South Jersey Nuclear Reactor Back Online After “Unusual Event”

Normal operations have resumed at a southern New Jersey nuclear plant, more than a week after its reactor unexpectedly shut down.

The Salem 1 plant began sending power out again at 1:25 p.m. Monday.

Its reactor had automatically tripped offline April 30 while crews were testing the emergency reactor shutdown system. That triggered fire sirens, and an "unusual event," the lowest level of emergency, was declared because workers couldn't investigate all the alarms within 15 minutes as required by safety regulations.

Joe Delmar, a spokesman for the reactor's operator, PSEG Nuclear, tells the Today's Sunbeam newspaper that the shutdown was traced to a voltage issue in one of two subsystems in the plant's emergency reactor shutdown system.

Salem 1 is one of three reactors in Lower Alloways Creek Township.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)