- Catching the boss dozing on the job might be fodder for
comedy, except when the office is the control room of a nuclear reactor.
-
- Around 4 a.m. on June 29, a senior reactor operator fell
asleep in the control room at Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Plymouth, and
another employee caught him in the act. Instead of reporting the nap, however,
the employee snapped a picture with a cellphone camera and kept quiet.
-
- Now the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating
the incident, after a third person brought it to the agency's attention
in late August.
-
- ''This is the kind of thing that can't be tolerated,"
said David Tarantino, a spokesman for the Pilgrim Nuclear Station, a 670-megawatt
power plant owned by the conglomerate Entergy.
-
- The NRC notified plant officials about the incident on
Aug. 26, and they promptly suspended the entire crew that worked the shift
that night. The napping operator and the co-worker who took his picture
have been let go.
-
- ''The inattentiveness can't be tolerated, but, secondly,
the employee that filmed the senior reactor operator did not immediately
report the potential safety condition," Tarantino said.
-
- The operator's nap was brief and never posed a threat
to the public, according to the NRC.
-
- The agency requires that several people staff the control
room on each shift. On the June 29 shift, Tarantino said, the plant met
that requirement: The senior reactor operator and two subordinates were
present.
-
- The NRC is looking into whether the problem was prevalent
among other employees and is reviewing the company's own investigation
to ensure it was thorough.
-
- NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said that the operator's nap
appears to have been an isolated event. Nonetheless, it is cause for concern.
-
- ''The top-headline nuclear events generally occurred
in the wee hours of the morning," said David Lochbaum, nuclear safety
engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. ''Chernobyl happened about
1:30. Three Mile Island happened about 4 a.m."
-
- The NRC is developing rules that would limit the number
of hours plant operators can work. Currently there are only guidelines,
published in 1982 after the Three Mile Island disaster, recommending a
40-hour week and shifts no longer than 16 hours.
-
- Mary Lampert, director of the antinuclear group Pilgrim
Watch, said the case was ''something that you'd see in the Simpsons,"
she said. ''And you'd laugh. But you don't laugh when you recognize the
consequences of a disaster at a nuclear power plant."
-
- Carolyn Johnson can be reached atcjohnson@globe.com.
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- http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004
/10/14/nrc_looking_into_a_nap_at_pilgrim/
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