Troubled Nuclear Plants List Cut

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Positive news regarding US nuclear power plants - watch list. I 
didn't see any coverage on this in any of the national network news 
broadcasts. Did anyone? When the list increases, it receives 
significant airtime. The opposite scenario is simply ignored

Thursday July 30 5:51 AM EDT 

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) - The list of nuclear power plants 
government safety sleuths have targeted for close scrutiny has
been shortened by nearly two-thirds to its lowest number in over 
three years. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday removed eight 
reactors at five plants in Florida, New Jersey, Illinois and
Connecticut from its ``watch list'' of most-troubled nuclear facilities. 

When last issued in January, the watch list named 13 plants as 
having the highest potential for safety problems. With five
remaining, the list is the shortest it has been since 1995, when it 
also singled out just five facilities. 

The NRC watch list has been compiled twice a year since 1986, 
and has never contained fewer than five reactors. 

NRC Chairman Shirley Ann Jackson said the whittled-down list is a 
result of a better system of evaluating plants at the NRC
and hard work by utilities. 

``I'm pleased,'' she said. ``The judgments are made more 
consistently about the plants and coupled with the fact that ... there
are plants that have worked their way off the watch list, then I think 
that's very positive.'' 

Most of the reactors still on the list are in Illinois: Illinois Power 
Co.'s Clinton plant and Units 1 and 2 of Commonwealth
Edison's LaSalle plant. The other two are at Northeast Utilities' 
Millstone plant in Connecticut. 

Though not placed on the official list, ComEd's Quad Cities plant 
near Morris, Ill., and D.C. Cook Units 1 and 2 in Benton
Harbor, Mich., run by American Electric Power Co., were singled 
out for declining performance. 

The reactors the NRC said did not need continued special 
monitoring were: 

-Crystal River Unit 3, operated by Florida Power Corp., near Crystal 
River, Fla. 

-Salem Units 1 and 2, operated by Public Service Electric and Gas 
Co., near Salem, N.J. The two reactors were listed in
January. 

-Dresden Units 2 and 3, operated by ComEd, near Morris, Ill., 
which were first listed in 1987, removed in late 1988 and
added again in January 1992. 

-Zion Units 1 and 2, also operated by ComEd, 40 miles north of 
Chicago. The two reactors were first listed in 1991, removed
in January 1993 and relisted in January 1997. They were removed 
because ComEd has decided to shut down the reactors for
good. 

-Millstone Unit 1. On the list since January 1996, along with the 
other Millstone reactors, this facility also was removed after its
permanent shutdown.