Feds charge TVA subcontractor with lying about inspections

NORTH MISSISSIPPI — Federal prosecutors have charged a subcontractor employee at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant with lying about inspections.

The U.S. attorney in Knoxville, Tenn., said today that 31-year-old Matthew David Correll of Hixson, Tenn., has been charged in a two-count indictment with making false statements. Prosecutors say the inspections were related to planning for safety system power cables at the nation’s only current reactor construction site.

Correll appeared today before a federal magistrate in Chattanooga and has been released pending a May 23 trial.

U.S. Attorney Bill Killian declined to discuss any motive.

TVA nuclear executive Ashok Bhatnagar says the falsified paperwork was discovered in the checks and balances procedures at the plant near Spring City, Tenn., between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Bhatnagar said the system worked as it should and there is no danger.

Source: Associated Press