Matthew Santoni, The Examiner
2007-11-30 08:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Federal investigators plan more inspections at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station because of continuing concerns emerging from an investigation into guards caught sleeping on the job.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors will visit the nuclear power plant over the coming year to ensure that operator Exelon Nuclear has taken adequate steps to deal with the sleeping guards and the supervisors who never reported them, said Diane Screnci, an NRC spokeswoman.

Screnci said two teams of investigators had not identified security lapses that would legally require the additional inspections, but the NRC would continue to send in its regional investigators and meet with management at the plant, six miles across the Maryland line in Delta, Pa.

“Even though there wasn’t something that triggered an automatic increase in inspections, our region office has asked NRC to approve additional inspections, and they said yes,” Screnci said.

The NRC says the additional visits will ensure Exelon provides adequate training and round-the-clock supervision to the guards, and monitors areas near the reactors where guards were caught sleeping.

One guard at the plant secretly videotaped others sleeping on the job last summer after his complaints to supervisors went unheeded, then released the tapes to a New York TV station.

The station’s news report triggered an NRC investigation and led Exelon to end its security contract with Palm Beach-based Wackenhut Corp. Exelon then brought in its own security force.

Peter Stockton, an inspector for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, praised the additional NRC inspections.

“They do appear to be taking this seriously,” Stockton said. “It’s something, finally.”

But, he said, the NRC might be talking to the wrong people to get information.

“You’re not going to learn a lot by meeting with management; you’ve got to develop relationships with the people who work there,” he said. “Management is not just going to volunteer what all the problems are.”

An NRC team that visited earlier this month is to present its findings Monday.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com