November/December 2017

PE Report
Report Reveals Unlicensed Practice on Failed Nuclear Reactor Project

A failed nuclear reactor construction project in South Carolina skirted the law by allowing unlicensed workers to develop construction drawings and plans, according to investigative reporting by a local newspaper. South Carolina and federal authorities have launched investigations around this project.

South Carolina’s licensing law requires a PE or an individual under the direct supervision of a PE to create the construction drawings on large-scale projects that could affect the public’s health, safety, and welfare.

According to the Charleston-based Post and Courier, a $9 billion expansion project for two nuclear reactors near Columbia came to a halt in July after countless design revisions, construction setbacks, and rising costs. The newspaper discovered documents revealing that Westinghouse Electric Corp. and Scana Corp. allowed workers not licensed to practice engineering to prepare drawings, plans, and specifications in addition to conducting complex engineering calculations. In a 13-page document issued in 2012, legal counsel for Westinghouse made the case that the state’s engineering licensure laws didn’t apply for the construction of an AP100 reactor, and federal licenses superseded the state’s licensure law. The legal counsel also insisted that involving professional engineers would hamper the project.

A September 25 Post and Courier article noted that an audit performed by Bechtel Corp. showed that by 2015 nearly 600 engineering changes were made each month of the project. The concerns of engineers working on the project were often ignored as they struggled to fix the errors. One engineer was anonymously quoted saying, “You literally can’t make up the errors that were propagated in this thing. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. It was beyond comprehension. They enshrined incompetence.”

The Post and Courier reached out to NSPE for its take on the critical importance of engineering licensure laws to protect the public. The Society believes that this incident demonstrates the serious problems with weak PE licensing laws, including licensing law exemptions that place the public at grave risk. Deputy Executive Director and General Counsel Arthur Schwartz stated in the article, “The stakes are high. That’s what engineers do. They’re responsible for systems and processes that the public relies on and probably takes for granted.”

Read the related commentary “Aiding and Abetting the Unlicensed Practice of Engineering.”