Fire temporarily closes market
OLD FORGE - An electrical fire Tuesday temporarily closed Ray's Shur Save Market and forced the grocer to throw out food.
Borough firefighters responded to the market at 431 Lawrence St. about 2:45 p.m., where they extinguished an electrical fire sparked in the building's electrical room, Chief Mark Tagliaterra said.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture also responded to evaluate the condition of the market's food. When Mr. Tagliaterra left at about 4 p.m., market officials had already thrown out all open produce.
No one was injured in the fire, Mr. Tagliaterra said.
Firefighters from Avoca, Taylor and Moosic also responded to the scene.
Mount Airy fined by gaming board
MOUNT POCONO - Mount Airy Casino Resort in Monroe County was fined for conducting business with companies that were on the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board's Prohibited Gaming Service Provider List.
Mount Airy 1 LLC was fined $5,000 for doing business with Vision Solutions Inc., a software provider out of California, as well as an additional $5,000 for working with Maple Direct Inc., a direct mailing and advertising business based in New Jersey.
Both of those companies were subsequently removed from the Prohibited Gaming Service Providers List after producing addition information that permitted each to be licensed to provide goods and services to Pennsylvania casinos, according to a press release from the Gaming Control Board.
Moscow to hold street lighting
MOSCOW - Borough officials and other community leaders will hold an official street-lighting ceremony today at 5 p.m., recognizing the completion of the decorative downtown street light project.
Held at the gazebo on Main Street, the ceremony will include children of Moscow Borough switching on the lighting project and a ribbon cutting, said Marc Gaughan, borough councilman and chairman of the Department of Public Works.
The street lighting project, part of a larger downtown infrastructure project, includes sections fo Main and Church streets. After the ceremony, downtown businesses will offer snacks to visitors.
Two reactors shut at Berwick
SALEM TWP. - One of the two nuclear reactors at PPL's Susquehanna plant near Berwick was shut down due to an oil leak Monday night after returning briefly to service following an 11-day outage caused by a computer problem.
The leak of hydraulic oil in a system that controls the flow of steam into the turbine at Unit 2 did not affect public or employee safety and was contained to the building housing the turbine, according to a PPL news release. The reactor remained offline through Tuesday.
"Shutting down the reactor is the safest course of action until we can determine the reason for the oil leak and make the necessary repair," PPL Susquehanna Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Timothy S. Rausch said in the release. "
Sen. Casey pleads W. Pittston's case
WEST PITTSTON - The Federal Emergency Management Agency alerted West Pittston officials to deficiencies in the borough's flood plan seven months before the storm-swollen Susquehanna River ravaged the community last summer, an agency spokesman said Tuesday.
The borough's floodplain management ordinance did not meet agency standards and its enforcement of building codes within the floodplain was unsatisfactory, FEMA spokesman Peter Herrick said.
The borough's flouting of federal regulations led FEMA to threaten it with probation - a penalty that would require each homeowner in the borough to pay a $50 surcharge on his or her federal flood-insurance policy renewal beginning Dec. 1.
With the deadline looming, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. on Tuesday urged the agency's top officials to reconsider. Mr. Casey pleaded the borough's case in a letter to FEMA administrator Craig Fugate and a telephone conversation with associate administrator Dave Miller.