COLUMBUS -- "An impressive lineup of energy-company executives and politicians will converge on the southern Ohio village of Piketon today to announce plans for a multibillion-dollar nuclear power plant there. But don't expect those same forces to reassemble soon for a groundbreaking... Critics say other forms of alternative energy, such as wind and solar, are better, cheaper and faster ways than nuclear to cut down on the emissions from coal-fired plants that contribute to global warming. 'It's a ridiculously expensive way to boil water,' said Sandy Buchanan, director of Ohio Citizen Action, an environmental advocacy group," Jonathan Riskind and Alan Johnson, Columbus Dispatch.

Mar 6, 2009:

Andrew Siemaszko

TOLEDO -- "Former Davis-Besse engineer Andrew Siemaszko was sentenced Friday to three years probation and ordered to pay $4,500 in fines for his role in the Ottawa County nuclear plant's massive cover-up in the fall of 2001 that government prosecutors have called one of the most significant in the nation's nuclear history. Siemaszko was one of only two individuals convicted. Both could have received five years in prison and been fined $250,000 for each of the three felony deception charges they were convicted of 10 months apart in 2008 and 2007. Ultimately, neither got prison time. 'The only party to significantly gain was his employer, which already has paid a very large fine,' Judge David Katz of U.S. District Court in Toledo said before sentencing Siemaszko. FirstEnergy Corp., the nuclear plant's owner-operator, has paid a record $33.5 million in fines to settle civil and criminal probes that were undertaken after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was talked out of executing an emergency shutdown order it had prepared for Davis-Besse in the fall of 2001," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade. Published February 7.

Jan 30, 2009: Atomic Weight: Balancing the risks and rewards of a power source

TOLEDO -- "On Feb. 16, 2002, the nuclear power plant called Davis–Besse on the shores of Lake Erie near Toledo, Ohio, shut down. On inspection, a pineapple-size section on the 6.63-inch- (16.84-centimeter-) thick carbon steel lid that holds in the pressurized, fission-heated water in the site's sole reactor had been entirely eaten away by boric acid formed from a leak. The only thing standing between the escape of nuclear steam and a possible chain of events leading to a meltdown was an internal liner of stainless steel just three sixteenths of an inch (0.48 centimeter) thick that had slowly bent out about an eighth of an inch (0.32 centimeter) into the cavity due to the constant 2,200 pound-per–square-inch (155-kilogram-per-square-centimeter) pressure," David Biello, Scientific American.

Jan 9, 2009: Conviction upheld for Davis-Besse nuclear engineer

Andrew Siemaszko and his wife, Sandra, leave federal court. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. (The Blade/Dave Zapotosky)

TOLEDO -- "Two proceedings will be held this week for the pair of former Davis-Besse engineers convicted of covering up vital information about the Ottawa County nuclear plant weeks before its old reactor head nearly blew apart in 2002. The first will be at 9:30 a.m. today, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board starts hearing whether David Geisen should be allowed to resume work in the nuclear industry before his five-year ban from employment in it expires in January, 2011. On Thursday, Geisen's convicted co-conspirator, Andrew Siemaszko, will be in a Toledo courtroom asking Judge David Katz of U.S. District Court for an acquittal or new trial," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

The containment tower at Davis-Besse

Aug 21:

Andrew Siemaszko

OAK HARBOR-- "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday said it has authorized Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to generate more power at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant. It's another sign the plant has made amends with the government and come back from the troubles that nearly crippled it for good six years ago. The authorization for a 1.6 percent increase in capacity will allow Davis-Besse to produce enough power for about 12,000 more homes," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

TOLEDO -- "The sentencing of former Davis-Besse engineer David Geisen has been postponed to May 1. It had been set for April 17. Geisen, of DePere, Wis., was convicted Oct. 30 in U.S. District Court in Toledo on three of five counts of deception in a case that centered around the roles he and two others were accused of having in a cover-up at FirstEnergy Corp.’s Davis-Besse nuclear plant nearly seven years ago... Prosecutors allege the cover-up kept the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from finding out that Davis-Besse’s old reactor head was about to burst and cause radioactive steam to form, endangering northern Ohio," Toledo Blade.

Davis-Besse's turbine generator

TOLEDO -- "Kudos to Davis-Besse: Just yesterday, it seemed, I was in Washington hearing Harold Denton describe the 2002 near-rupture of Davis-Besse's old reactor head as 'the second-most important event in the history of [U.S.] nuclear safety.' Harold who? He was Jimmy Carter's right-hand man from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Three Mile Island saga in 1979... FirstEnergy Corp., to its credit, is trying to make us forget about both events with more than corporate spin," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade. Published January 13.

graphic by Union of Concerned Scientists

OAK HARBOR -- "Radioactive coolant water seeped from a pipe in the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant's containment area Friday morning as an old weld was being reinforced with a metal overlay, FirstEnergy Corp. and federal officials said yesterday.... The Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group based in Cambridge, Mass., said in a briefing issued by its Washington office yesterday that the repair at Davis-Besse could be 'relatively simple' if the lone discovered crack turns out to be the plant's only one. 'If not, the repairs and risk implications grow larger,' according to the paper, written by David Lochbaum, a former nuclear safety engineer and the group's nuclear safety project director," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Issue Brief: Davis-Besse’s leaking decay heat removal line, Davis Lochbaum, Director, Nuclear Safety Project, Union of Concerned Scientists. 237 KB pdf.

Dec 31: Scheduled shutdown starts for Davis-Besse
Refueling, repairs set for nuke plant

OAK HARBOR -- "The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant yesterday was shut down for a scheduled refueling and to fix welds that federal regulators said were prone to leaking... In March, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered Davis-Besse and 39 other nuclear plants to fix leak-prone welds in their reactor coolant systems by the end of 2007. Welds in those reactors have certain metal alloys, known as Alloy 82 and Alloy 182, that have been susceptible to stress fractures," Mike Sigov, Toledo Blade.

Dec 27: Trial is postponed in Davis-Besse case
Engineer is 3rd accused of cover-up

Andrew Siemaszko

The radioactive waste dumping site at Barnwell, S.C., appears to be set on turning other states away by July. (Associated Press)

TOLEDO -- "Michigan and Ohio are among 36 states that will have a greater buildup of radioactive waste after July 1 if a South Carolina landfill follows through with its plans to start turning them away... Low-level radioactive waste runs the gamut from medical clothing to nuclear tubing, virtually everything with radiation other than spent fuel that's been pulled from reactor cores of nuclear plants such as FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse in Ottawa County and DTE Energy's Fermi 2 in Monroe County," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade. Published December 16.

Dec 12: How risky is the new era of nuclear power?
Plants inspected less frequently



WASHINGTON, DC -- "In the most serious episode involving a U.S. nuclear plant since Three Mile Island, the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio was shut down from 2002 to 2004 after the NRC failed to spot what it acknowledges were early signs of trouble. An acid leak through the reactor vessel's lid left a quarter-inch-thick steel veneer, according to NRC reports. Because emergency pumps also were faulty, core-cooling water leaking through the ruptured lid could have led to a meltdown. The NRC identified the leak in fall 2001 but let the plant keep operating. An NRC Inspector General's report in 2002 found the agency's willingness to keep the plant running 'was driven in large part by a desire to lessen the financial impact on (plant operator FirstEnergy) that would result from an early shutdown,'" Paul Davidson, USA Today.

REPORT: Nuclear Power in a Warming World, Union of Concerned Scientists.

Dec 10: FirstEnergy drops insurance claim
$200M sought for reactor-head damage

TOLEDO -- "FirstEnergy Corp. has quietly dropped its $200 million insurance claim for damage to Davis-Besse's old reactor head, offering no explanation beyond a statement in which a spokesman said it was 'the best course of action for the company.' Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited, with which FirstEnergy had been in arbitration for a year, was notified Wednesday. 'The arbitration process has stopped,' Todd Schneider, FirstEnergy spokesman, said last night. The claim represented less than a third of the estimated $650 million that FirstEnergy lost between 2002 and 2004, during the time Davis-Besse was idle," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade. Published December 8.

Dec 7: Reversal is sought in Davis-Besse case
Attorneys call engineer a 'scapegoat'

TOLEDO -- "Richard Hibey and Andrew Wise contend their client deserves a new trial if he is not acquitted by Judge David Katz, who presided over the three-week jury trial in U.S. District Court in Toledo. Their request is explained in a 37-page brief that was posted in the court's electronic filing system last week. It claims the government proved Geisen was not involved in drafting and preparing the three serial letters to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that were the basis for his conviction," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

Nov 30: Perry nuke plant checked for reason for shutdown

The control room at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant.

NORTH PERRY -- "A water system problem caused an automatic shutdown of a nuclear power plant Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the plant said. The Perry Nuclear Power Plant, located alongside Lake Erie about 35 miles northeast of Cleveland, shut down about 7:30 a.m. when problems with the system that provides water to the reactor malfunctioned, said spokeswoman Jennifer Young. Water level inside the reactor was adequately maintained, but the plant remained off-line Wednesday evening,” Young said," Associated Press.

Siemaszko

COLUMBUS -- "The debate over how Ohio will control your electric bill for years to come is fueled by green. The state's three largest power companies have doled out a quarter of a million dollars in campaign contributions to legislators and state political funds this year even though nobody's up for election... 'We participate in the political process, as a lot of companies do, and particularly related to issues that are important to our company and our shareholders and customers and employees,' said Ellen Raines, FirstEnergy's public-relations director. 'The energy policy in Ohio is certainly one of those issues,'" Mark Rollenhagen, Cleveland Plain Dealer. Published November 4.

Geisen, left, and Cook.

Judge David Katz

COLUMBUS -- "A new plan to set future electric rates in the state, keeping northern Ohio’s high rates, was unveiled yesterday in the Ohio Senate. The plan, supported by Democratic Gov. Ted Stickland and Ohio Senate Republicans, would lock in the rates customers are paying for the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant and other utility investments in power-generating stations that otherwise would expire next year," Jim Provance, Toledo Blade.

Siemaszko

Steven Moffitt

TOLEDO -- "A quick Davis-Besse recap: Six months before the plant's historic shutdown on Feb. 16, 2002 - long before news broke about the horrible state of its old reactor head - FirstEnergy Corp. put in an order for a new head, a $200 million part. That had never been done before in U.S. nuclear history. The utility said it was tired of worrying about cracked reactor-head nozzles, the original focus. It said it was just as blown away, bad pun intended, as everyone about the much more serious issue of acid burning through all but a fraction of the lid and nearly allowing radioactive steam to form," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

David Geisen, Rodney Cook and Andrew Siemaszko face up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines if convicted.

AKRON -- "How important are electric rates to a business? It would take a day to count the ways. More than 200 people, from business owners and executives to economists and engineers, attended the second Northern Ohio Energy Management Conference at the John S. Knight Convention Center in Akron on Wednesday... But the common thread throughout the event was the question of what will happen to electric rates on Jan. 1, 2009. That's when rate plans for three of Ohio's four investor-owned utilities including Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. are set to expire," Paula Schleis, Akron Beacon Journal.

COLUMBUS -- "Mr. Strickland is expected to begin the debate any day now as Ohio faces a deadline of Jan. 1, 2009, the date that, absent any legislative action, would send Ohio consumers into an electricity market where competition hasn't developed. Rather than the promised bargains, consumers in other states like Maryland and Illinois who got to the market early found sticker shock. 'If we do nothing, I think we'll have a chaotic, intolerable set of circumstances that will lead to a lack of predictability, most likely an exploding cost to consumers and industrial users of electricity,' Mr. Strickland said. 'It will be a very volatile situation that introduces unaccept-able uncertainty into our state's economy,'" Jim Provance, Toledo Blade.

"I'm disappointed in [FirstEnergy's] actions," said NRC Deputy Executive Director William Kane.

Acid eroded a reactor head at the Davis-Besse plant so much that the plant was shut down in 2002.

Anthony Alexander, FirstEnergy's chief operating officer and top official.

Davis-Besse reactor vessel head insulation showing the damage caused by boric acid. (NRC photo)

Corrosion in the reactor lid at Davis-Besse.

Mar 22: 3 Davis-Besse ex-staffers get a deadline to bargain pleas

TOLEDO -- "Three former Davis-Besse workers blamed by federal prosecutors for one of the nuclear industry's biggest coverups have until April 9 to negotiate plea deals... The trio - former FirstEnergy Corp. engineers Andrew Siemaszko and David Geisen, plus outside contractor Rodney N. Cook - are accused of lying to the government about the plant's dangerous condition in the fall of 2001. They face five years in prison and $250,000 in fines if convicted," Toledo Blade.

Mar 13: Besse among plants obliged to fix welds
Federal regulator names 40 facilities

TOLEDO -- "Forty of America's 103 nuclear plants, including FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse station in Ottawa County, will be required by the end of 2007 to fix welds in their reactor coolant systems that are prone to leaking, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said yesterday. Welds in those reactors have certain metal alloy materials, known as Alloy 82 and Alloy 182, that have been susceptible to stress fractures," Toledo Blade.

Mar 12: Judge orders separate trials in Davis-Besse case

TOLEDO -- "A federal judge in Toledo yesterday ordered two trials in the criminal case against a pair of former Davis-Besse engineers and an outside contractor indicted in 2006 on charges of lying to the government about the plant’s dangerous condition in the fall of 2001. U.S. District Court Judge David Katz agreed with the defendants that they can’t get a fair trial if all three are tried at once. Defendant Andrew Siemaszko has made statements against the other two defendants, David Geisen and Rodney N. Cook, and vice versa," Toledo Blade. Article originally published March 10, 2007.

TOLEDO -- FirstEnergy recommits to annual assessments, Toledo Blade. Article originally published March 10, 2007.

Mar 8: Davis-Besse seeks looser oversight

TOLEDO -- "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission - a federal agency long accused of being too soft on the nuclear industry - is deliberating whether to back down from the No. 1 stipulation it gave FirstEnergy Corp. to resume operation of its Davis-Besse nuclear plant in March, 2004: Bringing in outside evaluators once a year... 'It's unbelievable the company would make that request, and it's just as unbelievable the NRC would even consider it,' said David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former nuclear industry employee," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

Jan 25: Improvements at Davis-Besse given spotlight at NRC meeting

AKRON -- "For once, Davis-Besse isn't FirstEnergy Corp.'s headache. Yesterday the beleaguered Ottawa County nuclear plant shone as the star of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. during a 3 1/2-hour meeting of utility executives and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NRC officials heard how outside evaluators, many hired with the government agency's approval, have documented improvements in both Davis-Besse's overall worker morale as well as the performance of its engineers and operators," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

Jan 12: Besse defendants to argue for 2 trials
Magistrate cites complex evidence

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "Mr. Siemaszko, Mr. Geisen, and Mr. Cook are accused of jeopardizing northern Ohio's safety by lying about Davis-Besse's old reactor head when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was debating whether the plant was too dangerous to keep operating in the fall of 2001... The trio is named in a criminal indictment . The government fined FirstEnergy Corp. $28 million - the largest fine in U.S. nuclear history - for its corporate role in covering up evidence," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.

Jan 2, 2007: Feds alter timetable for trial in reactor case
Davis-Besse trio charged with lying

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "Mr. Siemaszko has been held up as a whistle-blower by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Ohio Citizen Action. Both groups maintain that he is being punished for trying to shed light on Davis-Besse's problems. In September, Mr. Siemaszko sued FirstEnergy for wrongful termination and breach of contract in Ottawa County Commons Pleas Court. That case also is pending," Tom Henry, Toledo Blade.