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Regional News
| Article published Thursday, January 30, 2003
Besse put on notice to show job safety
NRC wants utility to raise
awareness
By TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF
WRITER
LISLE, Ill. - A FirstEnergy Corp. management
team today will try to convince government regulators that it has
come up with a way to encourage Davis-Besse employees to be more
forthcoming about safety issues at the Ottawa County nuclear
plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to know how
FirstEnergy plans to improve the work atmosphere at Davis-Besse in
light of the near-rupture of the plant’s reactor head because of
excessive corrosion a year ago. The company’s presentation will be
made at the agency’s Midwest regional office west of
Chicago.
Jack Grobe, chairman of the NRC oversight panel,
said numerous factors contributed to the plant’s deteriorated
condition, but many have a common theme: the lack of a so-called
"safety culture" and a "safety-conscious work
environment."
The phrases have become buzzwords in the
nuclear industry since 1996, when management-employee problems were
blamed for numerous equipment malfunctions that led to an extensive
shutdown of the three-unit Millstone nuclear complex in
Connecticut.
Northeast Utilities, the utility that operates
that complex, was convicted of falsifying records and accused by the
NRC of retaliating against employees who brought problems to the
management’s attention.
"Millstone had a well-documented
history of harassment and intimidation," said Bill Dean, the
Davis-Besse oversight panel’s vice chairman.
Mr. Dean said
Davis-Besse’s apparent nonchalant attitude pales in comparison to
Millstone’s degree of animosity. "It’s night and day in that
regard," he said.
But Davis-Besse is following Millstone as
only the second plant to undergo such formal work-atmosphere
scrutiny - and a Washington attorney familiar with both cases said
she believes Davis-Besse is worse because of the "corporate culture"
that led to complacency there.
"At Millstone, even though
there was harassment and intimidation of workers, workers found a
way to raise concerns," Billie Garde, who specializes in defending
nuclear workers, said.
She said it was "astounding" that
Davis-Besse workers didn’t raise more issues before the Feb. 16,
2002, shutdown.
"When employees choose silence, you’ve
completely shut down," she said. "Once you’ve got a mind-set that
workers are afraid to raise concerns, you’ve got to start from
scratch."
Though NRC officials are cryptic about what
improvements FirstEnergy must make for Davis-Besse to pass the
safety-culture test, Mr. Dean acknowledged that Millstone’s efforts
will be used as a general benchmark.
One thing that has
impressed the NRC, Mr. Dean said, is FirstEnergy’s hiring of an
outside expert to walk the company through such issues. Millstone
did the same thing in developing its safety-culture plan, he
said.
FirstEnergy has contracted with Dr. Sonja B. Haber, a
psychologist who specializes in safety culture
issues.
FirstEnergy’s plan will demonstrate that the company
will start giving more feedback and incentives to employees who come
forward with concerns, said Richard Wilkins, a company
spokesman.
Safety culture was not absent. "But the kind of
consistency you would want wasn’t there," he said.
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