Penalties nixed for ex-worker at Davis-Besse

[bananas]

Penalties nixed for ex-worker at Davis-Besse
By TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF WRITER

ROCKVILLE, Md. - A review panel has dismissed sanctions the government had taken against former Davis-Besse engineering supervisor David Geisen.

On a 2-1 vote, it said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to prove he intentionally deceived the commission when the plant's reactor head nearly burst in 2001.

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The cover-up has been described as one of the largest in U.S. nuclear history.

Acid that leaked through Davis-Besse's old reactor head burned a six-inch cavity into the massive steel lid. That exposed a thin stainless-steel liner, which started to bulge and crack. Had it burst, radioactive steam would have formed in containment of a U.S. nuclear vessel for the first time since the half-core meltdown of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979.

Geisen was one of four former Davis-Besse employees whom the NRC and the U.S. Department of Justice named as co-conspirators in early 2006.

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FirstEnergy Corp., the plant's owner-operator, has paid a record $33.5 million in civil and criminal fines for its corporate role in the cover-up.

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[madokie]

1. I wonder if anyone has done a study to see what the increased risk of a serious leak

due to the age of our nuke plants?