nuke fiasco aftermath

Did SCANA brass and board create a $9 billion nuclear fiasco?

That’s a question the Lexington County-based power corporation wants to know.

SCANA announced last week it is bringing in two new board members to find out if its top executives mismanaged the failed nuclear construction project.

The two are John (Jeb) Bachman, a retired partner in the PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting firm and Dr. Patricia Galloway, chair of Pegasus-Global Holdings, a major energy construction project consultant.

Based on what they find, the two will decide if they should make claims in court against the rest of the board and its top executives.

Investors and ratepayers are suing SCANA and Santee Cooper over the abandoned project which cost:

• Ratepayers $2 billion.

• Investors – many current and retired SCANA employees – billions of dollars as stock values fell.

Bachman and Galloway plan to hire a law firm to check claims that SCANA board members, CEO Jimmy Addison, former CEO Kevin Marsh and former COO Steve Byrne lied about problems and were responsible for the failure.