Maine Yankee outage

The case for the resignation of Charles Frizzle as chief executive officer at Maine Yankee nuclear power plant was built on a pattern of missteps and lax oversight at the plant that over the last two years produced repeated safety problems. He and the plant could not continue together. Even without its longtime leader, however, it is far from assured that Maine Yankee will continue producing power until its scheduled closure date in 2008.

The owners of Maine Yankee, including the three electric utilities in Maine, needed to take dramatic action to help boost public confidence and offer a changed management culture at the Wiscasset plant. By accepting Mr. Frizzle’s resignation, they have done so. It will give them time to demonstrate that they are sincere in trying to improve the performance at the plant.

Before Friday’s announcement of the departure of Mr. Frizzle, who began his career at Maine Yankee in 1971, the CEO had outlined a plan to spend an additional $27 million in 1997 to repair thousands of problems characterized as minor at the plant. An audit of Maine Yankee’s top management also is schelduled to begin next month. But the repeated shutdowns of the plant — it is down now, for at least another week or two, because of improperly crossed cables — cast doubt on Mr. Frizzle’s ability to restore the system.

In addition to the independent safety assessment performed last summer, Maine Yankee had conducted an investigation of the working culture at the plant and found in the work force that, “there is a sense that assigned tasks cannot possibly be completed on time if all quality standards are met and the procedural requirements are observed. Many workers assume that management must be aware of this situation, and must there condone employees’ `working around’ procedures to complete their tasks on schedule.” The safety assessment, which was prompted by misapplied modeling codes relating to potential small breaks in the nuclear reactor, concluded that Maine Yankee did not qualify to operate at the power level it had been producing since 1978.

Mr. Frizzle was responsible as CEO for these problems and never tried to shirk them. In his recent response to the safety assessment, he was forthright in agreeing that management at the 810-megawatt plant had placed cheap power ahead of safety concerns, and planned to rectify the situation.

But the plant’s owners, like nuclear power generation itself, cannot afford much forgiveness. No one understands that better than Charles Frizzle.