NRC slaps FirstEnergy for safety violations at Perry

NRC file photo of FirstEnergy's Perry nuclear power plant on the Lake Erie shore northeast of ClevelandThe Plain Dealer of Cleveland has reported that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has cited the FirstEnergy nuclear utility with a "white finding" of "low to moderate" safety significance after four contract workers were briefly exposed to high radiation levels due to poorly written procedures involving a task near the reactor core. The article quotes Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps: "Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a group opposed to nuclear energy, said Perry's problems are not as isolated from Davis-Besse's past problems as one would think. 'All the hooting and hollering about the need to improve FirstEnergy's 'safety culture' after the Davis-Besse hole-in-the-head fiasco of 2002 comes to mind,' he said. 'Apparently that 'safety culture' isn't as fixed as FirstEnergy and even the NRC would like the public to believe.' "

FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse nuclear power plant came closer than any other U.S. reactor since the Three Mile Island meltdown of 1979 to a major accident, due to severe corrosion of its reactor lid. Beyond Nuclear, in coalition with Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwest Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio, has won standing and the admittance of several contentions against the 20 year license extension sought by FirstEnergy at Davis-Besse.