Nuclear board denies groups’ complaints

The Atomic Licensing and Safety Board of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded that Wilkes-Barre native Gene Stilp and the organization he founded, Taxpayers and Ratepayers United, had the right to be involved in the case, but lacked admissible complaints. Eric Epstein, who runs the nuclear watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert out of Dauphin County, also was denied involvement.

Epstein, however, was undeterred. “It’s a long haul. … When you’re in a kangaroo court, you learn how to hop,” he said. “The NRC ignored its own precedent, so we’re pretty confident that we’ll prevail when we appeal.”

Epstein pointed out that he had been granted standing by a different panel of judges last year regarding PPL’s existing dual reactor at an adjacent site. “I’m not buying it. I’m the same person, living and working the same distance from the plant as I was last year when I got standing in the relicensing case,” he said. “You can’t have it one way in one case and another way in another case.”

Times Leader