, a senior scientist and project manager on the proposed Yucca waste dump, called Jaczko's resignation an "enormous relief." A 28-year NRC employee, Kotra said the agency's reputation as an independent safety authority had been greatly damaged under Jaczko.
"Now, the NRC can begin to rebuild its reputation," she said.
Inhofe and other Republicans said Jaczko's impending departure reinforced the urgency of Senate action to confirm Republican Kristine Svinicki to new term on the NRC.
Obama nominated Svinicki, a nuclear engineer and former Senate GOP aide, for another term earlier this month despite objections from Reid and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chair of the Senate Environment Committee.
In his three years as chairman, Jaczko was often the lone dissenting vote on the five-member panel, including a recent vote to approve the first nuclear power plants built in the U.S. in more than 30 years. Jaczko opposed a license for the Atlanta-based Southern Co., saying he wanted to wait until the commission approved safety changes prompted by the Japan disaster.
Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, said he recognized Jaczko's commitment to set high safety standards.
"We have had differences with the chairman on how best to achieve our mutually shared safety goals. But to his credit we've always had open lines of communications and a willingness to respectfully discuss the issues," Fertel said in a statement.
Dale Klein, a former NRC chairman and commissioner who served with Jaczko, said Jaczko had turned the agency "upside down." Klein, a Republican, was appointed to lead the agency by President George W. Bush in 2006 and left the NRC in 2010.
"It has been unusual that you have a chairman that so often loses on a 4-to-1 vote. That is not leadership," Klein said in an interview. "I hope a new chairman can get picked quickly and NRC can get on with its task of protecting the public and the environment."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/21/head-us-nuclear-safety-agency-to-step-down/#ixzz1vYKcP21X

NRC chair: No timetable for Cal nuke plant restart

LOS ANGELES — The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday there is no timetable for restarting the sidelined San Onofre nuclear plant on the Southern California coast and a federal review of its troubled tubing will take whatever time is necessary to complete.
The statement from Chairman Gregory Jaczko came just days after a senior executive for operator Southern California Edison disclosed that the company was hoping for a possible June restart.
The twin reactors have been offline for more than three months while investigators look into excessive wear on tubing in the plant's steam generators.
The agency is waiting for documentation on repairs and other work at the plant.
"Any discussion of a date for the restart of Unit 2 or Unit 3 is clearly premature," Jaczko said. "We will take whatever time is necessary to conduct a thorough safety review."
A restart would require federal approval.
Last week, Edison executive vice president Stephen Pickett said the company was looking at the possible June restart. The company is drafting a plan under which the twin reactors would run at reduced power, at least for several months, because engineers believe that will solve a problem with vibration that has been causing unusual wear in alloy tubing.

Costs related to the long-running shutdown could climb over $100 million, company officials say, and state officials have warned about possible rotating blackouts in Southern California with the reactors offline.
About 7.4 million Californians live within 50 miles of San Onofre, which can power 1.4 million homes. The seaside plant is located between Los Angeles and San Diego.
The trouble at San Onofre began to unfold in late January, when the Unit 3 reactor was shut down as a precaution after a break in a steam generator tube carrying radioactive water. Traces of radiation escaped, but officials said there was no danger to workers or neighbors.
Unit 2 had been taken offline earlier that month for routine maintenance. But investigators later confirmed accelerated wear on tubing in both units. Hundreds of tubes that were heavily damaged will be taken out of service at the two reactors.
That number is well within the margin to allow them to keep operating, Edison officials say.
SCE projects that the bill for repairs and tests could run as high as $65 million, and $30 million was spent on replacement power through March 31 – a bill that keeps mounting.
Gradual wear is common in such tubing, but the rate of decay at San Onofre was startling because the equipment is relatively new. The generators were installed in a multimillion-dollar makeover in 2009 and 2010.
The plant is owned by SCE, San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside. The Unit 1 reactor operated from 1968 to 1992, when it was shut down and dismantled.

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San Onofre Shut Down May Cause Rolling Blackouts

The twin reactors at the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant have been idled while investigators determine why tubing carrying radioactive water is eroding at an unusual rate. Gregory B. Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will visit the plant Friday to highlight the agency's concern over the ailing equipment.

Just last week, the agency confirmed in a March 27 letter to Southern California Edison that the plant will stay shut down until the cause of January's radioactive steam leak is fully diagnosed and fixed.

Experts have warned the lengthy plant shutdown could lead to rolling power blackouts this summer.

More on Japan's Energy Death Spiral and the Illusion of a Saudi Oil Option

LOS ANGELES — The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will visit the ailing San Onofre nuclear power plant on the California coast, where twin reactors were sidelined after the discovery of excessive wear in tubing that carries radioactive water.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko plans to tour the plant and meet with managers for operator Southern California Edison on Friday, the agency said.

Last week, the agency announced that the plant located between San Diego and Los Angeles will remain off-line while investigators determine why tubing in massive steam generators is eroding at an unusual rate and fix the problem.

In a four-page letter to Edison last week, NRC Regional Administrator Elmo E. Collins scrolled out a series of steps the utility must take before restarting the seaside reactors, underscoring concern about the unusual degradation in the tubes.

The plant’s four steam generators each contain nearly 10,000 alloy tubes that carry hot, pressurized water from the reactors. The Unit 3 reactor was shut down as a precaution in January after a tube break, and extensive wear was found on similar tubing in its twin, Unit 2, which has been shut down for maintenance.

Traces of radiation escaped during the January leak, but officials said there was no danger to workers or neighbors.

Authorities in California have been scrambling to find additional power in case the reactors remain idled through summer, when energy use typically peaks. That could include restarting retired plants in Huntington Beach in northern Orange County.

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman touring Nine Mile Point nuclear plant

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will tour the Nine Mile Point nuclear plant in Oswego County today, the NRC said.

Jaczko has been touring nuclear plants across the country since being named chairman in May 2009.

His visit comes three days before the NRC holds a public open house at Scriba Town Hall to discuss the agency's annual assessment of safety performance for the Nine Mile Point and James A. Fitzpatrick nuclear power plants. Overall, the NRC says the Nine Mile Point Units 1 and 2, which are owned by Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, and the Fitzpatrick plant, owned by Entergy Nuclear Northeast, operated safely during 2011.

"Throughout 2011, our inspectors kept close watch on a daily basis to ensure there were no safety issues of significance," said Bill Dean, NRC Region I administrator.

Key nuclear plant safety order likely to be delayed, NRC tells Senate

By Timothy R. Smith

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will likely fall behind schedule in issuing a key safety measure designed for U.S. power plants in the wake of Japan’s nuclear reactor meltdown last year, the agency’s chairman told a Senate committee Thursday.

The NRC’s five commissioners testified before the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee on the safety progress of the U.S. nuclear industry a year after an earthquake caused a nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said U.S. nuclear power plants would likely miss the agency’s five-year goal for implementing orders aimed at avoiding the effects of earthquakes on the plants. An agency task force on the Japanese disaster said the measures should be put in place at the nation’s 104 nuclear power plants by 2016.

But Jaczko said the earliest completion date for key seismic upgrades at the plants would be in 2017, and 2019 for low-risk plants.

“This is an area in which we recognize that there is new information that tells us the plants may not be designed to the right seismic standards. For this one to be taking so long is a bit of a concern to me,” Jaczko said.

Commissioner George Apostolakis told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate panel, that plants in California would complete their seismic upgrades within five years.

Jaczko said that in the next few days, the NRC will begin taking comments from nuclear power plant officials on a proposed rule that would require the plants to maintain operations during blackouts indefinitely. Currently plants are required to maintain functions during four to eight hours of blackouts. In Japan, the plant lost power during the tsunami and earthquake, which speeded its meltdown.

On Monday, the NRC officially issued three orders to the nation’s power plants, Jaczko said: Plants must develop and implement measures to keep spent fuel rods cool after an extreme natural disaster; they are required to have sturdier venting systems to help prevent pressure-induced explosions; and they must have a reliable read of water levels in spent fuel containers.

The orders were considered the highest priority by the NRC task force on the Fukushima disaster, which issued its recommendations in July.

At the hearing, the commissioners worked to assure the Senate panel that a Fukushima-like event would not happen in the United States.

“Our infrastructure, our regulatory approach, our practices at plants, our equipment, our configuration, our designed basis, would prevent Fukushima from occurring under similar circumstances at a U.S. plant,” said commissioner William Magwood. “I just don’t think it would happen. But we can still improve, and we are going to improve.”

Nuclear plant safety urged

By James Minton

Baker-Zachary bureau

March 01, 2012

ST. FRANCISVILLE — The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman spoke to River Bend nuclear power plant employees Wednesday about the importance of instilling a culture of safety in their daily work.

Gregory Jaczko said he spoke to members of an industry group, the National Association of Employee Concerns Professionals, in New Orleans on Wednesday morning before visiting the West Feliciana Parish plant.

“Nuclear power plants have what are called employee concerns programs as a place where employees may go if they have (safety) issues that they want to address,’’ Jaczko said.

“This is one of the things we’re concerned about at River Bend. We’ve seen some things, that I wouldn’t say raise concerns, but that we’re watching to make sure that they’re doing the right kinds of things to address the safety culture,” he said.

The NRC wants to make sure that employees are being conservative in their decision-making, ask the right questions and are free to raise questions, Jaczko said.

Last year, Entergy Operations Inc. and Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc. agreed to take additional steps to ensure the effectiveness of the quality-control programs and safety-conscious work environment at 11 nuclear power plants.

The agreement with the NRC stemmed from a River Bend employee’s complaint that he suffered retaliation after questioning inspection activities that were thought to be part of the plant’s quality control program.

Entergy chose to resolve the matter through a mediation process and agreed to reinforce its commitment to a safety-conscious work environment and to reorganize the quality control chain of command, the NRC announced in August.

Entergy also agreed to conduct a safety culture survey at River Bend, the NRC said.

In January, the NRC levied a $140,000 fine against the plant after an investigation revealed that nine plant operators violated procedures by surfing the Internet while on duty in the control room.

Jaczko said distraction issues have arisen in nuclear plant control rooms across the nation down through the years, but “this may be the first one involving accessing the Internet.”

The decisions to visit Internet sites while on duty are not in the interest of safety or consistent with procedures, he said.

“Those are very important issues, and it was an opportunity for me to come here and really reinforce the importance of that with the employees,” Jaczko said. “I had a great opportunity to talk to a group of employees, and they asked some very good questions. We had a very candid dialogue about these issues.”

While touring the plant, Jaczko said, Entergy officials gave him an update on the steps the plant has taken since the 2011 Japanese nuclear disaster to cope with the extended loss of off-site power to safely shut down the plant in an emergency.

The NRC will soon begin implementing new requirements for U.S. plants based on the experience in Japan, he said.

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Energy secretary: Ga. reactors may spur US growth

February 15, 2012 4:00 PM

(AP) WAYNESBORO, Ga. — With workers behind him already assembling the towering steel capsule that will contain one of the nation's first new commercial nuclear reactors in a generation, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday the Plant Vogtle expansion in Georgia will influence other American utilities weighing new investments in nuclear power.

The Obama administration's top energy official toured the construction site and spoke to workers a week after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a license for the Southern Co. to add a third and fourth reactor at the nuclear plant about 30 miles south of Augusta.

The $14 billion project is slated for completion in 2017. With delays and cost overruns having plagued the last generation of nuclear plants, Chu said avoiding both could boost confidence among other power companies and investors and spur even more nuclear growth nationwide.

"If this project goes forward and is built on-budget, on-time and on-schedule, that would be a very good thing," Chu told reporters. "A lot of other companies will say, 'OK. We now know we can do this and it would be a good investment.'"

Still, it could take time for the industry to expand. More than two dozen nuclear reactors have been proposed in recent years, but experts now say it is likely that only five or six new reactors will be completed by the end of the decade. The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978.

Critics including NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who voted against the Vogtle license, have cited last year's nuclear disaster in Japan as a reason to slow down until new safety standards can be adopted. Others note that the U.S. has yet to find an alternative site for dumping radioactive waste after work was halted at the proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada in 2009.

Southern Co. officials say new safeguards built into the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors being added at Vogtle already offer vast improvements over previous generations of nuclear plants. And Chu said he's "very confident" a new site to store spent nuclear fuel will be found.

"I don't think you should say you have to cross all the T's and dot all the I's before you begin this," said Chu, who has appointed an internal working group to study the findings of a presidential commission that issued its report on the nuclear waste issue last month. "I still assert it is a solvable problem."

Even before it had a license to build a new reactor, the Southern Co. and its partners spent the past two years and about $4 billion preparing sites for the new units at Plant Vogtle. Welders could be seen on the site Wednesday assembling the steel dome that will sit at the bottom of the 215-feet-high, 130-feet-diameter containment capsule that will house one of the reactors.

About 1,700 workers are already on the job site and plant managers say that number will grow to nearly 5,000 at the peak of construction. Once the completed units go online, they will employ about 800 permanent workers.

That's all been welcome news for surrounding Burke County, where Plant Vogtle is the largest employer and helped cushion residents from the deeper effects of the recession felt by rural neighboring counties that relied more on manufacturing jobs.

"Plant Vogtle has pretty well saved Burke County," said Allen DeLaigle, who owns and manages an RV park with his twin brother about 4 miles from the nuclear plant.

Since site preparation ramped up for the new units, DeLaigle's park has filled about 90 of its 151 spaces with RVs and campers owned by workers coming in from other states such as Alabama and Mississippi, West Virginia and Ohio.

The influx has helped boost James Howard Jones' business at Avery's Country Store, which has been catering pulled-pork lunches and eggs-and-biscuits breakfasts for workers at the construction site. Ultimately Jones hopes to score a contract to operate a new cafeteria at Plant Vogtle once the reactors are finished.

Robin Baxley, owner of a Waynesboro office supply store, added two new employees to keep up with deliveries of pens, paper, marker boards and thumb drives to the modular offices set up on the construction site. Her business also supplied the cubicles, desks and file cabinets for many of those temporary offices

"They helped us make it through the economic downturn," Baxley said. "Office furniture is not the first thing people buy when they can hardly make payroll."

Meanwhile, Augusta Technical College and its satellite campus in Waynesboro have launched a 2-year associate's degree program for training nuclear plant operators in order to help local residents compete for the new units' permanent positions.

Apparently not everybody is praising the Plant Vogtle expansion. A group called the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League said Wednesday it's working with local residents to petition the NRC to expand the radius of emergency planning zones around the nuclear plant and improve safeguards in the event of a disaster.

Baxley and others say they're not too concerned, considering Plant Vogtle has been operating without incident since the 1980s. And it's hard to ignore all the new faces — and their paychecks — during dinner out at local restaurants or trips to the grocery store.

"We're in a small town so you kind of know everybody, and there are a lot of people floating around right now that you don't know," Baxley said. "When you see those people you can automatically say, 'Oh, are you here for Vogtle?'"