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With missionary zeal, Galatis continued to forward allegations to the NRC. Yet four months passed before Galatis finally heard from Donald Driskill, an agent with the NRC's Office of Investigations (the second watchdog unit inside the NRC, this one tracks wrongdoing by utilities). Galatis felt that Driskill was too relaxed about the case. Driskill talked to Northeast about Galatis' charges--a breach of confidentiality that the NRC calls "inadvertent." When Hadley complained to him about Northeast's alleged harassment of Galatis, Driskill suggested he talk to Northeast's lawyer: "He's a really nice guy."
While playing detective--sniffing through file drawers and computer directories--Galatis found items that he felt suggested collusion between the utility and its regulator. Safety reports made it clear that both on-site inspectors and officials from the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation had known about the full-core off-loads since at least 1987 but had never done anything about them. Now, to clear the way for the fall 1995 off-load, NRC officials were apparently offering Northeast what Galatis calls "quiet coaching." One sign of this was a draft version of an NRC inspection report about the spent-fuel pool that had been E-mailed from the NRC to Kacich's licensing department. "What was that doing in Northeast's files?" asks Inspector General Norton.
On June 10, 1995, Jim Andersen visited the site to discuss Galatis' concerns with Kacich's staff. Andersen wouldn't meet with Galatis but huddled with Kacich's team, trying to decide how to bring Millstone's habits into compliance with NRC regulations, either by requesting a license amendment--a cumbersome process that requires NRC review and public comment--or by filing an internal form updating the plant's safety reports. This was the easier path, but it could be used only if the issue didn't constitute an unreviewed safety question. Andersen told DeBarba and Kacich that the license amendment "is the cleaner way to go," but they weren't sure there was enough time to get an amendment approved before the next off-load, scheduled for October 1995.
On July 10, Betancourt met with Ken Jenison, an inspector from the NRC's Region 1 office, and gave testimony in support of Galatis' safety allegations. Less than a week later, Betancourt was called to the office of a good-natured human-resources officer named Janice Roncaioli. She complained that he wasn't a "team player," Betancourt says, and ran through the company's termination policies. Roncaioli called Betancourt's account of the meeting "slanted" but would not comment further, citing employee-confidentiality rules.