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NY Times - nuke guards swamped by overtime
Guards At Nuclear Plants Say
They Feel Swamped by A Deluge Of
Overtime
To increase security after the Sept. 11 attacks,
the
Palisades nuclear plant here, like plants around
the
country, sharply increased the number of guards
on
duty. To do so, it put the guards on 12-hour
shifts
instead of 8, often six days a week instead of
five.
The guards are still on that schedule, and they
say it
has made them tired, error-prone and cranky. But
if
they complain, they say, they are threatened with
the loss of their jobs or sent for psychiatric
evaluation.
Industry regulators and observers say increasing
security may have put more guards on duty, but
they
are less effective.
"If something happened, these would be basket
cases," said Peter Stockton, a security expert
who
was a special assistant to the secretary of
energy in
the Clinton administration and now works with the
Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit
group in
Washington that recently wrote a report on
problems
in power plant security. Top officials at the
Nuclear
Regulatory Commission have voiced similar
concerns
and credit the group for bringing the problem to
their
attention. Some in the industry, though, blame
the
commission for not issuing a final rule on higher
security standards.
In an interview, one guard at the plant here
acknowledged that she "just lost it" at work one
day
this summer, when confronted near the end of a
long
shift with ringing telephones, workers knocking
on the
glass of her booth because their ID cards would
not
function in the reader and various warning lights
flashing. When another guard approached her with
a
low-priority problem, she cursed at him, shouted
and
burst into tears, she said.
The guard, who said she feared for her job and
did
not want her name used, was sent to a local
psychologist who reported that "she is stressed
by
working too much."
The guard complained to the resident inspectors
of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the plant
here,
on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Two days
later, a psychologist who had not examined her
sent
a report to the Wackenhut Corporation, which
employs the guards here, that said in addition to
"routine work stress," her personal life "may
have
contributed to this employee having experienced
loss
of emotional control" and said that unless she
improved, "the employee's access should be
immediately withdrawn." The guard is armed, and
has
a pass that allows "unescorted access" to vital
areas.
An executive at Wackenhut said the company had
never taken retaliatory action but said he could
not
comment on personnel matters.
Guards here and elsewhere say the stress of long
hours has made them more prone to errors like
forgetting to lock a door, or leaving keys or
weapons
unsecured.
At another reactor a few hundred miles away, a
guard who asked that he and his plant not be
identified said that a few weeks ago, he left out
a
step in inspecting some material.
The guard, who has been working more than 72
hours
a week, said he completed the inspection
successfully but forgot to notify the central
command
post when he finished. Ordered to write a
statement
explaining his error, he cited "fatigue." The
next day,
he said, he was sent to a psychologist.
Richard A. Michau, president of the nuclear
services
division of Wackenhut, the largest security
contractor
at nuclear plants, said the company had had an
increase in errors only because so many guards
were
new. If a worker declared himself unfit for duty,
the
company would not make him work, he said.
At Indian Point 2, in Buchanan, N.Y., Bart
Wallace, a
guard for the last eight years, said: "I work
from 6
p.m. to 6 a.m. I'm in bed by 7, I'm up at 1 and
three
hours later I'm walking out the door to go back
to
work."
"I'm going to work tired, I'm coming home tired,
I'm
never fully rested and they don't care," said Mr.
Wallace, a retired New York City police officer.
Overtime was common on the police force, he said,
but never for months at a time.
Edward McGaffigan Jr., one of the five members of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said overtime
was
an issue in places that had to make changes to
meet
rules imposed by the commission after Sept. 11.
"They weren't necessarily staffed to do it," he
said.
Now, 13 months later, they are still not staffed,
he
said.
Overtime has always been common at nuclear plants
during refueling shut-downs, but those typically
last
weeks, not months. Mr. McGaffigan said some
companies might have deferred hiring because they
thought the new security rules would be
temporary,
but this summer, he said, "we basically told them
the
levels we are required to staff to isn't going to
go
down, even if the crisis goes away. They should
be
hiring in order to meet that new baseline."
Roy P. Zimmerman, the director of the
commission's
Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response,
said that his agency expected more overtime
immediately after Sept. 11 but that he was
concerned about "excessive" overtime over a long
period. Normally, guards should be working
40-hour
weeks, he said. His staff is drafting a new rule,
to
submit to the commissioners, to make that
expectation clearer and give guards the stronger
protection that plant operators already have, he
said.
But Mr. Michau of Wackenhut said the problem was
that the commission has not finalized its
requirements. "I wish the N.R.C. comes out with a
final order, so we can hire the right amount of
people," he said. "Is this temporary, or is this
going to
be permanent?"
Mark P. Findlay, the director of security at the
Nuclear Management Company, which operates
Palisades and five other reactors, said: "The
N.R.C.
really hasn't done their job and given us any
permanency. We're not getting an awful lot of
guidance."
The guard companies have had trouble hiring. At
some plants, guards have quit to work at
airports, for
the new Transportation Security Administration.
Many
new hires have been rejected after failing drug
or
alcohol tests, or because of felony convictions.
Some, guards say, quit when they realized how
much
overtime they were facing.
By Matthew L. Wald
New York Times - 10/20/2002
--
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Carpenter)
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