Nuclear safety? "Man who faked TVA reactor records gets probation"

[kristopher]

Man who faked TVA reactor records gets probation
By AP | November 03, 2011

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — An electrician charged with falsifying inspection records at the Tennessee Valley Authority's unfinished Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor was sentenced Thursday to probation for two years after he apologized for causing any nuclear fears.

"I would like to apologize to all the residents who now sleep less securely as a result of my actions," Matthew Correll told U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier. "I wish I could explain to them they have nothing to fear from nuclear plants in their backyards."

Correll, who had no prior criminal record, said his hasty workplace decision bans him from continuing a nuclear career that he loved.

Defense attorney Myrlene Marsa said her client broke the law by hastily obeying a supervisor's orders to hurry up and get the job done instead of making the required inspection. She said Correll is ashamed that it happened.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/55308--man-who-faked-tva-reactor-records-gets-probation


This act exemplifies why nuclear can never be made safe and the man says, "I wish I could explain to them they have nothing to fear from nuclear plants in their backyards."


See also: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/kristopher/953

[bananas]

1. From July: CBS: Whistleblowers "terrified" at TVA nuke plants

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/20/earlyshow/main20080965.shtml

<snip>

... attorney Lynne Bernabei, who specializes in whistleblower lawsuits.

"It has turned out," she says, "that I've represented more whistleblowers at TVA than any other place."

Bernabei told CBS News that's more than 60 people since the 1980s - at least eight since the TVA says it beefed up its employee feedback program a decade ago.

"People are terrified to come forward at TVA," Bernabei asserts. "It's just like back in 1985. Nothing has changed. They're terrified to come forward because they know that they will not get employment at TVA."

<snip>

[bananas]

2. CBS: Whistleblower “the books are being cooked, you can see a Fukushima happening here" + much more

“You can see a Fukushima happening here in the U.S.” So it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of – “When,” ...

CBS News has obtained a copy of a National Regulatory Commission (NRC) "Post Fukushima" Watts Bar report, dated May 2011. CBS News had two nuclear engineers look at the report. One gave Watts Bar a "D-" and called it "appalling." The other cited what he called more than 40 "disturbing findings" during a 40-hour inspection ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1523347

Watts Bar, in Spring City, Tenn., is the last nuclear plant to be licensed in the U.S., and a textbook study of the pros and cons of nuclear power. It provides electricity to some 9 million people in seven states, yet is dogged with a long history of safety issues and whistle-blower lawsuits — including six by a 71-year-old great-grandmother named Ann Harris. <...>

What was the turning point in her work? “Basically,” she replied, “the books are being cooked. People are saying things, they swear under oath it’s been done, and it hadn’t been done.”

When Harris refused to sign a multimillion-dollar construction contract riddled with errors, she said, Tennessee Valley Authority executives told her that her career was over. Instead, it sparked a 28-year crusade devoted to preventing a nuclear accident. Harris said, “You can see a Fukushima happening here in the U.S.” So it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of – “When,” <...>

There have certainly been attempts at intimidation, recrimination and really, threats on your life? Harris responded, “Yes. They ran me off the road. They wired my car for firebombing. They dropped the universal joint out of my car.”

snip

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1527105

Harris said, "You can see a Fukushima happening here in the U.S."

So it's not a matter of 'if,' it's a matter of -

"When," Harris finished the sentence.

CBS News has obtained a copy of a National Regulatory Commission (NRC) "Post Fukushima" Watts Bar report, dated May 2011. CBS News had two nuclear engineers look at the report. One gave Watts Bar a "D-" and called it "appalling." The other cited what he called more than 40 "disturbing findings" during a 40-hour inspection, including:

[madokie]

3. A perfect example of someone who is why many of us don't trust the nuclear industry

They lie they lie they lie, anytime and at every turn they get a chance too, they lie

Talk to the Japanese and see what they say about the safety of nuclear power generating electricity or the Russians for that matter.

[kristopher]

4. You mean like this?

Utility, federal regulators covered up fault's existence in 1973, memo said
By: PETER BACQUE | Media General News Service
Published: November 05, 2011


RICHMOND — Dominion Virginia Power and federal nuclear regulatory staff members covered up knowledge of geologic faulting at the North Anna Power Station site in 1973, according to a U.S. Justice Department memo.

The company, then operating as Virginia Electric and Power Co., or Vepco, told the former Atomic Energy Commission in June 1977 that “faulting of rock at the site is neither known nor suspected,” even though the company knew about the existence of faulting at North Anna, the 1977 memo said.

...According to the memo, written by U.S. Department of Justice attorney Bradford F. Whitman, his investigation determined that Vepco had a “consistent policy” of not filing “any formal document” that would have informed the Atomic Energy Commission’s licensing board and the public about the fault.

At the same time, “virtually the entire Office of Regulation of the …well aware of the fault and determined not to take any immediate action” to stop the plant’s construction or reopen the licensing hearings, Whitman wrote in the 1977 memo, which the Richmond Times-Dispatch recently obtained....

http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2011/nov/05/utility-federal-regulators-covered-faults-existenc-ar-1438066/

Every time there is reason to pull back the curtain we find stories of all-too-typical corporate misbehavior. In spite of the the pretense that we can achieve and maintain the level of expertise needed to make nuclear "safe", the nature of who we are dictates otherwise. This comment on bureaucracy was appended to a copy of Tragedy of the Commons that I had on file, and I think it expresses the reality very well.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMON REVISITED
by Beryl Crowe 1969

EROSION OF THE MYTH OF ADMINISTRATORS OF THE COMMONS

"Indeed, the process has been so widely commented upon that one writer postulated a common life cycle for all of the attempts to develop regulatory policies. The life cycle is launched by an outcry so widespread and demanding that it generates enough political force to bring about establishment of a regulatory agency to insure the equitable, just, and rational distribution of the advantages among all holders of interest in the commons. This phase is followed by the symbolic reassurance of the offended as the agency goes into operation, developing a period of political quiescence among the great majority of those who hold a general but unorganized interest in the commons. Once this political quiescence has developed, the highly organized and specifically interested groups who wish to make incursions into the commons bring sufficient pressure to bear through other political processes to convert the agency to the protection and furthering of their interests. In the last phase even staffing of the regulating agency is accomplished by drawing the agency administrators from the ranks of the regulated."

[madokie]

5. Exactly, thanks

The nuclear power industry and the regulatory agency was so close that when PSO tried to build a nuke plant a few miles from here there reputations was so rife with so many lies by both the industry and the regulators that we had no choice but to stop it and stop it we did.

[txlibdem]

6. Who is the corresponding person for the COAL industry???

Oh, that's right. They don't have one. Coal plants get to dump NUCLEAR MATERIAL anywhere it wants and there is NO OVERSIGHT.

How stupid is that???