Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's inspector general to investigate charges that the agency's engineers were pressured to allow the restart of a troubled nuclear plant near Toledo.

NRC officials told a public hearing in Oak Harbor, Ohio, last Thursday that the Davis-Besse nuclear plant is safe to operate, according to a letter that Kucinich sent NRC Inspector General Hubert Bell yesterday.

But engineers at NRC's district office in Lisle, Ill., relayed a drastically different message to Kucinich's office in recent months, the lawmaker said. Engineers reported in June that cracks in the 224-foot-tall shield building were "structural" and weaken the wall that protects the plant from natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

The same engineers, he said, then backpedaled at the public hearing to conform with the official NRC finding that the shield building was strong.

The congressman said NRC supervisors may have pressured the engineers to change their analysis of the shield building to appease FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Corp., which operates the reactor, and pave the way for the plant to restart in December (Greenwire, Dec. 5, 2011).

"Someone made a decision to rush Davis-Besse back into operation on Dec. 2, 2011, which, according to NRC emails obtained through [the Freedom of Information Act] occurred while Region III engineers were still debating the impact of the cracking," Kucinich wrote. "I am concerned that NRC officials are trying to legitimize that decision by readily accepting FirstEnergy's purported cause, and the minor remedial actions that FirstEnergy is proposing, and actively campaigning for public acceptance of them."

Workers discovered cracks in the shield building last year while replacing a corroding lid or "head" on the reactor. The contractors cut through the shield building to find a 30-foot crack in the concrete structure. The reactor was not operating at the time.

Subsequent investigations revealed other fractures, but NRC in December allowed the plant to begin operating again.

In June, NRC accepted reactor owner FirstEnergy's assessment that driving wind and rain and the absence of exterior seal on the shield building allowed moisture to seep into the structure's concrete walls. The water froze, expanding and cracking the concrete (Greenwire, June 22).

Kucinich said FirstEnergy did not explain how wind and rain that struck the southwest face of the shield building caused cracking throughout the structure. NRC engineers also said earlier that cracks were found throughout the shield building but later backpedaled and said the fissures were isolated, he said.

"We need a Nuclear Regulatory Commission that tells the public the truth, not one that merely repeats the soothing, but misleading, statements of the reactor's operator," Kucinich said. "We need to restore the NRC's credibility as a regulator capable of objectivity."

NRC declined to comment on the Kucinich letter.

"While we don't comment on issues that might be under investigation by the IG, the NRC strives at every interaction to provide accurate information," spokesman Eliot Brenner said.