NU awaits court hearing on Millstone nuke restart

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thursday April 8, 2:35 pm Eastern Time

NU awaits court hearing on Millstone nuke restart

NEW YORK, April 8 (Reuters) - A state judge in Connecticut will 
hear legal arguments on April 14 on whether to allow Northeast 
Utilities to restart its idled 880-megawatt Millstone 2 nuclear unit, 
the parties said Thursday.  

Fish Unlimited, a nonprofit fishermen's group based on Long Island, 
N.Y., sued Northeast for an injunction blocking the restart of 
Millstone 2. The group alleges restarting the plant would kill fish 
and their larvae in Long Island Sound.  

Last Friday, Judge Norris O'Neill of the Connecticut Superior Court 
in Hartford ruled against Northeast's request to dismiss the group's 
motion for an immediate injunction, and set a hearing date for April 
5. The judge pushed that date back to April 14 at Northeast's 
request.  

April 14 is also the day Northeast is set to meet with the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) in hopes of receiving permission to 
restart the reactor. Millstone 2 has been idled since February 1996 
for extensive safety upgrades.  

Northeast Utilities said it hopes to restart the reactor by the end of 
April.

``We're still shooting for an end-of-the-month restart...this request 
for an injunction is completely without merit,'' Northeast's nuclear 
spokesman Terrance McIntosh said.  

In its lawsuit, Fish Unlimited also requested the judge to order 
Northeast to build a cooling water tower and install a filter system 
that would return fish caught in the cooling water intake back into 
the the Long Island Sound.  

``All nuclear plants heat up the cooling water they discharge 
making it harder for fish to breath, if we can't stop the plant from 
opening than a cooling tower would fix that and a filter system 
would save fish,'' Fish Unlimited President Bill Smith said.  

The adjacent 1,200-MW Millstone 3, which is operating at full 
power, already has a fish return system.

Northeast, however, does not believe any modifications are 
necessary as it has already met the state's safety requirements, 
McIntosh said.  

At a minimum, Fish Unlimited wants the court to delay the plant's 
restart until after June 15 when the winter flounder spawning 
season is over.  

On Thursday, Millstone 2 was in Mode 5, or cold shutdown, to 
repair a valve leak. Earlier this week, however, the plant was in 
Mode 3, or hot standby, the last step before restarting the reactor. 
At Mode 3, the plant was heated to above 300 degrees F.  

Only the NRC can authorize the restart of the reactor.

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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