by Patricia A. Miller
Lacey officials recently accepted a $10,000 check from Exelon - owners of the Oyster Creek Generating Station - to help pay for the Fourth of July fireworks.
"We're always happy to take a check," Mayor Gary Quinn quipped as he posed with Exelon official Gary Stathes.
"We really appreciate the opportunity to be part of the community," Stathes said.
Bad economic times in previous years make it hard for the township to come up with the money for the annual holiday fireworks, Quinn said.
"At that time, we reached out to Exelon," he said. "They've come back and given it to us every year. "It's a tremendous help to the township. It's been a great relationship."
The check presentation came just hours before Oyster Creek had to be taken off line for the second time in less than a week.
Stathes said Thursday night operators were in the process of restarting the plant. The next planned maintenance outage will take place in the fall, he said.
Plant operators manually scrammed (shut down) the plant at 3:12 a.m. on Friday after they discovered a reduction in vacuum conditions inside the condenser, said NRC spokesman Neil A. Sheehan.
"There were no complications during the shutdown and the NRC has not identified any immediate safety concerns," he said.
It was the second time this week the 45-year-old plant had to be shut down.
Oyster Creek operators earlier last week took the plant off line on July 7, due to "degradation" of five solenoid electromatic relief valves used in the plant's cooling system.
Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear plant in the United States. It went on line of Dec. 23, 1969.
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