Pennsylvania State University resumed using its nuclear-research reactor last week after workers stopped a leak in the surrounding cooling pool.
Officials on the flagship campus, in University Park, shut down the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor in October, after staff members determined that the 71,000-gallon pool was losing about 10 gallons per hour. The water, which was flowing into the ground beneath the reactor building, contained slightly elevated levels of radioactivity and posed no health threat, university and state officials said.
Workers drained the pool and resurfaced its walls, which seemed to stop the leak, although no specific cause of the water loss was identified, the university said in a statement on Tuesday. During the repairs, the building remained open for classes and research unrelated to the reactor. —Jeffrey Brainard
