Workers ‘terrified’ at nuclear plant
“We want you to know that we’re doing everything possible to keep our workers and host communities safe.”
LIMERICK » Contractors working during a refueling project at the Limerick Generating Station are “terrified” they’re working in a “breeding ground” for COVID-19 and expressed concerns about the company’s safety practices during the pandemic.
“I’m in a constant state of paranoia. In my opinion, it’s just a complete breeding ground, a cesspool for this,” said one man, who spoke on condition of anonymity to MediaNews Group out of fear of losing his job.
The contractor said supplemental workers began showing up at the plant days before a Unit 1 refueling outage began on March
27. Montgomery County officials have said they were informed that up to 1,400 contractors may have been summoned to work on the project as a coronavirus outbreak was taking shape in the county.
The first cases of coronavirus were reported in the county on March 7.
The workers interviewed claimed that social distancing measures of standing at least six feet apart, which have repeatedly been recommended by health officials during the outbreak, were not in place at the plant as they initially reported for their jobs.
“From the first day I got there, there were no less than 100 people in the training room being processed. I have pictures from that day of people literally sitting on top of each other, no one enforcing social distancing,” the man said on Friday. “There were computer labs for people to take the tests they need to get into the plant, people sitting
- Dave Marcheskie, communications manager at the Limerick Generating Station
at every computer elbow to elbow. So, I’ve been concerned since the minute I walked in there.”
During shift changes, he said, people from both shifts congregated in the break room “standing room only, just packed in there.”
“They did not enforce any social distancing whatsoever until this past Wednesday (April 1) when the news got to the media. That’s when they started enforcing some social distancing,” the man claimed. “Being put at risk like this makes us mad.”
The contractor described the current social distancing at the plant as “a halfassed thing.” “They made us sit further apart in the break room. But that first week and a half we were elbow to elbow with 40 people in the break room at any given time,” he claimed.
Those interviewed said social distancing is now being practiced somewhat outside the plant but inside is a different story.
“There’s groups of people just working on top of each other, still to this day,” the contractor claimed on Friday, adding there are jobs in the plant where social distancing cannot be adhered to, “because you need multiple pairs of hands to accomplish the jobs.”
A second contractor, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed fear about working at the plant during the pandemic.
“People are starting to get nervous now,” that contractor said. “I am terrified. I have trouble sleeping and have crazy anxiety.”
The contractor follows a strict routine after a day of being at the plant.
“I strip down in the garage. I throw everything in the washer. I run and get in the shower. You wash yourself three or four times and you’re still so paranoid you don’t feel clean enough,” the second contractor described a routine that is followed before having contact with any friends or relatives. “It’s what I do now.”
Both contractors said that despite their fears, they continue to report to work because they need jobs and their income, especially during the current tumultuous economic times.
“I’m just trying to wash my hands every chance I get, use my own personal hand sanitizer because there’s not a lot being provided there and just trying to keep my distance as best that I can,” one contractor said.
“I go back out of fear of losing my job for saying, ‘No,’ and never being able to work at an Exelon site again. I also didn’t want to let my coworkers hanging. We’re like a family,” the second contractor said.
County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, on Friday, said she and public safety officials continue to receive emails and calls “from individuals who have concerns about what’s going on at the site.”
“I’ve communicated that to my primary contact at Exelon and asked for an update about what the actual conditions are at the site,” Arkoosh said late Friday afternoon.
Exelon officials did not respond to a written set of questions posed to them by MediaNews Group on Friday.
On April 1, Liz Williamson, Exelon senior manager for nuclear communications, Mid-Atlantic & Northeast, confirmed two cases of COVID-19 among the workforce at the Limerick plant, adding the fulltime employees were sent home and were receiving care and that neither employee had been at the site since March 20.
It’s unclear if the employees who tested positive were members of the plant’s normal workforce or were contractors reporting there for the refueling project.
Company officials added that any employees who came in close contact with the affected persons or worked at that reporting location were notified, and that an additional deep cleaning occurred at all areas that potentially were exposed.
“We want you to know that we’re doing everything possible to keep our workers and host communities safe,” Dave Marcheskie, communications manager at the Limerick Generating Station, said on Thursday, claiming the company did not have the luxury of postponing the outage because the plant’s power is vital to the region’s hospitals, emergency response centers and essential businesses during the pandemic.
In order to keep workers safe, Marcheskie claimed company officials eliminated “all non-essential work” from the outage, which reduced the workforce by 400 people and that officials are screening every worker and taking body temperatures before they enter, “every shift, every day.”
Marcheskie added, “We’re also enforcing social distancing wherever possible, frequent hand washing and we’ve increased cleaning and disinfection of all work areas. Those who have traveled to or from countries or states on the CDC restricted list, including the New York metro area, are denied access and prohibited from entering.”
But those contractors who were interviewed fear some workers from New York and New Jersey are still at the plant and they fear that more than the two positive workers reported by company officials are infected.
County commissioners said they first learned about “a long-scheduled maintenance operation” at the Limerick plant on March 16 and demanded to see Exelon’s pandemic response site plan. County officials concluded the plan was not adequate for the COVID-19 pandemic and asked Exelon to postpone the refuel until such time when the disease burden from the virus was lower in Montgomery and Chester counties.
However, Exelon officials proceeded with the refueling, pledging to commit to mitigation measures, including social distancing at the worksite, according
to officials.
The outage was initially to begin March 30 with an estimated duration of 25 days, according to information obtained by MediaNews Group.
But Arkoosh said a socalled “event of public interest” alert was published on Friday, March 27 indicating the project was beginning that evening.
Contractors confirmed the project was moved up to March 27 and added a large number of contractors had been arriving at the plant for several days prior in preparation for the refueling.
According to the contractors, workers initially go to the plant’s training center where they spend an average of two to five days for various evaluations, credentialing and computer-based training.
“They were not implementing social distancing at all. They were packing 100 people into a classroom. It was crazy. They were running out of hand sanitizer. Stuff wasn’t being wiped down,” one contractor claimed.
“These people were walking into it blind too,” the contractor added. “Half of these guys, unless they did their research and looked up what county they were traveling to and what it was like, they had no clue. This is scaring me. This is how community spread happens.”
On March 31, Arkoosh said the county’s department of public safety received complaints that adherence to social distancing measures may not be occurring at the worksite.
At that time, Arkoosh said she was “deeply concerned” to learn that a number of the estimated 1,400 contract workers were staying at AirBnBs, private homes, campsites, hotels and other rental units in the Tri-county region.
“I have a lot of concern. As we pointed out from the beginning, they were coming into an area of community spread here in Montgomery County. It puts at risk the people in our community, the workforce that is in Limerick every day, our critical workforce that keeps that very important plant running,” Arkoosh said at the time, adding county public health officials have established daily communication with Exelon and have posed numerous questions to the company.
State Sen. Katie Muth, D-44th Dist., who represents parts of Montgomery, Chester and Berks counties, also sought answers from Exelon regarding the company’s pandemic response plan.
“It is my understanding that the plan is for many of these workers to move onto additional refueling projects, such as the scheduled Beaver Valley refueling project in western Pa., as well as at other nuclear facilities across the country, and without proper safety and quarantine measures, we are risking a massive spread of COVID-19 across this state and nation,” Muth wrote in a letter to Exelon executives last week.
Exelon officials did not reveal if they replied to Muth’s letter.
U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-4th Dist., who represents Montgomery County and parts of Berks, expressed concern about the plant’s handling of the scheduled refueling, adding the county and the region “need heightened transparency to help manage the COVID-19 outbreak.”