By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article Federal regulators have launched a special probe to determine if officials at the Oyster Creek nuclear power violated rules and waited too long to declare an emergency alert as rising waters threatened critical reactors systems. Three inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began a “special inspection” Tuesday into the alert called by plant officials as waters driven by the storm rose to 7.4 feet in the plant’s inta

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article Federal regulators, after six months of intensive examination, have found serious deficiencies and violations of law in the security at three of New Jersey’s four nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors found the deficiencies at the Hope Creek and Salem 1 and 2 reactors operated by PSEG Nuclear following a series of inspections that began in December, 2011, and formally concluded August 27, 2012. Th

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article In an unprecedented move, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has bowed to a court order  and imposed a temporary halt in relicensing nuclear power plants until it thoroughly examines the impact of runaway meltdowns at the plants’ spent fuel pools. That action affects the relicensing evaluations of some 33 facilities at 19 sites, including Indian Point 2 and 3 on the Hudson River opposite Bear Mountain.  And it leaves in limbo

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article Operators of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant have been granted a year’s delay in their required emergency drill inSouth Jerseybecause their state emergency counterparts are still occupied with the aftermath of a summer hurricane and an early fall snowstorm. Michael Pacilio, president of Exelon Nuclear, which operates the plant, was notified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the exercise originally scheduled for S

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article “…EPA’s insupportable assumption that screening technologies are available at nuclear facilities, threaten the viability of existing plants and their daily contribution to cost-effective electricity….” Brief, Entergy Corp v US EPA 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals July 5, 2005 For much of the last decade Entergy Nuclear, the owners of the twin Indian Point reactors in New York, have battled environmental regulators from the state

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article All six nuclear reactors in the New York/ New Jersey metropolitan area are operating “in a manner that preserved public health and safety” and therefore will receive the minimal oversight during the coming year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared in its annual assessment. In separate reviews, the NRC concluded that New Jersey’s Hope Creek, Oyster Creek, and twin Salem Generating Station plants and the two Indian Point

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article A series of wide ranging, federal inspections of the twin Salem nuclear power plants has found extensive decay and cracks as long as six feet in the concrete containment buildings, corrosion of the buildings’ steel liners by decades of leaks from radioactive and acidic water, and “aggressive” groundwater penetration throughout the power complex. In addition, inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that PSEG Nu