N.Y. A-Plant Is Abandoned Before Opening

ALBANY, N.Y. — A utility today agreed to give up the $5.3-billion Shoreham nuclear plant for $1 and let the state dismantle it. It will be the first time a completed U.S. atomic plant was abandoned before it opened.

Under the agreement, Long Island Lighting Co. will pay the more than $400 million to decommission the plant on Long Island but would be guaranteed 5% rate increases in each of the next three years.

“We have gotten everything we wanted,” Gov. Mario Cuomo said at a news conference today.

The agreement would allow financially troubled LILCO to continue to operate as a privately owned utility. The state had threatened a takeover of the company.

Once completed, the deal will end years of attempts by environmentalists, local activists and others to close Shoreham, situated on Long Island’s North Shore.

No Evacuation Plan

“I think that utilities throughout the United States will be very mindful of what happened to the Long Island Lighting Co.,” said Irving Like, a Shoreham opponent and a member of the Long Island Power Authority, a board the state set up to examine a possible takeover of the utility.

The plant, conceived in 1965, was completed in 1984, 10 years late and more than 80 times over budget. It never opened because of the refusal of state and local officials to approve an emergency evacuation plan.

The officials had argued that Long Island, because of its geography, could not be safely evacuated during a nuclear accident, and without such approval the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission had refused to issue an operating license.

State efforts to close Shoreham accelerated after the NRC in October eliminated the rule requiring state and local government participation in an evacuation plan.

The entire agreement must be approved by the state Public Service Commission, and some parts of it need the Legislature’s approval. New generating plants would then be built on Long Island to ensure an adequate supply of electricity.

The accord was announced 95 minutes after Cuomo’s midnight Wednesday deadline for an agreement.

The settlement provides a prototype for opponents of other nuclear plants because it had been widely believed that once Shoreham was completed, it would be licensed despite state and local government opposition.