PPL Brunner Island power plant contributes to truck safety program

To promote traffic safety in the communities around its Brunner Island power plant in York County, Pa., PPL gave more than $40,000 to the Newberry Township Police Department to purchase truck scales and related equipment.
A $43,650 grant from PPL, presented in January 2007, kicked off a five-year public safety partnership between PPL and the township’s police department.

The Brunner Island plant started major construction projects in 2006 that have resulted in additional traffic on area roads. PPL is adding more than $800 million in environmental equipment at the coal-fired power plant.

PPL has taken measures to minimize the amount of truck traffic traveling through the community, but can’t eliminate it. Knowing that traffic is an issue in the community, PPL worked with township officials to find practical ways we can keep the roads, and community residents, safe.

As part of the grant agreement, surrounding municipalities also will be able to use the truck scales and equipment to perform safety inspections.

One major project under construction is to install equipment that will eliminate nearly all of the sulfur dioxide from the power plant’s emissions and that also will result in a reduction in mercury emissions. A second project, to be completed by 2010, will reduce the temperature of water the plant discharges to the Susquehanna River.

PPL’s Brunner Island power plant can generate about 1,500 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power more than 1 million homes. The plant has about 250 full-time employees and hundreds of additional temporary jobs during the construction of the environmental controls.