NewA group with members from Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia has announced a campaign to oppose TVA’s plans to expand nuclear power.

Area residents formed the Bellefonte Efficiency & Sustainability Team, also known as BEST, to organize local and regional opposition to the proposed nuclear plant at Bellefonte near Scottsboro, Ala.

The group’s concerns include high construction costs, radioactive releases into the air and water, reduction of water supply, security concerns and dangerous radioactive wastes.

Bill Reynolds, one of the founders of BEST, said, “Nuclear power has been touted as a solution to global warming, but BEST members have learned that there are better, cheaper and quicker alternatives for achieving that goal, including for example, more efficient production of electricity, conservation and reduction of energy demand.

“We have a lot of questions. Particularly we are gravely concerned about the legacy nuclear reactors would leave to our children and their children when they are in the prime of their lives. Such a legacy will be huge in cost burdens, radiation monitoring, and radiation-caused sickness for generations to come.”

Another BEST founder, Dr. Ross McCluney, is a physicist, author, and principal research scientist at the University of Central Florida, who recently retired to Chattanooga. He said, “I’m wondering if TVA has ‘lost its mind’ in trying to introduce new nuclear power plants into its system.

“Nuclear reactors are very expensive to build and operate safely, and the real threat of terrorism means that every nuclear reactor has the equivalent of a terrorist bull’s-eye painted on it.”

BEST has members from the Tullahoma/Sewanee and greater Chattanooga areas as well as from Huntsville, Ala., and Cohutta, Ga.

The group’s campaign will include public education, public meetings, fund raising, a membership drive and other events, it was stated.

Members plan to speak at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission public hearing in Scottsboro on April 3.

In October 2007 TVA applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors on the Bellefonte Nuclear site in Hollywood, Alabama near Scottsboro. The application was accepted by the NRC on Jan. 28.

BEST recently sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission calling for the suspension of TVA’s license application. TVA’s replied in a letter to NRC on March 12 and a response from NRC is expected.

BEST is a chapter of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League. The League was founded in 1984 in opposition to a nuclear waste dump and has many chapters in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. More information may be obtained at the website www.bredl.org.