Word: northeasterly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...public. But during a recent hearing at the suburban Maryland headquarters of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an electric-utility boss named Bruce Kenyon did just that. Kenyon, a respected nuclear-industry veteran with a raspy voice and a cocksure style, last fall became president, CEO and designated savior of Northeast Utilities' nuclear division, which operates five commercial reactors in New England. "At the time I arrived, [Northeast] was as close to a dysfunctional organization as I have ever encountered," he told the NRC. "The fundamental problem was leadership...
Strong words--yet Kenyon was, if anything, soft-pedaling the situation. Before he joined Northeast, the utility had become known as a nuclear scofflaw, an industry rogue that for years cut operating costs by ignoring NRC regulations, allowing chronic hardware problems to go unrepaired and harassing employees who raised safety concerns--employees such as George Galatis, the engineer whose crusade to clean up the company landed him on the cover of TIME one year ago this month ("Blowing the Whistle on Nuclear Safety," March 4, 1996). Galatis' most alarming discovery was that the NRC knew about Northeast's dangerous game...
TIME's special report focused national attention on the NRC's failure to enforce its safety rules at Northeast's Millstone Station in Waterford, Connecticut. Then something extraordinary happened. Where past agency chiefs had routinely ignored such criticism, NRC chairman Shirley Ann Jackson, who had taken the job just 10 months before this scandal broke, called the TIME story "a wake-up call" and "a learning moment." Revving up its inspection program at Millstone, her agency found such pervasive noncompliance that it ordered all three plants there to shut down for sweeping repairs. A year later, Northeast is facing...
...their fight to win back public trust, both Kenyon and Jackson have shaken up their moribund organizations. Many of the senior Northeast and NRC officials identified in the original TIME story have either retired or been forced to resign. This spring, as the Justice Department concludes an investigation into alleged criminal misconduct by Northeast--illegal operation of Millstone 1, violation of environmental laws--indictments are possible and more departures likely. The NRC has become a more aggressive regulator, displaying new teeth in January when it added eight plants to its "watch list" of problem reactors, a move the industry protested...
Padilla, who chose not to write a thesis, says he spent his extra time taking language courses, travelling around the Northeast on weekends and learning ballroom dance...