Wis. officials want more nuclear accident training

Wisconsin emergency officials want to spend $800,000 to bolster training for nuclear accidents after responders made at least a half-dozen mistakes during an exercise at the Kewaunee nuclear power plant.

Errors during last year's exercise included volunteer field teams who failed to realize they had been exposed to too much radiation, inaccurate radiation readings and wrong information distributed to the public, a Federal Emergency Management Agency evaluation found.

Only one of the mistakes was serious enough to raise questions about whether the state's response was adequate, however, and all the mistakes were corrected in a makeup exercise, according to another FEMA report.

Still, the Department of Military Affairs and the Department of Health Services say the errors show they need another $800,000 over the next two fiscal years for nuclear disaster readiness.

The money would create a planning position in both agencies as well as compensate and equip local fire departments to act as field teams, rather than volunteers, said Bill Clare, planning section supervisor at Wisconsin Emergency Management, a DMA division that handles disasters.

The Kewaunee exercise showed that FEMA holds the state responsible for a web of agencies that respond in a nuclear crisis, Clare said.

"We have to be able to provide a reasonable assurance we can protect the public," he said.

State emergency management has three radiological readiness planners, Clare said, but adding another would give them all more time to coach local responders.

DHS spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said her agency's planner also would help with new federal security requirements for nuclear power plants. Those requirements include more anti-terrorist exercises.

The $800,000 would come from a fund created by the three companies that operate nuclear plants Wisconsin responders must cover _ Kewaunee, Point Beach and a plant in Red Wing, Minn., just across the Mississippi River from Pierce County.

The companies _ Dominion, which owns the Kewaunee plant; Florida Power & Light, which owns the Point Beach plant; and Xcel Energy, which owns the Red Wing plant _ earmarked $1.2 million for the fund for fiscal year 2009. In March, they increased the pot to $1.6 million, anticipating the agencies' request for the first fiscal year. The agencies now need legislative approval to spend the money, DMA budget director Brett Coomber said.

Xcel electric customers in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan could see a slight rate increase to help cover the cost of more trainers, company spokeswoman Mary Sandok said. Xcel would likely raise its rates by a penny a month per customer to cover the increase in its share of the fund, Sandok said.

She said Xcel doesn't object to paying for more training positions, even though it doesn't operate Kewaunee and mistakes there were corrected.

The new positions will help ensure an excellent response in Red Wing, she said. Also, it costs less to pay for more trainers than to close the plant because of a poor response and have to get power from elsewhere, she added.

Dominion and FP&L, meanwhile, sell power from their plants to utilities. Dominion sells to Wisconsin Public Service Corp. and Alliant Energy. FP&L sells to We Energies. Spokesmen for all three power companies said they have long-term contracts with set pricing and increasing the training fund won't affect their ratepayers.

Spokesmen for Dominion and FP&L said the money they pay into the fund comes from their operating budgets. They did not provide details.

FP&L spokeswoman Sara Cassidy issued a statement saying all three nuclear plant operators agreed it was appropriate to spend more for the training positions.

Charlie Higley, executive director of the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board, said the rate increases are a small price to pay for more safety. The board advocates for ratepayers.

"A million dollars is a reasonable amount to ask to make sure our state can respond adequately," Higley said.

The spending isn't a done deal.

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle must include it in his version of the state budget, due for release in February. The spending plan then has to get through the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, the full Legislature and get Doyle's signature to take effect.

Doyle's spokesman Lee Sensenbrenner said only that the governor would review the proposal.

John Anderson, an aide to Joint Finance Committee co-chairman Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, said Miller wants to get a better understanding of how much the request would cost ratepayers. Aides to state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, the committee's other chairman, said he was on vacation.