Location of Limerick Township in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
LIMERICK, PA – A faulty valve at Exelon Nuclear’s Limerick Generating Station caused about 100 gallons of bleach to leak into the Schuylkill River Tuesday night.
The company issued a four-sentence statement announcing the spill Wednesday afternoon.
In an email, Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, wrote that the spill occurred around 9 p.m. and “had no impact on nuclear safety at the plant.”
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When an explosion Wednesday morning caused operators to cut power to one of two nuclear reactors at the Limerick Generating Station, it had an impact on the power supply to the entire mid-Atlantic region.
One of two reactors was shut down at 8:39 after an electrical problem caused by an explosion in a transformer cut power to a turbine cooling system, officials said.
And, while only a portion of Berks County lies within the 10-mile emergency zone around the Montgomery County nuclear plant, losing just one unit affected some businesses throughout Berks and the region, said Ray Dotter, spokesman for the PJM Interconnection, the King of Prussia-based agency that regulates the regional electric supply.
Each Limerick reactor generates enough electricity to power 1 million homes. That power has to be made up somewhere, Dotter said.
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