LACEY — The nation's oldest nuclear power plant will close in 2019 — 10 years earlier than planned — but will not have to build costly cooling towers, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The people, who spoke to The Associated Press on today on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the plans ahead of an announcement expected Thursday, said the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in the Forked River section of Lacey Township will close a decade earlier than called for under its current license.

In return, the aging plant will not be required to build one or more cooling towers to replace its current technology, which draws 1.4 billion gallons of water a day from Barnegat Bay, killing billions of aquatic creatures each year.

The agreement over the closing of the plant, located 60 miles east of Philadelphia and 75 miles south of New York City, is between Chicago-based owner Exelon Corp. and New Jersey officials, who will drop their demand that it build one or more cooling towers — a technology environmentalists have long wanted.

"We will unveil a comprehensive plan to address the ecological health of Barnegat Bay, a 10-point plan addressing both short- and long-term issues," said an official in Republican Gov. Chris Christie's administration, who also spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. "The future of the Oyster Creek plant is a large part of our plans."

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Exelon had balked at the state's insistence on cooling towers, saying they are prohibitively costly, and said it would shutter the plant rather than build them.

The company says the $800 million it would cost to build the towers is more than the plant is worth, and it asked the state to withdraw its demand last January.

But environmentalists say the job could be done for about $200 million.

In January, the state Department of Environmental Protection required the plant to build one or more closed-cycle cooling towers instead of relying on water drawn from the Oyster Creek to cool the reactor.

The state says that process kills billions of shrimp and tens of thousands of fish, crabs and clams each year.

Plant spokesman David Benson declined comment Wednesday night.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the Oyster Creek station a new 20-year license in April 2009, rejecting concerns by opponents centered on corrosion to a metal enclosure that keeps superheated radioactive steam within a containment building.

Exelon had applied a strong coating material to the liner and removed a sand bed at the base of the reactor that was found to hold moisture that caused the corrosion.

Over the past year, the plant has been cleaning up the remnants of a leak of radioactive tritium from underground pipes that has since made its way to a major underground water source, although no wells or drinking water supplies have been tainted.

Tritium occurs naturally in the environment at very low levels and may be released as steam from nuclear reactors. It also can leak into soil and groundwater.

The leaks have prompted the NRC to order its staff to look for better ways to detect and prevent leaks in buried pipes at all U.S. nuclear power plants.

Oyster Creek's boiling-water reactor is considered obsolete by today's standards. But the plant generates enough electricity to power 600,000 homes a year. It provides 9 percent of New Jersey's electricity.

Oyster Creek went online Dec. 1, 1969, the same day as the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station near Oswego, N.Y. But Oyster Creek's original license was granted first, technically making it the oldest of the nation's 104 commercial nuclear reactors that are still operating.

It would have been 60 years old had it remained open until the end of its current license.

Lacey Township Committeeman Brian Reid, an opponent of the cooling towers proposal, said it was "a shame" that the plant would be shutting early.

"Ten years earlier? That really doesn't surprise me," Reid said in a telephone interview Wednesday night. "They would have had to spend a lot of money on those towers, and business is business."

The Christie administration's plans include an endorsement of reduced nitrogen amounts in fertilizer sold in New Jersey and restrictions on how it can be applied and a program to fund the purchase of environmentally sensitive areas near Barnegat Bay. The proposal also would include rules requiring post-construction restoration of soil to prevent water from running off into waterways.

Tom Fote, commissioner of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, called the plan "a step in the right direction." He applauded the fertilizer and soil compaction bills but said he'd hoped the plant would be required to build cooling towers.

Sierra Club chapter director Jeff Tittel scoffed at the Oyster Creek deal, saying Exelon "gets to operate the plant for 10 years, then walk away with a pile of cash at the expense of the bay."