How the Spanish company Iberdrola plans to handle the storage of nuclear waste in Wiscasset after it acquires Central Maine Power concerns Friends of the Coast, a watchdog group based in Edgecomb.

The citizens' group, Friends of the Coast, was instrumental in the closing and clean up of Maine Yankee, the state's only nuclear power plant. The plant closed in 1997 and has been completely dismantled except for the 65 cement casks in which 900 tons of nuclear waste is stored on about 200 acres of land off the Ferry Road.

Central Maine Power and its parent company, Energy East, are in the process of being acquired by Iberdrola. CMP owns the largest share, 38 percent, of the nuclear waste.

Friends of the Coast Executive Director Ray Shadis issued a press release this week detailing his efforts to urge Iberdrola to follow "best practices" in the storage of the nuclear waste, which, he said could be on the site "for what could be a century or more."

Shadis submitted testimony to the Maine Public Utilities Commission on the proposed acquisition on November 6. Included in the testimony was a statement by Shadis that "the level of protection against acts of sabotage or terrorism is being reconsidered by federal officials and the nuclear industry."

"The trend is to tighter security and more physical protection," Shadis said. "New designs for partially buried waste have been proposed by storage cask manufacturers and one plant, Humbolt Bay, on the West Coast, has built completely subterranean storage."

Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett recently met with Homeland Security and Maine Emergency Management officials to discuss the use of a $100,000 federal grant to install 24-hour surveillance equipment to monitor the perimeter of the Maine Yankee site.

Energy East and CMP would represent less than 1.8 percent of Iberdrola's holdings, Shadis said.