CINCINNATI - The electric utility here hired a private eye last fall to go undercover at a nuclear power plant to find proof that construction workers were cheating on time cards.
ZIMMER NUCLEAR PLANT in Moscow, Ohio, Private investigator Thomas W. Applegate Jr., has come forward to alert federal authorities to what he believes is a conspiracy to cover up flaws in one of the plant's critical safety installations. (AP)
Instead, he found what could be a serious safety problem in the plant.
Along with the cheating he was sent to find and a host of other kinds of negligence and inefficiency, he found the builder of the power plant had allowed a potentially defective load of piping to be installed in a safety system in the William H. Zimmer nuclear power plant near here.
Thomas W. Applegate Jr., the private eye, now has come forward to alert federal authorities to what he believes is a conspiracy on the part of the utility to cover up flaws in the main steam relief system, one of the plant’s critical safety installations.
Inspectors from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commission last week began as investigation to determine why Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. allowed the possibly defective load of piping to be installed in the 810-megawatt plant situated in Moscow, Ohio.
The NRC isn’t the only federal agency questioning the utility’s practices. Recently, officials of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration tried to serve a warrant on CG&E after six workers at one of the utility’s coal-fired plants were hospitalized for what OSHA said was carbon monoxide poisoning.
But the utility refused to allow the federal officials to come on the premises, and the matter is now in court.
The situation with the piping was one of a myriad of grossly improper and possibly criminal activities Applegate says he uncovered, which include:
Extensive time-cheating by construction workers earning upwards of $50,000 a year, who regularly spent up to half their shifts drinking at a local bar.
The collusion of security guards in the employees’ time-cheating, and a project engineer who told workers: “Just don’t get caught,”
The manufacture during several years’ time of hundreds of fancy belt buckles by pipefitters while on duty, using prime grade stainless steel normally reserved for piping at the plant.
Lack of an alarm system to warn personnel of a fire discovered by Applegate one night in the deepest portion of the containment building, forcing him to climb three levels of scaffolding to get help.
Raffling at the construction site of stolen guns.
The use of workers’ time and construction equipment of materials to sandblast and re-paint a car owned by the wife of the job site superintendent, an employee of Kaiser engineering of Oakland, Calif., contractor on the project.
Government and utility spokesmen have pointed to the “lessons learned” at Three Mile Island as a turning point in reckoning with important safety concerns in the nuclear industry. Applegate’s charges could represent a significant challenge to those claims.
In a similar chase involving the Marble Hill nuclear project near Madison, Ind., shoddy workmanship and problems with the quality control led to a halt last August on safety-regulated construction. The halt remains in effect, Sargent & Lundy of Chicago serves as the engineering firm for both Marble Hill and the Zimmer project.
Two years of college and seven years as a detective don’t qualify Applegate, 29, as a nuclear expert. But he claims his experience in sleuthing —on cases involving company theft, marital disputes, an eight-state prostitution ring and others— convinced him there were questions left unanswered.
“The investigation [at Timmer] wasn’t really very thorough,” Applegate said. “I told them they were only looking at the tip of the iceberg.”
This belt buckle, made of high-quality stainless steel from material at the Zimmer Plant, was sold by a security guard to the undercover private eye Thomas W. Applegate Jr. for $20.
Coming forward with his investigation hasn’t been easy for Applegate, who lost his former job and suffered a bad cased of frayed nerves after an exhaustive month working at the plant. He has also had to cope with threats against his well-being.
Five employees at the construction site have been fired since the investigation ended in January, according to the utility. But Applegate believes he had just scratched the surface of wrongdoing at the plant when CG&E purposefully interrupted his investigation because he had begun to question quality-control procedures at the construction site.
In response, Earl Bormann, senior vice president for CG&E, said Applegate was hired only to investigate time-cheating by specific employees and, after a month, he had no new information to supply.
Bormann denies the utility was involved in a coverup.
“I’m convinced we took the proper action.” Borgmann said. “There was nothing swept under the rug.”
As for other questionable employee behavior, Norman said it has stopped. Some of it, he said, is inevitable on a major construction project.
“I don’t condone any of these things,” he said. But “in the real world, those things are done. They have no bearing on the safety of the plant. They have no bearing not he cost of the plant.”
The $850 million Zimmer project, shared by CG&E with two other Ohio utilities, is about 95 percent complete and scheduled to begin commercial operation sometime in 1981.
Problems aren’t new to Zimmer, CG&E’s first nuclear plant.
"Gray hat" and card identified Thomas W. Apple-gate Jr. as "Tom Jackson," Ho had top-level access to all areas of the Zimmer nuclear plant and was to investigate time cheating by employees,
About a year ago, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission discovered that “radiograph” inspections of 2400 pipe welds at the plant have been conducted improperly or interpreted incorrectly.
In response to the NRC finding, CG&E hired another expert to review all 2400 radiographs. Fourteen defective welds were discovered, and another 200 may still contain problems.
While the NRC knew o the faulty radiographs nd defective welds, Applegate’s assertions regarding the installation of possibly defective piping was a new concern.
Working under the guise of a “cost engineer” named Tom Jackson, the detective learned that a security guard on duty on the evening of July 3, 1979, had been specifically instructed by a superior to allow a truck to unload pipe int ehe evening, in violation of rules that require unloading to take place on the day shift.
Personnel were not present to assist, so the truck driver proceeded to push abut a half dozen pieces of piping off the back of the flat-bed.
Applegate contends that X-rays that were taken to check for damage from the fall revealed the pipe had been manufactured with defects.
Despite the flaws, Applegate charges that quality assurance personnel for the utility and personnel for Kaiser Engineering of Oakland, Calif. — the contractor on the site — ordered the pipe installed in the main stream-relief system, a key mechanism for reducing pressure within the reactor vessel in the event of a mishap.
Claudia’s notes:
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