Rowdy contract workers at nuclear plant probed

By Lennart Simonsson Jul 12, 2007, 13:25 GMT

Stockholm - Police in the Swedish west coast town of Varberg on Thursday said they were investigating complaints of alleged sexual abuse by workers contracted to do scheduled maintenance at a nuclear plant.

A spokesman for the Ringhals nuclear plant, near Varberg, said the incidents occurred outside of working hours, at a local hotel where the contracted workers were staying.

'Seven workers have been suspended in relation to two recent incidents,' Ringhals spokesman Torsten Bohl told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Bohl said the workers had allegedly harassed cleaners at the hotel and also tried to force them to drink alcohol.

'This is completely unacceptable,' Bohl said, adding that Ringhals management backed the police investigation filed by the hotel.

Tomas Jansson, who was in charge of the police investigation, said complaints were filed last week. He declined to offer details, but added that the complaints also included coercion.

Sexual abuse can render a fine or in severe cases a prison term of up to two years, Jansson said.

Ringhals, 60 kilometres south of the west coast city of Gothenburg, operates four reactors and provides about a fifth of Sweden's electricity.

Bohl said some 1,700 workers were contracted for scheduled maintenance work on two of the reactors that were offline, including replacing turbines.

The suspended workers did not have access to sensitive areas like the control rooms, he said.

The incidents were more unwelcome news for the Swedish nuclear power industry.

Earlier this year the Forsmark plant, 140 kilometres north of Stockholm, generated headlines after internal reports suggested a deterioration of security routines.

A year ago one of Forsmark's three reactors was shut down after a short-circuit in a switchyard outside the plant. The incident sparked a heated debate and subsequent reports indicated problems with reporting and follow-up of maintenance and the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) tightened its supervision.

Earlier this year, Sweden agreed to undergo a special review of its nuclear plants conducted under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Forsmark and Ringhals are majority-owned by the state-controlled energy group Vattenfall that also replaced the chief executive at Forsmark.

The three-reactor Oskarshamn plant on the south-east coast is majority owned by energy group E.ON Sweden.

Bohl said Ringhals was studying the feasibility of installing alcohol-locks at entrance gates as has been discussed at Oskarshamn. In the meantime, checks at the entrance have been stepped up and the plant continues its random tests of personnel.

Nuclear power provides about half of Sweden's electricity.

Sweden has operated 12 nuclear reactors at most. Two at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden have been decommissioned, the most recent in May 2005.