ML031710097
| ML031710097 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 05/17/2003 |
| From: | NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML031710097 (142) | |
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2 PUBLIC MEETING Between U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission O350 Panel 3 and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company 4
Meeting held on Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 5 2:00 p.m. at the Camp Perry Clubhouse, Oak Harbor, Ohio, taken by me, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter, 6 and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio.
7 - - -
8 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
9 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 John "Jack" Grobe, Chairman, MC 0350 Panel William Ruland, 11 Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel Christopher Scott Thomas, 12 Senior Resident Inspector U.S. NRC Office - Davis-Besse 13 Jon Hopkins, Project Manager Davis-Besse Dave Passehl, Project Engineer Davis-Besse 14 John Zwolinski, Director of the Division of Licensing Project Management 15 Brian Sheron, Associate Director for Project Licensee and Technical Analysis 16 FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 17 Lew Myers, FENOC Chief Operating Officer 18 J. Randel Fast, Director of Organizational Effectiveness 19 Michael J. Stevens, Director - Nuclear Maintenance 20 Mike Ross, Restart Director Mark Bezilla, Vice President Davis-Besse 21 Fred von Ahn, Vice President of Oversight Bob Coward, Director of Nuclear Services, 22 MPR Associates George Beam, Senior VP - Framatone 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
2 1 MR. PASSEHL: Welcome everybody, 2 FirstEnergy, and members of the public for accommodating 3 this meeting today. This is a public meeting between the 4 NRCs Davis-Besse Oversight Panel and FirstEnergy Nuclear 5 Operating Company.
6 Im Dave Passehl, the Project Engineer and Assistant 7 to the Branch Chief, Christine Lipa, who is responsible for 8 NRCs Inspection Program at Davis-Besse. Christine cannot 9 attend todays meeting due to other commitments.
10 Next slide, please.
11 The purpose of this meeting are to allow FirstEnergy 12 to present the status of activities in their Restart Plan 13 and to discuss NRCs Oversight Panel activities, focusing 14 on these activities since our last public meeting.
15 Next slide, please.
16 The agenda for todays meeting includes the 17 introductions, opening remarks, a summary of the April 15, 18 public meetings, a discussion of significant NRC activities 19 since that last public meeting, the Licensees presentation 20 on the status of their Return to Service Plan, and a short 21 break, followed by public comments and questions of the 22 NRC, and then well adjourn the meeting.
23 Before we go further, I would like to make some 24 introductions. Immediately to my left is Jack Grobe, a 25 Senior Manager in the Region III Office in Lisle, Illinois; MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
3 1 and Jack is the Chairman of the Davis-Besse Oversight 2 Panel.
3 To Jacks left is Brian Sheron, aSenior Manager in 4 Headquarters, who is the Associate Director for Project 5 Licensee and Technical Analysis. Brian provides overall 6 project management related to licensing activities 7 associated with power reactors and he provides management 8 direction of technical evaluations and assessment of 9 technical issues.
10 Next to him, to his left is John Zwolinski, a Senior 11 Manager in our Headquarters Offices, who is the Director of 12 the Division of Licensing Project Management. Johns group 13 implements the policy, programs and activities, including 14 coordinating licensing and technical reviews, associated 15 with the overall safety and environmental project 16 management for individual power reactors in the regions.
17 Next to John is Bill Ruland, a Senior Manager in our 18 Headquarters Office. And, Bill is the Vice Chairman of the 19 Oversight Panel. Bills position is the Director, Project 20 Directorate 3, in the Division of Licensing and Project 21 Management.
22 Next to Bill is Jon Hopkins, our NRR Project Manager 23 for Davis-Besse.
24 To my right is Scott Thomas, the Senior Resident 25 Inspector at the Davis-Besse Plant.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
4 1 And in the audience, we have Doug Simpkins, the 2 Resident Inspector at the Davis-Besse Plant.
3 We have Nancy Keller, who is the Office Assistant 4 for Davis-Besse.
5 Our Region III Public Affairs Officer, Viktoria 6 Mitlyng.
7 Margie Gonzales Kotzales is a Technical Assistant to Mr.
8 Sheron. She is with us in the audience. As is Ho Nieh, a 9 Regional Coordinator in our Headquarters Offices, and he 10 works in the Executive Directors Office in Headquarters.
11 Lew, would you please introduce the FirstEnergy 12 personnel?
13 MR. MYERS: Thank you. In the 14 audience today we have two guests with us. Bob Saunders, 15 the President of FENOC is here for FirstEnergy Nuclear 16 Operating Company. I see you, Bob, right there. Okay.
17 And Gary Leidich, the Executive VP of Engineering Services 18 is also with us.
19 To my left is Fred Von Ahn. Im going to give you 20 some new names and titles today, and as we go through the 21 presentation today, it will be clear whats changed and 22 why. Okay? Fred von Ahn is with us today. Fred is to our 23 far left. Fred is the new Vice President of Oversight for 24 FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company.
25 Mark Bezilla is next to him. Sitting next to me on MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
5 1 the left. Mark is going to be the new Site Vice President 2 at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant. Well talk about Mark 3 later on in the presentations.
4 To my right here is George Beam. George is a Senior 5 Vice President with Framatone.
6 And then Bob Coward is next to him. Hes the 7 Director of Nuclear Services with MPR, which is an 8 Engineering Contracting Company that we use.
9 Mike Ross is next to him, I believe. And Mike is 10 the, new title we termed the Restart Director. And Mike is 11 filling that role.
12 Randy Fast is next to Mike. Randys got a new title 13 also; thats the Director of Organizational Effectiveness 14 at our plant. And Randy is really going to focus on all 15 the, the Management/Human Performance issues.
16 Then, Mike Stevens, the Director of Maintenance, is 17 sitting at the end of the table.
18 MR. PASSEHL: Thank you, Lew.
19 Would any public officials or representative of 20 public officials in the audience please introduce 21 yourselves at this time?
22 MR. ARNDT: Steve Arndt, 23 Ottawa County Commissioner.
24 MR. WITT: Jere Witt, Ottawa 25 County Administrator.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
6 1 MR. GROBE: Okay, before we 2 proceed, I just wanted to take a minute to recognize a 3 member of the Davis-Besse NRC team, who is going to be 4 moving on.
5 Now you have to stand up Doug.
6 This is Doug Simpkins. I want everybody to 7 recognize him for a moment. Hes been a key member of the 8 NRC team here at Davis-Besse for the past four years and 9 has been a significant contributor to that team, based on 10 his knowledge and experience, but also based on his 11 diligence to ensuring the safety of the public from nuclear 12 power operations.
13 Doug has been promoted to the Senior Resident 14 Inspector position at a plant called Hatch. Its in 15 Georgia. And those of us that are dyed-in-the-wool 16 midwesterners cant quite figure out why he wants to go to 17 Georgia. But, he is going to be taking on significantly 18 additional responsibilities leading the NRC team down in, 19 at the Hatch plant, Georgia.
20 In addition to Dougs commitment to his profession, 21 hes also played a very significant role in the community 22 here in Oak Harbor. His wife, Lisa, two boys and three 23 girls, have been very active in the community. Doug has 24 been an active father. Hes been a Cub Master in Oak 25 Harbor. Hes coached the National Rifle Youth Camp here at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
7 1 Camp Perry. Hes organized the Youth Rifle Program in Oak 2 Harbor. Hes been a soccer coach and assistant baseball 3 coach.
4 Hes taught Sunday School. Hes been very active in 5 his church and hes even sung occasionally at Sunday 6 school, which I didnt get any feedback whether that was a 7 positive or a negative, but hes only been an occasional 8 singer, so that might tell you a little bit about that.
9 Were going to miss him on the NRC team here at 10 Davis-Besse. And, I want to recognize his commitment here 11 and wish him the best as their family moves to Georgia in 12 just a couple days. May 23rd, theyre going to be pulling 13 up stakes and moving south. So, thanks, Doug.
14 (applause) 15 MR. PASSEHL: Okay. This 16 meeting is open to public observation. Please note that 17 this is a meeting between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 18 and FirstEnergy. At the conclusion of the business portion 19 of the meeting, but before the meeting is adjourned, the 20 NRC staff will be available to receive comments from 21 members of the public and answer questions.
22 There are copies of the May edition of our monthly 23 newsletters and copies of the slides for this meeting in 24 the foyer. The newsletter provides background information 25 and also discusses current plant and NRC activities. On MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
8 1 the back page, there is some reference information on how 2 to contact us, if you have additional questions or 3 concerns.
4 We have included the email address and phone number 5 of our public affairs officers. And there is also a web 6 page address, where you can have access to numerous 7 documents related to Davis-Besse.
8 We also have a public meeting feedback form 9 available, which we use to solicit comments on aspects of 10 the meeting that we can improve upon.
11 Were having the meeting transcribed today by Marie 12 Fresch to maintain a record of the meeting. The 13 transcription will be available on our web page. And 14 usually, thats available in about 3 to 4 weeks.
15 It is important that speakers use the microphones to 16 ensure that the transcriber and the audience can hear 17 everyone.
18 Next slide, please.
19 Since our last meeting on April 15th, we discussed 20 the status of ongoing plant and NRC activities. The NRC 21 staff discussed initiation of a Safety Culture and Safety 22 Conscious Work Environment inspection, the completion of 23 the Containment Sump Inspection, and Integrated Leak Rate 24 Test Inspection in Containment.
25 We mentioned that we were prepared to close Restart MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
9 1 Checklist Item 1-A, pertaining to reactor pressure vessel 2 penetration cracking and reactor pressure vessel corrosion; 3 and Items 6-A through F, pertaining to licensing issues 4 associated with reactor vessel head.
5 We provided a status update on our ongoing 6 inspections of System Health Reviews and Design Issues, 7 Safety Significant Programs and Corrective Actions.
8 We discussed some upcoming activities, including the 9 Undervessel Head Inspection, Fire Protection Inspection, a 10 Restart Assessment Team Inspection and public meetings to 11 discuss engineering issues and safety culture.
12 Later in todays presentation, we plan to provide an 13 update on our recently completed and ongoing NRC 14 activities.
15 FirstEnergy provided an update on efforts made 16 toward restart. They discussed activities related to 17 Operations Restart Readiness Assessments, including 18 preparations to take the plant to Mode 4, which means the 19 primary coolant temperature circulating throughout the 20 reactor is between 200 and 280 degrees.
21 FirstEnergy discussed plans to resolve some 22 engineering issues, including issues with emergency diesel 23 generator loading, high pressure injection pumps, the 24 electrical distribution system, and air-operated valves.
25 I want to mention that we are conducting another MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
10 1 public meeting tomorrow to discuss engineering issues.
2 Information on that meeting can be found in our monthly 3 newsletter.
4 Next slide, please.
5 April 15th, we held a public exit meeting to discuss 6 the preliminary findings and conclusions of the special 7 inspection and supplemental inspection that was conducted 8 to review the utilitys corrective actions for two white 9 findings in the radiation protection area associated with 10 inadequate radiologic controls during steam generator work 11 in February of 2002.
12 On April 25th, we completed a one-week fire 13 protection inspection which reviewed the Licensees fire 14 protection features and safe shutdown capability. The 15 inspection results will be included in the Inspection 16 Report for System Health Assurance Inspection, which is 17 currently ongoing.
18 We closed Restart Checklist Item 1-A, which was, as 19 I mentioned, the penetration cracking and reactor pressure 20 vessel corrosion. The Davis-Besse Oversight Panel approved 21 this checklist item for closure on April 29. FirstEnergy 22 submitted its Technical Root Cause Report to the NRC staff 23 in August of 2002.
24 NRCs review of the report is complete, and the 25 results of the review will be included as an attachment to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
11 1 the next Resident Inspection Report, which should be issued 2 in the near term.
3 We also closed Restart Checklist Item 6-A through 4 6-F, which is licensing issues associated with replacement 5 reactor vessel head. The Davis-Besse Oversight Panel 6 approved this checklist item for closure on April 29th.
7 The NRC staff reviewed and approved all six proposed 8 licensing actions and the results of the licensing action 9 review will be included in the next Resident Inspection 10 Report.
11 Next slide, please.
12 First I wanted to discuss some continuing NRC 13 activities, which involve our System Health Reviews and 14 Design Issues Inspection. The NRCs inspection of this 15 area is reviewing system health readiness. Part of this 16 inspection includes safety function validation inspection 17 of systems and topical issues, high energy line break, 18 environmental qualification, seismic flooding and 19 Appendix R. The inspection is being conducted by several 20 inspectors and is ongoing.
21 We are also evaluating the Licensees process in and 22 tools for monitoring improvements in the Safety Culture, 23 Safety Conscious Work Environment and the effectiveness of 24 the Employee Concerns Program. The inspection is in 25 progress this week. On April 7, the NRC issued a press MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
12 1 release and biographical information on the team members 2 for that inspection.
3 The NRCs inspection regarding program effectiveness 4 is reviewing certain key programs. Our reviews in this 5 area include assessing the effectiveness of the Boric Acid 6 Corrosion Control Program, In-service Inspection Program; 7 Reactor Coolant Unidentified Leakage Program, Plant 8 Modifications, Quality Audits and Operating Experience 9 Programs.
10 To-date, we have completed our on site inspection of 11 all programs, except for Boric Acid Corrosion Control, 12 Quality Audits, and reviews of completeness and accuracy of 13 required records and submittals.
14 Our Corrective Action Team Inspection is an 15 inspection to review the effectiveness of the corrective 16 action process at Davis-Besse to ensure that it is being 17 effectively implemented and appropriate corrective actions 18 taken to prevent recurrence of problems.
19 The inspection includes review of restart corrective 20 action items to determine if items required to be 21 accomplished prior to startup of the plant have been 22 correctly characterized and actions have been completed in 23 accordance with the Licensees and NRCs requirements.
24 Our Resident Inspection is ongoing. We have two 25 Resident Inspectors stationed permanently at the site, who MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
13 1 inspect a broad spectrum of activities, as is 2 characteristic of all our sites, in the areas of 3 Operations, Maintenance and Testing. And the Resident 4 Inspectors issue reports every six to seven weeks.
5 MR. GROBE: Dave, before you 6 go on, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the safety 7 culture work thats being done by the company and also our 8 inspection.
9 Theres been a lot of confusion, at least Ive 10 sensed a lot of confusion on a number of fronts regarding 11 whether or not the Licensee is required to improve their 12 safety culture.
13 The NRC has requirements in 10-CFR-50, specifically 14 focused on the need to fix problems. Its part of our 15 quality assurance requirements, thats referred to as 16 Criterion 16.
17 What it requires is that whenever the Licensee 18 identifies a problem, a deficiency with safety equipment or 19 safety processes, that it needs to be fixed, and its 20 required to be fixed. In the case of significant problems, 21 we call them significant conditions adverse to quality; 22 not only does the problem need to be fixed, but the root 23 cause needs to be identified and the root cause needs to be 24 fixed.
25 The NRC doesnt mandate how to fix the problems, but MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
14 1 it requires that they are fixed and that there is a 2 reasonable course of action to address those problems to 3 ensure they wont recur. Certainly the degradation of the 4 reactor pressure vessel head at Davis-Besse was a 5 significant issue adverse to quality. Consequently, the 6 utility is required to fix that problem. Not only the 7 specific hardware deficiencies, but also what caused the 8 problem.
9 FirstEnergy determined that safety culture at the 10 facility was a significant contributor to why that problem 11 occurred. So, theyre required under NRC regulations to 12 address that issue. Again, we dont mandate how to fix the 13 safety culture at Davis-Besse, but we do mandate that it be 14 fixed.
15 The inspection, regardless of whether its a piece 16 of equipment that has a deficiency or program or procedure 17 or process, or in this case a safety culture, there is many 18 different ways to address hardware problems to address what 19 I call software problems, programs and procedures, and to 20 address people problems. We dont mandate how to fix it, 21 but what we do is come in and inspect and make sure there 22 is a reasonable path to success, that the specific actions 23 the company is taking have a reasonable success path to 24 ensure that these problems dont recur.
25 To ensure that we did an excellent job assessing MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
15 1 this area, as Dave mentioned, we brought in a team of 2 experts. There is seven folks, who have a proven track 3 record in the area of Safety Culture Assessment, Safety 4 Conscious Work Environment Assessment; and two gentlemen 5 who also have a proven track record in the industry of 6 effectively managing safety culture at nuclear power 7 plants.
8 That teams work is ongoing. We will have a public 9 exit once they complete their work, but our goal in that 10 effort is to examine, not to impose any requirements in the 11 area of safety culture, we have no requirements, but to 12 examine what the utilities is doing and make sure that it 13 makes sense. Thats what well be reporting out to you 14 publicly and to the utility in several weeks.
15 Thanks, Dave.
16 MR. PASSEHL: Okay. Next 17 slide, please.
18 Okay, the NRC will conduct a public meeting with 19 FirstEnergy tomorrow, as I mentioned, in the Region III 20 Office, where FirstEnergy will describe the status of its 21 engineering reviews and address significant outstanding 22 design issues and its plans for resolving them.
23 This is the second public meeting focusing on the 24 status of design reviews of Davis-Besse safety systems.
25 The first meeting was held in the NRCs Region III Office MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
16 1 in Lisle, Illinois on December 23rd of last year.
2 Transcripts and presentation materials for that meeting are 3 available, and for the meeting tomorrow, are available on 4 the NRCs website.
5 The NRC is preparing to conduct an inspection of the 6 lower reactor vessel head area. This inspection will 7 review the procedures and related ASME Code requirements 8 relative to the leak test of the reactor coolant system.
9 The NRC will also observe conduct of the test and verify 10 proper implementation of procedures.
11 As Jack alluded to, the NRC is planning to conduct 12 a public meeting to discuss the Licensees assessment of 13 safety culture, once the Licensee has fully integrated 14 their independent and internal assessments. That meeting 15 will be held in the Region III Office in the May to June 16 timeframe.
17 The NRC is preparing to conduct an assessment of 18 backlog issues. The work Davis-Besse plans to defer until 19 after the plant has resumed operations, or the work 20 Davis-Besse plans to defer to future outages. This review 21 will consider the appropriateness and safety of those 22 proposed deferrals.
23 Next slide, please.
24 The NRC is preparing to conduct a Restart Assessment 25 Team Inspection when the utility nears the point where it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
17 1 will seek NRC authorization for restart. This inspection 2 will review the readiness of the plant and the plant staff 3 to resume plant operations safely and in compliance with 4 NRC requirements. The inspection findings will be 5 considered by the NRC Oversight Panel in making its 6 recommendation to the Regional Administrator on possible 7 restart.
8 The NRC is preparing its final Significance 9 Assessment for the control rod drive mechanism cracking and 10 reactor pressure vessel degradation identified for 11 Davis-Besse. The NRC issued its preliminary assessment 12 letter back on February 25th of this year in which we 13 preliminarily determined that the performance deficiency 14 resulting in that reactor pressure vessel head 15 degradation and control rod drive mechanism nozzle cracking 16 had high safety significance.
17 The final letter will be issued after NRC considers 18 FirstEnergys reply to our preliminary letter. And we 19 received that reply on April 24th.
20 This summarizes NRCs activities since our last 21 meeting. The inspections I discussed are part of our 22 Restart Checklist, which is a listing of issues that need 23 to be resolved prior to restart of the plant.
24 So, with that, Ill turn the presentation meeting 25 over to FirstEnergy. Thanks.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
18 1 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
2 When Doug gets to Hatch and he starts looking up 3 all that environmental data, you know, history, you know; I 4 think youll find it had a lot of good rigor and was very 5 thoroughly done.
6 MR. GROBE: You dont happen 7 to know anybody that might have worked down there, do you?
8 MR. MYERS: Yes.
9 (laughter) 10 Okay. We have several Desired Outcomes today. We 11 have, its not been quite a month since we had our last 12 public meeting, so let me talk a little bit where were at 13 now.
14 Since the last public meeting, weve completed our 15 high head safety injection test. We pressurized the plant 16 to 50 pounds pressure. And, at the present time, were 17 looking at going to 250 pounds and were doing our near 18 normal operating temperature pressure test later on. Were 19 not at that point yet.
20 Today, we have several Desired Outcomes. You heard 21 the new titles that we are using and there has been some 22 management changes. We want to discuss those management 23 changes and the reason for the management changes.
24 We also want to review the plant activities 25 completed since the last meeting, and as it brings you up MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
19 1 to our present status; and then, theres some near term 2 activities for plant testing that we want to discuss; and 3 then, finally, we want to provide you an update of several 4 of our issues and their resolutions.
5 If you look at our agenda, the next slide, specific 6 areas were talking about, once again, is Management 7 Actions.
8 The Restart Test Plan. Mike Stevens will discuss 9 that.
10 Challenges to Restart. You know, we talked a lot in 11 here about our high end head safety injection pump issues, and 12 the actions that were taken there. So, we have two people 13 that are going to discuss those today; Mike Ross, George 14 Beam and Bob Coward all focus in that area.
15 Operations Readiness. Mark Bezilla is sitting 16 beside me here. Hes been at the plant two days, but hes 17 going to discuss Operational Readiness. Youll find Mark 18 has been really working at the plant quite a bit since 19 weve been in this issue.
20 The Quality Oversight Area. Fred Von Ahn will 21 discuss. Fred is our new Vice President of Oversight.
22 Safety Conscious Work Environment. We had a couple 23 of questions that we wanted to discuss from the last 24 meeting, Jack. And, were prepared to discuss those 25 today. Ill do that.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
20 1 Then, the Containment Closure. You know, thats 2 really closure of the Building Block. And, as Randy will 3 tell you, you never close the containment out. You know, 4 what we have put in place is some new procedures and stuff 5 that we think will keep the, not only fix the containment 6 to standards we have today, but maintain those standards in 7 the future.
8 The first area that I would like to discuss -- go 9 ahead with the next slide -- is Management Actions. You 10 know, Jack spoke awhile ago about the safety culture at our 11 station. You know, we define safety culture as attitudes 12 and attributes in the organization and people that ensure 13 that safety-related activities receive the management 14 attention warranted.
15 If you look back, when you talk about that today, I 16 have my slides; if you look back at our actual root cause, 17 we said, "There was a focus on production, established by 18 management". So, its a management issue of the plant.
19 "Combined with taking minimum actions to meet regulatory 20 requirements". Lets justify this and take the minimal 21 action. "That resulted in acceptance of degraded 22 conditions" as long as they didnt affect productivity.
23 That was our original root cause.
24 If youll look at some of the actions weve taken, 25 we talked about before, you know, Bob Saunders created a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
21 1 new position of Chief Operating Officer, which is my job, 2 once we get the plant restarted.
3 Then, Gary Leidich is our Executive Vice President 4 of Engineering and Service, which is Services, which is 5 also a new position that helps standardize our programs and 6 our approaches to the system health and stuff like that.
7 So, a key part of ensuring that this type of issue doesnt 8 happen again.
9 And then, finally, you know, if you look at our 10 Oversight Organization. Our Oversight Organization, what 11 we found, mostly reported to the site. So, we wanted to 12 make that a FENOC organization; and we created the Vice 13 President of Oversight. And, Bill Pearce had been in that 14 position, and now Fred von Ahn is there.
15 If you go look at the organizational changes that 16 weve made, first I would like to spend a couple moments to 17 tell about some of the new players.
18 Fred, as the VP of Nuclear Oversight, has been with 19 us for many years now. Worked with Fred at our Perry 20 Plant. Fred has over 25 years of nuclear experience; both 21 from the Navy and then commercial operations.
22 He graduated from the Naval Academy, so Fred was a 23 naval officer in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science Degree, 24 and while we were working together at Beaver Valley, went 25 back and got his Masters Degree in Business.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
22 1 Fred, after leaving the Navy, worked for General 2 Electric for a period of time as staff engineer. He had a 3 Senior Reactor Operator License in a plant in Switzerland 4 for about two and a half years.
5 Fred worked at our Perry Plant since 1998, and he 6 was a lead engineer there. And, when I left the Perry 7 Plant, he was in the engineering department, was in charge 8 of one of the departments of engineering management. He 9 had escalated through several positions there in 10 engineering, from project management to other management 11 positions.
12 He went to our Beaver Valley Plant as the Director 13 of Engineering, where hes been responsible for the System 14 Health Programs and Latent Issues Programs for the last 15 three and a half years, and some of the improvements weve 16 made at that plant.
17 We have been talking for some time about announcing 18 a Vice President for the Davis-Besse Plant. And, in order 19 to do that, we wanted to put Bill Pearce back with his 20 broad base experience on Westinghouse reactors, hes now 21 back to being the Vice President down at the Beaver Valley 22 Plant.
23 That allowed us to take the next person, Mark 24 Bezilla, who is sitting to my left, and move him to, that 25 would be the Site VP at our Davis-Besse Plant. Mark comes MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
23 1 to us with a, what we think is an outstanding background 2 also. He has 26 years of experience in the nuclear 3 program, including a position at Three Mile Island.
4 Mark was hired by Mike Ross and trained by Mike, so 5 were expecting outstanding things there.
6 After that, he came to Davis-Besse and was the 7 Superintendent of Operations, moved up to the 8 Superintendent of Operations position. He was moved over 9 to Perry Plant to improve performance there for several 10 years, and was the Operations Manager.
11 He then left us and went over to Salem, where he 12 held numerous positions, from basically Plant Manager 13 position to the Vice President of Operations, Vice 14 President of Engineering.
15 And then, we brought him back about a year ago to 16 work at our Beaver Valley Plant to take my place as Site 17 VP, and he made good improvements there after I left.
18 So, he did so well, we decided to bring him over 19 here and let him do the same thing here. So, hes coming 20 here to be the Vice President, Site Vice President of this 21 plant.
22 If you go look at Mark. Mark, once again, had an 23 SRO in this plant. He has an Engineering degree and 24 Associate degree in Nuclear Engineering Technology. We 25 think that he knows the plant well. Hes had good broad MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
24 1 based experience and will do us an outstanding job here as 2 the Site Vice President.
3 So, thats some of the shuffles at the top. Thats 4 the reason we made those shuffles.
5 If you go look at the next slide, at our Davis-Besse 6 station, weve worked pretty hard as a Senior Management 7 Team over the last few weekends to figure out how to 8 utilize the talents that we have here. You know, Im 9 basically located at the station full time, so between Mark 10 and myself, we probably shouldnt be doing the same job.
11 So, since Im located at the station, Im going to stay 12 here until after startup. And, we tried to figure out ways 13 to utilize our talents the best.
14 We wanted to take Bob Schrauder, Director of 15 Support. Bob has been really working on projects since 16 weve been here as a team. We wanted to get him really 17 involved in Security, Regulatory Affairs, Corrective 18 Actions and Quality Services.
19 Regulatory Affairs is an area were very concerned 20 with and needs Bobs talents. Thats what we brought him 21 out here to do, so hes really focusing on those things 22 now.
23 Jim Powers filled the Director of Engineering, and 24 there was no real changes there.
25 We took Mike Ross, and Mike will continue to focus MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
25 1 on Mark in his new position -- so, nothing has changed in 2 the last 25 years -- as the Director of Restart. And what 3 Mike is doing is, were trying to do, we finished our 4 discovery, if you will, walking all our systems down. We 5 pretty well have our backlog done in the right direction.
6 But, but there is, as you get to the end, and, Jack, 7 you know this, you start getting all those issues, the easy 8 stuff is gone. So, we need to be focusing forward and 9 making sure that we have good ownership, we have good 10 fragnets in place, good schedules in place, the parts, the 11 tools, equipment, and the people to get some of the work 12 activities after the, up to the Mode 4 test; and then after 13 that test, for those, the windows that we have, all the 14 work we have after that.
15 So, Mike has got the leadership role in that area 16 now. Weve set up a place out in the Administration 17 Building, where were really focused now making sure all 18 the mods are ready to go, all the issues are ready to go, 19 and driving those things on a daily basis.
20 Randy Fast has moved over to be the Davis-Besse 21 Organizational Development Director. Randy has worked hard 22 in Operations in improving the areas there. And weve been 23 getting very good feedback about some of the improvements 24 weve made in Operations and ownership and all.
25 We need to really focus on the management issues MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
26 1 that we have ahead of us. And, Randy is here to focus on 2 the SAP Project, which is a management issue; the new 3 computer project moving into our plant, that the plant is 4 going to.
5 Emergency Preparedness, Randy will be focused on 6 that next week.
7 The Davis-Besse Human Resources Area, to make sure 8 were putting key people in the right positions.
9 Communications at our site, trying to improve that.
10 Safety training, our Training Department will report 11 to Randy. Human Performance person will report to Randy.
12 And, finally, the Restart Building Block will continue to 13 report to Randy also.
14 Then, Mark Bezilla. Mark is going to sort of take 15 over the position of Site Vice President and Plant Manager 16 role combined. What hes going to do is focus on the stuff 17 inside the fence. So, Mike Stevens, the Maintenance 18 Director, Outage Management, and Work Control, will report 19 to him, Chemistry, Operations, and Radiation Protection.
20 And what we feel right now, is that lays out and 21 uses our talents to the best way we know how to use them.
22 This has been a team effort to figure out, heres all the 23 things we need to get done, and heres the way to approach 24 it. So, those are the changes that we have in place at our 25 plant.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
27 1 The next area is Mike Stevens and Mike will provide 2 you some information on Restart.
3 MR. STEVENS: Thank you, Lew.
4 Im pleased today to talk about our Restart Test.
5 The purpose of our plan is to improve the work performed 6 thus far thats been effective to support safe operation of 7 Davis-Besse.
8 Initially, weve taken lessons learned from the 9 industry and validated our plan to ensure that the startup 10 and safe operation of Davis-Besse goes smoothly through 11 this restart testing.
12 Next slide, please.
13 Our test plan will test our primary system 14 readiness. We will be performing detailed inspections at 15 50 pounds, 250 pounds, and 2,155 pressure. The detailed 16 inspections will include all of the flange and bolted 17 joints and Reactor Coolant System primary thats normally 18 pressurized. Additionally, well validate the requirements 19 of our new Reactor Coolant System Leakage Monitoring 20 Program, which we had previously discussed.
21 MR. THOMAS: Mike, I looked 22 through the packet here, and I didnt see where you 23 discussed this in more detail. Would this be an 24 appropriate time to talk about the ongoing 50 pound test 25 and what challenges you may have prior to performing the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
28 1 250 pound test?
2 MR. STEVENS: Yes, I could 3 answer that, Scott. Were currently at the 50 pound per 4 square inch pressure test, performing the inspections. The 5 inspections are not identifying any problems. To go to the 6 250 pound pressure test, well have to get the air-operated 7 valves on the air duct system completed. And, were 8 working through the design and part requirements to get 9 those, get what we need to repair those valves. Thats 10 primarily makeup 3 and 38, I believe, which will allow us 11 to have letdown.
12 MR. THOMAS: Thanks. Also 13 could you talk to, just basically describe the interaction 14 between the 50 pound, 250 pound, and the 2100 pound test, 15 as far as what youre looking at for each, the specific 16 things youre looking at?
17 MR. STEVENS: Well, primarily, 18 at the 50 pound and 250 pound tests, were looking for 19 leakage and validating our leakage monitoring program. We 20 also will be operating a lot of equipment on our primary 21 system to achieve the 2,155 pound pressure.
22 Now, as we progress through that, thats when well 23 be making sure were ready to make the mode change to Mode 24 4 and Mode 3. Is that what youre asking, Scott?
25 MR. THOMAS: That will do it.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
29 1 Thanks.
2 MR. STEVENS: Okay. Well be 3 operating our reactor coolant pump test, all four of our 4 reactor coolant pumps. Additionally, after we hold that 5 pressure at 2,155 pounds for 7 days, well go in and 6 perform baseline inspection on our reactor heads using our 7 inspection program, both the new reactor head that was 8 installed, as well as the bottom head region of the reactor 9 vessel. Also, we plan to test our control rod drive system 10 by performing our insertion time testing.
11 Next slide, please.
12 MR. HOPKINS: Wait a minute.
13 Let me ask a question here. In the beginning, you talked 14 about taking lessons learned from others to validate your 15 program. Where and what you just discussed do you take 16 lessons learned from that?
17 MR. STEVENS: What we learned 18 from some of the other units that were down for a prolonged 19 time, that when we, when they went to start up without 20 having a system integrated test to ensure that all the 21 components were ready to operate, they found they had 22 multiple equipment problem and were not prepared.
23 So, some of the things were doing is taking those 24 lessons learned, tie in with this startup plan as we bring 25 systems on; what most likely could be a problem, preparing MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
30 1 for it.
2 For example, one of the scenarios is a small leak, 3 maybe out of a packing of a valve or whatever. And I know 4 our Operations Department has been performing different 5 scenarios on our simulator. I was observing that last 6 week, to ensure that were ready. If they anticipate any 7 equipment problems.
8 And, those are some of the lessons learned were 9 pulling out; not only the sequence of the components, but 10 also the training and the contingency training we need to 11 have should components not operate as expected, because 12 theyve been in lay-up or at extensive maintenance.
13 MR. MYERS: Let me help you 14 out some too.
15 We took a document, and the document we got from the 16 industry is lessons learned from extended shutdown. It 17 talks about, you know, testing all of your equipment; 18 coming up and finding problems. We havent ran the plant 19 for a year. Valves want to stick, we may not have worked 20 on them. We worked on like I think five thousand 21 components or so.
22 After we work on something, we do what we call post 23 maintenance testing. We have all that post maintenance 24 testing to do. So, as we get on up to 21, we do the 25 pressure testing on the way up, and make sure we dont have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
31 1 any leaks and everything at the two pressures. Then we get 2 up and do what we call integrated testing. Were going to 3 test our steam pumps, condensating pumps, feed pumps, 4 anything we can test during that NOP test, and try to make 5 sure that equipment is ready to operate.
6 Additionally, well take all these post maintenance 7 tests and post modification testing and try to get that 8 done too. So, then when we come back down and we do the 9 undervessel inspection, and we do the diesel drain out that 10 we have, and come back up. It should give us high 11 confidence the equipment will work and perform not only as 12 designed, but in a reliable manner.
13 MR. HOPKINS: That helps me most 14 of all. I have a specific question.
15 Last month, when we talked about the NOP test, we 16 had a slide item on the slide about control rod drive 17 testing, and I asked what was that, and you were going to 18 get back to me. Could you tell me now?
19 MR. MYERS: Do you want to do 20 that, Mike? Or Randy?
21 MR. FAST: John, we went back 22 and looked at our test, and as part of normal test 23 sequence, we latched the control rods and verified their 24 operation. Thats a normal sequence for the plant. And, 25 weve had further discussion about that, but were not MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
32 1 deviating from our normal startup process.
2 As a matter of fact, one of the things we noted is 3 while were in the 7-day test, well be borated to maximum 4 concentration, but well actually have shutdown banks that 5 provide triple reactivity. Its actually a safety margin 6 added to the plant. And thats in accordance with our 7 normal startup operation. Its not a reactor startup, but 8 it does verify rods, and that is one of the lessons learned 9 as well from the industry.
10 So, well verify that the control rod drive 11 mechanisms will latch and are movable and the shutdown rods 12 will be in a condition where they can be tripped to add 13 reactivity while the plant is in the 7-day demonstration.
14 MR. HOPKINS: Okay. Thank 15 you.
16 MR. THOMAS: Randy, on the 17 same, just to pursue that a little further. The first test 18 is done in Mode 5, correct, its normally in Mode 5, where 19 the individual latch and pull and reinsertion. Thats 20 normally done in Mode 5, so thats not an issue for the NOP 21 test.
22 The triple, you know, cocking safety group one, I 23 agree is part of our normal startup process, but the bullet 24 here is control rod system insertion time testing. Where 25 is that going to fit into the picture?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
33 1 MR. FAST: I was going to 2 say, normally thats performed at normal operating 3 temperature and pressure and that is a technical 4 specification requirement that has a very specific time 5 that has to be met in order to ensure compliance.
6 MR. THOMAS: Let me be more 7 specific. Will that be done during the NOP test, the first 8 NOP Test during that time period?
9 MR. FAST: I believe it is, 10 as part of the full temperature and pressure operation.
11 MR. MYERS: I think it is.
12 Yes.
13 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
14 MR. STEVENS: Thank you, Randy.
15 Initially, on our Primary System Readiness, well 16 perform the Technical Specifications Surveillance Test, 17 including the Integrated Safety Features Actuation System 18 Test.
19 Additionally, well perform flow testing on the 20 various systems. Here, well be using the special flow 21 instruments to validate the proper flow is going to the 22 components and that we have established operating plant 23 conditions.
24 On the secondary side, the secondary system 25 readiness places a majority of the secondary plant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
34 1 components in service as required from startup and well be 2 going from layup preservation to operational readiness.
3 Some of the systems well be having in service are 4 the main steam system, the main condenser with the vacuum 5 drawn, condensate, circulating water, feedwater, 6 comprehensive auxiliary feedwater testing, as well as 7 feedwater heating, portions of the feedwater heating system 8 will be in service.
9 Any additional questions?
10 With that, I would like to turn it over to Mike 11 Ross, who is going to talk about the challenges to Restart 12 Test Plan, and our plant readiness for restart.
13 MR. ROSS: Thank you, Mike.
14 Effective Monday, May 5th, as part of our refocusing of our 15 efforts, I became Davis-Besse Restart Director. A new 16 center has been established to address restart issues. The 17 focus of that center will be on issues and modification for 18 Mode 4 and those efforts that will be required after Mode 19 4. The Center will be located in DBAB, Rooms 209 and 210.
20 The Center is different and separate from the Outage 21 Control Center under Outage Manager Greg Dunn. Greg will 22 continue to have responsibility for the planning and 23 execution of outage.
24 Next slide.
25 There are approximately 1,172 Mode 4 restraints at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
35 1 this time. A breakdown of our progress for these items is 2 listed on the screen. The major work remains in the area 3 of CR closure, work order closure, and component testing.
4 Next slide.
5 MR. GROBE: Mike, before you 6 go on, I want to make sure I understand the difference 7 between outage management and this new function.
8 If I understand correctly, what your focussing on is 9 not field work, coordination of field work and management 10 of field work, youre more focusing on what goes beyond 11 that; is that correct?
12 MR. ROSS: Yeah, think of it 13 as issues management. We want to focus on appropriately 14 addressing the issues and make sure when we do address 15 them, its the complete effort.
16 MR. GROBE: Okay. Once an 17 issue is ready for field work, then it would be managed by 18 the Outage Management Group?
19 MR. ROSS: Thats absolutely 20 correct.
21 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
22 MR. ROSS: Next slide.
23 Looking to Mode 3, there are 509 restraints and we again 24 show our work there.
25 We have maintained a list of issues affecting Mode MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
36 1 4. Our completion efforts have reduced this list to whats 2 on the next two slides. I would think its, what I would 3 call a manageable list at this time. Ill discuss briefly 4 each issue and kind of where we are on these issues.
5 HPI bearing or the high pressure injection bearing 6 issues due to the postulated sump debris. A licensing 7 amendment is being prepared for submittal that was designed 8 to allow one time use of the existing HPI pumps and proceed 9 to pressurize and heat up the reactor coolant system using 10 the reactor coolant pumps as a heat source and complete the 11 7-day NOP and NOT Test.
12 Additionally, two options are being worked that will 13 either install new HPI pumps that we already own or they 14 will modify the existing pumps to fully meet all 15 requirements. Later presentations will discuss these 16 options in detail.
17 Safety Features Actuation System Relay Replacement 18 is coming toward resolution, and probably have us put the 19 original relays back in after obtaining spares from other 20 utilities and other nuclear users. In completing a 21 detailed quality check of each of the system relays, 22 approximately 250, 60 relays involved in that effort.
23 The Electrical Transcient Analysis Program issues 24 are receiving additional focus. It appears to be one of 25 our major issues for Mode 4. Our project team continues to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
37 1 work to improve delivery of this issue.
2 Next -- you have the next slide up, thanks.
3 The Low Pressure Injection Pump Cyclone Separator 4 Clogging Issue appears to be on track and will not require 5 work for Mode 4, but will receive an evaluation for our mod 6 installation prior to restart.
7 4160 Undervoltage Relay Field Work started on the 8 first bus, which is being done this week.
9 The Air Operated Valve Program Issues are receiving 10 additional focus, and are presently holding out the reactor 11 coolant 250 pound test, due to the need for seal injection 12 and letdown valves that are involved in this issue.
13 MR. THOMAS: Mike, whats the 14 present scope of that? How many valves are you down to, 15 approximately?
16 MR. ROSS: There is twelve 17 valves that need work. There is seven requires, seven of 18 those require spring adjustments or adjustments of some 19 kind, and I think were going to end up with 12 valves 20 requiring ECRs. Thats kind of the scope of the work and 21 thats after having looked at a total of 83 valves in our 22 program.
23 MR. THOMAS: Thats what 24 remains still to do?
25 MR. ROSS: Yes. Thats MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
38 1 correct.
2 MR. THOMAS: Okay, thank you.
3 MR. ROSS: Back on the Air 4 Operated Valve Program Issues; we are putting additional 5 focus on that. And, that in itself is whats holding a 250 6 pound test. We could go to 250 pound and do that testing, 7 including pumping reactor coolant pumps without entering 8 Mode 4 because that testing is done less than 200 degrees.
9 The Makeup Pump Over-current Relay Setpoint Issue 10 appears to have been resolved, and were waiting closure 11 and documentation of that issue at this time.
12 The Emergency Diesel Generator Room Temperature 13 Issues, while not a Mode 4 concern, or a concern due to the 14 approach of warm weather; that continues to be a challenge 15 to us and there is a lot of effort going on in that area.
16 The major issues for Mode 4, as we see it now, are 17 the High Pressure Injection Pump, the ETAP Issue, and the 18 Air-operated Valve Program Issues. All are receiving 19 additional focus and resources, and we do believe we have 20 workover resolutions for all of those issues.
21 Next slide.
22 Looking ahead to Mode 1 and 2; there is 396 mode 23 restraints for Mode 2. And 39 mode restraints to complete 24 for Mode 1. As you can see, the majority of that work lies 25 on our Mode 4 and 3 preparation.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
39 1 In closing, the high pressure injection pump, the 2 ETAP and the air-operated valve issues are definitely 3 solvable and receiving additional focus. Additionally, we 4 have not identified any items that we would classify as 5 unsolvable or not doable through total restart.
6 Im open to questions.
7 No questions, I would like to turn back to Mr. Myers 8 for discussion on the high pressure injection pump issues 9 and options. Thank you.
10 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
11 Weve talked in here several times about the issue 12 of the high pressure safety injection pump that weve 13 hypothesized. Basically, that issue has to do with 14 potential debris. Were talking about debris so fine that 15 it would pass through the sump strainer that we install; 16 and over time, over a long period of time, would erode the 17 internal clearances, specifically in the hydrostatic 18 bearings, which are internal to this pump on each end of 19 the pump shaft. And then -- Im sorry. Hydrostatic 20 bearing in the center, and then also debris on the bearings 21 at the end.
22 Weve looked at a couple of options today. The 23 first option was to replace the pump. As we stated 24 earlier, we went out and we bought two pumps that we found 25 in the industry that were from plants that were not, not MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
40 1 ever completed. We have those two pumps. We own those two 2 pumps as we speak. And, the second approach was to modify 3 the existing pumps.
4 You know, we know our equipment that we have now.
5 Its worked well. The pump that we have now is high 6 reliability. If there is a modification that we can make 7 to that pump to ensure that it would operate under a 8 certain limited number of conditions, limited number of 9 conditions were talking about, is whenever the pump would 10 be called upon to take water from the low head safety 11 injection pumps, because it does not pump out of the 12 containment sump.
13 We can go into whats called a piggyback mode, where 14 we take low head safety injection pump water and pump that 15 through the suction of the high head pressure pumps, and 16 then we inject in long term core coolant at a high 17 pressure, if we need to.
18 So, there is certain events, a certain limited 19 number of events where wed want to use that mode of 20 operation. So, ensuring the reliability of those 21 postulated -- of this pump during those postulated events 22 is important.
23 If you go look at today, weve got George Beam here.
24 George is the Senior Vice President with Framatone, next to 25 me. What we did is, we went into a contractual agreement MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
41 1 for a sole source delivery of that pump, similar to what we 2 did with the reactor vessel head, if we decide to replace 3 the pump.
4 So, we have the new pumps. So, George is going to 5 give you the status of that project as we speak now, which 6 is ongoing.
7 Additionally, we also pursued the modification 8 option. Bob Coward is with us today. Bob is the Director 9 of Nuclear Services with NPR, which is a nuclear 10 engineering company that we use very often. Theyve been 11 focused on the modification approach, and that project is 12 also ongoing. Were going to describe what that 13 modification would look like today, and if we do decide to 14 go that approach.
15 Whats important, is that weve got to focus on what 16 are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
17 Every day we have different issues pop up, from anything 18 from increases in temperature to the new pumps in our 19 safety-related rooms, and would root room coolers take that, or 20 changes in loading on our diesels. So, weve got to find 21 the right technical issue, the right technical approach for 22 the plant.
23 So, were very confident these two approaches are 24 both doable; and weve got to, in the next few weeks, 25 decide exactly which one were going to do, because after MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
42 1 we do the NOP test, we have to get started on one of them.
2 Okay?
3 So, with that, Ill turn it over to George.
4 MR. BEAM: Thank you, Lew.
5 As Lew Myers said, I represent Framatone, the 6 Nuclear Services Business. And I think youre aware, 7 Framatone bought the former nuclear assets of the Babcock &
8 Wilcocx Wilcox Company, which Ive been a part of for 20 years.
9 Babcock and Wilcox designed the original HPI system 10 as part of the primary system that was delivered to 11 Davis-Besse, and provided those pumps and motors under a 12 subcontract. So, we have a lot of engineering analysis 13 already in support of the existing systems. So, when this 14 came up as a potential self-managed task where Framatone 15 would come in and work with the FENOC assets, it was easy 16 to work our engineering capability in with the FENOC 17 engineering capability, because of all the past design 18 information that we had.
19 The challenge is to, is pretty straightforward, in 20 that we basically will take pumps and put them back into 21 the same place. The challenge is that these pumps are a 22 different design, the motors are a different design, 23 hookups are different, so its a little bit more of a 24 logistical challenge or technical challenge than just a 25 straightforward replacement.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
43 1 Were currently performing the following scopes for 2 the replacement; the complete engineering design and 3 analysis, including a safety analysis. As Lew mentioned, 4 procurement of replacement pumps and motors. The pumps 5 right now are at a facility in Charlotte, North Carolina.
6 The motors are in Texas, and theyre going, undergoing 7 teardown, where were looking at what is required to do the 8 modifications and upgrades.
9 We also have done photogrammetry on the penetration 10 room to look at what modifications were going to have to 11 do, procurement of required piping and components and 12 fixtures to go in there. Photogrammetry, you know, is the 13 precision measurement capability used a lot in steam 14 generator replacement to do precision fitups for narrow 15 groove welding. So, basically, were down to mills mils in 16 trying to measure the interferences that are required to 17 put these pumps in here.
18 We will remove the existing pumps and motors, which 19 is not an easy task by any means. Its very tight quarters 20 in this room. Removal of interferences. The installation 21 of the replacement pumps and motors, which are slightly 22 bigger than what the existing pumps and motors are. The 23 final acceptance test and procedure. And then, participate 24 in final acceptance testing once the pumps are 25 operational.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
44 1 Next slide.
2 The current status is, the project is being 3 self-managed task. Were working now with FENOC to define 4 self-managed from a standpoint of QA Program in Lynchburg, 5 Virginia, and QA at the site to do the work. We have 6 procured the two pumps and motors. As I said, theyre in 7 the OEM shops for upgrades and checkout.
8 Its a four-party transaction right now, between 9 Westinghouse, Flow Serve, Framatone and FENOC in designing 10 the final configuration. The pumps are a little bit 11 larger, not much larger, but just a little bit larger, and 12 the motors have a greater horsepower. So, were having to 13 work that into the whole analysis scheme to figure out 14 exactly how were going to run them between the diesel and 15 heat loads.
16 The last bullet is just simply to say, these, the 17 safety analysis, design and construction work is all, 18 getting the pumps and motors is the easy part. Trying to 19 figure out how to get them in this room and get them tied 20 in together, and doing all of that work, is probably going 21 to be the most challenging thing for this whole project.
22 Thats currently what were working on in parallel 23 with the other options being worked on.
24 Any questions?
25 MR. THOMAS: Is it too early to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
45 1 tell, youre going to have to derate the pump in some 2 fashion. Have you decided on a method to do that; and as 3 well, a motor may or may not have to be derated from a 4 horsepower standpoint. Has that decision been made yet?
5 MR. BEAM: As a matter of 6 fact, that phone call was happening this afternoon at 4:00 7 to figure out the final configuration of both the motor and 8 pump, between the electrical output and the heat load that 9 goes on in that room, but we have not made a final decision 10 on exactly what the final horsepower will be for the motor, 11 or the pump output.
12 MR. THOMAS: Okay, thanks.
13 MR. BEAM: But it will be 14 done this afternoon.
15 MR. GROBE: George, this is 16 not really a question for you, but what youve described is 17 a fairly complex engineering challenge, as well as a 18 complex number of interfaces between different 19 organizations.
20 Lew, it gives me an opportunity to ask a related 21 question, thanks.
22 MR. MYERS: Youre welcome.
23 MR. GROBE: Last December, 24 individuals in your engineering organization surveyed a 25 number of folks regarding the at-risk change process. And, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
46 1 the question at that point was whether or not the extensive 2 use of at-risk changes created a perception of production 3 over safety. And there was a significant concern at that 4 time that utilization of that process at the extent that 5 was being done during this outage presented a challenge to 6 the concept of production over safety and quality.
7 And more recently, during our inspection of the sump 8 modification, we identified a number of issues regarding 9 the quality of calculations, and those calculations were 10 done by the subcontracted engineering firm, Intercon Enercon; and 11 accepted through the Intercon Enercon review and approval process, 12 and accepted through your review and approval process, and 13 those problems werent picked up.
14 Im not sure if the at-risk change process 15 contributed to that, but I would like to hear a little bit 16 about the utilization of at-risk change at Davis-Besse and 17 what youve learned from the experience with the sump 18 modification and calculations, and where you stand on these 19 issues?
20 MR. MYERS: You know, an 21 at-risk change for us, you know, doesnt mean that the 22 engineering is not done. What it means is, some of the, I 23 would say the last part of the validation. So, there is a 24 risk, financial risk of doing the at-risk change approach, 25 you know. It is a more expedient process, but it doesnt MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
47 1 have all the rigor that a normal change process would 2 have. And before you go to closure and use that, that 3 component, you finalize that with normal mod process.
4 So, the checks and balances are in there to ensure 5 that you dont put something in place thats not had the, 6 the complete modification done, but it does put you some 7 financial risk up front.
8 Weve used that pretty extensively on the, many of 9 the mods that weve installed to-date. What were doing 10 with this one, the approach is to do the test, the restart 11 test that we talked about, NOP Test first. What that 12 allows us to do, is take these pumps and the motors and 13 make the necessary modifications and not use the at-risk 14 change, because we would install the pumps and motors after 15 the NOP Test.
16 So, on this particular change I wouldnt anticipate 17 that we would be utilizing the at-risk change process.
18 MR. GROBE: Okay. Do you 19 have any, maybe Fred, you can pipe in from the quality 20 perspective, if youre aware of assessments that quality 21 has done in this area. Do you have a sense of the level of 22 challenge the at-risk change process presents to your 23 organization?
24 MR. VON AHN: The at-risk change 25 process, Jack, as you know is a generally accepted process MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
48 1 throughout the industry, and there are certain steps we 2 take throughout that process that the product is not 3 delivered and turned over and operationally accepted until 4 all the Is or-- Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted.
5 So, Im not aware, I dont know, John, do we have 6 any specific information on that?
7 MR. REDDINGTON: No, we have not 8 done any correlation between any errors that we found in 9 engineering and draw a correlation with the at-risk change 10 process. We did bring that issue up ourselves from a 11 quality standpoint early on, and, what we found is that 12 they have the Engineering Assessment Board. There is 13 checks and balances before even an at-risk change gets 14 issued to the field. So, it does go through a certain 15 level of rigor prior to the field guys giving it for 16 implementation.
17 MR. MYERS: You asked the 18 question last time about the calculation issue that we had 19 on containment sump. I went back and looked. Now, my 20 understanding, we had added up all the margins, we still 21 had plenty of margin, but there was an issue there, Im 22 trying to remember what you call, the diffuser, that we had 23 not taken in account for it in the calculation, but there 24 was an issue.
25 I dont think that had anything to do with the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
49 1 at-risk change. It really had more to do with the rigor 2 that the vendor used in their validation process and how 3 they, two things; how the vendor, when they developed the 4 mod, where they got the, some of the information from. The 5 sources of information, we found some other numbers that 6 were not as on conservative active as we would like, and 7 one of the accumulators.
8 So, we found several problems as we went through 9 that validation process with the vendor and some of the 10 numbers not being as rigorous what we would like.
11 Additionally, what they have is, that we pay them to 12 do, was the validation process. They hand that off to 13 another engineer, that other engineer validates that 14 calculation as a thorough and adequate calculation. You 15 know, that vendor controls, in this particular mod, I 16 think, its an issue more than the at-risk change process.
17 Because it was, when we were reviewing, what you were 18 reviewing as organization was a final product.
19 MR. GROBE: What have you 20 done to strengthen your owners acceptance on vendor work 21 products since the sump issues came forward?
22 MR. MYERS: You know, we 23 tried to strengthen our reviews in-house. Weve also tried 24 to strengthen our engineering oversight review board 25 reviews, some additional criteria there, where weve gone MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
50 1 back and tried to look at the mod calculation. We had 2 owners acceptance. Owners acceptance is not a 3 comprehensive review of the calculation. Were 4 strengthening that also.
5 If you want to discuss that in great detail, I need 6 to get Jim Powers involved.
7 MR. GROBE: Right, I didnt 8 see him in the audience here with you.
9 MR. MYERS: No, hell be with 10 you tomorrow. Ask him that question.
11 MR. GROBE: Yeah. You had a 12 number of complex engineering issues that youre beginning 13 to bring to closure and a lot of engineering work is being 14 done by subcontracted organizations. I think it would be 15 useful to hear a little more about this subject at our next 16 meeting.
17 MR. MYERS: We can add that to 18 the agenda next time. Be glad to.
19 20 MR. COWARD: Hi, Im Bob 21 Coward. Im with MPR Associates. MPR, I guess were an 22 engineering company formed about four years ago by Harry 23 Mandil, Bob Panoff and Ted Rockwell. They were the three 24 chiefs that built independence working for Admiral Rickover 25 in the design and construction of the Nautilus and then MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
51 1 shipping port.
2 I think, you know, we provide a wide variety of 3 engineering services in the nuclear industry, with the 4 common theme being the concept of trying to take the rigor 5 and depth and quality of the naval reactors approach to 6 engineering and apply it to commercial industry. So, 7 thats sort of where were coming from.
8 FirstEnergy asked us to take a look at this issue, 9 the HPI pump issue, just because its a fairly complex 10 issue, and, you know, all the solutions seem to be 11 difficult.
12 And, I guess, and also the idea that the pump we 13 have works well. So, what we looked at was the idea of, 14 rather that replace the pump, can we come up with an 15 approach in which we modify the pump, so the postulated 16 degradation mechanism wont occur. So we can be confident, 17 a hundred percent confident, that in the event of a loss of 18 coolant accident the pump will work acceptably.
19 Which given, I can just tell you my own personal 20 opinion, we know several other people, pump experts whove 21 looked at the pump, who think there is a very good chance 22 that the pump would work as is even without modifications.
23 But in order to be sure, in order to be safe, we want to 24 make sure we have sufficient safety margins in the plant.
25 The idea was, we would come up with a design approach to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
52 1 modify it to get that level of confidence.
2 And, Im going to show you in just a moment what the 3 concept is, just so people, because people havent seen it 4 before, but basically, what it comes down to, the approach 5 we laid out involves a number of steps. The first is to 6 design modification. We do have to make some modifications 7 to the pump itself.
8 Our approach involves not just modifications to the 9 pump, but a rather detailed testing approach, using both 10 mockup testing and some testing in the plant, to 11 demonstrate that the approach is acceptable and the 12 modification performs its intended function, and the pump 13 would work acceptably under the design conditions.
14 We also have some analyses that we do to support the 15 modification. Well do some motor dynamics analysis to 16 show the pump will still function properly; we wont have 17 vibration problems; wont run at critical speeds.
18 We do some hydraulic analysis to demonstrate that 19 the changes were making wont affect the ability of the 20 pump to perform its intended function from a pumping 21 capability perspective. And since were making some 22 modifications to the pump; not the, what Ill call, ASME 23 code pressure boundary parts, but there are parts in the 24 pump in which would be, that do react a pressure 25 difference. Since were making modifications to them, we MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
53 1 want to do some stress analyses to confirm that the stress 2 levels remain acceptable.
3 Weve already done the preliminary versions of all 4 those analyses. Ill talk about that later. But, moving 5 forward, we have to do the final versions.
6 We would do the mockup testing. Wed implement the 7 modifications, and once again, do a post modification test 8 program to ensure everything worked out okay.
9 If I could get the next slide, Marla. Just to get 10 everybody, make sure everybody is on the same page.
11 This is the fourth stage pump volute from the 12 Davis-Besse HPI pump. This piece right here, this 13 component is stationary inside the pump. Its a stationary 14 part of the element. And, the pump is a multi-stage pump.
15 I think there is 11 stages within the pump. This is the 16 four stage.
17 And, if you look carefully, there is a hole there 18 and hole there. Those are the take-offs for the flow which 19 goes from this volute back to the hydrostatic bearing 20 supply. And, thats sort of, you know, the flow is inside 21 here, goes out that hole to the bearing, basically coming 22 out this hole. Theyre 180 degrees apart; same basic 23 function. And this hole is about 3/8 of an inch in 24 diameter.
25 The tubing back to the bearing has an orifice in it, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
54 1 which is only about 110 mills mils,.11 inches in diameter. And 2 there are some clearances in the bearing itself, which are 3 only I think about 15 mills mils. And so, given that the sump 4 screen is about 3/16 of an inch, the mesh; clearly, I could 5 get particulate into pump flow, which could plug not this 6 hole, but could plug the orifice and could plug those 7 clearances.
8 So, this is sort of what we start with. And, we say 9 to ourselves, well, what are we tying to do? Were trying 10 to keep debris from going down that hole, because if we can 11 keep it out of that hole, the pump should work acceptably.
12 So, if I could get the next slide, Marla.
13 The concept weve come up with, and I apologize, 14 weve sort of, for the hole in the top, this is a backwards 15 view. This is a see-through, looking at the hole in the 16 bottom right corner from the last slide.
17 The concept weve come up with is to basically go in 18 and create a recess or small excavation on the volute, 19 just enough room to allow us to put a strainer on the 20 surface. If you want to think of it this way, its 21 essentially just another sump screen, just like inside 22 containment.
23 This strainer has a considerable number of smaller 24 holes, such that the overall flow area through the stainer 25 is much larger than the port size, so that they prevent MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
55 1 getting debris through the hole into the port; and also a 2 size, so in the event 90 percent in our concept, even if 90 3 percent of these holes got blocked with debris, we would 4 still have satisfactory bearing operation.
5 And by inserting this screen basically flush with 6 the surface, one of the key advantages this approach offers 7 is that the pumped flow itself is going to make this sort 8 of naturally clearing. We expect that whats going to 9 happen as the pump is pumping, to use a phrase, it will be 10 self-flushing. Any debris which is filtered by the 11 strainer will just get reintrained in the pump flow and 12 pumped right back into containment into the sump.
13 So, some of the earlier question, some of the 14 earlier design concepts from a month or two ago, which had 15 various filters and strainers installed outside of the pump 16 itself, they had the problem of how do I get the 17 particulate, filter particulate back into containment.
18 This approach solves that problem by never letting it get 19 out of the main pump flow.
20 So, if I could get the next slide, Marla.
21 It turns out, as Mike talked about before, one of 22 the issues that is still being resolved, is cyclone 23 separators on the low pressure injection pumps. Well, it 24 turns out there is a very similar issue on the high 25 pressure injection pumps.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
56 1 If I remember correctly, I think the LPI pumps, it 2 was found as the extended extent of condition on this one, where 3 there is a cyclone separator in the flow path from the 4 pump, pumped fluid back to the pump seal. And then in this 5 design, this is a different location on the pump, but that 6 right there, is a flow port through the pump casing itself, 7 going out to the cyclone separator.
8 That is only about an 8th of an inch in diameter; 9 smaller than the 3/16 inch sump screen. So, theoretically, 10 I could also plug the intake to that port. So, the design 11 concept is to take the same kind of approach where I take 12 this strainer, Im going to create a slight recess in that 13 pump part, and install that over the flow path of the 14 cyclone separator.
15 And, we believe that those modifications would 16 work. Were very confident they can be made to work.
17 Were confident that the strainers will be self-flushing.
18 Weve had discussions with the pump vendor. Weve had 19 discussions with other pump vendors to confirm those 20 assumptions, and everyone is very confident.
21 So, what we would do is, we would do those 22 modifications; and in parallel, we would go through a 23 rather extensive testing, mockup testing procedure, to 24 verify the pump will still function properly and the 25 bearing will still work.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
57 1 So, in terms of -- the next slide, Marla -- sort of 2 where were at, whats the status.
3 MR. SHERON: Bob, before you go 4 on, how do you hold those strainers in place? Are they 5 welded in or what?
6 MR. COWARD: As of right now, 7 that concept is welded, but thats not been finally 8 determined yet.
9 Where are we at? We have conceptual designs for 10 the modification and the mockup fixtures. We actually need 11 four or five different mockup fixtures to fully demonstrate 12 the satisfactory satisfaction of this modification.
13 Weve done preliminary analyses. Weve done 14 preliminary rotor dynamics analysis, preliminary hydrolic hydraulic 15 analysis, and preliminary stress analyses. So, weve done 16 the preliminary analyses, and were in the process now of 17 getting ready to do the final analysis.
18 At this point, sort of the key activity were 19 working on that were just starting in the last few days is 20 the detailed procedure and specification of the mockup 21 testing. We think thats critical to demonstrating the 22 success of this approach.
23 In particular, as an example, one of the things we 24 have to come up with, is we have to come up with a recipe 25 for the soup. I think people have used that phrase, where MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
58 1 we want to demonstrate that the hydrostatic bearing will 2 still function properly with the strainers installed. And 3 so, one of the things we have to do for our mockup testing 4 is, we have to load the pump flow path with debris, which 5 would, you know bound, considerably bound the type of 6 debris we would expect to see in the plant following the 7 LOCA.
8 So, that activity is in process right now to come up 9 with that approach and were confident we can do that.
10 There has been a lot of work done by, you know, sponsored 11 by the NRC in the last 20 years, plus theres been a lot of 12 work done specific for Davis-Besse in the last year looking 13 at the regeneration and retransport within containment 14 within the sump.
15 And so, other than developing a test specification, 16 you know, were also finalizing the detailed designs for 17 the modification and mockup testing fixtures.
18 MR. GROBE: When you say 19 mockup testing fixtures, youre not actually going to use 20 the pump?
21 MR. COWARD: No, what we found 22 was, it was impractical to test this, although we think the 23 pump would pass, it was impractical to test the pump, the 24 actual pump.
25 Trying to take the pump out, take it to a test MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
59 1 facility, and test it with debris, given its contaminated, 2 was sort of, you know, it wasnt a nonstarter, but it was 3 close. And, we dont want to test the actual pump with 4 debris, because we dont want to introduce debris into the 5 plant.
6 So, what weve come up with, its actually a 7 sequence of separate effects touch testing with some 8 collective testing at the end to show that all the various 9 features and portions, items of interest will still be 10 acceptable.
11 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Bob, have you ever 12 encountered an issue such as this before?
13 MR. COWARD: Such as?
14 MR. ZWOLINSKI: The problem with 15 this HPI pump.
16 MR. COWARD: This specific 17 problem?
18 MR. ZWOLINSKI: This, or something 19 like it?
20 MR. COWARD: No.
21 MR. MYERS: Let me ask him a 22 question. Is this same approach used elsewhere in pumps?
23 MR. COWARD: Weve done some 24 surveys; and clearly, the concept of installing a strainer 25 in a flow line to the hydrostatic bearing is not unusual, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
60 1 thats a common design approach. Installing it in the pump 2 itself where were installing it is not, Im not sure if we 3 found a specific application of that design; however, weve 4 spoken with pump designers and pump vendors, and theyve 5 agreed there is no reason it shouldnt work.
6 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Are you far enough 7 along with your thinking that you would be able to do this 8 in place; or would you have to move the pumps?
9 MR. COWARD: Thats mostly a 10 workmanship issue. We would want to have people who are 11 very good at doing pump breakdown and maintenance do this; 12 and our expectation is they prefer to do that in a 13 controlled setting, rather than in the pump room.
14 MR. MYERS: Thats right.
15 MR. ZWOLINSKI: So, if you 16 embarked on this particular fix, you would probably be 17 taking the HPI pumps out of that room?
18 MR. COWARD: We would be taking 19 the -- Im not sure, are you familiar with the design of 20 these pumps?
21 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Yes.
22 MR. COWARD: There is an 23 element thats inserted into the casing.
24 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Um-hmm.
25 MR. COWARD: The element which MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
61 1 is inserted in, the pump part, the guts, we will be 2 removing that component from the pump room; yes.
3 MR. MYERS: Not the whole 4 pump.
5 MR. COWARD: Not the whole 6 pump.
7 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I was trying to 8 garner a sense of the amount of work required to get after 9 that particular pump.
10 MR. COWARD: We had four people 11 do walkdowns of the pump removal last Thursday and Friday.
12 They were in there all day. And their conclusion at the 13 end of the two days was they had developed an approach for 14 taking the pumps out. There is some effort involved, yes, 15 but theyre confident they can do it.
16 MR. GROBE: Do you have a 17 sense of the relative flow rates to these two ports?
18 MR. COWARD: Oh.
19 MR. GROBE: Just in rough 20 terms. I would imagine its fairly low.
21 MR. COWARD: Yes. The one to 22 hydrostatic bearing, I think is measured in less than 10 23 gpm. If I remember correctly, the one to the cyclone 24 separator I think is only 1 or 2, but dont quote me on 25 that.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
62 1 MR. GROBE: And in the, what 2 you call soup in the concoction for the soup, the recipe 3 for the soup.
4 MR. COWARD: Yes?
5 MR. GROBE: Are you 6 considering the hardness of the materials as well as the 7 physical size?
8 MR. COWARD: Yes.
9 MR. GROBE: I would think 10 that would be a critical component.
11 MR. COWARD: Thats, yes, 12 thats in the full parameter; its the size, the shape, and 13 the hardness.
14 MR. GROBE: Thats an 15 interesting challenge.
16 MR. COWARD: Yes. The whole 17 project is.
18 MR. PASSEHL: Yes, I have a 19 question.
20 MR. SHERON: Im sorry. We 21 would probably like, once you firmed it up, learn a little 22 bit more about your separate effects test that you want to 23 run, in terms of how it would appear or compare with, say, 24 the integral test, because my understanding is you dont 25 plan on doing an integral test; right?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
63 1 MR. COWARD: Not of the whole 2 configuration, no. And, also, we already recommended to 3 FirstEnergy that as part of the approach in the near term, 4 although we feel very confident that this can be made to 5 work, we also recommended to FirstEnergy that we suggest 6 that they assemble a small team of experts, you know, a 7 murder board, just to go through the whole concept to make 8 sure that nothing has been missed.
9 MR. MYERS: We have to talk 10 about Safety Conscious Work Environment, to use a different 11 term.
12 MR. GROBE: Im not sure I 13 heard you, Lew. Your mike wasnt on.
14 MR. MYERS: We would use a 15 thorough, rigorous hearing board, rather than a murder 16 board. Ive got to do a safety conscious work environment, 17 okay?
18 MR. COWARD: Sorry, Lew.
19 MR. GROBE: You dont have a 20 spare pump, spare HPI?
21 MR. MYERS: We have a spare 22 rotating assembly, but we dont have a whole pump, no.
23 MR. GROBE: So, you really 24 dont have the capability of doing integrated testing?
25 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
64 1 MR. COWARD: The spare was 2 actually removed from the plant last year, so its 3 contaminated.
4 MR. MYERS: If you go look at 5 the testing, what we would be doing though, and compare 6 that, we would have more testing of this type than I think 7 anyone in the industry for this particular application.
8 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I believe I heard 9 one of you gentleman say something to the effect that a 10 number of industry experts have looked at this particular 11 pump and associated scenario, and call into question the 12 need for any change whatsoever.
13 MR. COWARD: Correct.
14 MR. ZWOLINSKI: So, you all are 15 talking about a lot of effort whatever way you go. The 16 third option of not doing anything is off the table?
17 MR. MYERS: Thats not 18 something we have on the table at all now; not doing 19 anything. No. Its off the table.
20 MR. ZWOLINSKI: So, youve 21 concluded that, that you disagree with these experts and 22 you want to go forward with one of these, at least two 23 options, and whatever else you may come up with?
24 MR. MYERS: I think, I think 25 its important that we, we look at these options. Either MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
65 1 one of these two options gives us a very good, thorough and 2 rigorous approach to make sure that the quality of our 3 pumps for these designated efforts, the quality of our 4 pumps would ensure good reliability.
5 And I think its important that since weve had the 6 issue, that rather than just have an opinion, that we go do 7 something to improve the over, ensure that we have that 8 reliability.
9 So, really, our intention right now is one of these 10 two approaches now. The idea of doing nothing is not 11 something we considered. I think thats correct; isnt 12 that right, Gary?
13 MR. LEIDICH: Thats right.
14 MR. MYERS: We believe the 15 pump would work as is. We believe that. But we, you know, 16 it would be very difficult to really validate. We think 17 this approach would give us pretty thorough validation.
18 And, also, the new pump installation, the way were 19 designing the new pump with the hardnesses, and the, the 20 amount of clearances would give us a very good reliability 21 too. So, both approaches are pretty sound.
22 MR. RULAND: As I understand 23 it, youll need to submit a license amendment for only one 24 of these options; is that correct?
25 MR. MYERS: No, thats not, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
66 1 thats not true. It depends on the, the approach we take 2 for installation.
3 One of the things, if our Mode 4 Test slipped out, 4 there were some technical issues, that would probably go 5 ahead and make the modification or install the pump, one of 6 the two.
7 But, you know, right now, the way were looking at 8 the situation, the Mode 4 Test, assuming its near term, 9 gets rid of a ton of issues. I mean, it ensures that 10 equipment is working properly. It allows us to do a lot of 11 PMT testing. Allows us to ensure the head we bought 12 doesnt have any leaks in it, you know. There is a lot of 13 components up there, and gaskets and stuff.
14 So, if you look at what the NOP Testing does, it 15 allows us to do a bottom head inspection, ensure that we 16 dont have any leaks there. So, assuming we can do that in 17 the near term is something that we would go forward with.
18 MR. PASSEHL: I just had another 19 question. You mentioned there is, you believe there is a 20 self-limiting feature on the screen that would flush 21 itself. Is part of your mockup testing intended to verify 22 that?
23 And the second part of my question is, you mentioned 24 a 90 percent debris loading where you feel you would still 25 have the adequate loading to the bearing. Would your MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
67 1 mockup testing verify, you know, at what point your screen 2 could be loaded and have debris on it and still have the 3 proper flow to the bearing?
4 MR. COWARD: The mockup, the 5 tests concept as we pointed out so far, would clearly 6 validate that the strain, the strainer is self-flushing. I 7 mean, thats a critical element of the whole approach. If 8 we cant show that, then we cant show the thing will 9 work.
10 And the second is, at this point, we had not planned 11 on doing what Ill call the limit test, where how much can 12 we block before the hydrostatic bearing stops working 13 properly. We had planned on basically just demonstrating 14 the 90, 95 percent blockage, it will still work properly.
15 I guess, so, were not, I dont know the firm answer to 16 that question yet.
17 MR. PASSEHL: Okay, thank you.
18 After this section, and before Mark starts, we would 19 like to take a ten minute break. Everybody gets a chance 20 to stretch their legs.
21 MR. MYERS: I was going to 22 suggest that.
23 MR. PASSEHL: Okay. So, 20 24 minutes until, well reconvene.
25 (Off the record.)
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
68 1 MR. PASSEHL: Okay, next on the 2 agenda is Mark Bezilla.
3 MR. MYERS: You know, before 4 you start, we were talking about the pump. And you know, 5 if the no option was an option. I guess overall I thought 6 about it during the break talking to Gary.
7 I think its an issue that we have to address. And, 8 I think from a Safety Culture standpoint, that we might be 9 from an analysis process to demonstrate, or from an 10 analysis standpoint, we think its okay.
11 But we can gain a lot of margin by either installing 12 a new pump or the mods to ensure the pump operates these 13 couple of small scenarios in a very reliable manner. So, 14 its our intention at this time, you know, to go forward 15 with one of the two options; and I validated that here for 16 you. Okay.
17 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Thank you.
18 MR. BEZILLA: Okay, thank you.
19 Ive got two Desired Outcomes today. First, I would 20 like to tell you a little bit about my previous and current 21 Davis-Besse experience. And also, I would like to present 22 some of our recent Operations Sections accomplishments and 23 our status on readiness for restart in the Operations 24 Section.
25 As Lew stated, I was previously at Davis-Besse MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
69 1 during 1987, 1993 time frame, and I held an SRO, Senior 2 Reactor Operators License at Davis-Besse. I was a shift 3 supervisor, and then I was the Op. Superintendent. And as 4 Lew said, I had a couple of other stops on my way before I 5 ended up at Beaver Valley as the Site Vice President about 6 twelve months ago.
7 In my new assignment as Vice President at 8 Davis-Besse, as well a Plant Manager, Im excited about the 9 opportunity to restore Davis-Besse to safe, reliable 10 service. And even though I was a Site Vice President at 11 Beaver Valley, I have been involved in the Davis-Besse 12 restart activities for about six months or so.
13 Lew asked me to sponsor the Restart Readiness Review 14 Process for Davis-Besse. I helped create the process and 15 was involved in the Restart Review Meetings prior to Mode 6 16 and Mode 5. And this involvement helped me get up to speed 17 on some of the challenges and issues.
18 Let me now shift gears and tell you about some of 19 the recent Op. Section accomplishments and our status on 20 Readiness for Restart.
21 We have developed and implemented Operations and 22 Operations Leadership Plan. And, what we did was, we had 23 the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations come in and do an 24 assessment of Operations, as well as a number of internal 25 assessments.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
70 1 We bundled up those assessments and came up with, 2 Ill say, an improvement plan. And weve accomplished 3 about 90 percent of those actions to improve our 4 performance; and there is about ten percent that will be an 5 ongoing activity for us. We suspect it will take about 12 6 to 18 months to finish out those actions.
7 Weve developed and implemented a comprehensive 8 Expectations and Standards document. We trained all our 9 operators on the Expectations and Standards, and we use 10 shift turnovers to reenforce specifics out of those 11 Standards and Expectations on a daily basis.
12 Weve issued an Operations Leadership Statement; 13 and what this is, Ill say, its Managements expectations 14 for the Operations leadership and the requirements for an 15 operationally focused and operationally led site.
16 Weve expanded the Operator Observation Program.
17 What we want from each of our on shift Senior Reactor 18 Operators is a minimum of eight observations a month. And 19 we use these observations to watch our people, watch their 20 behaviors and performance, and then coach those folks on 21 those areas that need to be improved with the overall goal 22 being the improved performance.
23 Weve completed an NRC Appendix R Fire Inspection.
24 And, some of the positives that were noted out of that 25 inspection was that the plant support was recognized as a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
71 1 positive in support of that inspection. The NRC also 2 acknowledged that our self-assessments had been pretty 3 thorough in regard to Appendix R and fire protection. And 4 the NRC recognized our documentation process and website as 5 a good configuration management tool.
6 Additionally, out of that inspection, there were a 7 handful of questions that were asked that weve entered 8 into our Corrective Action Program. We need to do some 9 follow-up, and we will have interface with the staff to 10 provide answers to those questions.
11 MR. GROBE: Mark, I 12 appreciate you bringing up that inspection. Let me just 13 provide some additional detail on that.
14 We have a routine inspection program called The 15 Baseline Program; and that includes once every three years 16 performing a very comprehensive design inspection. We 17 always talk about this as fire protection, but its really 18 not fire protection per se, its more focused on the 19 ability to safely shut down and maintain the plant in a 20 safe configuration in the event of a fire in various areas 21 of the plant.
22 Davis-Besse was due for that inspection prior to 23 restart. And as I mentioned, its a very intensive 24 inspection. And we evaluated the need for that inspection, 25 and concluded that what we wanted to do was perform a kind MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
72 1 of a scoping effort, where we brought in three engineers 2 that are expert in this area for a week and ran you through 3 your bases paces. And the results of that inspection were fairly 4 positive.
5 We concluded we dont need to do the Intensive 6 Design Inspection prior to restart. Well put that in the 7 schedule for calendar year 04.
8 But what we did find, one issue, the panel received 9 the results from the team in one of our internal meetings, 10 and concluded that we dont need to do that full inspection 11 prior to restart; but there was one issue thats 12 outstanding that we need to come back and look at prior to 13 our ability to close out that Restart Checklist item, and 14 thats the firm hydraulic calcs that we expect to be done 15 prior to us arriving on site. They werent completed.
16 So, once those calculations are completed, if you 17 make sure we are aware of that, and well schedule time to 18 come back to take a look at those analyses.
19 MR. BEZILLA: Thank you. Well 20 do that.
21 Okay, Significant Training Accomplishments.
22 Through the shutdown period here, weve continued our 23 operator requalification training, and I think thats a 24 positive.
25 Also, weve successfully completed the annual MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
73 1 requalification training and testing for all of our 2 operators, both licensed and nonlicensed; and we did have a 3 couple of failures, but we successfully remediated those 4 individuals.
5 We completed License Operator Responsibilities 6 Training. What this was, we provided training to the 7 operators on what a Nuclear Regulatory Commission issue issued 8 Senior Reactor Operator/Reactor Operator License meant to 9 them personally, and we completed that training.
10 We also completed Operability Determination Program 11 Upgrades and Training for our Senior Reactor Operators, 12 select engineers and some select support staff that deal 13 with Operability Determination. And as part of our 14 upgrades, we used industry peers to help us upgrade our 15 Operability Determination Process.
16 A couple of plans for going forward in regard to 17 operator training; were in the process right now of doing 18 a Just-In-Time Training on our heatup to Mode 3, our hold 19 at normal operating pressure and temperature, and then 20 subsequent cooldown, as well as some casualty and 21 contingency plans that may be encountered during those 22 evolutions.
23 MR. THOMAS: Mark, I would be 24 interested in hearing what having an SRO license means to 25 you personally. What your viewpoint on that is?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
74 1 MR. BEZILLA: Okay. I have had 2 the opportunity to have two Senior Reactor Operator 3 Licenses; one was on Three Mile, as you know, back in the 4 early 80s; and Davis-Besse, back in the late 80s, early 5 90s.
6 The way I look at it, that was you all, the federal 7 government, giving me permission to operate and oversee the 8 operations of that facility, if you will.
9 I would say its a lot of responsibility and 10 authority. What it means to me is that Im, as a Senior 11 Reactor Operator holder, Im imbued, I would say, with the 12 responsibility of protecting the health and safety of the 13 public. So, first and foremost, is making sure Im 14 operating that facility in a safe manner, so I would not 15 challenge the health and safety of the public. Then, of 16 course, I want to be as safe and reliable as possible.
17 MR. THOMAS: Thank you.
18 MR. BEZILLA: Back to the 19 training that were doing. The simulator instructors and 20 evaluators; theyre going to emphasize a few things for 21 us. These are things we think are real important to, Ill 22 say, successful error-free operations. And, thats proper 23 communication techniques, Senior Reactor Operator command 24 and control responsibilities, use and compliance of 25 procedures, focus on technical specification compliance, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
75 1 to reinforce other operations expectations and standards, 2 and thorough prejob briefs.
3 In addition, the training scenarios will closely 4 match the planned evolutions to make sure that our guys are 5 seeing how the plant is going to respond during the heatup, 6 during the hold, and during the cooldown.
7 The operation superintendents will also evaluate 8 each of those sessions and then provide coaching on areas 9 that we can improve at the end of those training sessions.
10 And, finally, I would like to talk a little bit 11 about some Operations led major evolutions since the 12 beginning of the year. Since the beginning of the year, 13 Operations has successfully conducted the following major 14 evolutions; integrated electrical bus testing, and there 15 were four tests that the guys performed. Integrated safety 16 features actuation system testing. There were two separate 17 tests there. Reactor Coolant System fill, drain, refill, 18 and then pressurization here to 50 pounds to do our initial 19 leak checks in the reactor coolant system, and 20 comprehensive high pressure injection testing on both 21 pumps.
22 The reason I mention those, is that those are fairly 23 complicated integrated type of tests and it requires a lot 24 of coordination between the Operations Department, as well 25 as some other support organizations from the site.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
76 1 Next slide, please.
2 Industry Feedback. I would like to spend a minute 3 just to let you know about some of the industry feedback 4 weve gotten in the Operations sections. The Institute of 5 Nuclear Power Operation has made three assist visits to 6 Davis-Besse. Two of them were specifically focused on 7 Operations, and one of them was a site, Ill say, visit; 8 and that site visit had twelve senior management members 9 from other nuclear facilities as well as senior IMPO INPO 10 personnel.
11 Additionally, there were seven Operations assessment 12 conducted by various management level personnel from other 13 nuclear power stations. And you can see some of the power 14 plants up there on the slide.
15 Then, lastly, the FENOC Corporate Nuclear Review 16 Board Operations Subcommittee has recently performed an 17 assessment of the plant looking particularly at Operations 18 Department Readiness.
19 Next slide.
20 Some of the positives we received from those bodies 21 that were taking a look at us; was that the "Shift Managers 22 are stepping up to their new leadership roles." This is 23 best evidenced by their challenging of engineering 24 conclusions; physical involvement in an observation of 25 field activities, most recently in some maintenance and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
77 1 refuel sequence activities; pursue the plant proper 2 resolution, and their ability to articulate their role.
3 "Standards are equal to or above industry norms."
4 Operations is being recognized as the sites lead 5 organization.
6 "Ownership of equipment in plant is improved."
7 "Vertical alignment in Operations is very good."
8 And, "Every interviewee complimented the greatly 9 improved management attitude toward, and expectation to 10 identify problems."
11 Lew will talk a little about Safety Conscious Work 12 Environment, but thats what thats talking about.
13 Next slide, please.
14 The industry also left us with some areas of 15 opportunities. Ill say these are the highlights. They 16 said, we need to work on "Establishing consistent 17 implementation of the Expectations and Standards when 18 stressful situations occur."
19 What this is, we want our operators to behave the 20 same way in a stressful situation as they do in a routine 21 situation. We want habits and behaviors to be second in 22 nature. We need to work on that.
23 We need to "improve facility housekeeping", overall 24 cleanliness. We just can improve in that area.
25 "Improve use of Pre-job Brief Checklist" for routine MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
78 1 activities.
2 There are opportunities to improve in our three-way 3 communication; and the implementation of our procedures is 4 not always consistent with our standard. So, they saw 5 areas and provided us feedback on procedure use and 6 appearance.
7 The last slide, please.
8 MR. GROBE: Mark, before you 9 go onto the last slide, were those last three issues 10 related to stressful situations or are those separate 11 issues?
12 MR. BEZILLA: Randy or Mike?
13 MR. STEVENS: Separate.
14 MR. BEZILLA: Separate issues.
15 MR. GROBE: Okay. What 16 specifically are you talking about when you talk about 17 consistent implementations of inspection, expectations and 18 standards in stressful situations; what other observations 19 were made that, where the operators performance slipped, 20 what areas did it slip in?
21 MR. BEZILLA: Lew would like to 22 answer this.
23 MR. MYERS: There was some 24 indications present when we were running drills in our 25 simulator that our operators didnt, could have proofed the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
79 1 plant more quickly than they did. There was some 2 reluctance to, quickly to do that. So, were going back 3 and reenforcing that standard that, you know, if youre 4 down, go to a conservative approach. So, that was one 5 indication that they taught us.
6 They also indicated that, that three-way 7 communication sometimes let down, while we were on duty.
8 So, those are the kinds of feedback we got.
9 MR. GROBE: I understand now, 10 I think. These were training induced stressful operations, 11 stressful situations.
12 MR. MYERS: Right.
13 MR. GROBE: So, the rest of 14 the findings were field work and that first finding was 15 training oriented. Okay, got it.
16 MR. BEZILLA: Yes.
17 Okay, then this last slide.
18 Just like a minute to talk about continuing 19 improvement plans within the Operations sections. Were 20 continuing our Just-In-Time Simulator Training; and thats 21 the heatup, hold at pressure, and then depressurization.
22 Were going to complete our assigned actions from 23 the Ops Sections Business Plan, thats that ten percent of 24 the improvement plans that are going to take us 12 to 18 25 months to complete.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
80 1 Were going to have continued emphasis on Safety 2 Culture and a robust Safety Conscious Work Environment.
3 Were going to continue to coach the operators in 4 establishing their ownership role at the site.
5 MR. THOMAS: Mark, could you 6 expand on that one a little bit?
7 MR. BEZILLA: Yeah. Thats just 8 we need to continue to reinforce, I will say, Ops 9 leadership and Ops ownership at the site. Ill give you 10 example today.
11 We had an activity planned to stroke a motor 12 operated valve. And the on-shift SRO took a look at that, 13 and based on the current plant conditions he said, Im not 14 sure if this is the right thing to do or the right time to 15 do that. He raised that up through his Ops management 16 chain.
17 They made the decision not to proceed with that 18 activity. Then he went and provided coaching to the 19 scheduling organization, provided them feedback on why they 20 had decided not to do that evolution. And they thought 21 there would be a better opportunity to do that the next day 22 or two.
23 So, thats the kind of leadership were looking for 24 from our operators.
25 MR. THOMAS: When you say MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
81 1 operators, what does that include?
2 MR. BEZILLA: That includes 3 Senior Reactor Operators, Reactor Operators, and the Field 4 Equipment Operators.
5 MR. THOMAS: Thank you.
6 MR. BEZILLA: Were going to 7 take look at our secondary plant startup plan and make sure 8 if there is any additional training that we need to provide 9 to the operators, that we will do that.
10 And then, lastly, I think this is a good news story 11 here. Were going to be recommencing the initial Senior 12 Reactor Operator and Reactor Operator License Class, and 13 thats scheduled for the June time frame. And thats 14 making the next group of operators for us; and that takes 15 anywhere from, Ill say, 15 to 18 months to complete that 16 training course. So, I think thats a real positive for 17 us.
18 So, that concludes my remarks. Any questions?
19 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Mark, focusing in 20 the control room, are there very many workarounds in the 21 control room?
22 MR. BEZILLA: Mike, would you 23 answer that for me, please?
24 MR. RODER: There are 25 currently seven workarounds, all scheduled to be completed MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
82 1 prior to startup.
2 MR. MYERS: Gentlemen, weve 3 been through our A-1 systems, our operator workaround, our 4 temporary mods. Right now, I believe every one of those 5 three, every one of those issues will be completed prior to 6 startup and on schedule.
7 Is that correct, Mike?
8 MR. RODER: Thats correct.
9 MR. THOMAS: So, youll start 10 up with no level one workarounds; is that a correct 11 statement?
12 MR. MYERS: Thats what I 13 said.
14 MR. THOMAS: Thats why I asked 15 if that was a correct statement.
16 MR. MYERS: All the ones we 17 know about we will solve. We could gain another one during 18 the startup.
19 MR. THOMAS: Based on what you 20 know now, the plant is not to startup with the current.
21 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
22 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I guess I asked 23 the question in the context, if there were a lot of 24 workarounds in the control room, have they been mimicked 25 over on the simulator, but if you dont have many, and it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
83 1 sounds as if youre essentially having zero, then the 2 simulator reflects the control room as you expect it to be, 3 and you are ready to restart.
4 MR. MYERS: Thats a standard 5 we would expect. If we have a temporary mod or its a long 6 term temporary mod or an operator workaround, we would 7 mimic it during training.
8 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Thank you.
9 MR. GROBE: During February 10 and March, there was a rather large work evolution that was 11 underway related to reassembly of the reactor coolant pump 12 motors and the reactor coolant pumps themselves. And there 13 is, its just an interesting story to read about.
14 There was a number of learnings that came out of 15 this. There was some mechanical maintenance challenges.
16 Ill just highlight a couple here; overtorquing flanges, 17 incorrect bolt engagement, some differences between various 18 alignment procedures for different components.
19 There was some planning issues, pump motor alignment 20 checks werent adequately identified in the initial scope 21 and the plan for accomplishing work. There was some 22 challenges with draining the reactor coolant system cold 23 legs, some operational type challenges, coordination.
24 There was some RP direction that deviated from the initial 25 work plan as far as what RP believed was appropriate MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
84 1 radiologic protection practices. Then a number of delays 2 in handoffs between work groups, operational tagging 3 delays.
4 Like I said, in reading through this, there is a 5 number of learnings I think that come out of this.
6 We heard about maintenance, mechanical maintenance 7 and some efforts that are underway there to identify 8 opportunities to improve and to implement some changes, 9 but I would also, I would like to hear about what youve 10 seen as a result of those changes in the maintenance 11 organization.
12 But I would also like to hear a little bit about 13 work coordination from the outage management group, 14 operational support, and particularly in this activity, 15 youre in increased risk configuration. And these various 16 activities significantly extended the time period that you 17 were in that increased risk configuration.
18 So, I would also like to hear from an Operations 19 perspective as far as risk management what youve learned 20 from this and what youve seen over the last month or two?
21 MR. BEZILLA: Jack, if I could, 22 I would defer that to Randy.
23 MR. FAST: Jack, let me 24 first, well start with the end in mind.
25 Working through that sequence of work, which was the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
85 1 replacement of four reactor coolant pump seals, we went 2 into that well knowing that we would be at reduced 3 inventory. That represents a higher challenge of risk to 4 the plant, because the time of boil is shorter. Through 5 that evolution, we, as an Operations Group, noted that the 6 work was not proceeding as we expected.
7 I was very pleased that our Senior Reactor Operators 8 were very vocal about what was going on. And they elevated 9 that immediately. In fact, Mike Roder, our Operations 10 Manager, myself, and key leaders from the Operations staff 11 looked at the work that was going on, and challenged the 12 Maintenance Organization to complete that work in a timely 13 fashion; however, it did do, Ill say there was a side 14 benefit in that it changed Operations behaviors.
15 For subsequent work we have instituted a, measures 16 that have the Shift Manager get directly involved in work 17 preparation and implementation of the work.
18 And there are two key areas I want to highlight.
19 The first of which is the work comes to the Work Support 20 Center, and before Operations will sign on and grant 21 authority to start that work, we are challenging the 22 Maintenance Organization to deliver the work products, the 23 work tasks that we have put hands-on materials necessary to 24 ensure that the work can be completed in a timely fashion.
25 Were ensuring that resources are allocated. And were MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
86 1 talking directly with the crafts people to verify that they 2 have every confidence that the work will go well.
3 I do have examples where the work was not in that 4 configuration and the shift manager turned that work away.
5 And that is the appropriate behavior for Operations.
6 There is a second issue I want to bring up as well, 7 in this number of issues that you raised. That was the 8 Return to Service after the work is complete, and meeting 9 the standards of housekeeping that Operations requires.
10 And what weve elected to do is walk down those 11 housekeeping, those areas with the Maintenance Organization 12 to ensure that housekeeping standards are managed and were 13 not releasing the clearance to allow that equipment to be 14 returned until housekeeping meets Operations expectations.
15 And with that, Ill turn it over to Mike to talk 16 about the things that, the Maintenance Organization has 17 risen to the challenge to take on to ensure that they are 18 ready to perform the work.
19 MR. STEVENS: Thanks, Randy.
20 We discussed a little bit last, as a result of that, 21 we put a multi-discipline team together at varying levels, 22 used our decision-making NOP to see what we could learn.
23 There are three major areas.
24 The first one and largest was lack of preparation, 25 and that was in the Maintenance Organization, as well as MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
87 1 all the supporting pieces, the parts and engineering 2 products. Second was supervisory involvement. Third was 3 work package quality.
4 From that, we put together an action plan in 5 implementing it. The most recent success I would say we 6 have is the current work were doing on the [(D-1)bus] Delta one, or 7 increased risk. We did not go into that maintenance 8 activity, because we were not ready. We needed some 9 additional engineering products. We needed some spare 10 parts. There were issues with releasing the relays.
11 So, it looks like the activity from Operations 12 challenge and Maintenance thorough review prior to 13 implementing the work is improving our performance; and 14 currently thats going pretty smoothly.
15 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thanks, 16 Mike.
17 Fred, have you folks had any observations both in 18 the Maintenance and Operations Management area over the 19 past month or so that you would like to add here?
20 MR. VON AHN: Yeah, I believe we 21 have, and John, why dont you give us some specifics on 22 those, and also some ones previous to that?
23 MR. REDDINGTON: John Reddington.
24 Okay, Ill talk loud. Is that all right?
25 We have seen Operations step up in their leadership MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
88 1 roles. Weve seen, we being Quality Assessment. We have 2 anecdotal evidence where Ops has, at a turnover meeting, at 3 one of the 6:30 meetings says, hey, we dont feel 4 comfortable with the status were getting. We want better 5 statuses, and its kind of held the management accountable 6 for that.
7 So, overall, I would say in the Operations area, 8 weve seen a lot of progress being made.
9 MR. VON AHN: John, what about 10 Maintenance?
11 MR. REDDINGTON: The problems we 12 see in Maintenance are still schedule issues, I would say.
13 Right now what we have is, we have a process that is 14 designed for online scheduling. And if youre in an 15 outage, as you guys know, you schedule everything ahead of 16 time and then prepare for it. So, what were finding 17 ourselves in is, were doing real time scheduling.
18 So, compensatory measures, like Randy and Mike have 19 talked about, are really whats driving the schedule. And 20 I see that as the biggest issue, the fact that we dont 21 have a good tight scheduling process.
22 MR. ZWOLINSKI: What you just 23 described for Operations is maybe some change in 24 management; has nothing to do with the leadership. Youre 25 not running the 6:30 meeting the way it should be run, so MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
89 1 now youre going to run it a little bit better.
2 MR. REDDINGTON: Well, the point 3 was, the operator stood up and said, look. I mean, the 4 operator wasnt the guy running the meeting. The operator 5 said, I need to know a better status of what my plant is, 6 and he made sure everybody bellied up to the bar, so to 7 speak.
8 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Okay. The 9 question was associated with leadership. Leadership, not 10 just within Operations, but leadership to the rest of the 11 facility. Youve already taken as a given that we want 12 leadership coming out of the Operations Department.
13 MR. REDDINGTON: Right.
14 MR. ZWOLINSKI: How do we expect 15 our Operations Department to act, and what attributes do we 16 expect them to demonstrate to the rest of the entire 17 Davis-Besse team?
18 MR. VON AHN: John, Ill talk 19 about that a little bit in my remarks, because we do see 20 improvements in the questioning attitudes of Operations, 21 but youre exactly right, we need to review that in each of 22 the other organizations. And well take a look, well do 23 further monitoring, especially in the area of maintenance 24 in the upcoming months to see how were doing.
25 In my remarks, we see Operations leadership as broad MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
90 1 based at a variety of levels, and in improvements and 2 questioning attitude and the example that, that John 3 brought up where a shift manager was dissatisfied with the 4 cursory level of work reporting, he gave, he demanded 5 actually that the, that his expectations for a higher level 6 of and a better reporting status be given.
7 That met with some initial pushback from the rest of 8 the organization, but he overcame that. And as a 9 consequence of that, were getting much better stats. And, 10 I actually talk about that in my slides coming up.
11 MR. ZWOLINSKI: So in setting the 12 standard or raising the bar, thats leadership.
13 MR. VON AHN: Thats right.
14 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I understand that 15 one. But running a meeting is a little different or 16 whatever, to me is another category.
17 MR. VON AHN: Yeah, its just, 18 right.
19 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I look forward to 20 hearing some of your comments on leadership.
21 MR. REDDINGTON: Anything else?
22 MR. GROBE: No, thank you.
23 MR. VON AHN: Well, why dont I 24 just roll right in now.
25 MR. MYERS: Its your turn, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
91 1 Fred.
2 MR. VON AHN: Good afternoon.
3 As Lew indicated, I am Fred von Ahn, the new Vice 4 President of Oversight. And, although, I am most recently 5 from Beaver Valley, Im not new to Davis-Besse. I was the 6 manager responsible for the original technical root cause 7 on the reactor pressure vessel head event with Steve 8 Loehlein, who is now the Oversight Manager at Davis-Besse.
9 Additionally, Ive worked extensively with Bill 10 Pearce while he and I were at the Beaver Valley Power 11 Station. And I would like to discuss our observations, and 12 we heard some of them from John, for the oversight period 13 from January of 2003 to March 2003. And these activities 14 have been debriefed with the Davis-Besse Management Team in 15 mid April.
16 First Operations Leadership. There have been 17 noteworthy improvements in operations leadership. We see 18 this as broad based at a variety of levels in the 19 operations organization.
20 How we see improvements and a questioning attitude, 21 and I talked about the one shift manager demanded that he 22 get a better status on the activities associated with his 23 plan in the work status, was brought to bear on the 24 organization, and the organization and as a consequence 25 weve stepped up the, elevated the report to meet higher MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
92 1 standards.
2 Shift briefings are improving with better discussion 3 of abnormal action, contingency actions and what can go 4 wrong.
5 Weve additionally seen improvements in safety 6 focus. Operations generated over 400 Condition Reports in 7 the first three months of this year. We see more 8 engagement in this process at all levels in the Operations 9 organization.
10 One noteworthy condition report I would like to 11 discuss is the Collective Significance Condition Report 12 that Operations wrote on the reliability of the diesel 13 generators. Operations saw a number of lower level issues, 14 and because they saw these lower level issues on the 15 diesel, they questioned the diesel and the collective 16 significance of those issues, so they generated that type 17 of Condition Report. Thats what we expect to see out of 18 the organization; that questioning attitude and questioning 19 the safety of our, of our systems.
20 As well, another example where Operations stepped 21 in, where we were having problems with our fuel handling 22 equipment. Operations stopped all activities until they 23 were satisfied and there was adequate resolution to those 24 issues.
25 Additionally, we see improved ownership. For MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
93 1 example, on the reactor coolant system cleanliness, 2 Operations championed removal of a part of the reactor to 3 allow vacuuming debris from the bottom of the head area to 4 ensure proper cleanliness.
5 So, we see a theme here that weve been building 6 on. Weve seen previously from previous quarters of 7 Operations taking a leadership role and demanding 8 excellence out of their, out of their plant.
9 Next --
10 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I think the, I 11 think the sensitivity I have to management and leadership; 12 at least, I want to talk about it just a little bit.
13 Youre using leadership in the way I would use the 14 word management; and youre trying to manage more 15 effectively. Leaders tend to lead people, and managers 16 tend to manage programs and projects and what have you.
17 Your last bullet on reactor coolant system 18 cleanliness sounded like someone took a leadership role.
19 And, if youre saying your folks, youre observing a 20 leadership role being taken, exhibiting the attributes of a 21 leader, then thats played out in the way the individuals 22 managing these other tasks.
23 So, I think youre really talking about Operations 24 management in some of those successes.
25 MR. MYERS: Can I help with MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
94 1 that maybe a little bit?
2 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Sure.
3 MR. MYERS: Sometime ago, Bob 4 Saunders and the Senior Team of FENOC signed a letter on 5 Safety Culture. Shortly after that, we at the VP level, 6 myself, we worked very, a lot of long hours, and carried 7 things around the country on duties and responsibilities of 8 our shift managers, on shift, and their role in the 9 organization, and from a leadership perspective.
10 But the way we, I would sort of in my career define 11 leadership is the ability of a person to get someone to 12 jump off a cliff or something, not follow in our standards, 13 you know. And, I think relative to root cause, that we 14 shared earlier, that was an example of maybe not the best 15 leadership in the world, you know.
16 Finding and fixing problems, setting the right 17 standards are all examples of good leadership. What we see 18 nowadays with our shift managers, weve worked, our shift 19 managers have all been interviewed by the CEO of our 20 company. Ive taken every one of our shift managers at 21 Davis-Besse up to Pete Bergs office, and hes even met 22 with the shift managers and gone over responsibilities.
23 What we see is a willingness to stand up and say, 24 were not going to tag equipment out if the work is not 25 ready to go; and setting that standard. We had really MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
95 1 difficult problems with, with operators performing a 2 tag-out; then we get halfway through it and we find out the 3 work wasnt really ready to go, which is a reflection of 4 the maintenance walkdowns for readiness that we have, 5 right?
6 And, they put their foot down there. And, thats 7 what we want them to do. And shift manager is the senior 8 person on site when this plant is running by itself at 9 night. Okay? Theyve got to have the authority and 10 decision-making to call in the resources they need, call 11 the duty team at home, and get us out of bed and into the 12 plant to help them when we need them, you know.
13 I think that our shift managers feel they can do 14 that now. Theyre not hesitant of doing that. I also see 15 them not accepting the status quo on risk management. You 16 know, well this is going to be out this much longer.
17 Talk about the reactor coolant pump job, all right?
18 That job really went on event, we didnt have any events 19 there -- if you had to grade, probably grade it as a C 20 minus, C plus, something like that. But was it carried out 21 in a timely manner, organized properly? You know, we have 22 to have those standards when we take that pump out.
23 The big thing that I want to talk about is skill of 24 the craft, you know. I mean, that craftsman that worked 25 that job did not demonstrate the good ownership and good MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
96 1 skills of that job. Okay?
2 And we had some vendor support on that. So, our 3 shift managers willingness to stand up and take a stand 4 when they see poor performance with any organization in our 5 plant; thats maintenance, thats engineering giving them a 6 sloppy operability review, or something like that; thats 7 what we consider leadership.
8 And weve seen good examples of them taking a 9 leadership role in our plant; better than we saw before.
10 More rigor, more, were requiring more rigor in people 11 bringing them.
12 We had operability concerns being closed out in 13 engineering, and they would just call the shift manager and 14 tell them. That was what was happening. Now, those 15 engineers come over and convince the shift manager that 16 this operability call is correct. Thats what we consider 17 our leadership role; that they have standards, they demand 18 those standards, and help us implement our standards at the 19 site. And were seeing good improvement in those areas.
20 Does that help?
21 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Leadership is 22 difficult to measure.
23 MR. MYERS: Leadership is 24 difficult to measure.
25 MR. ZWOLINSKI: And having metrix MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
97 1 and how do you know when things are a little better, are 2 far less clearer in leadership than in management, because 3 if Im an effective manager, Im getting a lot of things 4 done. And there is metrix to that. The metrix in 5 leadership are far, far less obvious and much more soft.
6 MR. MYERS: One example, you 7 see in the past from a leadership perspective, Operations 8 willingness to let tag-outs, tag equipment out, put it back 9 in service when the work hasnt been thoroughly ready.
10 Theyre standing up and saying, were not going to accept 11 that standard. In my mind, thats leadership. Thats 12 setting the requirements. And, we see evidence of our 13 shift managers taking on that responsibility fairly 14 regularly now.
15 They, when we were getting ready to load the core, 16 you know, the shift supervisor came to us and said, you 17 know, we only have to have one RHR pump to load the core, 18 but we would like to have two. Guess what? We stopped and 19 waited a week until we had two decay heat pumps, based on 20 that discussion.
21 So, theyre willing to take that leadership, and 22 thats what were after them to.
23 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Thank you.
24 MR. MYERS: I dont know if I 25 helped or not. Tried.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
98 1 MR. VON AHN: Next well discuss 2 Corrective Action and the Condition Reporting process.
3 Here, implementation continues to be challenged.
4 Effectiveness of Corrective Action needs work and has room 5 for improvement. As oversight, weve taken a look at a 6 number of Condition Reports and Corrective Actions that we 7 have tagged for post closure review, and in some cases we 8 see the issue has not been fully addressed.
9 Weve made two process improvements recently to help 10 us in this arena. Weve started an internal assessment 11 writing trending Condition Reports, so we have a database 12 or data readily available to support conclusions and allow 13 us to readily evaluate that. As well, weve put into place 14 previously Condition Report analysts in each section, and 15 were expecting these Condition Report analysts to evaluate 16 these Condition Reports and take a look at the trends in 17 each section to help the section with this issue that we 18 see.
19 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Fred, in the area 20 of Condition Report, when we have somebody raise an issue, 21 does it go through a review board in which it gets 22 prioritized as high, medium and low, or 1, 2, 3, 4?
23 MR. VON AHN: Yeah, there are 24 several conditions. The three conditions we have are, 25 there is November, Charlie or Sierra. Significant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
99 1 condition adverse to quality, condition adverse to quality, 2 not a condition adverse to quality.
3 So, there is that high, medium and low ranking, as 4 well as a multi-memory board actually takes a look at that, 5 so you dont have tunnel vision. A management team looks 6 at those on a daily basis, evaluate those, and as a peer 7 group decide which ones are significant or conditions 8 adverse to quality or simply not significant.
9 Finally, at the end, a Corrective Action Review 10 Board will take a look at those Condition Reports that are 11 of higher significance to ensure that the issue has been 12 fully addressed.
13 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Does the higher 14 category require that you do a root cause?
15 MR. VON AHN: Absolutely. There 16 is a matrix we use and the higher category will require 17 root cause.
18 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Can you give us a 19 sense of the type of Condition Report you are seeing today 20 versus all the Condition Reports that you saw yesterday?
21 I would, without, without giving an answer, I would like to 22 think you should not be finding very many significant 23 issues that would require root cause, so youre in that 24 middle or even low group. That would be my instinct.
25 MR. VON AHN: Yeah. We would MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
100 1 want to identify the problems at their lowest possible 2 level, so we see that, and we see that were addressing the 3 problems at the lower levels, so theyre not becoming more 4 significant. Thats what we strive for.
5 We look at that with a number of different ways. We 6 look at that with a number of Condition Reports we generate 7 to see that were identifying problems and fixing them at a 8 low level, as well as taking a look at and grading certain 9 Condition Reports which were doing.
10 Do we have specific data, John, on that for 11 Davis-Besse?
12 MR. REDDINGTON: Since I cant 13 handle that microphone again -- Im John Reddington.
14 The threshold is very low, the initiation rate of 15 Condition Reports has been good. What were seeing, what 16 QA has been seeing is the implementation. When they go out 17 and they generate a Corrective Action, they actually go out 18 and do that corrective action. So, thats the kind of 19 problems that were finding.
20 The actual initiation is very good. Shop people, I 21 mean, all over, everybody.
22 MR. VON AHN: So to answer 23 Johns question, we are identifying questions at a lower 24 level. It doesnt sound as were getting as many root 25 cause or the higher level Condition Report.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
101 1 MR. MYERS: We have way over 2 the industry average of root causes. If you look at the 3 number of engineering causes and things we have had, come 4 identify all these walkdown teams and all the Building 5 Blocks; our total number of root causes, and I dont 6 remember the number, is way high compared to industry.
7 MR. VON AHN: Right. We would 8 expect that to be high, but is it trending down is Johns 9 question?
10 MR. MYERS: I know its 11 trending down. The number of CRs were generating is 12 trending down, but that percentage of open Condition 13 Reports requiring, requiring root cause is still very high.
14 But theyre not new ones, theyre issues that we identified 15 as part of our Building Blocks.
16 MR. ZWOLINSKI: At some facilities 17 when you have Condition Reports that are at that lowest 18 level, Licensees are not required to necessarily get after 19 that particular issue during this outage, and may defer and 20 may openly say, I dont really need to do it because the 21 safety significance is very low.
22 Where I was going with todays environment, feeling 23 that you may have exhausted many of the more safety 24 significant issues is, are you looking at common, common 25 threads amongst medium and the lows that would argue maybe MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
102 1 we do want to get after that and put an end to this 2 particular outage? I mean, I know what youre doing with 3 the highs, youre going after those for a fact.
4 MR. MYERS: We evaluate 5 issues and categorize them.
6 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Yes.
7 MR. MYERS: And look for 8 similarities, is there a root cause. And we see that 9 trend, well go write a higher level threshold root cause 10 type of CR.
11 MR. ZWOLINSKI: So, you would 12 actually roll several of those up?
13 MR. MYERS: We had issues we 14 roll, yes.
15 MR. VON AHN: Thats similar to 16 what I discussed with the Operations, the collective 17 significance of the issues that they saw. They saw a 18 number of issues with the diesel. Hey, whats going on 19 here? Lets go with collective significance, a higher 20 level Condition Report that would address that, see if we 21 have a common thread or some issue that we dont see with 22 those singular items.
23 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Thank you.
24 MR. THOMAS: Fred, as part of 25 the corrective action process, selected Condition Reports MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
103 1 have to be reviewed by SROs as part of the process.
2 MR. VON AHN: Correct.
3 MR. THOMAS: Has your 4 organization done any kind of look at the quality of the 5 SRO evaluations and can you comment on that, if they have 6 looked at that?
7 MR. VON AHN: In my larger 8 organization, yes, I can. SROs do review those on the 9 front end at Beaver Valley and we actually review them on 10 the back end as well. Theyre part of the Corrective 11 Action Review Board. There is an Operations Rep on that 12 board that will take a look at those.
13 That board is a multi-discipline board, again, of 14 Operations, Maintenance and a number of folks take a look 15 at that.
16 MR. THOMAS: You missed the 17 question.
18 Has your organization looked at the quality of those 19 reviews at Davis-Besse?
20 MR. VON AHN: I believe we have, 21 and, John, do you want to go over this.
22 MR. REDDINGTON: Yeah. Scott, 23 weve looked at that. I would say about a year ago, we 24 identified that was a weakness, that the SROs were not 25 given enough verbiage when they would call something MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
104 1 operable or inoperable. We also noticed that that didnt 2 translate effectively into the unit log, because when a guy 3 comes in, he doesnt necessarily read Condition Reports, he 4 reads the unit log before he takes the shift.
5 So, weve been focusing on that, and as part of 6 Program Review of Operability Determinations weve been 7 monitoring that. I would say weve seen a marked 8 improvement, a significant improvement. Theyve instituted 9 peer checks and things like that thats helped that, but it 10 has definitely improved significantly over the last year.
11 MR. THOMAS: Okay, thank you.
12 MR. VON AHN: Any other 13 questions?
14 Finally, Quarterly Reviews. In our Quarterly 15 Reviews, one area were starting to focus on, our are Procedure 16 Compliance Issues. We did identify this during this 17 quarters activities, and we know this was a contributing 18 issue to the RPD RPV head root cause, one of the contributing 19 issues were procedural adherence issues.
20 We will start to develop comparative data in this 21 area, and we are looking at the, well look at subsequent 22 CREST Condition Report reviews to validate what were 23 seeing. Again, we identified it with our observations.
24 Weve looked at some comparative data in CREST. We see 25 some things here and were going to continue to monitor MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
105 1 that.
2 In summary, we see improvements in key areas like 3 Operations. The plant is making headway on resolving 4 Containment Health Issues. The challenges still remain 5 with Corrective Action Process, and well continue to 6 monitor this area.
7 Finally, I would like to introduce Lawrence Martin.
8 Lawrence, could you stand up. Thank you.
9 Lawrence joins the team with over 40 years of total 10 nuclear experience. Lawrence also has extensive experience 11 at a number of sites upon restart after an extended 12 shutdown. And Lawrence will be stationed full time at 13 Davis-Besse. His main focus will be to assist me, not only 14 in the oversight of the Davis-Besse restart activities, but 15 putting into place measures that assure long term 16 continuous performance improvement at FENOC in Quality 17 Assurance Programs and Safety Culture.
18 I would like to turn the program back over to Lew 19 Myers for Safety Conscious Work Environment discussion, 20 unless there are any other questions?
21 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I know you tried 22 to cover it. I maybe didnt get the full thrust on the 23 procedure compliance issues.
24 MR. VON AHN: We saw some 25 procedural compliance issues in our review.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
106 1 MR. ZWOLINSKI: If I understood 2 correctly, youre dedicating a team that will be 3 responsible for procedures going forward --
4 MR. VON AHN: Yes.
5 MR. ZWOLINSKI: -- in Bob 6 Schrauders organization?
7 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
8 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Is that accurate?
9 MR. MYERS: Thats accurate.
10 MR. ZWOLINSKI: So, hell have the 11 opportunity to look backwards and see what kind of problems 12 youve identified and Lessons Learned, take that forward 13 and make that robust?
14 MR. MYERS: We have a 15 procedures group at our other plants, and were able to 16 monitor a number of procedures changes, the top procedure 17 changes, problem areas and all that. We expect Bob to 18 check that out.
19 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
20 MR. GROBE: Lew, before you go 21 on with Safety Conscious Work Environment, could you 22 comment a bit on the efforts you have underway to 23 understand better the impact of the CR rollovers and where 24 that stands and what youve done from that?
25 MR. MYERS: Yeah. I think MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
107 1 there is like five thousand CRs that were restart type CRs, 2 gone back and looked at, what we did is, we had some 3 questions about the rollovers, where we rolled several CRs 4 together and performed one root cause. And the question 5 was, we look at the original CR, once you rolled it into 6 this big bunch, do we really solve the problem with the 7 original CR.
8 What weve done is gone back and looked at that, out 9 of that 5,000 population, about 500, 490 something, the 10 rollover, rollovers as I understand right now. Were 11 taking and reviewing each and every one of those 12 rollovers. We have a team together, that we pulled 13 together from our other sites, and went over each and every 14 one of them and traced the issue to make sure the 15 corrective action finally addressed that issue, so its not 16 lost. So, we got that team together now.
17 MR. GROBE: When do you 18 expect that activity to be completed?
19 MR. MYERS: Probably the next 20 couple of weeks. I hope.
21 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
22 MR. MYERS: Safety Conscious 23 Work Environment. At the last meeting, we talked about the 24 March survey, and we were very pleased with that survey and 25 improvements in the performance that we saw.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
108 1 At that meeting though, there was two questions that 2 were of concern; Question 35 and 36, which werent as 3 positive as what weve seen in the past. In fact, the 4 performance in those two questions were worse. So, we took 5 an action to take and evaluate the results.
6 Let me tell you what we did there. We took, what we 7 did, is response analysis. What we did there, we took the 8 responses to several questions, we grouped those questions 9 together, sort of asked the same thing, looked at the 10 questions, not only similar questions, but by group; and 11 maintenance, electrical line, contractors, so First FENOC 12 employees versus contractors.
13 So, we did that. Then, we went out and did a 14 comparison with other programs from those two questions.
15 We looked at our Employees Concerns Program, Quality 16 Assurance Program, and our NRC Allegations Program; and, 17 how does this stuff correlate. And then, finally, we went 18 out and talked to some people and did some personnel 19 interviews about these two questions.
20 So, the next couple of slides, Ill share with you 21 the results.
22 If you go look at the questions that are positively 23 correlated, this question 7, 25, 30, 35, and 36.
24 The question 7, "I can raise a nuclear safety or 25 quality concern without fear of retaliation." We went from MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
109 1 a negative response rating total of 18.5 percent to 7.1 2 percent. We were pretty pleased with that. And 3 especially, when we go look at it in the FENOC area, which 4 we went from 22 percent to a 4.2 percent.
5 If you go look at the next question, "I feel free to 6 raise nuclear safety or quality issues on CRs without fear 7 of reprisal." We had a negative rating overall of 16.1 8 percent. And when we go back and look at FENOC by itself, 9 we went from 18 percent down to 3 percent. So, were 10 pretty pleased with that. And the total rate, we went down 11 to 5.6 percent.
12 "I can use the EC Program without fear of 13 retaliation." We had 14.6 percent total, and 5.1 percent, 14 but when we look at just FENOC, we went from 18 to 3.2 15 percent negative rating.
16 Now, the next two questions, concerned intimidation, 17 harassment issues. And we didnt get the response in those 18 two questions. I guess the response sort of surprised us, 19 because we went from a negative response of 7.1 percent to 20 8.1 percent. "I have been subjected to an HIRD within the 21 last six months." and "Im aware of others who have been 22 subjected to HIRD within the last six months." Thats 23 question 36. We went from a 7.1 percent or 12.4 percent 24 negative response, to an 8.1 and 15.3. Thats what 25 generated the issue.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
110 1 So, when we went back and broke that apart, we 2 looked at FENOC, we actually went from a 8.9 FENOC rate to 3 5.1 percent FENOC rate, which was a positive trend. And 4 from a FENOC standpoint on Question 36, we went from 14.6 5 percent down to a 10.2 percent negative, which is another 6 positive trend.
7 Now, contractors are the areas where it tended to 8 poke out in red, and we tried to analyze that somewhat.
9 Go to the next slide, please.
10 We went back and looked at the survey analysis with 11 interviews and stuff. If you look at the survey question 12 on harassment, intimidation, retaliation, and 13 discrimination, what we found is there was a clear focus on 14 [10CFR] 50.7 issues.
15 When people, when contractors, most of the 16 contractors responding to this, were hourly type. We went 17 from, if you look at the original survey we did a year ago, 18 most of the contractors in there were longer term 19 engineering type contractors, down to more of an hourly 20 type contractors that we have on site right now, in work 21 area.
22 And when you go question them about harassment and 23 intimidation and 50.7, their knowledge of that is not as 24 thorough. And if they do something that they dont like, 25 you know, they consider that harassment, intimidation, for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
111 1 a job they didnt want to do. So, we got a lot of feedback 2 there from that question.
3 Then we went back and asked them about the term 4 HIRD, question was not clearly stated, when you use the 5 term HIRD, it wasnt terms like harassment, intimidation, 6 thats the name of a bird or something. So, you know, the 7 question was not clear in their mind when they read that 8 from a contractor standpoint. Thats some of the feedback 9 we got when we talked to employees.
10 Responses are more consistent that we found in FENOC 11 with ECP and Safety Culture survey results. Worker concern 12 about schedule pressure and directive management rather 13 than 50.7 HIRD concerns; are one question.
14 When you read that again to question people, you 15 know, what you heard was, a lot of pressure to get the work 16 done from a schedule pressure standpoint, and the 17 management approach right now is more directive than what 18 theyve seen in the past. And thats, they would answer 19 that from a HIRD concern as being a negative trend. So, 20 theyre not clearly understanding what that meant.
21 So, that was the two areas that they focused on.
22 MR. GROBE: Could you go back 23 to the last slide, Lew?
24 MR. MYERS: Sure.
25 MR. GROBE: So, what I hear MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
112 1 you saying, is the questions 35 and 36 --
2 MR. MYERS: Are correlated to 3 7, 25 and 30, and got different results overall.
4 MR. GROBE: Right. So, going 5 forward, if you plan on using those questions again, youre 6 going to restructure them?
7 MR. MYERS: We might spell 8 out what HIRD means in the question. So, yeah, we would 9 restructure the question, something like that.
10 MR. GROBE: But FENOC 11 question 7, 25 and 30, if you look at your contractors, it 12 either has stayed the same or got worse.
13 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
14 MR. GROBE: What are you 15 doing about that?
16 MR. MYERS: Well, I was going 17 to answer that question earier.
18 MR. GROBE: Good.
19 MR. MYERS: The contractors 20 are our concern. What we have to do in our contractor 21 training program; when we bring them in, we have to be more 22 clear about our programs and our terms, and address these 23 results. Maybe thats improve our training programs, Im 24 not sure, but we are going to put an action plan in place 25 that goes to try to understand what thats telling us MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
113 1 about, you know.
2 MR. GROBE: Okay, is there a 3 CR on that, that I can?
4 MR. MYERS: I dont think 5 so.
6 MR. GROBE: Randy is nodding 7 yes.
8 MR. MYERS: Okay. There is, 9 Randy? Okay.
10 MR. GROBE: So, I can go find 11 that.
12 MR. MYERS: Okay.
13 If you look at the next slide, the NRC Allegations.
14 One of the things, we go back and look at our other 15 program, like allegations, and there is a negative trend 16 there, which would substantiate from an NRC allegation 17 standpoint, its an improvement.
18 Next slide shows that, really gets into the 19 Retaliation Category, and we see a negative trend there, 20 which would substantiate, tend to substantiate in the First 21 FENOC areas were seeing improvement and even in the 22 contractor areas, overall were seeing an improvement.
23 If you go to the next slide, we went back and looked 24 at ECP programs, that work in progress. Remember, back a 25 few months ago when we looked at ECP versus NRC type MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
114 1 concerns, people would use the NRC Concern Program before 2 they would use our own in-house.
3 Thats greatly changed. You see the trend now where 4 our ECP Program is really taking off and people are feeling 5 free to come forth and use that program. We think thats a 6 positive trend from an intimidation, harassment standpoint 7 also.
8 Next slide.
9 Overall, you know, we base our overall conclusions 10 on looking at these two questions. We think our workers 11 recognize the responsibility to raise nuclear safety 12 concerns and quality issues. And you can see our CR 13 process has a low threshold, and overall certainly noticed 14 that people will bring stuff forward.
15 I can tell you in my 4-C Meeting too, I ask that 16 question routinely. I get extremely, I think, a hundred 17 percent results without raising concern.
18 "Workers feel free to raise nuclear safety and 19 quality concerns without fear of retaliation through their 20 chain of command, through the Condition Report process, and 21 through the Employee Concerns Program."
22 We tend to see that all across the board, that the 23 first thing you would like people to do is use the 24 Corrective Action Process. Next thing, there is chain of 25 command; either one of those two; and up to my level if MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
115 1 they need to. Then, finally, the Employee Concerns 2 Process. We see all three of those having a fairly 3 positive trend right now.
4 There is still pockets of negative perception.
5 Sometimes in the RP/Chemistry Maintenance and Engineering 6 Departments. Survey people, we recognize those are pockets 7 and areas we need to continue work on.
8 And then "Contractors have a more negative overall 9 perception than the FENOC employees." Thats something we 10 need to get action plan on, look at our in-processing, make 11 sure they understand the processes and how to use them; you 12 know, and are willing to work with our contractors. Were 13 taking an action on that.
14 And additional senior management needed attention to 15 Safety Conscious Work Environment. Once again, RP, 16 Chemistry and Maintenance, we found still some hot pockets 17 there, especially on specific shifts and stuff. Okay?
18 But overall, once again, we told you last time, we 19 were pretty pleased with the results of that survey. The 20 purpose of this is just to answer the question to us as 21 last time about those two. Okay?
22 MR. GROBE: Appreciate that.
23 So, youre going to be taking some additional 24 actions in some areas. What is your plan? Are you 25 planning on doing this type of evaluation again in six MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
116 1 months or a year or what is the plan?
2 MR. MYERS: Well continue to 3 use this type of evaluation, as well as others.
4 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thank 5 you.
6 MR. MYERS: You know, the 7 term convergent validity, really caught on.
8 MR. GROBE: Yeah.
9 MR. MYERS: Next area, 10 Randy.
11 MR. FAST: All right. Thank 12 you, Lew.
13 Good afternoon. Im pleased to provide an update 14 and final report on our Containment Building Block 15 progress. First slide, please.
16 The bullets represented here are the actual scope of 17 the Containment Health Building Block. Of those, those 18 that you see on the lefthand side, Emergency Sump, 19 Containment Coatings, Fuel Integrity, Environmentally 20 Qualified Equipment, FLUS, and Boric Acid Inspections are 21 complete and ready for Mode 4.
22 On the right side youll see, Decay Heat Valve Tank, 23 we still are sealing conduits there. That work is 24 progressing well and will be completed within the next 25 week.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
117 1 Containment Air Coolers, weve done a final air 2 balance test on all three Containment Air Coolers and 3 results are being evaluated by Engineering.
4 Refueling Transfer Canal. Weve implemented our 5 implementation plan -- or excuse me, our discovery plan.
6 We still have some actions that well do, you know, future 7 outage, not required to be done now as part of restart.
8 Containment Pressure Vessel. Thats the sealing of 9 the annular space in the lower portion of containment in 10 the steel, steel pressure vessel and the concrete. And 11 were still evaluating that work. That may be done after 12 the first Mode 4.
13 As well, Corrective Action, Evaluations and all of 14 the Corrective Actions are in their final stages of 15 closure. So, thats very close coming to an end.
16 Next slide, please.
17 MR. SHERON: Randy, before you 18 go off that slide.
19 MR. FAST: Yes.
20 MR. SHERON: On the FLUS 21 System, where is, Im still kind of trying to understand 22 where that fits in your overall scheme of things. When you 23 came in, I think, the agency several months ago, it was not 24 going to be a tech spec requirement on it or anything like 25 that. And so, the question is, I mean, NRC has no MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
118 1 requirement, okay, for it.
2 You know, in terms of, okay, you start up, and lets 3 say this thing starts giving you a lot of false positives 4 or something, is it your plan to fix it or just say, its a 5 failed experiment, and turn it off, or?
6 MR. FAST: Brian, let me try 7 to answer that question. We dont have any reason to 8 believe its going to be a failed experiment. And, 9 principally, the reason we feel that way is we have looked 10 at it extensively. It is used in Europe. Its been used 11 very extensively. In fact, we look at that closely because 12 we would be concerned about installing a monitoring system 13 that could not provide the right level of reliability.
14 This project has really been a model for 15 installation and the calibration. We brought over a Ph.D.
16 that was part of the development of this program. Weve 17 calibrated it. And, we have a lot of confidence in it.
18 It has a lot of self-check features built into it 19 that will allow us to monitor the humidity levels under the 20 vessel. So, we did a lot of analysis of this. And, 21 although, not required from a regulatory standpoint, it 22 really requires the right standards for us in monitoring 23 undervessel performance.
24 So, I know obviously my optimism might be 25 overzealous here, but based on the kinds of results that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
119 1 weve seen from the industry, we have a pretty high 2 confidence this is going to work well. Part of our test 3 plan Mike talked about previously is injecting the test 4 signal and actually monitoring the systems performance so 5 we have some real time data and well do that during our 6 normal operating pressure and temperature test.
7 There is another element of this. We believe that 8 by looking at industry best practices, weve developed a 9 Leak Monitoring Program and we have, one of our engineers, 10 system engineer, a program owner for that; and that will go 11 through a validation process of looking at Reactor Coolant 12 System leakage, which is done on a daily basis by the 13 Operations staff. And then, correlating that information 14 with the information we get from the FLUS System.
15 So, that as well provides a validation of the leak 16 integrity of the Reactor Coolant System.
17 MR. SHERON: Im not trying to 18 be, you know, rain on your parade or anything, but that 19 does depend on your understanding of, say, crack behavior 20 on lower penetrations. I mean, for example, the type of 21 leakage that has been seen in South Texas, which they 22 havent confirmed yet, as far as Im aware. Im not sure, 23 would that even be detected by this system?
24 MR. FAST: Brian, I 25 understand, the correct propagation would have earlier MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
120 1 indications of higher humidity, which could subsequently be 2 dismissed, because of the close after some period of 3 time.
4 So, thats something that, we understand the 5 phenomenon, we understand the crack propagation of the 6 J-groove weld on the undervessel attachments. And well --
7 MR. SHERON: Where Im going is 8 there is two aspects to this whole thing. One is obviously 9 leakage and, say, accumulation of boron, okay, the 10 potential for any corrosive environment. The second is 11 understanding the crack growth phenomenon. In other words, 12 will I have a crack, you know, the stress fields are 13 different and so forth on the lower head and the like, and 14 there are residual stresses which we may not even know 15 about.
16 For example, when we met with south Texas the other 17 day, they told us about the installation of the, of the 18 thermal tubes that they put in on the lower head. They 19 said, there is a streaking process in there where they 20 physically have to bend them over to get them straight so 21 theyre aligned. Thats introduces residual stresses, 22 which obviously, nobody can put their finger on in terms of 23 knowing, you know, is it large, small, or the like.
24 The point Im driving at is that, you know, unless 25 we know about crack behavior and whether cracks will always MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
121 1 go through the wall and exhibit leakage before they, for 2 example, turn circumferential; is there a stress field for 3 turning circumferential. There is still an uncertainty.
4 Do you follow that?
5 MR. FAST: I understand 6 that. Youre absolutely right, Brian. This will only 7 provide us the opportunity to monitor for humidity and 8 changes in moisture content.
9 We were able to mockup in Lynchburg with Framatone 10 very, very small leaks in the area of.01 gallons per 11 minute, and be able to detect that very small leakage.
12 Although, your points are that we may not understand the 13 crack initiation, propagation and leakage elements, we do 14 have some confidence that the equipment is able to measure 15 changes in the humidity undervessel.
16 MR. SHERON: Yeah, Im 17 certainly not advocating taking it out or anything, but I 18 just recognize there could be some limitations on it.
19 Thats all.
20 MR. FAST: I understand.
21 Thank you, Brian.
22 MR. MYERS: I think what it 23 does, if you had a real leak, it would tell you, there is a 24 very, very low leakage, like.01, so it could be early 25 warning. Okay?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
122 1 MR. SHERON: Right.
2 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I saw that 3 equipment. I guess maybe somebody said it, I apologize.
4 Where is it going to read out at?
5 MR. FAST: Reads out on the 6 plant computer system.
7 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Is that right?
8 MR. FAST: Yes, sir.
9 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
10 MR. GROBE: Randy, before you 11 go on, we actually had a question from a member of the 12 public, but it fits right in here. If you dont mind I 13 would like to.
14 It says, with the recent findings at the Texas 15 plant, has that changed the way youll be checking for 16 leaks on the bottom of the reactor?
17 And, secondly, are you confident the scheduled tests 18 will be able to detect any leaks on these nozzles and once 19 the plant is restarted, how would you monitor the bottom 20 for leaks?
21 MR. FAST: The answer to the 22 first question is I believe our Leakage Detection Program 23 is comprehensive, and we believe we will be able to detect 24 any minor amounts of boric acid that would collect on the 25 floor annular space for the attachment to the lower MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
123 1 vessels.
2 And the second question again, was?
3 MR. GROBE: The first 4 question was, with the recent findings at the Texas plant, 5 has that changed the way in which you will be checking for 6 leaks on the bottom of the reactor at Davis-Besse?
7 MR. FAST: It does not, our 8 program is comprehensive.
9 MR. GROBE: Once the plant is 10 restarted, how will you monitor the bottom for leaks?
11 MR. FAST: That is the FLUS 12 System, as well as doing the Reactor Coolant System 13 Inventory Test and the leakage management.
14 MR. GROBE: Brian?
15 MR. SHERON: Im not sure who 16 asked this, but I just, for people that are saying whats 17 going on with South Texas. South Texas Project was 18 inspecting the lower head. I guess it was now several 19 weeks ago. And they found slight traces of Boron on two 20 penetrations. One, basically right in the center of the 21 lower head and one on a periphery.
22 There was a very small amount, one was about 3 23 milligrams of Boron, one was about 150 milligrams of 24 Boron. They said to put that in perspective, 150 25 milligrams of Boron is like half an aspirin.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
124 1 They dont know, theyve pretty much concluded that 2 the Boron came from primary coolant leaking. It wasnt 3 something that ran down the side.
4 What they dont know yet is the root cause of this 5 leakage. There is several possibilities that one could 6 postulate. Stress corrosion cracking is one. The other 7 might be fatigue, it could be a fatigue crack; for example, 8 due to a flow induced vibration. Could be, just be a bad 9 weld.
10 We dont know yet. So, were waiting to see what 11 the Licensee finds out, what their root cause. They have 12 come in. They were in for a meeting, I think it was just 13 last week, and talked to us about their entire program.
14 Theyre actually doing a mockup of the penetration 15 down at the EPRI Research Center to better look for ways 16 that they could do UT on the lower penetrations.
17 So, basically, until we find more and understand 18 better what the root cause of this is, you know, NRC is not 19 for example off, going to ask all Licensees to go off and 20 inspect their lower head penetrations and the like at this 21 time. But again, we have to wait and see what the Licensee 22 comes up with on their root cause.
23 MR. GROBE: Thats correct.
24 MR. MYERS: My understanding, 25 theyre looking at a FLUS System.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
125 1 MR. FAST: Brian, we have 2 been in regular contact with South Texas as well. Our lead 3 engineer, in fact, I got a call today that they identified 4 that, and I hooked them up with our guy, and weve been in 5 regular communication. Ive seen pictures as well.
6 So, I know theyre working through that issue.
7 Well certainly want to understand what theyre dealing 8 with and share that with the industry.
9 MR. GROBE: One other issue 10 on that, Randy, if I could.
11 One aspect of the findings at South Texas that 12 complicates understanding the applicability of those issues 13 at Davis-Besse is that the design of the penetrations are 14 substantively different on that reactor, on the lower head 15 from the Davis-Besse design penetrations. So, there is not 16 a direct correlation at all between South Texas and 17 Davis-Besse.
18 MR. FAST: I understand 19 that. Thank you, Jack.
20 Last slide, please. Containment Closeout. Physical 21 work and paper closeout in support of Containment Health is 22 in the final closure phase.
23 I want to make a comment that we have team meetings 24 with our staff before we have public meetings, so that we 25 can disclose information. One of the things I mentioned, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
126 1 we do this kind of off the cuff in front of our folks and 2 talk, I made a comment that as the sponsor for containment 3 health, we were getting out of the containment health 4 business.
5 I really thought it was kind of interesting that I 6 had one of the system engineers come up to me afterwards 7 and say, Randy, were never getting out of the containment 8 health business. I said, well, thats a great comment.
9 The reality is, the project may be coming to a 10 close, but we have institutionalized the right standards 11 through our Maintenance folks, our Operations folks and our 12 Engineering folks. We have what we believe is a good Boric 13 Acid Corrosion Control Program and Owner; and were using 14 our Corrective Action Program to identify those issues, 15 evaluate them, and take the appropriate corrective 16 actions.
17 So, certainly, those Lessons Learned at Davis-Besse 18 are going to be long held to the future. So, were not 19 getting out of Containment Health business.
20 The last I wanted to identify, is you see the 21 American flag is painted up in our containment dome. Its 22 quite impressive actually.
23 John, I think you had a chance and Brian to see that 24 today.
25 Really a tribute to our great country. And, also to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
127 1 the hard work and dedication of all the men and women who 2 have worked so hard in our containment to get that work 3 done. As you saw, our containment is in pretty good 4 shape. Were proud of it. And well be glad to set new 5 standards for our containment health.
6 MR. SHERON: They assured us, 7 it was painted with qualified coatings.
8 MR. FAST: Yes, sir, I 9 checked the spec myself. You know, they sent it to me, and 10 I verified it. Its actually Old Glory Red and Blue, but 11 it is a qualified coating.
12 With that, Ill turn it over to Lew for closing 13 comments.
14 MR. GROBE: Any other 15 questions?
16 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Lew, can I go back 17 to Graph 44 on your ECP trends?
18 Just so its clear to this person and maybe others.
19 Do you put these kind of issues when theyre raised either 20 to NRC or to ECP, do you put those in the Corrective Action 21 Program?
22 MR. MYERS: The answer is no, 23 not normally. We have on occasions.
24 MR. ZWOLINSKI: And, do you, does 25 somebody take look at these, as far as the safety MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
128 1 significance; and Im going back a little bit to the CR 2 Program. In other words, someone wanted to raise a 3 significant issue, and you found a lot in here, theyre not 4 going to the right place, but you know, the lightbulb isnt 5 fixed or something.
6 MR. MYERS: If we look at one 7 of our ECP issues and we found a concern, that can generate 8 a CR, safety-related CR. It would. In other words, if we 9 were looking at the issue, and we found that it was a CR 10 type issue, we would generate one.
11 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Okay. So, and I 12 think the short answer to this, these two graphs, is that 13 you handle these issues outside the normal CR process 14 though.
15 MR. MYERS: Yes.
16 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Okay. Thank 17 you.
18 MR. MYERS: In closing, our 19 intention today was to talk about the Management/Human 20 Performance, Root Cause and Safety Culture. We continue to 21 improve, we think, in the overall quality of our management 22 team that we have in place, and management ownership of 23 problems that we find at our plant. We think our 24 management continues to bring quality people in, and were 25 seeing improvements in the fragnets and ownership.
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129 1 Its our intention to modify the HPI pump or replace 2 the existing pump. We feel that will gain us a reliability 3 margin. Its probably the right thing to do.
4 We will continue to focus on our Mode 4. That tends 5 to answers a lot of questions for us, and the activity that 6 we need to complete, complete prior to restart.
7 One of the comments I have here; you know, if you go 8 look, a lot of extended shutdown plants, they just put 9 things in bucket; restart, nonrestart. We continue to work 10 about 50 percent of the stuff off, that are classified as 11 nonrestart. So, we have not stopped working off our 12 nonrestart items throughout this outage.
13 What we believe that will do for us, well start the 14 plant back up, well do it in good stead from a backlog 15 standpoint, better than we typically see before. We are 16 pleased with that.
17 And thats also true in the maintenance work order 18 area. We believe our total maintenance backlog for 19 corrective maintenance will be somewhere in the 275 range 20 when we start up, which was the goal in the original 21 outage. So, were just not letting backlogs continue to 22 build.
23 We believe that our station performance, both from a 24 physical and people standpoint, continues to show good 25 progress. Randy gave a good example awhile ago that, about MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
130 1 the containment and not closing our containment. You know, 2 our Building Blocks were put in place in our restart plan, 3 not just to close a bunch of actions out, but to take the 4 necessary actions and implement those actions to ensure 5 sustained performance for each and every Building Block 6 after restart.
7 I mean, and a lot of times weve added programs in 8 place. For example, our Leak Rate Program is really state 9 of the art. It really is state of the art.
10 You go over and look in our engineering area, our 11 system walkdowns and program reviews, we think are pretty 12 unique for the industry. For each of the these Building 13 Blocks our intention is sustained performance.
14 And Brian, John, Bill and Jon, I thank you for 15 coming to the plant today. We appreciate you coming there, 16 and appreciate it.
17 MR. PASSEHL: Okay. Okay, that 18 concludes the meeting. We would like to take five minutes 19 break and let FirstEnergy people leave or whatever they 20 want to do, then well take questions from the public.
21 Thank you.
22 (Off the record.)
23 MR. GROBE: This part of the 24 meeting is intended to receive questions and comments from 25 members of the public.
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131 1 I do have one card, while you all are queuing up in 2 front of the microphone. The question is, have these 3 meetings been a help or hinderance to the NRCs inspection 4 or investigations? Its really an interesting question.
5 These meetings have several purposes. Folks like 6 Dave Passehl and Jon Hopkins and Scott, the Senior Resident 7 Inspector, and Christine Lipa in the Region, have very 8 close daily connection with whats going on in the plant.
9 Other members of the panel have a less close connection 10 with day-to-day activities.
11 For the panel as a total, these meetings serve the 12 purpose of getting a broad update on topics that are of 13 interest. We work with the utility on the agenda, so were 14 discussing things publicly that we have a particular 15 interest in.
16 They dont directly help or hinder the inspections 17 or investigations, but what it does do is occasionally 18 helps us bring focus. You may see me slip a note to Scott 19 every once in awhile during a meeting. Those notes are 20 usually, hey, take a look at such and such next month or 21 take a look at this, or put some more time in that. We do 22 the same thing in region.
23 So, it does give us some assistance in planning on 24 some of the inspection type of activities we do. But as 25 far as hindering or helping the inspections, they dont MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
132 1 really have a significant impact on that.
2 The other purpose to these meetings is were doing 3 them publicly. That gives you an opportunity to see what 4 were doing, what kind of issues were addressing with the 5 utility, seeing the way in which we do our jobs. So, those 6 are the purposes to the meetings.
7 Does anybody else have a question or comment? This 8 is the only other card I have.
9 MR. RULAND: Could I add 10 something? See if this works. How is that?
11 Okay, as somebody thats basically come new to this 12 process, this is my second panel, you know, the kind of 13 discussion here is, while it provides us sufficient detail, 14 its to a certain extent topical. Behind our judgments 15 about all these items, you know, a very large amount of NRC 16 inspection has to go on.
17 If you heard me ask a question about license 18 amendments, just finding out about license amendment is not 19 really going to make or break what were going to do, but 20 its sure going to get us to mobilize our folks back in 21 headquarters to get them ready to review that license 22 amendment. So, for me, it has helped me get up to 23 speed, hopefully, relatively quickly and it helps us plan 24 our resources.
25 But again, its not going to form our judgment MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
133 1 ultimately on the acceptability of what the Licensee is 2 doing. It keeps us posted, and the inspections support 3 that.
4 MR. GROBE: I dont see a 5 whole line of folks queueing up.
6 Ah, there we go. Amy Ryder.
7 MS. RYDER: Actually, just 8 two questions. One is just a logistical question. This 9 was a question I had at the last months meeting that I 10 have again this month with regards to the survey that was 11 taken by FENOC, the worker survey.
12 The numbers still dont seem to add up with the 13 number, total number of surveys that were collected and 14 then broken down between FENOC and contractors. Was there 15 a third category of people that were included in that 16 survey?
17 MR. GROBE: Is Randy still 18 here?
19 MR. RULAND: You mean it 20 doesnt add up to a hundred percent, is that what youre 21 saying?
22 MS. RYDER: No, it says 666 23 FENOC employees and 337 contractors were surveyed in 2003, 24 which would be a 1,043 individuals, but on here it says 25 1,139 surveys were distributed.
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134 1 MR. GROBE: Amy, Im not sure 2 that we have that level of detail. Randy Huey for the 3 company --
4 Mike, do you know the answer to that?
5 MR. STEVENS: Theres Randy.
6 Let him answer.
7 MR. GROBE: Yeah, what I 8 would suggest is that, for that kind of question, you chat 9 with Randy Huey, fine looking fellow in the blue shirt, 10 after the meeting and he knows every little bit of data 11 that goes into it.
12 MS. RYDER: Can he answer it 13 now, so everybody can hear?
14 MR. GROBE: Sure, why dont 15 you ask your question again?
16 MS. RYDER: Im trying to 17 understand why these two numbers dont add up to that?
18 MR. HUEY: Randy Huey.
19 The answer is that this is just showing the people 20 that we knew were FirstEnergy and the people we knew were 21 contractors. There were 95 people who took the survey, who 22 didnt indicate whether they were FirstEnergy or 23 contractors.
24 MS. RYDER: So then, these 25 numbers reflect just the ones that you knew?
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135 1 MR. HUEY: Right. Each of 2 these are reflecting -- actually, its like this number is 3 666 total FirstEnergy people identified themselves as such 4 on the survey. Now, for each question, all of those didnt 5 necessarily answer each question, so the percentage for 6 each question is based on the number of people that 7 actually answered that question.
8 MS. RYDER: Good, thanks.
9 My other question is whether or not, will there be a 10 public meeting to hear about the results of the Haber 11 study?
12 MR. GROBE: Yeah. Well, 13 yes. There is going to be two different public meetings.
14 I anticipate a meeting sometime in the next month or two.
15 I think Dave Passehl alluded to it earlier in his 16 presentation.
17 The focus of that meeting, it will be in the Region 18 III office, but there will be availability through 19 telephone lines, or if you happen to be in Washington or 20 Chicago. We would love to have you out to Chicago. You 21 can sit in. There will be a public meeting in Chicago.
22 For the Utility to present the results of their Safety 23 Culture Assessments, as well as what those assessments 24 informed them of, what actions theyre taking as a result 25 of those, and what long term plans they have, specifically MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
136 1 with respect to continuing improvement in Safety Culture, 2 as well as continued monitoring of Safety Culture?
3 MS. RYDER: Do you know when 4 the NRCs inspection of Safety Culture will be completed?
5 MR. GROBE: Thats the second 6 public meeting. Well have a public exit. The when is not 7 clear. Next several weeks, I would expect the inspection 8 will be complete as far as the on site work. There will 9 likely be some additional work thats done off site. And, 10 our expectations is that we will have a public exit 11 meeting. That will probably be conducted at the 12 Davis-Besse Administration Building.
13 MS. RYDER: Actually one more 14 sort of general question. I understand there is, this is 15 sort of a follow-up question to the South Texas issue, but 16 I understand that corrosion has been found on the lids of 17 two other plants. I know one is in Florida. I cant 18 remember where the second one is.
19 MR. GROBE: Ive been kind of 20 foresighted on Davis-Besse.
21 Brian?
22 MR. SHERON: Yeah, the Saint 23 Lucy Plant did an inspection and they found several cracks, 24 as I understand, on two, I think it was two penetration so 25 far. They may have found some more today.
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137 1 And there, I think, Im trying to remember, I think 2 theyre scheduled to replace their head in 2000 -- Unit One 3 is 2005, Unit 2 is 2006. And so, theyll probably be 4 looking at repair options with regard to their head.
5 MS. RYDER: It sort of leads 6 me to wonder whether or not these plants are really built 7 to last the 40 years they were licensed to operate, if 8 were starting to see cracks a lot sooner than that.
9 MR. SHERON: Remember, the 40 10 years for a license was principally based on economic 11 considerations, rate of return, and depreciation, and so 12 forth. When we licensed the plants, there was every 13 expectation, I think at the time, that they would perform 14 for 40 years; although, we did put in place programs and 15 requirements for inspections for the very reason that we 16 were, you know, obviously didnt know everything at the 17 time.
18 I think the cracking of Inconel 600 is something 19 that was not fully expected when the plants were designed 20 and built; and, as such, you know, as we find the 21 degradation, we are putting in place appropriate, you know, 22 inspection requirements. The order that will now, back in 23 I think February, I think as an example of that.
24 We are looking at the operating experience as these 25 plants like Saint Lucy do inspections, to see if there is, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
138 1 if they learn anything that would say we need to modify the 2 order. For example, we had susceptibility criteria in 3 there, which was time and temperature, and we had rankings 4 of plants, and the inspection requirements were sort of 5 graded in accordance with their susceptibility.
6 If we come across a plant that, for example, has 7 degradation that maybe is in a low or medium susceptibility 8 category, we may have to consider modifying these 9 requirements as we move forward.
10 Certainly, with South Texas, once we learn more 11 about what the root cause of that is, well have to see how 12 we move forward in terms of inspection requirements for the 13 lower vessel heads.
14 MR. GROBE: There is actually a 15 broader context to that answer too, because a license 16 exists for 40 years, didnt mean that the expectation was 17 that all the equipment would last for 40 years. There is 18 regular preventative maintenance and replacement of 19 equipment. There is many modifications that occur every 20 year which improves systems.
21 Some utilities have actually been able to replace, 22 for example, feedwater control systems with new systems 23 that are more effective. They engage on that for one of 24 two purposes; one, is they no longer have replacement parts 25 for a system that might be twenty years old; the other is MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
139 1 they might get more power out of their secondary plant.
2 So the, there is not a nexus between the 40 year 3 license and expectation of all the equipment would last for 4 40 years. That wasnt, there is no connection between 5 those two concepts.
6 MS. RYDER: Well, will the 7 conditions of the plants be considered when companies start 8 applying for relicensing?
9 MR. GROBE: Right. There is 10 not only about a year and a halfs worth of effort thats 11 done in headquarters looking at plant license renewal 12 applications, there is also a series of two or three very 13 large team inspections, upward of ten folks, looking at 14 specific age-related type degradation, maintenance 15 activities, before license renewal is granted.
16 MS. RYDER: It just seems 17 that at some point, theyre going to have to close the 18 plant. You know, I drive a twelve-year-old car and its a 19 Honda, its a very reliable car, but at some point Im 20 going to have to turn it in for a safer vehicle. It seems 21 the same principle does apply to these plants.
22 MR. SHERON: Thats true.
23 First off, as you know, there are some components that will 24 probably limit the life of the plant; for example, the 25 reactor vessel.
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140 1 MS. RYDER: Right.
2 MR. SHERON: We do have 3 requirements for the reactor vessel in terms of 4 embrittlement, for example, 5061, which is the pressurized 5 thermal shock rule, okay.
6 As plants get older, as they become irradiated, 7 okay, their ability to withstand pressure as normal shock 8 decreases. When it reaches a certain level, then they have 9 to make a choice; either they can anneal the vessel, for 10 example, to restore a lot of that toughness, okay, or they 11 can replace it, if thats even a feasible thing, or they 12 can shut down at that point.
13 When we do renewed licenses, one of the things that 14 we focus on is making sure that plants have in place 15 age-related degradation programs to monitor it, to replace 16 components, and the like. Thats the whole focus of the 17 license renewal reviews is to make sure that these plants, 18 the utilities have in place programs that will either 19 replace components or monitor at least the components for 20 age-related degradation.
21 MR. RULAND: And a number of 22 the programs, Licensees already have in response to the 23 maintenance rule, as an example, already do, do do that 24 monitoring.
25 MR. GROBE: These are usually MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
141 1 economic decisions. As Brian said, essentially every part 2 of the plant can be replaced, simply an economic decision 3 whether its economically feasible to replace those 4 components or upgrade them or deal with age-related 5 degradation, or if there is some other approach thats more 6 cost beneficial. Those are company decisions, not NRC 7 decisions.
8 MS. RYDER: I understand, 9 thank you.
10 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
11 Anyone else?
12 Okay, I guess the only final comment I would make, 13 Im working my own personal age-related degradation 14 program, and I encourage you each to do the same.
15 Well be back here at 7:00 if youre interested in 16 coming back.
17 Our next public meeting is June 3rd. That will be 18 here at the Camp Perry Clubhouse. And, were currently 19 scheduling meetings through the summer. Those will likely 20 be back over to the high school, if we can procure that 21 facility.
22 Thank you very much.
23 (Off the record.)
24 - - -
25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
142 1 CERTIFICATE 2 I, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter and 3 Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio, duly 4 commissioned and qualified therein, do hereby certify that 5 the foregoing is a true and correct transcript of the 6 proceedings as taken by me and that I was present during 7 all of said proceedings.
8 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and 9 affixed my seal of office at Norwalk, Ohio, on this 17th 10 day of May, 2003.
11 12 13 14 Marie B. Fresch, RMR 15 NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF OHIO 16 My Commission Expires 10-9-03.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO