Limerick Nuclear Power Plant

An electrical disturbance today prompted operator of the Limerick nuclear power plant in Pottstown to take one of its two units offline. The disturbance at 8:39 a.m. caused a loss of power to generator cooling equipment in the non-nuclear part of Unit 1, Exelon Generation, the plant's operator said. The company said it notified all appropriate federal, state and local government officials of the problem that it posed no threat to public. The unit will remain out of operation until repairs, inspections and testing can be completed, the company said.

Peco Energy Co. officials say they believe a lightning strike short-circuited an emergency siren on Arcola Road, causing the alarm to malfunction and blast residents with an earsplitting reveille for more than three hours on Sunday morning. Technicians suspect the lightning struck the siren's power source, which triggered the siren's on-off switch, said company spokesman Michael Wood. The power source was replaced yesterday morning. "We now consider the system to be in perfect working order," Wood said.

Philadelphia Electric Co. plans to spend about $300,000 this year training several hundred employees to drive school buses in the event of an emergency in a 10-mile zone surrounding the Limerick nuclear power plant. Pat Webster, a spokeswoman for the utility, said yesterday that training began earlier this month for some of the employees, who would be called upon in emergencies to drive schoolchildren from one of the 43 municipalities in the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone, which includes portions of Montgomery, Chester and Berks Counties.

Heidi Hoover, a self-described "ordinary, average consumer" and an active opponent of the Limerick nuclear power plant, announced yesterday that she would run for governor on the Consumer Party ticket. Hoover, 42, of East Norriton Township, Montgomery County, announced her candidacy before about 40 people gathered near the Delaware River at Point Pleasant, the site of the proposed pumping station that is to supply Philadelphia Electric Co. with water for its Limerick plant. "Every Consumer Party vote will be a vote to dump the pump," Hoover said.

A Bucks County judge yesterday ordered the contractor building the Point Pleasant pumping station to return to work immediately and to resolve the dispute about costs that had halted construction for a week, said Tracy Carluccio, executive director of the Neshaminy Water Resources Authority. The order was signed last night by Bucks County Judge Isaac S. Garb after Lisbon Contractors Inc. and attorneys for the county and the water authority spent several hours discussing settlement details.

Hundreds of emergency-planning workers within a 10-mile radius of the Limerick nuclear power plant took part last night in a drill designed to test the area's preparedness for a nuclear disaster. Under the scenario designed by federal and state emergency management agencies, an "unusual event" was declared at Limerick at 3:45 p.m. because of a mock fire in the turbine building, according to Neil McDermott, a spokesman for Philadelphia Electric Co., which owns the Montgomery County plant.

The Tamaqua Borough Council, in Schuylkill County, voted 5-2 last night to sell up to one billion gallons of water this year to Philadelphia Electric Co. for use as coolant at the Limerick nuclear power plant. Under the agreement, PE would be able to buy the water at 9 cents for each 1,000 gallons, as long as the Delaware River Basin Commission did not institute drought restrictions that would affect Tamaqua. The allocation of water, which would come from Tamaqua's two reservoirs, must be approved by the commission, according to Borough Manager Roger Bunnell.

The Democratic candidates for Bucks County commissioner squared off in a debate last night that pitted John T. Welsh Jr. against incumbents Carl Fonash and Lucille Trench. Welsh, county real estate director, called the commissioners' governmental performances "outrageous," while Fonash shook off the attacks, calling them "fantasies. " A longtime personal and political friend of Fonash, Welsh, 44, said he was running against the incumbents - who appointed him to his job - because he was "fed up" with the favoritism to special-interest groups.

Officials of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Peco Energy Co. will meet today to discuss several apparent violations of federal regulations that turned up in an investigation at the Limerick nuclear power plant. Although they are described as serious by NRC officials, none of the violations presents an immediate danger to communities near the plant, the officials said. "We don't have questions about the public health and safety issues, but we're looking for a better picture to see if there are steps we need to take in terms of enforcement," NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the license of a Pottstown pilot it says was intoxicated Jan. 15 when he flew his small private plane over Philadelphia International Airport, forcing numerous aircraft to avoid him. John Vincent Salamone's erratic, four-hour flight - at times as low as 100 feet above the ground - took him to Atlantic City and then back over the Limerick nuclear power plant, which he circled before being forced to...

An electrical disturbance today prompted operator of the Limerick nuclear power plant in Pottstown to take one of its two units offline. The disturbance at 8:39 a.m. caused a loss of power to generator cooling equipment in the non-nuclear part of Unit 1, Exelon Generation, the plant's operator said. The company said it notified all appropriate federal, state and local government officials of the problem that it posed no threat to public. The unit will remain out of operation until repairs, inspections and testing can be completed, the company said.

The winter broadcasts coming out of the KYW Newsradio Storm Center at 1060 AM won't sound the same anymore, at least those filed from the snow-blind Philly suburbs. Those harried roadside reports, beamed live from a car-clogged Route 202 or an ice-infested Pennsylvania Turnpike, have been a winter constant for more than 30 years. But in January, the voice of KYW's suburban coverage - the full-throated Jay Lloyd - stepped down from his long-held post as suburban bureau chief for the station.

A drunken Pottstown pilot who flew a single-engine plane over Philadelphia International Airport Jan. 15 came within 900 feet of a 747 jetliner, Montgomery County's district attorney said yesterday after filing new charges. John V. Salamone was arraigned on charges of drunken driving, risking a catastrophe and reckless endangerment. Limerick police had already charged Salamone with public drunkenness. If convicted of the new charges, he faces a maximum of 11 years in prison.

The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the license of a Pottstown pilot it says was intoxicated Jan. 15 when he flew his small private plane over Philadelphia International Airport, forcing numerous aircraft to avoid him. John Vincent Salamone's erratic, four-hour flight - at times as low as 100 feet above the ground - took him to Atlantic City and then back over the Limerick nuclear power plant, which he circled before being forced to...

Coal mines dump millions of gallons of unwanted wastewater into rivers every day. A nuclear plant needs millions of water a day for its cooling process. While the two have tried to work things out before, the deal always fell through. Not this time. By the end of this month, the Limerick nuclear power plant will reduce its take from Point Pleasant on the Delaware River, turning instead to wastewater from a coal mine in Schuylkill County. "It's a very novel and innovative concept," Cathleen Meyers, Delaware River Basin commissioner, said before voting to approve a four-to-five-month trial run of the plan last month.

Big passion, little patience. That's Mike Marino, chairman of the Montgomery County commissioners. Rambling rants make him squirm, so the obligatory public comment section at the close of every commissioners' meeting is no picnic. But yesterday, Marino broke out in praise for a public-comment regular who had suggested at the last meeting that the Perkiomen Trail could be an escape route should the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant blow. "I apologize for my attitude about public comment," Marino said.

Jeremiah J. "Jerry" Cardamone, 59, of North Wales, a lawyer who successfully fought a 13-year legal battle for the Point Pleasant Water Diversion Project, died of pancreatic cancer Thursday at his home. Mr. Cardamone and another lawyer, Ann Thornburg Weiss, were counsel to the North Penn and North Wales Water Authorities in litigation involving the project. They were partners in Timoney, Knox, Hasson and Weand in Fort Washington. The Point Pleasant project was conceived in the early 1980s to respond to needs of drought-plagued central Montgomery and Bucks Counties and the needs of Peco Energy Co. for cooling water at the Limerick nuclear power plant.

Developers proposing a 500-megawatt electricity-generating plant on a site next to Peco Energy Co.'s nuclear power plant will face a crucial step this month when they appear before the township Zoning Hearing Board. Limerick Partners, a Connecticut-based investment group, is pursuing a zoning variance to allow the plant to be built on a Sanatoga Road site in the township's Linfield section that is zoned for light industry. The township zoning code requires that power plants be located in areas zoned for heavy industry.

Officials of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Peco Energy Co. will meet today to discuss several apparent violations of federal regulations that turned up in an investigation at the Limerick nuclear power plant. Although they are described as serious by NRC officials, none of the violations presents an immediate danger to communities near the plant, the officials said. "We don't have questions about the public health and safety issues, but we're looking for a better picture to see if there are steps we need to take in terms of enforcement," NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said.

They tower over the landscape like something out of Star Wars. On a clear day, even on the Philadelphia-Montgomery County border 20 miles to the east, the smokestacks of the Limerick nuclear power plant are visible, thin clouds of steam rising from their cone-shaped summits. If the inhabitants of faraway Chestnut Hill can see them, the towers must loom even larger in the life of the communities in their shadow. "The more visible they are, the more challenging the sale," said Kira McCarron, vice president of marketing for Toll Bros.