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Andrew Siemaszko, a former systems engineer, and David Geisen, a former engineering manager, were charged with five counts of making false statements to a federal agency. Contractor-consultant Rodney Cook was charged with four counts of making false statements to a federal agency.

The indictment alleges that information about the status of the nuclear plant?s old reactor head deliberately was withheld from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, causing federal regulators to underestimate the amount of danger that existed at the plant along the Lake Erie shoreline near Oak Harbor, Ohio.

The reactor head nearly burst open in 2002 because of acid that had been allowed to escape from the reactor and burn a cavity deep into the device?s steel lid over a number of years.

If the reactor head had burst, radioactive steam would have formed in the containment building and put northern Ohio on the brink of a nuclear accident akin to what happened in the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in central Pennsylvania in 1979, the NRC has said.

The reactor was shut down for two years but returned to full power in March, 2004. Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., which owns Davis-Besse, spent $605 million making repairs, including replacing the reactor head, and buying replacement power because of the shutdown.

FirstEnergy agreed to pay a record $5 million fine to the federal government for failing to stop the acid leak and other issues and $450,000 for providing false and misleading information to the government.

Gregory White, the U.S. attorney in Cleveland, last night declined comment on the indictments, saying he has called a news conference for 11 a.m. today to discuss them.

The indictment says the men ?did knowingly and willfully conceal and cover up, and cause to be concealed and covered up? vital information about the old reactor head. It alleges they used ?tricks, schemes, and devices? to hide material facts.

Company and NRC investigations concluded that the rust had been expanding for at least four years and that Davis-Besse?s managers ignored the evidence because they were focused on profits rather than safety.

The indictment accuses the men of misleading regulators in the fall of 2001 into believing the plant was safe so inspectors would delay visits until the spring of 2002 during a scheduled shutdown for refueling.

Mr. Siemaszko was responsible for making sure the reactor vessel head was cleaned and inspected. The NRC has said he deliberately provided false information about the plant?s conditions.

Mr. Siemaszko has said he told supervisors the reactor needed to be cleaned. He said managers rejected his requests.

All three signed off on reports from the company to the NRC in 2001 that concealed information about problems with the reactor vessel head, where inspectors eventually found the cracks and leak, the indictment states.

The indictment also accuses the men of omitting important facts about previous company inspections, including the fact that employees had trouble accessing the equipment that needed inspecting because of leaks.

The three also are accused of omitting parts of a videotape that was sent to the NRC that was to show inspections of the reactor vessel head. Parts showing ?substantial deposits of boric acid? were edited out, according to the indictment.

Each count, upon conviction, carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

It was not known if others might be indicted.

Richard Wilkins, a spokesman for FirstEnergy, said the utility had little to say. ?Everyone?s entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.?

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Cleveland), who tried to get the NRC to revoke FirstEnergy?s operating license, expressed dismay that senior utility officials were not named.

The congressman, in a prepared statement, said that the ?buck does not stop with a couple of midlevel managers and a consultant. Those at the top levels of FirstEnergy must also be held accountable.?

Howard Whitcomb, a former Davis-Besse employee who once was an NRC resident inspector in South Carolina, agreed.

Mr. Whitcomb, who now practices law in both Oak Harbor and Toledo, said the information that is alleged to have been withheld ?is not relegated to lower level engineers.?

?The Andrew Siemaszkos are more the worker bees,? he said.

On April 21, 2005, the NRC imposed a five-year ban on further employment in the nuclear industry against Mr. Siemaszko ? a decision which has rankled activists in Ohio and Washington.

Several of them have rallied around Mr. Siemaszko, describing him as a whistleblower who tried to reveal the plant?s problems during its 2000 outage, only to be set up as a scapegoat by FirstEnergy and the NRC. The company and the agency deny those allegations.

Ohio Citizen Action, the state?s largest environmental group, as well as the Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Cambridge, Mass., recently were granted intervener status on Mr. Siemaszko?s behalf for his appeal of the proposed NRC employment sanction. That appeal is now being heard by the NRC?s Atomic Licensing and Safety Board.

Mr. Siemaszko and Mr. Cook were not available for comment. Mr. Geisen, contacted at his home in Wisconsin, said he was instructed by his attorney to keep quiet.

?I?m innocent,? he said. ?We?ll just have to go through the paces here.?

Mr. Geisen was one of four additional former Davis-Besse employees the NRC took employment sanctions against this month. Like Mr. Siemaszko, he received a five-year suspension from the industry.

Mr. Geisen had been employed for the last three years as an engineer at the Kewaunee nuclear plant 27 miles east of Green Bay, Wis. He said he will appeal that sanction.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.

Source: toledoblade.com