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By: CRAIG TENBROECK - Staff Writer

SAN ONOFRE - A worker trained to watch for fires at the San Onofre nuclear power plant falsified records and skipped hourly rounds on "numerous occasions" for more than five years, federal regulators said Monday.

Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the employee's misconduct - and several other violations at the plant during the past year - has prompted the agency to order several changes at San Onofre, including better training.

Southern California Edison - the nuclear plant's majority owner and operator - has already agreed to the changes, Edison spokesman Gil Alexander said Monday.

Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the federal commission, said the falsified fire logs didn't pose a big safety threat, because San Onofre has a host of other fire-safety measures.

He said the "deliberate wrongdoing" is the larger problem.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's order, dated Friday and released by the agency Monday, came from a Dec. 3 mediation session between federal officials and plant operators.

The order describes several "substantiated" violations at the nuclear plant in the last year and notes that other incidents are under investigation.

Among the violations:

• Between April 2001 and December 2006, a fire watch inspector on the graveyard shift falsified information to show that hourly rounds had been completed when they had not;
• a radiographer deliberately failed to adhere to the terms of a radiation work permit; and
• an on-the-job trainer failed to supervise a trainee, leading to problems with safety equipment.

Alexander said he could not provide the name of the fire watch specialist or say whether the person was still employed by the utility.

But he added that "disciplinary action was taken."

Other fire-safety measures at San Onofre include chemical and water suppression systems, fire alarms, airtight doors and an on-site fire department.

Rochelle Becker, a founding member of the California-based Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility watchdog organization, said she was troubled by the number of years that the fire watch employee was able to falsify records.

"Why should the public feel so comfortable when there's such a lag time because the problem and the NRC's solution to the problem?" she said.

The commission's order requires Edison to take several steps "to strengthen the nuclear safety culture at the plant," Dricks said.

Those steps include hiring an independent contractor to conduct a safety assessment, developing special training to prevent misconduct and expanding the utility's ethics training.

If the utility fails to meet certain benchmarks, Edison could face "further enforcement action," Dricks said.

"We expect full compliance," Dricks said.

The San Onofre nuclear plant is on a seaside patch of Camp Pendleton, about 15 miles north of Oceanside. The plant has 2,160 personnel and generates a little more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power about 1.5 million households.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. owns a 20 percent stake in the plant.

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 901-4062 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com