Dec 1 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Paul Sisson North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

Recent news of falsified customer satisfaction surveys and suppressed employee injury reports at Southern California Edison have caused some anti-nuclear energy activists to question safety at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station north of Oceanside.

The California Public Utilities Commission is currently deciding how much to fine Edison, San Onofre's majority owner and operator, for manipulating two incentive programs to increase rates and earn millions more than it otherwise would have.

A report published in July by the commission's Consumer Protection and Safety Division found that Edison "falsified and manipulated customer satisfaction data and survey results" and that Edison managers "requested doctors not to provide treatment to employees whose treatments would be reportable under the (performance-based program.)"

The report recommends that Edison return $50 million in performance rewards it earned by submitting allegedly fraudulent results between 1997 and 2003. Edison has already agreed to return the money and is asking that a judge overseeing proceedings against it to reduce the fine, which amounts to about $20,000 for each day of the seven years it submitted falsified records.

Though the report does not touch on nuclear safety at San Onofre, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission continues to give the plant high marks for safety and maintenance, some are not so sure.

Rochelle Becker, a spokesperson for the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, said this week that Edison's actions raise questions about San Onofre's nuclear safety and maintenance ratings.

"If employees are hesitant to bring forward these problems, they are also hesitant to bring forward plant safety issues that might not be a problem today, but that will be a problem in the future," Becker said.

Edison Senior Vice President Stephen Pickett said Wednesday Becker's concerns are unfounded. He said the falsification of records occurred at a business facility operated by Edison in Los Angeles, not at the nuclear plant, which generates enough electricity to power 2 million homes.

"It is not the sort of thing any responsible management would ever take a chance with," Pickett said. "The consequences are absolutely too grave to be taking any chance with safety."

The utilities commission finished a nine-day hearing Tuesday regarding Edison's alleged fraudulent participation in the commission's Performance Based Ratemaking program. The program allows utilities to charge their customers higher rates by meeting customer satisfaction and employee safety goals.

The utility commission's investigative report relied on interviews with more than 40 current and former Edison employees. The report focuses on techniques the utility allegedly used to increase the number of positive customer comments reported.

One section notes that some employees were ordered by their managers to transpose the phone numbers of customers who would give negative reviews of Edison's service to make sure those comments did not turn up on customer satisfaction reports.

Employee safety was also addressed, though to a much lesser extent than customer service. The report stated that Edison employees took steps to minimize the reporting of minor, "Band Aid" injuries in its reports to the state utilities commission.

While the report talks about employee safety and health, it gives no scrutiny to the safe operation and maintenance of the San Onofe plant, Edison's largest energy-generating facility. Ensuring that San Onofre is operated safely is the job of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which conducts continuous inspections and issues quarterly reports.

The most recent 38-page safety inspection report, posted on the agency's Web site, for San Onofre's two reactors states that they are in good operating condition.

But Becker, and many other anti-nuclear activists, have continually attacked the regulatory commission for having too close a relationship with the plant owners it supervises. She said the revelation that Edison allegedly falsified survey results and employee health records only casts more suspicion on the validity of plant safety inspections.

"I think the NRC hasn't met a nuclear power plant it doesn't like," Becker said. "I don't buy that the NRC is a good watchdog. Not for one second."

Victor Dricks, a regulatory commission spokesman, noted Tuesday that each nuclear power plant in the nation has resident inspectors whose jobs are to "trust but verify."

Though he declined to comment on the utility commission's findings, Dricks said: "The public should be reassured that the NRC has programs in place to ensure that the plant is being operated safely."

Pickett said Edison has already changed the way it trains its employees and collects injury information to make sure the same problems do not happen again.

"It's been a major wake-up call internally in terms of forcing management to come to grips with having better systems to ensure employee integrity and employee safety," Pickett said.