After a few hours of uncertainty, the future of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League looked bright last week as members voted to keep the longstanding activist group going.

"We have supporters, we have a board of directors, but we don't have much rejuvenation of the board and we don't have a field director anymore," said Charles Pratt, a member of SAPL's board in an interview before the meeting. "The question is whether we can keep going."

The 20 people in attendance voted unanimously to keep the group active, following a nearly two-hour discussion that covered everything from merging SAPL with C-10, a Massachusetts-based Seabrook nuclear power plant watchdog group, to disbanding the group altogether. Eight members also volunteered to sit on the SAPL's board of directors.

"I'm excited. I feel like I can contribute a lot of time and energy," said Sharon Valdez of Exeter, one of the newly appointed board members. It was her first SAPL meeting.

"I've never done anything like this before. I'm a little nervous," she said.

Members also discussed a variety of issues the group is taking on, from participating in decommissioning hearings for the Seabrook plant to potentially assisting with cleanup of the Portsmouth Shipyard, should it close. Pratt said the group received a $30,000 grant from the EPA to monitor cleanup efforts in the Shipyard, which they used in part to hire a consultant to advise on the cleanup.

While discussing whether SAPL should stay together, members read letters they'd received from past SAPL members urging the group to continue. The organization is back on track, but still needs a treasurer and field manager to spearhead future efforts. SAPL has about $7,800 left in its operating budget and $6,000 left from the EPA grant, Peter Vandermark said during the meeting.

SAPL was formed in 1969 in opposition to the proposed Seabrook nuclear power plant. Since then, the group has lobbied for real-time radiation monitoring and the distribution of potassium iodide to residents in the evacuation zone. During the last few years, the group has slightly shifted its focus to the Shipyard and other pollution issues.

"That's one of the things we've contemplated all along-whether we should take on some other issues other than Seabrook. And to some extent we have, but we haven't had the resources" to keep going, Pratt said.

Also at the meeting were state representatives Jim Powers of Portsmouth and Richard Morris of Seabrook. Powers, a member of SAPL, brought the group up to speed on legislation he's sponsored that would establish monitoring stations in 12 communities near the Seabrook plant. He said he expects the plant to oppose the bill.

"They don't want people to think about the unthinkable," Powers said, comparing the monitoring stations to a smoke detector. "We hope we don't need smoke detectors, but it's a good idea to have one."

For more information, call the SAPL office at 603-431-5089 or visit www.sapl.org.