Sun, 09/17/2023 - 8:45am

SUSAN JOHNS

Maine Yankee might or might not end up paying Wiscasset as much as the town has decided. Selectmen Sept. 13 passed new property valuations for the ex-nuclear plant. Sept. 14, Maine Yankee’s longtime spokesman Eric Howes confirmed in a phone interview and an email, an abatement request is coming.

“Maine Yankee expects to pay a reasonable amount in property taxes. However, in Maine Yankee’s estimation the amount the town proposes to bill substantially overvalues the property and the company intends to seek an abatement,” Howes wrote.

After the agenda came out Sept. 11, Town Manager Dennis Simmons told Wiscasset Newspaper the changes would move Maine Yankee from a current tax bill of about $600,000, to about $1.5 million. “They have already told us they disagree with our new assessment and plan to file for an abatement and if denied appeal to the state Board of Property Tax Review,” Simmons added in his email response to questions.

Selectmen approved the updated numbers, piece by piece. Selectmen accepted the Aug. 15 appraisal report on the Maine Yankee Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI), effective last April 1 and prepared by Federal Appraisal LLC “for establishing the valuation methodology and conclusions for assessing the real and personal property that make up the Maine Yankee ISFSI land, building and improvements at Bailey Point”; instructed the town’s assessing agent to revise property tax accounts; and agreed to value Maine Yankee’s real estate and personal property in Wiscasset, for the April 1, 2023 valuation date, at $185,834,948.

That motion noted $93,820,000 in real estate and personal property is tax-exempt – as an air pollution control facility – subject to the town’s pending appeal. The exemption is months old, according to a Maine Department of Environmental Protection document at maine.gov/dep/bep/2023/04-20-23/Department%20Orders.pdf listing the signed order.

The town’s longtime lawyers on Maine Yankee tax matters, Peter Murray and Sarah McDaniel, joined selectmen by Zoom for the Sept. 13 votes. The board had no questions for them and, at meeting’s end, Murray told the board: “Good piece of work, folks, a good piece of work. And, uh, we’re off to the races.”

“We’re off to the races. Here we go,” Simmons said.

When the U.S. Department of Energy removes the spent nuclear fuel and other waste, the storage facility will be decommissioned, “Maine Yankee will go out of business, and the site will be available for other purposes to be determined by Maine Yankee’s Board of Directors,” Howes told Wiscasset Newspaper earlier this year. The Maine Yankee Community Advisory Panel on Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage and Removal will have its annual meeting from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21 at Montsweag Restaurant, Route One, Woolwich.