Oyster Creek Back At Full Power

The nation's oldest operating nuclear plant is back online.

Officials say power was fully restored at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey Township on Saturday afternoon, several days after the plant lost off-site power.

The outage began Monday morning when an electrical disruption caused the plant's reactor to automatically shut down. Officials believe the power loss resulted from a ground of a high-voltage line that provides electricity to the nuclear plant in Ocean County.

Plant personnel then spent the week performing minor maintenance that can only be completed while the reactor is offline.

Oyster Creek, which initially went online Dec. 1, 1969, now generates enough electricity to power 600,000 homes a year and provides 9 percent of New Jersey's electricity.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)