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Nuclear Power Plants and Ecological Protection

By Eric McErlain
While anti-nukes like to smear nuclear power plants with the charge that they spoil the environment, the truth is a far different story. From the Reading Eagle:
Suggesting a visit to a nuclear power plant on a day trip may seem a bit unusual. But, the PPL & Allegheny Electric Cooperative has put together an attraction that combines education and recreation.

It is the Susquehanna Riverlands Environmental Preserve that wraps around the Susquehanna nuclear power plant near Berwick.

The stark, steaming cooling towers of that plant loom just beyond the tree line to the north, but their grim presence is softened by the lakes, ponds, trails, forests and fields of the preserve.

The two-unit plant was built in the mid-1980s and from the start, its owners provided a visitors center and much more.

In that center, formally the Susquehanna Energy Information Center, are several interactive and static displays that explain everything from the functions of a nuclear plant and the fundamentals of the production and distribution of electrical power to the history of the region and its earliest natives.

The small building is also a source of information about the adjacent 1,200-acre nature compound known as the Susquehanna Riverlands Environmental Preserve.
For more on how utilities have worked to preserve the ecology around nuclear power plants, read Powering the Future with Environmentally Sound Nuclear Energy: The Ecological Stewardship of the Nuclear Energy Industry (PDF).
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