Pieces of Three Mile Island to be preserved for history

Rachel McDevitt

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I report on energy and the environment for StateImpact Pennsylvania at WITF.

My work focuses on responses and solutions to climate change in the state legislature and communities around the state. I trace my interest in these issues back to my time as a Girl Scout and this episode of Rocko’s Modern Life.

I look forward to winter just for the chance to ski a few times each season. I try to keep myself from doom-scrolling on my phone by keeping my hands busy knitting and learning to play the piano.

I grew up in Cambria County, Pa. and graduated from Temple University. I started at WITF just after Christmas in 2014.

Three Mile Island pictured on June 3, 2024. (Jeremy Long - WITF)

September 20, 2024 | 8:57 AM

Updated: September 24, 2024 | 2:57 pm

Update: Constellation said Sept. 20 that it plans to re-start Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor by 2028.

Two familiar towers at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor will come down in the next several years as the plant is decommissioned.

But pieces of the site will be preserved for history.

That history adds a complication for TMI-2 Solutions’ clean up process. The company needs to demolish the site and remove any radioactive material. It also needs to protect the site under the National Historic Preservation Act. (Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Constellation, which plans to re-start TMI’s Unit 1 reactor, said those cooling towers will be “restored to operating condition as part of the Unit 1 restart.”)

Joe Lynch, director of regulatory affairs and licensing for TMI-2, said they’ve reached an agreement to donate some items to museums.

“We certainly understand the importance of preserving as much as we can while we’re trying to also decommission the plant,” Lynch said at a meeting of the plant’s Community Advisory Panel.

Lynch said they will donate the plant’s control panel and a model of the reactor core as well as signs, maps, and photos from the time of TMI-2’s partial meltdown in 1979. They also plan to donate a model of the plant used for training and will document the decommissioning process.

The company is working with the state and various museums to determine where the artifacts will be displayed.

Lynch said there are some things that can’t be saved.

“The Smithsonian has asked for a number of things and they wanted the valve that was essentially the trigger for the event,” he said. “But it’s a very contaminated piece of equipment, not something that we would readily donate to anybody.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in August approved a change to the company’s ownership license acknowledging the preservation plans.

That will allow clean up crews to move forward with demolition.

TMI Unit 1 shut down in 2019. Its owner, Constellation, is exploring the possibility of restarting the reactor.