A nuclear watchdog group that opposes the sale of Three Mile Island Generating Station will file further arguments against the transaction today, the group’s president said.
Three Mile Island Alert will file its response today to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s recommendation that the agency toss the watchdog group’s request to hold the sale of Three Mile Island, group president Eric Epstein told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing in an email Monday morning.
NRC staff wrote last Monday that the watchdog group’s March 15 request was no longer valid since proceedings surrounding the plant’s license transfer from the FirstEnergy Companies to EnergySolutions subsidiary TMI-2 Solutions were closed. Epstein told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing by phone April 14 that the request was “appropriate.”
Commission staff also challenged Three Mile Island Alert’s assertion that the Dauphin County, Pa. plant’s sale would violate a certification rule in the 1972 Clean Water Act involving water usage. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission are investigating, but still haven’t said whether any water-related violations took place.
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. The other nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island, TMI Unit 1, permanently ceased operations in September 2019, according to NRC.
Editor’s note: Story was modified April 19, correcting the third graph to show FirstEnergy subsidiaries are transferring the license to the new owner.
