Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. is tightening its fitness-for-duty procedures in response to a year-long U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation that showed a former licensed operator at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant lied about medications he was supposed to have been taking between February 2013 and July 2014.

The medications in question were for diabetes and blood pressure, and that the man’s failure to take them in no way affected the plant’s operation, according to FirstEngery.

The NRC cited FirstEnergy for failing to provide accurate medical information. The utility did so unknowingly because a male employee failed to divulge when he stopped taking the medication.

The NRC said in a news release the employee “deliberately provided inaccurate medical information to the Davis-Besse facility” between February 2013 and July 2014.

“As a result of the operator’s actions, the plant provided the NRC with false medical records violating the agency’s requirement for complete and accurate information,” the NRC said.

The NRC gave FirstEnergy deadlines to comply. The settlement includes a requirement that FirstEnergy’s nuclear operating company makes a presentation at the Nuclear Medical Resources Professionals User Group “to engage industry personnel from across the entirety of the United States on the facts and lessons learned from the event,” and that FENOC submit an article about it to a widely distributed trade publication.

Davis-Besse sits along the Lake Erie shoreline in Ottawa County, about 30 miles from downtown Toledo.

Source: The Toledo Blade