LONDONDERRY TOWNSHIP – When more than 600 workers leave the area, that ripple effect will be felt throughout the region.
That’s 600 people and their families who will have to relocate to other parts of the country if they still want to work for Exelon, the owners of Three Mile Island.
That’s 600 people and their families – even more when another 1,000 come in at refueling time every other year – who won’t be dining at local restaurants, staying at hotels and spending their money in the area, said Three Mile Island spokesman Dave Marcheskie.
And that’s one big company that will no longer be around to donate to local charities.
Exelon Generation today announced that they would be moving ahead to shut down the plant Sept. 30. They had asked for lawmakers to pass bills that Exelon said would make it financially feasible to continue operating the plant. But with only three session days scheduled before June 1 — the plant’s fuel purchasing deadline — Exelon conceded that the legislation wouldn’t happen in time.
“It is a very difficult day, an emotional day,” Marcheskie said. Though they had some time to prepare for this possibility, he said most employees were not expecting the news to come today. “It was a little bit of a shock today. It was hard for some people to take.”
While employees will be offered positions at other Exelon plants around the country, they will be leaving the area, which can mean a significant economic impact locally.
Middletown borough manager Ken Klinepeter said several thriving restaurants make up a big portion of the business downtown, and though he hasn’t seen exact numbers yet, he knows they will be affected.
“It’s a big employer, it’s an employer that has good-paying jobs, and that money leaving the area possibly, with folks leaving to go to other plants, is going to have an impact on the area,” he said.
Dave Kitner, owner of Roberto’s Pizza in Middletown, was not immediately available Wednesday, but he previously told PennLive the closure of TMI will be a 10 percent impact on his bottom line. During the outage every two years when the plant refuels, he’d find himself making more than 400 subs and pizzas per day for the 1,000 workers who come to town.
Three Mile Island is located in Londonderry Township, just outside of Middletown, where township manager Steve Letavic said he was saddened to learn the news.
“I was heartbroken, disappointed and saddened for the families,” he said. “We were really hoping we could get to a better outcome and find a way to preserve Three Mile Island in Londonderry Township, but unfortunately we didn’t get there.”
The workers are part of the fabric of the community, he said, and the plant itself is a major economic driver. The township, school district and county will lose about $1 million per year in real estate taxes, he said. That’s about $135,000 in taxes and fundraising that will not be coming into the township, and they are already looking at some possible program cuts.
Members of the Clean Jobs for Pennsylvania coalition previously said TMI pours $60 million in salaries into the local economy each year.
Three Mile Island had lost $300 million over the last eight years, officials from Exelon previously said. TMI has not been profitable for six years as a result of persistently low wholesale energy prices and market rules that treat polluting plants the same as emissions-free sources of power, Exelon says.
Officials had argued that nuclear power plants are not permitted to participate in government clean energy programs, though they provide 93 percent of clean energy out there, and were asking legislators to “level the playing field,” making TMI competitive.
The company announced in May 2017 that without such legislation, the Three Mile Island Generating Station Unit 1 would shut down. With no bill, the plant cannot prepare for its September refueling.
“Because of that, that was the decision today to permanently shut TMI down in September of 2019,” Marcheskie said.
The shutdown of Three Mile Island will likely begin Sept. 30 with the start of the decommissioning process. The first thing people may notice is they will no longer see the water vapor rising from the cooling towers, he said.
Work will then begin on defueling the core to commence the process of decommissioning. During that process, staff will be cut from about 675 employees to 300 in 2020. By 2022, the plant will be down to 50 full-time employees, he said.
Beyond the families, Marcheskie said TMI and the five nuclear power plants online in the state generates 93 percent of the zero-carbon electricity in Pennsylvania.
“TMI alone generates twice the carbon-free electricity of wind and solar combined in Pennsylvania,” he said. “That’s what we’ve been telling people the last two years. That’s why these bills were introduced, but unfortunately, it looks like they won’t get passed.”
“They were fantastic community neighbors,” Letavic added about TMI. “They were not a nameless, faceless corporate citizen. They shopped here, they lived here, they came to our golf course.”