Incident Timeline

On September 30, 2010, Eric J. Epstein (“Epstein, “Mr. Epstein” or “the Petitioner”) filed a Petition pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Section 2.206. The petitioner requested that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC” or “the Commission”) take enforcement action in the form of a Demand for Information (“DFI”) from FirstEnergy Corp. (“FE”, “FirstEnergy”, or (the licensee”) relating to inadequate financial assurance provided by the licensee for Three Mile Island Unit-2's (TMI-2's) nuclear decommissioning fund prior to the consummation of FirstEnergy's proposed merger with Allegheny Energy. (NOTE: GPU Nuclear Inc. is the license holder for TMI-2.) GPU Nuclear, Inc. submitted the 2009 Decommissioning Funding Status Report for TMI-2 on March 29, 2010 (available in NRC's Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under Accession No. ML 1009604640). As the basis for this request, the petitioner states that the current radiological decommissioning cost estimate is $831.5 million and the current amount in the decommissioning trust fund is $484.5 million, as of December 31,2008.

The Petitioner established that FirstEnergy did not provide adequate financial assurance for decommissioning funding of TMI-2: (1) FirstEnergy's annual report fails to account for the special status of TMI-2, (2) the current level of the decommissioning trust fund demonstrates underfunding, and (3) underfunding could not be addressed though rate payers after decommissioning rate recovery payments from Metropolitan Edison and Pennsylvania Electric were terminated on December 31,2010, pursuant to Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Orders and various settlement agreements.

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The record indicates that in reporting to State and federal officials on March 28, 1979, TMI managers did not communicate information in their possession that they understood to be related to the severity of the situation. The lack of such information prevented State and federal officials from accurately assessing the condition of the plant. In addition, the record indicates that TMI managers presented State and federal officials misleading statements (i.e. statements that were inaccurate and incomplete) that conveyed the impression the accident was substantially less severe and the situation more under control than what the managers themselves believed and what as in case the fact.

                                 GLOSSARY

The following list of terms and acronyms may facilitate your reading of the events that have taken place at nuclear power plants on the Susquehanna River and elsewhere.

 A chronology of events and incidents at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Berwick, Pa. 

Jan. 20, 2005

 Susquehanna set plant record by generating 18-million MWH 

 A chronology of events and incidents at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Delta, Pa. 

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 A Chronology of events and incidents at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Delta, Pa. 

       THREE MILE ISLAND Unit 2: 1979-2008

                1979

 TMI Alert has chronicled safety and environmental incidents at Exelon's Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in southern York County, Pa., since 1974. 

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TMI Alert has chronicled safety and environmental incidents at PPL's Susquehanna Steam Electric Station near Berwick, Pa.

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Below is a chronological account of safety incidents at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant Unit 1 reactor on the Susquehanna River.