ML20101C094
| ML20101C094 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Neely Research Reactor |
| Issue date: | 03/08/1996 |
| From: | Carroll G GEORGIANS AGAINST NUCLEAR ENERGY |
| To: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| References | |
| CON-#196-17513 95-704-01-REN, 95-704-1-REN, REN, NUDOCS 9603150257 | |
| Download: ML20101C094 (12) | |
Text
/ u..,,
( /?'5/3 1
- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DOCKETED USNRC NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Before Administrative Judges:
Charles Bechhoefer, Chairman OFFICE OF SECRETARY DOCKETING & SERVICE Dr. Jerry R. Kline BRANCH Dr. Peter S. Lam Docket No. 50-160-Ren In the Matter of ASLBP No. 95-704-01-Ren GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH REACTOR l
Atlanta, Georgia Facility License No. R-97 GEGRGIANS AGAINST NUCLEAR ENERGY MOTION TO COMPEL THE NRC TO RELEASE REBECCA LONG'S DOCUMENTS CONCERNING GANE'S CONTENTION THAT MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AT THE GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH REACTOR ARE SO BAD THAT LICENSE RENEWAL MUST BE DENIED TO PROTECT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF THE PUBLIC Georgians Against Nuclear Energy (GANE) respectfully submits this request to compel the NRC staff to fulfill GANE's request for information pertaining to our contention that management problems at the Neely Nuclear Reactor Center are so serious that safety of the public cannot be assured. The documents GANE is interested in compelling the NRC to provide, in particular, are the documents related to Rebecca Long, NRC Region II Inspector. This request was originally made on June 5, 1995, in request #83 to the NRC:
- 83. All records, reports, correspondence, internal memoranda, and other authored by, submitted by, signed by, pertaining to NRC Region II Inspector Rebecca Long as relates to the Neely j Nuclear Research Center !
J In the NRC's response to our request for production of documents, l dated July 7, 1995, the NRC staff objected to GANE's request and was unable to see the relevance of GANE's request. GANE maintains that the !
9603150257 960308 PDR ADOCK 05000160 '
O PDR YOOh 1
.. . - . _-.- - _ - _ . ~ -_- - -. . _ . - -
1 sc , ,
pertinence of Rebecca Long's experience inspecting the Georgia Tech
! Research Reactor to our contention concerning management problems at i the reactor is obvious.
GANE attaches the recent article from Time which evidences collusion between the NRC and its licensees. GANE needs to see the entirety of documents subpoenaed from Ms. Long in response to GANE's discovery
- request to establish whether such regulator collusion has operated )
! with Georgia Tech. Ms. Long has alluded (see the newspaper articles l attached to our discovery response) to a " good old boy network" which I has covered up safety problems at Georgia Tech. GANE seeks to discover whether a serious situation of mismanagement and uninvestigated safety issues threatens the health and safety of the Atlanta population surrounding the reactor.
GANE looks forward to a rapid and favorable response from the NRC releasing the important Rebecca Long documents for our review.
Respectfully submitted, enn Carroll Representative for GANE Dated and signed March 8, 1996 in Decatur, Georgia l
i i
l l
l l
I 1
4 .* ,.. ' "
y ? .,
. k p .
~
1 5". ~4
. .l
$ .Y !
- et ' ' .
.J 7L p; , z y' ' '
j
$ T~ . ... . ~I a
i, -
BLOWING )3 THEWH STLE
- i ON NUCl. EAR ?
i.
%y m:n
,,, c f.f.
7- -
~
SAFETY' Howashowdownata powerplantexposed
- 4 g
- j -
thefederalgovernment's oi
?!
i m
?
s failuretoenforce .
iii itsown rules n:
~l .
o l .l
~
- ,I;) k .1 ;; ;-
} [
., .. j i . g l -
, *.. =
~ :$ q Q. .
> cg$;, ,,yA J .
}(Lf 4
, A
/
')
PNUCLEART 1
~
F I
t .
l er. -
r l ?
g,
/
- c. = ;. - >
d h ' . , - >
'r cf
,/
l-n -
4
!! I ,
- k. - -
i
?
^
!! E $ t' ...
l
y
e; ,> ,
7 .s ..- .
1 ok g ~g ?.
..; ..n k ;:
J
(
' f ^
c
,,,,,,,w~ e
... r I
} L . p . -j -nf' ,rj
- '\ , L .;-) - E,'- '
- ;.,.- . . ,a - .
L __ ___ __ _ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _____ _ _ _ . _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __. -
+,p$nW a g@ mh W^
m x:my s~ sa%
ma B U S I N E S S
, q %e{n ^7
- a m g p - ,, ,
k \
J s J ( .3y I.I Y 1
. (i _ w s taw e 5
'A"p-f" f1 9 C.
W Q:' \ b
~@#d ' ,S
.y ;wl n
"h3 ,'.4 W 1.
l WN 1h &
$c q
- cd h 1 - .
.i sA (d M.M, AOg %dh 1,gMfi'Y.-
Q p .3 f/ 4 a +::She mfg 3 E' ) . llMO.i N h[fts[.)j am
' j' . Y- Tldt Y kf p
M d 9 yi TiiMN Mj ii@d u 4 a m~ q w 5 $I . w% p@b 1J:Qy .d :
.AjfS)'
w 4
.< v n
.x g
? Twogutsyengineersin Connecticut havecaughtthe NuclearRegulatory Commission atadangemusgame that it has played for yeam: routinely waiving safety rules to let plants keep costsdown and stayonline cEORCC BETANCOURT LOOKED UP FROM HIS DESK AS George Galatis burst into the office, a bundle of pa-i a pers under his arm. On that morning in March 1992, W the two men-both senior engineers at Northeast
, Utilities, which operates five nuclear plants in New England-were colleagues but not yet friends. Apart from their jobs and first names, they seemed to have lit-tle in common. Betancourt,45, was extravagantly rebellious-beard, biker boots, ponytail sneaking out the back of his baseball cap-while Galatis,42, was square-jawed and devout: Mr. Smith Goes Nuclear. But Galatis respected Betancourt's expertise and knew he could count on him for straight answers.
On this day, Galatis wanted to know about a routine refueling oper- i ation at the Millstone Unit 1 nuclear plant in Waterford, Connecticut. I Every 18 months the reactor is shut down so the fuel rods that make I up its core can be replaced; the old rods, radioactive and 250'F hot, are moved into a 40-ft.-deep body of water called the spent-fuel pool, where they are placed in racks alongside thousands ofother, older rods. Because the Federal Government has never created a storage site for high-level 4
radioactive waste, fuel pools in nuclear plants across the country have become de facto nuclear dumps-with many filled nearly to capacity. The l pools weren't designed for this purpose, and risk is involved: the rods l must be submerged at all times. A cooling system must dissipate the in- i tense heat they give off. If the system failed, the pool could boil, tuming )
the plant into a lethal sauna filled with clouds of radioa:tive steam. And l if earthquake, human error or mechanical failure drained the pool, the j result could be catastrophic: a meltdown of multiple cores aking place l outside the reactor containment, releasing massive amounts of radiation l and rendering hundreds of square miles uninhabitable.
To minimize the risk, federal guidelines require that some older plants like Millstone, without state-of-the-art cooling systems, move i only one-third of the rods into the pool under normal conditions. But i Galatis realized that Millstone was routinely performing " full-core off- I loads," dumping all the hot fuel into the pool. His question for Betan-court was, "How long has this been going on?
l Photograon 'or TIME by Karen Kuenn.-Marna p i
! l 1
4 .
BUSINESS Betancourt thought for a minute.
"We've been moving full cores since before I got here," he said, "since the early "70s." @@M Refueling bridge
- 1. The plant is shut down, and the reactor vesselis "But it's an emergency procedure -
"I know," Betancourt said. "And we do g flooded with water. After cool-down. techmcians open gates between the vessel and the refueling canal, which leads to the spent-fuel pool, the 40-ft.
it all the time " What's more, Millstone I was _
deep,30-ft. by 25-ft. bcdy of water where ignoring the mandated 250-hr. cool-down -
spentfuelis stored.
period before a full off-load, sometimes moving the fueljust 63 hrs. after shutdown, g Refueling cana a violation that had melted the boots of a M, y' .
worker on thejob. By sidestepping the safe- pp{
ty requirements, Millstone saved about two weeks of downtime for each refueling-dur-yW- -
1 v
g 1 df. A _ ,
ing which Northeast Utilities has to pay . Spent-fuel pool -
$500,000 a day for replacement power.
Galatis then flipped through a safety gK ~ N7 report in which Northeast was required to f
demonstrate to the Nuclear Regulatory N" 3 ,
fJ 'a Commission that the plant's network of N '
ll cooling systems would function even if the .
F F pA ,
l most important one failed. Instead, the Reactor ,
l company had analyzed the loss of a far less vessel critical system. The report was worthless, the NRC hadn't noticed, and the conse- ..# '
quences could be dire. If Millstone lost its ,
primary cooling system while the full core 2. Working from the refueling bndge, technicians use a was in the pool, Galatis told Betancourt, crane to reach into the vessel and grasp a fuel assembly-a .
the backup systems might not handle the bundle of 62 rods-and pull it through the water into the pool.
it is placed in a rack with other spent-fuel rods.
, heat. "The pool could boil," he said. "We'd
- better report this to the NRC now." 3. The process is repeated for each of the 580 fuel assemblies. When the plant is ready to resume Betancourt saw that Galatis was right. operation, two-thirds of the rods are returned to the core along with 190 fresh assemblies. The rest are "But you do that," he said, "and you're stored in the pool for future disposal. .
dogmeat." * * " "
- Galatis knew what he meant. Once a moving to stop it. The N RC says the practice blind eye, the question arises, How safe are leading nuclear utility, Northeast had is common, and safe-if a plant's cooling America's nuclear plants?
- earned a reputation as a rogue-cutting system is designed to handle the heat load.
corners and, according to critics, harass- But Millstone's wasn't. And when Galatis THoucH THE NRC's MISSION ST/.TEMENT ing and firing employees who raised safe- learned that plants in Delaware, Nebraska promisesfullaccountability "nuclearreg-ty concerns. But if Gala'is wanted to take and New Jersey had similar fuel-pool trou- ulation is the public's business," it says-on the issue, Betancourt told him, "I'll bles, he realized the NRC was sitting on a the agency's top officials at first refused to back you." nationwide problem. be interviewed by TIM E. After repeated re-So began a three-year battle in which Ten years after the disastrous uncon- quests, Chairwoman Shirley Ann Jackson, a physics professor who was appointed by Q If Millstone lost its primary cooling Od*L'in"t d s'Je***h'io't 4
a system, Galatis told Betancourt, "the pool charge of the agency's day-to-day opera-tiens,executived1recterJamesM.Taxier, would provide only written answers to could boil. We'd better renart E- - this to the NRC."
w m - d a=e * =
, "'Ihe responsibilty for safety rests with "Do that," Betancourt said, "and you're dogmeat" t"dM'!di E3': ,
auditing agency." Jacks <m argued that her c
Galatis tried to fix what he considered an tained meltdown at Chernobyl,17 years af- agency is tough "WNn we catch prob-obvious safety problem at Millstone 1. For ter the partial meltdown at Three Mile 1s- lems, it never makts the papers"-but 18 months his supervisors denied the prob- land, most Americans probably give only added that with 3,000 employees and just
- lem existed and refused to report it to the passing thought to the issue of nuclear safe- four inspectors for every three plants, "we i NRC, the federal agency charged with en- ty. But the story of George Galatis and Mill- have to focus on the issues with the greatest suring the safety of America's 110 commer- stone suggests that the NRC itself may be safety significance. We can miss things."
cial reactors. Northeast brought in outside giving only passing thought to the issue- In fact, Millstone is merely the latest in consultants to prove Galatis wrong, but that it may be more concerned with prop- a long string of cases in which the NRC bun-they ended up agreeing with him. Finally, ping up an embattled, economically strait- gled its mandate and overlooked serious
] he took the case to the N RC himself, only to ened industry than with ensuring public safety problems until whistle blowers came discover that officials there had known safety. When a nuclear plant violates safety forward (see box). The NRC's relationship about the procedure for a decade without standards and the federal watchdog turns a with the industry has been suspect since 48 TIME. MARCH 4.1996 a
I
)
l i
=
f 5
l i
\y . ,-
.i t
l p. , . - ,
I
~ v- _4
_\ ,. m ,. =: \' :
' l l ,
- m WWh ,g I ' . .ALARA #
l CAUTION f i
l 4.4s 4.4 a s C.-
! crne m# ^"
! . DO S I-i
...aw!P***
I i
~~
l 1974, when the agency rose from the ashes Institute, the industry's p.r. unit. " Industry- DE FACTO DUMP: Millstone Unit l's spent-of the old Atomic Energy Commission, wide, our safety record is improving. But fuel pool now holds 3,000 used assemblies i whose mandate was to promote nuclear NRC creates so many layers of regulation have been mothballed in the past decade. l
, power. The industry vetoes commission that every plant is virtually assured of being For now. however. nuclear power pro- 1 i nominees it deems too hostile (two of five in noncompliance with something." vides 20% of the electricity consumed in NRc seats are vacant), and agency officials The NRC suggested as much in a 1985 the U.S.; New England depends on nuclear enjoy a revohing door to good jobs at nu- agency directive on " enforcement discre- plants for more than half its supply. Iong-I clear companies such as Northeast. "The tion," which allowed the agency to set term, says Northeast senior sice president fox is guarding the henhouse," says aside hundreds of its own safety regula- Donald Miller, Millstone and her sisters Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, who is tions. Since 1990, Millstone has received 15 will survive only "if we start running them pushing legislation to create an indepen- such waivers-more than any other nu- like a business (and} stop throwing money dent nuclear safety board outside the NRc. clear station. In November, Jackson scaled at issues." New England's largest power The Democrat, who is aho calling for a fed- back the policy, but she says this never en- company, with $6.5 billion in assets and !
dangered public safety. Others disagree. $3.7 billion in revenues last year, North-eral investigation of NRC effectiveness, be-
" Discretionary enforcement was out of east is slashing its nuclear work force of f lieves the agency "has failed the public."
It all comes back to money. "When a hand," says NRC Reting Inspector General 3,000 employees by one. third over the 1 4
safety issue is too expensive for the indus- Leo Norton, who investigates agency next five years. Company CEO Bernard Fox l says the move will not undermine safety.
j try, the NRC pencils it away," Says Stephen wrongdoing but has no power to punish.
Comley, executive director of a whistle- "We shouldn't have regulations on the i blower support group called We the Peo- books and then ignore or wink at them." cEORC2 CALATis wENT TO WORK AT NORTH- !
ple, which has brought many agency fail- Yet the tensions between cost and east Utilities in June 1952 with a degree ures to light. "If the NRC enforced all its safety can only increase as deregulation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and l rules, some of the plants we've studied of the nation's utilities ushers in a new era experience with a top manufacturer of nu- ;
couldn't compete economically." of rate-slashing competition. In some clear components. At Northeast, he started !
In a rare point of agreement with ac- states, consumers will soon choose their in the disision that oversees the utility's 15 l tivists, the nuclear industry also says regu- electric company the way they now fossil-fuel plants, then moved to the nu- i lations threaten to drive some plants out of choose a long-distance telephone carrier. clear group, specializmz in performance business, but it argues that man NRC rules Companies %ith nuclear plants are at a and reliability. Eric DeBarba, Northeast's boost costs without enhancing safety. "The disadvantage because nuclear-generated vice president of technical services, de.
regulatory system hasn't kept pace with ad- electricity can cost twice as much as fos- scribes him as a solid engineer. "Nobody vances in technology," says Steve Ungles- sil-generated power. No new plants have here ever questioned his honesty or mo-bee, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy been ordered in 18 years, and a dozen tives," DeBarba says. l TIME, MARCH 4,IW6 49
l 1
' l il U S I N E S S Galatis tells it differently. In t March 1992 he began working on { drain channelinnext justto20 the min. from fuel pool. a water If the Millstone 1, one of three nuclear i gate between the channel and the plants perched on a neck ofland th t ] pool had been open, the pool could' juts into long Island Sound from the j have drained, exposing the rods and shore of southeastern Connecticut. causing a meltdown. Says Loch-He was checking specifications for a baum:"It was a near miss."
replacement part for a heat exchang- The NRCinsiststhatthe chance of er in the spent-fuel cooling system. such an accident is infinitesimal. But To order the proper part, he needed .
the agency's risk-assessment meth-to know the heat load. So he pulled a ods have been called overly opti-safety report that should contain the 7 mistic by activists, engineers and at relevant data. -3 least one NRC commissioner. The But they weren't there. '
agency's analysis for a fuel-pool "The report didn't contain the y drainage accident assumes that at safety analysis for what we were do-most one-third of a core is in the pool, ing," says Calatis. "No heat-load cal- even though plants across the country culations."It was then he realized the & routinely move full cores into pools plant had been routinely operating A. crowded with older cores. If the NRC "beyond design basis," putting 23 . based its calculations on that sce-million eTus into a pocl analyzed for nano, says lochbaum, "it would ex-8 million, which is, he says, "a bit like # 4 ceed the radiation-dose limits set by running your car at 5,000 r.p.m."
Galatis raised the issue with (1 [A ? 6 fd Congress and scare people to death.
But the r RC won't do it." The NRC's members of Northeast's division of % Taylor tom TIME that the agency an-
, nuclear licensing. "They tried to con- dM alyzes dose rates at the time a plant j vince me they had it analyzed," he j' opens-when its pool is empty. The says. He asked them to produce the law, he said,"does not contain a pro-documents, and they could not. sEno EW hast's DeBarba says Mnows nothing vision for rereview."
Galatis sensed trouble when, in later about Galatis' being harassed for raising safety Issues I chbaumand Prevattereported talks, "they began denying that the first dis- gy Department announced that a perma. Susquehanna to the NRC and suggested im-cussions had taken place " In June 1992 he nent facility planned for Yucca Mountain, provements to its cooling system.The NRC, spelled out the problem in a memo, calling Nevada, wouldn't be ready until 2010; En- Lochbaum says, didn't read the full report.
the fuel pool a license violation and an "un- ergy Secretary Hazel O' Leary now puts its He and Prevatte called Congress mem-reviewed safety question"-NRC lingo for a chances of opening at no better than fifty- bers, pushed for a public hearing and pre-major regulatory headache-and adding fifty. Bills to create temporary sites are sented their concerns to NRC staff. Con-other concerns he had found, such as the stalled in both houses of Congress. ceding that Lochbaum and Prevatte "had fact that some of the pool's cooling pipes " Slowly, we woke up to this problem," some valid points," the agency launched a weren't designed to withstand an earth- says Betancourt. The NRC relaxed standards task force and in 1993 issued an informa-quake, as they were required to do. North- and granted license amendments that al- tional notice to the 35 U.S. reactors that east sat on the memo for three months, un- lowed plants to "rerack" their rods in ever share Susquehanna's design, alerting them til Galatis filed an internal notice-of- more tightly packed pools. Sandwiched be- to the problem but requiring no action.
violation form, and Betancourt, a leader in tween the rods is a neutron-absorbing ma- One of the plants was Millstone 1.
the spent-fuel field for years, wrote a terial called Boraflex that helps keep them memo backing him up. from " going critical." After fuel poo's across IN 1992, GAIATIs DIDN'T KNOW ABOITr "When I started in the industry, 20 the country were filled in this way, the in- Lochbaum's struggle to get fuel-pool prob-years ago," Betancourt says, " spent fuel dustry discovered that radiation causes lems taken seriously. He did know he was considered the ass end of the fuel cy- Boraflex to shrink and crack. 'Ihe NRC it would face resistance from Northeast, cle. No one wanted to touch it. Everyone studying the problem, but at times its offL where the bonus system is set up to reward wanted to be on the sexy side, inside the re- cials haven't bothered to analyze a poots employees who don't raise safety issues actor vessel, where the action and danger cooling capacity before granting a rerackin g that incur costs and those who compromise were. No one noticed fuel pools until we amendment. "It didn't receive the atten' ion productivity see their bonuses reduced.
started running out of room in them." that more obvious safety concerns got," says (Northeast says it has a second set of In 1982 Congress mandated that the Inspector General Norton. bonuses to reward those who raise safety is-Department of Energy begin to accept nu- Then, in late 199'2, David Lochbaum sues. Galatis never got one.)
clear waste from commercial reactors in and Don Prevatte, consultants working at " Management tells you to come for-1998. Consumers started paying into a fed- Pennsylvania Power & Light's Susquehan- ward with pmblems," says Millstone engi-eral fund meant to finance a storage site. na plant, began to analyze deficiencies in neer Al Cizek, *but actions speak louder Though the Energy Department has col- spent-fuel cooling systems. They realized than words " A Northeast official has been lected $8.3 billion, no facility has been that a problem had been sneaking up on quoted in an N RC report saying the compa-completed, in a case of NIM BY writ large, no the industry: half a dozen serious accidents ny didn't have to resolve a safety problem state wants such a site in its backyard. As at different plants had caused some water because he could " blow it by" the regula-the nation's stockpile of spent fuel reached to drain from the pools. In the worst of tors. An NRC study says the number of safe-30,000 tons, activists seized the issue as a them, at Northeast's Haddam Neck plant in ty and harassment allegations filed by way to hobble the industry, and the Ener. 1984, a seal failure caused 200,000 gal. to workers at Northeast is three times the in-50 TIME, MARCH 4.1996
W-dustry average. A disturbing internal Mill- told TIM E. " Legitimate professional differ- questioning Kacich about the apparent vi-4 stone report, presented to cEo Fox in 1991 ences of opinion." In 1977, he says, the NRC olations. In two March 1994 memos to
! and obtained by TIME, warns of a " cultural stated, "We could make the choice (of a Kacich, Partlow backed Galatis, scolded j problem" typified by chronic failure to fol- full-core off-load]ifit's 'necessary or desir- the utility for taking so long to respond to j low prxedures, hardware problems that able for operational considerations.' But him and suggested that they should reward -
- were not resolved or were forgotten, and a that does not mean that what George Galatis "for his willingness to work within the NU system ... Let him know that his management tolerant of " willful [regulato- raised was not an issue. We have rules on ry] noncompliance without justification." this, and we want to get it right." concern for safety ... is appreciated."
- The report, written by director of engineer- By October 1993, Galatis was writing to DeBarba and Kacich created another ing Mario Bonaca, changed nothing. the chief of Northeast's nuclear group, task force but did not modify the cooling "We've been working at this," says Fox,
- ie"$*NN d"" n"2"83c3t AA "We haven'talways been on top of A 1996 Northeast internal document reports that 38% of employees "do not trust their management enough to willingly a th=mgs,vy saysthe NRCysJackson."The j
raise concems [because d) a ' shoot the messenger attitude at the company. In hgll got dmpped. Hem's what I'm saying now:
M*"r*dg"$1"*f= fat The ballwillnotgetdmpped again."
d moted for raising safety concerns; in two cases, the NRC fined Northeast. In one, John Opeka, and to Fox, who was then system. Kacich began having comersa-
! Paul Blanch, who had only recently been company president. Galatis mentioned the tions with Jim Andersen, the NRC's project
{ named engineer of the year by aleading in- criminal penalties for " intentional miscon- manager for Millstone 1, about Galatis' l dustry journal, was subjected to company- duct" in dealings with the NRC. Opeka ob- concerns and how to get through the i wide harassment after he discovered that jected to Galatis' abrasive tone but hired spring 1994 off-load. Andersen, who works j some of Millstone Unit 3's safety instru- another consulting firm, which also agreed at NRC headquarters in Washington, has 4 mentation didn't work properly. with Galatis. Northeast moved on to yet an- told the inspector general that he knew all Galatis had watched that case unfold. other consultant, a retired NRc official along Millstone was off-loading its full core l
i " George knew what he was getting into," named Jim Partlow. but didn't know until June 1993 that it was
! says Blanch. "He knew Northeast would In December, during a four-hour in- a problem. Even then he did not inform his j come after him. He knew the NRC wouldn't terview that Galatis calls his " rape case - superiors. In a bow to Galatis, Millstone i protect him. And he did it anyway." because the prosecutor, he says, put the vic- modified its off-load procedure, moving all tim on trial-Partlow grilled Galatis about the rods but doing so in stages. Before the IN JANUARY 1993, GAIATIS PUSHED FOR A his " agenda" and " motives." After Galatis off-load, Northeast formally reported to meeting with Richard Kacich, Northeast's showed him the technical reports, Partlow Andersen what he'd known for months:
director of nuclear licensing. Galatis out- changed his mind about Galatis and began that Millstone might have been operating lined the pool's problems and asked '
, , outside its design basis, a condition i that must be reported within 30 days.
for a consultant, Holtec International, , i .
4
! to be brought in. Holtec agreed with d , 4 During the spring outage,a valve I Calatis that the pool was an unana- ' M.. (( j ! was accidentally left open, spilling lyzed safety question; later the con- U J : i i 12,000 gal. of reactor-coolant water-sultant warned that a loss of primary I a blunder that further shook Galatis' i cooling could result in the pool's heat- j faith. He began to see problems al-ing up to 216*F-a nice slow boil. '@ g most everywhere he looked and Galatis sent a memo to DeBarba, proposed the creation of a global-then vice president of nuclear engi- -
issues task force to find out whether neering, in May 1993. Galatis was Millstone was safe enough to go back threatening to go to the NRC, so De- online. His bosses agreed. But when i Barba created a task force to address s the head of the task force left for a golf
" George's issues," as they were be- +- vacation a fewweeks before the plant coming known. The aim seems to was scheduled to start up, Galatis have been to appease Galatis and says, he knew it wasn't a serious ef-keep him from going public. Debar- fort. So he made a call to Ernest j ba says the calculations that Holtec Hadley, the lawyer who had defend-
- and Galatis used were overly conser- ed whistle blower Blanch against vative and that experience told him Northeast two years before.
there was no problem. The pool -
i hadn't boiled, sc it wouldn't boil. If a AN EMP14YMENT AND WRONCFUL-
] problem ever developed, there termination lawyer, Hadley has i
would be plenty of time to correct it made a career of representing whis- j before it reached the crisis stage."We tie blowers, many of them from Mill-f i live and work here. Why would we stone. For 10 years he has also
! want an unsafe plant? We had inter- ENroacta:NRC C; ;.1 .Jacksonis trying to prove her worked with Stephen Comley and j nal debate on this topic," DeBarba commitment to safety- and reform an inert bureaucracy We the People. Comley, a Massachu-1 TIM E, M ARCH 4.1996 51 h
! i
! 1 1
l EUSINESS setts nursing home operator,is a i since at least 1987 but had never classic New England character, ' done anything about them. Now, solid and brusque. He founded :' to clear the way for the fall 1995 We the People in 1986 when he realized the evacuation plans for
- 9_ i off-load, NRC officials were appar-ently offering Northeast what Seabrook Station, a plant 12 h by ' A Galatis calls"petcoa&g"Om
' ,~
miles from his nursing home,in-cluded doses of iodine for those /**
t signof thiswasadraftversionofan NRc inspection report about the too old and frail to evacuate. _ spent-fuel pool that had been E-
"Some of us were expend- . mailed from the NRc to Kacich'sli-able,"says Comley. "That got me censing department. *What was going" For years he was known that doing in Northeast's files?"
for publicitystunts-hiring planes '
as ks Inspector General Norton.
to trail banners above the U.S. a On june 10,1995, Jim Ander-Capitol-and emotionaloutbursts "
3 sen visited the site to discuss at the press conferences of Galatis' concerns with Kacich's politicians. The NRc barred him ,, staff. Andersen wouldn't meet from its public meetings until a judge ordered the ban lifted. But -
W with Galatis but huddled with
, Kacich's team, trying to decide Comley's game evolved: instead of demanding that plantsbe shut COACHING STAm Comley, left, and Hadley, right, with Galatis at a how to bring Millstone public meeting last october, lent the engineer crucial support mto compliance with NBC regu-down, he began insistmg they be lations, either by requesting a li-run safely. He teamed up with the sharp- charges-a breach of confidentiality that cense amendment-a cumbersome pro-witted Hadley to aid and abet whistle the NRC calls " inadvertent." When Hadley cess that requires NRc review and public blowers and sank his life savings into We complained to him about Northeast's al- comment-or by filing an internal form up-the People before taking a dime in dona- leged harassment of Galatis, Driskill sug- dating the plant's safety reports. This was tions. Comley, says the NRC's Norton,"has gested he talk to Northeast's lawyer: "He's the easier path, but it could be used only if been usefulin bringing important issues to a really nice guy." the issue didn't constitute an unreviewed our attention. Steve can be a very intense While playing detective-sniffing safety question. Andersen told DeBarba guy. I don't think it's good for his health. through file drawers and computer directo- and Kacich that the license amendment "is But people who seem-not fanatical, but ries-Galatis found items that he felt sug- the cleaner way to go," but they weren't overly intense-help democracy work." gested collusion between the utility and its sure there was enough time to get an regulator. Safety reports made it clear that amendment approved before the next off-IN APRIL 1994, TWO YEARS AFTER HE DIS- both on-site inspectors and officials from load, scheduled for October 1995.
covered the problems with Millstone's the NRc's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regula- On July 10, Betancourt met with Ken cooling system, Galatis reported the matter tion had known about the full-core off-loads Jenison, an inspector from the NRc's Re-to the NRC. He spoke to a " senior allega-tions coordinator," waited months, then ,
reflied his charges in a letter describing 16 M D M00gO TheNuclearRegulatoryCommission'sOfficeof the problems, including the cooling system, H R ITIB00LO InspectorGeneral-awatchdogthatcaninvestigatebut the pipes that couldn't withstand seismic not punish-has looked into an array of cases in which safety problems were ignored shock, the corporate culture. "At North- by NRC staff. Some highlights:
east, people are the biggest safety prob-lem," Galatis says. "Not the guys in the en- 5 After a 1975 fire knocked out equipment at the Browns Ferry plant in Alabama, the NRC gine room. The guys who drive the boat." approved a material called Thermo-l.ag as a " fire barrier" to protect electrical systems.
Galatis told DeBarba and Kacich that Between 1082 and 1991, however, the NRC Ignored seven complaints about Thermo-he was going to the Nnc. He continued to 1.agl when an engineer testified that fire caused it to nett and give off lethal gases, the experience what he calls " subtle forms of NRC closed the case without action. After more complaints and an inspector general's harassment, retaliation and intimidation." invutigation, the NRC areassused." Now, it says, " corrective action is ongoing."
His performance evaluation was down-graded, his personnel file forwarded to s in 1980 workers at Watts Bar 1, a plant then under construction by the Tennessee Northeast's lawyers. DeBarba
- offered" to Valley Authority, flooded the NRC with some 6,000 allegations of shoddy workmanship move him out of the nuclear group. He and safety lapses-enough to halt construction for five years.The NRC breached would walk into a meeting, and the room confidentiality and identified whistle blowers such as electrical supervisor Ann Harris to would go suddenly silent. DeBarba says he the wAl several were fired. After 23 years and $7 bhilon, Watts Bar 1 was completed last is unaware of any such harassment. fall. Though workers say the WA has abandoned thorough safety inspections in favor of a With missionary zeal, Calatis contin- " random sampling" program, the NRC in February granted an operating license to Watts ued to forward allegations to the NRC. Yet Bar, the last U.S. nuclear plant scheduled for start.up.
four months passed before Calatis finally heard from Donald Driskill, an agent with B in the earfy 1980s, when Northeast Ut!!ities' Seabrook Station in New Hampshire was the NRC's Offic of Investigations (the sec- under construction, Joseph Wampler warned the NRC that many welds were faulty. His ond watchdog uit inside the N Rc, this one complaints went unanswered, and he was eventually fired. Blacklisted, he says, Wampler tracks wrongdoing by utilities). Calatis felt moved to California and revived his career. But in 1991 the NRC sent a letter summarizing that Driskill was too relaxed about the case. W. npler's allegations-and pemiding his full name and new address-to several dozen Driskill talked to Northeast about Calatis' 52 TIME MARcu .t.1996
a
]
i gion 1 office, and gave testimony in support We the People, charged that Northeast had AFTER CA1 Arts FILED ll!S PETrr!ON, ON AUG.
of Galatis' safety allegations. less than a " knowingly, willingly, and flagrantly" vio- 21, he found himself in many of New En-week later, Betancourt was called to the of- lated Millstone l's license for 20 years, that gland's newspapers. As citizens' groups ,
fice of a good-natured human-resources it had made " material false statements" to called meetings, Northeast and the Nac as- l officer named Janice Roncaioli. She com- the Nac and that it would, if not punished, sured everyone that the full-core off-load plained that he wasn't a " team player," Be- continue to operate unsafely. was a common practice that enhanced safe-tancourt says, and ran through the compa- On Aug.1, Betancourt was called into ty for maintenance workers inside the emp-ny's termination policies. Roncaioli called DeBarba's office, Roncaioli was present, ty reactor vessel. "We've been aware of how Betancourt's account of the meeting and DeBarba told Betancourt he was being they off-loaded the full core," NRC spokes- i
" slanted" but would not comment further, reassigned. "We want to help you, woman Diane Screnei told one paper. "We I citing employee-confidentiality rules. George," Betancourt recalls DeBarba say- could have stopped them earlier." j In a July 14 meeting, Jenison, one official ing, "but you've got to start thinking 'com- At a citizens' group meeting. Galatis who wasn't going to stand for any regulatory pany.'" It was all very vague and, Betan- met a mechanic named Pete Reynolds, who sleight-of-hand, told DeBarba and Kacich court thought, very intimidating. On had left Millstone in a labor dispute two that if Northeast tried to resolve its licensing Aug. 3-the day Betancourt was scheduled years before. Reynolds shared some hair-problems through internal paperwork
et" Ne
- N((d7e ApINed0"a could off-load another full core, and time Q Galatischargedthathisbosseshad
. . yy was running out. DeBarba and Kacich called on Galatis and Betancourt to help them ,
& ykn0Wingly,Wilh n dy,andflagrantly write the amendment request. The plan in-cluded, for the first time, the cooling-system V10 lated Millstone's license for 20 3vears. What l l
d d
?"ric"g.?>d,' "f ic= "y d scamd him most: the NRC had never noticed. l he felt disgusted. "The organizational ethics were appalling," he says. "Ihere's no reason to meet with the Office of Investigations- raising stories about his days off-loading i I should have had to hire a lawyer and spend Roncaioli called him to her office again. Ac- fuel. He told Calatis-and has since repeat- l years taking care of something this simple." cording to Betancourt, she said she wanted ed the account to TIME-that he saw work l So Galatis helped Kacich with the to " reaffirm the meaning" of the DeBarba crews racing to see who could move fuel amendment request, which was filed July meeting. Betancourt's wife and children rods the fastest. The competition, he said,
- 28. Then he and Hadley drew up another began to be worried that he would be fired. tripped radiation alarms and overheated l document: a petition that asked the NRc to "Why don't you just do what they want you the fuel pool. Reynolds' job was to remove deny Northeast's amendment request and to?" his eldest girl asked. Betancourt didn't the big bolts that hold the reactor head in suspend Millstone's license for 60 days. know quite how to answer. "Your own place. Sometimes, he said, he was told to re-The petition, filed on behalf of Galatis and daughter telling you to roll over," he says, move them so soon after shutdown that the heat melted his protective plastic booties.
Galatis knew that if such things had nuclear companies. His career was destroyed a second time; he now works as a happened, they would be reflected in oper-carpenter. The NRC fined Northeast $100,000 for problems with the welds. ator's logs filed in Northeast's document room. So, on Oct. 6, he appeared in the a in 1990 Northeast engineer Paul Blanch discovered that the instruments that measure room and asked for the appropriate rolls of the coolant level inside the reactor at Millstone 3 were failing. Blanch was forced out, and mictofiche. The logs backed up what the problem went uncorrected in 1993 the NRC's William Russell told the inspector Reynolds had said: Millstone had moved general that the agency had exercised " enforcement discretion " a policy that allows it to fuel as soon as 65 hrs. after shutdown-a waive regulations. Later Russe 8 said the remark had been taken out of context. quarter of the required time.The logs noted the sounding of alarms. Galatis wondered a Last December a worker at the Maine Yankee plant in Bath charged that management where the resident inspector had been.
had deliberately falsified computer cabulations to avoid disclosing that the plant's cooling The deadline came for Millstone's off-systems were inadequate. The NRC didn't discover this, the Union of Concerned Scientists load, but the amendment still had not been told reporters, because it didn't notice that Maine Yankee had failed to submit the granted. Connecticut's Senator Chris Dodd, calculations for revis: "-d they were due in January 1990. Representative Sara Gejdenson and a host of local officials were asking about the plant's e in 1988 a technician at the Nine Mile Point plant near Oswego, New York, called the safety, and Millstone scheduled a public NRC with _ " " : of drug use and safety violations at the plant.The NRC executive meeting for late october. Senior vice presi-director at the time, Victor 5tello Jr., took a personal interest in the matter, but his chief dent Don Miller sent a memo to his em-aim seemed to be building a case against Roger Fortuna, the deputy director of the NRC's ployees warning them that " experienced Office of Investigation, for leaking secrets to the watchdog group We the People. The NRC antinuClear activists" had "the intention of demanded that We the People head Steve Comley turn over tapes he had allegedly made shutting the station down and eliminating of conversations with Fortuna.When Comley refused, he was ruled in contempt and fined 2,500 jobs." The memo stirred up some of
$350,000 (he still has not paid). The charges against Fortuna were found to be without Galatis' colleagues. "You're taking food out medt, and when the case came to Mght- during hearings to confirm Stello as Assistant of my girl's mouth," one of them told him.
Secretary of Energy-Stello withdrew his name. "The tension between enforcement and DeBarba assembled a task force to as-appeasement," a ranking NRc official says,
- tugs at this agency every day." sess what had to be done to get the pool ready for the overdue off-load, but he kept TlM E. MARCH 4.1996 53
1 BUSINESS Galatis and Betancourt off the team. 'Ihe the NRC was considering penalties. In an FOR CALATIS, THE ENDCAME SHOU 1.D HAVE task force came up with six serious prob- extraordinary move, Russell demanded a been sweet. On Dec. 20, a Millstone tech-lems, most already raised by Galatis. Scram- complete review of every systern st Mill- nical manager fired off a frank piece of bling to fix the poolin a few weeks, Debar- stone 1, with the results " submitted under E-mail warning his colleagues that "the ba hired extra people. The plant shut down, oath," to prove that every part of the plant acceptance criteria are changing. Being anticipating permission to move fuel. is safe-the global examination Galatis outside the proper regulatory framework, Galatis and Hadley had been waiting two asked for two years ago. The results, Rus- even if technically justifiable, will be met months for a reply to their petition to deny sell wrote, "will be used to decide whether with resistance by the NRc. Expect no reg.
Northeast's amendment. Finally, on Oct. or not the license of Millstone Unit 1 should ulatory relief " DeBarba put 100 engineers 26, a letter from William Russell, director be suspended, modified or revoked." on a global evaluation of the plant, and of the NRc's Office of Nuclear Reactor Reg- Now the pressure is on NRC Chair- they turned up more than 5,000 " items" to ulation, informed them that their petition woman Jackson to prove her commitment be addressed before the plant could go was"outside of the scope"of the applicable to nuclear safety-and her ability to reform back online. The company announced a regulatory subchapter. Two weeks later, the an inert bureaucracy. "I will not make a reorganization of its nuclear division in NRc granted Northeast's amendment. Mill- sweeping indictment of NRc staff," Jack- which DeBarba and Miller were both pro-stone started moving fuel the next morning. son, a straight talking physicist who in July moted. Miller, who told Tius that "com-Because of Galatis, the plant is still shut 1995 became both the first female and the placency" was to blame for the utility's down. "What's especially galling," says first African American to run the NRC, told troubles, was put in charge of safety at Northeast'i, five nuclear plants. On Jan. 29, i s'
4A Northeast Utilities assumd everyone **mgre"ytefa2s*m'e~nnan"d h9st;,re:
& thatM distonewassafe.Nowtheplant.is phasis on cost savings vs. performance,"
enshrinea ali three Miitstene pianis in the agency's hall of shame: the high-scrutiny on the NRC's " watch list" and will mmain shut "- tch tist" or tro=htes -e re ctors.
Northeast announced that Millstone d
down thmugh . lune-at a cost of $75 million. *fst 7#s"M*"s"h "s 5 "
i "n'dn i i
. Poor's downgraded Northeast's debt rat- !
Hadley, "is that the NRc ignored my client TauE. "Does that mean everybody does ing from stable to negative. '
and denied his motion, then validated his things perfectly? Obviously not. We "A hell of an impact," says Betancourt, concerns after the fact." In late December, haven't always been on top of things. The but "rm going to lose myjob."
Ihspector General Norton released his pre- ball got dropped. Here's what rm saying "If I had it to do over again," says liminary report. He found that Northeast now: The ball will not get dropped again." Galatis, "I wouldn't." He believes his nu-had conducted improper full-core off- In response to the problems Galatis ex- clear career is over. (Though still em-loads for 20 years. Both the NRC's on-site in- posed, Jackson launched a series of policies ployed by Northeast, he knows that whis-spectors and headquarters staff, the report designed to improve training, accountabil- tie blowers are routinely shut out by the said, *were aware" of the practice but ity and vigilance among inspectors and industry.) He's thinking about entering i somehow "did not realize" that this was a NRC staff. She ordered the agency's second divinity school. !
violation. In other words, the NRc's dou- whistle-blower study in two years and a na- In January, Northeast laid off 100 em- l ble-barreled oversight system shot blanks tionwide review of all l10 nuclear plants, to ployees. To qualify for their severance from both barrels. Norton blamed bad find out how many have been moving fuel money, the workers had to sign elaborate training and found no evidence of a con- in violation of NRC standards. The results release forms pledging not to sue the utili-spiracy between Northeast and the NRc to will be in by April, along with a menu of ty for harassment. Four engineers say they violate the license. He is still investigating fuel-pool safety recommendations. (By us- were fired in retaliation for their testimony possible collusion by the NRc after Galatis ing a technique called dry-cask storage, to the NRC four years ago on behalf of whis-came forward. What troubled him most, utdities could empty their pools and ware- tie blower Blanch. The company denies Norton told TIM E, is that agency officials all house rods in airtight concrete containers, any connection between the layoffs and the way up to Russell knew about the off- reducing risk. In the past, the NRc has Blanch's case. That makes Blanch chuckle.
loads and saw nothing wrong with them. ruled that the process isn't cost effective.) "The two Georges had better watch their "The agency completely failed," says Nor- Jackson still refuses to meet with backs," he says. "Up at Northeast, they've q ton. "We did shoddy work. And we're con- Galatis or even take his phone call. "Mr. got long memories." ;
cerned that similar lapses might be occur- Galatis is part of an adjudicatory process," In the end, Galatis believes, the NRC's ring at other plants around the country." she explains. But in a letter turning down recent flurry of activity is little more than .
In a second investigation, the Office of Stephen Comley's request that she meet window dressing. *1f they wanted to en- "
Investigations is looking into Northeast's with him and Galatis, Jackson wrote,"The force the law," he says, "they could have ;
license violations and the alleged harass- avenues you hava been using to raise issues acted when it counted-before granting I ment of Galatis and Betancourt. The in- are the most effective and efficient ways. I the license amendment. Whatever wrist tense public scrutiny their case has re- l see no additional benefit to the meeting." slap they serve up now is beside the point." ,
ceived will, Galatis says, "make it harder Asked by TIME if she considered three "I believe in nuclear power " he says, for them to sweep this one under the rug."
(
years and two wrecked careers "the most "but after seeing the NRC in SClion, I'm '
On Dec.12, Russell sent a letter efficient" way to raise the fuel-pool issue, convinced a serious accident is not just j informing Northeast that because "certain Jackson offered a thir. smile. "rm changing likely but inevitable. This is a dangerous !
of your activities may have been conduct- the process," she said. "When all is said and road. They're asleep at the wheel. And rm ed in violation of license requirements," done, then Mr. Galatis and I can sit and talk." road-kill." a 54 TIME.MARCif 4,1996
1 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE - Docket No. (s) 50-160-REN 00CKETED USNRC Secretary U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission l Docketing and Service Branch *% MAR ll P2 l46 Washington, DC 20555 Office of Commission Appellate Adjudication 0FFICE OF S,ECRETARY U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission DOCKE flNG & SERVICE Washington, DC 20555 BRANCH l
Administrative Judge Charles Bechhoefer, Chairman Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555 Administrative Judge Peter S. Lam Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington ~, DC 20555 Administrative Judge Jerry R. Kline Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555 Sherwin E. Turk, Esq.
Susan S. Chikadel, Esq.
Office of the General Counsel U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555 Mr. Randy A. Nordin Manager - Legal Division Georgia Tech Atlanta, GA 30332-0420 Ms. Pamela Blockey O'Brien D23 Golden Valley Douglasville, GA 30134 Alfred L. Evans, Jr. Esq.
, Senior Assistant Attorney General 40 Capitol Square NW Room 232 State Judicial Building Atlanta, GA 30334-1300