Senators Challenge Investigation of Sleeping Guards at Pennsylvania Nuclear Plant
NUCLEAR
New London Day
Erin Kutz
Boston University Washington News Service
February 28, 2008
WASHINGTON – Senators challenged Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials and industry executives Thursday over security concerns at nuclear plants.
“Public confidence in the industry is only as good as its weakest link,” said Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio).
The comments came at a hearing regarding September reports of security guards at Pennsylvania’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station sleeping while on duty. The legislators grilled the regulators and nuclear officials about how such problems are dealt with industry-wide.
The Peach Bottom problem came to light after security guard Kerry Beal reported in March 2007 that his fellow guards were sleeping on duty. When the plant and the NRC found no evidence to back up the charges, he videotaped his coworkers and sent the tape to a CBS television station in New York City last September. The plant’s owner, Exelon, then fired its security company, the Wackenhut Corporation.
“My hope is that we take that lesson we learned at Peach Bottom and fully spread that lesson across the country,” said Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s nuclear safety subcommittee, which held the hearing.
Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) challenged the NRC’s response to the incident and urged that nuclear power plants establish better protocols for responding to the claims of whistleblowers like Beal.
NRC Chairman Dale Klein noted that the commission and the plant owners each take different steps in investigating claims, which can delay the process.
He said the agency typically receives between 500 and 600 allegations per year, 10 percent of which are substantiated and require disciplinary action.
Waterford’s Millstone nuclear station encourages employees to come forward and had stringent safety guidelines even before the Peach Bottom incident, said Pete Hyde, spokesman for Millstone, which is owned by Dominion.
“It is Dominion’s practice that we encourage people to bring forward concerns,” he said in a phone interview. “Sometimes we don’t always agree with what they are saying. We’ve had differences of opinion with employees in the past. But it’s a critical part of a safety culture. We fully investigate internally and that’s usually immediate.”
He also said that the plant rotates officers through different posts throughout their shifts and have activities in place so the officers don’t fall asleep.
The Peach Bottom officers who slept were not assigned to specific surveillance duties in the plant but were on standby to respond to needs as they arose, Eric Wilson, CEO of Regulated Security Solutions, a company hired to assess the security at the plant, told the Senate panel.
The NRC ruled that the sleeping guards posed a minimal threat to the security of the plant.
“But I think it is important to point out that for the 10 million Pennsylvanians living near the nuclear plants, a low to moderate safety threat is still too great of a threat,” Casey said.
Several committee members urged that heightened public opinion of the industry is especially pressing, as nuclear energy becomes a more widely used option for the future.
This year the commission is reviewing applications for the first new nuclear facility in 30 years, Carper said. They expect to have the first of possibly 30 new reactors up in the next seven or eight years, he added.
“If any one of our nuclear reactors fails to act safely or securely, it could undermine our nuclear renaissance,” Carper said.
