The whistle-blower who lost his job during the investigation of sleeping guards at Peach Bottom nuclear power plant has demanded federal officials take another look at his concerns and resulting dismissal.
Attorneys for former security guard Kerry Beal sent Dale Klein, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, a four-page letter complaining that the NRC had not thoroughly and independently investigated claims that guards had been sleeping at posts at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, six miles north of the Maryland border in Pennsylvania.
By taking plant operator Exelon Nuclear at its word that the problems were limited to Beal?s shift of guards and allowing Beal to lose his job, the NRC sent the wrong message to plant employees, the letter said.
“Exelon?s other employees have observed what happened to Mr. Beal,” the letter said. “They know that, despite Exelon?s ?new? safety procedures and the additional NRC oversight, nothing has changed,” wrote Washington lawyers David Wachtel and Lynne Bernabai. “The same people are in charge and they will not hesitate to ignore complaints.”
Exelon suspended Beal during the NRC?s investigation after he leaked covert videos in September of guards sleeping in a “ready room” near the reactors in September.
“We still have more work to do,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said, adding that the NRC was continuing its investigation through next year. “If a nuclear power plant employee is discriminated against because of raising safety concerns, that would be an NRC issue.”
Beal told The Examiner that he?d tried to report the sleeping guards to his superiors at Wackenhut security and to the NRC earlier in the year but had been rebuffed or ignored.
As a result of the NRC investigation, Exelon terminated its contract with Wackenhut but hired back many of the guards to staff its new, internally run security force.
Beal was not rehired, and though Exelon told him it was because of two infractions on his record, his attorneys suggested he had been written up for minor violations as a result of raising concerns about the sleeping guards.
The letter also alleged that the NRC had failed to adequately address what Exelon was doing to combat guard fatigue.
