When the whistle-blower at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station reported fellow guards sleeping on the job, his supervisors told him not to worry.

“Their response was, ‘You haven’t been here long enough; you’re still new, you’ll understand,’ ” Kerry Beal said in an interview Monday. “I was told I was new to the team, that I needed to learn to be a ‘team player’; that if I expect them to trust me, I need to trust them.”

Beal, a former guard for Wackenhut Security, said he first noticed guards sleeping at the plant — about six miles over the Harford County line in Pennsylvania — when he began working there in February.

He said he had no regrets and would report the guards again, putting his clear conscience before the loss of his job and threats he said he has received since a federal investigation began.

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Beal said he co-workers dismissed his concerns. He couldn’t talk to his family, who would be burdened by fear that they were at risk.

“It wasn’t just my life at stake. If something were to happen on a nuclear scale, we’re all affected. I couldn’t do any-

thing but do the right thing,” he said.

John Jasinski, a church friend and former security supervisor at the plant, wrote a letter in March to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after Beal expressed his concerns.

Dissatisfied when the investigation was handed back to Wackenhut and went nowhere, Beal secretly taped about 10 guards nodding off and sleeping in a “ready room” not far from the nuclear reactor.

The NRC began its investigation only after WCBS in New York aired the tape.

Wackenhut put Beal on leave during the NRC investigation, and he said he began feeling threatened after the word got out.

“I received a phone call from someone telling me to watch out for my family,” Beal said.

In his quiet neighborhood in Lancaster County, a black SUV started showing up late at night, he said, so he began leaving his dogs out and notified state police.

Beal lost his job when plant operator Exelon Nuclear fired Wackenhut. But Exelon rehired other Wackenhut guards as part of an in-house security team.

Wackenhut officials could not be reached Monday.

Beal’s attorney, David Wachtel, of Washington, says he’s reviewing whether Beal’s job is covered by state and federal laws protecting whistle-blowers.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com