Residents to blast CPS at board meeting

Residents to blast CPS at board meeting

Concerned rate payers urge board not to approve new nukes

Monday, October 29^th
City Public Service (CPS) Energy Main Office
145 Navarro (@ Villita)
Press Conference – 2pm
Board Meeting – 2:30pm

San Antonio ratepayers, former Councilwoman Patti Radle, members of the Southwest Workers Union (SWU), Fuerza Unida, the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club, and other worker and environmental organizations will be making their voices heard today in opposition to CPS’s plans to build two new nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project (STP). The groups raise concerns that CPS will decide on the investment at its board meeting today without allowing for any meaningful public participation in the decision.

“Building the first new nuclear reactors in the country in 29 years is too important a decision for CPS to make in the dark,” says SWU director Genaro Rendon. “This plant will be built on the backs of rate payers, who face huge rate hikes to pay for it. What good is a public utility if the public isn’t allowed a voice in that kind of decision?”

October’s issue of the investor’s newsletter Moody’s Corporate Finance estimates costs for new nuclear reactors at $5-6,000/kw, putting CPS’s project at $13.5-16.2 billion. STP reactors 1 and 2 over-ran their projected construction costs by 600% and took three times as long to complete as estimated.

CPS’s partner in the project, NRG Energy, filed for bankruptcy in May 2003. NRG just bought into STP, its only nuclear holding, in 2006, and has never built a nuclear reactor.

“I want my energy bill going towards conservation and renewable energy sources that will provide for my grandkids in the future,” says Helen Winslow, a custodian at Edison High School and SWU vice-president. “Nuclear isn’t any cheaper or more sustainable than coal or gas, and it makes tons of radioactive waste.”

“By retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency and funding local energy projects we can eliminate the need for a new plant, create local jobs, and lower family’s energy bills all at the same time,” says Jaime Martinez, President of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement-AFL-CIO, which represents 1.5 million Latino trade unionists nationally.

Representatives from South Texas will also speak about the contamination of their drinking water by uranium mining. Uranium prices have shot up from $8/lbs in 2002 to a peak of over $135/lb in 2007, spawning a resurgence in mining and further calling into question CPS’s decision to invest in nuclear when cheaper and better alternatives exist.

** Letter to Mayor Hardberger & CPS Energy **

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