Lack of Vogtle accountability shameful
In 2009 while Georgia slept, our PSC and state legislators committed homes, businesses and schools to monthly payments assuring income while Georgia Power built two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. “A mere $4 billion and eight years should do it,” they said. Now Vogtle is a muddy mess fogged in contractor bankruptcy, builders’ mistakes and utility deception. Power execs say, “We can make this right for another $10 billion or so. Trust us.”
Georgia citizens are waking up. There is growing outrage over public funding and lack of accountability for the Vogtle beast. The foggy shroud around Vogtle is clearing. We hear cries from Gainesville to APS to Macon and beyond: Enough already.
But last Thursday, the PSC voted to keep feeding the Vogtle beast. Georgia Power customers will be footing the bills until saner minds prevail.
SUZANNE SMITHERMAN, ATLANTA
Maybe state should purchase Georgia Power
Now that Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle has become the only nuclear reactor to “melt down” before ever coming online, it still remains a multibillion-dollar albatross tied to the neck of the company, which is valued at $3 billion less than estimated cost overruns and penalties the project has incurred. Solution: The state buys the company. This way, we the citizens of Georgia get to elect the CEO and the board members, ensuring that disastrous and greed-driven decisions such as the one to build this $21 billion boondoggle will not happen and we will have people who are answerable to the citizens. The purchase price would knock off $6 billion from the top to pay back the ratepayers for the money extracted by the utility from the ratepayers for the past decade through the “nuclear recovery cost” tacked on to every power bill. This way, Georgians will receive a check monthly instead of a bill.
BILL FLEMING, ATLANTA
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