PORT GIBSON – A spillover crowd of more than 60 people jammed City Hall here Monday to voice polar opinions on a possible second reactor at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station site.

City and county officials have endorsed the idea, but say they want more money.

Others, mostly from outside the county, oppose nuclear power and accused planners of ignoring the threat of terrorism.

A three-member panel of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board heard public comment for two hours. Grand Gulf is Mississippi’s only nuclear plant. It has been in operation since 1985.

The ASLB, the judicial arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made up of administrative law judges, will decide in a month on Entergy Nuclear’s application for a permit to resolve site-related environmental issues on the site. The full NRC will follow with a decision on the permit application in January.

If the permit is issued it will be good for 20 years. A separate, required license to construct and operate a reactor would have to be sought. The so-called early site permit process began in 2002 and has largely been federally funded.

Most of those who spoke out in favor of another reactor on the 2,100-acre site off U.S. 61 north of town did so for the economic impact, but did speak to the need for upgrading factors such as crisis communications.

&#8220That cost can’t be borne on our own,” County Administrator James Miller said, adding that the county will need state and federal assistance for emergency management technology.

About 3,500 construction jobs and 400 new permanent employees could result from what would be the first new nuclear reactor construction in the United States in more than 30 years.

Mayor Amelda Arnold also expressed strong support for the project to realize those benefits, despite dissatisfaction for the way tax revenue from Grand Gulf is distributed throughout the state instead of staying in Claiborne County.

Claiborne became one of the nation’s wealthiest counties per-capita when Grand Gulf fired up, paying $16 million in taxes in a 12,000-citizen county government that had operated on less than $1 million per year. Years later, the Legislature changed state law to provide Claiborne half the taxes and apportion the rest among the cities and counties where Entergy Mississippi sells the plant’s electricity.

Some speakers Monday touted nuclear energy as a safe and viable energy alternative.

&#8220I support nuclear energy because it is inherently safe,” said nuclear engineer David Bailey of Port Gibson, adding that uranium at Grand Gulf is enriched at many times less than what is considered dangerous. Although the plant has had unplanned shutdowns, na o public emergencies have occurred during 20 years of Grand Gulf operations.

Representatives of environmental and consumer advocacy groups were joined by some locals in voicing opposition to the project, citing myriad reasons that included national security, cost and a need to look to other forms of energy.

They criticized the environmental impact statement being issued for the project for not taking into account the threat of a terrorist attack because the NRC is not mandated to do so.

&#8220The EIS failed to evaluate any environmental impact from a terrorist attack,” said Melissa Kemp of Washington D.C.-based Public Citizen, who cited a court ruling in June from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said the NRC had to evaluate such risks in its environmental impact studies.

E. Avery Rollins, a Madison-based security consultant, also spoke of the terrorist threat around nuclear reactors.

&#8220I’ve been around long enough to where I’m not going to take ‘trust me’ from anyone,” Rollins said, who also told the panel he was a retired FBI agent with 30 years of service and did security assessments with the Transportation Safety Administration.

Opponents also mentioned the need to take advantage of wind and solar power instead of nuclear power, and who would reap the benefits of the energy the plant produces.

&#8220This power will be exported. It has nothing to do with the ratepayers and providing supply and demand for Mississippi’s needs,” said Louie Miller, state director of the Mississippi chapter of the Sierra Club.

The loss of ratepayers to Entergy due to Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana was a subject broached by Karen Wimpelberg, co-founder and president of the New Orleans-based Alliance for Affordable Energy.

With its New Orleans subsidiary &#8220annihilated” by Katrina, Wimpelberg said, ratepayers in both states would bear higher costs if a second reactor is built.

Robert Butler, head of the Claiborne County NAACP, said he supported the project in principle but said his organization &#8220insists” ways be found to steer more tax revenue from Grand Gulf to Claiborne County.

Jefferson County Supervisor Ray Perryman said his concerns for plant expansion stem from a perceived lack of inclusion for areas in his county such as Fayette in terms of emergency management plans and coordination.

An application for the NRC license that would be required for the plant, called a Construction and Operating License, is also scheduled to be filed next year by a consortium of 12 companies called NuStart Energy Development LLC.

If the second reactor is permitted and built as soon as possible, it could begin being built as early as late 2009 or early 2010 and could begin being used to generate electricity in about 2015.