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Feds Fine Nuke Plant Operator Over Sleeping Guards

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Jan 6, 2009 11:45 pm US/Eastern

Feds Fine Nuke Plant Operator Over Sleeping Guards

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ― Federal regulators proposed a $65,000 fine Tuesday against the owner of a Pennsylvania nuclear plant where security guards routinely napped on the job.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced the fine against Chicago-based Exelon Nuclear after completing a special investigation of the Peach Bottom plant in south-central Pennsylvania.

Multiple guards were "deliberately inattentive" on more than one occasion in a plant "ready room" that serves as a break room, and the incidents were not reported to plant supervisors, the NRC said.

The NRC announced its investigation in September 2007, after a videotape recorded earlier in the year of sleeping guards surfaced. The NRC issued a "white" finding -- a low-to-moderate threat -- for the incident in February based on the agency's color-coded threat analysis.

Exelon plans to pay the fine, and its monitoring of plant security has improved since the incidents became known, spokeswoman Beth Archer said. The NRC's findings confirmed the results of Exelon's own internal investigation, Archer said.

"We are able to have more direct oversight over our security now," she said.

Exelon ended its security contract with Wackenhut Corp. at Peach Bottom after the videotape surfaced and later replaced the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based company with an in-house security force at all 10 of its nuclear power plants.

NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins acknowledged those changes in a statement Tuesday.

"Going forward, we will continue to make it clear that the NRC considers inattentiveness on the part of those charges with the vital task of protecting and operating our nuclear power plants to be completely unacceptable."

Exelon is the country's biggest producer of nuclear energy. In addition to Peach Bottom, Exelon owns the Three Mile Island and Limerick nuclear plants in Pennsylvania, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, and six plants in Illinois.

Peter Stockton of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based government watchdog group, called the NRC's proposed fine "a tap on the wrist."

"The proposed fine probably doesn't even cover the cost of NRC's investigation into the matter, much less emphasize the importance of plant security," Stockton said.

Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert, a group that monitors that plant's operations, praised the NRC's decision to fine Exelon.

"The new system isn't perfect, but it's a marked improvement," Epstein said.

But he also said the NRC needed to be held accountable as well.

At a congressional hearing in February, NRC chairman Dale Klein acknowledged that the agency should have done more to investigate a tip about the sleeping guards. Klein said at the time that the NRC erred in honoring a request by the former employee who wrote to the agency about the misconduct not to be contacted.

"These were the traffic cops on the beat who were also asleep at the switch," Epstein said.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency has also learned its own lessons about how to handle plant security complaints.

"One of the lessons learned was that in the future, we would reach out to (accusers), even if they indicated they did not want to be contacted," Sheehan said.

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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