CP&L Expanding Beyond Wake County, Carolinas

And this has some local activists worried they will be encountering a "David and Goliath" fight.

CP&L is slated to merge with Florida Progress Corp., a Tampa-based energy company, by the end of this year. CP&L already owns four nuclear plants in North and South Carolina.

"A lot of mergers are going on in utility right now," said Jeanne Bonds, corporate communications manager for CP&L. "The focus for CP&L is to become a Southeastern regional energy company."

Florida Progress, an energy company equivalent in size to CP&L, also has a nuclear plant in Crystal Rivers, Fla., similar to the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in Wake County. The merger will include the Crystal Rivers Plant, which has its own spent-fuel waste storage.

Several protesters to the expansion of the Shearon Harris plant are worried that waste from Florida nuclear plants will be transferred to the Wake County facility.

But Bonds said no transfer of nuclear waste will be involved; the waste from the Florida plants will be stored on-site.

"It's critical that people know that we will not be moving waste fuel from Crystal Rivers to Shearon Harris," she said.

The merger of the two companies will combine CP&L's 1.2 million customers with Florida Progress Corp.'s 1.3 million customers. Bonds said the merger, which was first announced in June 1999, is in its final stages. "We expect the merger to be complete by the end of the year," she said.

The merger with Florida Progress Corp. adds to the list of future plans for CP&L. Changes closer to home - the expansion of Shearon Harris in Wake County - are attracting more attention.

CP&L began the application process in December 1998 for national approval to operate additional spent-fuel pools at Shearon Harris.

"The operating pools store 13 years worth of waste and are not yet to capacity," Bonds said.

CP&L requested use of the extra two pools because the national waste storage facility, being built in Yucca Mountain, Nev., will not be ready until the year 2010. The facility will store spent-fuel waste from all 103 nuclear plants nation-wide.

But it hasn't been a smooth track for CP&L. The company has faced opposition from local activist groups like the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network.

Jim Warren, N.C. WARN director, said opening up two more spent-fuel storage pools will lead to a greater possibility of a nuclear accident at Shearon Harris. "Our goal in this case is not to increase the risk to our regional community," he said. "With each day, month and year, the amount of waste increases, making the possibility for problems greater."

CP&L has to clear both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Atomic Safety Licensing Board to get permission to utilize the additional two pools. The deadline to submit safety concerns to the board is Nov. 20.

Bonds said CP&L expects to be granted permission two to five months later. "The protests don't have any bearing on the nuclear board's decision," she said. "We are confident the outcome will be gracious for us."

The next two months will be a pivotal period for CP&L. As the merger with Florida Progress rounds its last corners, the company will double in size, and continue to expand in the future.

However, CP&L might continue to face opposition in the near future concerning expansion closer to home.

"We are not going to stand by passively," Warren said. "We will continue to increase the stakes."

But Bonds said she does not think protests about safety will affect the approval. "There have been no safety concerns in the plant's 13 years," she said. "It's very safe, our employees are well-educated in all the procedures."

The City Editor can be reached

at citydesk@unc.edu.