A federal jury sitting in Toledo on Tuesday convicted a nuclear reactor engineer at the Oak Harbor, Ohio facility of lying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the safety condition of the Davis-Besse reactor. A hole the size of an American football was found in the top of the reactor vessel head in March 2002. The hole in the vessel containing the fission reaction was discovered during a planned shut down for refueling. The engineer was found guilty of lying about the reactor's condition to the regulatory agency in the fall of 2001. His false statements were made in response to the agency's bulletin requesting information about a nozzle cracking problem occurring at other plants of similar design. Another engineer was also found guilty of lying to regulators earlier in the case. Analysis of the Davis-Besse defect showed the hole resulted from a leak of corrosive reactor coolant containing boric acid through a crack that had opened where control rod guide nozzles were
welded to the lid of the reactor vessel
[photos courtesy NIRS]. Severe corrosion ate through the entire reactor pressure vessel outer wall of nearly 7 inches with only the stainless steel inner liner remaining. The inner liner was bulging out into the cavity and cracking from extreme operational pressure of the reactor. Citizen activists and the Union of Concerned Scientists supported the latest engineer to be convicted saying the real culprit was plant operator, FirstEnergy Corp., which restarted the reactor in May 200o without first fully eliminating the leakage of corrosive coolant. The company was fined $5.45 million for the incident, the largest single fine imposed by the NRC. According to a nuclear industry watchdog group the reactor came within weeks of a catastrophic release of radiation due to a rupture of its pressure vessel.
A federal jury sitting in Toledo on Tuesday convicted a nuclear reactor engineer at the Oak Harbor, Ohio facility of lying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the safety condition of the Davis-Besse reactor. A hole the size of an American football was found in the top of the reactor vessel head in March 2002. The hole in the vessel containing the fission reaction was discovered during a planned shut down for refueling. The engineer was found guilty of lying about the reactor's condition to the regulatory agency in the fall of 2001. His false statements were made in response to the agency's bulletin requesting information about a nozzle cracking problem occurring at other plants of similar design. Another engineer was also found guilty of lying to regulators earlier in the case. Analysis of the Davis-Besse defect showed the hole resulted from a leak of corrosive reactor coolant containing boric acid through a crack that had opened where control rod guide nozzles were 
welded to the lid of the reactor vessel [photos courtesy NIRS]. Severe corrosion ate through the entire reactor pressure vessel outer wall of nearly 7 inches with only the stainless steel inner liner remaining. The inner liner was bulging out into the cavity and cracking from extreme operational pressure of the reactor. Citizen activists and the Union of Concerned Scientists supported the latest engineer to be convicted saying the real culprit was plant operator, FirstEnergy Corp., which restarted the reactor in May 200o without first fully eliminating the leakage of corrosive coolant. The company was fined $5.45 million for the incident, the largest single fine imposed by the NRC. According to a nuclear industry watchdog group the reactor came within weeks of a catastrophic release of radiation due to a rupture of its pressure vessel.