Suggested Article: Retired Millstone worker alleges safety compromises at Millstone, NRC

Federal regulators looking into Old Lyme man's claims as Dominion rejects charges

Federal regulators are investigating allegations by a retired Millstone Power Station worker that plant owner Dominion puts profits ahead of safety and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not thoroughly managing safety issues.

David Collins of Old Lyme, a pro-nuclear retiree who took a company buyout in March, says the way Dominion has handled staffing cuts in key areas at the nuclear complex, along with an electrical mishap that forced a manual shutdown at the plant and the monitoring of fire doors, contribute to a "cover-up culture" that could compromise public safety just the way it was compromised in the late 1990s at the Waterford plant and in 2002 at the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio.

Dominion officials deny the allegations about lax safety at the plant or that profits are motivating cutbacks in staffing.

Collins is concerned about the danger to the public posed by lax regulatory oversight and mismanagement of "safety culture," such as occurred at Davis-Besse in 2002. In that case, in which a reactor lid was corroded by an acid leak, a Government Accountability Report found the NRC "should have but did not identify or prevent the vessel head corrosion" because of inaccurate and incomplete inspections.

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