PORT CLINTON -- A former consultant for the Davis-Besse Nuclear
Power Station has filed suit against its parent company,
FirstEnergy, alleging his contract was wrongfully terminated 15
years ago.
William Keisler of Leesville, S.C., filed the lawsuit via Toledo
lawyer Howard Whitcomb III on Friday in Ottawa County Common Pleas
Court. He is asking for in excess of $150,000, as well as punitive
damages and an order from a judge requiring greater safety-related
equipment inspections.
Keisler, a mechanical engineer, says in the suit that he was
brought on to the Davis-Besse team in 1986 after a loss of auxiliary
feedwater event that shut the plant down for 18 months.
Originally, he was asked to assist in the maintenance and
engineering departments in devising a report for the preventative
maintenance programs.
Specifically, he was to help the outfit tailor a review of
safety-related components for Davis-Besse employees.
The suit states that because Keisler performed so well at those
tasks, he was assigned additional duties involving preventative
maintenance in January 1987.
It was more than 18 months after that, however, when the report
was completed that a plant superior asked him to "suppress certain
information which had a direct impact upon nuclear safety
requirements, and he was ordered to resubmit a modified or
'sanitized' report," the suit claims.
Keisler refused, and he claims the company terminated his
contract for it on Sept. 8, 1988. Toledo Edison, which operated
Davis-Besse at the time, then released a modified report on Oct. 31,
1988.
FirstEnergy Spokesman Richard Wilkins said Keisler was hired on
to write a report required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission but
added the report was not sufficient.
"He eventually did submit a report, but it did not meet the
requirements that Toledo Edison had asked for in terms of what the
regulators would want."
Wilkins added: "The report had some good information in it, but
it wasn't the right information."
The lawsuit claims that the modified report was that kind of
action that eventually resulted in the corrosion found on the
reactor head, which has shuttered the plant for more than a year.
Plant personnel continue to work to fix problems found once
Davis-Besse shut down in February 2002 for a routine refueling.
The suit claims the plant can't restart until the issues are
resolved with Keisler. The South Carolina resident is claiming
violations of the federal whistle-blower regulations, as well as
wrongful termination, negligence, intentional infliction of
emotional distress and breach of contract.
Wilkins said Keisler filed a suit against the company years ago
in another jurisdiction in Ohio, but dropped it before it got very
far.
