ML030970844
| ML030970844 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 03/11/2003 |
| From: | FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co, NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML030970844 (70) | |
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1 1
2 3 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 4 PUBLIC MEETING 5
Meeting held on Tuesday, March 11, 2003, at 6 7:00 p.m. at Camp Perry, Clubhouse #600, Port Clinton, Ohio, taken by me, Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis, 7 Stenotype Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio.
8 9
10 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
11 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 12 Jack Grobe, Chairman for Davis-Besse facility 13 William Dean, Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 14 David Passehl, Project Engineer, Region III 15 Anthony Mendiola, Section Chief PDIII-2, NRR 16 Jon Hopkins, Project Manager - Davis-Besse 17 Jack Rutkowski, Resident Inspector -
Davis-Besse 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
2 1 MR. PASSEHL: Okay, welcome, 2 everybody. This is a meeting of the Davis-Besse 3 Oversight Panel with the public. The goal of 4 tonights meetings is to brief the public with the 5 results of the afternoon meeting we had today with 6 FirstEnergy and to receive comments and questions 7 from members of the public. We had a business 8 meeting during the day.
9 Now, before I get started I want to mention 10 theres copies of our March edition of our monthly 11 newsletter and copies of the slides of todays 12 meeting in the foyer. The newsletter provides 13 background information and also discusses current 14 plan and NRC activities.
15 We also have a public meeting feedback form 16 which we use to get feedback from people to let us 17 know aspects of the meeting that we can improve on.
18 Copies of those forms are also available in the 19 foyer.
20 Were having the meeting transcribed this 21 evening. Marlene Lewis is the transcriber. Shell 22 maintain a record of the meeting and the 23 transcription will be available on our web page in 24 about three to four weeks.
25 Wed like to start off with some MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
3 1 introductions for the NRC folks that are here. Im 2 David Passehl, a Project Engineer from the NRC Region 3 III offices and assistant to Christine Lipa.
4 Christine is the Branch Chief who manages the 5 Inspection Program at Davis-Besse. Shes not here 6 tonight because of other commitments.
7 Jack Grobe is the Senior Manager at the 8 Region III office, and hes also Chairman of the 9 Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
10 MR. GROBE: (Indicating).
11 MR. PASSEHL: Bill Dean is the 12 Deputy Director of the Engineering Division in NRR, 13 and hes located in our headquarters offices in 14 Rockville, Maryland.
15 MR. DEAN: (Indicating).
16 MR. PASSEHL: Hes Vice Chairman of 17 the Oversight Panel.
18 Ho Nieh is also in the crowd. Hes a 19 regional coordinator for Region III from our 20 headquarter offices, and he also works out of 21 Rockville, Maryland. Tony Mendiola is here.
22 MR. MENDIOLA: (Indicating).
23 MR. PASSEHL: Hes a Section Chief 24 from the Division Reactor Projects in headquarters, 25 and next to him is Jon Hopkins, an NRR Project MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
4 1 Manager for the Davis-Besse facility.
2 MR. HOPKINS: (Indicating).
3 MR. PASSEHL: Nancy Keller, the 4 Davis-Besse site secretary, is here.
5 Our Public Affairs Officer for Region III, 6 Jan Strasma, is also here, as is our State liaison 7 officer, Roland Lickus, and also Jack Rutkowski is 8 here.
9 MR. GROBE: Yeah, Jack -- go ahead 10 and stand up, Jack. Jack Rutkowski is a new addition 11 to the Davis-Besse team. Hes new Resident Inspector 12 at Davis-Besse. He and his wife are in the process 13 of moving out to this area, and he will be out at the 14 site full-time in a couple of months. Jacks a 15 tremendous addition to the team. Hes got more 16 degrees than most people have. Hes got degrees 17 from three different universities. He was an 18 Officer in the Nuclear Navy, 25 years of experience, 19 working for utilities in the nuclear industry, three 20 different utilities, and we were fortunate enough to 21 attract him to work for the NRC, so, welcome, Jack.
22 MR. PASSEHL: Okay, during the 23 meeting today, the NRC presented a summary of what we 24 discussed during our last public meeting.
25 We also discussed significant NRC activities MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
5 1 since our last public meeting, which was on February 2 11th. Since that time, we issued a preliminary 3 significance assessment letter regarding a red 4 finding that was related to the reactor head 5 degradation and the control rod drive mechanism 6 penetration cracking. A red finding is a finding 7 that the NRC defines as a finding of high safety 8 significance.
9 We also talked about issuing a final 10 significance letter for two white findings. On 11 February 19th, we issued this letter, and this was 12 associated with radiological controls related to 13 steam generator work last February.
14 We talked about a briefing of Ohio Governor 15 Taft and other State officials. Mr. Grobe and 16 others from our Region III office in headquarters 17 briefed the Governor and about 10 to 15 other State 18 officials on Davis-Besse.
19 Since our last public meeting we also issued 20 NRC special inspection reports related to System 21 Health Assurance at the plant, and this addresses our 22 NRC Restart Check List Item 5B which is associated 23 with assuring capability and safety significant 24 structure systems and components to support a safe 25 and reliable plant operation.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
6 1 The majority of the System Health Assurance 2 Plan Reports that we discussed in that inspection 3 were still under development by the licensee at the 4 time we did perform our inspection, so there is still 5 several more items we plan to inspect in that area.
6 We discussed some ongoing and upcoming 7 activities including our Organizational Effectiveness 8 and Human Performance Inspection. This is being 9 conducted by three inspectors and should be complete 10 in the next week or so. We issued an inspection 11 report, 02-15, on February 6th of this year and that 12 provides a status update of this area.
13 We also have been performing an inspection, 14 as I mentioned, of system health and design issues.
15 We currently have an inspection being conducted by 16 two inspectors, and that is scheduled to be completed 17 in the upcoming weeks prior to restart.
18 We discussed some ongoing inspections of 19 safety significant programs at the plant. Three 20 inspectors are reviewing this area, and except for 21 reviews of completeness and accuracy reported records 22 and submittals, the inspection should be complete by 23 the end of next week.
24 We discussed a radiation protection 25 inspection thats ongoing, and this is to address the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
7 1 white findings I mentioned just a little while ago 2 related to the steam generator work last February.
3 Four inspectors are reviewing this area, and that 4 inspection should be completed by the end of next 5 week.
6 Were also preparing for several important 7 inspections that are coming up. The first is an 8 Integrated Leak Rate test special inspection where 9 well be reviewing the plants Integrated Leak Rate 10 testing containment. That inspection is scheduled 11 to be conducted by two inspectors from March 17th 12 through March 27th. Were also preparing to inspect 13 the emergency core cooling system and containment 14 break spray system sump. We have one inspector from our 15 headquarters office will be performing that 16 inspection from March 24th to April 4, and we are 17 also preparing for a -- an extensive inspection in 18 the corrective action area. This will be an 19 inspection by eight inspectors and will take place 20 from mid March to mid April.
21 Next, I wanted to discuss what the licensee 22 presented at todays meeting. They discussed a few 23 broad areas including their Return to Service Plan 24 progress, status of their Management and Human 25 Performance activities, briefed us on the quality MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
8 1 oversight, their Return to Service building blocks 2 progress, and they briefed us on their schedule and 3 where they were with that. Regarding their Return 4 to Service Plan, they mentioned they completed their 5 fuel load on February 26th, and they successfully 6 loaded 177 fuel assemblies in the core. They also 7 discussed a -- whats called a FLUS under vessel 8 monitoring system, which is a leakage monitoring 9 system thats installed under the insulation of the 10 reactor vessel, and that will be used or -- actually 11 that will undergo a test during heat up and that is a 12 leak detection system.
13 They also discussed several activities that 14 were ongoing, including their integrated diesel test, 15 their Safety Features Actuation System test, work on 16 their containment air coolers and -- work on their 17 Decay Heat Valve Pit Tank upgrade.
18 Next, Lew Myers discussed their problem 19 solving and decision making nuclear operating 20 procedure, which is a management oversight tool that 21 helps the plant with decision making. They have 22 several teams formed, and they are working through 23 refining that procedure and implementing it.
24 They discussed a little bit of their 25 management observation program and some of the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
9 1 observations they were seeing. They gave several 2 examples of those, and they range from being 3 satisfactory or to unsatisfactory with feedback 4 provided to the individuals, and they provided some 5 statistics that are available on their slides that 6 you can see to get a feel for the kinds of things 7 theyre looking at.
8 They also discussed their quality oversight 9 area. They covered where they were with their 10 Safety Culture Assessment and Safety Conscious Work 11 Environment Reviews. They expect to have their 12 results of their work complete within the next few 13 weeks. They gave us an update on their System 14 Health Review Process. One thing they did mention 15 was that the electrical distribution system work is 16 significantly behind, and there is several issues 17 they need to work through with that.
18 They covered actions to support restart in 19 the areas, what they call their topical areas, which 20 involve seismic reviews, station flooding, High 21 Energy Line Break, and Environmental Qualifications, 22 and these are areas where they are a common theme for 23 several of the problems theyre finding at the 24 plants.
25 They discussed a little bit of their MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
10 1 containment health and the work thats been ongoing 2 with that, including their containment air cooler 3 work, the painting thats ongoing in containment, 4 the -- and they gave some examples and pictures that 5 you can see in the slides of progress they have been 6 making.
7 They also provided some statistics on restart 8 action performance, and that lines up with where we 9 are with our Restart Check List items and you can 10 take a look at those in the slides, too. One 11 notable comment was that they have 5,400 condition 12 reports that they have put through their station 13 review board, and about 80% of those have been 14 evaluated and about 600 of those remain to be 15 completed. They have about -- out of those 16 condition reports about 5,700 restart actions were 17 identified, and theyve up to this point worked about 18 60% of those off, and the last thing they covered was 19 upcoming activities. They discussed tensioning the 20 reactor vessel head and entry into Mode 5 which 21 should occur in the near future, and then followed by 22 several milestones including deep training draining of the 23 vessel, the Integrated Leak Rate test through Mode 4, 24 restart readiness and the reactor pressure test, and 25 thats all I have.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
11 1 MR. GROBE: Okay, great! Thanks, 2 Dave. Appreciate that summary. What I would like 3 to do is open it up for comments and questions. Id 4 just remind you all that we try to limit time for 5 each individual to five minutes. That allows 6 everybody an opportunity to come forward. What I 7 would like to do is start with any local officials or 8 representatives of local officials, and then move to 9 members of the local community here, and then take 10 comments from anybody else that might be present, so 11 why dont we start with the local officials, if there 12 is any members of the audience here that represent 13 the local community here, please come forward if you 14 have a comment or a question.
15 (No response).
16 MR. GROBE: Okay, you must be 17 saving them for later.
18 Are there any members of the local community 19 that have a question or a comment?
20 MR. WHITCOMB: Good evening, my name 21 is Howard Whitcomb. Im a local resident. I have 22 some prepared comments.
23 FirstEnergys reported actions over the last 24 several months amount to little more than a charade.
25 The lack of adequate safety culture and integrity MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
12 1 within the managements at FirstEnergy, as well as the 2 NRC, still exists today. To date, FirstEnergy and 3 the NRC have failed to provide credible demonstrative 4 evidence that the degraded safety cultures in both 5 organizations have improved to a level whereby 6 continued safe operation of the Davis-Besse Nuclear 7 Plant is assured to the public. I respectfully 8 submit the following items.
9 No. 1. No changes have materialized since 10 the recent report from the Office of Inspector 11 General finding that nearly half of the NRCs staff 12 are currently reluctant to raise safety issues to the 13 current NRC management.
14 2. The complement of personnel who comprise 15 the current 0350 Panel are responsible for not 16 addressing FirstEnergys mismanagement of the 17 Davis-Besse facility in the years leading up to the 18 discovery of degraded reactor vessel head.
19 3. The findings of the Lessons Learned Task 20 Force failed to consider the NRCs own lack of 21 appropriate safety culture as well as the specific 22 allegation history at Davis-Besse prior to the 23 submittal of its subsequent 51 recommendations to the 24 NRC commissioners.
25 4. FirstEnergy failed to establish the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
13 1 necessary acceptance criteria regarding its efforts 2 to revise the safety environment at Davis-Besse prior 3 to conducting its most recent employee survey as it 4 promised it would at the January 30th meeting at the 5 NRC Region III offices. FirstEnergys Chief 6 Financial Officer made a -- Im sorry, COO, made a 7 specific commitment to Mr. James Dyer, Regional 8 Administrator, that prior to commencing the employee 9 survey, an acceptable objective standard would be 10 established to be utilized as a benchmark against 11 which newly received survey data could be compared.
12 The recent employee survey began on or about February 13 4th. To date, FirstEnergy has not promulgated its 14 established acceptance criteria.
15 5. FirstEnergys efforts to demonstrate a 16 changed and appropriate safety environment based on a 17 10% sampling of its work force at Davis-Besse has no 18 merit or statistical justification.
19 6. The president of FirstEnergy and the 20 Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation still occupy 21 the positions of employment which they held at the 22 time they placed power production over public safety 23 in November of 2001.
24 7. The comments of FirstEnergys Chief 25 Executive Officer to Davis-Besse employees, as well MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
14 1 as to this community, that Davis-Besse will not 2 become a black hole is a clear message to this 3 community that we better watch our step or some will 4 face the loss of jobs while others will suffer 5 economic harm. Such an approach is intimidating, 6 undermines the premise of a healthy safety culture 7 and promotes a profit over safety attitude.
8 8. In Mr. Myers prepared statement at the 9 conclusion of the February 11th, 2003 meeting, he 10 recounted that despite two attempts by FirstEnergys 11 attorney to contact the individual who raised several 12 employee concerns at the January 30th meeting, 13 FirstEnergy received no response. It is public 14 knowledge that the person who made the statements on 15 January 30th was myself. Mr. Myers statement omits 16 the fact that I attempted contact with the manager of 17 the Employee Concerns Program on two occasions, once 18 on January 31st and again on February 3rd of 2003.
19 I never received a response from the Employee 20 Concerns Program manager. I subsequently determined 21 that sometime on January 31st, the manager of the 22 Employee Concerns Program was no longer employed in 23 that position at the Davis-Besse facility. Since 24 May 2002, contact with FirstEnergys legal counsel 25 has been effectuated upon two occasions. The MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
15 1 correspondence received by the purported legal 2 counsel as well as my responses to his letters are 3 included as exhibits to my prepared comments this 4 evening and are available to the public upon 5 request. The substance of these correspondences, as 6 well as the tone of delivery, speaks for itself. It 7 is unbelievable that FirstEnergy is now attempting to 8 prohibit its employees from communicating with legal 9 counsel of their own choosing. Ill let the public 10 judge the adequacy of the safety consciousness of 11 FirstEnergys correspondences.
12 9. The recent complaint filed by Mr. Andrew 13 Siemaszko succinctly summarizes the lack of an 14 employees ability to raise safety issues and, if 15 necessary, professionally disagree with that 16 employees management without fear of reprisal. I 17 personally understand Mr. Siemaszkos plight.
18 10. The results of the criminal 19 investigations being conducted by the Office of 20 Investigations and the General Accounting Office have 21 yet to be published. The integrity of the highest 22 levels of the NRC and FirstEnergys managements 23 remain in question.
24 The evident lack of safety consciousness and 25 integrity demonstrated by the actions of the highest MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
16 1 levels of management within FirstEnergy and the NRC 2 demands that specific safeguards be immediately 3 instituted whereby the publics trust in the NRCs 4 ability to regulate an obviously flawed agency is 5 re-established. There is no more important issue 6 within the nuclear industry today. Thank you.
7 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
8 MR. GROBE: Sir, I think you stood 9 up earlier. Did you have a comment?
10 MR. LYNN: My comments -- my name 11 is Bob Lynn, by the way. Im a resident. I live in 12 the City of Oregon. I believe that FirstEnergy 13 severely breached their responsibility for the safe 14 operation and the maintenance of the nuclear reactor 15 at Davis-Besse. Also, onsite inspectors responsible 16 for the NRC had also breached their responsibility to 17 uphold and protect the safety of the U.S. Government, 18 the citizens of the United States and of Canada.
19 When it comes to profit and safety at FirstEnergy, 20 Davis-Besse, safety seems to be secondary with this 21 company.
22 From what Ive read in the newspaper, 23 FirstEnergy has been somewhat arrogant for its 24 employees whove had safety and maintenance concerns 25 on the reactor head.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
17 1 It was also stated in the newspaper that 2 FirstEnergy had not totally cooperated with the NRC 3 inspectors, at times being intimidating and with 4 possible legal action.
5 I believe for a safe and responsible 6 operation and maintenance for the nuclear reactor, 7 should be turned over to a separate and independent 8 company, independent of FirstEnergy to operate this 9 reactor safely. This company would report directly 10 to the NRC. Thus, it would not be intimidated by 11 FirstEnergy and/or their management.
12 FirstEnergy seems to have always put profits 13 before safety for the nuclear industry and 14 northwestern Ohio citizens. This plant can continue 15 to operate in a safe and well-maintained manner. The 16 bottom line is the safety and the maintenance must be 17 first and foremost. Thank you.
18 MR. GROBE: Thank you very much, 19 sir.
20 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
21 MR. GROBE: I think if you dont 22 mind, I would like to respond to a couple points you 23 made. I think everybody at the NRC and FirstEnergy 24 agrees with you that past actions werent as good as 25 they should have been and the NRC has done extensive MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
18 1 evaluation. As Mr. Whitcomb pointed out, identified 2 51 corrective actions. FirstEnergy has likewise 3 done extensive self-assessments and those were 4 presented again, an update this afternoon. Its our 5 job to make sure that this plant, if it operates, 6 operates safely, and we want to make sure we do that.
7 Thank you, appreciate it.
8 Any other members of the public, local 9 community here that have a question or comment?
10 MS. LUEKE: Hello.
11 MR. GROBE: Hello.
12 MS. LUEKE: Donna Lueke, and I 13 live in Marblehead. I have some questions about the 14 regulatory process, and Ill try to keep them brief, 15 but it sort of depends on responses, too. I did 16 send these questions to the NRC by E-mail on the 13th 17 of last month and have had no response, so I would 18 like to take the time to get an answer for them 19 today.
20 MR. GROBE: Sure. Who did you 21 send them to, Donna?
22 MS. LUEKE: I sent them to the 23 Public Affairs Office.
24 Mr. Dean was quoted in The Plain Dealer on 25 the 11th of February that its not likely that the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
19 1 NRC will fine FirstEnergy since the NRC must prove 2 that violations were deliberate.
3 If thats true and if there had been a 4 release of radioactivity, would there still be no 5 fine if it wasnt deliberate?
6 MR. DEAN: What I was describing 7 was our current enforcement -- is this coming 8 through?
9 MR. GROBE: Yeah.
10 MR. DEAN: -- our current 11 enforcement process applies civil penalties only in 12 situations where either there is an actual release of 13 radioactive materials to the public or if theres an 14 overexposure to a worker at the site absent any 15 discussion regarding willfulness or deliberateness of 16 the issues, so judging an issue just on the merits 17 of, for example, we just issued a preliminary red 18 finding on the vessel head degradation issue. That 19 would not typically result in a finding if there was 20 no actual release. However, if in our investigation 21 from the Office of Investigation that there is some 22 determination it might be willfulness or 23 deliberateness involved in that situation, then that 24 opens up the door in terms of the enforcement process 25 for consideration or something along those lines.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
20 1 MS. LUEKE: When there was the 2 actual release with the contract employees, there 3 also was no fine then, correct?
4 MR. DEAN: Youre talking about 5 the two white findings?
6 MS. LUEKE: Yeah.
7 MR. DEAN: Because -- you may 8 want to address those, Jack.
9 MR. GROBE: Sure. The way the 10 enforcement policy works is that we only issue fines 11 when there is significant events, and the potential 12 radiological consequences for those discrete 13 particles of radioactive material that were released 14 with those workers were insignificant. There wasnt 15 any significant health risk there at all. Had there 16 been a significant release of radioactive materials, 17 then that would fall into the category that we might 18 fine the company, so we use fines for situations 19 where theres a significant event or, as Bill 20 mentioned, where there is some potential willfulness 21 involved.
22 MS. LUEKE: And neither of those 23 were you found at this point?
24 MR. GROBE: Not yet, and I need to 25 clarify, if you do have a situation where a violation MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
21 1 involves inappropriate behavior on the part of the 2 first willful violations, there is two things that go 3 into the determination of that sanction. One is the 4 safety significance of the act, and the other is the 5 level of egregiousness and the level of the 6 individual in the company. Since our investigation is 7 ongoing we have no conclusions yet regarding whether 8 any of these violations were willful. Weve 9 completed or issued a preliminary finding on the 10 safety significant side, concluding that the 11 violations that occurred with had the highest level of 12 safety significance that the agency has. We call it 13 a red finding. We categorize our findings in four 14 colors -- green, white, yellow and red, and this was 15 an issue of high safety significance, so --
16 MS. LUEKE: So it is possible 17 still that -- it is possible to level fines in cases 18 of negligence?
19 MR. GROBE: Thats correct.
20 MS. LUEKE: So that is still a 21 possibility?
22 MR. GROBE: Yes.
23 MS. LUEKE: What about recouping 24 the cost of say, the O350 Panel, is that anything 25 that is factored into the fines?
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
22 1 MR. GROBE: No. Its not 2 factored into the fines. Sanctions under our 3 enforcement policy are -- or how you get to those 4 sanctions are described in the policy and, as I said, 5 it has those two components of significance of the 6 issue, and if it were a potential willful violation, 7 egregiousness of the situation, the -- what we call 8 fee billing. Its a very complicated situation, all 9 of our inspections the utility pays for. Bills 10 time and my time is a management or overhead function 11 thats billed through a different way, but they pay 12 for our services. We dont ask them if they want to 13 pay for our services, they pay for our services.
14 MS. LUEKE: Okay.
15 MR. GROBE: Other financial 16 ramifications of the shutdown are just handled as a 17 business expense through normal business practices 18 and stock prices and things like that.
19 MS. LUEKE: I guess my concern is 20 if you cant use fines and you dont use shutdowns, 21 then I guess the only thing that Ive seen that is 22 used is more inspections, and Im concerned about 23 that not being -- there not being incentive to do 24 that if you dont get that recouped, so Im trying to 25 see what is the incentive for the NRC to be really MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
23 1 tough and to be extra careful not just in this case, 2 but in the future here and in other cases.
3 MR. GROBE: We changed our 4 enforcement policy maybe four years ago, and it is 5 difficult to sometimes -- to understand. We found 6 that the level of fines that we were levying against 7 companies were not a significant motivation for 8 improvement for those lower level violations where 9 there wasnt a significant event or significant 10 overexposure, significant release of materials, and 11 there wasnt a willful violation or deliberate action 12 deliberately in conflict with our regulations, so for 13 those lower level violations we didnt find that the 14 fines were necessarily a motivating factor for 15 improvement. What we found was that the public 16 scrutiny of issuing press releases, notifying the 17 local community, as well as the financial community, 18 of the situation that existed at the plant was 19 sufficient along with additional inspection, whenever 20 performance went down at a utility, we apply 21 additional inspection resources to make sure that the 22 problems are timely fixed, so we changed our policy 23 about four years ago to only use fines and generally 24 they are situations that mandated very large fines 25 for those kind of significant events and potential MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
24 1 deliberate actions.
2 MS. LUEKE: So do you feel that 3 the current system is sufficient for you to be highly 4 motivated to be hypervigilant?
5 MR. GROBE: I think youve been to 6 just about every meeting I have been to, and I think 7 youll acknowledge that I am -- what was it, 8 hypervigilant?
9 MS. LUEKE: (Nod indicating yes).
10 MR. GROBE: Yeah, and we certainly 11 are focused. The other thing is this plant has been 12 shut down almost 13 months -- just about 13 months, 13 and thats cost the company a lot of money, too, so 14 the plant wont restart until were convinced that it 15 can be restarted safely.
16 MS. LUEKE: I understand that. I 17 guess I want to make more emphasis on your 18 motivation. This cant be like a regular good time 19 coming here to these meetings and all, but -- so why 20 do you want to be better at what you do and why do 21 you want to do closer investigations?
22 MR. GROBE: The -- youre asking 23 kind of a question that spans a couple of issues.
24 There is absolutely no doubt that I would love to be 25 able to say that the NRC identified the degradation MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
25 1 in the head. We put together a group of eight or 2 nine highly capable people that had nothing to do 3 with Region III or the NRR -- sections of NRR that 4 focused on Davis-Besse, they were completely 5 independent of the folks that had worked on 6 Davis-Besse. We called it the Lessons Learned Task 7 Force, and they scrubbed this issue from one end to 8 the other and identified a whole bunch of things that 9 needed to be better, and were implementing those 10 things. I dont think we could be more highly 11 motivated to do a good job. We didnt do a good 12 job -- as good a job as we should have done in this 13 case, and we are equally, highly motivated to make 14 sure it doesnt happen again.
15 MS. LUEKE: Okay. And just one 16 more question. What is the incentive for the 17 licensee to be proactive in following the NRC 18 regulations if they know their chances are theyre 19 not going to be fined, theyre not going to be shut 20 down, that the worse that can happen is more 21 inspections, and in that case, why not just wait for 22 the NRC to make them do it and save money?
23 MR. GROBE: I have been doing this 24 for quite awhile and what Ive experienced is the 25 things that make plants run well and run efficiently MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
26 1 from a profit standpoint are the same things that --
2 generally the same fundamental concepts that are 3 involved in running a plant safely, that those same 4 underlying concepts if theyre not applied to safety, 5 eventually the plant is not -- is no longer 6 profitable. The concepts are focus on the right 7 things, discipline on how you do your work, having 8 highly capable and qualified people, having highly 9 capable and qualified managers, holding folks 10 accountable. Those are the same fundamental concepts 11 of running an organization that makes a plant safe 12 and makes it profitable, so their motivation --
13 besides the fact that theyre interested -- I 14 shouldnt speak for FirstEnergy, but I believe that 15 theyre interested in making sure that the plant is 16 safe. Their motivation for highly effective and 17 efficient organization -- cause also thats the kind 18 of company that makes money, so you dont make money 19 in the long run by taking shortcuts.
20 MS. LUEKE: Okay. Thank you.
21 MR. GROBE: Uh huh.
22 MR. HIENDLMAIER: I just have a couple 23 questions.
24 MR. GROBE: Could you just state 25 your name?
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
27 1 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Yeah, Jim, Jim 2 Hiendlmaier. When this plant was originally 3 licensed to go online, what was the design life of 4 it?
5 MR. GROBE: 40 years.
6 MR. HIENDLMAIER: 40 years?
7 MR. GROBE: Uh huh.
8 MR. HIENDLMAIER: When the reactor was 9 down, was the metal checked for degradation of the 10 reactors?
11 MR. GROBE: Im not -- its kind 12 of a complicated question. Theres a lot of --
13 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Thats a simple yes or 14 no. Its not that complicated. Was it checked or 15 wasnt it checked?
16 MR. GROBE: Well, theres a 17 program called the in-service inspection. Once every 18 10 years through a systematic process, all of the 19 metal in the plant is checked.
20 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Okay.
21 MR. GROBE: And those reports are 22 submitted on a 10 year basis and the program is done 23 again.
24 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Okay, and thats 25 passing muster okay, there is no problems?
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
28 1 MR. GROBE: Thats correct, but, 2 in addition to that, following the shutdown, the 3 company undertook a comprehensive inspection of all 4 similar situations that might have occurred in the 5 plant, anywhere where there was an alloy 600 metal, 6 anywhere there was a penetration design similar to 7 the penetrations that cracked on the reactor head, 8 thorough inspection of the reactor coolant system 9 pressure boundary, so theres been additional 10 inspections far beyond the normal in-service 11 inspections that have occurred since the shutdown.
12 MR. HIENDLMAIER: And the company did 13 those and the NRC did those, overlooking the company 14 doing them?
15 MR. GROBE: The company did the 16 work and we provided inspection oversight of that, 17 yes.
18 MR. DEAN: The other thing I 19 might want to add in terms of assessing the condition 20 of the reactor vessel, each licensee has material 21 coupons --
22 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Right.
23 MR. DEAN: -- that are inserted 24 into the reactor that are withdrawn periodically to 25 assess is the material behaving the way it was MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
29 1 anticipated to behave, so all licensees are doing 2 that as well.
3 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Okay, because theres 4 a lot of new stuff that went into this thing when it 5 was originally built, and nobody really knew what the 6 answers were back then.
7 MR. GROBE: Right.
8 MR. HIENDLMAIER: The other question 9 Ive got, is this more or less -- I take it that this 10 thing is going to go back online?
11 MR. GROBE: The -- I havent yet 12 seen anything to prevent the plant from going back 13 online. Theres a lot of work yet to be done, and 14 the licensee has a good plan, and its well 15 organized, and were performing a lot of inspections 16 to make sure they do the work well. The plant wont 17 go back online until were convinced that can all 18 work well and it can operate safely.
19 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Is the regimen that 20 this plant is going to go through before it goes back 21 online the same kind of regimen it would go through 22 on initial start-up on a new plant?
23 MR. GROBE: No.
24 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Whats different?
25 MR. GROBE: The initial start-up MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
30 1 is it -- its very different in the sense that the 2 plant in that condition was just constructed, so 3 theres a whole series of construction acceptance 4 tests, and then, following that, theres a whole 5 series of preoperational tests, and then theres a 6 phased in approach of start-up tests. Those tests 7 are generally done once in a lifetime of the plant, 8 most of them, and theyre not needed to be done 9 again. The licensee has undertaken some testing and 10 extensive evaluation of a design basis of the plant 11 to ensure that the equipment is as they expected it 12 to be designed, but you wouldnt expect to do that 13 kind of construction acceptance and preoperational 14 tests that you do on the first time the plant is 15 built. I --
16 MR. HIENDLMAIER: For fear of 17 overstressing it?
18 MR. GROBE: No, no. Its just not 19 necessary. Its a different type of inspection 20 program thats done during construction.
21 MR. HIENDLMAIER: Okay. And just a 22 comment you made that the previous speaker indicated 23 that -- wanted to know if they would be fined or if 24 the plant would be shut down, and you indicated that, 25 you know, the public would be aware of it and things MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
31 1 like that. I have to tell you that I was in a 2 meeting in Columbus and was told that in no uncertain 3 terms that Tony Alexander threatened the Governor of 4 the State and the Chairman of the Public Utilities 5 Commission that if he didnt get deregulation rules 6 written the way he wanted them, he was going to turn 7 the power off, so what the public thinks at the top 8 management of -- has nothing to do with -- with what 9 Mr. Alexander or his cronies care about. They care 10 about one thing and thats making money and there is 11 a lot of options available to this plant, and one is 12 coal gasification and take this damn nuclear reactor 13 out and stick it someplace. There is a lot of other 14 ways to do this and get the job done, and in the long 15 run, Id feel a lot safer for us. Anyway, thank 16 you.
17 MR. GROBE: Appreciate your 18 comments. Thank you, sir.
19 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
20 MR. DUSSEL: Tim Dussel, resident 21 of the area. You talk about the safety programs that 22 youre trying to submit here and reading the article 23 in The Cleveland Plain Dealer and just -- it amazes 24 me, I dont see anything about safety here. Ill 25 just take a small paragraph out of here. Overall MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
32 1 the analyst judged that the rust hole increased the 2 risk of the damage accident at the plant enough to 3 merit NRCs highest level of scrutiny. The overall 4 risk expressed as a mathematical formula. In 5 laymans terms what that means is if there is 10,000 6 reactors in the same shape, the kind of lid that 7 existed at Davis-Besse last March, that during that 8 time probably have an accident that would harm the 9 vital rods. One accident out of 10 -- you know, you 10 spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to analyze 11 this and youre saying that -- it just amazes me that 12 this is the kind of thing you come up with.
13 Down below farther it says the mishap which 14 be presented disastrous financially and public 15 relation nightmare. There is nothing in this whole 16 thing about safety.
17 MR. GROBE: Well -- thats an 18 excellent question. I really appreciate you raising 19 it because its very difficult oftentimes to 20 understand. We communicate in risk numbers and often 21 talk about risks of the order of 10 to the minus 22 four, and what that means is one in 10,000. The way 23 we analyze the significance, and, in fact, thats an 24 expression of safety. The significance of our 25 inspection findings is by looking at the increased MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
33 1 risk, and the normal risk of a plant, a nuclear 2 plant, operating in the United States ranges 3 somewhere around a chance of an accident with a 4 damaged reactor core of one in a million. Those are 5 just round numbers, and if theres a performance 6 deficiency at the plant, we have colors that 7 correspond to increasing risks, and when a 8 performance deficiency results in an increased risk 9 of one in 10,000 we call that red. What that means 10 is there 1 in 10,000 chance that an accident could 11 have occurred and damage to the reactor core.
12 Theres multiple barriers, though, between the 13 reactor core and the release of radioactive materials 14 that can affect the public, and one of those 15 barriers is the containment structure which you can 16 see driving down Route 2. That barrier was intact 17 and there was no reason to believe it wouldnt 18 function properly, so what we look at is what is the 19 probability of damaging reactor core, not -- and 20 that, if that actually occurred, which, in this case, 21 it was a little bit higher than one in 10,000, which 22 was our estimate, that doesnt mean necessarily that 23 there would be an impact on the local community 24 because of the way the plant is constructed with 25 multiple barriers. It would obviously be a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
34 1 significant financial challenge for the company if 2 they damaged the reactor core, but it would not 3 necessarily be a safety concern.
4 We set our thresholds for action very, very 5 low because safety is our first priority. The 6 highest level of significance we had is one in 10,000 7 increasing risk, and we take actions far below that 8 to make sure that plants dont get to that level and 9 in this case it did, and thats a significant problem 10 and thats what the company has been trying to fix 11 for the last 13 months.
12 MR. DUSSEL: Well, I have seen 13 articles, too, with Andrew Siemaszko, and where hes 14 filing a suit, I would really like to see what 15 happened to the other managers and employees that was 16 fired supposedly or placed in other employment that 17 was in place while all this took plates. I dont 18 understand how you can learn anything from this if 19 those same people arent in place. Im glad to see 20 that this lawsuit is coming about because it will 21 become Court of law and there will be questions asked 22 and someone will have to answer the questions. No 23 one has to answers questions here. Everything just 24 kind of slides off to the side and everyone keeps 25 saying, yeah, we know that there was a problem, but MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
35 1 what kind of message does this give other power 2 plants the fact that there is no fines.
3 MR. GROBE: Yeah, yeah --
4 MR. DUSSEL: Youre saying that 5 really doesnt do a lot of good. We dont take a 6 license away, that dont seem to do a lot of good, 7 but we had six other nuclear power plants that shut 8 down like they were apt to do, thats the responsible 9 way of doing something. That sounds more safety 10 minded than what FirstEnergy is doing here, but yet 11 you keep saying they have turned around, and I dont 12 see where anything is turned around a whole lot.
13 MR. GROBE: Wed be glad to get 14 you a copy of FirstEnergys analysis of what happened 15 and the first installment on that was last August.
16 They submitted the bulk of what we call the Root 17 Cause Analysis which involved Mr. Siemaszko, as well 18 as dozens and dozens of other people at the plant, 19 and if youre interested, wed be glad to get you 20 copies of those documents where all these people were 21 talked to and the issues were evaluated and the 22 problems were identified, and those problems are now 23 being fixed.
24 MR. DUSSEL: So the NRC has had the 25 opportunity to talk to these people?
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
36 1 MR. GROBE: Absolutely, 2 absolutely.
3 MR. DUSSEL: Okay. Well, the 4 other thing that scares me is the fact that there is 5 over 700 employees at Davis-Besse and of all the 6 things that went wrong and I have not seen a whole 7 lot of people say, yeah, there is some dangerous 8 things that went on there, so I dont understand. I 9 mean, if the safety thing is what youre saying it 10 is, I would feel a lot safer if there would be more 11 people like Andrew Siemaszko, and as far as the NRC, 12 Steve Long, who has came forward and said, yeah, 13 these things are bad, and they shouldnt be going on, 14 and they need to get to the bottom, I would feel a 15 lot more safer if this was the kind of thing I seen 16 going on.
17 MR. GROBE: Well, I have spent the 18 last 13 months saying those kinds of things, so I 19 invite you coming to more meetings and if you want to 20 talk afterwards, I would be glad to talk to you 21 afterwards.
22 MR. DUSSEL: Thank you.
23 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
24 MS. CABRAL: Barb Cabral. Im a 25 resident. I have a couple questions about the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
37 1 reactor head thats being put in. Its like 17 or 2 18 years old; is that correct?
3 MR. GROBE: Im not sure how old.
4 It was originally designed for the Midland Nuclear 5 Plant in Midland, Michigan, and its been there for 6 about -- that sounds about right, maybe 20 years.
7 MS. CABRAL: Why wasnt it ever 8 used?
9 MR. GROBE: Midland had a number 10 of construction problems, and the utility canceled 11 the plant long before it went online.
12 MS. CABRAL: Okay, so the one being 13 manufactured today, theyre using different alloys 14 than they were back then, right?
15 MR. GROBE: Thats correct. The 16 specific material thats different is the material 17 that the penetration tubes are made out of. Its 18 believed to be -- its called Alloy 690, the new 19 material -- it is believed that that material is 20 going to be more crack resistant, but Alloy 600, when 21 it came into existence, was believed to be the cats 22 pajamas on alloys at that time, so the NRC just 23 recently issued orders to all pressurized water 24 reactors requiring enhanced monitoring -- and maybe 25 you wanted to go into that a little bit, Bill?
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
38 1 MR. DEAN: In terms of, I think 2 what youre getting at is theyre taking this vessel 3 head thats 17, 18 years old, so why is that any 4 good?
5 MS. CABRAL: (Nod indicating yes).
6 MR. DEAN: Well, as part of the 7 assessment or analysis of the reactor vessel heads is 8 based on how much time have they been operating at 9 high elevated temperatures. Obviously this vessel 10 head that theyre using to replace from the Midland 11 plant was never operated at temperature, so, in 12 effect, its essentially a new head, albeit designed 13 with the same sort of alloys that existed, the alloy 14 600 penetrations. Bar over bar, over-arching 15 inspection plan relative to reactor vessel heads 16 nationwide incorporates a much more frequent 17 inspections of the reactor vessel heads, including 18 utilization of ultrasonic testing and other means, 19 advance means, volumetric testing we call it, to 20 evaluate the condition of the reactor vessel head on 21 a much more frequent basis than what weve done in 22 the past, and so this reactor vessel head will be 23 incorporated into that enhanced monitoring process.
24 MR. GROBE: And if -- under that 25 enhanced monitoring process, they can use this head MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
39 1 for a very long time. Currently, its their plans 2 to only use it for 10 years, and then replace it with 3 one they have on order now at the same time they plan 4 on replacing their steam generators, and thats 5 currently scheduled for early in the second decade.
6 I think its like 2012 if the plant is operating at 7 that time, thats when that work will occur, so this 8 head will be used for about 10 years.
9 MS. CABRAL: Yeah, that was my other 10 question, if they are planning to replace it in 10 11 years, why are they going through this intermediate 12 stuff and putting in inferior -- why are they going 13 through this inferior --
14 MR. GROBE: Its a perfectly 15 acceptable head, and I think the reason theyre 16 replacing it now is so that they can operate for a 17 period of time before they replace the head with the 18 new one. Ordering and manufacturing a reactor head 19 is a time consuming activity, and you need to get in 20 line. There is very few locations in the world that 21 actually make a piece of equipment like that, so they 22 are in line to get one. I dont know when its 23 supposed to be delivered, but their plan today is to 24 replace the reactor head with a new one in about 10 25 years.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
40 1 MS. CABRAL: (To Mr. Rutkowski) 2 Your name is Jack?
3 MR. RUTKOWSKI: Yes.
4 MS. CABRAL: Were very happy to 5 hear that you were with the Navy because the Navy has 6 a wonderful record, so -- if theyre not going to 7 turn the plant over to the Navy to run --
8 MR. GROBE: I dont think the Navy 9 would want it. It doesnt float very well.
10 MS. CABRAL: Well, you know, its 11 close enough. A little more rain, it may be 12 floating, you know?
13 MR. GROBE: Thank you very much, 14 maam.
15 MS. CABRAL: (To Mr. Rutkowski) 16 Glad to have you here.
17 MR. GROBE: Any other questions or 18 comments? I think we were still on local community 19 folks.
20 (No Response).
21 MR. GROBE: Is there anybody from 22 outside the local community thats interested in 23 commenting? Its a long walk from the back row, 24 huh?
25 MR. STAPLES: Yes, it is. Thanks MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
41 1 for the opportunity to speak. I -- I really dont 2 like to stand with my back to the audience, if you 3 dont mind.
4 MR. GROBE: Actually, I would like 5 you to talk to us, if you dont mind.
6 MR. STAPLES: Okay.
7 MR. GROBE: Could you introduce 8 yourself, sir?
9 MR. STAPLES: Okay, my name is Jack 10 Staples. Im an elected official, but I choose to 11 speak as a private citizen and based on my employment 12 as the manager of the airport, and Id like to just 13 make mention of, you know, solicited comments and the 14 comments that Im going to make are solicited, and I 15 want to explain how.
16 I met a couple folks from FirstEnergy at a 17 meeting -- at a Trustee meeting a few weeks back, and 18 after -- they made their report as they do at the 19 meeting, and after the meeting, I went up to one of 20 these folks, and I made some comments to them, and he 21 said, you know, I would appreciate if you would come 22 to this meeting and make these comments, so, although 23 they are solicited, I just want you to understand, 24 you know, the respect I want here, and as I mention 25 as an airport manager, I can give the folks a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
42 1 complete different perspective of whats going on at 2 the plant. The reason being is I have learned more 3 about nuclear energy speaking with the folks that 4 have traveled through our airport over the past year.
5 I know about road particles. I know about why the 6 rods went in and out at different speeds, things that 7 I never really knew that I would be involved in, but 8 what I want to say is I am so impressed with the 9 folks who are working on this plant, and not to muddy 10 the water, but, you know, I hear comments like, if 11 there is a bubble in a paint chip, theyre checking 12 it out. The different aspects, the parts that are 13 flown in and out of the airport -- Im just impressed 14 with the people. The people that are turning the 15 nuts and bolts in this plant. Im talking about 16 workers.
17 I got an opportunity about a week ago to 18 spend about an hour with a gentleman who came into 19 the airport to actually wait to be picked up, kind of 20 used the airport as a staging area. I thought he 21 worked at the hospital. He had a blue -- like a 22 hospital gown on. Well, it happened to be one of 23 the folks who was working at the plant, and we sat 24 for about an hour and talked about the -- and I dont 25 want to say upgrades, but talking about every nook MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
43 1 and cranny that theyre looking at, and, again, Im 2 talking about him and the crews hes working with as 3 far as going over this plant with a fine tooth comb, 4 and I have no negative comments -- youre not getting 5 negative comments. Im just saying that I am 6 impressed with the depth of what youre doing at this 7 plant.
8 I own a home on Sand Road. I look out my 9 backyard and the sun sets behind the plant. Youre 10 not going to see a for sale sign by my house because 11 Im confident in the job you folks are doing, and, 12 again, this is from the perspective of the people 13 that are turning the nuts and bolts and Ive had the 14 opportunity to spend a lot of time with. Ive got 15 two bosses in the audience that pay me to run the 16 airport, and Im probably in trouble for talking 17 about spending all this time with people that come 18 through, but its really been so interesting.
19 MR. GROBE: I appreciate your 20 comments. Since last summer, our inspections have 21 shown that the work that theyre doing today has been 22 very intrusive, but there has been a lot of 23 inspection and unfortunately that wasnt the case in 24 the past. The company reported to us, and we agree, 25 that through the late 90s there was a focus on MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
44 1 profit, not on safety, and that was unfortunate and 2 that was a principal contributor of what happened at 3 Davis-Besse, but our inspections have shown, in fact, 4 what you say is true, since early last summer, the 5 work that they have been doing at the company has 6 been pretty good. They found a lot of problems and 7 theyre fixing them.
8 MR. STAPLES: Well, again, I look at 9 the plant, and theres no for sale sign.
10 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
11 MR. STAPLES: I appreciate what 12 youre doing. Thank you.
13 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
14 MR. PASSEHL: I think we misplaced 15 the sign-in sheet. Does anybody happen to have the 16 sign-in sheet on their person?
17 MR. DUSSEL: (Indicating).
18 MR. HARDER: Good evening. My 19 name is Lynn Harder, and Im a local resident of 20 Ottawa County, and Im also a worker at Davis-Besse 21 plant, and when I heard the gentleman talk about 22 bubbles in paint, I felt compelled to come up here 23 and talk because I have been dealing with a lot of 24 bubbles in paint for the last eight months, and I 25 felt compelled to come up here because Ive learned MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
45 1 one thing that its important to tell people what you 2 stand for, and what you dont stand for, no matter 3 what you do in life.
4 In listening to everyone speak tonight with 5 respect to what were talking about, personally, Im 6 not proud of what happened at Davis-Besse a year ago, 7 and I can assure you my teammates are not proud 8 either of what happened at Davis-Besse. It breaches 9 trust and confidence in our ability to prove to you 10 that we can run the plant safely. The NRC and 11 FirstEnergy both engaged in a restart effort, restart 12 action plans in an attempt to rebuild, regain and 13 sustain that trust and respect we once had. We have 14 been shut down for over 13 months and in that time, 15 though, we have worked on fixing material things, but 16 it also give us a lot of time to look back at where 17 we have been, hard and long, and we know its a place 18 we dont want to return to, and I, for one, can 19 assure you that we dont want to go back there.
20 Some of the things that were doing are very 21 visible in terms of fixing the material conditions of 22 the plant, but much more important things were doing 23 are invisible with respect to whats called working 24 in a safety culture and safety conscious work 25 environment. Its hard to measure, but I assure you MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
46 1 were being held accountable, our senior management, 2 our new leadership team and ourselves to figure it 3 out cause we know we didnt have it and we know 4 were going to get it, were going to get it, so I 5 guess what Im trying to say is I have seen the 6 transformation. I do expect to be challenged. I 7 want to be challenged, be held accountable for making 8 sure Davis-Besse is maintaining a safe, operational 9 plant, and I personally want to say, I am absolutely 10 confident in our current program, our current 11 leadership and the material condition of our plant, 12 and, most importantly, in this team that I work with 13 at Davis-Besse that we will and can and are able and 14 capable of restarting that plant and making it the 15 safe and efficient workplace you expect it to be.
16 Thank you.
17 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
18 MR. GEDDES: Hi, my name is Bruce 19 Geddes, Jack. I have come to just about every one 20 of these meetings. I live in Oregon, Ohio, not too 21 far from here. Im not exactly a local resident. I 22 also am an employee at the plant. I have been there 23 over 27 years. Matter of fact, my entire life has 24 been in the nuclear power field, ever since I went 25 into the Navy at 17 years old. I have been a lot of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
47 1 places.
2 What a good friend of mine, Lynn Harder, just 3 had to say, hes right. We all share a feeling of 4 responsibility because we betrayed some of the trust 5 of the public in what we let happen at our plant. I 6 have worked in radiation protection, quality 7 assurance. I currently run the environmental 8 programs. We take our job very, very seriously.
9 Safety first, also, forever. We -- I personally 10 have never, ever been intimidated or felt that I 11 couldnt say something to whoever I had to say it to 12 to get something known. Obviously, that wasnt the 13 case all through our time because we are where we are 14 right now, but things have changed at Davis-Besse, 15 and in the 30 years in nuclear power industry, both 16 in nuclear Navy, D.C. Cook Nuclear plant, and my time 17 here at Davis-Besse, I have never experienced 18 something like I see right now. We take whatever 19 the problem is, no matter how small, and I cant say 20 anyone that works for me or I work around would 21 hesitate to identify it, use the condition report 22 process, employee concerns process, whatever it 23 takes, to the point that it -- sometimes it seems 24 were identifying too much, but you cant do that, 25 but I -- as I said, I have never seen something like MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
48 1 this go on before.
2 I personally wanted to say that I welcome the 3 NRC oversight. I have been through more NRC 4 inspections that I can count. I actually 5 appreciate -- I appreciate the folks here that share 6 a difference of opinion with us. They have their 7 issues, their concerns, and theyre the people that 8 help keep us on the straight and narrow as well as 9 yourselves. We need both the oversight, and we need 10 their input always so we know were doing the right 11 thing, but I did want to make a statement and make it 12 clear that from my standpoint and the years I have 13 had in the industry, safety comes first always and 14 foremost. Thank you very much.
15 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
16 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
17 MR. PATSHETT: Im Wayne Patshett.
18 Im an untraditional student at the University of 19 Toledo, Electrical Engineering. I am a husband. I 20 have a wife and three kids, the oldest one being five 21 years old, and I have the privilege this semester of 22 spending my co-op experience with the engineering 23 degree out at Davis-Besse. I cant speak for what 24 they were like in the past; however, I do know that I 25 find it hard to believe that any of the current MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
49 1 employees out there, especially anybody thats in the 2 radiological areas, would willfully endanger 3 themselves and their families.
4 With my experience out there, I have seen the 5 changes that theyre trying to implement in their 6 culture. I have no qualms about working out there 7 and pursuing future employment out there with the 8 knowledge that I would not want to endanger myself 9 and leave my wife and three kids without necessary 10 income, and I feel very comfortable working out 11 there. I know that many of the things that they are 12 currently seeking to do, theyre very safety oriented 13 because they cant afford to ever go through another 14 shutdown, extended period. I know that they dont 15 necessarily need fined when they have been shut down 16 for 13 months, not making any money, and having to 17 spend money for the whole plant and -- thats all I 18 have to say.
19 MR. GROBE: Thank you very much.
20 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
21 MR. GROBE: While the next person 22 is coming forward, Ill make a comment. Good, 23 well-meaning people can behave in such a way in an 24 organization with a negative outcome and weve seen 25 that over the years. Many years ago, the space MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
50 1 shuttle disaster with the old regulations, and thats 2 the importance of a safety culture, good solid safety 3 culture. It provides the guidance for good people to 4 achieve high success, and what happened in the late 5 90s was that the cultural compass got a little bit 6 off track and resulted in some bad decisions. Its 7 the safety culture is the absolute critical underpin.
8 Does anybody else have a question or comment?
9 You guys are getting warmed up.
10 MS. DOHRMAN: My name is Linda 11 Dohrman, and I have been a manager at Davis-Besse for 12 eight years. I have worked out there for over 25.
13 Its not easy to get up and speak in public, but its 14 very easy for me to get up and speak about 15 Davis-Besse and defending Davis-Besse. Did we make 16 mistakes? Yes, we did. Weve admitted to them and 17 weve learned from them. What has changed at 18 Davis-Besse? We have directors who are engaged in 19 the day-to-day activities. Theyre providing 20 oversight for critical activities. They chair 21 routine meetings. Theyre in our faces. Theyre 22 asking questions and more questions and more 23 questions. We have managers who are out with our 24 employees. Theyre involved in work decisions.
25 Theyre providing on-the-spot coaching. Theyre MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
51 1 listening to our employees concerns, and theyre 2 acting on our employees concerns. I personally am 3 proud of our employees. They were saddened by what 4 happened at their plant. They have done a ton of 5 work to bring it up to the high standards that are 6 required to run a nuclear plant, and at last, but not 7 least, is Mr. Lew Myers. I will describe him as a 8 pit bull when it comes to enforcing nuclear safety 9 culture. He is involved with the people at the 10 plant. He listens. He talks, and his standards are 11 high. I know he has what it takes to make sure the 12 right decisions are made, and when we start this 13 plant up, we will run it as it should have been run 14 before.
15 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
16 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
17 MR. GORE: My name is Martin 18 Gore. I have been at the plant for 12 years as an 19 equipment operator and recently as a new trainee.
20 My group that Im with now deals with condition 21 reports, corrective actions to identify and make sure 22 that nothing is missed when we make each milestone.
23 I personally have seen the production over safety, 24 but Ive also seen in the last four years a change to 25 managers wanting, expecting, push back when decisions MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
52 1 are made. I, myself, have used the process twice.
2 People that know me at the plant know that Im not 3 willing to back down. I see that this station can 4 meet its milestones. We encourage and desire the 5 added enforcement oversight. We want to be -- we 6 dont want to leave a stone unturned. We encourage 7 your participation in identifying or helping us to 8 identify other problems that we dont find ourselves, 9 and I know that we will be successful when we start 10 this plant. This is my plant, and Im happy to be 11 here. Thank you.
12 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
13 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
14 MR. MARTIN: Good evening. My 15 name is Steve Martin, and Im a plant employee. One 16 of the largest concerns of the public and the NRC is 17 the safety and the safety culture at the plant. As 18 a plant employee, I would like to present to the 350 19 Oversight Committee and the public, one employees 20 perception of how far the employees and the plant 21 management have really progressed during the last 22 summer months with regard to this extremely important 23 error.
24 During the current outage, I have been 25 temporarily assigned to whats called the old MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
53 1 restraint team, which is an arm of the organization 2 that helps ensure all condition report corrective 3 actions to support restart are correctly closed.
4 To date, I have personally reviewed 5 approximately 400 corrective action responses that 6 have been brought up during the discovery phase 7 activities after the large hole was discovered in the 8 head. It is because I have spent so much time 9 reviewing these responses I feel that Im adequately 10 qualified to speak about the issues of safety at 11 Davis-Besse.
12 Prior to making any major plant equipment 13 configuration or what we call mode changes at the 14 plant, all concerns that have been brought up 15 concerning plant equipment that is needed to support 16 that mode must be adequately addressed to ensure that 17 all margins of safety are properly maintained.
18 During the final reviews prior to making mode 19 change to allow refueling, a few minor problems were 20 brought to the attention of our plant manager, which 21 delayed the reloading of fuel into the core. While 22 the delay was painful to some, at no time did it 23 appear to me that plant management allowed schedule 24 pressures to overcome the need to address all safety 25 concerns of each and every employee. In fact, I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
54 1 would say that I observed just the opposite.
2 Several members of the management team purposely 3 delayed entry into this mode until the entire team 4 was satisfied that the core reload would be completed 5 safely.
6 I believe that each and every employee at 7 Davis-Besse is keenly aware of the need to bring the 8 plant back online safely to regain the trust of the 9 regulator and the public. This is a task which can 10 only be done with complete safety of the public in 11 mind. The licensed operators are keenly aware of 12 the need to place safety above all else.
13 I truly believe that the plant -- that after 14 the plant is allowed to return to service, that the 15 public trust will never again be violated. Thank 16 you.
17 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
18 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
19 MS. SHAW: Hi, Im Lori Shaw. I 20 have an observation to share and a question. My 21 observation has come from being a concerned citizen, 22 not working for FirstEnergy or not being part of a 23 watchdog group, but being somebody in the area, not 24 involved with any political body either. Watching 25 the students go through the process, it just concerns MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
55 1 me a little bit. I have to truly believe that 2 people who work for the plant are very concerned 3 about safety. I also know, it concerns me a little 4 bit when I hear everything was always forthcoming.
5 When the students did reviews, they started 6 with The Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Toledo Blade, 7 and they started to compare articles about what was 8 said and how statements changed over time, and a lot 9 of it seems that a lot of the forthcoming information 10 came from watchdog groups and not necessarily 11 FirstEnergy or the NRC, and I know as students 12 seeking to be involved in nuclear energy, as a coach, 13 I first steered them to FirstEnergy, and there was no 14 encouragement at first, then I tried to hook them up 15 with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and nobody was 16 really willing to talk to them, and it was only when 17 the watchdog groups started sharing information with 18 the students did FirstEnergy and the NRC then start, 19 and so we have it from a little bit different 20 perspective from seeing how statements change 21 throughout the paper, not necessarily did it always 22 appear out of wanting to get the information out, but 23 out of information coming out, and then being forced 24 to acknowledge it, and so as a citizen it just 25 concerns me a little bit that it seems like theres a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
56 1 comfort level that everybody should trust everybody 2 when thats not always how we have encountered the 3 information, and I guess one of the questions out of 4 that, have there been any discussion of when the 5 plant restarts since there has been a lot of 6 mistrust, concerns with FirstEnergy and the NRCs 7 oversight in this that they might actually put 8 together a panel with some of the people from 9 watchdog groups on it to sort of balance, because it 10 seems like key players in this whole scenario was not 11 the NRC and FirstEnergy finding these faults or maybe 12 finding them but not bringing them out, and it might 13 be a nice safety assurance if they might have some 14 input.
15 The other question, and I apologize, we got 16 here late, is about the fine issue, and I apologize 17 if this has already been addressed. One of the 18 things that the students had mentioned was not an 19 arbitrary fine, but a fine to ensure that safety was 20 done and so not necessarily paying out eight million 21 as a fine, but using that money and having the NRC 22 redirect it, and is there any plans for moisture tape 23 around the reactor nozzle so between outages if there 24 is any leaks, that that can be picked up and relayed 25 to the tower before 18 months goes?
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
57 1 MR. GROBE: Theres been about 2 three or four things that you said that I want to 3 respond to. If I dont hit them all, please help me.
4 First off, Im very disappointed that you 5 werent able to get access to information from the 6 NRC.
7 MS. SHAW: We did after they 8 started noticing that the kids were getting 9 information from other areas.
10 MR. GROBE: Thats also 11 disappointing. If you ever have any difficulty, 12 dont hesitate calling Jan Strasma or myself, and I 13 place a very high priority on educating our young 14 people. Thats a personal issue for me, but the 15 agency has placed a very high priority on being 16 transparent and getting as much access as possible to 17 the information about our activities, so please dont 18 let that happen again.
19 With respect to your comments regarding 20 outside individuals being on some of their oversight 21 groups, they invited the County Administrator to 22 participate more, I dont think that would meet your 23 definition --
24 MS. SHAW: It was somebody who 25 really helped bring this issue out.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
58 1 MR. GROBE: But I know theres a 2 number of FirstEnergy managers here, and Im sure 3 that they would be willing to consider your comments.
4 Thats not something that we mandate or can mandate, 5 I believe.
6 Your perception -- Im disappointed in your 7 perception that it took watchdog groups to bring out 8 the truth. As soon as something unusual appeared to 9 have happened at Davis-Besse, within a matter of days 10 we had a team of people out here looking at it, and I 11 believe April 5th, the issues identified on March 12 6th, April 5th we conducted our first public meeting 13 to share what had happened at Davis-Besse with the 14 public, and that was a meeting attended by 450 15 people, so its -- the NRC has been driving this 16 issue in the public forum, and I cant speak for the 17 rest, but I hope we have been accessible to members 18 of the public, and, if not, I think thats a problem, 19 I would like to be aware of it. Did I get all your 20 questions?
21 MS. SHAW: No, the fine related 22 to the helping ensure safety and moisture sensitive 23 tape around the rod nozzles.
24 MR. GROBE: Im not sure what 25 moisture sensitive tape is, but they are installing a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
59 1 system on the bottom of the reactor head. Its like 2 a long tube with holes in it, and it pushes air 3 through the tube and monitors the humidity of the air 4 that comes out, and if there is a leak, it winds it 5 way, excuse me, around the bottom head of the reactor 6 and if theres -- if theres any high humidity which 7 would be caused by a leak on the bottom head, it will 8 be sensed with the system. Its referred to as a 9 FLUS system. Its -- I believe its a German word.
10 Its an acronym.
11 MS. SHAW: Im not sure what you 12 mean by the bottom of the head because I know most of 13 the corrosion occurred on the top of the head.
14 MR. GROBE: Theres two heads on a 15 reactor. Its like a hotdog.
16 MS. SHAW: Right. Well, where 17 the rods slip up and down and where the original 18 corrosion happened --
19 MR. GROBE: For the top of the 20 head, they have cut very substantial access ports so 21 that they can do frequent inspections of them, and 22 they have put in place a much more comprehensive and 23 vigorous leakage monitoring program, so the top of 24 the head is covered that way. The bottom of the 25 head is much less accessible, so they have installed MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
60 1 this FLUS monitoring system on the bottom of the 2 head.
3 MS. SHAW: Okay, so the moisture 4 tape is what they use in France, and that has 5 technical names, but its by the control rods.
6 MR. GROBE: Im not familiar with 7 it.
8 MS. SHAW: So right where the 9 spray leaks happened before, it would --
10 MR. GROBE: This FLUS system may 11 be what youre talking about because its used --
12 its installed, I think, in a half dozen or more 13 plants in Europe. Thank you very much for your 14 comments.
15 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
16 MR. WILKINS: Good evening. My name 17 is Richard Wilkins. Im with the Communication 18 Department at FirstEnergy, and, like you, I was 19 disappointed to hear that Ms. Shaw was forced to get 20 her information from watchdog groups and other 21 agencies about Davis-Besse and wasnt able to get the 22 information she was looking for in a timely fashion 23 from Davis-Besse. Im also a little surprised at 24 that since it is one of our top priorities to 25 communicate information about the plant particularly MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
61 1 with school students, and, in fact, Ms. Shaw and her 2 students were at Davis-Besse. We did break an 3 engineer loose for several hours to meet with her and 4 her students to answer their questions, to give them 5 information about the plant.
6 Now, I dont know where that fell in terms of 7 the time line of her search for information, but, 8 generally speaking, when we get a request for 9 information we try to answer that request as quickly 10 as we can and as thoroughly as we can. In fact, in 11 terms of providing information about the situation at 12 Davis-Besse, when we had the information about the 13 corrosion on the head -- the way that we handled that 14 was, if memory serves, of course, the NRC was the 15 first to know about it in terms of Government 16 officials and regulators, but we also very quickly 17 notified the local officials, who, of course, have an 18 interest in what is going on at Davis-Besse, as well 19 as State and Federal officials that we have a lot of 20 communications with on a fairly routine basis aside 21 from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
22 In addition to that, we had a lengthy list of 23 news media outlets, starting with the local news 24 media and fanning out to a broader news media, wire 25 services, for example, and the day that we had MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
62 1 sufficient information to describe what was going on 2 there, we contacted every one of those media outlets 3 and gave them all of the information that we had at 4 the time including providing an engineer who could 5 explain the situation in laymens terms. We have 6 continued to make ourselves or certainly attempted to 7 make ourselves available to reporters any time that 8 they have questions about what is going on at 9 Davis-Besse, and we intend to continue doing that, 10 just as we intend to continue to respond to requests 11 from citizens and from students regardless of what 12 grade they might be in, so I am disappointed as you 13 are that the flow of information didnt quite work 14 the way that Ms. Shaw had wanted it to, and well 15 certainly try to do better in the future. Thank 16 you.
17 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
18 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
19 MS. SHAW: Can I make a 20 clarifying comment?
21 MR. GROBE: I dont think its 22 necessary.
23 Any other comments, questions? Yes, sir?
24 MR. GATTER: Hi, my name is Shane 25 Gatter. I have been working at FirstEnergy, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
63 1 Davis-Besse plant, for about five months now. I 2 graduated from UT with a mechanical engineering 3 degree about six months ago. I worked at a farm for 4 a co-op and before I -- well, prior to my first year 5 in college, I had no idea what nuclear energy was.
6 I could sit down and watch the Simpsons and believe 7 that, but, I mean, I wanted to design cars, but now 8 that I got into the nuclear field, that is my place 9 to be. I feel safe. I take ownership. I come 10 across the gates every morning to Davis-Besse Nuclear 11 Power Plant. I can say thats Shane Gatters 12 nuclear power plant, and in talking to all my 13 co-workers they feel the same way.
14 I work closely with a lot of the managers and 15 many other people at FirstEnergy. I see the 16 students come up or the teacher come up and say her 17 students are researching Davis-Besse. I think 18 thats great. I -- I -- like I said, I had no idea 19 what nuclear power was before I started college, so 20 to -- for all these people to say, no, shut us down, 21 its just not right. I think they need to research 22 it a little more and see that we are not a bad -- we 23 are not a sore spot in Oak Harbor. Let us stay open.
24 Thank you.
25 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
64 1 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
2 MS. RYDER: My name is Amy Ryder.
3 Im with Ohio Citizen Action, and I just wanted to 4 follow up on Ms. Shaws comment and Mr. Wilkins 5 comment on that. Ohio Citizen Action spends an 6 enormous amount of time talking to members of the 7 public, and I dont think theres a lot of concern 8 over the fact from the timing of when the hole was 9 announced it was discovered to when the NRC had its 10 first meeting. There seems to be a lot of mystery 11 as far as when FirstEnergy admits that they actually 12 knew that there was a problem, you know, theres 13 no -- photographic evidence as early as 1998 showing 14 that there was degradation of the head. There is a 15 lot of he said/she said over whether or not the NRC 16 knew that this evidence existed, you know, theres a 17 FirstEnergy employee says I turned over a condition 18 report and photographs to an NRC inspector. The NRC 19 claims, no, we never saw it, and I think thats a lot 20 of information -- I dont want to speak for Ms. Shaw, 21 but I think thats a lot of this information thats 22 of concern to the public as far as whats being 23 turned over and unfortunately we are finding out a 24 lot of the information from the newspapers and the 25 Union of Concerned Scientists. Its not being MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
65 1 disclosed at the monthly meetings, and, to me, I 2 think thats of a lot of concern because that is how 3 were getting our information.
4 MR. GROBE: I appreciate your 5 comment, Amy. The two issues, the two specific 6 issues that you raised are both under investigation.
7 Its very easy to make a public statement. Its 8 much more time consuming and difficult to investigate 9 it to find out what the truth is.
10 MS. RYDER: True.
11 MR. GROBE: And you wont hear 12 statements from the NRC regarding either of those 13 issues until the investigations are done and the 14 truth is known. Thats certainly not any sort of 15 obfuscation or hiding. Its simply responsible 16 pursuit of the issue and it takes time.
17 I have been available, as has Bill and other 18 members of the panel, on a monthly basis out here to 19 answer any question, and we put out a tremendous 20 amount of information, organized a web site, its 21 very easy to navigate. All of the information that 22 David Lochbaum and the Union of Concerned Scientist 23 and others are putting out is information thats 24 coming from us, so its maybe dissemination channels 25 arent as effective, but, you know, the information MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
66 1 is available, and wed be glad to answer any 2 questions, as youre well aware, because you had a 3 lot of them at any time.
4 MS. RYDER: Well, I do know that 5 all of the information that David gets is from the 6 NRC, from ADAMS and from NRC documents, but he spends 7 weeks and weeks and weeks digging through documents 8 to find that information. That is not information 9 that is disclosed and in an avenue that the public 10 can understand, and I am grateful there are David 11 Lochbaums in the world, but from the publics 12 perception, we get the scoop from the newspapers, and 13 we get it from organizations like mine or from the 14 Union of Concerned Scientists, not from FirstEnergy 15 and unfortunately not from the NRC, it comes in a way 16 that we can understand it from them.
17 MR. GROBE: Again, I appreciate 18 your comments. You are not going to get -- youre 19 going to get the facts when you talk to me, when you 20 talk to Bill, when you talk to others from the NRC.
21 Youre not going to get a spin on the facts. Youre 22 going to get the facts. Well answer them as 23 technically, as correctly as we can, and all of that 24 information is put out, and, again, Ive -- I believe 25 that weve done everything that we can to make MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
67 1 ourselves available and make information available.
2 If there is something more that you think we can do, 3 I would be eager to talk to you about it. I dont 4 know that we want to take all these folks time.
5 MS. RYDER: No, and I just want 6 to -- this isnt personal against you or Bill Dean.
7 MR. GROBE: No -- well, I am 8 taking it personally because I feel responsibility to 9 fulfill this expectation. Thats one of the purposes 10 of us being here, and if were not doing it well, I 11 want to improve, so, like I said, lets get together 12 after the meeting. If you have some thoughts on how 13 we can do things better to ensure that the 14 information is getting to the right people at the 15 right time.
16 MS. RYDER: I think the public 17 would love to know when the NRC first knew about the 18 degradation of that head as soon as possible.
19 MR. GROBE: And when that 20 investigation is done, youll find out.
21 MS. RYDER: Thank you.
22 MR. GROBE: Uh huh.
23 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
24 MR. DEAN: I just want to offer 25 one comment. To build on what Jack said, and that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
68 1 is the issue of taking raw information and 2 disseminating it without proper context, and I think 3 what Jacks trying to say is that the NRC will put 4 something out thats factual, thats put in the 5 proper context, not taking things that are taken out 6 of context and spun to tell a story or put a slant on 7 something without the proper, underlying assessment 8 of that information, so -- enough said.
9 MR. GROBE: Other questions?
10 Comments?
11 (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE).
12 MR. GROBE: Well, thank you very 13 much for coming. Dave, when is our next meeting?
14 MR. PASSEHL: April 15th.
15 MR. GROBE: April 15th.
16 MR. PASSEHL: Yes.
17 MR. GROBE: Well be back. I 18 believe well be at this location, so please join us 19 next month.
20 21 22 23 THEREUPON, the hearing was adjourned.
24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
69 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 certify 6 that the foregoing, consisting of 68 pages, was taken by me in stenotype and was reduced to writing by me 7 by means of Computer-Aided Transcription; that the foregoing is a true and complete transcript of the 8 proceedings held in that room on the 11th day of March, 2003 before U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 9 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
, 2003.
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