Cartwright sits on the Board of Directors for FirstEnergy, the company that owns Davis-Besse. Davis-Besse is a nuclear power plant whose administrators openly admitted to neglecting routine safety check-ups since 1990.

Employees discovered a hole the size of a football on the reactor head , which serves as a cap over the reactor core, where the nuclear material is stored. The hole was caused by undetected boric acid that was leaking through the top. The acid ate a hole though the 6 1/2 inch thick lid.

CHANGE is requesting Cartwright take a leadership role and recommend the plant remain closed permanently or be converted to a non-nuclear power plant.

Cartwright was unavailable for comment.

"We think that the best case scenario would be for them to convert it to a non-nuclear energy power plant," said Ellen Zielinski, CHANGE member and Kent State graduate. "I don't know if that's feasible, but I know other nuclear power plants have done that. If they can't (convert it to a non-nuclear plant), they need to shut it down."

Zielinski said she was surprised by how openly Davis-Besse admitted their neglect. She added she was also surprised at how uninformed students were about the situation.

"They (Davis-Besse) have really been downplaying it," Zielinski said. "If something had happened, we'd have been directly affected because we're less than 100 miles away from it."

Safety also becomes an issue with workers, she said. CHANGE did take into consideration that closing the plant would put a lot of workers out of a job. But if the plant did have problems, the workers would be the first to be exposed to a possible radiation leak.

Not only has FirstEnergy admitted to neglecting maintenance for the past 10 years, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission admitted this as well, Zielinski said. The NRC is a government program that controls U.S. nuclear power plants and the civilian use of nuclear materials.

"What's really scary is the NRC has even admitted to neglecting this," Zielinski said. "That's really scary because they're supposed to be the watchdogs of all this. But their jobs are directly related to nuclear power plants being in business."

Davis-Besse has called this a "learning process," she added. "But this is a nuclear power plant. There isn't any room for mistakes."

Zielinski said the group collected about 100 signed postcards and might continue going to classes to solicit more signatures before presenting them to Cartwright.

E-mail: jyouhana@kent.edu