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To: Tom Swift who wrote (118)	9/11/2003 4:49:05 PM
From: Tom Swift	Respond to of 166

Susquehanna nuclear power plant operating at reduced power after fire The Associated Press 9/11/2003, 11:51 a.m. ET BERWICK, Pa. (AP) — A nuclear plant was operating at reduced power Thursday because of a small oil fire at a pump that provides water to one of the reactors, officials said. From Our Advertiser The fire started at PPL's Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday at a pump that provides one of the two reactors with water, plant spokesman Joe Scopelliti said. The cause of the fire remained under investigation. The plant's fire brigade reacted quickly and there were no injuries, Scopelliti said. There was no threat to the public, he said. Power was reduced to 65 percent at the affected reactor on Thursday while repairs were being made. The other reactor was unaffected by the fire and remained at full power.

To: Tom Swift who wrote (118)	9/11/2003 4:55:04 PM
From: Tom Swift	Respond to of 166

Tree in Ohio May Have Been Behind Big Blackout September 10, 2003 By Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter John J. Fialka WASHINGTON -- A tree in Walton Hills, Ohio, may stand at the center of the nation's largest power blackout, Thursday's Wall Street Journal reported. After sagging into the tree at 3:32 EDT p.m. on Aug. 14, a FirstEnergy Corp. (FE) power line closed down, setting off a series of alarms that alerted company officials and the regional-power-system operator to the fact that something was wrong. But they weren't sure what. Operators spent a half hour exploring the problem, while more company lines began shutting down, but they still didn't believe they were dealing with an unusual event. James P. Torgerson, president and chief executive of Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator Inc. said that since neither of two FirstEnergy lines that had shut down appeared to be overloaded, he didn't order the company to cut back its electricity load. FirstEnergy has said a computer problem in its control room and failures experienced by other Midwest utilities may have contributed to the outage that affected 50 million people. Yesterday, Democratic Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey suggested another factor: Several employees of FirstEnergy complained to him that a failure to follow traditional maintenance schedules by the company may have helped to bring on the outage. Joseph DiNicola, spokesman for the Akron, Ohio, utility dismissed the charges as coming from union officials "choosing this issue to grind an ax." Power lines overheat when they are overloaded and can then expand and sag into trees, causing a short circuit. But Mr. DiNicola said the first two FirstEnergy lines to fail were carrying much less electricity than their rated capacity. Write to John J. Fialka at john.fialka@wsj.com