The State : Rancho Seco’s Sale Weighed

Directors of Sacramento’s citizen-owned utility district voted to slow the dismantling of the Rancho Seco nuclear power facility while they study offers by private investors to operate it. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District board closed the plant June 7, one day after voters ordered the utility to cease operating the 15-year-old facility. Since then, the five-member board has divided 3-2 over whether the vote mandated that Rancho Seco should be closed for good or whether the district has the legal right to sell it to a private company, which would reopen it. Opened in 1974, Rancho Seco was plagued with numerous shutdowns, and electricity bills of Sacramento residents almost doubled before the referendum June 6 in which 53% of the voters endorsed the closing.