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Local
Companies | Article published December 13, 2002
NRC chairman to step down in March
Meserve criticized for mishandling acid corrosion leak at
Davis-Besse
By TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF
WRITER
WASHINGTON - Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Chairman Richard Meserve, who has come under heavy criticism for his
agency’s admitted mishandling of acid corrosion at the Davis-Besse
nuclear plant near Oak Harbor, announced yesterday that he will step
down in March.
Dr. Meserve, nominated by President Clinton
and confirmed by the Senate in 1999, is leaving to become president
of the Carnegie Institution, a prominent research center in
Washington, where he has been a board member for 10 years. He will
leave with more than a year left on his term, which does not expire
until June 30, 2004. President Bush will nominate a successor, with
his choice subject to Senate confirmation.
In a statement to
NRC staffers that was posted on the agency’s Web site, Dr. Meserve
highlighted his accomplishments, praised the staff’s attention to
safety, and described the NRC as "the most capable and effective
agency in government."
Not a word was said by Dr. Meserve
about one of the most embarrassing problems in U.S. nuclear history
occurring on his watch: The unprecedented corrosion at FirstEnergy
Corp.’s Davis-Besse nuclear plant. Boric acid leaking from the
massive reactor head was left unchecked for years, eating a
half-foot hole through six inches of carbon steel. Dr. Meserve
acknowledged last month that Davis-Besse’s problems are more than
simple rust. In an Atlanta speech, he said Davis-Besse was a "direct
result of a degraded safety culture" at FirstEnergy and that the NRC
"must acknowledge its own shortcomings in connection with this
event."
One of the nation’s top nuclear watchdogs, David
Lochbaum, told The Blade last night that Dr. Meserve telephoned him
about his decision and jokingly told him that he "wouldn’t have [Dr.
Meserve] to kick around anymore." Mr. Lochbaum is a nuclear safety
engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists and has criticized
the NRC of being an agency that "has a brain but no spine" because
it recognizes problems but does not have the fortitude to take
action.
Mr. Lochbaum said the criticism was reinforced by
what happened at Davis-Besse in the fall, when staff-level NRC
officials had a hunch something was amiss and drafted what would
have been the government’s first emergency shutdown order of a
nuclear plant since 1987. Senior-level NRC management nixed the
staff recommendation for a Dec. 31 shutdown at Davis-Besse after
hearing FirstEnergy’s objections. The two sides agreed to a Feb. 16
compromise. The plant had been slated to close March
30.
"Clearly, the agency is capable but unwilling to enforce
its own regulations. Davis-Besse is the most glaring example and
that happened on Chairman Meserve’s watch," said Paul Gunter of the
Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington. "That’s not
something to be proud of."
"My feeling is the NRC was lulled
to sleep at the switch," U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said
last night. "I think his decision comes rather curiously,
particularly now [because] his term has not expired. To me, the
problems that the NRC missed at Davis-Besse have called into
question the whole industry’s performance."
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