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By JERRY BERRIOS; Times Leader Correspondent
Tuesday, December 22, 1998     Page: 9C

SALEM TWP.- When the Year 2000 bug bites, a Washington-based environmental
group wants the nation’s 104 nuclear power plants to be ready, the nuclear
power plant in Salem Township plans to be, says a plant official.
   
The Nuclear Information and Resource Service predicts possible “severe
safety and environmental problems” unless the plants are Y2K compliant.
    The expected problem is that computers will read the year 2000 as 1900
because they track years by the last two digits.
   
The nuclear information group has submitted a petition to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the government agency that oversees nuclear plants,
asking that plants be shut down if they aren’t prepared.
   
According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, most nuclear plant safety
systems are operated and controlled by equipment which is not date-dependent
and is not susceptible to the Y2K problem.
   
However, the agency acknowledges finding Y2K problems in nonsafety
computer-based applications, such as security computers, control room display
systems, engineering programs, control systems, radiation monitoring, and
emergency response.
   
The Susquehanna Steam Electric Station near Berwick will be ready for the
bug, said Joe Scopelliti, the plant’s senior information specialist.
   
He said officials at the plant have been looking at the computer-related
issue for several years. Scopelliti said the plant has an employee in its
nuclear department focusing on Y2K.
   
He added that the plant expects to be ready by the middle of 1999.
   
Experts have looked at ventilation and computer systems, software and
databases- anything that has a computer chip.
   
“We want to head it off and make sure everything func