Below are news reports on a hole found in the steel liner of a reactor containment wall; six days after the story was reported, the hole was attributed to a board embedded in the concrete containment wall. 

Beaver County Times

By Bill Vidonic, Times Staff

Friday, April 24, 2009 

SHIPPINGPORT — An inspection Thursday revealed corrosion in the steel lining of the nuclear reactor containment building of Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station’s Unit 1, according to FirstEnergy Corp.
No radiation was released from the building, and there was “no impact to the public health or safety of any employees,” FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider said Friday evening.
The Unit 1 reactor had been shut down since Monday for scheduled refueling and maintenance. As part of that work, Schneider said, the containment building that surrounds the reactor underwent a standard inspection.
The containment building has concrete walls that are 4 feet thick, Schneider said, and there’s a 3/8-inch-thick steel lining on top of that concrete in the building’s interior.
The steel is coated with what Schneider described as “nuclear-grade paint.” An inspection showed a blister in some of that coating. The blister wasn’t cracked, Schneider said.
Once the coating was cleaned, Schneider added, workers found that the steel underneath it had corroded through to the concrete wall. The affected area of the steel is in the shape of a rectangle, Schneider said, about one inch long by about 3/8-inch high. That’s just under the size of a standard paper clip.

AND THE SURVEY SAYS…

Thank you to the 100 residents of Middletown who participated in a disaster preparedness survey we conducted in February at the local Karn’s and Giant grocery stores. A group of Penn State University Harrisburg nursing students enrolled in the RN-to-BSN program and whose studies focus on community nursing, chose to examine disaster preparedness in Middletown.

A special Facing South investigation by Sue Sturgis

On the 20th and 30th Anniversaries of the Exxon Valdez 

and Three Mile Island Accidents, Respectively, We Do 

The nuclear power industry's top dog, in February 2008, explains

the industry's claims that construction of new nuclear power plants is necessary. 

"Good morning.  I am John Rowe.  Some of you may know me as 

High inspection marks anger resident, who says plant's performance is not deserving

By Diane Farsetta, Senior Researcher, Center for Media and Democracy. 

The following article appeared in the June 2008 issue of The Progressive magazine.

By Victor Gilinsky

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

March 23, 2009

Shortly after I arrived at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)'s headquarters in Washington, D.C., at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, I got a call from the commission's emergency center in Bethesda, Md.

The number two reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania had declared a general emergency.

There weren't supposed to be serious accidents at nuclear power plants and having to deal with one led to some, let us say, out-of-the-ordinary, and even absurd, behavior.

Three Mile Island Alert Chairman Eric Epstein faces off with Nuclear Energy Institute vice president of communications Scott Peterson in a video debate on the state of the nuclear industry. 

The discussion between Epstein and Peterson is moderated by Susan McGinnis of CleanSkies TV, and follows a news presentation of what happened at Three Mile Island's Unit 2 reactor on March 28, 1979. 

Epstein emphasizes the unanswered questions haunting the nuclear industry: What to do with the waste, where to find the water to run the plants, and why private investment won't support the industry. Industry advocate Peterson calls the 1979 accident a "controlled release" of radiation and insists the market will support industry growth. 

To view the program, go to: 

 www.cleanskies.tv/#

Find the link button to CleanSkies Sunday and then click on the video program on Three Mile Island. 

Accident Dose Assessments 

Nuclear engineer and long-time industry executive, Arnie Gundersen gives a talk on his calculations of the amount of radiation released during the accident at Three Mile Island.  Mr. Gundersen's calculations differ from those of the NRC's and official industry estimates.

TMI & Health Effects

Part 1: