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Regional News
| Article published Wednesday, March 12, 2003
DAVIS-BESSE
Utility’s
reactor head is replaced; plant could be shut till
summer
(THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON)
Jack Stables, a Portage
Township trustee, tells Nuclear Regulatory Commission
representatives how impressed he's been with the people at the
Davis-Besse plant.
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By TOM
HENRY
BLADE STAFF WRITER
PORT CLINTON - The replacement head for
Davis-Besse’s nuclear reactor was being bolted down last night, but
FirstEnergy Corp. still appears to have a slim chance of gaining
authorization to restart its beleaguered plant before early
summer.
The utility continues to lose millions of dollars
each month, especially when the weather is harsh and electricity
demand is high as it has been the last two
months.
FirstEnergy acknowledged yesterday for the first time
it lost $20 million in January and $20 million more in February,
nearly twice what it normally spends during nonsummer
months.
While it spends $20 million to $25 million a month
for surplus power during peak summer months, it has assumed that
demand will be down and markets will adjust enough to keep such
expenses at $10 million to $15 million a month for all other
months.
The 150-ton head, bought from a never-finished
nuclear plant in Midland, Mich., was put on the reactor Monday
night.
It is replacing Davis-Besse’s original, which on March
6, 2002, was found to have a football-sized cavity burned into it
over the years by boric acid that had leaked out of the
reactor.
The company’s admitted maintenance letdown exposed
all but a thin liner of stainless steel and brought northwest Ohio
to the brink of what scientists believe could have been a nuclear
accident of Three Mile Island proportion.
The replacement
head will be locked into place by 60 thick, specially designed steel
bolts around the head’s perimeter. The process of tightening each
one and checking the tension of each began last night, company
officials said.
At yesterday’s monthly oversight meeting at
Camp Perry, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials acknowledged
that the placement of the dome-shaped device on the reactor is
another symbol of progress in the company’s excruciating effort to
get the plant fixed and operating again. Davis-Besse has been idle
since a refueling outage began Feb. 16, 2002. Yet without committing
themselves to a timetable, NRC officials said the process of
mounting the head is just that - symbolism. Dozens of inspections
have been scheduled through early May.
The restart timetable
could get pushed back further, depending on the result of a
week-long pressure test, tentatively planned for mid-April. It is to
show whether the bottom of the reactor leaks. But even if the
pressure test goes well, FirstEnergy still has two major projects to
complete in the reactor containment building:
w Redesigning
and rebuilding its emergency containment sump. Engineers feared the
sump could clog with debris and fail in the event of a
loss-of-coolant accident.
w Refurbishing containment air
coolers to help with climate control.
Plus, FirstEnergy is
eager for preliminary results of a work-atmosphere report that could
be a watershed event in the restart efforts. The report is being
written by Dr. Sonja Haber, a nationally known industrial
psychologist, based on 90 interviews, numerous records and on-site
observations, and a survey completed by 661 of 831
employees.
FirstEnergy officials said they hope it shows the
company is doing a better job of encouraging workers to come forward
with safety concerns, something the NRC demands before granting
restart.
A closed meeting has been scheduled for March 20 for
FirstEnergy and the NRC to hear the preliminary results, Jack Grobe,
NRC oversight panel chairman, said. He said he was not sure whether
any results would be made public prior to the finalization of the
report weeks later.
Mr. Grobe agreed that the outcome of Dr.
Haber’s analysis is an important piece of evidence but said it will
not necessarily make or break the NRC’s decision regarding the work
atmosphere issue. "This assessment being done by Dr. Haber is very
important, but it’s important to keep it in context," he
said.
Even so, the report is so important to Mr. Grobe that
he warned FirstEnergy against influencing it. "Credibility on this
is very important," he told company officials. "You folks have lost
some credibility over the last few years, and so has the
NRC."
About 100 people attended the afternoon business
session. The evening session for public comment was attended by
about 200.
Officials had little to say about a U.S.
Department of Labor whistleblower case filed Feb. 18, which skeptics
have cited as a possible example of workplace
intimidation.
In the complaint, fired engineer Andrew
Siemaszko claimed to have evidence that FirstEnergy knew as early as
1998 that Davis-Besse’s reactor head was being corroded by leaking
acid. His attorney has said he was fired because he fought
management to get that problem fixed, as well as one involving pumps
used to circulate coolant water during the plant’s normal
operation.
Amy Ryder, Ohio Citizen Action spokesman, got
little response when she raised the issue of Mr. Siemaszko’s
whistleblower complaint.
"I suggest you let that play out in
court," Lew Myers, chief operating officer of FirstEnergy’s nuclear
subsidiary, told her.
Mr. Grobe said he didn’t want the NRC
panel to talk about the Siemaszko case because it was filed with the
Labor Department, not his agency.
Also yesterday, FirstEnergy
revealed plans for humidity sensors it is installing around the
bottom of the reactor to help check for leaks while the plant is
operating. Only 12 such devices have been installed at nuclear
plants, in Canada and Europe. Davis-Besse will be the first to get
them in the United States, Craig Hengge, a FirstEnergy engineer,
said.
The device will show plant operators the moisture
content of air near 52 nozzles in the bottom of the reactor via
computer. It will compare the air trapped by insulation there to air
in other parts of the containment building, he
said.
For earlier stories on Davis-Besse, go to
www.toledoblade.com/davisbesse.
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