ML023400199

Transcript of Public Meeting Davis-Besse Oversight Panel Update

ML023400199
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Site:	Davis Besse
Issue date:	11/13/2002
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4 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 5 PUBLIC MEETING 6

Meeting held on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 at 7 7:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, Ohio, taken by me, Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis, Stenotype 8 Reporter, and Notary Public, in and for the State of Ohio.

9 10 11 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:

12 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 13 John (Jack) Grobe, Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 14 Christine Lipa, Branch Chief, Region III 15 Anthony Mendiola, Section Chief PDIII-2, NRR 16 Christopher (Scott) Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector - Davis-Besse 17 Douglas Simpkins, 18 Resident Inspector - Davis-Besse 19 Sam Collins, Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

2 1 MR. GROBE: Its about 7:00, why 2 dont we go ahead and get started. Let me start by 3 making some introductions of -- oh, thank you.

4 Should I start again?

5 Lets get started. Why dont I start by 6 making some introductions, and then well get into a 7 little bit of ground rules for the meeting tonight 8 and then receive public comment.

9 Our purpose for being here tonight is to hear 10 what youre thinking, receive any input you have, try 11 to answer any questions you might have. If we dont 12 have the answers here, we can certainly get them.

13 My name is Jack Grobe. Im an Executive in 14 the NRC Region III office in Chicago, Illinois, and 15 Ive also been assigned for the last several months 16 as the Chairman of the NRCs Oversight Panel for the 17 Davis-Besse plant.

18 With me here tonight are quite a few NRC 19 staff. Lets start with my immediate left is 20 Christine Lipa. Christine is a Branch Chief in the 21 Region III office. She has responsibility for the 22 inspection program, the NRCs inspection program at 23 Davis-Besse.

24 Theres two fellows here that she supervises; 25 Scott Thomas, sitting right here in front is the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

3 1 Senior Resident Inspector. He works at the plant 2 every day, and Doug Simpkins is the Resident 3 Inspector. Doug also works at the plant, and out in 4 the foyer was Nancy --

5 MS. LIPA: Keller.

6 MR. GROBE: -- Keller, thank you.

7 Nancy is the Resident Office Assistant, and she has 8 been a tremendous support for us for organizing these 9 meetings and making sure that we have the handouts 10 and getting you folks the information that you need 11 that we bring with us.

12 Theres a number of documents that are out 13 there on the table. I hoped you picked them up.

14 One is our monthly newsletter. This newsletter 15 documents the results of several recently completed 16 NRC inspections, and it also indicates ongoing 17 inspections, provides a variety of background 18 information on what happened at Davis-Besse and what 19 the NRC is doing. Also there were slides from this 20 afternoons meeting, both from the NRC presentation 21 as well as the First Energy presentation. In a 22 minute, Tony Mendiola, who is sitting on Christines 23 immediate left, Tony is a Supervisor in our 24 headquarters office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

25 He has responsibility for licensing of the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

4 1 Davis-Besse facility, along with other facilities, 2 and John Hopkins works for Tony. Johns the 3 Licensing Project Manager.

4 We also have one of our Senior Inspectors 5 here from the Region 3 office, Marty Farber. Marty 6 led a team of nine inspectors that were specifically 7 looking at the adequacy of systems at the Davis-Besse 8 plant.

9 Jay Collins is sitting back there. Jay is 10 an Engineer from the office of Nuclear Reactor 11 Regulation, whos working at the site with Scott and 12 Doug currently.

13 Over here, we have Roland Lickus and Vika 14 Mitlyng. Roland is our State and Government Affairs 15 officer, and Vika is a Public Affairs officer out of 16 the Region 3 office, and I think Vika is making a 17 phone call, but shell be in in a moment.

18 We have two inspectors from the Perry plant, 19 I believe, Ray Powell. Ray, raise your hand. Ray is 20 the Senior Resident Inspector at Perry, and hes over 21 at the Davis-Besse plant helping out, and who am I 22 missing --

23 MS. LIPA: (Indicating).

24 MR. GROBE: Oh, okay, the resident 25 left, and on my immediate right is a very important MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

5 1 person, Sam Collins. Sams the Director of the 2 office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in headquarters.

3 Sam has overall responsibility for the safety of 4 nuclear power plants in the United States, and with 5 Sam tonight, Tony and John work in Sams office, as 6 well as Margie Kotzalas. Margie is an Engineer in 7 NRR, and she works with Sam. She specializes in 8 communications effectiveness. Communications and 9 public confidence is one of our four primary goals.

10 Our most important goal is the safety of nuclear 11 power plants, but we also have goals on efficient 12 effective utilization of NRC resources, making sure 13 that our regulatory programs are well-founded, and we 14 minimize any unnecessary burden, as well as making 15 sure that we endeavor to communicate to the public so 16 that we enhance your confidence in us as a strong 17 regulator.

18 I think -- have I missed anybody? I think 19 Ive got all the NRC staff that are here tonight.

20 We met this afternoon with FirstEnergy for about four 21 hours -- three and a half hours or so, and then took 22 public comments and questions after that meeting and 23 were here tonight.

24 Tony is going to summarize this afternoons 25 meeting, and before I turn it over to Tony, what Id MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

6 1 like to do is ask Sam to make some comments.

2 MR. COLLINS: Thanks, Jack. Good 3 evening. Thanks for being here tonight. I know 4 some of you may have been here this afternoon also, 5 but I did appreciate the opportunity to talk to other 6 citizens of the area and workers at the plant and 7 those stakeholders who are in the area because of the 8 interest in the plant. I did acknowledge this 9 afternoon, Id like to do so also this evening that 10 were aware of the burden that the area is under as 11 result of the tornadoes on Sunday in Oak Harbor and 12 Catawba Island, and we appreciate the fact that some 13 of you may be distracted or perhaps not even here 14 tonight because of that, so its a busy and important 15 time for you, but we are here to answer questions.

16 Im here specifically to answer any questions that 17 people may have on the program and the process that 18 we use that resulted in the plant operating for the 19 additional 45 days beyond December 31st, at which 20 time they shut down in mid February and upon 21 inspection discovered the corrosion on the head. I 22 can go through the logic and the process and where we 23 are with the reviews and how we have been 24 self-critical under evaluation and how that took 25 place and how we intend to move forward as hopefully MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

7 1 a better organization. We think we owe you that 2 information and that clearly that was an unexpected 3 result, and we missed an opportunity to discover it 4 multiple times as a result of our regulatory 5 processees, and we know thats important to you as a 6 constituency not only in the plant area, but also 7 relying on the NRC to be a strong credible regulator.

8 Thank you.

9 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Sam. Theres 10 one additional document thats outside, and I hope 11 you take advantage of the opportunity to provide us 12 some feedback. Its called a feedback form, and its 13 self-addressed, so all youve got to do is fill it 14 out and drop it in the mailbox, and it will get back 15 to us. It asks you a number of questions regarding 16 the effectiveness of these kinds of meetings and asks 17 you for suggestions on how to improve the meetings, 18 so please take a few minutes after the meeting and 19 give us your thoughts because were always looking 20 for ways to improve in how we conduct our business, 21 and wed appreciate your feedback on that also.

22 Tony, why dont you summarize this 23 afternoons meeting?

24 MR. MENDIOLA: Easier said than 25 done. Im going to try to capture in a few minutes MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

8 1 here basically what we discussed in about three --

2 three and a half hours that we had with FirstEnergy 3 this afternoon.

4 Speaking from a few documents here -- and 5 Ill refer to them hopefully to help anyone who 6 wasnt here negotiate through what we discussed.

7 The first document, of course, is the agenda 8 from this meeting held as 2:00. I think there is 9 still some copies in the lobby if you need some, but 10 basically, we started, of course, with Introduction 11 and Opening Remarks and moved on quickly to the NRCs 12 part of the meeting, which was to discuss our restart 13 action checklist and the status of some ongoing 14 inspections that we have either completed or in the 15 process of inspecting at the site. Rather than go 16 through the long drawn-out list, I would prefer to 17 refer you to the NRC Update, this handout in the 18 lobby. Its basically -- well, it says NRC Update 19 on it, and it has our logo on it, but it clearly 20 defines the Findings of the Completed NRC 21 Inspections, including some that we actually had an 22 exit meeting on this morning at the site, and it 23 gives you a summary of what the NRC found and what we 24 still have left to do.

25 Additionally, on the front page, basically MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

9 1 where my thumb is here, theres a section which 2 discusses the ongoing NRC inspections and their 3 current status and as well as what were inspecting 4 on site for those three inspections that are ongoing.

5 Rather than summarizing those for you, Id prefer 6 that you look at these, and if you have any questions 7 or any -- need anymore information on that, well be 8 happen by to address them here.

9 The update also -- by the way, also has a 10 large amount of background information on the 11 occurrence that happened at Davis-Besse, and, 12 basically, if you refer to it, it will bring you 13 up-to-date on where we stand after all the activities 14 that has happened this year.

15 After summarizing that, we also had indicated 16 a potential for -- not the potential, the actual 17 scheduling of some future meetings. A week from 18 today, in this location, the Lessons Learned Task 19 Force, the NRCs Lessons Learned Task Force will be 20 here -- I think at 7:00, yeah, 7:00, a public meeting 21 to discuss their report with the public, and, I 22 think, to get feedback from the public.

23 Additionally, Im sorry, the follow week, on 24 November 26th in headquarters, there will be a series 25 of meetings with Davis-Besse as well to discuss MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

10 1 issues associated with the leakage that has been 2 found on the bottom of the reactor vessel. That 3 meeting will be a public meeting in the afternoon of 4 November 26th, and it will be on the teleconference, 5 so people can call in and listen to the meeting since 6 it is back in Washington.

7 That basically wrapped up the NRCs portion 8 of the meeting. From that point on, we moved into 9 the Davis-Besse agenda and the -- their discussion of 10 the return to service update. I believe there is 11 still slides, copies of this out front. Im only 12 going to address the high points. This was the 13 majority of the three -- three and a half hours that 14 we had this afternoon.

15 Basically, there was several desired outcomes 16 from this meeting which FirstEnergy set forth at the 17 beginning. They wanted to discuss clearly their 18 quality assurance organization, and the status of 19 that organization as it works through an 20 understanding of where quality assessment is at the 21 plant, as well as to demonstrate that there is some 22 value being added in their processees that they 23 currently have in place. They also wanted to 24 demonstrate where they were on some key Building 25 Blocks associated with getting the plant back to MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

11 1 restart. They wanted to address the lower level 2 penetrations and to address some emerging design 3 questions that have come up as they have gone through 4 their engineering analysis supporting their key 5 Building Blocks, and then they also wanted to review 6 the ongoing schedule for returning the plant to 7 start-up.

8 The first discussion that had to do with the 9 quality assessment, as I mentioned, the first key 10 element of their presentation discussing the major 11 responsibilities of their Quality Assessment 12 Value-added organization on site, basically the fact 13 that they had done a number of Plant and Staff 14 Readiness Assessments and evaluated various portions 15 of the Building Blocks looking for individual parts 16 of quality assessments that had been made and 17 evaluating the value-added and basically showing the 18 strength of their organization, their quality 19 assessment organization as issues emerged and were 20 resolved. They provided -- and youll see this if 21 you have a copy of the slides, they provided 22 individual issues in each of these Building Block 23 areas and followed through with some simple 24 discussions on how their organization, their quality 25 assessment organization had improved or had helped MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

12 1 resolve these issues. This is a little awkward with 2 one hand. Sorry.

3 Basically, though, in summary on their 4 Quality Assessment Value-Added they indicated that 5 they had made some organizational changes and some 6 managerial changes associated with the quality 7 assessment area. They were still in the taking 8 action category, but one of the things they wanted to 9 do was do a quality assessment program review, 10 evaluate the program where they stand currently and 11 to determine what future actions they were going to 12 go on from this point on to make the quality 13 assessment an even stronger program at the plant.

14 Then they moved into the key Building Blocks, 15 basically discussed the restoration of the reactor 16 head, the current status of that, the engineering 17 status. That discussion branched off into the under 18 vessel area. You may be aware that there was some 19 questions about basically some deposits that were 20 found on the bottom of the reactor vessel, what are 21 they, where are they from and what does that mean, 22 what is the significance of those issues. The plant 23 worked closely with their vendor and came up with 24 some engineering evaluations and some chemical 25 evaluations. Rather inconclusive were the results.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

13 1 Some key was where to go from here and they 2 developed -- basically, rudimentary developed a 3 bottom head plan, which is basically how they were 4 going to go about determining and evaluating what was 5 the findings on the bottom of the head, and they gave 6 basically a simple outline of the plan, which 7 involves basically cleaning the bottom head, 8 restoring the plant and taking it to what we call 9 normal operating pressure, normal operating 10 temperature, otherwise known as NOTOP, and then 11 holding that pressure for a period of time, anywhere 12 from three to seven days and then shutting the --

13 cooling the plant back down and going in and 14 determining what -- what results in there. If there 15 is a leak, of course, there would be some buildup of 16 some boron, or if there is any other misting or any 17 other spray characteristics down there, then they 18 would be able to figure out, what, if any, there is 19 leaking down there, and then obviously incorporate 20 whatever repair activities would be necessary.

21 There was discussion about installing some 22 on-line leak detection system currently or as soon as 23 possible basically so that they could be evaluating 24 this on a constant basis rather than, if you will, on 25 an opportunity basis. This system would always be MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

14 1 on-line, the leak detection system, would always be 2 on-line under there to see if there is any leakage.

3 Its very similar to what they do overseas. The 4 plan is still being drafted and future activities on 5 this really will center on the meeting on November 6 26th in headquarters.

7 Moving on, they went through some of the 8 other Building Blocks, a System Health Assurance, 9 basically discussing the Significance Assessments of 10 various systems and going through some issues and 11 evaluating those issues to determine just basically 12 how healthy and how ready these systems are in order 13 to restore the plant to restart status. Basically 14 most of the information gathered on System Health 15 Assurance for the facility anyway is in the 16 evaluation phase to determine what the significance 17 is of these issues that theyve discovered.

18 Design Issues Resolution, this is one of the 19 other major issues that we discussed today. Design 20 Issues, of course, as they have gone through various 21 programs, theyve determined that some of the 22 fundamental design basis calculations, if you will, 23 have some -- some -- uncertainty is probably a bad 24 word, but its a word Ill use, uncertainty on 25 whether or not, you know, the calculations are still MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

15 1 valid, the methodology for calculations with the 2 initial conditions in order to set up the 3 calculations are still valid. Theyre going back to 4 verifying to be sure that these calculations are 5 valid, and they had a chart up on that wall -- its 6 gone now, but basically discussing how far they -- or 7 what theyve done so far and how much more they felt 8 that they needed to do in order to perform what we 9 call a design basis validation. They had this 10 program which will be focused on validating the 11 system descriptions and design criteria. Sorry.

12 The next area was the discussion, the next 13 Building Block area discussed was the Management and 14 Human Performance Actions. Basically theres been a 15 large amount of work associated with the plant in 16 order to complete an assessment, an evaluation, and 17 improvement, I guess, of the safety conscious work 18 environment, the ability, if you will, of the on site 19 staff to conquer any issues that come at them, and 20 there was some significant improvements which were 21 pointed to, a large amount of safety conscious work 22 environment training for most of the site contractor 23 supervisors. There was some assessments of 24 various -- at various levels of the staff on their 25 ability to follow through on these issues. The MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

16 1 staff Im talking about the executives, the managers, 2 directors and supervisors, basically discussing with 3 them, you know, the understanding -- make sure they 4 have the understanding and training to be able to 5 follow through on a safety conscious work 6 environment.

7 There was a lot of discussion about the case 8 study. This was a one day stand down at the plant 9 where there was a large discussion of all the staff 10 on the plant to discuss the case, to discuss what 11 happened at Davis-Besse and the assessment of the 12 feedback from that meeting, that day, from the staff 13 and how -- how it is -- how those themes, if you want 14 to call it that, are going to be reflected in future 15 management styles and issues at the plant. Some of 16 the concerns were, you know, were also discussed such 17 as the management production versus quality, safety, 18 priority concerns and that there was some skepticism 19 about managements response for raising issues and 20 concerns, fear of reprisal.

21 In the interest of -- oh, Im sorry, not yet.

22 One more major issue that was discussed was the 23 Operations Leadership Plan. This is a plan which is 24 going to seek to prepare the operations organization 25 for restart and to ensure that once restarted that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

17 1 they will sustain a higher level of performance.

2 They were seeking to strengthen and prepare the 3 operations staff for restart and seeking, if you will 4 to make the operations staff the leader at the site 5 and be recognized as the leader at the site among all 6 the departments at the site and that continuous 7 improvement would be expected of the operations 8 personnel at the site.

9 In the interest of the time, we skipped the 10 last bullet which was a discussion of the Schedule 11 Review. Some of those Major Milestones are captured 12 in the slides, and, if you like, you should take a 13 look at these. These have to do with the major 14 milestones in the future for the plant, and by that 15 point we were well over the three hour point. We 16 had a few closing remarks, which basically Ive 17 already captured. We did recap all the major plan 18 activities, and we did indicate that the next meeting 19 of this type would be December 10th, I want to say 20 down the street -- thats probably the wrong word; 21 over at Camp Perry at the clubhouse at Camp Perry.

22 That, in a nutshell, is everything that went 23 on for the last -- well, for three and a half hours.

24 If you have any other questions, or you need 25 anymore expedition on that, just let me know.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

18 1 MS. LIPA: I also wanted to point 2 out that in the monthly newsletter, theres a lot of 3 key information. Theres our web site address, and 4 theres a lot of good information on the web site, 5 inspection reports, transcripts from these meetings 6 and other information that you can use, and also in 7 there are the numbers for our Public Affairs 8 officers, so if you dont want to come up and ask a 9 question today, you can call either Viktoria Mitlyng 10 or Jan Strasma and ask them questions about the 11 Davis-Besse.

12 MR. GROBE: Before we get started 13 with questions, let me just do an informal survey.

14 How many people are here for the first time, 15 this is the first meeting that you have attend?

16 THEREUPON, a response was given by a show of 17 hands.

18 MR. GROBE: Oh, excellent. Thank 19 you very much for coming.

20 Given that, why dont I just take a few 21 minutes and go over some background information so 22 that you have a better understanding of what were 23 all about.

24 I think most of you know that earlier this 25 year Davis-Besse shut down for a routine refueling MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

19 1 outage, as well as the performance of some unique 2 examinations and tests of the reactor pressure vessel 3 head. During the course of those activities they 4 discovered a rather large cavity, some have described 5 it as football shaped or as footprint shaped or --

6 MS. LIPA: Pineapple shaped.

7 MR. GROBE: What was that?

8 MS. LIPA: Pineapple shaped.

9 MR. GROBE: Pineapple shaped, 10 about, you know, four inches by seven inches. The 11 reactor pressure vessel is one of the barriers to the 12 release radioactive materials. The first barrier is 13 the fuel itself. The fuel pellets are ceramic, its 14 the uranium fuel pellets, and they contains the vast 15 majority of the radioactive materials, the 16 radioactive waste within the pellet itself. Some of 17 the radioactive waste is in the gaseous form. It 18 collects inside the fuel pin. The pin is about 12 19 feet long and about the size of your little finger in 20 diameter, and there is half a gazillion of those 21 inside the reactor. They are arranged in fuel 22 elements, but thats the second barrier.

23 The next barrier is the reactor coolant 24 system itself, and just to give you some context, 25 there is some very good description in our newsletter MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

20 1 of this, so please take a copy of that, and if you 2 cant get it tonight, well be glad to send you one, 3 or if you can get on-line, all of this information is 4 on-line at our web site, but the reactor pressure 5 vessel is about a six inch thick steel vessel. Its 6 kind of shaped like a hotdog. Its about 14 feet in 7 diameter and about 25 or 30 feet long -- tall. Its 8 got rounded heads on both ends. The upper head is 9 where the degradation occurred. It was caused by a 10 crack in a -- in a tube, a four inch diameter tube 11 that goes through the head. Theres quite a large 12 number of those that go through the top of the 13 reactor head and through these tubes are the control 14 rod drive mechanisms. Thats the equipment that 15 drive the control rods in and out of the reactor 16 itself. The control rods control the level of power 17 by controlling neutrons in the reactor core, so these 18 rods normally when the plant is shut down, all 19 inserted in the core. When the plant operates they 20 are removed from the core, pulled up out of the core, 21 and these penetrations in the top of the reactor 22 vessel are for the mechanisms that move these rods in 23 and out.

24 Over the past number of years, there was an 25 issue that was developing with the certain type of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

21 1 materials that were used in the Davis-Besse reactor 2 where some cracking in these penetrations have been 3 discovered and the inspections that were being done 4 during this outage were to confirm that, in fact, 5 there were no cracking. What was identified was, in 6 fact, that there had been cracking, that the cracks 7 went through the wall of the penetration tubes such 8 that the reactor coolant was leaking through these 9 cracks. That reactor coolant contains boric acid 10 and there is -- boric acid is an additive to the 11 coolant that is also used to help control the nuclear 12 reaction. Its a very, very mild solution of boric 13 acid. When its in the reactor coolant, its not 14 terribly corrosive, but when it becomes concentrated 15 it can be corrosive, and what happened on the head of 16 the reactor was that this boric acid became 17 concentrated, became a corrosive material and 18 actually corroded away six inches of steel. This 19 was a situation that had never been experienced 20 before in a nuclear power plant. It was completely 21 unexpected.

22 The licensee during the course of our 23 inspections immediately following the discovery of 24 this, FirstEnergy -- it was revealed that FirstEnergy 25 had a number of opportunities to discover this MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

22 1 earlier and they had performed unacceptably, and we 2 have two reports that document our inspections in 3 this area; one is an Augmented Inspection Team report 4 that was issued, I believe May 3rd, and then a 5 follow-up to that inspection, which was issued, I 6 think in September -- August or September, but both 7 of those are our on web site, and if you cant get on 8 our web site, wed be glad to get you copies of 9 those. We identified a number of violations of our 10 requirements.

11 When the NRC identifies a plant that has 12 significance performance problems, we have unique 13 aspects of our inspection program that we implement.

14 Our baseline inspection program, which is our routine 15 program, its administered at every nuclear power 16 plant in the United States is predicated upon certain 17 assumptions, and several of those assumptions include 18 the fact that the plant organization is performing 19 well, that its well run, that they have a robust 20 corrective action program, and we use a lot of 21 jargon, and Ill try to explain that jargon. If you 22 have any questions, please ask me, but the corrective 23 action program what that means is that youre always 24 looking for problems. When you come across a 25 problem, youre willing to bring it forward and deal MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

23 1 with it and solve that problem, and its a very well 2 structured program. In fact, at Davis-Besse their 3 corrective action program was not effective. They 4 had identified a number of issues that should have 5 led them to conclude that there was a big problem 6 going on in the reactor vessel head over a period of 7 about four to six years, and they did not do that.

8 In these kinds of situations where a plant is shut 9 down and theres significance performance problems, 10 we implement a procedure, we call it 0350. That 11 means nothing to you, but let me tell you a little 12 bit about it.

13 The reason I mention the number is a lot of 14 times youll see the newspapers or in other 15 documents, the panel that I chair is referred to as 16 the 0350 Panel. Its official title is the 17 Davis-Besse Oversight Panel, but its a unique 18 activity in the agency where we bring together 19 executives, managers, and staff from across the 20 agency to bring focus on this unique problem, and the 21 panel takes over -- the plant is removed from our 22 normal inspection and oversight programs and its 23 placed under the panel itself. I chair that, Im an 24 Executive of Region 3. Theres an executive that 25 reports to Sam, a fellow by the name of Bill Dean.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

24 1 Hes Deputy Director of Engineering in headquarters, 2 and he is the Vice Chairman of the panel, so we have 3 executives both from Washington and Chicago, as well 4 as the variety of staff, John and Tony, Christine and 5 Doug are on the panel and a couple of other folks 6 also from the Region 3 office, so the purpose of the 7 panel is to provide additional oversight. We direct 8 the inspection program instead of having a routine 9 program implemented. We ensure that all of the 10 agency assets that are necessary, both the people and 11 any other sort of asset, research people, contractors 12 are brought to bear, and the entire organization, 13 NRC, is focused on this -- solving this problem at 14 Davis-Besse, so the panel has been in existence since 15 the end of April, and weve been actively involved in 16 routine oversight, and what I mean routine, its 17 essentially continuous oversight at whats going on 18 at the plant. Theres a substantially large or 19 greater number of inspections that are being 20 performed than you would normally see go on at a 21 nuclear power plant and in the United States. We 22 also coordinate licensing activities. Theres a 23 number of licensing issues that are necessary for 24 replacement of the reactor head, and those are under 25 the coordination of the panel, so the panel brings MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

25 1 together all of the assets of the agency that are 2 necessary to make sure that this plant is safe.

3 The plan -- FirstEnergy has developed a 4 restart action plan, and Tony referred to Building 5 Blocks. Its comprised of a number of different 6 Building Blocks. Replacing the head is one of the 7 Building Blocks. Making sure that equipment inside 8 the containment structure is another Building Block.

9 Making sure the equipment outside the containment 10 structure is good equipment, its safe equipment is 11 another building block. Human Performance and 12 Management Effectiveness is another Building Block, 13 so theres a number of Building Blocks. Thats how 14 theyve structured their restart activities. We 15 structure our oversight along those same lines so 16 that we can adequately evaluate what theyre doing at 17 the plant. One of the responsibilities of the panel 18 is to develop what we call a restart checklist, and I 19 believe thats attached to the handout from this 20 afternoon so you should have a copy of that. Its 21 three pages long, and those are key elements that the 22 panel has determined are necessary for the plant to 23 address before the panel would consider a 24 recommendation for restart, and let me just talk a 25 little bit about that process.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

26 1 If the panel comes to the conclusion that 2 FirstEnergy has done an adequate job of addressing 3 all of the issues that need to be addressed prior to 4 restart, those issues are captured in our checklist, 5 the panel would make a determination and a 6 recommendation to my boss, Jim Dyer, Regional 7 Administrator, the top person in Chicago, the panel 8 would believe that the panel was ready for restart.

9 That decision would not occur until the panel is 10 convinced that the plant can restart safely and then 11 successfully operate safely long after restart. Jim 12 would then discuss that recommendation with Sam, and 13 Sam and Jim are the decision-makers on a restart 14 decision, so in a nutshell, thats what were all 15 about.

16 Tony, highlighted a little bit larger 17 nutshell, right, Tony?

18 MR. MENDIOLA: (Indicating).

19 MR. GROBE: Tony highlighted that 20 our newsletter includes -- this monthly newsletter 21 includes the results of some recent inspections.

22 Weve completed a couple of inspections that had some 23 fairly positive results. One of the questions was, 24 is this head that FirstEnergy purchased from 25 Consumers Power in Michigan, is it an adequate head MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

27 1 for replacement at Davis-Besse, and the company 2 concluded that it was. We did a number of 3 inspection activities, both in Midland, Michigan as 4 well as here at the plant and also in Virginia to 5 confirm that, in fact, this reactor head is an 6 adequate head for Davis-Besse and will perform safely 7 in service, so thats a significant milestone.

8 Theres a couple of outstanding issues, and 9 they are discussed in the report that still need to 10 be resolved, but thats a significant milestone.

11 One of the activities that had to be undertaken was 12 to put a rather large hole in the side of the 13 containment building to get the old head out and the 14 new head in. Thats been done before. Its not the 15 normal type of activity that occurs at a nuclear 16 power plant, so its one that we wanted to pay 17 particular attention to and its on our checklist, 18 that that activity is accomplished well, and, in 19 fact, we concluded that the plant did a good job of 20 restoring the containment structure itself which is 21 about a one inch thick large building, one inch thick 22 steel, and then outside of that is about a three foot 23 thick concrete structure. Its called a shield 24 building. They had to cut holes in both of those 25 structures and then restore that, and we concluded MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

28 1 that that was well performed. There is also some 2 outstanding issues there. One of the most important 3 is, what is referred to as the containment integrated 4 leak rate test. What the company has to do is pump 5 up the containment to about 40 pounds per square inch 6 pressure inside and hold it there for a long period 7 of time to make sure that its leak tight because 8 its one of those barriers with multiple barriers to 9 release radioactive material if there is an accident 10 at the Davis-Besse plant, so that inspection went 11 well.

12 Another inspection that was recently come 13 completed, and we highlighted the results of this 14 afternoon was what the company refers to as the 15 Containment Health Building Block. Inside the 16 containment, not only was the head damaged, but there 17 was the potential because there was a variety of 18 boric acid spread around inside containment, there 19 was a potential that that could affect other 20 equipment, and we performed an inspection of that 21 activity very early on in the outage and found that 22 the company actually had done a very poor job in that 23 regard. There were a number of violations where 24 people werent trained properly. They werent using 25 procedures correctly. FirstEnergy stopped work, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

29 1 started again, and rebuilt that effort from the 2 ground up. Our findings in the second part of that 3 inspection were fairly positive. There were, again, 4 some outstanding issues that we need to circle back 5 on, but that inspection we found that they had done 6 an adequate job of evaluating equipment inside 7 containment.

8 An additional inspection, the one that Marty 9 Farber led here, was looking at the design of 10 equipment outside containment and the readiness of 11 equipment outside containment to safely operate the 12 plant. FirstEnergy had performed fairly extensive 13 review of five very important systems at the plant, 14 and then a less detailed review of 31, I think, 15 systems, additional systems -- excuse me, and 16 FirstEnergy had identified a number of problems with 17 the control of the design of the plant. We came in 18 and did independent inspection of that activity as 19 well as our own review of three systems with a team 20 of experts and design -- mechanical design, 21 electrical design as well as operations and 22 maintenance of systems and found additional problems.

23 The Utility, FirstEnergy, is currently trying to 24 evaluate -- doing what they call a collective 25 significance review. Again, Ill try to avoid MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

30 1 jargon, but what theyre doing is pulling together 2 all of the issues that they identified, all of the 3 issues that we identified, evaluating them, trying to 4 determine what that means as far as additional 5 actions that need to be taken prior to restart and 6 then lay out a plan for accomplishing those actions.

7 What FirstEnergy presented was that the significance 8 of the individual findings for the evaluation to be 9 completed by the end of November, and then some time 10 early in December, they will have clearly in focus 11 what additional work theyre going to do, and then we 12 plan on meeting with them as soon as they are ready 13 to share that with us. There will be significance 14 additional inspections in this area.

15 The other inspection we reported on the 16 results of was -- I had mentioned Scott Thomas and 17 Doug Simpkins here in the first row, theyre here 18 every day, at the plant, and doing inspection work, 19 and they issue reports on a regular basis throughout 20 the year, and they just completed one of their 21 routine reports, had a number of observations of 22 areas where work could have been better performed, so 23 all those reports again are on our web site. Theyre 24 summarized in our newsletter, and I encourage you to 25 -- if youre interested to seek out that information.

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31 1 If you cant find it, as Christine indicated, you can 2 certainly call our Public Affairs folks. If they 3 cant get the information, Im always on the phone 4 with folks. Theyre frequently searching me out to 5 chat with folks like yourself to answer questions 6 that you might have.

7 With that larger nutshell, to give you an 8 idea of what were all about and why were here, Id 9 like to answer whatever questions you may have, and 10 what Id like to do is start with folks that are from 11 the local community here around the Davis-Besse 12 plant. If you could try to limit your questions to a 13 three to five minute time frame, and well spend as 14 much time as necessary to answer them. That will 15 give everybody an opportunity to ask questions, so 16 Id invite anybody interested to come forward. If 17 you could use the microphone, wed appreciate it.

18 They way, everyone can hear your question. We also 19 have a Court Reporter here transcribing this meeting, 20 and that transcription will be available on the web 21 site, so please come forward. If you could sign in, 22 wed appreciate it. Tell us your name and then ask 23 us your questions. Were here to answer them.

24 MS. LUEKE: Hi.

25 MR. COLLINS: Good evening.

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32 1 MS. LUEKE: Good evening.

2 This is nicer having you down here. Im Donna 3 Lueke, and I do have a few questions.

4 I have been trying to surf your web site and 5 want to thank the people at the public information 6 office when I couldnt get through, and I needed to 7 get through some things.

8 The thing that concerns me the most is 9 obviously were working from a situation where things 10 happened that in retrospect nobody wished had 11 happened, either First Energy or NRC, that mistakes 12 were made. Those are being explored now and fessed 13 up to, and I think thats all really positive, but 14 the thing that concerns me is, there are a lot of 15 nuclear power plants and even if everything is fixed 16 with Davis-Besse and we never have another problem, 17 what can we do to help the NRC, what can the NRC do 18 to make sure that these same things dont happen 19 again?

20 Is it a matter -- I know Im making this 21 question a little longer than necessary, but is it a 22 matter of funding? Is it a matter of needing more 23 autonomy? Is it a matter of needing a different 24 organization so that its free of political 25 appointees and just want -- to the people here, I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

33 1 mean, I know that you dont speak for the whole 2 organization and that theres another meeting coming 3 up about lessons learned, but what would you say is 4 the biggest problem?

5 MR. GROBE: Well, thats an 6 excellent question. Thank you. Let me tell you a 7 little bit about what is going on, and then I think 8 Im going to give Sam an opportunity to comment on 9 this because hes much closer.

10 Our primary focus has been on Davis-Besse.

11 Independent of the oversight panel, theres a group 12 called the Lessons Learned Task Force, and what the 13 head of the agency, we call them the Executive 14 Director for Operations and Bill Travers, what he did 15 was he chartered a group of folks across the agency, 16 that were completely independent of Davis-Beese.

17 It is chaired by an individual who is my counterpart 18 in Region IV in our Texas office, and there were 19 people from the office of research, from other 20 regional offices, from the office of Nuclear Reactor 21 Regulation who sat on that panel. I think it had 22 about eight folks on it, and they spent a couple of 23 months trying to answer that exact question. They 24 published a report about a month ago, and it was --

25 received fairly wide coverage in the newspapers, and MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

34 1 it is also on the web site, but if you cant get it, 2 wed be glad to get you a copy. They made a number 3 of recommendations in a variety of areas, inspection 4 area, in the licensing area, how regulations were 5 structured, and what Bill Travers did once he 6 received that report, was he chartered a group of 7 executives in the agency, and Sam is a member of this 8 team, its called the Senior Management Review Team 9 to review that report and identify specific actions 10 that the agency is going to take. Sam, why dont you 11 comment on this?

12 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, thanks. You 13 say you had three questions. Is that the first 14 question?

15 MS. LUEKE: Thats the first, 16 yeah.

17 MR. COLLINS: Okay.

18 MS. LUEKE: Its a big one.

19 MR. COLLINS: Thats okay, thats 20 good. I think the answer to your question is really 21 pretty straightforward. You cant be complacent and 22 this industry has been around since the 70s, been 23 operating with the sanctions of the United States 24 Government. Were the ones who license the ability 25 to use the nuclear material for power reactors in MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

35 1 this case. We have a lot of rules and regulations 2 that power plants, all 103 units that are operating 3 today, have to abide by, and you cant ever assume 4 that you know it all, and on the industrys part, I 5 think you can never stop questioning whats 6 happening, why is it happening, do I understand it, 7 and if it takes me the extra time, people, and money 8 to pursue it, then we need to do it because there is 9 very little margin of error. These plants are 10 designed very well. They have multiple barriers and 11 boundaries, as Jack explained. They have typically 12 very good people, dedicated people operating them, 13 but they are high risk -- its a high risk industry, 14 both in the business sense and in what I would call 15 human capital sense and that theres a public 16 constituency that needs to understand where these 17 plants are built, that the plants are being operated 18 safely and are being regulated well, and we lost 19 confidence in that area. Now, there was no 20 accident, but we found out something that we didnt 21 suspect, and we never want to be in that position.

22 We had multiple opportunities as an agency to 23 discover it. We had a lot of indicators. We had 24 people at the reactor vessel head looking at the head 25 being cleaned. We had people there for inspections, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

36 1 and we never went to the extent where we put those 2 pieces of information together and asked the hard 3 questions. Why? I dont know. You have to get the 4 individuals to find that out and that answer probably 5 has changed overtime. We are independent. We only 6 have five political appointees. The rest of the 7 agency, all 2,100 or so of them are career employees, 8 so -- I am a career executive, Jack is, so we dont 9 turn over every five years. The administration and 10 our commission who are appointed by Congress and 11 confirmed by the President, dont turn over every 12 administration. They have four appointed terms, so 13 every four to five years, one of those individuals is 14 reappointed by the President Administrations, so 15 were fairly neutral, and we pride ourselves on being 16 a technically focused agency.

17 The Lessons Learned Task Force was hard 18 hitting. I can go into all that if youre 19 interested in the details, but were subjecting 20 ourselves to the same types of reviews that we would 21 expect the licensee to be under when there is a 22 program failure, when you miss these opportunities to 23 discover these types of issues. We did know about 24 boron degradation. In fact, it did happen at the 25 Davis-Besse plant before in a smaller sense to a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

37 1 valve, a pressurizer spray valve, that had corrosion 2 on the carbon steel parts, which were the valve stems 3 and nuts or studs and nuts, and we knew about that 4 firmly. It happened at the Calvert Cliff plant on 5 the pressurizer. We thought we had a program to 6 address it, we thought the licensees were inspecting 7 it, we thought we were inspecting it, but we missed 8 this opportunity.

9 MS. LUEKE: Do you feel that 10 thats part of this complacency is because theres 11 too much of the same structure and not enough new 12 information or outside opinions or other independent 13 people taking a look at it from the outside?

14 We discussed this last time that you spend 15 all your time with the licensees and with each other, 16 but the public input is fairly limited, and the input 17 from -- I know there are people like the Union of 18 Concerned Scientist and people that are the watchdog 19 agencies, but both the public and watchdog agencies 20 tend not to get involved until something goes wrong.

21 MR. COLLINS: Well, I think thats 22 the tendencies of human nature.

23 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, but we dont 24 have much margin for error.

25 MR. COLLINS: That is true. I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

38 1 would say that our process is probably one of the 2 more open processees, but is not local perhaps. In 3 the formulation of the inspection program that we had 4 today, which was in effect at the time that the 5 degradation was discovered, this degradation took 6 place over a long period of time, could be four to 7 six to eight years depending on the possibility of 8 the degradation rate. Weve had about 30 9 meetings -- public meetings in the area here, if my 10 recollection is right. We had five exchanges of 11 correspondence with FirstEnergy when we were 12 determining to what extent they had inspections. We 13 had four public meetings where we had multiple phone 14 lines where people could call in. That was all an 15 open process. I would view this as more being 16 technically astute as being able to step back, look 17 at pieces of information, take operating experience, 18 which there is a lot of, use International experience 19 and focus on these areas that to some extent we have 20 passed judgment on, and we think they are working 21 well, so we move on to the next area, and the Lessons 22 Learned Task Force would say we should reserve some 23 resources, time, people, and money to go back and 24 test what we think is working well.

25 MS. LUEKE: Yeah.

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39 1 MR. COLLINS: And to re-baseline 2 ourselves to be sure that those older issues -- even 3 though they maybe understood, may have a program, are 4 really being done well because we know that exist, 5 and look for the issues, but dont forget what has 6 been there, and thats what I mean when I say 7 complacency.

8 MS. LUEKE: So that does sound 9 like a key element. What about funding? From what 10 I was able to understand from the web site, over 90 11 percent of the funding comes from the licensees, so 12 this seems to me to be an inherent problem because 13 the people that youre regulating -- say, for 14 example, you found a plant you felt really needed to 15 be shut down completely and forever.

16 MR. COLLINS: Uh huh.

17 MS. LUEKE: By doing that, that 18 would cost you a great amount of money and a big 19 chunk of funding, so there wouldnt be much 20 motivation, I mean, other than your mission 21 statements, which Im sure is taken very seriously by 22 everyone, but that seems to be an inherent problem.

23 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, I understand 24 appearance of a conflict between that, we are a fee 25 recovery agency. There are some details perhaps that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

40 1 are important, and that is our budget does come from 2 a Federal fund. We reimburse that by fees, and its 3 on off years, if you will. About 90 percent of our 4 budget, as you indicate, comes from the industry; 5 about 10 percent comes directly from the general 6 fund, and that funds what we would call the 7 International work and some other work thats 8 generic. The way Im going to respond to you is, my 9 thinking, there is always going to be work for the 10 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whether a plant is 11 shut down or whether its operating. If its shut 12 down, its going to go through decommissioning.

13 Decommissioning takes an extended period of time. In 14 some cases it might not be done four 20, 15 or 40 15 years, if its put in a safe store type of situation.

16 Were focused on the potential building of new 17 facilities, the operating of existing facilities and 18 a shut down of old facilities, so theres a lot of 19 business lines that we have.

20 MS. LUEKE: Okay.

21 MR. COLLINS: We do not do 22 accounting like you might think a consultant would 23 where when one of Jacks people leaves the site, he 24 presents a bill, collects a check, and leaves, if you 25 will.

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41 1 MS. LUEKE: Uh huh.

2 MR. COLLINS: Perhaps that 3 connotation could be envisioned, so we stay as far 4 away from that as possible, and budgeting is done 5 really at a program office level. The budget that 6 the region receives is allocated by the office of 7 Nuclear Reactor Regulation. We go in for that 8 budget. We analyze that budget. We defend that 9 budget. We receive it. We analyze any cuts. We 10 allocate those resources to the regions. The 11 regions are not a direct part of that process, so 12 they do not have the view or the influence perhaps 13 that you might believe.

14 MS. LUEKE: Okay.

15 MR. COLLINS: I dont know, is that 16 understandable to you?

17 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, that was. One 18 area that seems to be -- and this may be a very naive 19 thought, but it appeared to me that, I dont know how 20 heavily you use fines, but it seems like that would 21 be an area where a lot could be accomplished by 22 using -- by using the fine approach, then youre not 23 only punishing the Utility for violations in a way 24 that they, as a business understand, but its also 25 helping to fund more proactive NRC. I mean, so -- -

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42 1 it just seems to me -- and perhaps even an award 2 system for companies that dont have problems. I 3 mean, I dont know, Im just taking this from a 4 business perspective and what I know of business and 5 motivation, and it appears -- its just something 6 that I had and I dont know if its incorporated into 7 what -- how you do business or not.

8 MR. COLLINS: Good question.

9 MR. GROBE: It is. We have an 10 enforcement policy that includes civil sanctions, 11 which would include fines as well as orders to do 12 things. We use fines for very significant 13 violations. Most of the violations that we identify 14 day in and day out at nuclear plants that are not 15 that significant. There are some violations of 16 safety requirements, but theyre handled through a 17 different process where we assess the significance of 18 a specific finding, ensure that the company is taking 19 corrective action, and as the significance goes up 20 the level of additional inspection goes up, but for 21 the most significant violations that occur as well as 22 those that dont lend themselves to risk evaluation, 23 we do use civil penalties, fines. An example of a 24 violation that doesnt lend itself to a risk 25 characterization would be a violation of our MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

43 1 requirements that prohibit a company from taking 2 retribution against somebody who raises a safety 3 concern. Its a whistle blower concept. If they 4 violate those requirements they go directly into the 5 traditional enforcement policy which includes fines.

6 If theres a significant overexposure or a 7 significant accident or event, we would consider 8 fines, but for the vast majority of the violations, 9 we dont use fines. That is part of our process.

10 MS. LUEKE: I realize that, it 11 just seems to me if you would use fines for lesser 12 offenses also, you might minimize them becoming 13 larger offenses.

14 MR. GROBE: If you go back 10 or 15 so years, we used to use fines to a much greater 16 extent, and what we found was that they were not a 17 significant motivating factor, so we elevated the 18 level of issues that we would use fines and I think 19 became more effective in the way we motivate improved 20 performance, and one of the things thats important 21 to keep in mind is that -- and this is not talking 22 about Davis-Besse, this is talking about the industry 23 as a whole, the safety performance of the industry 24 over the last 10 to 15 years has been steadily 25 improving, and if you take a snapshot today as MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

44 1 contrasted with a snapshot from 15 years ago, there 2 is a substantive improvement, very clearly measurable 3 by all indicators, that the plants in the United 4 States are operating safer today than they ever have.

5 Now, thats, like I said, separate from Davis-Besse.

6 The situation that occurred at Davis-Besse, I think 7 Sam indicated, an accident didnt occur, but 8 essentially all safety margin on the reactor pressure 9 vessel was eliminated because of failures to properly 10 implement required programs, and we didnt identify 11 that the company was failing to do that, so thats --

12 those are issues that were dealing with.

13 MS. LUEKE: I guess we find that 14 less comforting because it happened here, No. 1, 15 because it was so close; No. 2, and because there are 16 so many of the plants that are aging, so I think 17 its -- makes it even more important that these 18 things do happen.

19 MR. GROBE: Yeah, I think those 20 are concerns what we also share. We have 21 requirements that address aging issues. We have 22 requirements for making sure that the plants are well 23 maintained. Theres a variety of requirements that 24 address the concerns that you have, but I understand 25 your comment.

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45 1 Do you have any final comments before we go 2 to somebody else?

3 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, I realize I need 4 to go on. There were just a couple quotes that I 5 wanted to ask about that have been in the press 6 lately. One was that Mr. Sheron said that our 7 lawyer said if you issue an order you must have an 8 immediate safety concern and that was one of the 9 reasons that it wasnt shut down in November, and do 10 you need to go through lawyers every time you do a 11 shut down notice, and are the lawyers sort of 12 wagging -- the tail wagging the dog here? I mean, 13 we all know that lawyers are everywhere and they do 14 protect us.

15 MR. GROBE: Well collect 16 lawyer jokes after the meeting.

17 (Laughter).

18 MR. COLLINS: Any lawyers in the 19 house?

20 (Indicating).

21 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, and so we 22 want to be respectful to the lawyers in the house.

23 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, very good.

24 MS. LUEKE: But I found that 25 comment unnerving, that you would have to go ask the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

46 1 lawyers if you could do what was necessary for 2 safety.

3 MR. COLLINS: Right, I 4 understand that comment. Its very well articulated.

5 Dr. Sheron works for me. Hes my technical associate 6 director in the office of NRR. Let me put that 7 comment into perspective because I believes its a 8 comment thats based on an E-mail thats written in 9 the issuance of those E-mails from a freedom of 10 information request.

11 We were going through a process with the 12 Davis-Besse facility that started in the 13 August/September time frame where they were 14 responding to a request of information from us in the 15 form of the bulletin, 2001-01 for the bases of their 16 inspections of the reactor vessel head. Thats not 17 unique to Davis-Besse. We did it to the fleet, all 18 103 operating reactors, subject to all of our 19 requirements, but, in this case, it was isolated to 20 the 60 or so pressurized water reactors that we have.

21 At the same time that we were receiving information 22 from the facilities, there were a number of 23 facilities who asked for extensions or who based on 24 their first submittal of information to us looked 25 like that had not provided an adequate bases for the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

47 1 inspections of the reactor vessel heads given that we 2 now knew there were circumferential cracking as well 3 as axial cracking, so we were preparing a means by 4 which we could address a concern if it arose to a 5 level of safety and that mechanism that we had was in 6 order. You asked Jack the question, Jack answered 7 it appropriately of our enforcement sanctions. They 8 go all the way from letter writing, if you will, all 9 the way up to issuing an order to shut down the 10 plant, all the way to revoking a license, if 11 necessary, so we were preparing for the worst case 12 because it takes time to prepare the order, and it is 13 a legal document, and it has quid pro quo. If we 14 issue an order to a licensee, and they have to take 15 action; if its immediately effective, they have to 16 take the issue, but they also have hearing rights, 17 which goes in front of a hearing board. We argue our 18 case. They argue their case. One of those prevails 19 based on the judicial system and then off we go.

20 MS. LUEKE: But, meanwhile, the 21 plant is still operating?

22 MR. COLLINS: Meanwhile, the 23 plant -- no. If its immediately effective, in this 24 case, the plant would be shut down while that process 25 would be playing out.

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48 1 MS. LUEKE: Okay.

2 MR. COLLINS: So the plant is in a 3 safe condition, but regulatory reputation, if you 4 will, could be at risk if we arbitrarily use that as 5 a tool without a substantial basis, so when we talk 6 about the formulation of that document, like any 7 legal documents, we talk about the requirements, what 8 would be argued in Court, whats the legal standing, 9 whats precedent, what you need for proof, okay, 10 because we are in a legal process. In this case, 11 Davis-Besse has a license from us, which we issue 12 based on a licensing process and that has quid pro 13 quo and hearing rights.

14 Now, in this case, the proof is 15 substantiating that theres a leak, not suspecting 16 that there is a leak, but substantiating that theres 17 a leak, and that was the issue thats being debated, 18 if you will, during the process of should we or 19 should we not, could we or could we not issue that 20 order.

21 MS. LUEKE: Okay, thank you.

22 Just one last question, its the same one I started 23 with.

24 What can he we could as concerned citizens to 25 help you do your job better, should we write our MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

49 1 Congressmen, say, give everybody a raise or, you 2 know --

3 MR. GROBE: That sounds good.

4 (Laughter).

5 MR. GROBE: I think the most 6 important thing you can do is what youre already 7 doing, and that is being informed, share your 8 concerns with us, make sure that we understand your 9 perspectives. For those of you that have been to 10 these meetings before -- and I know Sam has said this 11 already, safety is our only focus. Its not the 12 finances of the company, its not the schedule --

13 restart schedule. Its nothing of those things.

14 Its safety, and if a plant isnt safe, we will take 15 whatever actions are necessary to make sure its put 16 in a safe condition. If that requires a shut down of 17 the plant, thats the action well take.

18 Lawyers are one of our tools to help us take 19 the right action to make sure that the plants are 20 safe.

21 MS. LUEKE: Thank you.

22 MR. COLLINS: Im going to add a 23 little bit to that. I know FirstEnergy is here 24 tonight, but I would say that there is a forum for 25 discussion with the operator of this facility besides MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

50 1 the type thats forced the events of just you.

2 MS. LUEKE: Im not aware of 3 that forum. What is that?

4 MR. COLLINS: Im saying there 5 should be.

6 MS. LUEKE: Oh, okay, yeah.

7 MR. COLLINS: And so as a 8 citizen, and Ive had the opportunity and am 9 fortunate to have jobs with the NRC, at the sites, 10 been a resident inspector, have been a senior 11 resident inspector, have lived and raised a family in 12 the area of these nuclear power plants, and its 13 important that the citizens, the constituency, if you 14 will, are involved in a facility, and that theres a 15 continual dialogue and a continual understanding and 16 appreciation for the technology and the obligations 17 of the operator and the role of the NRC, not just 18 when theres a problem because building up that 19 confidence and understanding of the processees and 20 the creative tension, if you will, that the citizens 21 are concerned and they want to be involved and its a 22 positive thing, keeps everybody engaged, and it 23 fights that complacency issue because its not just 24 you who is questioning, its not just you who is 25 looking, its not just you who is challenging. Doing MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

51 1 all of that in a constructive way, I believe, is a 2 useful tool.

3 MS. LUEKE: Has a suggestion 4 been made to FirstEnergy by you?

5 MR. COLLINS: Im sorry?

6 MS. LUEKE: Have you made the 7 suggestion to FirstEnergy?

8 MR. COLLINS: Have I personally?

9 MS. LUEKE: Yes.

10 MR. COLLINS: Yes.

11 MS. LUEKE: Okay.

12 MR. GROBE: I appreciate those 13 thoughts and it brought something to my mind that I 14 think is important to understand.

15 FirstEnergy has chartered -- Bob Saunders, 16 the President of FirstEnergy, has chartered a group 17 that he calls his restart oversight panel, and its 18 primarily comprised of senior executives from across 19 the industry, but Bob invited Jere Witt, your County 20 Administrator, to sit on that panel, and Jere is an 21 active member of that panel. I have observed the 22 panel and Jere in action, and I also meet regularly 23 with Jere, and thats another opportunity for you to 24 get information and also provide feedback to Jere as 25 far as whats going on at the plant, and hes --

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52 1 being County Administrator, hes obviously very well 2 connected to the community, and he gives me feedback 3 on a regular basis of what his sense of the 4 communitys thinking and concerned about and he 5 provides that also to FirstEnergy through the restart 6 oversight panel, so thats another opportunity.

7 MS. LUEKE: And I just was glad 8 to see a lot of -- more things empowering the 9 employees, I think is really important because they 10 are people that we know and trust locally.

11 MR. GROBE: Good, thank you.

12 MS. LUEKE: We dont know the 13 higher ups, but we know that good people work there, 14 and that by those people having more power, I think 15 that we all lose power by that. Thank you.

16 MR. GROBE: Thank you very 17 much.

18 MR. COLLINS: Good questions.

19 MR. GROBE: Is there any other 20 questions or comments from any another individual?

21 (Indicating).

22 MR. GROBE: Certainly, sir.

23 MR. FOWLER: Good evening. John 24 Fowler is my name. Im a local Oak Harbor resident.

25 I have basically four questions this evening.

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53 1 Earlier it was mentioned in your literature 2 provided this evening, it describes a little bit, 3 these bottom nozzle tests that have been done, 4 apparently that Davis-Besse or FirstEnergy rather is 5 using a Framatome, a contractor, to do some analysis.

6 MR. GROBE: Uh huh.

7 MR. FOWLER: Now, so the 8 relationship is that Framatome is paid by FirstEnergy 9 to conduct these tests?

10 MR. GROBE: Thats correct.

11 MR. FOWLER: Is that correct?

12 MR. GROBE: Uh huh.

13 MR. FOWLER: So they potentially 14 might have some interest in coming out with a 15 conclusion that would be favorable to FirstEnergy, 16 the possibility exists?

17 MR. GROBE: Sure.

18 MR. FOWLER: Okay. What Im 19 wondering is the raw data thats collected being 20 provided to you, the NRC, so that your own experts 21 can look at the raw data and come to your own 22 conclusions and compare and contrast that with the 23 analysis produced by Framatome, the paid employee, if 24 you will, of FirstEnergy?

25 MR. GROBE: Thats an excellent MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

54 1 question. The most consulting groups -- whether 2 they are engineering consulting groups like 3 Framatome, PNP, or any other group that provides a 4 service, if they dont provide an adequate technical 5 service, theyre not going to be in business long, so 6 there is substantial motivation for Framatome to do a 7 good job, but, yes, Sams staff has invited 8 Davis-Besse to the headquarters office, and I think 9 either Christine or Tony was mentioning that meeting, 10 its currently scheduled for the 26th of November, 11 and whenever -- we try to have as many of our 12 meetings our here in the local community as possible, 13 there are times when its just not cost effective, if 14 we have a situation like this one where theres a 15 variety of technical experts at headquarters that 16 need to be engaged in the dialogue, well invite the 17 licensee to headquarters to discuss the issue, but 18 what we do is we provide toll free access to that 19 meeting via a telecommunications network, and 20 depending on what we expect is going to be the 21 interest of the meeting, well get anywhere from 50 22 to several hundred phone lines, and you can both 23 listen in and participate in the public dialogue 24 following that meeting. The purpose of that meeting 25 is to discuss the bottom head penetration situation, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

55 1 and Ill talk a little bit more about that in a 2 moment, but weve invited Davis-Besse in. Weve 3 asked them to bring Framatome with them. The 4 purpose of that meeting is to understand exactly what 5 the data is --

6 MR. FOWLER: Okay.

7 MR. GROBE: -- what the analysis 8 is, what Framatomes recommendations were, and why 9 they felt those recommendations were appropriate and 10 what plan of action Davis-Beese is taking.

11 Let me step back for the folks that arent as 12 knowledgeable as you and just try to explain a little 13 bit about what the bottom head issue is.

14 MR. FOWLER: Okay.

15 MR. GROBE: During the Containment 16 Health inspections, Davis-Besse identified some 17 corrosion products on the bottom head and they 18 couldnt tell whether those corrosions products were 19 coming from leaking penetrations in the bottom head 20 or if they had simply run down the side of the vessel 21 and collected on the bottom head, so they are still 22 trying to sort that through and figure out whats the 23 best thing to do to answer that question completely 24 to their satisfaction and ours, so thats a specific 25 issue. You had another question?

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56 1 MR. FOWLER: Yes, along the same 2 lines as mentioned earlier that apparently there is a 3 technology thats used on some other reactors, 4 on-line leak detection.

5 Would on-line leak detection, if such a 6 system had been installed, would that have aided the 7 resident inspectors or the agency as a whole in 8 determining that there was a problem with the head?

9 MR. COLLINS: Thats not clear. I 10 think there will be a projection. Let me tell you 11 why. The on-line leaking detection system would 12 sense that there is a potential for leakage inside 13 containment, you would then have to go find the 14 source of the leakage, and there were already 15 indicators, I believe, that there may be leakage in 16 containment.

17 MR. FOWLER: Okay.

18 MR. COLLINS: And those pieces of 19 information were not aggregated in a way that allowed 20 FirstEnergy or the NRC to understand better where the 21 leakage is and how to discover it.

22 MR. FOWLER: So mandating an 23 on-line leakage detection system would not 24 necessarily have benefitted this particular 25 circumstance because it was already known that there MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

57 1 was some leakage based on --

2 MR. COLLINS: It was suspected.

3 MR. FOWLER: -- visible signs --

4 MR. COLLINS: There were 5 indications that hadnt been read correctly that 6 there would be leakage, like clogged filters, those 7 types of things, the presence of boron in the head.

8 I would, Mr. Fowler, I would say that this detection 9 system in conjunction with the other actions that 10 have been taken, such as the requirement to complete 11 the inspection of the reactor vessel head, the 12 requirement to be able to remove the installation 13 that masked the cracking in this case, all off those 14 together would enhance the ability to prevent this 15 from happening again.

16 MR. FOWLER: But that by itself 17 would not be a silver bullet, so to speak, in the 18 future to what positively prevent this. They still 19 need -- we still need to have good inspectors on site 20 and the results of their inspections acted upon.

21 MR. COLLINS: My experience is, 22 its always a combination of not more than one 23 thing --

24 MR. FOWLER: Good.

25 MR. COLLINS: -- that prevents an MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

58 1 event.

2 A response to your earlier question is, by 3 law, the NRC has access to any and all information 4 that a licensee has that we need to have access to --

5 to make a safety determination and that includes 6 proprietary information, and we have people on site, 7 two in this case, who have unfettered access and the 8 ability to conduct unannounced inspections every day 9 and all night if thats necessary.

10 MR. FOWLER: Yeah, we definitely 11 need the human element as well as the technical.

12 Another question, the last time I brought 13 this up -- and I didnt see anything in the 14 literature this time that addressed it. One of the 15 elements that youve identified in here is -- one of 16 your key elements is looking at all the safety issues 17 totally involving the plant before its brought back 18 on line, but what is going on with the casks at is 19 this point? Have those been inspected and will they 20 before the plant is brought back on-line, the above 21 ground storage casks? Those dont relate to this 22 particular issue, but they do relate to the 23 communitys confidence in the safety of the plant as 24 a whole that we identified last time, some variances 25 in the casks as promised and the casks as delivered, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

59 1 are we inspecting the casks, when were they last 2 inspected, and are they safe?

3 MR. GROBE: Its -- there is a 4 long answer, but the short answer is yes. The 5 longer answer is that we have a variety of 6 inspections that we do, security, radiation 7 protection inspection around the casks. The casks 8 are not part of the restart checklist, and so there 9 is no additional inspection under the 0350 10 Davis-Besse Oversight Panel of the dry casks, beyond 11 our normal baseline inspection.

12 MR. FOWLER: Can you tell us when 13 those were last done and when theyre scheduled 14 again?

15 MR. GROBE: I dont have that 16 information, but --

17 MR. COLLINS: If you leave your 18 name and number, we can get that information to you.

19 MR. FOWLER: Sure, sure. And, 20 lastly, what was reported in the paper and I asked 21 this question last time in terms of their, in 22 essence, their PRP or personal reliability program, a 23 lot of the decisions that were poorly made by 24 FirstEnergy staff were committee decisions, if you 25 will, groups formed, and it almost appears that they MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

60 1 came to a point that they spent most of their 2 committee time attempting to justify doing nothing 3 rather than resolving problems that they knew 4 existed. It was indicated that those people -- some 5 have left. Ive never seen and I dont know if it 6 will ever be released, the names of the people on 7 those committees, but have they been removed from 8 positions to where they can make similar bad 9 decisions in the future perhaps at another plant 10 whether its a Perry or a Calvert Cliffs? Since 11 there is no PRP to track these folks, where do they 12 go and how do we know they wont continue to make bad 13 decisions in the future that affect other people?

14 MR. GROBE: Thats an excellent 15 question. Theres an ongoing investigation into 16 exactly how the decisions were made and what 17 involvement individuals, specific individuals, may 18 have had. If we concluded that these individuals 19 behaved intentionally in violation of our 20 requirements, we get into what the first question you 21 asked about our normal or traditional enforcement 22 sanctions. Those sanctions include in the case of 23 willful deliberate violations, the potential for 24 orders and the agency has issued orders to 25 individuals prohibiting their involvement in nuclear MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

61 1 related activities for a period of time.

2 MR. FOWLER: So this 3 investigation is still ongoing at this point?

4 MR. GROBE: Thats correct.

5 MR. FOWLER: Okay. The 6 proprietary information that you indicated earlier 7 that the resident inspectors have access to would 8 that include minutes of these meetings that were 9 conducted by FirstEnergy when decisions were made?

10 MR. GROBE: Yes, we have -- not 11 only can we review minutes of such meetings, but we 12 have access to attend such meetings.

13 MR. FOWLER: Okay. So that 14 should give you a pretty good basis for this 15 investigation then and the ultimate individuals that 16 were penalized?

17 MR. COLLINS: Also, Mr. Fowler, 18 as Jack alluded to, we have an office of 19 investigations, who are professional investigators.

20 They have subpoena rights. They have the ability to 21 conduct interviews, take records and make 22 determinations as you might imagine in these cases, 23 so they are professionals, if you will, in this area.

24 MR. FOWLER: Have you ever 25 actually assessed a penalty against an individual or MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

62 1 removed their ticket to operate, so to speak, have 2 they ever done that?

3 MR. COLLINS: Yes, its more 4 common in the materials area, like radiographers, for 5 example --

6 MR. FOWLER: Okay.

7 MR. COLLINS: -- because they 8 have the direct impact on safety.

9 MR. FOWLER: Exactly.

10 MR. COLLINS: But there have been 11 individuals that have been removed for misconduct or 12 deliberate acts. An example of that would be an 13 individuals who may have falsified a document for 14 security clients as part of a screening process.

15 MR. FOWLER: So they are 16 tracked, and they are no longer able to participate 17 in the program, if you will?

18 MR. COLLINS: They are provided 19 a formal order from the NRC that prohibits their 20 activity, and they are tracked as long as they are 21 employed for the --

22 MR. FOWLER: Excellent.

23 MR. COLLINS: -- remainder of 24 that.

25 MR. FOWLER: Thank you, I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

63 1 appreciate that.

2 MR. WHITCOMB: Good evening, Ms.

3 Lipa, gentlemen. I have a few prepared statements 4 and a question, and the question will be directed to 5 Tony, so pay attention. There will be a quiz.

6 Thank you for attending tonight, Mr. Collins.

7 Its good to see the highest levels of the NRC 8 involved.

9 MR. GROBE: Howard, do you 10 want to introduce yourself?

11 MR. WHITCOMB: Oh, Im sorry.

12 Im Howard Whitcomb, resident of the community since 13 1985. I hope that these public meetings are a 14 dynamic process and not a static one. In other 15 words, I hope that our comments are heartfelt and 16 taken back and something is done with them. Its 17 not evident to us here in the community that that, in 18 fact, is happening. Im asking that as the director 19 of NRR, you see that something does happen.

20 Two comments, two areas of concern, if you 21 will. The first is the current assessment of the 22 quality assurance program.

23 Over the last several months, the NRC has 24 cited specific violations of the licensing 25 requirements regarding the use of both unqualified MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

64 1 personnel and inadequate procedures during the 2 current performance of work inside the containment 3 building. This is after March of this year.

4 During that same period, FirstEnergy has reported its 5 own difficulty in controlling the large number of 6 contract personnel currently working at the 7 Davis-Besse site. Specific polar crane maintenance 8 performed by vendor personnel resulted, at one point, 9 in a decision to temporarily suspend the use of the 10 polar crane. While the public has not been fully 11 apprised as to the reasons for that decision, the 12 allegations contained in a pending lawsuit 13 illustrates the current inability of the average 14 worker at Davis-Besse to raise problems to 15 managements attention even today.

16 FirstEnergy has also reported that its very 17 own 10 CFR 50 Appendix B quality assurance 18 organization, upon which the license to operate 19 Davis-Besse is predicated, has recently failed to 20 perform independent reviews of safety related 21 activities at the Davis-Besse facility. 10 CFR 50, 22 titled "Energy" is the governing federal law 23 regarding the nuclear industry. Appendix B to 10 24 CFR 50 specifically requires each licensee to 25 establish a quality assurance program that applies to MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

65 1 the design, fabrication, construction and testing of 2 the structures, systems and components of the 3 facility. Additionally, every licensee of a nuclear 4 operating plant must -- or is required to include 5 information pertaining to the managerial and 6 administrative controls to be used to assure safe 7 operation of the nuclear facility.

8 Im not going to bore anyone here with the 9 reading of the code, but it is public information and 10 is law.

11 Appendix B contains 18 very specific criteria 12 to be included in any and all licensee quality 13 assurance programs. Based on the recent reports 14 received by both the NRC and Davis-Besse regarding 15 the quality assurance program, it appears that the 16 quality assurance program fails to satisfy all of the 17 required criteria. Specifically, the following eight 18 criteria either do not exist or have significant 19 deficiencies.

20 Criterion V is with respect to programs that 21 govern instructions, procedures and drawings.

22 Criterion VI requires procedures for document 23 control.

24 Criterion IX is the control of special 25 processees.

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66 1 Criterion X are the criteria for inspection 2 at the plant.

3 Criterion XI is test control.

4 Criterion XVI is corrective action program.

5 Weve already heard that there are serious 6 deficiencies with that program.

7 Criterion XVII is the quality assurance 8 records and the maintenance of those records.

9 And, finally, Criterion XVIII governs how 10 audits are to be performed.

11 Based on the recent findings of the NRC as 12 well as the reports from FirstEnergy, it is clear 13 that the quality assurance program at Davis-Beese 14 does not currently exist at a level whereby safe 15 operation of a nuclear plant can be assured, and, 16 therefore, the basis for operating license can 17 continue to be issued. FirstEnergys recent actions 18 demonstrate that the company is not yet prepared to 19 implement a quality assurance program which places 20 reactor safety as its number one priority.

21 My question, Mr. Mendiola, is, what 22 inspection activities, to date, have been performed 23 by the NRC to address the apparent lack of and/or 24 complete breakdown of a satisfactory quality 25 assurance program at the Davis-Besse facility?

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67 1 MR. GROBE: Howard, Tony is 2 responsible for licensing activities, so why dont 3 you let me take that question because Im on the 4 inspection side of the house. Tony, do you want 5 to --

6 MR. MENDIOLA: Thats fine.

7 MR. GROBE: Okay. The --

8 pardon me? Christine, you want to --

9 MS. LIPA: No, go ahead.

10 MR. GROBE: Nobody wants to 11 answer your question except me. The quality 12 assurance criterias, as youre well aware, is a very 13 important part of our regulatory process, and, in a 14 nutshell, what they expect is that things are done in 15 a disciplined methodical way, and when that doesnt 16 happen, if the licensee identifies the attribution 17 into their corrective action program, which is 18 required under the quality assurance requirements, if 19 we identify it, we issue a violation. Violations 20 are not uncommon. I think wed all like to be 21 perfect, but we all make mistakes and very rarely are 22 those violations significant. We inspect day in and 23 day out against those criteria as well as the large 24 number of other requirements both include Federal 25 regulations and in specific licensing for facility, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

68 1 and when we identify violations, we take appropriate 2 action. We have not concluded to date that the 3 entire quality assurance program is flawed. We 4 clearly concluded and so did the company that the 5 corrective action program, which is Criterion XVI, as 6 you mentioned, was -- there were serious performance 7 deficiencies in the corrective action program at the 8 Davis-Besse. Thats been significantly improved 9 based on our recent inspections, but we still find 10 occasional violations, and when we find those, 11 theyre cited, so its -- our inspection -- the basis 12 for our conclusion that the quality assurance program 13 is adequate, is contained in our inspections. The 14 plant is not operating today, and it wont operate 15 until the panel is convinced that it can be operated 16 safely, and Sam and Jim accept the panels 17 recommendation if it gets to that point, so I think 18 the plant is safe today, and it wont operate until 19 NRC concludes that it can be operated safely.

20 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, Im going to 21 agree with everything Jack said, however, Im going 22 to provide a mechanism for you, perhaps, Mr.

23 Whitcomb, that is, you apparently have some 24 information in your views document, and if you want 25 to write either to myself or to Tony or to Jack with MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

69 1 the bases for your concerns, well evaluate them or 2 respond to your issues in writing. I think Jacks 3 correct in that we have not come to a conclusion, and 4 I copied down youre words, that there were serious 5 problems, there are examples of issues, we would 6 agree with that, but we perhaps have not aggregated 7 them in the way that you have.

8 Now, in response to the first lady who came 9 up, I dont want to automatically dismiss that 10 because Im not going to stand here and tell you that 11 we know everything. So if you have a review, if you 12 have information that you want us to consider, please 13 submit it to us. Well evaluate it and respond to 14 you in writing.

15 MR. WHITCOMB: I dont think that 16 my point is that I have specific information that 17 needs to be evaluated. This is information that has 18 been shared at all the meetings in the last several 19 months.

20 MR. COLLINS: Okay.

21 MR. WHITCOMB: And I guess what 22 Im saying is, as a member of the public and in the 23 spirit of your initial opening comments about gaining 24 trust of the public, my concerns are, is that all of 25 these issues that have been raised over the last MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

70 1 several months suggest serious problems.

2 The question is very simply, what activities, 3 what specific inspections have the NRC done 4 addressing the quality assurance program and whether 5 or not it is in acceptable shape since March of this 6 year?

7 MR. COLLINS: Okay. If we dont 8 have that answer tonight, we can respond to you.

9 MR. GROBE: If you take a look 10 at our checklist, some of the items in the checklist 11 go directly to your question, and we have done a 12 variety of inspections that include quality assurance 13 program attributes and weve made citations, which 14 youve read from, and youve referenced in some of 15 your comments, so weve done a variety of inspections 16 into the adequacy of the licensees implementation of 17 activities at the plant which are controlled under 18 their quality assurance program, so Id be glad to 19 get into this in more detail privately or as Sam 20 suggested, if you want to -- if youve rolled up the 21 issues that you have read in our correspondence 22 differently than we have, we would be glad to 23 consider that, but at this point, we havent come to 24 the same conclusion you have.

25 MR. WHITCOMB: I guess my question MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

71 1 is, the NRC has evaluated the quality assurance 2 program since March, and they have come to that 3 conclusion or they have not even evaluated it?

4 MR. GROBE: The quality assurance 5 program is part of every one of our inspections.

6 For example, Marty and a team of eight other people, 7 spent about eight weeks looking at design control, 8 thats Criterion III. You know, day in and day out 9 Doug and Scott are in the plant looking at various 10 activities. It might be something covered by a 11 license requirement. It might be something covered 12 by 10 CFR, it might be something covered specifically 13 by the quality assurance requirements, but thats an 14 integral part of all of our inspections.

15 MR. WHITCOMB: Okay. You mentioned 16 design criteria, Criterion III, that was not one that 17 I listed, but, for instance, test control, have you 18 had somebody look at test control since March?

19 MR. GROBE: Part of the inspection 20 that Marty did, we call it our safety system design 21 and performance inspection, we look not only at 22 design, but we also look at maintenance and operating 23 procedures and test procedures and that would cover 24 Criterion X, Criterion XI. All of our inspections 25 look at Criterion XVI, so thats -- its an integral MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

72 1 part of the fabric of our inspections.

2 MR. WHITCOMB: Okay.

3 MS. LIPA: The -- one of the 4 items on the checklist is quality audits and 5 self-assessment programs.

6 MR. WHITCOMB: 3.C, I think, or 2.C.

7 MS. LIPA: 3.C and I dont know 8 the exact status of this part of our inspection, but 9 its one of items that the inspector has on the list 10 where the licensee is doing a review of this program.

11 The inspectors plan to review the licensees review 12 when theyre done and also review what the licensee 13 plans to do about it, so that is one of the items 14 that we have in addition to what Jack said how its 15 really a part of all the inspections.

16 MR. WHITCOMB: So thats a future 17 activity, though? That hasnt actually occurred yet?

18 MS. LIPA: Well, the program 19 inspection has started. A couple of the 20 inspections -- a couple of the programs have already 21 been reviewed by the Utility, so the plan is for the 22 inspector to wait until they are done with their 23 review and take a look at the program and see what 24 they found and what they plan to do about it, so the 25 program inspection has started, but not the detailed MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

73 1 look at this as far as I know.

2 MR. WHITCOMB: Okay. The second 3 question or the second comment Id like to make 4 briefly here is in regards to what I would call the 5 separation of interest between the Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission and the licensee and its impact upon the 7 public confidence.

8 This afternoon I asked a question regarding 9 whether Mr. Jack Martin, a member of the Davis-Besse 10 Company Nuclear Review Board and Restart Overview 11 Panel was, in fact, the very person as John Martin, 12 the former Region III, regional administrator. The 13 answer was yes.

14 In a Toledo Blade article on December 18th, 15 1993, it was reported that the Davis-Besse nuclear 16 plant was found to be in violation of at least two 17 licensing requirements. Mr. John Martin, the 18 administrator of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 19 Commissions regional office in Lisle, Illinois said 20 he was disturbed by Toledo Edison Companys 21 performance there.

22 Quote, reasonable people should be running 23 these things, unquote, Mr. Martin said referring to 24 the nuclear plants in general. Quote, my 25 expectation for you guys, meaning Edison, is to be an MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

74 1 industry leader. Youre struggling to be above 2 average, unquote, he said. Again, that was December 3 18th, 1993.

4 The inclusion of Jack Martin on FirstEnergys 5 Restart Overview Panel violates the publics trust.

6 In light of the problematic history of the safety 7 issues at Davis-Beese facility, and Mr. Martins 8 specific knowledge of those problems, it is 9 inconceivable how he can now sit independently on a 10 panel charged with making recommendations relative to 11 the restart of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant. Last 12 month, I raised a similar issue regarding Mr. Lou 13 Storzs participation on this same panel. The value 14 of Mr. Martins input regarding restart issues is 15 equally questionable. The NRC cannot hope to regain 16 the publics confidence that it exists as an 17 independent agency when a former senior level manager 18 is now working for the very same facility he once 19 criticized as the regional administrator with 20 oversight responsibilities of the Davis-Besse 21 facility.

22 The superficial findings of the NRCs Lessons 23 Learned Task Force last month also indicate that the 24 NRC will not or cannot conduct a self-critical and 25 honest evaluation of itself. These actions, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

75 1 collectively, demonstrate that the NRC intends to 2 confer upon FirstEnergy management disparate and 3 preferential treatment in comparison to the rest of 4 the industry.

5 I have previously noted that it is time for 6 change and that it is time to disband the 0350 Panel 7 and insert an independent review team as envisioned 8 and demanded by the 2-206 petition. As a resident of 9 this community, I hold the public health, safety and 10 welfare above all else. On October 24th, I asked 11 Congressman Dennis Kucinich for a congressional 12 investigation to evaluate the continued and sustained 13 ability of the NRC to fulfill and execute its 14 responsibilities in an independent and unbiased 15 manner, and without alternative motive other than 16 ensuring the public health, safety and welfare. I 17 again renew that request as it the clearly time for 18 change. Thank you.

19 MR. GROBE: Let me just make 20 a comment about the Restart Oversight Panel, so 21 everybodys understands what thats all about. The 22 Restart Oversight Panel is not a requirement by the 23 NRC. Its an initiative that the company took to 24 bring together a very broad spectrum of very 25 experienced people to give them advice to tell them MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

76 1 what they think is going right and whats going 2 wrong. It includes senior executives from a number 3 of utilities. It includes individuals from the 4 Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. It includes 5 former regulators, so its a broad spectrum 6 organization that the company invited in to give them 7 advice to critique what theyre doing, and it doesnt 8 have any regulatory standing. Its not a 9 requirement on our part. Ive personally observed 10 about half their meetings as have a number of other 11 staff here observed meetings, and that panel is 12 giving very critical review of the activities of 13 FirstEnergy, so its -- from my perspective, its 14 adding value. Sam?

15 MR. COLLINS: I respect your 16 points, Mr. Whitcomb, because public confidence to us 17 is important and that public confidence in many cases 18 is perception. The strong credible regulator plays a 19 part in regulation as much as technical decisions do.

20 I think youd understand this with your legal 21 background, that there is a statutory prohibition 22 from a member of senior executive service as any 23 regional administrator is and was from interfacing 24 directly with the industry for I think the period is 25 a year, I may have that wrong, but its about a year.

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77 1 There is also a lifetime band on participating in 2 those areas where there was a direct decision making 3 process involved where the executive was involved in 4 that regulatory decision, if you will. We have to 5 fill out forms every year, and it indicates that that 6 took place and when an individual retires, they are 7 briefed on those types of things, and they are held 8 up to those types of obligation, so that is a place 9 to start, if you will, to understand the basis of 10 your concern.

11 I think we would both agree and there might 12 even be a parallel aspect in the judicial system if I 13 were smart enough to go that way, but we want 14 knowledgeable people not only running these plants, 15 but we want knowledgeable people to commend to advice 16 on issues and to be involved in the industry 17 generally, whether its the future of the 18 operating -- or the decommissioning. Those 19 knowledgeable individuals are usually a product of 20 experience. I agree with your point that we need to 21 in all cases avoid the perception of compromise and 22 not being objective, particularly as a regulator, so 23 Ill take that point.

24 The Lessons Learned Task Force, I dont share 25 your opinion is superficial. I have been reviewing MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

78 1 their report for three weeks for about two to three 2 hours a day on the senior team deciding what to do 3 with those findings and they are pretty substantial, 4 in my view, either that, or we are not very efficient 5 in reviewing them, which could be partly the case.

6 MR. WHITCOMB: Either that or your 7 level of excellence is different than mine.

8 MR. COLLINS: Well, that could be 9 true, and Ill take that.

10 The independence issue, Im the individual 11 who signed out the response to the 2-206 as you well 12 know asking for the independent panel. I would like 13 to review for you whats going on, of course, and at 14 your behest and others, Representative Kucinich, of 15 Ohio did call for the field hearing, so we did go to 16 the field hearing. Thats a manner of oversight.

17 We have an office of investigations which is 18 completely independent, of course, to the chairman of 19 the agency. Theyre conducting a number of 20 investigations of the conduct of the staff. Me, Ill 21 tell you, in the decision making process, theyre 22 going to go come to an independent decision of did 23 the staff follow the rules? Do we have procedures?

24 Do we have process? Do we have accurate information?

25 Those reports will be issued, and, if necessary, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

79 1 actions will be taken, and thats how we police 2 ourselves with an independent party.

3 We have at the behest again of Representative 4 Kucinich, hes asked for the general accounting 5 office, the way the auditing and oversight are of the 6 Congress to do an independent review of the agencys 7 actions in regard to Davis-Beese. Thats scheduled.

8 We have an exit meeting before the end of the year 9 that will be conducted. Ive lost count, but thats 10 the third or fourth independent review, and then 11 theres the prospect of a hearing in front of 12 Congress which is now being scheduled, and we will go 13 down in front of the elected officials and explain 14 our processees, explain the lessons learned report 15 and be subjected to that scrutiny, so all things 16 considered, again, we can differ on opinion, but 17 thats the processees that were using to say that 18 there are independent reviews being conducted on our 19 actions.

20 Meanwhile, were the best ones to police our 21 actions given that we have independent people who 22 werent involved in our processees, because they 23 understand the inspection program, and they know what 24 its supposed to accomplish. They know our rules 25 and regulations and procedures and that can be best MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

80 1 done and thats what the Lessons Learned Task Force 2 has done, so, in total, lessons learned being part of 3 it, but the other four or five independent oversight 4 activities being the rest of it, I think we have met 5 the spirit, at least, of independence and scrutiny.

6 MR. WHITCOMB: I would just in 7 response, and I understand what youre saying, and I 8 dont disagree necessarily in philosophy, but 9 understand this, based on the series of events that 10 have occurred and the lack of forthrightness that 11 appears to have occurred over the last year in terms 12 of information to the public -- and thats not 13 necessarily the NRCs issue, but just generally, the 14 public is in somewhat a confused state, and they 15 dont have all the information, and theyre making a 16 lot of comments and concerns noted to the NRC and to 17 FirstEnergy that, you know, theyre concerned about 18 it. They dont want the plant to start up and 19 perhaps not for the right reasons.

20 Now, the -- because of all this 21 misinformation, this misleading information, it is 22 very difficult for me to accept any of you panel 23 members to stand up and say, well, if former 24 Commissioner Martin made a recommendation to restart 25 Davis-Besse, far be it for me to stand up, put my MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

81 1 head on the chopping block and say, no, no, no, I 2 dont agree. The publics perception of the NRC is 3 it should be distinct, free from any connections, any 4 relationships, either present or past, in order to be 5 truly independent.

6 MR. COLLINS: Uh huh.

7 MR. WHITCOMB: And thats where the 8 problem is right now is that the public doesnt that 9 confidence that you are truly functioning as an 10 independent organization.

11 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, and Ill accept 12 that. You did promote Jack Martin, though, to a 13 Commissioner as regional administrator.

14 MR. WHITCOMB: Im sorry.

15 MR. COLLINS: Im sure he would 16 appreciate that. The other is that we do not accept 17 nor is an individual like Mr. Martin a prior NRC 18 employee coming to the NRC and advising us on the 19 restart of Davis-Besse. That would be a prohibited 20 activity which I mentioned to you before.

21 MR. WHITCOMB: I understand that.

22 MR. COLLINS: They can advise the 23 licensee, but they cant advise us.

24 MR. WHITCOMB: I understand that.

25 MR. COLLINS: Okay.

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82 1 MR. WHITCOMB: Thanks.

2 MR. GROBE: Other questions?

3 This has been a productive evening for me. I 4 appreciate all the questions.

5 I have to say this is the first evening we 6 havent had to replace that pen. They seem to 7 disappear every time we put one on the podium.

8 MS. CABRAL: Everything else in 9 Port Clinton has disappeared, but not your pen.

10 MR. GROBE: Thank you.

11 MS. CABRAL: My concern is really 12 complacency and how to avoid complacency in the 13 public and with you people. In Port Clinton when 14 the sirens go off, we have three options; either the 15 first of the month when theyre testing it, theres a 16 tornado, or there is something going on with the 17 power plant, so we always go through these things, 18 and think, nope, its the first of the month.

19 Sunday, it was like, the weather is bad, maybe its a 20 tornado. My complacency went out the window when 21 the tornado hit the property, the garage flew, the 22 house flew. Youre picking yourself up off the 23 floor and youre thinking where are the neighbors, 24 where is the house, where is the dog? Weve got a 25 mess downtown. Anybody is who is complacent go down MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

83 1 and look, and how are people going to get over being 2 complacent about the nuke, you know, I mean, its the 3 third one on the list is the power plant. Well, if a 4 tornado can hit and all of this is going on with 5 problems there. I dont know if we need to have 6 more public awareness, you know, Congress to get more 7 money, you know. Theyve got all these ads. All 8 these ads of smoking on TV, people are paranoid about 9 that. How do you really make people aware and 10 concerned so they keep after all of you, how do we 11 have all of you get out -- and you dont think a 12 disaster is real until its looking you in the face, 13 you know, and I dont want you all to get hit by a 14 tornado so you can say, yeah, I know these things 15 really do happen. What is the down side, you know, 16 if you hadnt caught this problem when you did and 17 stopped it, what would have happened? Can you make 18 commercials out of this and show people, you know?

19 Where do we go and who do we get to, you know, get 20 the money into making people aware?

21 MR. GROBE: Youve raised some 22 really excellent points, and let me -- Im going to 23 try to touch on a couple of them, and Sam will fill 24 in the blanks that I dont hit on.

25 I personally gave a presentation at the last MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

84 1 meeting that we had on the nuclear society on 2 Davis-Besse and the specific issues that contributed 3 to what happened here and --

4 THEREUPON, a baby began crying.

5 MR. GROBE: Another unhappy 6 citizen.

7 (Laughter).

8 MR. GROBE: But thats one 9 mechanism that we have to share experiences and 10 ensure that these kinds of issues dont happen. I 11 know that theres been a number of industry meetings 12 that we dont attend that are for the utilities.

13 Just recently, a chief executive officer 14 meeting through the Institute of Power Operation 15 where Peter Berg, Chief Executive officer for 16 FirstEnergy attended and gave a presentation, 17 received comment. I know that Lew Myers has 18 attended several industry meetings and his message is 19 exactly your message; dont think it cant happen to 20 you because it can if you become complacent, and you 21 have to fight against that all the time, every day, 22 day in and day out. Its what we call safety 23 culture. Its how people think. Its how they 24 perform every activity that they perform. Its how 25 they respond to any information that comes before MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

85 1 them. Its the independent checks and balances that 2 go on. Your concern is very valid. Many of those 3 checks and balances do not work well at Davis-Besse, 4 and we have to learn from it. We have to make sure 5 that we dont become complacent. We have to make 6 sure the utilities dont become complacent, and 7 thats the whole purpose to the Lessons Learned Task 8 Force, to find out within the NRC what happened, why 9 it happened and the group that Sam sits on to 10 determine what we need to do to make sure this 11 doesnt happen again, so I think were -- meaning the 12 NRC and the Utility, is trying to make sure that we 13 learn, that we share our information with other 14 regulatory agencies. Weve had a lot of interest 15 from nuclear regulatory organizations across various 16 countries and around the world. I know FirstEnergy 17 has had a lot of interest from other utilities, and 18 we also have a number of formal mechanisms that we 19 use to communicate things. Weve already issued 20 three bulletins on this subject, and those are 21 documents that require licensees to take some action 22 and respond to questions, whatever it is. Weve also 23 issued a number of information lists to make these 24 happen very shortly after the incident was identified 25 to share immediately with all the utilities what we MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

86 1 knew happened at Davis-Besse. One of the specific 2 information notices was a concern -- concerned the 3 precursor information that we have, boric acid 4 contamination on containment of air coolers, the 5 corrosions accumulation on radiation filters and 6 making sure that that receives an appropriate level 7 of attention because it could be one of two things.

8 It could be something rather insignificant, like some 9 corrosion inside some tubing that radiation detect 10 for or it could be corrosion in the atmosphere inside 11 the containment building which is coming from 12 somewhere else, so always dont look for the easy 13 answer. Make sure you get the right answer.

14 Sam, did you have any other comments you 15 wanted to make?

16 MR. COLLINS: Im sorry, maam. I 17 didnt catch your name.

18 MS. CABRAL: Barb Cabral.

19 MR. COLLINS: You asked an excellent 20 question, and that is how do you take this 21 information and move it to a place where youre 22 better because of it, and you can prevent these types 23 of things from happening to the extent that you can 24 control those things. The Lessons Learned Task 25 Force is coming here to make a presentation for the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

87 1 public and the stakeholders. Theyre also going to 2 each of the regional offices, and we have four of 3 those throughout the nation, and those regional 4 offices are where our inspectors are housed. Those 5 are the individuals that come to the plants and do 6 the inspection and who the resident inspectors report 7 to and thats where theyre housed.

8 Were also taking this and moving the lessons 9 learned into a specific action plan and thats the 10 part of the group that Im a member of, and that will 11 be published and well track those and move those 12 into our processees and hopefully become a better 13 performing organization, but thats this issue.

14 We also have to be cautious of the fact that 15 this is a very demanding technology. Its a very 16 unforgiving technology, and that warrants the best 17 and the brightest, and it warrants the questioning 18 attitude and you have to fight complacency all the 19 time. We rotate our senior residents every seven 20 years maximum. Mr. Whitcomb mentioned objectivity, 21 thats part of the reason. The other is to keep them 22 fresh and to keep them challenged, so you have to 23 build these mechanisms into your processees to fight 24 them all the time and thats a very real issue. We 25 agree with you.

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88 1 MS. CABRAL: Well, we do love our 2 electricity, and we hope we have some again someday, 3 and we do appreciate the energy company. We kind of 4 think of them as the knight and shining armour coming 5 down the streets with their 50 trucks to put us back 6 together, so its -- keep us safe. Thank you.

7 MR. GROBE: Thank you very much.

8 Other questions? I saw a lot of hands go up 9 as first-timers to these meetings, but I havent seen 10 a whole lot of you coming forward with questions.

11 You must have some questions. Give us some feedback 12 here.

13 MR. COLLINS: I have an answer to 14 Mr. Whitcomb. He challenged me to take actions on 15 the meeting, and I have three; one this morning from 16 Mr. Douglas he asked about a videotape of the head, 17 and I give him -- I think FirstEnergy committed to 18 show that to him.

19 Mr. Fowler talked about casks and when were 20 they last inspected. I think were going to get that 21 information to him, and the third was Mr. Whitcomb 22 saying take actions away from the meeting, and Im 23 crossing that one off.

24 (Laughter).

25 MR. GROBE: Who else has a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

89 1 question?

2 Okay. Well, the -- if youre not the kind 3 of person that likes to come up to a microphone, we 4 always stick around after the meeting. Wed be glad 5 to answer any questions personally one-on-one, any of 6 the NRC staff, so please feel free to come up and ask 7 any questions you might not have been interested in 8 bringing up at a microphone in front of everybody, so 9 thank you very much for coming, and our next meeting 10 of this nature is December 10th, that will be an 11 afternoon meeting at the armory -- not the armory, 12 but at the clubhouse at Camp Perry. Im not sure I 13 like that, but well be at Camp Perry on the 10th in 14 the afternoon with the Utility, and then in the 15 evening for public information.

16 There was some question about access to the 17 facility, you just need a drivers license. Shortly 18 after 9-11 there was very restricted access. You 19 just need to show a drivers license at the gate, and 20 theyll let you right in, so please come to our next 21 meeting.

22 Just in summary, if youre interested in the 23 bottom head issue, there will be phone lines 24 available for you to plug into that meeting. That 25 will be in Washington on the 26th, and the Lessons MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

90 1 Learned Task Force is next week on the 10 -- excuse 2 me, the 20th here at the high school. Thank you 3 again for coming.

4 A reminder, our feedback forms, we are eager 5 to get your insights on how we can better run these 6 meetings or any other thoughts you might have, so 7 take the opportunity to fill out a feedback form and 8 drop it in the mail. Wed appreciate that. Thank 9 you very much.

10 THEREUPON, the meeting was adjourned.

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

91 1 CERTIFICATE 2 STATE OF OHIO )

) ss.

3 COUNTY OF HURON )

4 I, Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis, Stenotype Reporter 5 and Notary Public, within and for the State aforesaid, duly commissioned and qualified, do hereby 6 certify that the foregoing, consisting of 90 pages, was taken by me in stenotype and was reduced to 7 writing by me by means of Computer-Aided Transcription; that the foregoing is a true and 8 complete transcript of the proceedings held in that room on the 13th day of November, 2002 before the 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

I also further certify that I was present in 10 the room during all of the proceedings.

11 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand 12 and seal of office at Wakeman, Ohio this day of

, 2002.

13 14 15 Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis Notary Public 16 3922 Court Road Wakeman, OH 44889 17 My commission expires 4/29/04 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900