Word: betancourt
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...investigators, he encountered only more contempt from management. The prevailing attitude was best summed up, he says, by the supervisor who took him aside and said, "The NRC's only beating us up because of the publicity. This will all blow over." In June, Galatis and George Betancourt, another Northeast engineer who backed him, accepted severance agreements. Galatis moved to Massachusetts and enrolled in Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He expects to enter the ministry...
YOUR ARTICLE ON NUCLEAR SAFETY WAS an eye-opener, and your effort to address a very serious problem is commendable [BUSINESS, March 4]. My heart goes out to George Betancourt, George Galatis and the gutsy engineers who fought the management of Northeast Utilities. Kudos to them for their selfless devotion. The role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be investigated. Where can people go if the regulatory agency and utilities companies collude? How can we protect ourselves? It is time for a shake-up of the NRC. SUDIP GUHAROY Rancho Mirage, California...
...COURAGE OF WHISTLE-BLOWERS Galatis and Betancourt in fighting for quality and safety in the nuclear-power industry is inspiring. To the Georges, I say please don't give up--you belong with the true heroes of this country. ALLAN BAZZOLI Mount Vernon, Ohio...
...Slowly, we woke up to this problem," says Betancourt. The NRC relaxed standards and granted license amendments that allowed plants to "rerack" their rods in ever more tightly packed pools. Sandwiched between the rods is a neutron-absorbing material called Boraflex that helps keep them from "going critical." After fuel pools across the country were filled in this way, the industry discovered that radiation causes Boraflex to shrink and crack. The NRC is studying the problem, but at times its officials haven't bothered to analyze a pool's cooling capacity before granting a reracking amendment. "It didn't receive...
...July 10, Betancourt met with Ken Jenison, an inspector from the NRC's Region 1 office, and gave testimony in support of Galatis' safety allegations. Less than a week later, Betancourt was called to the office of a good-natured human-resources officer named Janice Roncaioli. She complained that he wasn't a "team player," Betancourt says, and ran through the company's termination policies. Roncaioli called Betancourt's account of the meeting "slanted" but would not comment further, citing employee-confidentiality rules...