A day of truth is coming for a troubled nuclear power plant

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - The company that owns the Hope Creek nuclear power plant in Salem County is hoping to obtain at a Jan. 5 meeting the approval of federal regulators to restart the plant, which has been shut down since an Oct. 10 steam leak.

While Public Service Energy Group has been working for more than two months to fix the problems that caused the leak, activists are hoping a second problem will keep the plant from being restarted immediately.

Newark-based PSEG does not need formal permission from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart the Hope Creek plant, but agreed after the October mishap not to restart it until after a meeting with the commission.

A meeting is now scheduled for Jan. 5 in Bridgeport.

There, NRC officials are expected to present their findings from a special investigation of the circumstances surrounding the leak, which caused no injuries.

NRC officials are also working on a separate report regarding the other issue, a bowed rod in a reactor circulation pump.

When the pump is operating at certain speeds, it creates a clanging that employees have compared to the sound of a freight train.

PSEG officials have said that the pump is safe enough, though, that it will not need to be changed until the next regular plant shutdown for refueling and maintenance, which is scheduled for mid-2006.

Kymn Harvin, a PSEG whistle blower who once worked at the plants, has urged the NRC to force PSEG to replace the part before restarting.

"We are facing a showdown - profits first or safety first," Harvin wrote in an e-mail Tuesday to The Associated Press. The NRC, Harvin said, must decide which of the values wins.

PSEG is in the midst of a merger with Chicago-based energy company Exelon. Officials with that firm have said they back the decision to wait to replace the pump.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Tuesday that if the report on the pump is completed in time, it will be discussed at next week's meeting. Otherwise, it would be the subject of another public meeting.

PSEG is poised to restart the plant after next week's meeting, said company spokesman Skip Sindoni.