AK HARBOR, Ohio, April 5 — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today placed the blame for extensive corrosion discovered in the lid of a nuclear reactor squarely on the power company that operates the reactor.
A commission report cites several missed opportunities for officials at the company, the FirstEnergy Corporation, and its Davis-Besse plant, east of Toledo, to have detected the corrosion as much as four years ago.
The Davis-Besse staff had information that could have resulted in identification of the problem before it became a significant issue, the report said. In addition, had the Davis-Besse staff properly carried out programs required by the commission, "this problem would have been prevented," said John A. Grobe, director of the commission's reactor safety division.
The report, presented today to an audience of 300 area residents assembled in the local high school, detailed a lava-like boric acid buildup that had accumulated for so long that it had to be pried off with crowbars.
FirstEnergy officials did not dispute the findings and took full responsibility for the corrosion, the worst reported case at a nuclear power plant in United States history.
"We are clearly responsible for this condition of the reactor head," Robert F. Saunders, president of FirstEnergy's nuclear division, said.
Mr. Saunders qualified this admission with an explanation that FirstEnergy was a "learning organization" and would inevitably encounter occasional problems. His remarks were interrupted occasionally by agitated members of the audience who shouted, "Shut it down!"
Fred Cohn, 74, of Curtis, Ohio, asked officials of the nuclear agency and FirstEnergy, "How can you people tell us you're learning, you're learning, you're learning? Don't you think this is a pretty expensive way to learn at our expense?"
The corrosion was detected in a routine shutdown for refueling in February. The plant, which has not reopened since, will not reopen for several more months at least while plant officials determine whether to repair or replace the reactor head.
Both the nuclear agency and FirstEnergy maintained that the public was never in danger as a result of the corrosion. The worst-case scenario, the agency said, would have been a "radiological mess" contained within the reactor building.
OAK HARBOR, Ohio -- U.S. nuclear regulators on Friday scolded FirstEnergy Corp (nyse: FE - news - people) for failing to recognize as early as 1999 that dirty air filters covered with rust and boric acid indicated a serious problem near the company's reactor in Ohio.
Nearly 400 local residents, anti-nuclear activists, FirstEnergy employees and others crowded into a public meeting held by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss corrosion found at the company's Davis-Besse nuclear plant.
The unexpected discovery last month of corrosion in a massive 17-foot (5.2-meter) piece of carbon steel bolted on top of the plant's reactor has alarmed regulators.
The corrosion in the steel plate, known as a reactor head vessel, was so severe that the acid had eaten nearly all the way through the 6-inch (15-cm) thick vessel head.
"It simply represents an unacceptable reduction of the margin of safety at Davis-Besse," said Jim Dyer, the NRC's Midwest regional administrator.
If the slender strip of steel remaining atop the reactor had been penetrated, it would have caused a "radiological mess within the containment area," Dyer said. Although not a direct threat to public health, radioactive steam would have filled the cement containment building, breaching one of three key safeguards surrounding the reactor, he said.
Melvin Holmberg, an NRC engineer, said that FirstEnergy should have discovered the corrosion much sooner than last month, when the company shut the plant for refueling.
Holmberg said the firm recently told the NRC that beginning in November 1999, the Ohio plant had to change the filters on its radiation air monitors every day because of rapid build-up of airborne rust and boric acid. Normally, filters are changed once a month and do not have any brownish coating.
"The NRC team believe the Davis-Besse staff had several opportunities to prevent the corrosion and didn't," he said.
Boric acid is used in the primary coolant bath surrounding uranium rods in the reactor core. Tiny amounts of leakage through joints are normal and do not cause major corrosion.
The NRC, alarmed by the Ohio plant's problem, is reviewing 68 similar plants to detect any problems elsewhere in the nation. The United States has 103 operating nuclear power plants, which provide one-fifth of the nation's electricity.
FirstEnergy officials agreed that the dirty air filters should have alerted them to potential problems at the plant.
"We could have and should have found it in previous inspections," said Howard Bergendal, a FirstEnergy vice president. "It's our responsibiility to expect the unexpected and we did not do this."
During the three-hour public meeting, held in a high school near the plant, many speakers urged regulators to close the plant until a new reactor head is installed. The plant has been closed since mid-February, when it began refueling operations.
The company has estimated it would cost about $20 million and take two years to buy a new reactor vessel head from a French manufacturer. Alternatively, FirstEnergy has begun negotiating with Consumers Energy to buy an unused reactor head from an abandoned Michigan nuclear plant.
The company will present its proposals for repairing the plant at another NRC meeting next week in Washington.
The Ohio Public Interest Research Group and other anti-nuclear groups said a temporary closure was not enough.
"We oppose any plans to temporarily mend, repair, fix up or patch the unprecedented damage to the Davis-Besse nuke reactor," the groups said in a statement. "We call for the most stringent inspection ever undertaken of a nuclear reactor in order to ensure that no additional safety hazards exist."
Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, has also called for the plant to be shut.
Last December, the NRC threatened to shut the Ohio plant for an unrelated problem.
Brian Sheron, an NRC associate director, said the agency was concerned then because of unexpected circular cracks found in control nozzles at the similarly designed Oconee plant in South Carolina. The NRC agreed to an offer by FirstEnergy officials to move up the Ohio plant's next refueling to Feb. 16 -- instead of March 30 -- and examine the nozzles then.
Sheron said FirstEnergy failed to mention at the December meeting the plant's problem with dirty air filters and airborne rust and boric acid particles.
"If we had known that, obviously it would have affected our decision," he said. "Had we known they had seen these brown deposits, we wouldn't have made the decision we did."
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