Phillip Musegaas, Staff Attorney for Riverkeeper, reports that Entergy, the owner and operator of the reactors, notified the NRC in November that the company would submit 20-year license renewal applications for the two facilities in March 2007.

A public meeting describing the license renewal process is usually held about a month later. About two months after the application is submitted, NRC posts a notice in the Federal Register that starts a 60-day clock for the public to submit petitions to intervene or request a hearing. Potential interveners have about four months from the time the application is first made public to the petition deadline. After that, the hearing process can take anywhere from two to three years, depending on how successful the intervention is. If approved by NRC, this would extend the operation of reactors 2 and 3 to 2033 and 2035, a total of 60 years each.

In 2005 Entergy started construction of facilities to move highly-radioactive fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool of reactor 2, which is nearly full, to dry casks. Water containing radioactive strontium and tritium was discovered during excavation. This issue continues to be in contention among environmental groups, NRC and Entergy. For more information go to the following web sites: www.ipsecinfo.org or www.riverkeeper.org.

Dates of meetings will be listed on this website when available. If you have concerns about the power stations, it's important you make the effort to attend.