TMI Update: Jan 14, 2024

Did you catch "The Meltdown: Three Mile Island" on Netflix?
TMI remains a danger and TMIA is working hard to ensure the safety of our communities and the surrounding areas.
Learn more on this site and support our efforts. Join TMIA. To contact the TMIA office, call 717-233-7897.

    

Money trail in FirstEnergy corruption scandal leads outside Ohio; including Pa and TMI-2's owners

FirstEnergy improperly used money collected from customers in five states to pay for expenses connected to the ongoing corruption scandal in Ohio, the company has confirmed. 

 
The money was collected from customers of FirstEnergy’s regulated distribution and transmission utilities in Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, according to statements found in annual Form 1 reports the utilities recently filed this month with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 
FirstEnergy first disclosed in February that its internal investigation related to the federal racketeering case against former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder had:
… identified certain transactions, which, in some instances, extended back ten years or more, including vendor services, that were either improperly classified, misallocated to certain of the Utilities and Transmission Companies, or lacked proper supporting documentation. These transactions resulted in amounts collected from customers that were immaterial to FirstEnergy, and the Utilities and Transmission Companies will be working with the appropriate regulatory agencies to address these amounts.
The Energy and Policy Institute found similar statements in annual Form 1 reports for 2020 filed with FERC by fourteen FirstEnergy distribution, generation, and transmission utilities earlier this month; the statements indicated that the money was collected from customers of all fourteen subsidiaries. 
One statement found in the Form 1 report filed by Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) reads as follows (highlights added):
… in connection with the internal investigation, FirstEnergy recently identified certain transactions, which, in some instances, extended back ten or more years, including vendor service, that were either improperly classified, misallocated to certain FirstEnergy utility and transmission companies, or lacked proper supporting documentation. These transactions resulted in amounts collected from customers that were immaterial to FirstEnergy and JCP&L. These utility and transmission companies will be working with the appropriate regulatory agencies to address these amounts.
Nearly identical statements were found in Form 1s filed by thirteen other FirstEnergy utilities, only with the initials of the utility filing the report inserted in the place of JCP&L’s, including Allegheny Generating Company, American Transmission Systems, Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, Metropolitan Edison, Mon Power, Ohio Edison, Mid-Atlantic Interstate Transmission, PATH Allegheny Transmission Company, Pennsylvania Electric Company,  Pennsylvania Power Company, Potomac Edison, Toledo Edison, and West Penn Power. 
 
The Energy and Policy Institute asked Jennifer Young, a spokesperson for FirstEnergy, to confirm that the money was collected from customers of the distribution and transmission utilities that included those statements in their Form 1s. 
 
“Your interpretation of the disclosure is correct,” Young responded in an email.
 
A new Factbook for FirstEnergy investors also said that the company is “Working with the state regulators to return funds to ratepayers that were improperly included in customer rates.”
 
“During our last call, we mentioned that we were proactively engaging with our regulators to refund customers for certain vendor payments,” FirstEnergy CEO Steven Strah said during an earnings call this morning. “Those conversations are underway in each affected jurisdiction.”
 
“In Ohio, at the PUCO’s request, the scope of our annual audit of Rider DCR has been expanded to include a review of these payments,” Strah said.
 
Last month, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) directed that the audit of FirstEnergy’s Delivery Capitalization Rider (DCR) be expanded to include to “determine whether any funds from ratepayers were used to pay for the vendors and if so, whether funds associated with the payments should be returned to ratepayers through Rider DCR or through an alternative proceeding.”
 
FirstEnergy did not respond to a request for more information about how exactly FirstEnergy is working to refund the money to customers, and in which affected jurisdictions.
Exactly how much money was improperly collected from customers remains a closely guarded secret, but some details have trickled out of FirstEnergy and more may be on the way. 
 
Company officials said on an earnings call in February that the “transactions” included a $4.3 million payment to an individual who fit the description of former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio chairman Samuel Randazzo, who resigned last year after the FBI raided his townhouse in Columbus. The transactions “could” have also included money spent on lobbying and political efforts, company officials said on the call. 
 
Santino Fanelli, FirstEnergy’s director of rates and regulatory affairs, revealed during a March deposition led by the Ohio Consumers Counsel that at least some of the $56.6 million that was secretly routed from the FirstEnergy Service Company to Generation Now was misallocated to FirstEnergy’s Ohio utilities, which include Ohio Edison, CEI, and Toledo Edison. 
 
Generation Now is one of three defendants that have pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges in the Householder case, in connection with a $60 million bribery scheme that resulted in a $1 billion nuclear power plant bailout included in Ohio’s 2019 energy law House Bill 6, as well as coal bailouts and a gutting of clean energy laws. 
 
FirstEnergy disclosed today in a quarterly financial report that it is discussing the possibility of a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors. The company also said that it “believes it is probable that it will incur a loss in connection with the investigation.” 
 
FERC is now investigating FirstEnergy’s lobbying and governmental affairs activities concerning HB 6. 

Earlier research by the Energy and Policy Institute found that customers of FirstEnergy’s distribution and transmission utilities may be on the hook for as much as $137 million in money paid to the FirstEnergy Service Company in 2017 to 2019 for external affairs support that included lobbying and government affairs.
 
Below is an excerpt from JCP&L’s annual Form 1 report for 2020.

Top image attributed to Jericho from Wikipedia Commons. Creative CommonsAttribution 3.0 Unported license.
 
Updated on April 23, 2021 with additional information disclosed during FirstEnergy earnings call and in related investors materials posted on FirstEnergy’s website.
By admin at Tue, 04/27/2021 - 07:07

Petitioners' Response, Three Mile Island Unit-2, Motion for Abeyance, (4/19/21)

Petitioners' Response, Three Mile Island Unit-2, Motion for Abeyance, (4/19/21)
 
By admin at Wed, 04/21/2021 - 04:12

Slides for April 13, 2021, 1-4:30 pm EDT, NRC/NEI webinar on spent fuel performance margins

PowerPoint slides
 April 13 2021 Workshop public meeting SFP Margi...
Workshop between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Nuclear Energy Institute on Spent Fuel Performance Margins
See > https://www.nrc.gov/pmns/mtg <  for details 
 
--
Paul Gunter, Director
Reactor Oversight Project
Beyond Nuclear
7304 Carroll Avenue #182
Takoma Park, MD 20912
Tel. 301 523-0201 (cell)
www.beyondnuclear.org
 
By admin at Fri, 04/09/2021 - 03:20

Exelon Generation Company, LLC - Request for Withholding Information From Public Disclosure

Subject:  Exelon Generation Company, LLC - Request for Withholding Information From Public Disclosure
 
ADAMS Accession No. ML21084A135
 
By admin at Thu, 04/08/2021 - 04:11

Response to Questions submitted March 12, 2021

Good morning, Eric.
 
This is in response to several of your questions regarding Exelon Generation Company, LLC’s (Exelon’s) Three Mile Island Generating Station, Units 1 and 2 (TMI-1 and 2 ) submitted on March 12, 2021.
 
Question 1: Provide the amount of water TMI can withdraw daily, and how much they pay for consumptive and surface water at TMI-1 and TMI-2.
 
As I stated previously, the consumptive use, surface withdrawal, and groundwater withdrawal approvals from SRBC have not changed yet as a result of the non-operating status. The docket approval for TMI-1 dates from 2011, and is attached for your review. SRBC does not have a docket approval for TMI-2.
 
The approved quantities at TMI-1 are:
Surface water withdrawal – up to 122.800 million gallons per day;
Groundwater withdrawal – 0.225 million gallons per day (as a 30-day average) from Wells A, B, and C;
Consumptive use – 19.200 million gallons per day (peak day).
 
The SRBC has no charges related to surface water withdrawals for any approved project. The project does not pay a consumptive use fee to the SRBC. The consumptive use is mitigated predominantly by releases of water stored in Cowanesque Reservoir during low flow periods, under an approved agreement (see Docket Section 7, no. 5).
 
Question 2:  Ask the NRC for the precise amount of water each reactor will need for decommissioning purposes, and inventorize the amount of water not used since TMI-1 no longer conveys heat from the reactor core to the steam turbine and there is no longer steam cycle heat transfers.
 
The SRBC has no information from the NRC at this time concerning the amount of water required for decommissioning.
 
The attached a spreadsheet shows SRBC’s data concerning the amount of recent water use at TMI-1. As you are aware, TMI-1 was taken offline and ceased operating for the purpose of generating electric power on September 20, 2019. The data brackets the time when operations ceased, containing reported daily water withdrawals from all sources and consumptive use from September 1, 2019 through December 31, 2020.
 
SRBC staff have not specific information at this time to answer your other questions regarding disposal of any radioactive wastewater. The SRBC will continue to coordinate with agencies of its member jurisdictions about all of the issues related to this project. 
 
Exelon staff indicated water withdrawal and consumptive use quantities are expected to continue to exceed Commission regulatory thresholds, but at a much lower magnitude due to cessation of power generation. As such, and recognizing the change in operations, Commission staff will review the water withdrawal and consumptive use demands, from all sources, based on the Facility’s reasonable and foreseeable need to adequately address ongoing decommissioning activities. Commission staff anticipate that this review will be done as part of the groundwater well renewal applications, required by May 26, 2021.
 
Thank you again for your patience as we work to obtain clarity on the key water issues related to decommissioning.
 
Best regards,
Paula
 
Paula Ballaron, P.G.
Manager, Policy Implementation & Outreach
Susquehanna River Basin Commission
4423 North Front Street
Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania 17110-1788
Office:717-238-0423 Ext - 1222
Mobile:  717-215-0455
Your River ~ Our Mission 
 

---
Subject: Re: Before the SRBC, (Testimony of Eric J. Epstein, December 11, 2020)
 

Folks:

 
          These questions were resubmitted at today's public hearing.
In our opinion, the initial responses were general  and vague.
I wrote the questions in the hope of providing clarity, and to
make sure you got the questions free from technical interference.
 
         In addition, to requesting more specific responses to the
January 27, 2021 requests, I also asked the SRBC  to:
 
1) Provide the amount of water TMI can withdraw daily, 
and how much they pay for consumptive and surface water
at TMI-1 and TMI-2;
 
2) Ask the NRC for the precise amount of water each reactor 
will need for  decommissioning purposes, and inventorize 
the amount of water not used since TMI-1  no longer coneys
heat from the reactor core to the steam turbine and there 
is no longer steam cycle heat transfers; 
 
3) Requests from the DEP and the NRC for TMI-1's and
TMI-2's plan(s) to dispose of radioactive water created 
by the decommissioning processes; and,
 
4) Identify CWA obligations as it pertains to what entity actually 
owns the water rights at TMI.
 
         Gene and Paula did contact me during the meeting, and Gene
reached out after the meeting. Unfortuantley, I've been in zoom
meetings all afternoon. I will return to the office on Monday.
 
 
Have a great weekend!
 
Eric Epstein

image003.jpg


TMI Reporting Data.XLSX

FileTMI Reporting Data.XLSX

20110610.PDF

PDF icon20110610.PDF
By admin at Wed, 04/07/2021 - 18:37

TMI-Alert Declines to Participate in TMI-2 Panel

:Life time:TMI-1:TMIA:Banner.jpg
 
TMI-Alert Will Not Participate in Corporate Panel
April 6, 2021
 
TMI-Alert (“TMIA) notified TMI-2 Solutions that the organization
will not be participating in the Community Advisory Panel. TMIA
advocated for a truly independent advisory panel modeled on the
community-based Advisory Panel created after the TMI-2 accident.*
 
Eric Epstein, Chairman of (“TMIA”) stated, “After thoughtful
discussion, TMIA decided not to serve on the TMI Community Advisory
Panel. This entity is a corporate extension of TMI-2 Solutions, which funds,
manages, and staffs the panel.”
 
Mr. Epstein noted that the NRC license transfer docket is open. TMIA
filed an Appeal with the NRC on March 19, 2021.The NRC has given the
parties associated with the proposed TMI-2 license transfer until April 12,
2021 to respond to TMIA’s argument that the action violates the Clean
Water Act.
 
On February 16, 2021, TMIA notified the Department of
Environmental Protection, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the
Susquehanna River Basin Commission that the Three Mile Island Unit-2
license transfer from FirstEnergy to TMI-2 Solutions violated the
Environmental Protection Agency’s, Clean Water Act (“CWA”) Section, 401
Certification Rule.
 
Mr. Epstein stated: “The CWA was the tool designed by the EPA to
defeat pollution by corporate greed and regulatory inertia. The TMI-2
license transfer cannot occur without the new owners satisfying compliance
with the Clean Water Act. Certification should explicitly state that TMI can
not dump highly radioactive water into the Susquehanna River.”
 
1
 
 
* The original TMI-2 Advisory Panel met 78 times, and held public
meetings in the vicinity of TMI-2. The Advisory Panel met regularly with
the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners. The Panel provided an invaluable
forum for community residents to ask questions and register concerns
relating to cleanup issues including the reactor head lift, removal of
damaged fuel, and disposal of 2.3 million gallons of accident-generated,
radioactive water.
 
One consistent theme that emerged from all sides was the desire to
make sure that adequate funding was in place to fund the TMI cleanup.
 
Funding the TMI-2 cleanup has been problematic dating back to the
accident in 1979. At that time, there were no decommissioning funds set
aside. In 1982, Governor Richard Thornburgh cobbled together the
Thonburgh Plan — a $1 billion fund to pay for the removal of the damaged
fuel. But, funding problems did not go away.
 
On October 25, 1988, Panel Chairman Arthur E. Morris told the NRC
Commissioners: “... there is no specific funding plan in place, and
consequently no guarantee that monies will be in place for cleanup
following PDMS [Post-Defueling Monitored Storage]...This uncertainty
troubled the panel.”
 
2
 
By admin at Tue, 04/06/2021 - 18:41

*NEW* Nuclear Spring Series—Three Mile Island

By admin at Tue, 04/06/2021 - 18:35

Fairewinds Nuclear Spring Series: TMI (Three Mile Island) Archival Records Unearthed - Nuclear Energy Info

Screen Shot 2021-04-05 at 3.47.27 PM.png

By Arnie Gundersen
Welcome to Fairewinds Nuclear Spring Series. This third installment will share some newly discovered archival material about the March 28, 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island (TMI) atomic power reactor. You may remember Fairewinds asserted that the meltdown at TMI was much worse than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) insistently portrays. These archival documents substantiate what we have always said.
 
Back in the day (1993-1997), I was an expert witness retained to testify in the plaintiffs' case for the people living near TMI in the litigation against the owners of that failed nuke. Fairewinds posted some of my expert reports and reports of other renowned scientific experts that clearly dispute the fictional narrative that nobody was hurt due to the meltdown at TMI, as claimed by the nuke industry and the NRC. Here is a link to the Fairewinds TMI report section for researchers who want to know the TMI meltdown truth.
 
Fairewinds is proud to host an archive of detailed technical analyses of the TMI meltdown by various nuclear experts, including Dr. Ignaz Vergeiner, Dr. Henry Meyers, Dr. Steven Wing, and me. We also believe it is essential for scientists, researchers, medical doctors, and citizen scientists to have unrestricted access to the truth of what happened at TMI.

Arnie at the entrance to Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

 

While recently cleaning the garage, I came across a box with three more reports that have significant ramifications to the thorough understanding of the disaster's full magnitude at TMI. I wrote these reports in 1996 and printed them on what was then a brand new dot-matrix printer with tractor feed paper. With no internet yet invented, I used the fax machine to submit my expert reports to the attorneys in the case. Obviously, this was long before the internet and laser printers!
 
Overview of Reports
 
I wrote my first report Post Accident Containment Leakage in January 1996. It provides convincing evidence that there was a hydrogen explosion at TMI between 1 and 2 PM on the meltdown's first day. The evidence I reviewed, and the nuke industry ignored, shows that immediately following the hydrogen explosion, the atomic reactor’s containment began to leak radiation into the surrounding community.

In February 1996, I wrote Forensic Evidence to Support Blowout, the second report in the series. I think I channeled my inner Sherlock Holmes on this project. I dug up forensic evidence showing unmonitored hot radioactive gases bypassed the containment and were released into the environment. The evidence I uncovered is known as the TMI Blowout. The ‘letdown system’ is used to clean reactor water as the radioactive water travels in its loop to get reheated. In a Blowout, the letdown system drains and ends up dry enabling hot radioactive gases to escape directly from the containment building into the surrounding community. Most likely, this highly radioactive release accounts for the metallic taste that so many TMI area residents experienced on the first day of the meltdown.
I believe that the atomic power industry and its captured regulator, the NRC, try to maintain the illusion of no containment blowout and leakage to the environment to avoid public liability and continue the myth that nuclear power plants are safe. According to the NRC and the atomic power industry, containments never leak, that is until the three meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors on March 11, 2011. 

TMI sleuths will remember that in March 2019, on C-Span’s 40th Memorial of the TMI meltdown held at Penn State, I said that radioactive releases from TMI were likely 10-times-higher than the numbers claimed by the NRC and nuclear industry. Entitled Major Discrepancy between Daniel and Akers data which may increase exposures to support Plaintiff’s claims, I wrote my third report in March 1996, and this newly posted report provides all the details discussed in my C-Span analyses. 

 
Fairewinds will keep you informed!
 Radiation knows no borders
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By admin at Tue, 04/06/2021 - 18:28

2021/03/24 NRR E-mail Capture - Exelon Generation Company, LLC - Acceptance of License Transfer Application (EPID L-2021-LLM-0000)

Subject: 2021/03/24 NRR E-mail Capture - Exelon Generation Company, LLC - Acceptance of License Transfer Application (EPID L-2021-LLM-0000)
 
ADAMS Accession No. ML21084A253
 
By admin at Tue, 03/30/2021 - 07:23

NRC Proceeding "Three Mile Island 50-320 LT"

**EIE Update**  Due to certain NRC computer security enhancements the process to open submissions having more than one attachment has had to be changed. Now, after opening the link in the e-mail and validating their certificate, users will see a page with a button saying “Download Attachments". Selecting that button will cause the attached .zip file to be downloaded to the users' computer. Thereafter, the files can be opened using the normal protocol.  **EIE Update**

MESSAGE FROM THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Re: NRC Proceeding "Three Mile Island 50-320 LT"

The Office of the Secretary has received a Submission entitled

"ORDER (Setting Briefing Schedule)"

submitted by Krupskaya T. Castellon who is affiliated with NRC SECY.  It contains 1 attachment(s).

It is intended for inclusion in the referenced proceeding. It was submitted through the NRC Electronic Information Exchange (EIE) system and arrived on 03/19/2021 at 03.31 PM.

As a hearing participant, you are entitled to view and/or retrieve this Submission by visiting the following web link.  

ORDER (Setting Briefing Schedule) - https://eie.nrc.gov/eie/adj/downloadAttachment.eie?submissionId=56011&docId=27250 (302 KB)


If the submission contains 2 or more attachments, they will be delivered to you as a single compressed zip file from which you may open the attachments.  The delivery model works best with the free download product named "SecureZip".  This is the product used in the screen shots in the Adjudicatory User's Guide.  Other compression products will work but the access steps may vary.

The link will remain active for 30 day(s) after which its contents will be removed from the EIE system. Not later than 3 days from the date of this message the attachment(s) will also be available through NRC Electronic Hearing Docket (EHD) web site. The web link for this site is: https://adams.nrc.gov/ehd and the documents can be located by browsing in the appropriate hearing folder.

Receipt of this message constitutes completion of service of this filing.

PARTIES SERVED WITH THIS SUBMISSION:  Campbell, Tison A.; Castellon, Krupskaya T.; Desai, Sachin; Docket, Hearing; Duke, Alicia R; Epstein, Eric; Eskelsen, Grant; Halnon, Gregory H; Krause, Emily I.; Lighty, Ryan K.; Matthews, Timothy P; Naber, Anita G.; Newell, Brian P.; ocaamail, ocaamail; Roth, David E.; Schumann, Stacy M.; Sealy, Karen; Sola, Clara I; Speiser, Herald; Stenger, Daniel Frank; van Noordennen, Gerard Peter; Wachutka, Jeremy L.
 
By admin at Sun, 03/21/2021 - 02:34

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