PORT GIBSON – The president of the Claiborne County Board of Supervisors said Monday he will oppose any move by Port Gibson to annex the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station area into the city’s corporate limits.

Charles Shorts told Mayor Amelda Arnold he was &#8220totally against” the notion.

The plant’s site vice president, George Williams, urged the officials, gathered for a regular monthly meeting among representatives of Entergy Nuclear, Entergy Mississippi and local governments, to cooperate.

At stake, perhaps, are millions of dollars in tax revenue from the $3 billion plant operated by Entergy and on any future construction.

The annexation idea was made public in newspaper articles Thursday and at a packed public meeting Saturday at A.W. Watson Elementary School.

Grand Gulf, Mississippi’s only nuclear plant, is about 10 miles northwest of the existing city limits of Port Gibson, which has a population of 1,800. A map of one proposal for city growth extends a narrow loop toward and around the plant.

In addition to generating power sold in three states, the plant generates property taxes based on assessed value and at a state-set rate.

Half the total is now divided with other cities and counties served by Entergy and the remainder goes to Claiborne County which pays a share to Port Gibson.

An annexation would, however, allow Port Gibson to levy its own property tax. That could be even more lucrative because a consortium of power companies is seeking regulatory approval for the addition of a second reactor at the site.

&#8220The city’s main concern is that we don’t get left out of anything” in the way of public revenue that may be generated by the development, Arnold said.

&#8220I’m totally against the annexation plan,” Shorts responded.

Arnold said she had concerns about how revenue from any GGNS expansion would be divided between the city and the county but said she would not make them public.

Likewise, she asked Shorts to specify why he objected to the plan, but he declined.

Williams said any lack of cooperation among local government officials would be viewed negatively by developers.

&#8220From my perspective, there is an issue of trust,” Williams said. &#8220Y’all have to talk and no one can be left out.”

Williams added that the opportunity for both governments to increase revenue from a GGNS expansion was great enough to benefit both.

&#8220At some point, whatever plan you put together has got to be put into a plan that has to be public and shared with your constituents,” Williams said. &#8220When it’s considered final, it’s shared. No business wants to go into an area where they feel there’s conflict.”

Arnold said the city government did not want to do anything &#8220to jeopardize this process,” but that she thought that if the city had one-fourth the county’s population its government should share local tax revenue proportionately.

&#8220If it’s $20 million, the city is going to get one-fourth of it,” she said. &#8220I think that is what the city deserves for infrastructure improvement and the things the city needs.”

In Mississippi, municipal annexation is a chancery court matter. A city must prove to a chancellor there is a need to grow and there is capacity to provide municipal services in annexed areas. Other parties may object as interveners.

Shorts, who represents the county’s supervisor District 5, and District 1 supervisor Allen Burks, who also attended the meeting, both work at GGNS.

Arnold has also said that the city needs room to grow and that its annexation plan is as much or more about gaining land for a new industrial park as it is about GGNS tax revenue. She stressed that the annexation plan was an opening move.

&#8220We’re going to see how far the courts will let us go,” Arnold said. &#8220We believe in dreaming big, to go for whatever we can get.”

Entergy is 2 1/2 years into a three-year process that, if successful, would result in its having a permit representing the early resolution of site-specific environmental issues. A second license, to build and operate a new reactor, would be required.

Entergy’s project manager for that process, Tom Williamson, was also at the meeting. He said preliminary physical work toward the second license was to begin in mid-April and last about five months. Backhoes and drill rigs were to be on the site to drill holes as deep as 400 feet for geological testing, Williamson said.

The company’s schedule calls for it to apply for a construction-and-operating license in the first quarter of 2008, Williamson said.

A business-development manager for the company, Carl Crawford, said the current issue of National Geographic magazine contains a 30-page article about new nuclear-plant construction and much of that article focuses on Port Gibson.

Grand Gulf has been selected by a consortium of companies as one of two U.S. sites to test a streamlined regulatory-approval process for new nuclear-plant construction. The other is in northern Alabama.

No new nuclear-reactor construction has been begun in the U.S. since the 1970s or earlier.

&#8220You would come off with the feeling that Claiborne County and Port Gibson are both working together to try to get a new nuclear plant,” Crawford said. &#8220That’s the kind of publicity we need, and we’re getting it right now.”