Page 49 - May-June 2013

(Continued on page 50)
A Long
History of
Safe and
Reliable
Operations
By Suzanne D’Ambrosio, Oyster Creek
Generating Station.
Garey Stathes
Oyster Creek Generating Station Site
Vice President Garey L. Stathes is
responsible for the safe and efficient
operation of the facility, including
coordination and
management of
personnel, overall
station performance
and financial plan
oversight.
Stathes has 33 years
of nuclear industry
experience. He has
held a wide range of
positions at Peach
Bottom Atomic
Power Station and
the Mid-Atlantic
corporate office at
Kennett Square,
Pennsylvania. He has served as plant
manager and in managerial positions
within engineering, maintenance,
maintenance/work control, and
operations.
Stathes earned a Bachelor of Science
degree in mechanical engineering from
Drexel University in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, as well as an associate
degree in mechanical engineering
technology from The Williamson Free
School of Mechanical Trades in Media,
Pennsylvania.
It was December 23, 1969…the Sears
Christmas Catalog featured an 11-inch
portable color television set for $188.88;
holiday greeting cards were mailed with
six-cent stamps, and teens were listening
to the first record album that featured the
Jackson 5.
Meanwhile, at the Jersey Shore,
history was being made, as the Oyster
Creek Generating Station -- began
producing electricity. The facility,
commissioned by Jersey Central Power &
Light Company, took about 150 workers
over four years to build. Built at a cost
of $96 million, Oyster Creek was the
largest investor-owned nuclear plant in
the country at the time of construction.
Those who were there for
construction, which began in 1965,
remember the bleachers that were actually
set up on nearby Route 9, the area’s main
thoroughfare, so that curious residents
and passersby could sit and watch as the
facility was built.
The dawn of
the nuclear era came
on quickly. Accord-
ing to a 1966 News-
week report, “the
growing acceptance
of atomic power has
gone beyond even
the most optimistic
estimates. The im-
pressive new orders
(of nuclear plants)
indicate that later in
the 1970s, nuclear
power will make
sharp inroads into
the use of the so-called “fossil“ fuels – oil,
gas and coal. By the year 2000, experts
estimate more than half the power used in
the U.S. will come from the atom.”
That sentiment was – and still is
--overwhelmingly apparent in Oyster
Creek’s host municipality of Lacey
Township, New Jersey, where one portion
of the town’s coat of arms contains an
atomic symbol.
Times have changed, but Oyster
Creek continues to generate clean safe
and reliable power for more than 600,000
homes and businesses.
Oyster Creek in Brief
Oyster Creek is located on a 700-acre
tract in Lacey Township, NJ, about 60
miles east of Philadelphia and about two
miles from the Atlantic Coastal beaches
of the Jersey Shore. Owned and operated
by Exelon Generation, it is a single-unit
General Electric Mark 1 Boiling Water
Reactor, constructed by Burns & Roe,
Inc. A horseshoe-shaped canal surrounds
Oyster Creek and connects it to the
Barnegat Bay, providing a continuous
source of cooling water for the facility.
Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC)
is the nation’s leading competitive
energy provider, with 2012 revenues
of approximately $23.5 billion.
Headquartered in Chicago, Exelon has
operations and business activities in
47 states, the District of Columbia and
Canada. Exelon is one of the largest
competitive U.S. power generators, with
approximately35,000megawattsofowned
capacity comprising one of the nation’s
cleanest and lowest-cost power generation
fleets. The company’s Constellation
business unit provides energy products
and services to approximately 100,000
business and public sector customers
and approximately 1 million residential
customers. Exelon’s utilities deliver
electricity and natural gas to more than
6.6 million customers in central Maryland
(BGE), northern Illinois (ComEd) and
southeastern Pennsylvania (PECO).
Approximately 700 men and women
are employed at Oyster Creek with an
annual payroll of approximately $69
million. Most employees make their
homes in the 10-mile radius surrounding
the station and, as a result, pump millions
back into the local economy.
Oyster Creek received a 20-year
license extension from the NRC in 2009
but has since reached an agreement
with the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection to retire Oyster
Creek in 2019.
The retirement decision is based on
the cumulative effect of negative economic
factors, which has caused Oyster Creek’s
value to decline. These factors include
low market prices and demand, and the
plant’s need for continuing large capital
expenditures. Also, potential additional
environmental compliance costs based
on evolving water cooling regulatory
requirements – at both the federal and state
government levels – created significant
regulatory and economic uncertainty.
Due to Exelon’s decision to retire the
plant early, the New Jersey Department of
Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2013 NuclearPlantJournal.com 49