Feb 14 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Nicholas Clunn Asbury Park Press, N.J.

Did a mid-level manager at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant overrule reactor operators and shut down two key water pumps?

That is one of the allegations made by Paul E. Schwartz, a former Oyster Creek scientist who said he was fired for telling the truth about the events that led up to a major fish kill in September 2002.

But AmerGen Energy Co., a subsidiary of Exelon Nuclear, which runs Oyster Creek, said Schwartz was fired for lying. The public may never know who is correct; Schwartz's whistle-blower lawsuit against the plant was settled out of court in October, and neither side will talk about it now.

From the court record, this much is known: While off duty at his child's soccer game in 2002, Schwartz said he received a call from Stephen Bailey, his boss at Oyster Creek.

Bailey asked Schwartz whether he could shut off two cooling pumps so that workers could prepare for a maintenance project, according to Schwartz's lawsuit.

Schwartz said he told Bailey to check if doing so would violate a state environmental permit meant to protect sea life in the plant's cooling canal.

In its response to the lawsuit, AmerGen said Schwartz changed his story. He first said he told Bailey the pumps could be shut down, and later, when the state launched a criminal probe, Schwartz said he told Bailey to review the permit first.

The end result is not in dispute. The pumps were shut down, and 5,876 fish were cooked to death as the water temperature rose to 101 degrees in 95 minutes.

The pumps draw cool water from the South Branch of the Forked River and combine it with heated water being discharged from the plant. This injection of cool water lessens the thermal impact on marine life in the man-made discharge canal.

Schwartz's account fits with Exelon's record of putting profits before public safety, said Suzanne Leta, an advocate with the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group.

"It's a good example of the Exelon way, which is not really the right way," she said.

According to the lawsuit, control-room operators -- engineers responsible for running the reactor safely -- also warned Bailey against taking the pumps offline.

"Before the pumps were shut down, representatives of the (plant) knew that the shutdown would violate the permit because employees in the control room told management," a lawyer for Schwartz claimed.

Lawyers for the plant denied the claim that control-room operators and Schwartz had told Bailey to check the environmental permit. Schwartz was fired in March 2003.

According to a brief filed by plant lawyers, Schwartz "unequivocally told Mr. Bailey that the plant could shut down the dilution pumps and that he would come in early the next morning to notify the NJDEP and obtain any requisite approvals."

But Schwartz recanted that version during a meeting with company lawyers, according to the brief. The meeting was meant to prepare him for an interview with a state investigator looking into criminal sanctions related to the fish kill.

In his suit, Schwartz said company managers fired him in retaliation for planning to tell the truth to state investigators about what happened.

Schwartz now works for the state Bureau of Nuclear Engineering, where he was hired in August 2003 as a nuclear engineer. He is paid an annual salary of $70,300.

Schwartz did not respond to interview requests, and his lawyer declined to discuss the case. AmerGen also declined to talk about it and would not say if Bailey still works at the plant.

According to an AmerGen report on the fish kill for the NRC, the pumps were shut down after managers wanted to perform maintenance on the transformer that powered them. The work was meant to increase the level of safety during an upcoming outage.

No criminal charges were filed, but the incident cost AmerGen $1 million in a 2004 settlement that included the company and two state agencies.

When announcing the deal, then-DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell called it the state's largest clean-water enforcement settlement involving a reactor.