Dec. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) officials today reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) the results of recent surveys showing significant improvement over the past year in the safety culture at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.

"We started assessing our organization on safety culture and safety conscious work environment last year," said FENOC Chief Operating Officer Lew Myers, who gave the update at the NRC's monthly 0350 panel meeting in Oak Harbor. "Since then, a variety of surveys and assessments show that attention to safety issues has greatly increased, and employees show a significantly increased willingness to raise such concerns at Davis-Besse."

Myers cited results from a recent employee safety culture survey in which 99 percent of participants said they understand their responsibility for raising safety or quality concerns.

Other survey results showed that 99 percent of the 780 employees polled are aware of safety culture policies, know that nuclear safety is a core value at FENOC and feel that management has made a visible commitment to safety. Ninety-one percent of the participants believe nuclear safety policies are continuously reinforced, 88 percent feel that employees have a questioning attitude, and 87 percent say there is open communication at Davis-Besse and that they feel comfortable raising issues about safety or quality.

FENOC management has taken a variety of actions to address the safety culture issue. For example, FENOC has created a safety culture model to help employees understand the elements of safety culture and safety conscious work environment, instituted training and alignment sessions for employees on nuclear safety, strengthened the Corrective Action Program, created a new Employee Concerns Program and created the position of Director of Organizational Development to oversee continuous improvement in this area.

Other items discussed at the meeting include the Davis-Besse Operational Improvement Plan for the next operating cycle, which calls for initiatives in areas such as training, work management and engineering; the mid-cycle outage, which will focus on inspection and maintenance work on the plant's steam generators; and remaining tasks to be done prior to restart.

FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE), Akron, Ohio.

Forward-Looking Statement: This news release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate," "expect," "believe," "estimate," and similar words. Actual results may differ materially due to the speed and nature of increased competition and deregulation in the electric utility industry, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, changes in markets for energy services, changing energy and commodity market prices, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, legislative and regulatory changes (including revised environmental requirements), adverse regulatory or legal decisions and the outcome of governmental investigations, availability and cost of capital, inability of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station to restart (including because of any inability to obtain a favorable final determination from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) in the fall of 2003, inability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits of strategic goals, the ability to improve electric commodity margins and to experience growth in the distribution business, the ability to access the public securities markets, further investigation into the causes of the August 14, 2003 regional power outage and the outcome, cost and other effects of present and potential legal and administrative proceedings and claims related to that outage, a denial of or material change to the Company's Application related to its Rate Stabilization Plan, and other factors discussed from time to time in FirstEnergy's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K (as amended) for the year ended December 31, 2002, its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2003 and under "Risk Factors" in the Prospectus Supplement dated September 12, 2003 to the Prospectus dated August 29, 2003 (which was part of the Registration Statement-SEC File No. 333-103865) and other similar factors. FirstEnergy expressly disclaims any current intention to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.