Group Appeals SCE&G Nuclear Plant Application

JIM DAVENPORT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — An environmental group Friday asked the state Supreme Court to block an application for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County.

In the lawsuit, Friends of the Earth challenges the constitutionality of a 2007 law that allows utilities to charge customers higher rates to cover future building costs for reactors.

The SCANA Corp. said it wasn't surprised that Friends of the Earth appealed a regulators' decisions allowing it move forward with a project expected to cost $10 billion.

"I'm expecting they will pursue every avenue available to them to try to delay and halt progress on this project," SCE&G spokesman Eric Boomhower said.

Friends of the Earth believes consumers "will be charged for those reactors a decade before they come on line and if someone leaves the state or dies, they will get nothing out of the project," said Tom Clements, the group's southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator. And if SCE&G and its partner, state-run Santee Cooper, abandon the project, he notes consumers would still pick up the tab.