A nuclear watchdog group’s request to delay the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating station is “procedurally improper and without merit,” and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should toss the group’s objection, agency staff wrote in a Monday brief.
The group, Three Mile Island Alert, alleged that the FirstEnergy companies and an EnergySolutions subsidiary ran afoul of environmental law when they agreed to transfer ownership of the power plant. NRC staff argued Monday that the watchdog’s argument didn’t apply to the sale and that the commission should ignore it.
Staff took aim at the central complaint of the watchdog group’s March 15 motion — that the Dauphin County, Pa. plant’s sale violates a rule in the 1972 Clean Water Act that would require TMI-2 Solutions to get a certification from local authorities to ignore certain water quality standards. NRC staff argued that the transaction isn’t going to result in any new “discharge” from the plant into the neighboring Susquehanna River, so the certification rule is irrelevant.
Further, NRC staff said, the group made a procedural error by moving to pause the license transfer, which NRC already granted. With license transfer proceedings settled and “no longer available,” the commission staff said, the watchdog group must submit a new petition to the agency.
TMI-2 Solutions, for its part, filed a similar response opposing the watchdog group’s motion on Monday. According to a March 19 agency filing, Three Mile Island alert has a week to respond. At deadline Tuesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing nothing new had been filed.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission are looking into the watchdog group’s claims. So far, they haven’t said whether there have been any water-related violations at Three Mile Island.
EnergySolutions first announced their intention to purchase the plant in 2019. Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor shut down in 1979 after a partial core meltdown.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated in the second graph to reflect that the TMI-2 license transfer is between the FirstEnergy companies and EnergySolutions.
