Davis-Besse witness set to testify against trio; Engineer to discuss coverup accusation [View All]

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071010/NEWS02/710100428

Article published Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Davis-Besse witness set to testify against trio
Engineer to discuss coverup accusation

By TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF WRITER

One of the key witnesses in the U.S. Department of Justice's case against three former Davis-Besse engineers is expected to testify today about the government's theory that he and the trio were part of a coverup that jeopardized northern Ohio's safety in the fall of 2001.

Prasoon Goyal, 61, of Toledo, who took the stand late yesterday, is a former senior design engineer who avoided prosecution by agreeing to cooperate with the Justice Department in its case against the other three.

Prosecutors said when the indictments were issued in 2006, Mr. Goyal and the three defendants - David Geisen, Rodney N. Cook, and Andrew Siemaszko - intentionally deceived the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the dangerous state of the plant's old reactor head in the fall of 2001, when it was leaking boric acid from its reactor.

When the plant was shut down in early 2002, the NRC learned so much acid had leaked and burned through the plant's reactor lid that it nearly burst - an event that would have allowed radioactive steam to form in containment for the first time since half of Three Mile Island Unit 2's reactor melted in 1979.

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