The Nation : TMI’s Reopening Blocked

Efforts to reopen immediately the Three Mile Island nuclear plant were thwarted when a federal court in Philadelphia said that its earlier order blocking a restart is still in effect. The continuation of the order temporarily halting the reopening was issued by Judge Collins Seitz of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. The court gave Gov. Dick Thornburgh, a scientists’ organization and a citizens’ group until Sept. 11 to file petitions for a rehearing of a three-judge panel’s decision Tuesday, which affirmed a Nuclear Regulatory Commission order allowing restart. The Middletown, Pa., plant’s Unit 1 reactor would have been operating by today had the stay not been extended, a TMI spokesman said.