• SITE
• HOMES
• MOTORS
• CAREERS
• STUFF

Victoria County needs to look only 60 miles to the southeast for a look at how a nuclear power plant changed one community.

Before the construction of the South Texas Project in 1976, Matagorda County had a population hovering at 28,000 people.

Few complained about the nuclear power project, which was built on more than 10,000 acres of farmland.

“There was no opposition at all to the plant here in the county,” said Bill Bell, Bay City mayor in the mid-1980s. Bay City “supported it 100 percent.”

Mary Belle Ingram, a longtime resident of Bay City, agreed: “It helped the economy, so there weren’t many negative thoughts about it.”

Local business owners even posted signs in their windows to rally support for the project. “Every business in town had a big sign in their window that said ‘We Support the Nuclear Project,’“ said Haskell L. Simon, consultant for Matagorda County.

Today, some limited opposition has emerged to South Texas’ plans to add two units to its existing plant and to Exelon Nuclear’s announcement Thursday that Matagorda County was its leading site for a new plant.

“There are other ways to make jobs and protect our health at the same time,” said Karen Haddin, director of Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition. “We’re not in favor of nuclear power. There are better ways to generate electricity that are sustainable sources of electricity, renewable energy: solar power and co-generation, using the waste heat of a building or an industry. All of these are ways of meeting our energy needs.”

History of nuclear power in Matagorda

Brown and Root, the contractor responsible for building the original plant, hired 3,000 construction workers. “They worked day and night. It was the most awesome thing. I wish I had taken a picture. They must have worked around the clock,” Ingram said.

As a result, roads around the site became damaged by heavy equipment, especially Farm to Market Road 521, which led to the plant. “Materials coming from the Eagle Lake area, they created a problem hauling so much gravel through town,” said Ernest J. Opella, mayor of Bay City in the late 70s.

Texas 71 also was affected by the hauling of materials to the plant. The government came in and widened and repaired this road, which led workers toward Palacios, a small fishing village on the west side of the plant less than 15 miles from STP.

“Back in the 70s, when it came in, it had a big impact on Palacios. That’s where I lived at the time,” said Ed Schulze, one-time mayor of Palacios. “We weren’t prepared for the influx of workers.”

Schulze said one of the problems his community faced was not having enough housing for the contractors. “We built a small mobile home park with 23 units. It filled up overnight,” said Schulze, who owned a convenience store at the time. “We didn’t have enough housing. Everything that was available for housing was taken.” As a result, workers flocked to Bay City, but housing options were scarce there too.

“People were renting rooms for the day crew and then they would go to work and they would rent that room to the night crew that would come in. We had a couple of what I call, throwaway motels, that were built very rapidly and inexpensively in order to accommodate those folks. I don’t think the community was prepared for the influx,” Simon said.

Workers who couldn’t find housing in Matagorda County were shipped in from nearby communities, such as Lake Jackson. By 1981, STP estimated 4,500 workers were involved in the project. However, because STP fired Brown and Root for breach of contract, the work force was reduced to 2,166 a year later, when Bechtel Energy Corp. signed on to pick up where Brown and Root left off. At the peak of construction, the company employed nearly 12,000 workers. However, people left just as fast as they arrived. “We went from 12,000 back down to about 1,800 in a short period of time,” Bell said.

Population unchanged

When the population of Matagorda County in 1980 (37,828) is compared with the population of Matagorda County in 1990 (36,928), the figure remains virtually unchanged. The current population stands at 37,824, approximately the same as the 1980 figure.

“Quite a few of the workers either retired or went home after it was built,” Schulze said. As the workers left Matagorda County, many businesses weren’t prepared for the impact it would have on their earnings. “A lot of that value was lost quicker than what we expected. Tax revenues were decreased before taxing entities were prepared for it,” Schulze said.

Matagorda is trying to learn these lessons now that South Texas has announced plans to start building sometime in 2009 two new nuclear reactor units on its existing site.

County consultant Simon said any population increase might be short-lived, based on STP’s previous impact.

“I can’t see the standard of living has changed” because of the plant, he said.

If the construction boom happens again, former mayor Schulze said, Palacios will need more housing and goods and services.

“If we experience anything this time like last time, we need to be better prepared for it,” Schulze said.

In order to meet those challenges, Mitch Thames, president of the Bay City Chamber, has been working with officials from around the county to figure out how to keep people in Matagorda County after STP builds the two new nuclear reactors.

“The leaders of Matagorda County got together and decided that we would not let this happen again. We have another spike in growth with people coming. We estimate 6,000 construction jobs and 1,000 full time jobs, so don’t build a city based on 6,000 more.”

The Bay City chamber is putting together a marketing campaign to attract another manufacturing company by the time the construction of the two new reactors is completed, he said.

Former state Rep. Tom Uher served in the state legislature during the time of the building of the first nuclear plant in Matagorda County. Before the nuclear plant came, he recalled, the county had only one industrial plant, Celanese.

“The economy in the county was rural with lots of agriculture,” Uher said. “It was a different economy than what we have today. The cost of living was very inexpensive, and we had two very small apartment complexes on Fifth Street.”

Justin Buehler is a reporter for the Matagorda Advocate. Ross Cunningham and Sharon Howerton contributed to this report. Contact Buehler at jbuehler@vicad.com. Contact Cunningham at rcunningham @vicad.com. Contact Howerton at showerton@vicad.com. All can be reached by phone at 979-244-1330 or comment on this story at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.