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Davis Bessie Messie Now Criminal Investigation
> Davis-Besse is focus of U.S. criminal investigation
>
> By TOM HENRY
> TOLEDO BLADE STAFF WRITER
>
> OAK HARBOR, Ohio - FirstEnergy Corp. acknowledged yesterday that its Davis-Besse nuclear plant has become the subject of a federal criminal investigation.
>
> The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of Investigations - an arm of the NRC that handles criminal matters - has notified the utility that it soon will send its own investigators to Davis-Besse in an attempt to find out if information vital to the safe operation of the plant was withheld illegally, FirstEnergy spokesman Richard Wilkins said.
>
> "We will be cooperating with them fully," he said.
>
> The NRC would not release such details as the length or parameters of the investigation.
>
> "As a policy, we don't comment on any ongoing investigations," said Victor Dricks, a spokesman at the agency's headquarters in the Washington suburb of Rockville, Md.
>
> Some high-ranking NRC officials - including Brian Sheron, associate director for project licensing and technical assessment - have said FirstEnergy might not have been allowed to continue operating the plant until the Feb. 16 refueling shutdown if the NRC had been made aware of corrosion evidence during discussions at the agency's headquarters in early December.
>
> Mr. Sheron, who was involved in those discussions, has said the NRC was not made aware of the fact that FirstEnergy had been changing air filters in Davis-Besse's containment area every other day since the fall of 1999.
>
> While the NRC considers that an important warning sign, the utility has said it never made the connection between dirty filters and a severely corroded reactor head.
>
> Company officials have said they believed the rust could have come from other sources.
>
> Criminal investigators likely will probe FirstEnergy's explanation for ordering a new reactor head at least a month before notifying the federal agency on March 6 of the unprecedented corrosion problem.
>
> Mr. Wilkins said the utility made the decision to order a new reactor head in October. In late January or early February, it signed the final paperwork to buy one from Framatome ANP, Inc., he said. Framatome is a French company with U.S. headquarters in Lynchburg, Va.
>
> Though installation of a new reactor head never has been tried at an in-service U.S. nuclear plant, FirstEnergy decided it wanted to attempt that massive project - and take on its total cost in excess of $20 million - regardless of the condition in which the original head would be found after the latest shutdown. That, according to Mr. Wilkins, is because FirstEnergy did not want to deal with a potentially "chronic" problem of diagnosing cracks in nozzles mounted to the reactor head.
>
> The nozzle-cracking issue has been around for years, but gained a higher profile from federal regulators last year after a South Carolina nuclear plant with a similar design had unusual circular-type cracks in some of its nozzles.
>
> Those type of cracks, according to the NRC, pose a greater danger.
>
> FirstEnergy also felt it was prudent to begin thinking about replacing the reactor head now, given that Davis-Besse is 25 years old. The plant is licensed to operate another 15 years, but the utility plans to apply for a 20-year extension within a couple of years, Mr. Wilkins said.
>
> Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee had its own investigator at Davis-Besse on a "fact-finding" mission at the request of U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor (R., Old Fort).
>
> Ken Johnson, spokesman for that committee, said last night he hadn't spoken with the committee's investigator, so he couldn't say what the investigator found.
>
> 05/23/2002
Coalition for Peace and Justice and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave., Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8583 or 609-601-8537; ncohen12@comcast.net UNPLUG SALEM WEBSITE: http://www.unplugsalem.org/ COALITION FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE WEBSITE: http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org The Coalition for Peace and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action.
"First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you; Then you win. (Gandhi) "Why walk when you can fly?" (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
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