Last February an anonymous complaint was filed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about exhausted security guards sleeping on the job at the Peach Bottom Pa nuclear Power plant. Guards were assigned 12 hour shifts and large amounts of overtime.
However, the owner, Exelon did nothing but tell the Nuclear Regulatory Comission that there was no problem...until the frustrated whistleblower put it on video.
This wasn't the first time the NRC had a sleeping security guard problem, however. The NRC had guards asleep at night in their own buildings.
I worked in a NRC "outbuilding" in the office of Research in Maryland that held little classified information and no nuclear materials, so security lapses weren't critical to public safety, but guards would occasionally nap. The occasional nap was no big deal.
However, one midwinter morning over 15 years ago we arrived for work at 6:15 AM and couldn't get into the building. We rang the bell but no one came. People pounded on the door and looked through windows to check for the guard. They called. No answer.
Finally people suggested we force open the door because the guard could have had a heart attack. I said no thanks, because I had a way of getting into trouble. However, only one person of many had the guts to do it.
Naturally, he came back to me.
I took the bottom and he took the top. We pulled on the metal door. It bent. Suddenly, the glass popped out of its mounting and onto my forearm. I looked down at my arm. My heavy winter jacket saved me from serious injury.
Someone went inside to check and found the guard sound asleep in a back room set up for sleeping. I found out later he was fired. The NRC has known for a long time that security guards are prone to sleep on the job.
That's why it's hard to explain why the NRC allows security contractors to force workers to do 12 hour shifts and long overtime hours.
Part of the problem stems from the long hours guards are asked to work, the result of decisions by contractor Wackenhut Security and the power plant management that pays them, Stockton said. Many guards will work 60 to 72 hours a week, he said.
The Washington Post has an extensive article today that discusses the strong measures that Exelon is now taking to replace Wackenhut security.
Kerry Beal was taken aback when he discovered last March that many of his fellow security guards at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania were taking regular naps in what they called "the ready room."
When he spoke to supervisors at his company, Wackenhut Corp., they told Beal to be a team player. When he alerted the regional office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, regulators let the matter drop after the plant's owner, Exelon, said it found no evidence of guards asleep on the job.
So Beal videotaped the sleeping guards. The tape, eventually given to WCBS, a CBS television affiliate in New York City, showed the armed workers snoozing against walls, slumped on tabletops or with eyes closed and heads bobbing.
I, however, am not satisfied that the really serious problem has been solved. The security at the Peach Bottom reactor may be improved. That's one positive step, but that's just one power plant.
The big problem is that the NRC did nothing effective until a video was shown on a New York TV station. The NRC regulators let the matter of sleeping guards drop until they were forced to act by incontrovertible evidence.
I have been convinced that we need nuclear power as part of a larger plan to eliminate greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel power. I am not anti-nuclear, but it is obvious to me and everyone who is slightly objective that the NRC is not effectively enforcing regulations to protect public safety. They have long known that sleeping security guards are a problem even in their own buildings, but have not acted to resolve the systemic problems that cause guards to be sleepy on the job. If they can't deal with an obvious problem like sleeping on the job, how can they ensure nuclear safety?
One Comissioner appears to recognize that the NRC has a problem.
The NRC, which in the past has referred 40 percent of wrongdoing allegations to nuclear plant licensees, is looking at its own procedures as well as Wackenhut's. David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, faults the NRC for "failing to 'connect the dots' " between Peach Bottom and other complaints about Wackenhut.
"More than anything else, we have to change the way the NRC responds to these allegations," said commission member Gregory B. Jaczko.
The NRC has long had an "open door policy" which they proclaim in official government documents. Unofficially, the NRC workers take it to mean, if you don't like the official policy, the door is always open... for you to walk out. Very, very few NRC employees have ever gone in and reported a problem to management.
The NRC needs to change its "culture" which has been very pro-industry. The only way they can actually help the industry is by being a tough watchdog. In reality, the NRC has been as asleep on the job as the security guards. The problem of guards sleeping on the job had been going on for many years until it was finally caught on tape.
Hat tip to Meteor Blades who linked to the earlier story.