News

March 3, 2009

PPL warned about "chilling effect"

Susquehanna nuke plant employees’ perceived reluctance to come forward concerns federal agency.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a letter on Wednesday to PPL Corp. warning of a “chilling effect” on reporting safety concerns at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station.

Surveys, interviews and allegations from PPL employees at the nuclear plant in Salem Township have shown an increasingly negative perception in recent years in the company’s attitude toward employees raising safety concerns, according to the letter.

It also noted that, in 2008, NRC regulators observed “that not all first-line supervisors and mid-level managers were fully supportive of efforts to improve the work environment.”

PPL has revised its plans several times to improve the problem, the letter said, but acknowledged to the NRC that management of the changes had been ineffective prior to the spring 2008 refueling outage and that several unnamed events involving management were well known on site and displeasing to some employees.

The NRC requested in the letter that PPL respond within 30 days with a description of its current plans to “preclude a chilled work environment at Susquehanna,” plans to continue evaluating the problem and the achievements it will use to determine the effectiveness of changes.

“We’re well aware of the issues raised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s letter,” said Joe Scopelliti, PPL’s spokesman for the nuclear plant. “PPL fully intends to cooperate and comply with the request.”

He said he couldn’t comment on the incidents specifically because they were made anonymously and he was unaware of the specific details.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan concurred, saying he needed to protect the anonymity of the whistleblowers.

“The workers feel as though they cannot readily bring forward safety concerns because they fear there will be retribution for doing so … and that’s a situation they (PPL managers) need to remedy,” Sheehan said.

“These plants employ hundreds of workers, and we rely on them to bring these issues forward. … This is more along the lines of a preemptive strike against problems of the safety culture at the site,” he added.

The letter is a regulatory tool that is used each year at a small percentage of the nuclear facilities, Sheehan said.

“Most plants have programs in place to address these kinds of issues early on, and for reasons we’re still evaluating they have not been successful at Susquehanna so far at mitigating these concerns,” Sheehan said.

The issue is unlikely to affect re-licensing of the two reactors, he said, “because we expect them (the company) to address this long before it gets to the point of license renewal, and if not, we have other ways to address this.”

Scopelliti said the company would submit a “detailed” plan to the NRC within the 30-day window and have “ongoing vigilance” to ensure its success.

“We have taken action that was deemed appropriate, but obviously we need to come up with a more detailed plan to address this,” he said. “I think we’ve been working on that, but maybe the change hasn’t occurred as quickly.”

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

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