Paducah hosts nuclear-readiness public meeting

PADUCAH — The Paducah-McCracken County Convention and Expo Center saw the first of two community education meetings Thursday night, providing information and open discussion on topics related to nuclear energy.

The meeting’s featured speaker was Kara Colton, director of nuclear programs for Energy Communities Alliance. The meetings are required to obtain state designation as a Nuclear-Ready Community through the Kentucky Nuclear Energy Development Authority.

Colton covered topics ranging from economic development and workforce opportunity, energy independence, uranium reprocessing, regulation timelines and what it means to be considered a Nuclear-Ready Community.

“It really means you’re getting a seat at the table,” Colton said. “The state often has a seat at the table. The feds obviously have a seat at the table. The local government doesn’t necessarily have a seat at the table. Having a designation doesn’t mean that you’re going to have a reactor or any sort of nuclear project in your backyard if you’re a nuclear designated community. To me, it means you’ve started education, you know the questions to ask, you know the people that you’d like to learn more from, you know things that you don’t support and you know things that you do support. It’s making sure that the community has agency and decisions as decisions are being made.”

Colton provided a series of factors communities need to take into account when considering hosting nuclear projects, including population growth and increased demand on local services, property valuation changes, land use changes, traffic changes and need for road improvement, accommodations for construction workforce and costs associated with emergency response planning.

She also emphasized that projects go through several years of regulation, review and development, and called it a misconception that nuclear projects are fast moving. She advocated that private industry should make an effort toward public engagement during the development timeline. Throughout the presentation, Colton stressed the importance of community support.

“I really believe that everything is moving away from how it was done in the past,” Colton. “We used to call that the DAD approach: decide, announce, defend. People really do, across the board, understand that without support at your local and state level, these projects are not going to happen.”

Community members were allowed to sign up for a public comment session, where each speaker was allowed three minutes to speak. The majority of public comments took opposition to nuclear projects at the Department of Energy Paducah Site, citing concerns like environmental issues, cancer risk, lack of transparency, local officials signing non-disclosure agreements and concerns regarding the results if seismic activity occurs.

“I just want to say that reprocessing is not a closed loop, you can reprocess it all you want, and you’re still going to have waste — so that was a little misleading,” Mark Donovan said. “There’s still some of the biggest problems out at the site. I was chair of the (Paducah Citizens Advisory Board) for a while. There’s the uranium burial grounds, there’s the classified landfill, there are the S, T and U landfills, there’s the nickel ingots, there is the groundwater contamination, and the radiological buildings — all of which still need remediation. I don’t think this site is ready. I don’t think that it’s a good site for the plants.”

Concerns were also raised about the replacement of the speaker originally planned for the meetings — advanced nuclear and technology expert Patrick White — with Colton, who does not hold an educational background in nuclear science or engineering.

“KNEDA requires that these meetings cover advanced nuclear energy technologies,” Ruth Baggett said in her public comment. “However experienced, Mrs. Colton does not meet that requirement. The substitution of a scientist with an industry advocate is not a scheduling change. It is a substantive failure to meet the state’s own standards for what these meetings are supposed to deliver.”

Others spoke in favor of the projects, citing economic and workforce development.

“General Matter and Global Laser Enrichment’s anticipated $3.3 billion investment are anticipated to bring an additional 380 direct jobs with pay rates in excess of $100,000 per year, plus benefits, while also producing an additional 460 indirect and induced jobs,” Bruce Wilcox, CEO and President of Greater Paducah Economic Development said in his public comments. “We estimate the recurring annual economic impact on our local community from these projects to exceed $184 million per year. The new capital investment not only represents new jobs and opportunities for our community, it also represents significant new revenue streams to help grow our schools and also enable our local officials to better control or even reduce tax rates.”

During remarks at the end of the meeting, McCracken County Judge Executive Craig Clymer pushed back on concerns about local officials signing non-disclosure agreements with nuclear companies, saying that it is a common requirement between private industry and governments for proprietary interests and insisting that the period for that information to be confidential will end soon.

State Sen. Danny Carroll delivered comments in favor of nuclear projects, describing them as a major opportunity for Paducah and making assurances that local leaders have done their due diligence regarding safety.

“The local administration has done their homework, the state, we have done our homework, and the federal government has done their homework,” Carroll said. “The world is changing. We can either go with it and grow and prosper and build a better community, or we can get left behind.”

Another informational meeting with the opportunity for public comments will take place from 8 to 10 a.m. on June 12 at the Paducah-McCracken County Convention and Expo Center. Questions and comments are also encouraged to be submitted to Eric Roberts at eric@pgdpcab.org or 270-519-7097.