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| 6/25/03 4:02:00 PM ET |
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Ohio nuke restart should await probe result
-group
Reuters, 06.25.03, 5:35 PM ET
By Spencer
Swartz
SAN FRANCISCO, June 25
(Reuters) - An Ohio nuclear power station that has been shut for the
past 16 months should not resume operations until a federal probe
determines whether its owner deliberately misled regulators about
problems at the plant, a nuclear watchdog group said on
Wednesday.
"We believe the
restart should wait until the investigation is done to see if there
was deliberate falsification of information submitted by
FirstEnergy," said Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer and
member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The plant is owned by
FirstEnergy Corp. (nyse: FE
- news
- people),
based in Akron, Ohio.
"We also
want to ensure that if wrong information was deliberately filed,
those individuals are properly sanctioned," Lochbaum
added.
FirstEnergy's
Davis-Besse nuclear power plant was shut in February 2002 after
inspectors found that boric acid leaking through cracks in the
reactor vessel head had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the
reactor's 6-inch-thick steel lid.
No radiation leaked from the
plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, which oversees the nation's 103 atomic reactors, began
its investigation in spring 2002 to determine whether FirstEnergy
intentionally misled the agency about its operations at the
plant.
NRC spokeswoman Viktoria
Mitlyng would not comment on when the investigation may end. The NRC
has the final say on when Davis-Besse can resume commercial
operations.
FirstEnergy
spokesman Todd Schneider said Wednesday the company still planned to
restart Davis-Besse in August.
"We're making progress and are still planning to
restart in August. We are not going to restart the plant until we
are sure it's safe," he said.
The company plans to conduct a weeklong test in
mid-July of the operating pressure and temperature in the plant's
atomic reactor and cooling system to ensure there are no
leaks.
The test had been
planned for the first half of June.
FirstEnergy has replaced the reactor vessel lid,
but repairs and other work, including an investigation of the
plant's "safety culture," have caused the company to miss repeated
targets for a restart.
The
delays are likely to cost FirstEnergy more than $400 million,
including the cost of buying electricity to replace the plant's 925
megawatts of generating capacity, power for more than 900,000
homes.
If the NRC finds
FirstEnergy deliberately misled the agency, it would likely send the
case to the U.S. Justice Department, which would decide whether to
launch a criminal investigation, the NRC's Mitlyng
said.
If the Justice Department
decided not to open an investigation, the case would go back to the
NRC which could then consider penalties, including fines, Mitlyng
said.
Copyright 2003, Reuters
News Service
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