OAK HARBOR, Ohio (AP)--A team of consultants hired to examine safety attitudes at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant, where inspectors last year found acid had eaten into a steel reactor cap, say the plant needs a greater commitment to safety.

``The team believes that not all characteristics are present at the Davis-Besse station to ensure the long-term promotion of a positive safety culture,'' the consultants wrote in the report for plant owner FirstEnergy Corp.

The study was based on observations at the northern Ohio nuclear plant and a survey of 80 percent of the plant's 830 employees.

Researchers visited the plant in February, and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel overseeing the repair of Davis-Besse received copies of the report last week.

FirstEnergy will be permitted to restart the reactor only after it proves to the NRC that safety measures at Davis-Besse have improved.

The company hopes to restart the plant in eight to 12 weeks.

In March 2002, one month after a routine maintenance shutdown began at the plant along western Lake Erie, a cavity linked to boric acid was found in a 6-inch-thick steel cap covering the plant's reactor vessel. It was the most extensive corrosion ever discovered at a U.S. nuclear reactor.

FirstEnergy has made substantial progress since it began efforts to improve Davis-Besse's safety culture late last summer, said spokesman Todd Schneider. The company even halted repair work for a day so employees could take part in a case study of the corrosion and its causes.

Schneider said the consultants' report is a snapshot in time and doesn't reflect continuing development, including creation last week of a management position to focus on safety. The consultant group, hired by FirstEnergy, was headed by industrial psychologist Sonja Haber of New York.

AP-NY-05-04-03 0957EDT

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