ML062610057
| ML062610057 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | North Anna, 05200008  |
| Issue date: | 09/06/2006 |
| From: | Horne R, Schaffer H Louisa County, VA, Public Schools |
| To: | Jack Cushing, Irons E Office of Administration, State of VA, Dept of Environmental Quality |
| References | |
| %dam200610, +reviewednxp1, 71FR39372 W00016 | |
| Download: ML062610057 (3) | |
Text
ROBIN L. HORNE. Chairman 2562 Peach Grove Road Louisa, VA 23093 HAL A. SCHAFFER, Vice-Chairman 162 Scarlett O'Hara Court Bumpass, VA 23024 VYVYAN A. POWERS 902 Tall Pines Drive Mineral, VA 23117 BRIAN M. HUFFMAN 2289 James Madison Highway Gordonsville, VA 22942 GAIL 0. PROFFITT 556 Merry Oak Lane Mineral. VA 23117 SHERMAN T. SHIFFLETT 161 White Walnut Road Louisa, VA 23093 GREGORY V. STRICKLAND 293 Byrd Mill Road Louisa, VA 23093 Louisa County Public Schools DAVID G. MELTON, Superintendent Post Office Box 7 953 Davis Highway Mineral, Virginia 23117 (540) 894-5115 FAX (540) 894-0252
/C7 September 6, 2006 IJ]
17) 79 t-n rn C)D Mr. Jack Cushing Environmental Project Manager for North Anna ESP Site Application U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Washington D.C. 20555 (via email: JXC9(aNRC.GOV and North Anna Comments(@NRC.Gov)
Ms. Ellie Irons Environmental Impact Review Program Manager Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) 629 East Main Street, Richmond VA 23219 (via email elirons(adeq.virginia.oRV)
Subject:
Comments on the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Federal Consistency Certification on the Early Site Permit for North Anna Nuclear Power Plant and request for assistance in obtaining a federal grant.
Dear Mr. Cushing and Ms. Irons,
This letter is addressing concerns of the Louisa County School District, in Louisa County, Virginia in regard to the possibility of Dominion Power building two new reactors at the North Anna site. As a non-political entity, the Louisa County School District feels it should remain neutral concerning whether or not the additional reactors should be built. However, we do feel the need to prepare for the eventuality of what amounts to substantial construction in our county, and the potential impact it will most likely have on both our student population and the faculty of our school district. We are in disagreement with several items in the Impact Study and therefore find it prudent to request assistance in obtaining a federal grant to mitigate any adverse impact of the potentially large influx of workers and their families.
The Draft Environmental Impact Study indicates that the impact on demography, housing, and education would all be "small" and "mitigation is not warranted". We 17',) ~
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disagree with this assessment. The study indicates that construction activities would last at least five years and employ 5000 workers. It also assumes that 4000 of those workers will be from within a 50-mile radius, with the remaining 1000 moving here from other localities. Assuming these estimates are accurate, and even considering that some of 1000 will be engineers who will be rotating in on a semi-permanent basis, this still leaves the possibility of a large number of workers who will want to live as close as possible to the construction site, especially considering the current cost of commuting. This presents us, as a school district, with two major areas of concern.
- 1) Large Increase in student population.
The first problem we see is the possibility of providing services to a large increase in our student population in a relatively short time period. We currently have approximately 4,400 students in our system and our facilities are at capacity. An immediate increase of even 100-200 students will create a financial and educational burden. The advertisement that Dominion took out in the Central Virginian newspaper (Aug. 10, 2006) talks about the millions of dollars that will benefit our county. It is a given that tax revenues will increase if two new reactors are built, but those taxes will not be forthcoming until each reactor is at least partially on line. In the interim, our schools will more than likely be impacted with a significant increase in student population and will invariably include many more students for whom English is a second language. The impact study also indicates that few construction workers would be moving to Louisa County due to "localized shortages of available housing". When the first two reactors were built, there was little available housing. But even so, as the attached graphs show, our student population increased by almost 21% during that construction period with most of the increase taking place during actual reactor construction.
At this time, three new subdivisions have already been approved by Louisa County for development in near proximity to the construction site: 1) The Waters at Lake Anna (about 400 units), 2) Cutalong development (about 1000 units), and 3) Noah's Landing (about 400 units), for a total of approximately 1800 potential homes that could be built in the next few years, all within just a few miles of the North Anna site. With the much greater availability of housing during future reactor construction, we would have to anticipate an even larger percentage of increase in student population. An influx of ESL (English as a Second Language) students would also increase the local financial burden even more, as the educational cost of an ESL student is 25-30% more than that of an English-speaking student.
- 2) Teacher Retention due to increased housing costs.
The second conclusion with which we have issue is the impact on housing itself.
Because of our location, we have many young teachers at our schools due to turnover.
As it is, it's very hard for them to find adequate affordable housing. This is probably the main reason for teacher turnover in our county. It will be very hard for them to compete in the rental market with 3 or 4 young single (or "situational bachelor") construction 2
workers pooling their resources. Again, the expense of being forced to commute will affect our teacher retention.
Request for assistance in obtaining a federal grant The federal government has shown that it has a keen interest in nuclear energy, and in this project, by funding 50% of the impact study (a cost of $8-10 million.) Because of this federal interest, and in the interest of education and future nuclear power construction, we feel the federal government might also be interested in providing grant money to Louisa County in order to offset the negative impact of such a large construction project in a rural county such as ours. Therefore, we are asking the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to petition the federal government, on our behalf, for funding to allow us to minimize any adverse impact from this construction.
Please contact me for any additional information that you may need.
Sincerely, Robin L. Home, Chairman Louisa County School Board 2562 Peach Grove Rd.
Louisa, VA 23093 (540) 967-0069 coganh@hotmail.com Harold A. S-cliaffer, Vice-Chairman Louisa County School Board 162 Scarlet O'Hara Ct.
Bumpass, VA 23024 (540) 894-8989 (halschaffer@earthlink.net) 3