An environmental expert who challenged AmerGen representatives to a debate on the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station got a speedy answer.
No.
Richard Webster, a staff attorney at the East Environmental Law Center and teacher at the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, issued the challenge at a Feb. 28 public forum on Oyster Creek sponsored by the Ocean County League of Women Voters.
“We’d be happy to have a public debate,” he said. “I challenge them right now.”
AmerGen will not participate in a debate on the plant’s relicensing, Rachelle Benson, a plant spokeswoman, said after the meeting.
The nuclear power plant is in Lacey Township.
“No, we are not going to debate Richard Webster and the people who were on the panel,” she said. “There is a legal proceeding going on. He is the attorney for the anti-nuclear organizations who have a contention against our license renewal application.”
Gail Marsh Saxer of the League of Women Voters said Ocean County residents deserve a forum with the Environmental Law Center speakers and Oyster Creek officials, moderated by a neutral third party.
“Ideally the citizens should hear the speakers we had the other night who expressed concerns and Oyster Creek officials responding to those concerns, one at a time,” she said.
There have been at least 10 public meetings on Oyster Creek and license renewal issues, where representatives of both sides have been able to present their viewpoint, Benson said.
Oyster Creek has many avenues to educate the public, including community presentations to organizations, senior citizen groups and plant tours, she said.
“We have a community advisory panel and we meet with them every other month to give them a plant update,” Benson said.
But she declined to release the names of those on the panel, which was formed in 2004, other than to say they are “key members of the community.”
“It’s not a public group,” she said. “We went out into the community and interviewed a lot of people. We selected them from different organizations and different towns in our 10-mile radius.”
Benson said the Feb. 28 community forum on Oyster Creek was “one-sided,” because no plant representatives were invited.
The League of Women Voters has taken an official position against the plant’s relicensing, Saxer said.
“The goal of the league was to educate and inform the citizens of Ocean County about what we think is a health risk for the county,” she said.
League representatives previously met with Benson and other AmerGen officials before deciding to take a position against the plant’s relicensing, Saxer said.
“We heard their presentations, we asked questions,” she said. “We felt that based on the information from Oyster Creek, that they did not address the health and security issues. Once we have decided, our only purpose is to educate the public on why we think that way.”
Oyster Creek officials have declined to participate in a future public debate with the speakers, but claim they were excluded from the Feb. 28 event, Saxer said.
“It’s a Catch-22,” she said. “They can’t have it both ways. In all fairness to the people who live here, Oyster Creek should respond to each and every concern they [forum experts] raised. If they are so sure [the concerns] are wrong, prove they are wrong by presenting specific information proving they are wrong.”