ML033381251
| ML033381251 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 11/12/2003 |
| From: | NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML033381251 (80) | |
Text
1 1
2 PUBLIC MEETING 3
Between U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 0350 Panel 4 and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company 5
6 Meeting held on Wednesday, November 12, 2003, at 7:00 p.m. at Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, 7 Ohio, taken by me, Marlene S. Lewis, Stenotype Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of 8 Ohio.
9 10 -----
11 12 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
13 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 14 John (Jack) Grobe, Chairman for 0350 Panel 15 Davis-Besse facility 16 Christine Lipa, Branch Chief, NRC, Region III 17 William Ruland, Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 18 Monica Salter-Williams, Resident Inspector at Davis-Besse facility 19 Scott Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector at 20 Davis-Besse facility 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
2 1 MS. LIPA: Welcome, everyone!
2 My name is Christine Lipa, I work for the Nuclear 3 Regulatory Commission, and Im a Branch Chief out of 4 Region III office, which is in Lisle, Illinois near 5 Chicago. Thank you all for coming.
6 This is a public meeting to discuss the 7 results of an afternoon session that we had and also 8 to allow any members of the public -- anybody who has 9 comments or questions for us to share them, so what 10 were going to do is Monica is going to give us a 11 summary of the afternoon session, and then were 12 going to open it up for comments and questions, but I 13 wanted to go through a few introductions.
14 On the way in tonight, there was the NRC 15 Update, and this is a monthly newsletter that weve 16 been preparing, and it provides a lot of updates on 17 things that weve been doing and has the Restart 18 Checklist that we have been following, and weve 19 closed 22 of 31 items and those are all statused in 20 here.
21 It also on the last page has information for 22 how you can reach our Public Affairs folks in Region 23 III, and the Web site information and phone numbers, 24 so theres a lot of good information in here.
25 Theres also a public meeting feedback form MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
3 1 that you can fill out and mail back to us to let us 2 know how this meeting went, provide any feedback that 3 you have. We tried to incorporate a lot of those 4 feedbacks over the months that weve been holding 5 these meetings, so let me start off with some 6 introductions here. Bill Ruland is the Senior 7 Manager out of NRR.
8 MR. RULAND: (Indicating).
9 MS. LIPA: And hes the Vice 10 Chairman of the panel.
11 Jack Grobe is the Chairman of the panel.
12 Hes a Senior Manager in the Region III office.
13 Monica Saltzer-Williams --
14 MS. SALTZER-WILLIAMS: (Indicating).
15 -- is a Resident Inspector at the Davis-Besse 16 office, and Scott Thomas is also --
17 MR. THOMAS: (Indicating).
18 MS. LIPA: -- hes the Senior 19 Resident. Hes also at the Davis-Besse office.
20 Weve also got Dave Passahl.
21 MR. PASSAHL: (Indicating).
22 MS. LIPA: Hes a Project 23 Engineer out of the Region III office.
24 Jack Rutkowski is another Resident 25 Inspector --
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
4 1 MR. RUTKOWSKI: (Indicating).
2 MS. LIPA: -- at the Davis-Besse 3 facility. We now have three of them that are there 4 full-time, day-to-day. They live in this area.
5 We also have Jeff Wright, who is a Team 6 Leader for one of the inspection teams, management 7 and human performance, which is ongoing.
8 MR. WRIGHT: (Indicating).
9 MS. LIPA: And we have Doug 10 Weaver, whos a Region III Coordinator with the 11 Executive Director for Operations office.
12 MR. WEAVER: (Indicating).
13 MS. LIPA: And Jon Hopkins is 14 the Project Manager out of headquarters in NRR.
15 MR. HOPKINS: (Indicating).
16 MS. LIPA: Viktoria Mitlyng.
17 MS. MITLYNG: (Indicating).
18 MS. LIPA: Shes Public Affairs 19 in the back, and there will be some others that are 20 just late getting back from dinner that should be 21 joining us shortly, so thats about all I have for 22 opening comments for now, and Ill turn it over to 23 Monica to summarize the afternoon session.
24 MS. SALTZER-WILLIAMS: The afternoon session 25 initially began with the NRC discussion of the MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
5 1 corrective action team inspection results, a review 2 of the operation issues and inspection report 3 2003-018, discussion of the completeness and accuracy 4 of information inspection, and an inspection of the 5 licensees NOP test, which is the normal operating 6 pressure -- normal -- normal operation temperature 7 test.
8 On behalf of FENOC, the Chief Operating 9 Officer discussed progress toward restarting the 10 facility. Specifically, he mentioned that there were 11 22 of the 31 NRC Restart Checklist items that are 12 completed, and he discussed several hardware and 13 software issues that have been resolved.
14 There was a follow-up by the Director of 15 Engineering, who discussed efforts to improve the 16 quality of engineering calculations, and these 17 efforts included calculation process improvements, 18 results of an independent assessment by 19 architect/engineering -- architect/engineers, their 20 immediate improvement actions and their calculation 21 improvement plan.
22 The Director of Support Services discussed 23 efforts to improve the corrective action program, 24 specifically, improving apparent cause evaluation 25 quality, improving the quality and rigor of the MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
6 1 documentation associated with corrective actions, 2 increased management involvement, and resuming 3 trending of corrective actions and condition report 4 issues.
5 The site Vice President discussed the NOP 6 test conclusions; specifically, that there was no 7 leakage discovered or -- an association with the 8 incore nozzles that are located on the bottom of the 9 reactor vessel head, that no leakage was noted on the 10 control rod drive mechanism nozzles and on the upper 11 reactor vessel head and that several issues were 12 identified in terms of operator performance.
13 The plant Operations Manager discussed the 14 Operations Improvement Action Plan. Specifically, he 15 addressed efforts to improve the Operation Department 16 in five years; operations oversight and leadership, 17 transition from an outage focus to an operations 18 focus, reinforcements of standards and expectations 19 to strengthen the knowledge and skills of the 20 operators, and improvements in the quality of 21 condition report investigation.
22 That was followed by a presentation by the 23 Restart Action Plan owner, and he discussed several 24 key event dates on their restart schedule.
25 That was followed by a summary from the Chief MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
7 1 Operating Nuclear officer, and that definitely kind 2 of is a big overview of the items discussed earlier 3 this afternoon.
4 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Monica. Why 5 dont I start off, while you all are getting warmed 6 up with your questions, just describing a little bit 7 of the process that the NRC will go through from here 8 until the panels evaluation of whether this plant is 9 ready to be restarted. Currently the utility is 10 completing a number of hardware changes, 11 improvements, including the high pressure injection 12 pumps that we have been discussing for a number of 13 months, electric power distribution, improvements 14 inside the plant.
15 Weve also been discussing those over the 16 last several months and other modifications that 17 still need to be made for the hardware, as Monica 18 indicated. Theyre also making what we call 19 software improvements and processes, those are 20 primarily driven by the results of the two 21 inspections, recent inspections. During the normal 22 operating pressure tests, as Monica summarized, the 23 condition of the reactor coolant system was very 24 good. There was very, very low leakage from 25 components associated with the reactor coolant MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
8 1 system, so from the standpoint of the condition of 2 the reactor coolant system, the test was a 3 significant success. Unexpected outcomes had to do 4 with the effectiveness of the operating organization, 5 and there were a number of problems that occurred in 6 the implementation of procedures. There were also 7 some deficiencies identified in procedures and 8 training, things of that nature. The outcome of 9 these operational problems was that, on two 10 occasions, safety systems actually that shouldnt 11 have actuated, the equipment was doing things that 12 was not planned by the operators, and thats never a 13 good situation, operators need to have firm control 14 of everything thats going on in the plant at all 15 times, and as a result of those findings, FirstEnergy 16 conducted what they call a collective significance 17 assessment, and thats looking at everything that 18 they learned and pulling it all together and figuring 19 out what happened and what needs to be done, and 20 theyve identified a whole series of activities to 21 improve the readiness of the operations organization 22 for restart. Those activities are ongoing, have 23 been for a number of weeks and will continue to be 24 ongoing for a number of weeks. Thats the hardware 25 and the software side.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
9 1 The other part of the software, the side that 2 they discussed this afternoon, was the Corrective 3 Action Program improvements. We completed an 4 extensive Corrective Action Program and inspection 5 and found a number of issues that led us to believe 6 that there were a couple of themes or a couple of 7 areas where there appeared to be opportunities for 8 improvement. One of those had to do with problem 9 solving focus for lack of a better phrase. It was 10 the way in which people were thinking about the 11 problems that they observed, documenting them and 12 evaluating the apparent cause of the problems.
13 FirstEnergy laid out a series of activities that they 14 are undertaking to improve in that area.
15 The second area had to do with calculations 16 and analyses, what we call engineering work products, 17 and a number of the issues that we looked at -- these 18 are activities which the engineering organization is 19 implementing to correct problems, had errors in the 20 calculations. There were a total of 25 violations 21 identified, and thats a fairly large number of 22 violations for this type of inspection. The -- all 23 of those violations were of very low risk 24 significance. The only thing that was concerning was 25 these trends and several of the violations that MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
10 1 indicated there were some areas of weakness.
2 As Monica indicated, Jim Hires described a 3 series of activities that they have undertaken to 4 improve in the engineering quality area also, so 5 those activities are going on.
6 The utility also described in some detail the 7 steps that theyre going to go through internally to 8 be ready for restart as far as reviews and approvals, 9 and those include safety culture assessment, safety 10 conscious work environment assessments, reviews by 11 various oversight panels that they have internal to 12 their organization, and those will all culminate in 13 December.
14 The final inspection -- we have a number of 15 inspections that are ongoing right now today. The 16 final inspection will be on restart readiness 17 assessment team inspection. We call it the RRATI.
18 We probably should have come up with a better name 19 that resulted in a better acronym, but that will be a 20 group of folks that were going to be flying in from 21 around the country who are experts in plant 22 operations, so it will be led by the Senior Resident 23 Inspector from the Byron Station in Illinois and 24 there will be a number of Resident and Senior 25 Resident Inspectors from other stations around the MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
11 1 country, and that inspection will occur at the time 2 the utility is taking the plant to Mode 4 and Mode 3 3 for the second time. They did it the first time for 4 the normal operating pressure test. That will be 5 the last significant inspection activity that we 6 have.
7 The utility indicated that they planned on 8 sending us their compendium of reasons why the plant 9 is nearing readiness for restart on November 24th.
10 I expect that that will be a lot of history of 11 everything that youve been hearing us talk about for 12 the last 18 months, plus a current assessment of 13 where they are today -- today being November 24th, so 14 theres a lot of activities that are all going to 15 come together at the end, and from the NRCs 16 perspective this will be culminated with the Restart 17 Readiness Assessment Team Inspection. That 18 inspection will occur -- its currently scheduled 19 for -- to begin December 8th -- is that right?
20 MS. LIPA: Yes.
21 MR. THOMAS: Uh huh.
22 MR. GROBE: And thats to conform 23 with their schedule. It will occur when they change 24 to Mode 4 and 3, so if that occurs that week, then 25 thats when the inspection will start. If it occurs MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
12 1 at a different time, then the inspection will follow 2 whenever that happens, because thats the next 3 opportunity for us to observe the integrated 4 operations -- complex integrated operations and get 5 an understanding of how the operators are performing 6 and how the rest of the organization and maintenance 7 and engineering and other support elements through 8 operations are performing in their supportive role.
9 Following the results of the Restart 10 Readiness Assessment Team Inspection, the panel will 11 be considering those inspections as well as all of 12 the other inspections, and if the panel finds that 13 the inspection findings support a recommendation for 14 restart, it will document that recommendation and 15 provide it to Jim Caldwell. Jim is the Regional 16 Administrator in Region III, hes my boss, and Jim 17 has the authority to authorize restart.
18 Im sure Jim will have lots of questions for 19 us, and he would consult then with the Director of 20 the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Thats 21 Bills boss, and thats a person thats in 22 Washington. He has responsibility for all of the 23 nuclear power plants in the United States, and the 24 Deputy Executive Director for Reactors, that 25 individual reports to the top official in the agency, MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
13 1 so Jim will consult with those two individuals. They 2 will also receive copies of the panels 3 recommendation, and Jim will make the final decision 4 on whether or not the NRC is ready to authorize 5 restart.
6 There will be one more -- at least one more 7 public meeting before restart, but the last public 8 meeting is what we call the restart, and thats not a 9 meeting where we make a decision. Thats a meeting 10 when we receive the Companys final presentation -- I 11 apologize, there is a meeting on December 3rd, which 12 is our next routine panel meeting, and then this 13 meeting will occur sometime after that. We will 14 give our normal 10 days public notice of when that 15 meeting will occur. That notice will likely come 16 out while the licensee is in the midst of these 17 complex operations that I was talking about in Mode 4 18 and 3, and if everything goes well, the meeting 19 should occur -- notice. If things are not going 20 well, then the meeting will be delayed, so, from our 21 standpoint, this plant wont be restarted until were 22 convinced that it will be safe, and weve got a 23 number of activities that we have to do between now 24 and then, and one of the most important is the 25 Restart Readiness Assessment Team Inspection.
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14 1 Theres, I think, nine checklist items left.
2 The vast majority of those, most of the work is 3 already done. Theres one or two specific items 4 that we still need to follow up on, the utility is 5 working on. The one that will likely be the last 6 one to be closed is checklist item -- is it 5-C, 7 Operations Readiness for Restart, and the RRATI will 8 be the significant contributor to the panels 9 assessment of that checklist, so thats kind of, in a 10 nutshell, the process from here on.
11 Again, I want to emphasize that the NRC is 12 not held to any sort of schedule. The plant wont 13 restart until were convinced it can do so safely and 14 be reliably operated after restart, so at this point 15 why dont we open it up to the floor, and we have a 16 fairly robust crowd this evening, so why dont we 17 start with local officials. If there is any local 18 officials or representatives of local elected 19 officials that are interested in providing a comment 20 or making a comment -- or asking a question, please 21 come forward. Carl?
22 MR. KOEBEL: Thank you. My name 23 is Carl Koebel, and I wish to speak on behalf of the 24 restart of Davis-Besse this evening. I have been 25 associated with Davis-Besse since its first day of MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
15 1 operation, as Director of Environmental Health at the 2 Ottawa County Health Department for 17 years and now 3 seven years as County Commissioner.
4 I helped establish the split sampling program 5 conducted between the State and industry to ensure 6 that no off site contamination ever occurred.
7 I understand the risks involved with the 8 production of nuclear energy, and I also understand 9 the demand for such production. I was probably more 10 shocked by what occurred at that plant last year than 11 any other resident of this County. I actually felt 12 betrayed, and I will admit that I did lose a little 13 trust in their ability to safely operate this 14 facility.
15 It has been said that the Ottawa County 16 Commissioners only want the tax dollars generated by 17 Davis-Besse. This is not true. Yes, Davis-Besse 18 is our largest employer, and they do generate a 19 sizable income for our County, but it is also an 20 industry that if not operated correctly would destroy 21 this County.
22 Ottawa Countys largest industry is the 23 tourist related business, and even a minuscule 24 release of radioactive material from Davis-Besse 25 would be extremely detrimental to that industry. It MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
16 1 is doubtful that we would ever recover from it.
2 The financial impact of this County by a 3 failure at Davis-Besse far exceeds the benefits that 4 are generated by its tax dollars. Though our 5 concern is not generated on taxes and jobs, it is 6 centered on the safety for the residents and the 7 visitors to Ottawa County.
8 Once these hearings began, I saw the 9 determination of FirstEnergy and its employees not 10 only to correct the deficiencies found, but to 11 develop a work ethic that would prevent future safety 12 concerns. I found that the people of Ottawa County 13 believe that, as I do, that Davis-Besse has been a 14 good neighbor in the past, and though it stumbled, 15 its still a good neighbor now.
16 We have witnessed the completion of over 100 17 modifications to the plant. The three County 18 Commissioners were given a tour of the facility 19 several months ago, and we saw firsthand the 20 modifications made within the reactor containment 21 building. Our County Administrator is an active 22 member of the Davis-Besse Restart Overview Panel.
23 We know that FirstEnergy has conducted well over 24 24,000 corrective actions, completed over 15,000 25 surveillance tests and made over 2,700 procedure MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
17 1 changes. This type of action is not taken by a 2 company that doesnt care. It proves to me, and it 3 should to you, that FirstEnergy is committed to 4 operating Davis-Besse in the safest manner possible.
5 In connection with the physical changes, emphasis has 6 been placed on teamworking and developing a strong 7 work ethic revolving around safety.
8 You will hear from a lot of people tonight.
9 Those from this area I am certain will talk about the 10 improvements made, the return of public trust, and 11 the need to get Davis-Besse back on-line once all 12 corrections have been made and tests have been 13 conducted to assure compliance. If you listen, you 14 will hear the pride we have in this plant, in this 15 company, and these employees. Tonight you will also 16 hear from many individuals deeply concerned about 17 nuclear power generation. In their eyes the 18 generation of nuclear power is wrong and nothing can 19 be done to operate it safely. You and I both know 20 that this is not true. You will hear how they fear 21 living in the shadow of the plant, but actually they 22 are from communities many miles outside the 10 mile 23 emergency planning zone and outside the 50 mile 24 ingested zone. Listen to them as you should, but, 25 please, I urge you, do not allow their concerns to be MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
18 1 considered as those of the community of Ottawa 2 County.
3 Yes, I did lose a little trust, but once this 4 problem was noted, the corrective actions were taken.
5 I have seen what has occurred at Davis-Besse over the 6 past several months. My trust in them is back, and 7 I believe FirstEnergy and Davis-Besse Nuclear Power 8 Station has proven themselves to be dedicated to the 9 safe operation of this plant, and I urge you to 10 continue to work with them to restart. Thank you.
11 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Carl.
12 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
13 MR. GROBE: Just an observation.
14 In my career, I have been involved in five recoveries 15 of plants that have had problems and at none of those 16 other plants -- this is the fifth one, at none of 17 those other plants has the engagement of the County 18 administration been anywhere near what it is with us 19 in Ottawa County. We meet regularly, usually 20 monthly, with the Ottawa County Administrator and 21 several Board members and sometimes all three of 22 them, and theyre deeply engaged in whats going on 23 and, quite frankly, holding us to doing our job well, 24 so I appreciate their involvement.
25 Does somebody else have a comment or MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
19 1 questions?
2 Are there any other representatives of 3 elected officials or public officials here tonight?
4 (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE).
5 MR. GROBE: Good. Why dont we 6 take any questions or comments from local residents 7 in the area. Hello, Donna.
8 MS. LUEKE: Hi, Jack. My name is 9 Donna Lueke -- can you hear me?
10 MR. GROBE: Yes.
11 MS. LUEKE: Donna Lueke, and I am 12 a local resident of Ottawa County, and Im here to 13 present a letter that has been signed by -- at this 14 point, 21 members of the local community. This 15 letter is to the NRC, to FirstEnergy, to PUCO, to the 16 Elected Officials, to Watchdogs, Advocates and 17 Reporters. I think that pretty much takes care of 18 everyone.
19 "As citizens of Ottawa County who live near 20 the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, we offer 21 thanks and have requests.
22 Thanks to those with FirstEnergy and the NRC 23 who have had the courage and integrity to report the 24 problems at Davis-Besse and within FirstEnergy and 25 the NRC, and those who are striving to improve the MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
20 1 plants safety and the safety of all nuclear plants.
2 Thanks to the media, the watchdog groups and 3 elected officials who have stood up for the public 4 health and safety when the NRC and FirstEnergy failed 5 to do so.
6 Thanks to those demanding that the Ohio 7 Office of Consumers Council and PUCO do a better job 8 on behalf of the local ratepayers.
9 We request:
10 We request that NRC Chairman Diaz reconvene 11 the Lessons Learned Task Force or a similar panel to 12 monitor how recommendations have been enforced and to 13 study the problems within the NRC that have surfaced 14 this past year, including those in the Inspector 15 Generals reports.
16 We request that the NRC revisit petitions for 17 the addition of a watchdog panel and/or further 18 investigations for the oversight of Davis-Besse, 19 since the oversight of the NRC and FirstEnergy have 20 twice been insufficient to protect the public health 21 and safety.
22 We request that the NRC revoke Davis-Besses 23 operating license until the design and all the 24 systems and procedures in the aging plant are 25 reviewed, inspected and scrutinized.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
21 1 In the light of the information showing how 2 close the stainless steel liner was to rupturing and 3 how key safety systems, the HPI pumps, the 4 containment coatings, the sump, the hydrogen 5 detection valve were ineffective or nonoperational, 6 that the NRC and FirstEnergy let the public know how 7 close Davis-Besse came to a major accident.
8 We request that PUCO personnel be true 9 consumer advocates.
10 We request that FirstEnergy management 11 seriously consider the serious concerns and proposals 12 from members of the public, members of Congress and 13 consumer advocates in a way that is not demissive and 14 that discusses all possibilities, including closing 15 Davis-Besse or converting it to non-nuclear.
16 We request that FirstEnergy management forgo 17 raises and bonuses instead of passing along the cost 18 of their mistakes at Davis-Besse to us ratepayers and 19 to the shareholders.
20 And we request that FirstEnergy refrain from 21 making statements like last weeks quote that 22 "nuclear power is far and away the safest form of 23 energy production" -- not when a nuclear power plant 24 comes as close to a disaster as Davis-Besse twice has 25 and not when nuclear power plants are at the top of MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
22 1 terrorist hit lists, and not until there is a better 2 system for the safe storage and transportation of 3 spent fuel, and not when those running and regulating 4 nuclear plants fail to put safety before promotions 5 and profits.
6 Thank you again for all that you have done 7 and may you have the courage to do what still needs 8 to be done."
9 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
10 MR. GROBE: Thank you, Donna.
11 As always, youve raised a number of very thought 12 provoking questions.
13 First let me just comment, weve received 14 some 4,000 or more letters and nearly a thousand 15 E-mails regarding the Davis-Besse facility, and its 16 our intention to reply to every one of those. About 17 a thousand replies have been issued so far and over 18 the next couple weeks well complete that task, as 19 Im sure you can appreciate. Responding to 5,000 20 correspondences is a rather huge task, and its taken 21 us a number of weeks to get that done, but youve --
22 let me try to address your questions that you raised 23 for us. Im not going to try to respond for 24 FirstEnergy or the Public Utility Commission, and if 25 I dont hit them all, please let me know.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
23 1 One thing you mentioned was that you 2 requested that Chairman Diaz reconvene the Lessons 3 Learned Task Force or some other type of evaluation 4 and study the problems, including the issues that 5 have been raised by our Inspector Generals office.
6 Thats already being done, every Inspector General 7 report gets evaluated and responded to, and I have 8 been involved in several dialogues regarding the 9 Inspector Generals report.
10 In a large context, there wasnt a whole lot 11 of new information in the Inspector Generals report 12 that wasnt already in the Lessons Learned Task Force 13 report. Its been carefully studied and will be 14 responded to, and we will pass on a copy of your 15 letter to Chairman Diaz.
16 MS. LUEKE: Well, one of the 17 reasons I brought that up, Jack, was because the 18 previous Chairman had pretty much said that negated 19 the Inspector Generals first report, so I feel that 20 the new chairman ought to revisit that.
21 MR. GROBE: The first Inspector 22 Generals report that the -- Chairman Meserve was 23 responding to was a completely different focus and he 24 did respond to that promptly and, quite frankly, 25 disagreed with it. This report is very much in line MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
24 1 with what we already know, and there are some nuance 2 differences between the Lessons Learned Task Force 3 report, and those will be carefully studied and 4 responded to.
5 You asked that we reconsider the petitions 6 for independent oversight. I can think of no plant 7 that has gotten more independent oversight than this 8 one, and including many hundreds of weeks of NRC 9 inspection, including contractors, independent 10 contractors, where we felt we wanted to augment 11 either our staffing levels or our expertise, for 12 example the corrective action team inspection that I 13 referred to earlier was a team of 10 people on site 14 for five weeks, comprised of five engineers from the 15 NRC and five contractors to get additional expertise 16 and resources.
17 The possibility of reconsidering a petition 18 can only come through, I guess, another petition.
19 Its a formal written process described in our 20 regulations, 10CFR2-- 206, and if you have the desire 21 to pursue that, that would be the way to do that.
22 You requested that all systems be reviewed. A 23 significant number of the systems have been reviewed, 24 including all of the systems that have the largest 25 risk -- what we call risk reduction worth. What MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
25 1 that means is theyre the most safety significant of 2 the systems, and I believe the number is somewhere 3 over 99% of the risk reduction worth of the safety 4 systems have already been evaluated. Weve 5 concluded that that process -- its what FirstEnergy 6 calls their systems building block, was adequate, and 7 completed our inspection of that already. We dont 8 have any plans at this time to expand that prior to 9 restart as far as systems reviews. We still have a 10 specific number of issues we have to follow up on, 11 but we have no plans of expanding that beyond the 12 current systems that have been evaluated. The work 13 that FirstEnergy did and our inspection of it gives 14 us confidence in the safety systems at Davis-Besse.
15 The utility, however, has committed to continuing 16 what they call their latent issues review, and thats 17 kind of a funny name. Its essentially looking for 18 things that are not immediately obvious. Its why 19 its called latent issues, and those are detail 20 design reviews in operation of user systems, and I 21 believe the commitment is to do five per year, or 22 something on that order, and that is what they refer 23 to as a business practice that they are planning on 24 doing that on a continuing basis, so its something 25 that has become part of the culture at Davis-Besse.
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26 1 MS. LUEKE: Do you feel that that 2 will then encompass the fact that many of the parts 3 are not to original design?
4 MR. GROBE: Im sorry?
5 MS. LUEKE: Many of the 6 replacement parts arent as originally designed, so 7 is there a comprehensive look at how that impacts the 8 end --
9 MR. GROBE: Well, Im not sure I 10 understand your question, but let me take a shot at 11 it. All of the replacement parts, you only have two 12 choices. You either have to return it to its 13 original design -- actually, you have three choices.
14 The second choice is you replace pumps or 15 valves or components, breakers, whatever it might be, 16 with differently designed components that achieve the 17 same function, and the utility has the opportunity to 18 do that without our review. They dont have to come 19 to us for our approval for that. If they choose to 20 change the design such that its different than what 21 was originally licensed, then they are required to 22 come to us for approval of that, so theres a rather 23 lengthy document that might be on the order of five 24 to 10 feet of paper, its called the Final Safety 25 Analysis Report, and it has a fairly detailed MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
27 1 description of all of the important safety systems of 2 the plant, and as long as they stay within the 3 perimeters of that final Safety Analysis Report they 4 can modify the design of given systems. If they get 5 outside of those perimeters and choose to do 6 something more differently, it needs our approval, 7 and the final comment -- I think the final comment 8 that you had for me was to -- for us to let the 9 public know. I cant imagine conducting more public 10 meetings than we have conducted over the last 18 11 months. I think were up to about 70 now. Weve 12 certainly tried very hard to let the public know as 13 much as we possibly can. There is some ongoing work 14 and there will be ongoing work for quite awhile in 15 our Office of Research to continue to evaluate what 16 happened at Davis-Besse. That takes two 17 perspectives.
18 One is from a metallurgical perspective, and 19 there is ongoing metallurgical research work into 20 what happened at Davis-Besse to make sure that 21 everything we in the industry could learn has been 22 learned.
23 The second perspective is an activity that we 24 undertake to ensure that we understand all possible 25 accident sequences as well as we can and that our MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
28 1 regulatory framework appropriately addresses those.
2 Its more of a research activity as contrasted with 3 what we do every day, day in and day out. Its what 4 is referred to as the Accident Sequence Precursor 5 Program, and what it does is looks over a period of a 6 year prior to something thats significant that 7 happened, and it looks at everything that happened 8 during that prior year and integrates all of the 9 things and tries to learn if theres a gap in either 10 our regulatory program or in our knowledge, and that 11 work is also ongoing. I dont anticipate that 12 either one of those activities is going to change 13 what we have been doing at Davis-Besse from a restart 14 perspective. We assigned the highest level risk 15 significance in our program, a red finding to the 16 reactor head degradation, and we have an 0350 panel.
17 What that means is that we -- that Davis-Besse 18 essentially lost our confidence, and we took them out 19 of our routine oversight program -- we commonly refer 20 to that as the ROP -- and established a separate 21 dedicated oversight program just for the Davis-Besse 22 facility because their performance was so 23 inconsistent with what we would expect for a routine 24 operating reactor, so instead of having a routine 25 oversight program at Davis-Besse, we have an MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
29 1 oversight panel, and the function of the panel, which 2 includes many of the people that Christine introduced 3 earlier, is to define the NRCs oversight program for 4 Davis-Besse until such point in time that the panel 5 is comfortable that the plant is ready to return --
6 if we get to that point in time -- to the routine 7 oversight program, and that would be well after 8 restart if restart occurs. This panel would stay in 9 existence and will be directing the Agencys 10 regulatory activities at Davis-Besse for some time in 11 the future.
12 I think those were the questions that I 13 garnered from the letter that you asked other than 14 those for Ohio elected officials and FirstEnergy.
15 There is one other thing I wanted to point 16 out. I complimented the Ottawa County Commissioners 17 for their interest in Davis-Besse. This project, in 18 my experience, has also had an unprecedented interest 19 from your State and Federal elected officials, a 20 variety of us had spent probably 25 or so briefings 21 of the staff of Representative Kaptur, for Senator 22 Voinovich, for the Governor beyond all of the time we 23 spent with the local County officials as well as 24 Representative Latourette, who has the Perry plant in 25 his district, and other elected officials who are MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
30 1 interested in whats going on at Davis-Besse and 2 whats going on in nuclear power in general, so 3 theres been extensive information sharing of 4 dialogue between a variety of elected officials with 5 local, Federal -- local, State and Federal. How did 6 I do? Did I hit --
7 MS. LUEKE: Thank you.
8 MR. GROBE: Okay, great!
9 Who else might have a question?
10 MR. RULAND: I just have one thing 11 I need to add. We are going to -- kind of a 12 process -- a process perspective from your letter, we 13 are going to take your letter and decide what process 14 this fits in as we do every letter that we get, so 15 well examine it and decide, you know, what action 16 the NRC needs to do about this, and, of course, well 17 get back to you.
18 MS. LUEKE: Thank you.
19 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Bill. Sounds 20 like there is thunder in here. I dont know what 21 Im doing.
22 MS. LIPA: No, its Bills 23 microphone.
24 MR. GROBE: Does anybody else have 25 a question for us?
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
31 1 MR. KORFF: (Indicating).
2 MR. GROBE: Yes, sir.
3 MR. KORFF: My name is Joseph 4 Korff, and Im from Vermilion, Ohio.
5 Before I start, what I was originally 6 standing up to do, I would like to -- appreciate the 7 hard work and perseverance that everybody has had to 8 go through for this -- pretty much gut wrenching 9 experience to find all of the skeletons in your 10 closet and realize that theyre not only in someone 11 elses house, but theyre in your house and to deal 12 with them forthrightly.
13 My purpose right now is to describe the worst 14 case scenario and remind people in this room what 15 happens in the worst case scenario by again quoting 16 from the 2002 report by the Nuclear Energy Agency, 17 and Ill tie that into a very personal experience.
18 It talks about low doses of radiation. It says 19 lower doses and dose rate do not produce acute 20 affects early because available cellular repair 21 mechanisms are able to compensate for the damage; 22 however, this repair may be incomplete or defective, 23 in which case the cell may be altered so that it may 24 develop into a cancerous cell perhaps many years into 25 the future, or its transformation may lead to MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
32 1 inheritable defects in the long-term. This is 2 speaking about Chernobyl, of course, and it says, 3 since the last report we have a better view of the 4 behavior of radial nuclides radionuclides in the contaminate area, 5 and we know now that the natural decontamination 6 process has reached an equilibrium. The decrease of 7 contamination from now on will be mainly due to 8 radioactive decay, indicating that radioactive 9 ceasing Cesium will be present for approximately 300 years.
10 I mean, we wont be around to worry about that, but 11 someone hopefully will; however, the most important 12 lesson learned is probably the understanding that a 13 major nuclear accident has inevitable transboundary 14 implications, and its consequences could affect 15 directly or indirectly many countries even at large 16 distances from the accident site.
17 My comment is this is certainly not contained 18 in Ottawa County, and it was concluded that the 19 Chernobyl accident has had significant long-term 20 impact on psychological well-being, health related 21 quality of life and illness in the effective 22 populations.
23 One statistic they cited was in 1986 children 24 under 15 in Belarus had the occasion of three out of 25 100,000 had a cancer incident, thyroid cancer. By MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
33 1 1993, it was 87 out of 1,000 that contracted the 2 cancer, and outside the former Soviet Union, no 3 concerns were ever warranted for the levels of 4 radioactivity in drinking water. On the other hand, 5 there were lakes, particularly in Switzerland and the 6 Nordic countries, where restrictions were necessary 7 for the consumption of fish. These restrictions 8 still exist in Sweden, for example, where thousands 9 of lakes contain fish with a radioactive content 10 which is still higher than limits established by the 11 authority for the sale in those markets.
12 Over 16 years after the accident, exposures 13 of populations are mainly due to the consumption of 14 agricultural food contaminated with ceasing one in 15 37 Cesium 137, a very heavy element.
16 Talking about the area immediately around the 17 Chernobyl area and its a 27 -- a 30 kilometer 18 radius, so were again 20 miles radius from the site 19 of the accident, it is not clear whether return to 20 the 30 kilometer exclusion zone will ever be 21 possible, nor whether it would be feasible, so were 22 saying theres a whole chunk of the earth that may 23 never be contaminated again for 300 years perhaps, 24 and one of the conclusions they -- on the health 25 impact, it says an important affect of the accident, MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
34 1 which has a bearing on health, is the appearance of 2 the widespread status of psychological stress and the 3 populations affected. The severity of this 4 phenomenon, which is mostly observed in the 5 contaminated regions of the former Soviet Union, 6 appear to reflect public fears about the unknowns of 7 radiation and its affects as well as its mistrust 8 toward public authorities and official experts.
9 On a personal side, last month when I was 10 here, I said that my wife and I were host of a 11 Chernobyl child for a couple years. Quite 12 surprisingly, weve heard from him for the first time 13 since he left us in the mid 90s, and he sends a 14 letter which is dated October 27th and he wrote it in 15 Russian, and my son happens to be a Russian linguist 16 so he translated it for us, and it reads this.
17 Now, Sergei Volcolv came to our house when he 18 was, oh, 10 or 11, I think, maybe a little older.
19 For a child, he grew up with my son, Jeff. Sergei is 20 now 21 probably, has a child, and he says, hello to 21 my dear friends, Susan, Joe, and your big family, 22 with a big hello and a lot of the best memories from 23 your old friend Sergei Volcolv and my family, my 24 wife, Olga, and my daughter, Ketrin. You have 25 probably forgotten me and likely dont remember, and MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
35 1 after all this time I still have not forgotten you 2 and often think of you and tell my friends how good 3 it was to stay with you. I probably would not have 4 written to you, but I, well, more precisely, my 5 daughter has suffered a great tragedy. When she was 6 born, a heart defect was discovered and she needs a 7 very expensive operation before her first birthday, 8 and he goes on to ask for the funds. She has a hole 9 in her heart and shes not quite a year old, and he 10 thinks if she doesnt have the operation by the time 11 shes a year old shes going to pass away. He goes 12 on, he says, truthfully, Im not hopeful that my 13 letter will get to you or, even worse, that you have 14 moved somewhere else for which I dont have the 15 address, but I am strongly counting on you and think 16 that you will understand and help me if you can.
17 Ill be grateful for the rest of my life, and he 18 encloses a picture of himself and hes holding his 19 daughter and his wife, and he says, well, thats 20 probably all. Ill close my letter and wait and 21 hope that this letter reaches you and that you will 22 understand and help me, after all, hope is the last 23 to die. Good-bye, with greetings from you -- to you 24 from the family of Volcolv, and he gives his address 25 in Belarus.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
36 1 And my point in saying this tonight is that 2 the consequences of not doing absolutely flawless 3 work in a nuclear power plant now that they have age 4 on them is -- the consequences are unthinkable, and 5 youre the ones responsible. Youre the public --
6 you hold the public trust, and I know you take it 7 seriously, and I can only emphasize the consequences 8 of something going wrong. We see it -- were going 9 to try to help this young man with this operation for 10 his daughter, and we hope that it doesnt happen 11 here.
12 MR. GROBE: Thank you very much, 13 Joe.
14 MR. KORFF: Youre welcome.
15 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
16 MR. GROBE: A couple comments.
17 The Chernobyl accident involved is referred to as a 18 core melt accident. Its a type of reactor thats 19 not used in the United States. We did have one core 20 melt accident in the United States at a commercial 21 nuclear power plant, that was at Three-Mile Island.
22 The United States has chosen to regulate its nuclear 23 power plants very differently than the former Soviet 24 Union. We require extensive safety systems and 25 ensure -- through regulations and inspections that MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
37 1 those safety systems are maintained. One key 2 difference -- theres many differences, but one key 3 difference between the types of reactors that we have 4 in the United States and the Chernobyl reactor is 5 that it didnt have a containment structure.
6 Three-Mile Island had a containment structure and 7 there were no health affects from Three-Mile Island.
8 A very similar accident in the sense they were core 9 melt accidents, but no health affects, and its 10 because of that diversity and redundancy in safety 11 systems that we require in the United States that 12 theres no comparison, and it would be inappropriate 13 to even think to compare the potential safety risks 14 from a plant in the United States to the safety risks 15 of a plant in the former Soviet Union.
16 I wrote down a lot of notes, but Im not sure 17 how to structure a response to these. The -- what 18 happened -- I dont want anybody to interpret those 19 comments as any kind of diminishment of the 20 importance of what happened at Davis-Besse. Clearly 21 the agency has responded to its strongest actions and 22 has taken the necessary steps to keep Davis-Besse 23 plant shut down, and well will keep it shut down until 24 such a point in time that were confident that it can 25 meet our safety standards, which are very much higher MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
38 1 than the safety standards in the Soviet Union, so I 2 dont believe that theres a reasonable comparison 3 between operating a nuclear power plant in the United 4 States and operating a nuclear power plant in the 5 former Soviet Union.
6 We try to ask folks to keep their questions 7 and comments to five minutes, so if there is somebody 8 else that would like to come forward.
9 MR. RULAND: Can I --
10 MR. GROBE: Sure.
11 MR. RULAND: Just a few other 12 things, Joe, I think you talked about. One has to do 13 with the large distances involved -- involved in the 14 Chernobyl accident, and as Jack has reiterated on a 15 number of occasions, the design was substantially 16 different, and in large distances that were involved 17 in no way reflect what the NRCs regulations require 18 for emergency planning. Not only does the NRC have a 19 containment, we also, frankly, dont plan on things 20 being flawless. I know you argue that things have 21 to be flawless, but -- well, these machines are 22 designed by people, operated by people and overseen 23 by people, and we know were not perfect, and, 24 frankly, thats why we have defense and in depth. We 25 have redundant and diverse equipment. We have MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
39 1 operators to take action if the equipment doesnt 2 work. We have containment to take to contain the 3 problem if, in fact, those things dont work, and if 4 all that doesnt work, we have emergency planning and 5 that emergency planning zone goes out for 10 miles 6 for the direct -- any direct affects, and out to 50 7 miles for ingestion pathway, so -- and dont in any 8 way -- because Im arguing this, that Im saying that 9 Chernobyl and Davis-Besse are even like in kind.
10 They both were power reactors. They both produced 11 electricity, and I think from there, I think the 12 comparison breaks down rather rapidly.
13 In addition, you talked about low doses of 14 radiation, and you described, frankly, a tragic 15 situation that happened to this -- this boy that you 16 took care of and his young daughter -- was it 17 daughter? You know, those things tug at our heart 18 strings. We dont want those things to happen 19 regardless of the cause, and -- so it evokes -- those 20 kind of stories I think invoke in us certain 21 sympathy, as they ought to, but we in the NRC 22 shouldnt be distracted by those stories. We should 23 consider them, in fact, it should spur us to do our 24 jobs even better, and I believe they do, but, we --
25 you know, we, I think, have taken a number of actions MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
40 1 here at Davis-Besse to make sure that in spite of the 2 fact that Chernobyl is not possible here, that we --
3 I hope youve seen that both FENOC and the NRC have 4 re-doubled our efforts specifically referring to this 5 plant and industry-wide. One of the beauties of our 6 system is you get to basically challenge us, and, 7 frankly, the tradition of almost the kind of the New 8 England town meeting where the public is, you know, 9 complains, argues, and asks us tough questions, so --
10 and thats just a general answer to really 11 contrasting the system associated with the Soviet 12 Union, and, frankly, the infrastructure that 13 supported that and really in rather stark contrast to 14 the system that we have, so thats -- thats kind of 15 how I see this.
16 MR. GROBE: We have a uniquely 17 qualified person here.
18 MS. MITLYNG: Hi, Im Viktoria 19 Mitlyng. Im Public Affairs officer in Region III.
20 If you cannot identify my accent, Im sure you will 21 hear it. I am from Kiev, which is not too many 22 miles away from Chernobyl. My members of my family 23 are still in Ukraine, so the situation strikes home 24 to me, and one of the reasons that Im here working 25 for the NRC is because of from where I am and because MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
41 1 of the kind of system from which I come in which at a 2 public meeting is unthinkable.
3 In the former Soviet Union and even in Russia 4 today, citizens dont have an opportunity to really 5 understand how nuclear power plants work or how the 6 oversight process works, its just not possible, and 7 one of the reasons that youre here is to make sure 8 that we are doing our jobs and we feel accountable to 9 you. And. Because of that difference, because of 10 that accountability, Chernobyl is not possible here, 11 and thats what we are trying to ensure. Every 12 single person in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is 13 dedicated to that, and as I said before, its one of 14 the reasons that I work in this organization, so I 15 just wanted to share the personal note with you.
16 Thank you.
17 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Vika. I 18 think -- it almost makes you proud to be an American, 19 doesnt it?
20 (Laughter).
21 MR. GROBE: One of the things that 22 Bill said was that we recognize that all of the 23 activities that go on at nuclear power plants could 24 be flawed, and he specifically highlighted the 25 redundancy, diversity. Its an extremely remote MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
42 1 possibility that radioactive material could be 2 released under any series of accident scenarios, but 3 even though thats a remote possibility, we plan for 4 it, and every year we conduct billions of phrase emergency 5 planning drills or exercises called ingestion pathways. Every year we conduct ingestion 6 pathway exercise with one of the utilities in Region 7 III. Each region does this, and the one were going 8 to be doing this year is coming up next month or 9 actually its next week, but thats an exercise where 10 the entire Federal family, Department of Energy, 11 Health and Human Services, EPA, Agriculture, Nuclear 12 Regulatory Commission come together and simulate 13 failure of all the safety systems, failure of the 14 containment, failure of the core and what might 15 happen and how we deal with that if that did happen, 16 so even though its an incredibly remote probability, 17 and it was an incredibly remote probability at 18 Davis-Besse that you could have the reactor vessel 19 breach and all of the safety systems not work, the 20 core melt, the containment fail and have a release of 21 radioactivity and you just add all of that up, its a 22 very, very low probability, we plan for it just in 23 case it might happen. Nothing like what happened at 24 Chernobyl. I think we have talked about Chernobyl 25 enough.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
43 1 Who else has a question?
2 MS. CABRAL: Im Barb Cabral from 3 Port Clinton, so Im very local. There were a 4 number of things, pumps, containment coatings, 5 detection systems that werent working at the plant, 6 so your scenario of worse case scenario, things 7 falling apart, there is quite a list there, and were 8 not really sure, I mean, how close were we really to 9 an accident and if this stainless steel liner had 10 given way, what really would have happened with those 11 other systems not working? The stainless steel 12 liner, you know, is continually referred to as, it 13 hadnt been eaten away, it was just the other steel, 14 and the insinuation in most of these statements was 15 that the stainless steel liner was designed as part 16 of the containment system, you know, just in general 17 comments, in recent readings its like, well, thats 18 a liner. That wasnt ever intended for containment, 19 was it?
20 MR. GROBE: No.
21 MR. RULAND: Right.
22 MS. CABRAL: Nor was -- and thats 23 why the steel thickness varied all over the place, 24 right, because it wasnt necessary for it to be a 25 consistent thickness or --
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
44 1 MR. GROBE: Why dont you go ahead 2 and finish your questions, and well get them all 3 when youre done?
4 MS. CABRAL: Okay. I want to know 5 what the real purpose of -- was it just a liner, was 6 it meant for containment, and since it was -- I 7 believe very close to its maximum pressure that it 8 could take being that it wasnt for containment, we 9 were very close to a serious accident.
10 What would have happened with these other 11 systems not working, so I want to know more about the 12 liner itself and more about what kind of danger we 13 were really in?
14 MR. GROBE: Sure, Ill take a shot 15 at that and then Bill or Christine, anybody else can 16 pipe in. There is some -- a somewhat lengthy 17 description of this in our monthly update, if you go 18 back about six or eight months, theres even --
19 theres about a three page description that might 20 help you, but the liner can be thought of as a paint.
21 Its a coating on the inside of the reactor vessel.
22 The reactor vessel is six inches thick of carbon 23 steel, normal steel, and the reactor coolant is at a 24 very high temperature, high temperature wand water is 25 corrosive, but, in addition to that, it has a very MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
45 1 mild solution of boric acid in it, so on the interior 2 surface they apply the same as a house plant to 3 protect it from the sun and water, and its made out 4 of very thin stainless steel and its applied to a 5 welding process on the inside of the vessel. It was 6 never intended to have any structural function. Its 7 only intended purpose was to be there to resist the 8 corrosive effects of high temperature water. The 9 con -- consequently, as you have correctly pointed 10 out, the liner was not designed to hold structural 11 strength, to hold high pressures, it was not applied 12 in such a way that you would get such a metal that is 13 a reliable metal to hold high pressures, but, in 14 fact, it did. It had cracks in it, it was bulging a 15 little bit. Its difficult to say how close it was 16 to failure, but thats part of the ongoing research 17 that I was talking about, and Im sure that when that 18 network research work has come to fruition that will be published, 19 but your other and more important question, what are 20 the consequences; had the reactor vessel ruptured, 21 the calidum cladding ruptured, that would have been what we 22 referred to as a medium break LOCA -- Im sorry, a 23 medium break loss of coolant to accident, and 24 different accidents -- different types of accidents 25 require different equipment to respond to them, and MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
46 1 that type of an accident would likely have generated 2 little debris, and would have represented a low 3 risk -- certainly not where it should have been, but 4 a low risk of the core failure. The core is the 5 part of the reactor which contains the uranium fuel, 6 and the goal of all of your safety systems is to keep 7 that core intact, such that it doesnt melt. If you 8 lose cooling it will heat itself up and melt, and 9 thats when you could have the release of radioactive 10 material. Should that happen and thats a -- were 11 now down another magnitude lower in probability, 12 should that happen, you have systems inside 13 containment, and theyre referred to as containment 14 spray that are specifically designed to pull the 15 gaseous radio nuclides out of the containment 16 atmosphere and cool the containment atmosphere, so 17 the -- as the gentleman who had the child from 18 Ukraine or Belarus, I guess it was, mentioned, there 19 was a very high incidence of thyroid cancer, that 20 comes from radioiodine. With the containment spray, 21 we pull that out of the containment atmosphere. All 22 of this is still inside the containment building, so 23 nothing would be released unless it failed, and if 24 the containment failed and now were many, many 25 orders of magnitude lower in probability, then we MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
47 1 have our emergency preparedness requirements. We 2 have things like potassium iodine pills that are 3 ready to be distributed to members of the public in 4 the incredibly unlikely event that all of that would 5 occur. What potassium iodine does specifically for 6 radioiodine is it floods your thyroid with good 7 iodine so any radioiodine that might be in the 8 atmosphere isnt absorbed in your thyroid. We have 9 evacuation plans and sheltering plans and all sorts 10 of things, so the goal of the Nuclear Regulatory 11 Commission is to make sure that the risks are 12 maintained at a reasonable level. The risks at 13 Davis-Besse were not maintained at the level that we 14 require them to be, and thats why were all here 15 today, but that does not -- I dont think you should 16 equate that to any imminent danger to the people in 17 the Ottawa County area. I dont equate it imminent 18 danger to the people in Ottawa County, but that is 19 not our standard. Our standard is nowhere near 20 imminent danger. Our standard is way down below 21 that, so, I think weve answered your questions.
22 MS. CABRAL: (Nod indicating yes).
23 MR. GROBE: Those are for 24 FirstEnergy, right?
25 MR. DUNN: No, no, theyre not.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
48 1 Theyre for Jim, Mr. Caldwell.
2 MR. GROBE: Okay.
3 MR. DUNN: My name is Brian Dunn, 4 and I represent Ohio Citizen Action -- some 100,000 5 members, and I would like to thank Mr. Caldwell for 6 responding to the letters from citizens. In the five 7 weeks since the last meeting, weve collected 780 8 more, and all of them are really good, in fact, weve 9 read each of them ourselves, and there are a couple 10 letters that, with the permission of the citizens 11 that wrote them, Id just like to read on public 12 record, well keep them very short and to the point.
13 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
14 MR. DUNN:
Dear Mr. Caldwell,
we 15 live in the Cleveland area and almost daily we fear 16 the prospect of a catastrophic nuclear accident at 17 Davis-Besse that will almost certainly occur if the 18 plant is restarted under the authority of 19 FirstEnergy. We are writing to ask you to perform 20 the responsibilities of your office and keep the 21 Davis-Besse -- keep Davis-Besse closed indefinitely.
22 The consequences of restart are too grave to leave to 23 the management -- to leave the management of 24 Davis-Besse in the hands of the mediocre 25 functionaries who run FirstEnergy. We are confident MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
49 1 that you will take this step in the name of simple 2 public safety. Please tell us of your position in 3 an immediate reply. Ralph Day and Eileen OConner, 4 Sincerely.
5 The other is
Dear Mr. Caldwell,
I live in 6 Northeast Ohio and am very concerned about the status 7 of all power plants in this area. Since FirstEnergy 8 took over the electric utility service the safety 9 record has been tainted. The number of power 10 outages has increased significantly. I worked for a 11 public utility and have great concerns about how 12 FirstEnergy is operating and their judgment in 13 regards to the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor, please 14 keep it closed. Thank you, Sherry Hribar.
15 The other thing to note, and we can get you a 16 copy of it, is that we also have a letter signed by 17 70 health professionals, one of the groups being the 18 Ohio Nurses Association, another being -- I want to 19 get this right -- Physicians for Social 20 Responsibility, and that letter asks simply that 21 alternatives be considered rather than restarting 22 Davis-Besse, and we would be happy to get Mr.
23 Caldwell a copy of that letter.
24 MS. LIPA: I didnt see that in 25 the news articles, but was that addressed to him or MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
50 1 to --
2 MR. DUNN: I believe it was 3 addressed to FirstEnergy -- Peter Berg, actually.
4 MS. LIPA: Sure, and wed 5 appreciate a copy of that.
6 MR. DUNN: Okay. Thanks.
7 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
8 Just to let you know a couple things, thank you for 9 the letters, and, like we stated before, we do plan 10 to read every letter, and we do plan to respond, and 11 I did want to let you know, in case you werent here 12 earlier, we talked about that Jim Caldwell did make a 13 site visit on Sunday, and he toured the facility with 14 Scott Thomas and went all through the facility, and 15 then he also attended an all day session that the 16 utility had with their off site Reactor Restart 17 Oversight Panel, so he has been at the facility 18 recently, does plan to come when there is a restart 19 meeting. When there is a restart meeting held, he 20 will be coming out for that and we do brief him 21 regularly, so hes up to speed on Davis-Besse.
22 MS. WEIR: Hi. Im Shari Weir.
23 I have just a couple of quick things to raise.
24 One deals with the margin of safety, and I 25 appreciate Mr. Grobes description of the various MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
51 1 safety reinforcements, but, you know, since -- since 2 your last public meeting here, which was, oh, a 3 little more than a month ago, there has been a report 4 that the NRCs own research has determined that 5 the -- that the liner at Davis-Besse would likely 6 have ruptured at much lower pressure than either the 7 company or the NRC had previously thought, and 8 actually at levels that may be below the normal 9 operating pressure at Davis-Besse, so it looks like 10 the margin of safety is gone, and that rather than a 11 margin of safety, we were protected by only luck.
12 That leads me to another -- my second point, 13 and that is that FirstEnergy admitted that they put 14 production ahead of safety, and that they said that 15 they had learned an important lesson because of that, 16 and, yet, they are hustling to get this plant back 17 on-line by the end of the year and attempting to 18 convince the NRC to move quickly to approve the 19 restart. The reason, cause thats what the 20 financial community wants to happen. This plant is 21 costing FirstEnergy a lot of money, and so being cash 22 strapped, they are doing all they can to get it back 23 on-line by the end of the year, and with the -- with 24 the continual screw-ups that we heard about this 25 afternoon, it seems that, once again, they are MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
52 1 looking at profits ahead of safety.
2 The third point is an -- I know that rumors 3 are a dime a dozen, but I want to say this because 4 there is a rumor that FirstEnergy is interested in 5 selling Davis-Besse. I bring that up not because it 6 has anything to do with the NRCs oversight of the 7 current problems, I bring it up to say only that we 8 in Ohio have been lucky with two Davis-Besse near 9 mishaps. We dont want it -- we dont want to put 10 our luck on the line a third time and so, if, in 11 fact, a reliable seller would take on the plant, that 12 would solve a lot of problems. Thanks.
13 MR. GROBE: I think you had three 14 points, which I will try to address and ask for help 15 appropriately.
16 The last one, nobody can operate the 17 Davis-Besse plant except FirstEnergy unless we 18 approve it, so whether or not FirstEnergy does or 19 does not want to sell Davis-Besse, they are the only 20 people licensed to operate Davis-Besse.
21 Your middle set of questions really werent 22 for us, they were for FirstEnergy with respect to how 23 they evaluate business decisions and whether to 24 proceed with operating Davis-Besse or whether to shut 25 it down permanently, those are strictly business MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
53 1 decisions. What I can assure you of is that 2 Davis-Besse wont operate unless were confident it 3 can be operated safely and meet our regulations and 4 operate it in the future safely and reliably.
5 Your first set of questions concerned what I 6 was talking about earlier, which was some ongoing 7 research activities. The tests that were recently 8 discussed in the newspapers were conducted in an 9 attempt to calibrate some engineering models that we 10 used to predict metal failures, and they were done in 11 close replication to the situation at Davis-Besse, 12 but certainly not an identical replication and they 13 are giving us -- this is part of the research program 14 I was talking about in conjunction with the accident 15 sequence precursor. That work will be going on quite 16 awhile, and, as I mentioned, that goal in that type 17 of work is for us to learn as much as we can about 18 what happened here. It really has nothing to do 19 with the restart of Davis-Besse in the context of 20 those conditions are not going to be replicated or 21 this plant wouldnt be permitted to restart, so its 22 related to ongoing for work looking, learning and 23 growing in our knowledge, in both our knowledge and 24 metallurgic respect and knowledge in our regulatory 25 effectiveness. We assign the highest level MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
54 1 significance problem at Davis-Besse so whatever 2 research comes out with it will simply reinforce what 3 we have already decided and weve been providing 4 oversight at the highest level, so its -- its 5 interesting research, it will help us learn for the 6 future, but it really has little to do with the 7 ongoing activities here at Davis-Besse.
8 MR. RULAND: You described what you 9 felt was FENOCs hustling to get the plant on-line by 10 the end of the year, I dont want to speak to that, 11 but what I would speak to is what the NRC is doing, 12 and we are continuing to observe the criteria that we 13 established when we established the 0350 plan. We 14 have restart -- we have a Restart Checklist, and 15 those things need to be completed and need to receive 16 our approval prior to restart and not before, and we 17 still need to get Mr. Caldwells permission to --
18 that were going to have to do that, and, frankly, 19 there is no hustling about it. Were working at the 20 normal -- the NRC is working at our normal pace, and 21 well continue to do that.
22 MR. GROBE: I dont know if I can 23 keep up this normal pace much longer.
24 (Laughter).
25 MR. RULAND: Yeah, well, normal is MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
55 1 in parentheses, Jack.
2 So, you know, hustling -- from your 3 perspective, they might be hustling. I dont see 4 it. I mean, Im not going to mince words. Nuclear 5 plants are money making ventures, and, you know, but 6 thats not our business. Its our business not 7 to -- is to avoid and, in fact, not be bothered by 8 that, and, frankly, thats the beauty of our system 9 is -- it doesnt make any difference to me whether 10 they make money or not, and well continue with that 11 approach.
12 MR. GROBE: Bills absolutely 13 right. The pace of our activities actually get 14 greater towards the end of a project like this 15 because we cant inspect anything until the utility 16 finishes the work, so a lot of the work is now coming 17 to completion, and we have folks like Jeff Wright 18 sitting here in the fifth row, a team leader for one 19 of our inspections, and a number of other folks that 20 are on site inspecting this week, and our activities 21 are going to be intense because we have a 22 responsibility to perform inspections at the time 23 that theyre ready to be performed, and now is the 24 time when many of those inspections are being 25 performed, but, as Bill indicated, our only focus is MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
56 1 safety, and the plant wont be restarted unless its 2 safe.
3 MS. MUSSER: Hi, Mary Musser from 4 Cleveland, Ohio. I have a few questions and just a 5 quick observation.
6 Had the lid burst, how would a core melt have 7 been prevented given the fact that the emergency 8 cooling system, lack of cooling system has never 9 worked in the 25 plus years that that plant was 10 operating, according to an engineer that worked 11 there, and you mentioned the evacuation plan, how 12 about the people who live on the islands in Lake 13 Erie, were about 15 miles away from the plant where 14 there is no evacuation plan, and what about the 15 drinking water? Had the worst case scenario 16 happened, how would iodine pills have saved Lake 17 Erie?
18 And this is just an observance. You 19 mentioned there were no ill health effects from 20 Three-Mile Island -- a personal friend of mine spoke 21 to Three-Mile Island survivors, did research on it.
22 A lot of them didnt want to come forward publicly.
23 It was too painful for them. A lot of them sent 24 photographs, and I dare to tell you I saw some pretty 25 scary photographs of two-headed animals, plant MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
57 1 mutations, animal mutations, and, in fact, some of 2 the photographs that were handed over to us, the 3 person who took some of these photographs has since 4 died of thyroid cancer himself, so I kind of think 5 that maybe you should meet with those people and talk 6 to them directly before you publicly say that.
7 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
8 MR. GROBE: I was actually 9 referring to accepted research and evaluation 10 research data. My sister has thyroid cancer, and 11 she doesnt live anywhere near a nuclear plant. The 12 way we analyze situations like this is probabilistic, 13 and I know thats sometimes hard to understand simply 14 because 40,000 square feet of coatings, or something 15 like that was not properly qualified, doesnt mean 16 the coating failed. It has a probability of failing.
17 Because the high pressure injection pumps have a 18 design defect doesnt necessarily mean theyre going 19 to fail, it means they have an increased likelihood 20 of failing. Each of these is a probabilistic 21 concept. There was one valve that had been shut 22 which is a reasonably consequential valve, had been 23 shut for a number of years, had to do with a cooling 24 line to a heat exchanger on a hydrogen analyzer, and, 25 in fact, the instrument overresponds to that cooling MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
58 1 line, is not operating properly, so it would have 2 operated conservatively. The -- I know of no 3 information that says that the safety systems would 4 not have functioned for 25 years. The fact of the 5 matter, though, is that several of the safety systems 6 had either design defects or, in the case of the 7 sump, it wasnt the sump that had the defect 8 necessarily, it was the containment coatings, which 9 are like paints applied inside containment. One 10 type of coating was used which that was not properly 11 qualified which would have caused the sump to 12 misperform. Each of those has an increased 13 likelihood that is outside of our requirements, and 14 thats why its being fixed. It results in the 15 increased likelihood that the core may have melted, 16 that was -- at an unacceptable level, and we 17 categorized it at a red level simply based on the 18 head degradation, not adding in these other issues, 19 so thats why were here. Thats why were providing 20 this additional oversight. Thats why were going 21 to make sure these issues are not only fixed at 22 oversight, but fixed in such a way that theres 23 confidence in the future that they wont recur.
24 Other comments?
25 MR. RULAND: I think this is the MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
59 1 second month in a row that the question of -- is it 2 Catawba Island that youre referring to?
3 MS. CABRAL: Kelleys Island.
4 MR. RULAND: Thats about 15 miles 5 from the plant?
6 MS. CABRAL: Yeah.
7 MR. RULAND: That is outside the 10 8 miles EPZ, emergency planning zone, where our 9 regulations require folks to -- require licensees to 10 have evacuation plans. The Commission has decided 11 that those folks outside that 10 mile zone arent --
12 wont need to evacuate because we have containment; 13 however, it would be within the 50 mile ingestion 14 pathway planning zone, and we would take actions --
15 rather the licensee would take actions in concert 16 with the State officials, with the FEMA emergency 17 plan to ensure that those folks dont ingest liquids 18 or solid foods that possibly they could ingest 19 radioactive material, and that has been our emergency 20 planning approach for, gee, at least 20 years, 21 probably in excess of that, and weve deemed that to 22 be acceptable, and weve -- those plans have 23 undergone a lot of scrutiny, and the NRC is 24 comfortable with that amount of evacuation, and --
25 Jack, do you have anything to add?
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
60 1 MR. GROBE: Yeah, just a comment.
2 This is an interesting area where different local, 3 State and Federal jurisdictions apply, and I just 4 wanted to comment and make sure you understand our 5 responsibility. The Federal Emergency Management 6 Agency has responsibility for overseeing the State 7 plans and County plans for off site emergency 8 planning. We require that those plans be in place 9 and be approved by those folks, the County, the 10 State, and FEMA, but we actually dont require off 11 site emergency planning. We set guidelines for what 12 the expectations that they need to accomplish for, 13 and FEMAs responsibility is to make sure those are 14 being accomplished. For a person outside the 10 15 mile EPZ, which is what we require, that doesnt mean 16 there is no emergency planning for you. What that 17 means is its not mandated by the Nuclear Regulatory 18 Commission. You have a State emergency management 19 agency and local County emergency management 20 department -- Im not quite sure what its called, 21 and theyre responsible for the health of the 22 citizens in Ottawa County and the State of Ohio day 23 in and day out for all types of emergencies, so those 24 are the folks you need to talk to with respect to 25 emergency planning for Kelleys Island or Marblehead.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
61 1 MS. MUSSER: We talked to a lot of 2 people, and the bottom line is they are ineffective, 3 if at all.
4 MR. GROBE: Yeah, I cant help you 5 a lot with that because we have our guidelines, and 6 they are very clearly articulated and well supported 7 by the radiological or potentially radiological 8 hazards, and FEMA is required to make sure that the 9 State and local officials have good plans, and thats 10 really a double benefit, not only is it a good plan 11 to respond to a nuclear problem, but its also a plan 12 thats used for any type of emergency.
13 MR. RULAND: There is something 14 else to add here. Our plant requires a certain 15 infrastructure and organization, and that 16 infrastructure and organization, while it might not 17 have the specific evacuation that youre supposing 18 would happen, we have this organization in place and 19 the extremely unlikely situation where maybe that 20 evacuation would be required -- and Im not saying it 21 is, under no circumstances am I saying that, you have 22 an organization in place that will be able to make 23 decisions to protect the health and safety of the 24 public and that is that organization that would be 25 able to respond.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
62 1 MS. MUSSER: (Nod indicating).
2 MR. GROBE: Yes, maam?
3 MS. BAUMGARTNER: Yes, good evening.
4 Im Doctor Elizabeth Baumgartner. Im a 5 pharmaceutical scientist by training as well as a 6 member of the Bar of the United States District Court 7 for the Northern District of Ohio. Im a resident 8 here in Oak Harbor, and I apologize, I came in late, 9 so there may be some concerns I have that were 10 addressed earlier, but Id like to follow up on the 11 concern with some local safety.
12 The gentleman said that, you know, the 13 Government will protect us, and Id like to point out 14 on September 11, 2001 we had the mass -- greatest 15 intelligence failure in this country in terms of 16 national security. Im presently a complainant in 17 United States District Court asking for an 18 investigation of our local law enforcement and Court 19 system here in Ottawa County in regards to legal 20 corruption. Im intrigued with your --
21 MR. GROBE: Dr. Baumgartner, do 22 you have a specific comment regarding Davis-Besse?
23 MS. BAUMGARTNER: Yes, my concern is 24 that the culture of safety that your group was 25 supposed to ensure that whistle-blowers would not be MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
63 1 retaliated against, Im interested in what steps are 2 being taken there integrating with the United Stated 3 Department of Justice, perhaps the EEOC to ensure 4 that people here in this community and the workers 5 out there are not retaliated against and that the 6 system in effect, that there is integrity in the 7 system. Thats a huge concern that I have in view of 8 the fact that a local attorney has filed a lawsuit, a 9 local judge is now involved in that lawsuit, and I 10 have complaints against both of them for legal 11 misconduct, so Im concerned that there is no 12 integrity in the process and that we as local 13 citizens have nowhere to go, thats my concern.
14 MR. GROBE: I would be glad to try 15 to answer your question. There are two 16 jurisdictions that are concerned with the protection 17 of whistle-blowers at nuclear power plants. They 18 have different purposes. The Department of Labor 19 has the purpose of making sure that the individuals 20 must hold, meaning that if an individual is 21 discriminated against for raising safety concerns 22 that appropriate remunerations are provided to 23 address the affects on the individual. We have a 24 regulation which prohibits that from the standpoint 25 in a way in which a utility is operated. We have no MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
64 1 outstanding concerns that have occurred in the last 2 year and a half -- well, since it has been shut down, 3 I guess its getting closer to two years at the 4 Davis-Besse plant with respect to discrimination --
5 confirmed discrimination complaints. There was one 6 case that went to the Department of Labor for 7 investigation and adjudication, and the Department of 8 Labor found that the company did not discriminate 9 against the individual. There have been other 10 issues that have come up, and none of them have 11 been -- have resulted in findings of discrimination 12 against the company. None of this has to do with 13 State and local officials. This is all Federal 14 officials, and I hope you have confidence in us, but 15 even if you dont, thats the process and those are 16 the involved folks, and we will investigate any valid 17 allegations of discrimination and find the facts.
18 MS. BAUMGARTNER: May I follow up? I 19 appreciate what youre saying, but whats happening 20 here locally is firms like FirstEnergy or Brush 21 Berrillum deliberately locate in remote rural 22 counties because of the lack of -- for lack of a 23 better word, sophisticated local citizenry --
24 THEREUPON, the audience sighed.
25 MS. BAUMGARTNER: And theres a MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
65 1 situation here in this part of the State where 2 citizens are quite frankly being threatened and 3 receiving death threats.
4 MR. GROBE: I appreciate that. If 5 this has to do with nuclear power, its our 6 responsibility, and I think you just insulted a bunch 7 of people in the room, so --
8 MS. BAUMGARTNER: No, I dont think I 9 did. Im a resident here.
10 (Laughter).
11 MS. BAUMGARTNER: Im not saying -- I 12 know a lot of people at the plant, and I think the 13 workers out there are fabulous people. My concern 14 is that theres a culture or lack of integrity among 15 local leadership in this County thats enabling 16 bribery and things like that to go on, and I have an 17 enormous concern that officials of FirstEnergy are 18 engaged in that type of behavior.
19 MR. GROBE: Well --
20 MS. BAUMGARTNER: And thats what Id 21 like to have addressed.
22 Where do you go to have that type of behavior 23 addressed?
24 MR. GROBE: If you have a specific 25 allegation regarding financial malfeasance, Im sure MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
66 1 the Securities Exchange Commission would be an 2 appropriate place. Im not sure. Im not a lawyer 3 nor a finance person, so I would recommend you pursue 4 it through that --
5 MS. BAUMGARTNER: Well, the concern I 6 have is its just all these overlapping agencies, and 7 everybody has their one little turf, but nobody is 8 looking out to the overall integrity of the process.
9 MR. GROBE: Appreciate your 10 comments.
11 MS. BAUMGARTNER: And then you pass the 12 buck, you know?
13 MR. GROBE: I dont think Im 14 passing the buck on nuclear safety. Thank you.
15 MR. GREVE: Good evening. My name 16 is Eric Greve. I have two questions, both of which 17 center on the failure of the two NRC Resident 18 Inspectors to act when presented with information 19 about the boric acid deposits on the vessel head back 20 in the year 2000. I guess some new information has 21 been -- has come to light, at least come to public 22 knowledge recently in the newspapers.
23 First of all, the Senior Resident Inspector, 24 I believe his name is Kevin Zeller, when given the 25 information, for example, the infamous red photo by MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
67 1 the FirstEnergy employee, he took no action on it. I 2 believe the quote in the paper said it was because he 3 assumed the company would fix the problem. The 4 other resident inspector, when he was given this 5 information about the boric acid deposit, he was 6 quoted saying that he didnt -- he quote, did not 7 have sufficient training to recognize the 8 significance of boric acid deposits, end quote. And 9 then also on October 22nd, excerpts from the NRCs 10 own Inspector General report were printed in The 11 Plain Dealer and I believe some other papers. This 12 report characterized those inspectors failure pretty 13 succinctly. The reports cited flawed communication, 14 inept assessments, wrong assumptions, poor follow up 15 and an over-reliance on the utility that the NRC is 16 supposed to regulate, so, with all due respect to the 17 current three Resident Inspectors, who Im sure are 18 very nice people, by giving the incompetence of those 19 two past inspectors, what faith should the public 20 have that these current three inspectors are going to 21 do a better job? Thats my first question. I have 22 another one, too.
23 MR. GROBE: Go ahead. Why dont 24 you ask the other one?
25 MR. GREVE: Okay. My second MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
68 1 question concerns accountability, there was a brief 2 mention of that a few minutes ago because the second 3 inspector that I mentioned -- the one that did not 4 realize the significance of the acid deposits, 5 becoming -- he received a promotion within the NRC, 6 becoming the Senior Resident Inspector at another 7 plant. Then Kevin Zeller, the other Resident 8 Inspector, he now holds a position at Davis-Besse.
9 What can this do but further shake the public 10 confidence when the failure of these two inspectors 11 is rewarded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 12 FirstEnergy? Bluntly put, why werent these 13 inspectors held accountable?
14 MR. GROBE: Theres a number of 15 answers to your questions, you have asked a number of 16 different questions. Let me try to get at some of 17 them and Ill ask for help. First off, the agency 18 concluded as a result of the last Inspector General 19 report that what occurred at Davis-Besse with respect 20 to our performance was unacceptable, and it was, as 21 Chairman Meserve characterized, an institutional 22 failure. It had to do with a number of things and, 23 specific with these Resident Inspectors, the resident 24 inspection program is a very interesting and 25 challenging assignment. We have three residents at MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
69 1 Davis-Besse, thats one more -- 50% more than we have 2 at most other nuclear power plants, and theyre 3 charged with the responsibility to implement the 4 inspection program. That is based on gaining 5 insights into licensee performance from a small 6 sample of activities. Davis-Besse has somewhere 7 near a thousand people working at the facility, and 8 we have three inspectors. Thats the realities of 9 where we are today. We have a structural program 10 that involves maintaining an awareness of whats 11 going on at the plant and sampling what activities to 12 look at, and, unfortunately, we did not sample the 13 condition report, which the Inspector General 14 concluded one of our inspectors sought. The Senior 15 Resident Inspector I dont believe saw the specific 16 condition report youre referring to, but was aware 17 that there was boric acid on the head, was aware that 18 the utility believed it was coming from leaking 19 flanges. That had been a challenge the utility had 20 been facing for a number of years and was working on 21 replacing all of the gaskets on those flanges with 22 updated gaskets, was aware based on what he was told 23 that the utility was replacing the gaskets on the 24 affected control rod drive mechanisms, was cleaning 25 the head, and was aware, based on what he was told, MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
70 1 that the head had been cleaned and inspected and 2 there was no problems. Because this was an issue 3 that had been dealt with for a number of years at 4 Davis-Besse, the individual made the decision that he 5 would monitor the activity through the regular 6 meetings and conversation, and he did not choose that 7 as one of the samples, and had he chosen possibly 8 this issue would have been identified two years 9 earlier. The issue was identified as a result of an 10 agency activity. That is what we call a generic 11 correspondence, that was a bulletin, and when we 12 develop safety concern with a class of reactors, 13 Davis-Besse is a pressurized water reactor, that we 14 need the utility to look into, we send out whats 15 called a bulletin or a generic letter, depending on 16 the nature of the activity, and theyre required to 17 evaluate it, look into it and respond to us in 18 writing and we evaluate those responses. Its --
19 its endemic in our structure that we have to trust 20 that the utility is telling us the truth. At As a 21 matter of fact, theyre required to tell us the 22 truth, and if they dont tell us the truth, then 23 thats a violation of our requirements, which carries 24 sanctions. The -- in this case, we issued a 25 bulletin. It required a response and a shutdown and MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
71 1 inspection and Davis-Besse shut down, inspected and 2 found the problem, so while -- while late -- and Im 3 certainly not making any excuses, this issue was 4 identified as a result of NRC activities monitoring 5 the safety of power plants not only in the United 6 States, but also nationally. The Lessons Learned 7 Task Force report identified many shortcomings.
8 Some of those are relative to activities going on in 9 Washington, some are relative to activities going on 10 in the field. While we were aware of things going 11 on internationally and things that were going on in 12 other power plants in the United States, we could 13 have been better connected, and there are specific 14 actions in the Lessons Learned Task Force activities, 15 the findings to improve in these areas. There were 16 weaknesses in some of the other aspects of our 17 regulations, there were activities to develop rules 18 and things like that. In addition to that, there 19 were identified weaknesses and how we inspect these 20 kinds of generic issues. Quite frankly, because of 21 budget cuts over the years we have spent less time 22 inspecting these because we receive letters from the 23 utilities saying whats going on, theyre inspecting 24 them. Theres 103 operating nuclear power plants in 25 the United States, and if you look at the safety and MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
72 1 performance record over the last 20 years, its 2 steadily improved, and its better by none of any 3 nuclear power plant on an average basis.
4 Davis-Besse clearly was not an average plant. Its 5 performance clearly was substandard, and thats why 6 were here today. So the regulatory framework 7 generally has worked well for the United States.
8 Nuclear energy is part of our energy mix, and thats 9 worked well for us. Theres going to be a lot of 10 differing views on that, but nuclear power provides 11 over 20% of our electricity in the United States and 12 thats less dependence on oil and coal, which also 13 have interesting environmental and international 14 issues.
15 The Lessons Learned Task Force, though, 16 identified that there are opportunities to ensure 17 that Davis-Besse doesnt happen again, and were 18 implementing those opportunities. The IG report 19 will be evaluated. It will be responded to. If 20 theres a response that is different than what weve 21 already responded to in the Lessons Learned Task 22 Force, then that will happen.
23 The -- as we mentioned earlier, the research 24 activities are ongoing. If those research 25 activities identify something that we need to learn, MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
73 1 well learn it, and well get better and well try to 2 make sure that this reduction in the safety margin at 3 Davis-Besse doesnt happen again.
4 Other comments? Questions?
5 THEREUPON, Ms. Lipa conferred with Mr. Grobe.
6 MR. GROBE: Oh, the NRC concluded 7 that the inspectors performed correctly within the 8 context of the tools that they were given, and its 9 unfortunate that we did not select that specific 10 activity as a sample. Its unfortunate that we 11 didnt find this in 2000 instead of 2002. Were 12 taking actions to address that, but we did not find 13 that these inspectors performed in a substandard 14 manner. Next?
15 MR. KOZIEL: Yes, my name is Mark 16 Koziel. I work for the Nuclear Quality Assessment 17 Organization. Its part of FirstEnergy, and I would 18 like to get this meeting back to reality.
19 Weve heard a lot of horror stories from 20 anti-nuclear people, and I want to make sure that 21 local residents have no concerns that theres going 22 to be two-headed dogs in the area or were going to 23 have babies with flippers or anything like that.
24 Its very upsetting for me to hear those kind of 25 stories because I think its just fear monitors mongering among MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
74 1 people, and certainly our organization has done 2 everything we can to make this plant safe and to 3 bring it back on-line safely.
4 I would like to remind people that the head 5 is replaced. We have a new head in place. We 6 dont have a liner thats ready to burst right now.
7 That liner, that head is now radioactive strapped scrap.
8 It is no longer at Davis-Besse. We have a new head 9 in place, a fully functional head is in place at the 10 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.
11 Additionally, its very difficult for me to 12 understand how a profit motive was available to 13 FirstEnergy employees and FirstEnergy executives. I 14 can tell you right now that there is not a single 15 executive that made money off the damage and 16 degradation to the reactor head. Money was lost.
17 Money was lost due to the degradation of that head, 18 and everyone at FirstEnergy understands that if you 19 dont have nuclear safety, you cant have production 20 and you cant make money. There was no profit 21 motive involved with people overseeing safety for 22 profit. There was no profit involved with the 23 degradation of this head. The plant has learned, we 24 replaced the head. We improved our organizations.
25 Weve improved our safety systems. Weve improved MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
75 1 the safety margin. This plant will be ready to 2 restart hopefully by the end of this year, and we 3 have done everything we can to make it safe, and 4 certainly FirstEnergy has afforded us money, and the 5 anti-nuclears act like thats a bad thing. Thats a 6 good thing that they support us with all this money.
7 They put a hell of a lot of money into this plant to 8 make it safe. We didnt want any doubt in anyones 9 mind that we have done everything we can to make this 10 plant safe. Thank you very much.
11 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
12 MR. GROBE: Thank you. Other 13 comments and questions?
14 MR. DUSSEL: Yes, my name is Tim 15 Dussel, and I have been to a lot of the meetings, 16 almost all of the meetings.
17 The thing that still stands out, all the 18 things thats happened, the NRC has promoted people 19 for not doing their job.
20 The other thing that I find really amazing is 21 the fact that youve set up here and you say it is 22 highly unlikely that this could happen, that could 23 happen, all the failures of the backup systems and 24 poor engineering and the backup systems -- two years 25 ago if I would have stood up here and asked you what MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
76 1 the chances are off a hole being rusted through a six 2 inch nuclear reactor lid, what would you have told 3 us? You would have probably said I was out of my 4 mind. I think we better look at what has happened 5 and look at the past. Thank you.
6 MR. GROBE: Tim, I appreciate your 7 comments, and I think as weve already discussed this 8 evening, not only is FirstEnergy looking hard at it, 9 but the NRC is also equally looking hard at it, and 10 you folks are here holding us accountable and asking 11 good questions, and what we refer to as our oversight 12 committee and the house side are keenly involved and 13 making sure that we work very hard at this and learn 14 from it, so I hope were doing that. Thank you.
15 Who else has a question? Good.
16 MR. OSTROWSKI: Good evening. My name 17 is Kevin Ostrowski, Manager of Regulatory Affairs at 18 the Davis-Besse Station. I have a collective total 19 of 23 years of nuclear power experience. I really 20 started out life as a high school math, physics, and 21 chemistry teacher.
22 In 23 years I have been a Senior Reactor 23 Operator, at Beaver Valley for 12 years, at Perry for 24 three years, and at Davis-Besse now for four months.
25 I say that because I understand the science, the MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
77 1 technology and the engineering behind the plant.
2 We have always, always put safety before 3 production. We work with a group of trained, 4 experienced nuclear professionals. I have never, 5 ever considered anyone I worked with to be mediocre.
6 I dont see anyone hustling to go get this plant 7 on-line by the end of the year. What I do see is a 8 daily discussion of nuclear radiological and 9 industrial safety, and we talk about it daily.
10 Every day we talk about the health and safety of the 11 public, the health and safety of the people that we 12 work with, and the health and safety of the people in 13 the community.
14 I am personally committed to the safe 15 operation of Davis-Besse, the management team I work 16 with is committed to the safe operation of 17 Davis-Besse. Our entire population of plant staff is 18 committed to the safe operation of Davis-Besse. Our 19 company is committed to the safe operation of 20 Davis-Besse. My CEO, my President, Chief Operating 21 Officer, my plant manager have always come to the 22 meetings and told us personally, we want the job done 23 right, we want it done safely. It will take us as 24 long as it takes. Before too long, I would expect 25 sometime soon, I will be asked to sign my name MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
78 1 stating that its okay for Davis-Besse to restart.
2 I will not do that and nor will any of the other 3 managers that work on our team sign their name saying 4 its okay for Davis-Besse to restart until we have 5 the assurance its 100% safe to restart and we do not 6 anticipate -- we will not come to the NRC and ask you 7 for permission to restart our plant until we know 8 its safe and ready to operate. Have a good 9 evening.
10 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
11 MR. GROBE: Thank you, Kevin.
12 Other questions or comments?
13 (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE).
14 MR. GROBE: Okay, very good.
15 Thank you very much.
16 Our next pair of public meetings is December 17 3rd here in the auditorium of Oak Harbor High School, 18 at 2:00 and 7:00. Thank you.
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
79 1 CERTIFICATE 2 STATE OF OHIO )
) ss.
3 COUNTY OF HURON )
4 I, Marlene S. Lewis, Stenotype Reporter and 5 Notary Public within and for the State aforesaid, duly commissioned and qualified, do hereby certify 6 that the foregoing, consisting of 78 pages, was taken by me in stenotype and was reduced to writing by me 7 by means of Computer-Aided Transcription; that the foregoing is a true and complete transcript of the 8 proceedings held in that room on the 12th day of November, 2003 before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 9 Commission.
I also further certify that I was present in 10 the room during all of the proceedings.
11 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand 12 and seal of office at Wakeman, Ohio this day of
, 2003.
13 14 15 Marlene S. Lewis Notary Public 16 3922 Court Road Wakeman, OH 44889 17 My commission expires 4/29/04 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900