Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant

Peach Bottom nuclear plant was restarted Thursday after a two-year shutdown ordered by regulators after they found operators sleeping on the job. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted final approval for a restart of Unit 2 Wednesday night and the chain reaction began about 5:40 a.m., said Bill Jones, a spokesman for plant operator and part-owner Philadelphia Electric Co.

Peach Bottom nuclear plant was restarted Thursday after a two-year shutdown ordered by regulators after they found operators sleeping on the job. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted final approval for a restart of Unit 2 Wednesday night and the chain reaction began about 5:40 a.m., said Bill Jones, a spokesman for plant operator and part-owner Philadelphia Electric Co.

Retired Adm. James D. Watkins, former chief of naval operations and chairman of the presidential AIDS commission, was elected to Philadelphia Electric Co.'s board of directors Monday and assigned to the board's nuclear committee. The utility operates the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in York County, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission shut down in March, 1987, after control room operators were found sleeping on the job and playing video games on the plant's computers.

A health physicist at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant at Delta, Pa., lost his job for telling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of an incident that exposed him to radiation, Bob Gallo, an NRC section chief, said. Philadelphia Electric Co., part owner of the plant, maintains the employee was laid off last year as part of cuts that reduced the work force from 130 employees to 90. A 1974 federal law prohibits employees at nuclear power plants from being fired for "whistle-blowing," Gallo said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today proposed the largest fine in its history--$1.25 million--because operators at Pennsylvania's Peach Bottom nuclear power plant slept on the job. In addition, the NRC said it would fine 33 present or former operators at Philadelphia Electric Co., the first time the commission has ever imposed civil penalties on individual operators. The fines will range from $500 to $1,000.

The operator of Pennsylvania's Peach Bottom nuclear power plant was ordered Thursday to pay a fine of $1.25 million, the largest in Nuclear Regulatory Commission history, because 33 reactor workers slept or were negligent on the job. In addition, the NRC levied fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 against the 33 present and former reactor operators, the first such civil penalties ever proposed for individual operators.

Raising concerns about the city's ability to handle the year 2000 computer problem, a test of the emergency system at a sanitation plant went awry Wednesday night, spilling about 4 million gallons of untreated sewage into part of the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area before officials could stop it.