A state utilities regulator will look into water usage at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant undergoing decommissioning after an environmental watchdog group sounded the alarm, according to a recent email from the regulator.
The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission’s bureau of investigation and enforcement will review “certain uses of water” at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station’s Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) and will determine “any appropriate action,” according to an email from the commission to nuclear watchdog Three Mile Island Alert dated Friday
If the state agency’s investigative bureau finds any action is necessary, they’ll make a recommendation to the commission’s executive body, which will decide whether to enforce it, the email said.
Although Three Mile Island Alert claimed in February that the Dauphin county, Pa. nuclear plant’s sale to an EnergySolutions subsidiary from FirstEnergy violates a water quality certification rule under the Clean Water Act, regulatory agencies have said otherwise.
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission, which was looking into the watchdog’s accusation, said July 1 that it hadn’t learned of anything that would require it to step in. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said June 22 that since the plant’s sale asks for “no new discharges,” the water quality certification isn’t required.
Meanwhile, the watchdog is planning to mount a legal challenge to the plant’s sale after several failed attempts to get NRC to walk back the license transfer, group chair Eric Epstein told RadWaste Monitor July 9. At deadline Monday, Epstein had not filed suit.
Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor shut down in 1979 after a partial core meltdown caused one of the worst radiological releases in American history. EnergySolutions announced its intention to purchase the reactor for decommissioning in 2019.
