ML20136C118

Forwards News Article, Business Group Starts New Yr on Wrong Foot by Choosing B Fox as New Chairman of Board of Directors, from the New London Day

ML20136C118
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Site:	Millstone
Issue date:	01/03/1997
From:	Blanch P AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
To:	Zwolinski J NRC (Affiliation Not Assigned)
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NUDOCS 9703110269
Download: ML20136C118 (2)

Text

From PAUL BLANCH <PMBLANCH91x.netcom.com>

To: WND2.WNP3(jaz)

'Date: L 1/3/97 2:54am Subjects -)UJ) EDITORIAL l

Business. group starts new year on wrong foot by choosing <

Bernard-Fox as the new chairman of its board of directors <

< by MAURA CASEY<

I The New London Day <

considering that-it has 10,000 members, you might think that the Connecticut Business & Industry Association would have picked the l best to be the new chairman of its board of directors.

Very '

Think again. The board, with several dozen members, has elected as its chairman Bernard M. Fox, CEO of Northeast  !

Utilities.<

Since Mr. Fox had completed a term as vice chairman, he was in J line to succeed former chairman R. Nelson Griebel, CBIA spokesman William Neagus said. In other'words, it was Mr. Fox's turn. l But what does it say that the state's largest business 1 organization has, asked Mr. Fox to be its chairman?

Here's what the CBIA press release ~ announcing the move SHOULD have said.

The'CBIA is pleased to announce that Bernard M. Fox, CEO of Northeast -

Utilities, has become chairman of the CBIA Board of Directors. - I

Mr. Fox is an executive with quite an impressive resume. He began his i Northeast Utilities career in 1964, when he went to work for l Hartford l Electric, which NU owned. That started Mr. Fox's rise up the corporate ladder..

Mr. Fox became NU's chief financial officer in the late 1980s. His cost-cutting ultimately resulted in NU's cutting corners on safety in several of its plants. His personal

-knowledge of management's harassment of whistleblowers who reported safety problems resulted in the NRC's imposing a fine of

$100,000 in 1993. This was only one of several huge fines the NRC levied because of the plants' mismanagement while Mr. Fox was at the helm.<

Under Mr. Fox, more whistleblowers reported safety problems at Millstone Station, and more of them alleged they were harassed for coming forward with such reports, than at nearly any other nuclear plant in America.- l

The pinnacle of Mr. Fox's career came this year, however, i when the company which he heads saw three of its five nuclear power plants go on the )

I Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Watch List of worst-run nuclear plants. l

But that was only last January. NU stock, which began 1996 l at $25 a share, has fallen 50 percent to its current level of l

9703110269 970306 PDR ORG NRRA PDR J

! $12. NU closed Connecticut Yankee in July, which meant that four of the  !

company's five nuclear plants were shut down for safety and  !

management problems.

In September, news came that Connecticut Yankee had operated iiithout backup safety systems for most of 28 years because hundreds of gallons of sludge, mopheads, nails, and trash had i accumulated in the mechanisms that were supposed to protect the l public in caso of an accident. This gave new meaning to the '

nuclear industry term of ' defense-in-depth.'

Currently, Northeast Utilities is being investigated by the FBI, the federal General Accounting Office, the federal Environmental Prctection l Agency, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the  !

l NRC's Office of Investigation and the NRC's Office of Inspector General, among other agencies, departments and government branches.

CBIA congratulates Mr. Fox on his election. The CBIA expresses the sincere hope that if Mr. Fox or other NU officers are served with criminal indictments during Mr. Fox's term as CBIA chairman, those indictments will not reflect badly on the CBIA itself.

l After all, it was Mr. Fox's turn to be chairman.

l l l

Paul M. Blanch Energy Consultant i 135 Hyde Rd.

West Hartford CT 06117 Tel: 860-236-0326 Fax: 860-23? 9350 I

i l

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