| By Rep. Tom Mehaffie (R-106) |
When Three Mile Island Unit 1 shut down in September 2019, we lost more than the 837 megawatts of power it was capable of generating 24 hours a day for the multistate grid. The region lost 600 jobs, financial support for charities, tax revenue, spending at local businesses and more.
Now, with plans announced to resume production as early as 2028, we are on track to right that wrong.
Local, state and federal taxing authorities receive revenue not only from property and corporate taxes, but also income taxes from people who work at a large plant like Three Mile Island. Lower Dauphin School District alone received just shy of $700,000 from Three Mile Island in 2019-20 as well as earned income taxes, occupation taxes and per capita taxes from 76 of its employees who lived within the district’s boundaries.
While a legal agreement helped to taper the tax impact felt by the district, the value has been fast approaching zero. That burdens the school district’s other taxpayers like you and me.
When announcing plans to bring Unit 1 back online, Constellation Energy committed to $1 million of philanthropy over five years. The commitment is welcome news for nonprofit organizations like Lower Dauphin Communities That Care, for which Angela Durantine serves as program director.
“We had a great relationship with Three Mile Island and (its owners). We received a yearly donation from them for 15 or more years, and it was a big part of our budget,” Durantine told me for a series of videos you can watch at RepMehaffie.com/video/latestvideo.
Londonderry Fire Chief Bart Shellenhamer works with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure yearly training requirements are met for any potential emergency response to the island. He described partnering closely with the plant’s staff and being appreciative of past financial contributions, some of which allowed for loan payments on the firehouse’s expansion. Three Mile Island’s owners sponsored a golf tournament supporting the fire company, so their diminished role in recent years meant the fire department had to fill the void in fundraising and tap more into local tax revenue.
Also excitedly welcoming resumed production are training and apprenticeship programs like the ones offered by Insulators Local 23 headquartered in Grantville. Students have had to travel farther since 2019 to meet their training requirements in commercial and industrial settings.
“Everything is hours driven, so we had lost those hours,” said John Fritz, training director.
Work will soon be underway at the renamed Crane Clean Energy Center to restore existing infrastructure like the turbine, generator, main power transformer, and cooling and control systems. These are important first steps to bring back what we lost five years ago. The economic rebound may be more sluggish, but I’m hopeful it will eventually be as robust as the energy about to be generated from the site again.
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Jennifer Fitch
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