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...internal document reports that 38% of employees "do not trust their management enough to willingly raise concerns [because of] a 'shoot the messenger' attitude" at the company. In recent years, two dozen Millstone employees have claimed they were fired or demoted for raising safety concerns; in two cases, the NRC fined Northeast. In one, Paul Blanch, who had only recently been named engineer of the year by a leading industry journal, was subjected to company-wide harassment after he discovered that some of Millstone Unit 3's safety instrumentation didn't work properly...
Galatis had watched that case unfold. "George knew what he was getting into," says Blanch. "He knew Northeast would come after him. He knew the NRC wouldn't protect him. And he did it anyway...
Galatis sent a memo to DeBarba, then vice president of nuclear engineering, in May 1993. Galatis was threatening to go to the NRC, so DeBarba created a task force to address "George's issues," as they were becoming known. The aim seems to have been to appease Galatis and keep him from going public. DeBarba says the calculations that Holtec and Galatis used were overly conservative and that experience told him there was no problem. The pool hadn't boiled, so it wouldn't boil. If a problem ever developed, there would be plenty of time to correct it before...
...October 1993, Galatis was writing to the chief of Northeast's nuclear group, John Opeka, and to Fox, who was then company president. Galatis mentioned the criminal penalties for "intentional misconduct" in dealings with the NRC. Opeka objected to Galatis' abrasive tone but hired another consulting firm, which also agreed with Galatis. Northeast moved on to yet another consultant, a retired NRC official named Jim Partlow...
DeBarba and Kacich created another task force but did not modify the cooling system. Kacich began having conversations with Jim Andersen, the NRC's project manager for Millstone 1, about Galatis' concerns and how to get through the spring 1994 off-load. Andersen, who works at NRC headquarters in Washington, has told the inspector general that he knew all along Millstone was off-loading its full core but didn't know until June 1993 that it was a problem. Even then he did not inform his superiors. In a bow to Galatis, Millstone modified its off-load procedure, moving...