The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced today that it has extended its construction permit for the unfinished Unit 2 at the Watts Bar nuclear power plant to March 31, 2013. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates Unit 1 at the plant about 10 miles south of Spring City, Tenn., requested the extension in May.

TVA is spending $2.5 billion to complete a second reactor at Watts Bar. NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said the agency’s staff “found no significant impact on the environment” to extending the construction permit until 2013 so the construction could be completed.

Work at the unit began in 1974, TVA halted the project in 1985 and is restarting construction this year.

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