ML033530512
| ML033530512 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 12/03/2003 |
| From: | NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML033530512 (68) | |
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2 PUBLIC MEETING 3 BETWEEN U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O350 PANEL 4 AND FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 5 OAK HARBOR, OHIO 6 ---
7 Meeting held on Wednesday, December 3, 2003, at 7:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, Ohio, 8 taken by me, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio.
9 10 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
11 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 12 Mr. John "Jack" Grobe, 13 Senior Manager, Region III Office
& Chairman, MC O350 Panel 14 Mr. William Ruland, Senior Manager NRR 15 & Vice Chairman, MC O350 Panel 16 Mr. Christopher Scott Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector 17 U.S. NRC Office - Davis-Besse 18 ---
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
2 1 MR. GROBE: Good evening. My 2 name is Jack Grobe. Im a Senior Manager from the NRCs 3 Office in Lisle, Illinois; and also for the past year and a 4 half or so, Ive been assigned as the Chairman of the 5 Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
6 I would like to welcome you all to this meeting this 7 evening.
8 We had a business meeting with FirstEnergy this 9 afternoon, and the purpose of tonights meeting is to 10 inform members of the public of the information that was 11 discussed this afternoon in the business meeting and then 12 provide you an opportunity to share comments with us and 13 ask us questions.
14 Before we get started, I would like to make you 15 aware that there is several documents out in the foyer that 16 would be of interest to you. One is the December issue of 17 the NRC update. Its a document that we put out monthly, 18 and it provides current information on NRC activities at 19 the Davis-Besse facility.
20 There is some historical inform regarding what 21 happened at Davis-Besse, as well as information on how you 22 can contact us. If you have questions that you dont think 23 of during the meeting and want to get a hold of us, there 24 is contact information for our Public Affairs staff, as 25 well as information regarding the NRCs Web site on MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
3 1 Davis-Besse, where there is just a wealth of information of 2 whats happening at Davis-Besse and what the NRC activities 3 has been over the last 18 months or so.
4 In addition, out in the foyer, are slides from this 5 afternoons presentation and another document thats very 6 important to us; its a feedback form that you can mail to 7 us, postage paid, and provide us your thoughts on this 8 meeting and any suggestions on how we can improve the 9 meeting.
10 Were having the meeting today, this evening, excuse 11 me, transcribed by Marie Fresch. The purpose of the 12 transcription is to maintain a record of the meeting.
13 Transcriptions of all our meetings are available 14 approximately 3 to 4 weeks after a meeting is completed; 15 again, on our Web site.
16 Before we go any further, I would like to make some 17 introductions of the NRC staff that are here this evening.
18 On my immediate left is Bill Ruland. Bill is a Senior 19 Manager at our Headquarters Office of Nuclear Reactor 20 Regulation. Hes also Vice Chairman of the Oversight 21 Panel.
22 Next to Bill is Scott Thomas. Scott is the Senior 23 Resident Inspector at the Davis-Besse facility, works for 24 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and inspects at 25 Davis-Besse every day.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
4 1 Also, from the Resident Inspectors office is Jack 2 Rutkowski. Jack is one of the two Resident Inspectors that 3 works at the site.
4 Monica Salter-Williams is the third inspector.
5 Shes not here this evening.
6 From our Headquarters Office is John Hopkins. Jon 7 is the Licensing Project Manager from the Office of Nuclear 8 Reactor Regulation.
9 We also have here with us this evening Geoff 10 Wright. Geoff is the Team Leader for Management/Human 11 Performance Inspection Team. Its a team of about a half a 12 dozen NRC staff and contractors from Region III, the Office 13 of Research in Headquarters, the Office of Nuclear Reactor 14 Regulation, as well as two contractors who are experts in 15 the area of Safety Culture and Safety Conscious Work 16 Environment; and theyre reviewing those areas of 17 FirstEnergy performance.
18 We also have Randy Baker. Randy is the Reactor 19 Engineer from Region III Office.
20 And, Jan Strasma, in the back here, is one of our 21 Public Affairs Officers in Region III.
22 And, Rolland Lickus is our State Government Affairs 23 Officer.
24 I think Ive covered everybody, except one of the 25 most important people, which is Nancy Keller. Nancy is out MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
5 1 in the foyer. She is the Resident Office Assistant and is 2 an invaluable asset to us to facilitate the day-to-day 3 activities at the Resident Office, as well as these 4 meetings.
5 What I would like to do now is turn over to Scott 6 Thomas for just a brief summary of the information that was 7 presented this afternoon and discussed during our business 8 meeting.
9 MR. THOMAS: Okay. During your 10 three-hour meeting this afternoon with the Licensee a 11 number of issues were discussed. Ill try to briefly 12 summarize those topics.
13 The FENOC Chief Operating Officer discussed several 14 initiatives that the Licensee believes has improved Safety 15 Culture at Davis-Besse.
16 He also talked about the results of their recent 17 Employee Alignment Safety Culture Survey. The results of 18 that survey were characterized as positive and 19 encouraging.
20 He also talked about the results of their recent 21 Safety Culture Assessment. This assessment is graded on a 22 scale of red, yellow, white, green. The three major areas 23 were graded as follows: White for the Individual 24 Commitment Area, white for Plant Management Commitment 25 Area, and white for Policy or Corporate Level Commitment MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
6 1 Area.
2 The Licensee Employee Concerns Program Manager 3 discussed the most recent site Safety Conscious Work 4 Environment Survey, which was completed in November. The 5 results, and compared those results to two other Safety 6 Conscious Work Environment Surveys. They were done in 7 March and August. The conclusion was that substantial 8 improvements had occurred since the last survey in August, 9 and that continuous improvements had occurred over time.
10 The Licensee Nuclear Quality Assessment Manager 11 discussed the results of the Safety Culture/Safety 12 Conscious Work Environment interviews conducted by his 13 department with Davis-Besse staff. Their conclusions were 14 that there was worker willingness and responsibility to 15 raise issues, that was very strong; a large majority of the 16 workers believe the Safety Culture at Davis-Besse is ready 17 for a safe restart.
18 The Licensee Site Vice President discussed their 19 Operational Improvement Plan. This plan focused on 20 improvement efforts in the areas of Organizational 21 Effectiveness, Operations, Maintenance, Training Programs, 22 Work Management, Engineering, Safety Culture, Procedure 23 Improvement and Oversight. He also discussed the planned 24 work scope for the Cycle 14 Mid-Cycle Outage.
25 The Licensee Restart Action Plan Owner discussed the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
7 1 remaining activities that Davis-Besse needs to accomplish 2 prior to restart of the facility.
3 And the meeting was closed by the Licensee Chief 4 Operating Officer, again, with just his closing remarks.
5 Thats a brief discussion of what we talked about.
6 MR. GROBE: Thank you, 7 Scott.
8 One of the first articles in the December update 9 concerns the Restart Decision-Making Process, and 10 FirstEnergy is getting close to the point where theyre 11 going to desire to discuss restart with us in a public 12 meeting.
13 In late November, as required in our Confirmatory 14 Action Letter, FirstEnergy submitted an Integrated Restart 15 Report, which summarized the activities that occurred over 16 the last year and a half and indicated that they believed 17 that they had accomplished the Return to Service Plan 18 successfully and that they were ready to request restart of 19 the facility.
20 The NRC has a number of ongoing inspections. Three 21 of those are particularly critical. One is the ongoing 22 Resident Inspection. The Resident Inspectors day-in and 23 day-out evaluate the adequacy of Facility Operations, 24 Maintenance, Engineering and Testing activities, and are 25 going to be providing critical input into any decisions on MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
8 1 closure of the remaining eight Restart Checklist items.
2 In addition, I introduced Geoff Wright earlier this 3 evening. He heads an inspection team whose work is 4 ongoing. That inspection is focused in the area of Safety 5 Culture and Safety Conscious Work Environment, particularly 6 the effectiveness of the corrective actions that the 7 utility has undertaken in improving their organizational 8 effectiveness and human performance. Geoffs inspection 9 continues and he has activities over the next several weeks 10 to complete.
11 In addition, starting Monday, we have a number of 12 Senior Resident Inspectors from across the country that 13 will be coming to the site to conduct round-the-clock 14 observation of operating activities. We have deferred to 15 this as the Restart Readiness Assessment Team Inspection.
16 And theyll be particularly interested in operating 17 performance, operating organization performance during the 18 heatup and mode changes of the plant. The plant will be 19 going from its current cold condition up through what is 20 called Mode 4 and Mode 3 to the point where its heated up 21 to normal operating temperature and pressure. That is 22 accomplished using simply the heat of running the reactor 23 coolant pumps. Its not done with nuclear generated heat.
24 The facility will not be able to perform nuclear -- or 25 generate nuclear heat in the reactor until after the NRC MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
9 1 authorizes restart.
2 Prior to consideration of restart, the Confirmatory 3 Action Letter requires, FirstEnergy is committed to discuss 4 publicly with us the basis for restart; and that meeting 5 will be conducted over the next several weeks. We have a 6 procedure within the NRC to give ten days prior notice of 7 any public meeting, and we will comply with that 8 procedure.
9 There is one point that I want to make sure is clear 10 to everyone, and that is that the restart meeting cannot be 11 conducted until FirstEnergy is in a position of being able 12 to provide us their views on their readiness for restart.
13 Theyve given us a lot of information in the November 23rd, 14 I think it is, report, but the final information will not 15 be available up until they observe and assess the 16 performance of their organization during the heatup 17 activities and the mode changes from Mode 5 to 4 and Mode 4 18 to 3.
19 So, if for some reason, which is not currently 20 foreseen, the mode changes are delayed because of equipment 21 problems or operating organization problems, then that 22 meeting cant be conducted.
23 So, we will be giving ten days notice, but there 24 could be activities that occur during that period of time 25 which would cause us to delay that meeting. And if thats MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
10 1 necessary, then well have public notice that the meeting 2 has been delayed.
3 Following that meeting, the process that the agency 4 goes through for evaluating readiness of the plant for 5 restart, first starts with the Oversight Panel. The 6 Oversight Panel has been evaluating facility performance 7 and the results of NRC inspections and licensing 8 assessments for sometime now and has closed 23 of the 31 9 Restart Checklist items. There is 8 items remaining.
10 As the panel receives inspection results and 11 evaluates those inspection results and recommendations from 12 the staff on whether or not the remaining eight items are 13 ready to close, at some point in time, the panel will make 14 a decision that it is ready to say that the plant could be 15 restarted and operated safely.
16 At that time that the panel makes that decision, it 17 will make a recommendation to my boss, the Region 18 Administrator in Region III, Jim Caldwell, that we believe 19 the plant is ready to restart. That wont happen until the 20 panel is convinced that the plant can restart and operate 21 safely.
22 Jim will certainly question the panel on its basis 23 for its conclusions and then he will consult with two 24 individuals at Headquarters; the Director of the Office of 25 Nuclear Reactor Regulation, who has the responsibility for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
11 1 the safe operation of all 103 operating reactors in the 2 United States, as well as the Deputy Executive Director for 3 Reactors. Jim will consult with those two individuals and 4 then make his decision regarding restart of the facility.
5 Once a decision is made, the NRC will issue a 6 document that will describe the basis for the decisions 7 that we make, and communicate those decisions publicly 8 through a press release.
9 Did I miss anything on the process?
10 I wanted to make sure, there is a lot of questions 11 these days on how we go through the process of making our 12 final decisions. I want to emphasize that the NRC is not 13 focused on any sort of schedule. The activities will be 14 ready to close when the performance of the Licensee 15 demonstrates that the activities were successfully 16 accomplished and the plant can be safe. Our only focus is 17 the safe operation of Davis-Besse.
18 So, no decisions will be entertained, no meetings 19 conducted until the NRC has had an opportunity to observe 20 plant performance and the utility has an opportunity to 21 assess it and is ready to give us their assessment.
22 At this point, what I would like to do is open the 23 floor for public questions and comments. We would like 24 folks to limit their questions or comments to five 25 minutes. I would like to start with any local public MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
12 1 officials or representatives of local officials.
2 MS. ELLIOTT: Donna Wendt-Elliott.
3 Village Councilwoman.
4 Resolution Number 05-2003.
5 A Resolution in support of the restart of 6 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant.
7 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission 0350 Process to 8 evaluate the readiness for restart has been a good process 9 and will continue to effectively evaluate Davis-Besse after 10 restart.
11 And, Council has been assured that the plant 12 condition is better than it has ever been. Council has 13 been assured that the employees are working hard to make 14 sure this never happens again, and that continued oversight 15 after restart by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 16 their willingness to involve and keep the county involved 17 is definitely important.
18 And FENOC agreeing to a closer working relationship 19 of Ottawa County through County Administrator, Jere Witt, 20 being appointed to the Restart Overview Panel and the 21 Company Nuclear Review Board as an independent oversight.
22 And the economic impact of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power 23 Plant is vital to the community.
24 And, therefore, Council has determined that this 25 resolution shall be an emergency measure and as such it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
13 1 shall take effect immediately upon its adoption and due 2 authentification by the Fiscal Officer.
3 Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Council of the 4 Village of Oak Harbor, Ottawa County, that it supports and 5 encourages the safe restart of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power 6 Plant. That it is found and determined that all formal 7 actions of Council concerning and relating to this 8 resolution were taken in meetings of Council open to the 9 public and all deliberations of this Council and of its 10 committees, if any, which resulted in formal action, were 11 taken in meetings open to the public in full compliance 12 with the applicable legal requirements, including sections 13 121.22 of the Ohio Revised Code.
14 This resolution is declared to be an emergency 15 measure for the reasons stated in the preamble hereto and 16 as such, shall take effect immediately upon its adoption 17 into identification by the Mayor and Fiscal Officer.
18 Adopted December 1st, 2003.
19 MR. GROBE: Thank you very 20 much.
21 Yes, sir.
22 MR. ARNDT: Good evening, my 23 name is Steven Arndt and I represent the Board of Ottawa 24 County Commissioners as President. On behalf of the Board 25 of County Commissioners, as well as a number of other MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
14 1 Township Trustees and Councils who could not be here this 2 evening, we have always taken the nuclear power plant as a 3 very serious issue.
4 As Ive mentioned several times now, the health, 5 safety, and welfare of our community is paramount for our 6 elected officials and we take that very seriously.
7 One of the benefits of being a local elected 8 official though, is we come to know those employees at the 9 plant, both corporate as well as the front-line employees.
10 They certainly have been committed over this very long 11 shutdown and process for restart.
12 Weve also come to know the quality of the 13 individuals that the NRC has put forth to oversee these 14 improvements in the plant as well.
15 And, as Councilwoman Wendt mentioned in the 16 Resolution, the physical side of the plant has never been 17 better. In fact, I believe that FirstEnergy probably has 18 set a newer, higher standard for the nuclear industry that 19 many other plants will have to strive to meet those new 20 high standards.
21 But the safety worker culture we have experienced or 22 seen exemplified from the employees at Davis-Besse in our 23 community, we can certainly assure you they are committed.
24 They may not be there where they want to be, but I can tell 25 you it will be an ongoing. We know these people, they are MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
15 1 in our community, we know the character of these people, 2 and they are committed to the safe operation of 3 Davis-Besse.
4 Im not going to read our Resolution. Our 5 Resolution is somewhat similar to Oak Harbors, but I would 6 like to point out a couple of key points that I think is 7 quite different from prior to the shutdown of Davis-Besse 8 to correct the situation.
9 I think one of those is the creation of the 10 companys Nuclear Review Board which they have allowed Mr.
11 Witt to sit on, the Nuclear Oversight Board, as well as the 12 Restart Oversight Panel, as well as the continued 13 involvement of the NRC keeping the county informed as to 14 its evaluation.
15 Were certainly not expertise in this particular 16 area, but we certainly have paid close attention; weve 17 asked questions; and weve gotten answers both from the 18 industry as well as from the NRC.
19 With me this evening, I have either resolutions of 20 support, or letters of support; and I have them from 21 Carroll Township, Benton Township, Catawba Township, 22 Portage Township, Put-In-Bay Township, Harris Township, 23 Danbury Township, the Village of Clay Center, and the City 24 of Port Clinton.
25 Not all of these receive financial benefit for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
16 1 having a nuclear power plant located in the county. They 2 dont all receive tax dollars, but they understand the 3 importance that this facility plays in our community. Back 4 in 98 when the tornados struck and took Davis-Besse off 5 line, Northwest Ohio was very close to rolling brown-outs.
6 We also recognize that with Davis-Besse off, we could be 7 very well in the very same situation. They understand the 8 economic impact it could have on our businesses if we do 9 not have reliable sources of power.
10 Weve come to recognize that our risks in everything 11 that we are engaged in today, but we believe that both the 12 NRC and FirstEnergy, that they are going to keep those 13 risks as minimal as possible. Thank you.
14 MR. GROBE: Thank you, 15 Steve.
16 The engagement of the Ottawa County Commissioners 17 and also of Jere Witt, Ottawa County Administrator, has 18 been unique in my experience regulating nuclear power. The 19 members of the panel meet monthly with Ottawa County and 20 they have been clearly engaged and inquisitive and 21 challenging of us at appropriate times. And I think thats 22 a tribute to their commitment to the community.
23 In addition, its also unusual in my experience for 24 a utility to invite a County Administrator to participate 25 in oversight boards, oversight panels at the facility. And MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
17 1 FirstEnergy has done that, and Jere Witt has participated 2 actively in those activities. And that, also, I think 3 reflects positively on the commitment of the county 4 government.
5 There was one other mention, and that was the fact 6 that this Oversight Panel doesnt go away if the plant is 7 authorized to restart. Davis-Besses performance was 8 significantly out of the norm for nuclear power plants for 9 the United States. Our Routine Oversight Program is 10 designed for a plant that is a normal operating plant.
11 The purpose of the -- our manual chapter is called 12 0350. The purpose of that is when we have a plant that is 13 so far outside of the normal operating parameters, that our 14 Routine Oversight Program no longer works effectively, a 15 panel is established to provide oversight.
16 One key attribute of our Routine Oversight Program 17 are a series of performance indicators, I think there is 21 18 of them. In many areas of the plant operation, those 19 performance indicators are still valid and useful; in the 20 areas of radiation protection, emergency planning, and 21 security and safeguards, for example. Those performance 22 indicators are still very useful and provide information 23 with regard to plant performance.
24 In the area of operations, control of initiating 25 events, and reliability of mitigating systems, safety MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
18 1 systems, those performance indicators no longer provide 2 useful insight into the plant because the plant has been 3 shut down for such a long period of time.
4 So, this Oversight Panel will remain in effect for 5 some period of time after restart, a lengthy period of 6 time; providing guidance, assessment of plant performance 7 and guidance on proper implementation of the NRCs 8 inspection programs.
9 We will also continue to have public meetings on a 10 regular basis, to ensure that the public has access to 11 appropriate information regarding plant performance and NRC 12 activities. So, I appreciate those focus attributes, 13 focuses that the two speakers brought forward.
14 Are there other local public officials and 15 representatives of local officials that would like to come 16 forward this evening?
17 Okay. I would now like to open the floor to any 18 local residents who have comments or questions.
19 MR. GRONDIN: Good evening, 20 everybody, my name is Peter Grondin. I live in Sandusky 21 Ohio, on the western side of the city, pretty much downwind 22 of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant.
23 Im also an employee at Davis-Besse. Ive been with 24 FirstEnergy for 14 1/2 years. I have eight additional 25 years of experience in nuclear power in the United States MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
19 1 Navy.
2 The folks that you see around you here who are 3 employed at Davis-Besse have sunk the last 21 1/2 months of 4 their lives into this plant. We have put our heart and 5 soul into refurbishing this plant, putting this plant back 6 into a material condition that we can be proud of.
7 But more importantly, weve learned a hard lesson.
8 We have internalized, we have taken to heart that hard 9 lesson. And I personally will guarantee that this plant 10 will not run unless it is safe to operate and run. I will 11 make sure that, I would challenge our management to shut 12 this plant down if I see a situation where it is going to 13 endanger our employees or the public. And I stand behind 14 that. I know that my fellow employees to a person feel the 15 same way.
16 Thanks very much.
17 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
18 If you would sign your name and appropriate 19 information on the sign-in log, we would appreciate it.
20 MR. FOX: Good evening, my 21 name is Steve Fox. Im a Davis-Besse employee. Ottawa 22 County has been my home for the past 24 years. I hold a 23 Bachelor Degree in Business and an MBA. I have 29 years of 24 experience in nuclear power; both in construction and 25 operating plants.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
20 1 My role during this extended outage has been one of 2 a Project Manager. During this outage, my completed 3 projects included doubling the capacity of the in-plant 4 spent fuel storage pool, which set a world record for 5 lowest radiological dose for similar projects. I served as 6 one of the Project Managers for the replacement of the 7 reactor vessel head. My project team completed the 8 Containment Emergency Sump Strainer that sets a new safety 9 standard for other pressurized water reactors in the Decay 10 Heat Valve Tank designed and built to enhance the safety 11 and reliability of the equipment the tank protects.
12 These projects were completed as a team effort with 13 the goal of increased safety margin and equipment 14 reliability. These efforts were part of building the new 15 Davis-Besse.
16 My responsibilities have now changed to being a 17 Project Manager with people in the Work Management Group, 18 once again improving people, processes and programs.
19 I am here tonight to attest that I am dedicated to 20 the safe and reliable operation of the Davis-Besse Nuclear 21 Power Station.
22 Thank you.
23 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
24 MR. STEVENS: Im Mike Stevens.
25 Im the Director of Maintenance at Davis-Besse. Ive been MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
21 1 in nuclear power over 19 years. I can tell you theres a 2 great bunch of people working at that power plant. They 3 have real high standards, and real good integrity.
4 I believe Maintenance is ready to support safe 5 operation of Davis-Besse and Im ready to support safe 6 operation of Davis-Besse. Thank you.
7 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Mike.
8 MR. WHITRIGHT: Hi, my name is 9 Jim Whitright. Ive been out at Davis-Besse for 15 years.
10 I work in Plant Engineering. And I can tell you from my 11 perspective, the plant is definitely ready to operate. And 12 I work with people from all different departments; 13 Engineering, Planning, Maintenance, Quality Control, QA; 14 and I can tell you everybody that I know is ready to be 15 sure that the plant is ready to operate and will operate 16 safely.
17 MR. MURPHY: Good evening to 18 the Commissioners, to the local elected officials, to the 19 members of the general public, and my co-workers at 20 Davis-Besse. My name is Earl Murphy.
21 Ive been involved in the nuclear power production 22 of nuclear weapons programs for almost 30 years; 22 years 23 the commercial nuclear power industry, and several years in 24 the nuclear weapons program in the United States Army.
25 Im currently employed at the Davis-Besse station in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
22 1 the Nuclear Quality Assessment area as a Supervisor in 2 Quality Control. I believe and fully recognize the 3 situation in hand. I believe weve learned from the 4 situation. I believe we are now in position to go forward 5 and to reliably and safely operate the Davis-Besse 6 facility.
7 Thank you very much.
8 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
9 MR. REDDINGTON: Good evening. My 10 name is John Reddington and I also work at Davis-Besse.
11 Ive worked there for 17 years.
12 During this outage, Ive had the unique opportunity 13 to work in Quality Assessment and now Im working in 14 Training.
15 In Quality Assessment, I was actually paid to assess 16 the organization and to look from a safety culture to try 17 and see and assess where the safety culture is at 18 Davis-Besse.
19 Then, in my new job in Training, Ive been part of a 20 board thats been doing interviews with all the licensed 21 operators. And to a person, the level of commitment is 22 really astonishing. We ask very pointed questions to the 23 operators about nuclear safety, the sanctity of the reactor 24 core, and safety culture. And to a person, there is a high 25 level of commitment dedication.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
23 1 And speaking for the Training staff, we are 2 committed also to ensuring that nuclear safety is the 3 number one priority at Davis-Besse. Thanks.
4 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
5 MR. GRIMN: Good evening, my 6 name is John Grimn. Ive been with Davis-Besse for a 7 little over a year. I have come here from Perry Nuclear 8 Power Plant and now Im a resident of Oak Harbor. Im 9 happy to be on the team.
10 I am just here to say that Ive had also a unique 11 experience here. I have served with many projects and I 12 have watched transformations at Davis-Besse. Ive watched 13 the plant be refurbished to standards that I havent seen 14 throughout the industry equaled.
15 Ive also seen a transformation of employee 16 attitudes. And, I have a history being outspoken and 17 bringing up safety issues whenever I see them, and find no 18 exception.
19 The Davis-Besse plant is ready to go. Im ready to 20 go to support safe operation and Im no exception. The 21 rest of the employees are as well. Thank you.
22 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
23 MR. GEDDES: Hi, my name is 24 Bruce Geddes. Im here on two roles tonight. First as a 25 local a citizen. Ive worked at the plant almost 28 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
24 1 years. My chief responsibility is Chemistry. We serve as 2 advisors on environmental welfare of the plant. Were 3 located on the marsh, which is pristine and is the most 4 important thing to myself and my group. Our job is to keep 5 it that way; challenge the plant management whenever and 6 however to make sure that we are the best corporate 7 environmental neighbors we can be. We are ready to 8 continue to do that as we have been doing.
9 My background goes back another ten years before the 10 28 here to another nuclear plant in the nuclear Navy. So, 11 nuclear power is all Ive ever done. Im very proud of 12 it. Were certainly ready to restart.
13 In addition, Im here as an officer and member of 14 the Board of Directors of the Ohio Radioactive Material 15 Users Group. And I was asked by our Board of Directors to 16 convey their support for the restart and future operation 17 of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.
18 Were an organization of about 20 corporate members 19 and many individual members that promote the safe, 20 responsible, beneficial use of radioactive materials and 21 radiation generating equipment. Our membership includes 22 hospitals, universities, and industrial users all across 23 the State of Ohio. Thank you.
24 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
25 MS. KOVACH: My name is Laura MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
25 1 Kovach. I work in Plant Engineering at Davis-Besse. Ive 2 been there for 29 years. I work with the engineers. Im 3 an Admin Assistant, so I dont know the technical side, 4 but I do want to tell you that Ive seen a lot over the 5 years Ive worked there. And the people, theyve got to be 6 some of the best in the industry. Theyre very 7 intelligent. Theyre very smart.
8 But as far as safety culture, Ive seen a big 9 change. People are not afraid to raise safety concerns.
10 If it appears that someone is asked to do something and 11 they feel like they dont have the time, they have a 12 pressure, people are not afraid to push back anymore. They 13 are not afraid to challenge management.
14 I feel safe there. And, I think weve learned our 15 lesson. And I think we deserve the chance to restart that 16 plant. And, I dont know, Im just real proud of our 17 people. And safety culture has improved tremendously, and 18 thats what I really wanted to bring out. Thank you.
19 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
20 MR. McDOUGALL: Hi, Im Terry 21 McDougall and I work in the Design Engineering Department 22 as an Admin Assistant.
23 And I just want to say, I grew up in this area and 24 Ive seen that plant come up from the ground. And I really 25 feel that there is a strong issue with the team playing MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
26 1 going on out there now. We seem to be one whole now.
2 And I feel that the plant is safe. Ive been there 3 for 15 years and worked for the county before that. So, I 4 feel that were ready to restart and I hope we get that 5 chance. Thank you.
6 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
7 MR. BOLES: Hi, my name is 8 Brian Boles. Im the Plant Engineering Manager at the 9 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. I have 18 1/2 years of 10 commercial experience, six years of Navy nuclear 11 experience. I was previously the Plant Engineering 12 Manager, the Operations Manager and the Outage Management 13 Manager at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant about two and a 14 half hours to the east.
15 I transferred to Davis-Besse four months ago 16 willingly to fill a need, to help assist the Davis-Besse 17 team in restarting this power plant. Ive moved my wife 18 and my two children to Perrysburg, Ohio, where I 19 established new residency there.
20 And I wanted to say that I personally am ready to 21 restart this power plant and I think I can speak on behalf 22 of the 60 plus engineers that work in the Plant Engineering 23 Section, some of which you heard from already, that we are 24 all committed to operating this power plant safely and 25 efficiently. Thank you.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
27 1 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
2 MR. DOMINY: My name is John 3 Dominy. Im the NC Superintendent of Maintenance at 4 Davis-Besse. Ive been there for 16 years. I believe the 5 plant is ready to restart. And Im committed to the safe 6 operation of the plant. Thanks.
7 MR. GROBE: Thanks.
8 MR. LAIRD: Hi, my name is 9 Greg Laird. And Im a resident of Port Clinton, Ohio. Im 10 also an employee of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. Im 11 a Supervisor of the Components and Engineering Group.
12 Our group has worked hard to improve our programs of 13 our areas. We maintain the reliability of the equipment 14 throughout the plant. We are dedicated to ensure that we 15 return the plant to a safe, reliable operation.
16 Thank you.
17 MR. GROBE: Thank you very 18 much.
19 MR. STEAGALL: Hi, my name is 20 Steve Steagall. Im the Mechanical Maintenance 21 Superintendent at Davis-Besse. Ive worked there for 13 22 years. I have worked for Quality Control, Quality 23 Assurance.
24 And Davis-Besse is ready for restart and the 25 personnel are dedicated for the safe operation of this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
28 1 plant. Thank you.
2 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
3 MR. POWERS: My name is Jim 4 Powers. And Jack, I certainly had many dialogues with you, 5 but tonight I want to speak.
6 Im the Director of Engineering at Davis-Besse.
7 And, as such, Im a member of the Senior Management that 8 the employees speak of when they talk about management, 9 that they can raise issues, they can feel comfortable 10 raising issues, and that they can push back effectively 11 when they feel there are concerns with the plant.
12 My pledge to you and most importantly to the 13 employees and the citizens of the community is, I will 14 maintain that environment where the employees can push 15 back, and can do so comfortably. Thank you.
16 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Jim.
17 MS. IHNAT: Hi, Im Sue 18 Ihnat. Ive worked in, at Davis-Besse for almost 22 19 years. Ive worked in Environmental, Engineering, 20 Operations, Radiation Protection, Plant Managers Office, 21 Vice Presidents Office, and Performance Improvement. Im 22 not technically knowledgeable, but I am people 23 knowledgeable, and Ive seen a wide spectrum of people come 24 and go at Davis-Besse.
25 And, my personal opinion is we have top notch people MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
29 1 at the top now. Ive seen people experience an open door 2 policy, and utilize it. And, I feel very strongly that 3 were in a right place now to go forward and start again.
4 Thanks.
5 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
6 MR. BROWNING: Hello. My name is 7 Kevin Browning. I have lived in this area all my life. In 8 fact, as I was telling my co-workers tonight, when I was 9 going to high school, we watched Davis-Besse being built 10 with a telescope on top of the school.
11 I have worked at Davis-Besse for 22 years in 12 January. I always desire to work at Davis-Besse and Im 13 very proud to work at Davis-Besse today, and throughout my 14 tenure. I think currently we have the best management team 15 weve ever assembled. They work well together. And the 16 employees support the management team.
17 I am very comfortable working at Davis-Besse. I 18 feel its extremely safe. And I wouldnt have my family 19 living in this area if I didnt believe in that. Thank 20 you.
21 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
22 MR. DeMAISON: Good evening.
23 Im Brad DeMaison. Im with the Project Management Team 24 out at Davis-Besse. Along with the other Project Managers, 25 I want to say that we are committed to the safe operation MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
30 1 of the plant.
2 I also want to thank the other employees that 3 attended this evening and attended the past meetings. And 4 certainly, one of the things I would like to note that has 5 gone much unnoticed at many of these meetings, is the 6 courage that our company has shown in supporting the plant, 7 getting it on line and doing it in a manner that were 8 restoring the plant back to a condition thats better than 9 when the plant I believe ever came on line.
10 So, I want to thank you for being here tonight, and 11 again, thank the employees who attended this evening.
12 MR. GROBE: Thanks.
13 MR. WARREN: Good evening. My 14 name is Richard Warren. Im a local business owner and 15 resident in the area. I do not work at Davis-Besse, but 16 Im a financial advisor and work with a lot of the 17 employees and people.
18 Over the years, Ive seen much dedication. I think 19 its stronger than its ever been. The talks that Ive had 20 with people, theyre all very dedicated.
21 Living in the community, buying property in the 22 community, settling in, in the last five years more so. I 23 lived next to an old reactor, for many years, in Erie 24 County over at Plum Brook. Its no comparison. They used 25 to come out and check our water every week in the early MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
31 1 60s, right next to my house, with all concerns.
2 Im very happy with everything going on and I look 3 forward to the plant restarting. Thank you.
4 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
5 I would like to open the floor to anybody else that 6 has any questions or comments.
7 MR. FOX: Hi, my name is Ben 8 Fox. Im a college student actually and a former resident 9 of Port Clinton. And I would just like to say that on 10 behalf of the dedication of this corporation, I feel that 11 just the dedication is a true testament to how ready this 12 plant is starting -- is ready to go. And I feel that it 13 would be a wise decision on your behalf as the NRC to let 14 Davis-Besse restart.
15 MR. GROBE: Thank you very 16 much.
17 MR. GREVE: Good evening. My 18 name is Eric Greve. I have a few questions related to the 19 fact that FirstEnergy is now under Grand Jury 20 investigation, which just came to light a couple weeks 21 ago. It was made public a couple weeks ago.
22 Theyre under investigation to find out whether some 23 managers at Davis-Besse broke the law by intentionally 24 submitting reports to the NRC that either withheld or 25 underestimated the worsening condition of the reactor MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
32 1 head.
2 Gary Leidich, who I believe is the Vice President at 3 FirstEnergy, has said in the papers that the Grand Jury 4 investigation is separate from the NRCs restart, restart 5 decision. Is that true or will you guys be monitoring the 6 Grand Jury investigation?
7 MR. GROBE: The answer to 8 your question is, yes, the Grand Jury investigation is a 9 separate activity, and is not related to the Davis-Besse 10 restart.
11 MR. GREVE: So, you guys will 12 not be monitoring that investigation at all?
13 MR. GROBE: No, thats not 14 true. The agency has assigned a Senior Manager from 15 Headquarters, from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 16 to monitor the ongoing investigation and evaluate any 17 information that comes forward that has safety 18 significance, and as appropriate, recommend actions that 19 might be necessary based on information that comes 20 forward.
21 MR. GREVE: So, theoretically, 22 restart could be granted, then information can come to 23 light afterwards and --
24 MR. GROBE: I cant speculate 25 on what kind of information may or may not come forward.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
33 1 What I can tell you is that having investigation results 2 get referred to the Department of Justice is not uncommon.
3 In those kinds of situations, the agency in our enforcement 4 procedures has a process that we go through in evaluating 5 the results of the NRC investigation that is forwarded to 6 the Department of Justice; and we evaluate the 7 investigation results to determine whether or not there is 8 any need for immediate action to ameliorate a significant 9 safety issue.
10 And we have completed that review and concluded that 11 there is no immediate safety concern reflected in the 12 results of the investigation and there is no need for 13 immediate action.
14 MR. GREVE: Okay. I just 15 wanted to be sure I understand that. So, the NRC found 16 that there were, there was reasonable suspicion that there 17 was criminal activity at FirstEnergy, enough reasonable 18 suspicion to turn it over to the Justice Department, but 19 that doesnt equal immediate safety concerns?
20 MR. GROBE: The NRC doesnt do 21 criminal investigations.
22 MR. GREVE: Right.
23 MR. GROBE: What we provide to 24 the Department of Justice is the results of investigations 25 where our internal investigation concludes that violation MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
34 1 of our requirements may have occurred based on reasons that 2 are more than just an oversight or an error. And the 3 Department of Justice evaluates that evidence and 4 determines whether or not it needs to evaluate further the 5 information that was gained.
6 The decision that the Department of Justice has made 7 is that there is basis to warrant further investigation.
8 That investigation is led by a U.S. Attorney in Cleveland 9 and is being supported by the Department of Justice in 10 Washington and the NRCs Office of Investigations.
11 I cant provide you any more detail regarding the 12 ongoing investigation. You have to contact the U.S.
13 Attorney in Cleveland for that, but what we do is evaluate 14 the results of the investigation, and make a determination 15 as to whether or not there is a need for immediate action 16 based on an eminent safety problem.
17 There is a number of considerations that go into 18 that type of evaluation. The first one is the position of 19 responsibility of any individual who is implicated in the 20 investigation, and whether or not that individual occupies 21 a position that could influence the safety of a plant.
22 The second consideration is the level of culpability 23 of that individual. And the third consideration is any 24 action that has been taken regarding the individual.
25 And the NRC evaluates those factors and develops a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
35 1 position regarding whether or not there is a need for 2 immediate action. And in this case, weve concluded there 3 is no need for immediate action with respect to those 4 investigation results.
5 MR. GREVE: Thank you. Just 6 as a side note, I dont believe, as of yesterday maybe, the 7 October transcripts or the transcripts for the October 8 meeting are still not up or available on the Internet.
9 MR. GROBE: Okay. Im sure if 10 you give Jan Strasma your name, he can check into that and 11 get back to you.
12 MR. WITT: Good evening. I 13 am Jere Witt. I am County Administrator, also a member of 14 the Restart Overview Panel, and also, as mentioned earlier, 15 a member of the Company Nuclear Review Board.
16 When I started in this process 20 months ago, one of 17 the first things that myself and another member of the ROP 18 did was to meet with the employees. And over the period of 19 the 20 months, I have seen the programs and improvements 20 made in the programs. Ive seen the plant improvements 21 that have been made. And if there was one concern that is 22 always in the back of my mind was the alignment of the 23 employees.
24 And as I watch the number of people that come up 25 here today, and their testament of how they felt at this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
36 1 point about the plant is not where they were in many cases 2 20 months ago. And some of those same people have 3 challenged me to challenge management back then to do the 4 right thing.
5 I think management has done the right thing. I 6 think theyre listening to the employees. And I can tell 7 you from some of the people that came up here, they 8 wouldnt be up here today doing that, if, in fact, they 9 didnt feel that way.
10 Its been a process that Ive enjoyed. Ive learned 11 a lot. And I have a vote this Friday as a member of the 12 Restart Overview Panel as to whether they recommend restart 13 to the company. As I watched the alignment of the 14 employees tonight, and as Ive watched it grow over the 15 past 20 years -- or 20 years, yeah, seems that long -- last 16 20 months, they make my vote real easy, because thats the 17 determining factor.
18 Its not ultimately what FENOC does, or what 19 management does, but it is really what the employees do who 20 are out there on the line, and Im confident in what they 21 do. Thank you.
22 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Jere.
23 MR. JANSSEN: My name is Ken 24 Janssen. I have to say after listening to everyone speak, 25 Im also confident in the dedication of the employees, but MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
37 1 I have to disagree --
2 MR. GROBE: Kevin, could you 3 move the microphone?
4 MR. JANSSEN: I said, after 5 listening to everyone tonight, I am also confident of the 6 dedication and knowledge of the workers at Davis-Besse.
7 Unfortunately, I have to disagree. I think that it is 8 ultimately what FENOC and the Senior Management does.
9 With regard to Gary Leidich, Vice President, the 10 meeting in New York this morning with the financial 11 analysts who talked about the numbers with regard to the 12 safety culture that weve talked about.
13 Sorry, Im speaking a little quickly.
14 He said, that employees who had willingness to raise 15 concerns without fear of retaliation had risen from 67 16 percent in August to 85 percent in March of 03 to 87 17 percent in November of 03; and similarly employees who 18 responded that the company was effectively preventing and 19 detecting retaliation reportedly rose from 67 percent to 84 20 percent to 88 percent.
21 I think there are three fatal problems with these 22 numbers. First, the employees were surveyed by the same 23 management that has for years maintained the climate of 24 intimidation at the plant. How can anyone expect employees 25 to give straight answers under these circumstances?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
38 1 In fact, last spring after one worker was fired for 2 raising safety problems and then attacked publicly by 3 FirstEnergy, utility expert Ulrich Witt, said the message 4 is out there that the utility is persecuting whistle 5 blowers. I guaranteed there will never be a credible 6 witness who will step forward and speak honestly.
7 Number two, FirstEnergy wants the NRC and the public 8 to accept these numbers as true, even though its routinely 9 deceived both of us in the past, such that a Federal Grand 10 Jury is now meeting in Cleveland to consider criminal 11 charges.
12 And finally, the new numbers doesnt show a safe 13 plant. For example, FirstEnergy now says, last springs 14 survey showed 85 percent of employees said they were 15 willing to raise concerns about fear of retaliation. At 16 the time, however, the survey was reported to show that 89 17 Davis-Besse employees or contractors said they had been 18 subjected to some kind of retaliation or harassment for 19 raising nuclear safety, excuse me, or compliance concerns 20 in the previous six months.
21 And 165 said they knew of other workers who were 22 harassed or retaliated against. So, unless FirstEnergy is 23 changing the survey results, then apparently there cant be 24 an 85 percent response to the survey and a rise in 25 harassment and retaliation going into the plant.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
39 1 Excuse me -- I guess my questions are, how heavily 2 does the NRC rely on FirstEnergys survey; are there any 3 plans for an independent survey; and given their history of 4 gross neglect and mismanagement and their continued lack of 5 understanding with regard to the human element, how can it 6 be justified if FirstEnergy ever has anything or any 7 involvement again with Davis-Besse?
8 Thank you.
9 MR. RULAND: Let me see if I 10 got these questions straight. The first question, 11 basically, youre suggesting that employees that were 12 surveyed by the same management and how could they be 13 relied upon to give credible answers.
14 Well, the same management I think gave, they gave 15 the same answers were, they were surveyed by the same 16 folks; and one would assume if they were being intimidated 17 or swayed by the surveyors, those results wouldnt change, 18 but the results have changed. And --
19 MR. JANSSEN: Excuse me, I would 20 suggest, couldnt that also suggest that the intimidation 21 has risen?
22 MR. RULAND: Let me finish. We 23 dont take these survey results in isolation. This is not 24 something we just assume. The survey results, while we 25 understand them, and we, the NRC, are doing our own MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
40 1 independent evaluation. Geoff Wright is here, and his 2 inspection is ongoing on Safety Culture. We conduct 3 independent interviews with the NRC, and our interviews, 4 and that inspection is ongoing. So thats one element that 5 were using to independently corroborate or possibly 6 challenge what FirstEnergy is claiming.
7 Secondly, while these survey results, I think, are 8 something where were closely watching; ultimately, it is 9 the Licensees performance regarding their compliance with 10 rules and regulations and our safety rules and regulations 11 that ultimately were going to have to determine is 12 acceptable.
13 You know that we have an extensive Restart Checklist 14 and that Restart Checklist is based not just on 15 FirstEnergys claims that those items were complete, but 16 each and every one of those Restart Checklist items were 17 independently inspected by the NRC and been closed so far, 18 and independently evaluated and, frankly, sometimes 19 cross-examined by Jack, myself, and the 0350 Panel about 20 the basis of why, why those items were ready for closure.
21 So, based on a host of things that we are doing 22 independently, Im comfortable with the numbers that weve 23 seen. We dont take it as gospel. As we ought not to.
24 And, like most things that the NRC does, we trust, but then 25 verify.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
41 1 So, thats -- and while thats not a specific answer 2 to each individual item, I think it addresses our overall 3 approach; and thats basically been our approach in this.
4 Jack, do you have anything to add?
5 MR. GROBE: Just one 6 observation. The first premise of your question indicated 7 your belief that there was an individual who was terminated 8 for, the basis of his termination was for raising safety 9 concerns.
10 MR. JANSSEN: Yes.
11 MR. GROBE: And that specific 12 case, I believe, has been adjudicated by the Department of 13 Labor; and the Department of Labor found, in fact, that he 14 was not terminated for raising safety concerns. So, I 15 dont want that --
16 MR. JANSSEN: Thats still 17 being disputed, sir.
18 MR. GROBE: All Im doing is 19 providing you the results of the Department of Labor review 20 of the matter. And if its appealed, then the appeal will 21 also be adjudicated. I just didnt want anybody to be 22 confused by the information provided.
23 Thank you.
24 MR. JANSSEN: Again, just real 25 quick, you said, you were talking about the Licensee MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
42 1 needing to have respect for the rules and the regulations.
2 I just want to point out that, again, this is the same, 3 this is the same company that is under a criminal 4 investigation, and I guess I still dont understand the 5 answer to the previous question.
6 MR. RULAND: As I think has 7 been relayed on a number of occasions, virtually the entire 8 management of Davis-Besse and FENOC, the FENOC officials 9 have been replaced. It is the same company, at least in 10 name. And were not frankly swayed one way or the other 11 whether its the same or whether its different.
12 Again, our focus is on performance. Is the 13 equipment operable? Will it perform its safety function?
14 And, as far as their reliability, you might be aware that 15 FENOC did an extensive Completeness and Accuracy 16 Information Review that, where they looked at over, about 17 two thousand plus statements of fact and documents they 18 submitted to the NRC.
19 The results of that review showed that there was 20 very few examples, I think its less than a handful of 21 examples, that were, that those documents were, a handful 22 of errors that were provided to the NRC.
23 The NRC has done an independent inspection of that, 24 and we just didnt do a data search, we went out and talked 25 to folks, again, independently. And that, our MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
43 1 independence, frankly, we take pride in that. Thats the 2 way we do business, and thats the way were going to 3 continue to do business.
4 MR. JANSSEN: Thank you.
5 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
6 MR. DUNN: Some letters 7 (indicating).
8 Hi, my name is Brian Dunn. And, I want to first 9 address the point of the independent Oversight Review Panel 10 of which Jere Witt is a member, and ask the nature of 11 that. I think thats recently come --
12 MR. RULAND: The Restart 13 Oversight Panel.
14 MR. DUNN: Okay, the Restart 15 Oversight Panel.
16 MR. RULAND: Its FENOCs 17 organization. Whats your question about it?
18 MR. DUNN: Well, the nature 19 of the panel and if it has anything to do with the Nuclear 20 Regulatory Commission, really what its role in the whole 21 restart process is?
22 MR. RULAND: I wasnt there for 23 the restart, essentially what started that off, Jack.
24 Maybe you can talk about that.
25 MR. GROBE: Absolutely.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
44 1 There is no requirement to have such a panel. It 2 was an initiative on the part of FirstEnergy to establish 3 an independent review panel. It is comprised of a number 4 of individuals with a variety of backgrounds. Of course, 5 Jere Witt is a member of the panel, the Ottawa County 6 Administrator. There is two former senior executives from 7 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There is several former 8 executives from nuclear utilities from across the country.
9 There is one current senior executive from a utility on the 10 east coast. There is a senior manager from the Institute 11 of Nuclear Power Operations. I think Ive pretty much 12 captured the breadth of the panel.
13 The purpose of the panel is to provide independent 14 advice to FENOC management, based on their experience and 15 lack of direct involvement in whats going on, for them to 16 assess what FENOC is doing, and give feedback.
17 And I have attended the vast majority of those 18 meetings. They meet at least once a month. And, quite 19 frankly, theyre extremely challenging and critical of 20 activities as they proceed. And my observation is that 21 FENOC executives listen closely to what they say and have 22 made multiple adjustments to how theyre approaching the 23 various activities. And I think the Restart Oversight 24 Panel has added value to the oversight of the return to 25 service activities that FENOC has undertaken.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
45 1 Again, it has nothing to do with anything that we 2 require. Its an initiative, independent initiative of 3 FENOC to establish that panel, and seek that advice; and 4 theyve been responsive to it.
5 MR. DUNN: Its just, clearly 6 some of the comments from Mr. Witt dont seem independent.
7 They seem more, you know, sort of cheerleading the restart 8 at Davis-Besse; and thats a concern. I guess my one 9 wonder was whether or not the NRC was involved in that 10 Oversight Panel.
11 MR. GROBE: Thats an 12 incorrect perception. Ive watched Jere Witt, as well as 13 the other members of that panel. I think what Jere showed 14 earlier is he has been out among the people, evaluating 15 their attitudes and behavior and performance. And, what I 16 think he shared earlier was that he had seen a change. He 17 was, reported back to the Oversight Panel on his earlier 18 assessments, and they were critical. And what I heard him 19 share earlier was that he has seen a change over his period 20 of time on that panel.
21 MR. DUNN: Well, I think, you 22 know, sitting and listening to a lot of the comments, I 23 would like to say too, I can certainly tell the dedication 24 of the workers, and I dont think anyone would dispute the 25 hard work theyve put into revamping the plant. And, I MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
46 1 just, you know, in listening to it, I hope the plants 2 condition is better, and better than ever, because this is 3 twice now that theyve had major accidents on Lake Erie.
4 And, thats continually been the concern of citizens 5 all over Ohio. You know, many times I think, you know, not 6 directly by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the fact 7 that folks that are not necessarily from Ottawa County have 8 written letters to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has 9 been almost mocked.
10 And I think thats, thats an incorrect assessment 11 of whats going on, because these are folks from, I mean 12 counties, Mahoning County, Wayne County, Ashtabula, 13 Trumbull, Geauga, Lake, Stark, Summit, Portage, Lorain, 14 Medina, Cuyahoga, Wood, Lucas, Erie, and even Ottawa 15 County. And, you know, today I brought 365 more letters 16 from concerned citizens.
17 And really the message is that they do not trust 18 FirstEnergy to run this plant safely. Thats the bottom 19 line, is that people have had enough of mismanagement and a 20 culture that seems to deny accountability for many of the 21 problems that weve all seen at Davis-Besse.
22 In addition to that, weve collected a hundred 23 thousand signatures from residents of these same counties.
24 And these are folks that also many of them are FirstEnergy 25 customers, so they do through their rates every month pay MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
47 1 for even the construction of these nuclear plants, and they 2 are certainly concerned that in the event of an accident at 3 Davis-Besse, all of Northern Ohio would be affected.
4 I know there are safety margins in place, but the 5 fact is weve had two major problems, and I cant help but 6 feel that were being stampeded into a restart. Maybe 7 thats not true.
8 MR. GROBE: I can assure you 9 its not true. And, I want to make sure that a couple 10 points are very clear.
11 First off, I dont think there is any question that 12 this panel has demonstrated the value that it places on 13 receiving public input. We have now conducted well over 70 14 public meetings. Weve received many thousand letters and 15 emails and we responded to all of them. We appreciate that 16 input. We consider the content of every one of those 17 letters. Just like we consider the statements made by the 18 FirstEnergy employees tonight.
19 But that is not the basis, neither the letters you 20 provide us nor the statements by FirstEnergy employees 21 comprise any sort of basis on which we make a decision.
22 The decision is made based on our independent assessment, 23 our technical capabilities, the results of many hundreds of 24 weeks of inspection that has gone on over the last 20 25 months, by well over 50 different NRC staff from around the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
48 1 country, and the considerable amount of talent thats on 2 this restart -- excuse me, this Oversight Panel in 3 evaluating those.
4 And Bill used the word cross-examined a few minutes 5 ago. Im sure many of the inspectors after they finish 6 completing their presentation to the panel feel like 7 theyve been cross-examined.
8 So, we value the input we receive from you and your 9 organization, and the folks, not only in Ohio, but weve 10 received letters from multiple different states regarding 11 the situation at Davis-Besse, as well as the input that we 12 receive from the local citizens here and the employees.
13 So, were eager to get your letters.
14 MR. DUNN: Sure, of course.
15 MR. GROBE: And --
16 MR. DUNN: I did have one 17 more just question. In what, what kind of situation would 18 require the NRC revoking the license of an operator? I 19 mean, with what weve seen from FirstEnergy, I guess we 20 dont know yet whether or not the NRC will revoke that 21 license from FirstEnergy, but what would be the grounds for 22 doing something like that?
23 MR. RULAND: You might be 24 aware, well, if I could, let me circle back to a couple 25 other statements you made before I address that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
49 1 specifically.
2 You talked about stampeded, and Id just like to 3 reiterate something Jack said.
4 MR. DUNN: Just a word 5 choice.
6 MR. RULAND: Ill accept that, 7 if you accept some of my poor choices of words on 8 occasion.
9 MR. DUNN: You already call 10 them poor?
11 MR. RULAND: You talked about 12 trust, and trust is a very difficult thing. Its extremely 13 easy to lose, and extremely hard to get back.
14 Ill personalize this for a minute. If -- Ill 15 project that you personally dont trust FirstEnergy. Ill 16 pose it that way for awhile. And possibly you dont trust 17 us, the NRC. We take that personal. And for us to restore 18 trust, we dont expect it to happen instantaneously. Its 19 something that is going to take time.
20 Im not going to speak for FirstEnergy, but, you 21 know, the NRC lost some trust when this happened, 22 regardless of what you think of FirstEnergy. And, frankly, 23 the penance that weve been doing for the last 20 plus 24 months, I think its putting us on the road to hopefully 25 restore some of that trust, but were not there yet, and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
50 1 its going to take time. And its time thats going to 2 ultimately prove trust, to completely regain that, if we 3 can.
4 I acknowledge that, and its nothing I can press a 5 button to make happen, but were working the problem. And 6 like good engineers that we are, you know, were not going 7 to give up.
8 You talked about revoking a license, what would it 9 take. The NRC has a regulation, its called 2., Code of 10 Federal Regulations 2.206, its where citizens can petition 11 the agency to take enforcement action and provide a basis 12 for us, and we have a whole process around that. We get 13 the petition in. We examine it. We evaluate whether the 14 enforcement action is warranted, and we subject that to not 15 only our technical staffs review, but legal reviews about 16 whether that, whether that action thats being requested is 17 appropriate.
18 And, as you probably are aware, Congressman 19 Kucinich, or Representative Kucinich, submitted one of 20 those petitions and basically asked the same thing, revoke 21 the Davis-Besse license. And in that final directors 22 decision, we assigned out by essentially the Acting Office 23 Director that it didnt warrant; what Davis-Besse did, did 24 not warrant a revocation of a license, but in fact what was 25 open to the NRC was a whole host of things we could do.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
51 1 MR. DUNN: Has the NRC ever 2 revoked a license?
3 MR. RULAND: They have revoked 4 material licenses, and Ive been involved with at least one 5 of those cases.
6 MR. DUNN: Can you clarify 7 how the material license is different than the --
8 MR. RULAND: Usually, people 9 that use nuclear materials, you know, doctors that have, 10 cardiologists that use cardiolyte to treat when they do 11 stress tests; those folks typically in certain states in 12 the country have materials licenses. They have material 13 licenses to use that material, and on occasion, you know, 14 we could revoke a license under that circumstance. Weve 15 considered that.
16 But a power reactor, I dont know the answer to 17 that. I dont think so. Jack, do you know?
18 MR. GROBE: No, Im not aware 19 of any power reactor licenses that have been revoked, in 20 laymans terms, and thats what I am, Im not a lawyer.
21 The concept of license revocation is when the NRC concludes 22 that the Licensee has demonstrated that it is not willing 23 to comply.
24 And, again, Im not a lawyer, and this is a legal 25 concept, the question youve asked, but I think in laymans MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
52 1 terms thats pretty close to an answer to your question.
2 MR. DUNN: So, the plant or a 3 power reactor or the operator, Im sorry, would actually 4 have to, you know, say that they do not want to comply?
5 MR. GROBE: They have to 6 demonstrate theyre not willing to comply and we have had 7 situations like that; and mostly has been, as Bill 8 indicated, on the other side of our position, not nuclear 9 power, but users of nuclear materials. There is probably 10 close to 20,000 Licensees using materials in their 11 business; industrial users, medical users, research 12 companies, things of that nature.
13 MR. RULAND: And each case 14 would have to be evaluated on its own merits. And if you 15 would like, we can get you a copy, I think that 2.06 is on 16 the Web site. I think we let out -- we have a rather much 17 more coherent argument than I could speak here about the 18 basis of why revocation is not necessary in this case.
19 MR. GROBE: Part two of 10-CFR 20 is our Administrative Regulations and there is guidance in 21 there on license revocation.
22 MR. DUNN: Thank you for your 23 time. Ill drop these --
24 MR. GROBE: If you could drop 25 them with that fine looking gentleman in the last row back MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
53 1 there.
2 MR. DUNN: Actually, Ill 3 also drop a sample of our support statement, although were 4 going to protect our members identities. Thank you.
5 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
6 MR. KOEBEL: My name is Ottawa 7 County Commissioner Carl Koebel. Im not here as a 8 commissioner. Im not here to give you a thousand 9 petitions or hundred thousand petitions or tell you I 10 represent 40,000 people from Ottawa County. Im here to 11 tell you I represent three of the most beautiful little 12 girls that live on Schoolhouse Road here in Ottawa County, 13 truly downwind and in the shadow of Davis-Besse.
14 And if I didnt believe that these employees had the 15 best interest of the health and welfare of those three 16 little girls, I wouldnt be standing here saying, continue 17 to work with them for the restart of this plant.
18 I believe that is their concern. I believe it is 19 your concern. And, Jack, I am going to give you their 20 picture. And, I want you to look at that at restart and 21 remember that what you do is for them, and I appreciate 22 it. Thank you very much.
23 MR. GROBE: Thank you. Ill 24 have to say theyre cute as a button.
25 MR. GATTER: Hi, my name is MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
54 1 Shane Gatter, and Ive been working with Davis-Besse for 2 just over a year now. I work in the Corrective Action 3 Program. Ive been tracking corrective actions, mainly 4 restarts, and nonrestarts as well.
5 What I mean by that is, we have been coding 6 corrective actions and CRs that require restart, and Im 7 happy to announce that a lot of those are due this week; 8 and I believe most, if not all, of those will be done this 9 week. The people here have been working very hard to get 10 these done. I have a meeting every day to watch these, 11 and theyre on track.
12 And I also want to praise the independent oversight 13 panels that we do have. Im not sure how many different 14 ones we have, but we do have a few. And like Jere Witt, I 15 dont know him personally; I have met him a couple times; 16 and he does provide independence, because hes there 17 watching us, but hes not part of us, which is great. Hes 18 not outside the fence; hes inside the fence. And, I dont 19 know if you want to say that its not independent or 20 independent, but I feel thats a great independence, but he 21 does interact with us. Thank you.
22 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
23 Double dipper.
24 MR. GREVE: Yeah. Eric Greve, 25 again. A little while ago you guys mentioned that what you MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
55 1 guys are really concerned about is the performance at the 2 plant. Thats what you guys are making your decision based 3 upon. I guess I had a question.
4 Is any consideration given to FirstEnergy outside of 5 Davis-Besse? Heres where Im going with this. A couple 6 weeks ago the U.S./Canadian Task Force released its 7 findings that FirstEnergy was largely to blame for the 8 August 14th Blackout. They cited computer malfunctions, 9 poor communications, inadequate training, human error, and 10 a little lack of routine tree trimming. You cut off the 11 tree trimming there, it sounds incredibly similar to what 12 happened here at Davis-Besse.
13 So, I guess my point is, safety culture problems 14 seem to be a company-wide phenomenon at FirstEnergy. So, 15 even if improvements have been or were to be made at 16 Davis-Besse and the Safety Culture Department, you know, 17 wouldnt there be a very real risk that it would be a 18 temporary phenomenon, the larger company problem would once 19 again seep into here into Davis-Besse?
20 MR. GROBE: Thats an 21 excellent question. I think Im going to take it in two 22 parts. We are concerned with things that are outside 23 Davis-Besse, within the FirstEnergy system. Primarily, 24 its the corporate organization and support structure 25 thats necessary to support Davis-Besse.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
56 1 There is a Corporate Office of Support. I dont 2 know the exact title. There is a fellow named Joe Hagan, 3 that is the Vice President over that organization. And 4 they provide a variety of support services, primarily in 5 technical disciplines, for all three of the FirstEnergy 6 sites. And we are concerned about that.
7 There is a Corporate Office of Independent 8 Assessment and were concerned about that. I have nearly 9 no knowledge of the details of the blackout. Ive been 10 rather busy with other things, but thats only a concern 11 from my perspective or from the perspective of Davis-Besse 12 that electrical power is important to the operation of the 13 nuclear power plant. And, thats a concern to make sure 14 that the electrical systems within the plant are capable of 15 dealing with a loss of offsite power. And, in fact, those 16 electrical systems performed well during the blackout.
17 So, that was an interesting insight that would not 18 have been gained otherwise. Not that I was looking forward 19 to a blackout, but that was useful information.
20 There was a second part to your question I wanted to 21 get to; Ive lost it.
22 Oh, the other thing is that not us particularly, 23 with respect to the Davis-Besse Oversight Panel, but the 24 NRC is equally concerned with the performance of the Perry 25 Plant, Beaver Valley Plant. Beaver Valley is in Region I MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
57 1 Office in Philadelphia and Perry is, of course, in Region 2 III Office. And, were paying particular attention and 3 have to say augmented attention to those two sites, because 4 of the number of resources that have been applied to the 5 Davis-Besse facility to ensure that performance at those 6 sites is not inappropriately affected.
7 So, I think that gets the context of our perspective 8 on FirstEnergy and a little bit about the blackout.
9 MR. RULAND: Let me just add, 10 one of our colleagues back in NRR in Headquarters was on 11 the task force that investigated the blackout. There were 12 three phases of it. The third phase was the nuclear power 13 part of, like a subcommittee is part of this. And, I think 14 he was going around, I think virtually as we speak. He was 15 in Cleveland today. Tomorrow? Okay.
16 MR. GREVE: Yeah, its 17 tomorrow.
18 MR. RULAND: Thank you. And 19 so, while it does not directly affect Davis-Besse, were 20 continuing to stay abreast of whats going on. Because, as 21 Jack has alluded to, reliable offsite power is part of our 22 general design criteria, and we stay informed of that and 23 as our electrical folks do.
24 And just to make sure we know whats going on, and 25 if there was some regulatory action that we needed to a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
58 1 take at some stage, we would be prepared to take it. But 2 right now, were in the monitoring mode of, were 3 monitoring that situation at this stage.
4 MR. GREVE: Thanks.
5 MR. GROBE: I apologize, I 6 remember the second point I wanted to make. You made a 7 very valid point and raised an important issue and that has 8 to do with the longevity of improvements at Davis-Besse.
9 One of the decisions the panel has to make is whether or 10 not the plant is ready to return to operations safely, but 11 also the panel is concerned that improvement initiatives 12 are lasting; that there is no atrophication of the 13 activities and processes and attitudes that have been put 14 in place at Davis-Besse.
15 And to that end, part of the restart report that 16 FirstEnergy submitted at the end of November, one of 17 appendices is a Continuing Improvement Plan, thats 18 referred to I think as the Cycle 14 Operations Improvement 19 Initiative. It addresses ten different areas of plant 20 operation and the continuing activities that are to be 21 undertaken.
22 That was one of the focuses of the discussion this 23 afternoon, and there is materials on the slides, but also 24 more importantly, the complete report is available on the 25 Website. And its rather a substantive document.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
59 1 I have a copy of it right here, if I could put my 2 hands on it. This is their Return to Service Plan and 3 Appendix D, I believe, of this, towards the end, is the 4 Operational Improvement Plan for operating Cycle 14. And 5 it addresses a variety of continuing improvement issues; 6 organizational effectiveness, operation, training, work 7 management, engineering, continuous safety culture, 8 improvement procedure, corrective action and internal and 9 external oversight to ensure that these activities not only 10 achieve a level of safety and restart, but go beyond that.
11 So, thats a very valid point that you raise and one 12 were focused on. Thank you for raising it.
13 MR. ATTWATER: Hi, Im Allen 14 Attwater. Im 24 years old. I gave a speech in October.
15 I just wanted to say that as a citizen in Ottawa 16 County, I want nuclear power in Ottawa County. I think the 17 citizens of Ottawa County want nuclear power. I dont see 18 very many neighbors and friends here, because I believe 19 they feel safe.
20 And I feel that the three people that were up here 21 that had some negative points about FirstEnergy or 22 Davis-Besse or the NRC, that they need to live within ten 23 miles of the plant and realize what I go through every 24 day. There is no concern. Davis-Besse is built to 25 withstand any, how can I say it, I dont know the technical MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
60 1 terms, but this isnt the Ukraine. Chernobyl is not going 2 to happen here at home.
3 We have a very safe facility out there. Id like to 4 see Davis-Besse out there. I dont want a coal burner 5 here. I dont want anything except nuclear power, because 6 its zero percent emissions. Its great power. Its 7 cheap. And we need Davis-Besse to run. And I believe 8 that, I believe it to be a great thing to see it back up 9 and running. And its my weather station for the wind.
10 MR. GROBE: Thank you very 11 much.
12 MR. ATTWATER: Thank you.
13 MR. JANSSEN: Ken Janssen.
14 Just real quick, you talked about the lack of trust, on 15 rebuilding that lack of trust over the, the past 20 months, 16 and you also brought up an NRC regulation. I believe there 17 is also another NRC regulation that says, when a hole is 18 suspected, the plant must be shut down immediately. And I 19 also believe that the first photos of documentation of the 20 hole were turned over in 2000. Although, hold on, the 21 plant continued to run for two years after that.
22 Just recently, I believe, I might get this wrong, 23 the INRS, the Nuclear Research Service, they did a mockup 24 of the nuclear reactor head recreating the hole and the 25 cracks. They increased the pressure to find out how soon MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
61 1 it would have been before Davis-Besse blew. And Im sure 2 you know about this. It blew at 1800 PSI and normal 3 operating pressure for Davis-Besse is 2200 PSI. So, it 4 blew before.
5 The response was that Toledo must have a guardian 6 angel and that Ohio should thank its lucky stars. And, 7 now, while guardian angels and lucky stars are great, I 8 think we should have a little accountability on earth here 9 first. And I think, I will never trust FirstEnergy again 10 after what theyve done over the past two years, and there 11 is only one way that I will trust the NRC again.
12 And I just wanted to know if you did hear about that 13 report and how do you respond to those two things?
14 MR. GROBE: It was our 15 research.
16 MR. JANSSEN: Oh, it was.
17 MR. GROBE: You have a couple 18 things a bit mixed up here. We did a Significance 19 Assessment of the head degradation of Davis-Besse and 20 concluded that it was our highest level of significance, 21 that we call it a red finding, which is the highest of four 22 levels. That was based on some data that came from 23 testing, metallurgic testing that was done on plate 24 stainless steel, the liner material is stainless steel.
25 The reason there was no data available on cladding MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
62 1 is it was never intended to be a pressure retaining 2 component. In fact, it became one at Davis-Besse, it did 3 retain pressure.
4 We have been continuing to evaluate what can be 5 learned from Davis-Besse; and to that end, one of the 6 activities that was undertaken through our Office of 7 Research was to conduct research on cladding material. And 8 we happen to own an old reactor vessel, that we cut a 9 number of samples out of and ground away the base metal, 10 the low carbon steel, and inserted cracks of various sizes 11 and depths into the cladding material and burst tested.
12 And the purpose of this research, the cracks and the 13 thickness of the cladding was varied and was to gain some 14 insights into how you might model from an engineering 15 perspective behavior of cladding. And some of the results, 16 early results of that research somehow became known and 17 were reported in the news media. That research is not 18 complete. Its ongoing. In fact, there was one of the 19 burst tests that was low pressure. I dont remember the 20 exact number.
21 MR. JANSSEN: 1800.
22 MR. GROBE: And there is 23 continuing evaluation. These tests were being done 24 essentially to calibrate an engineering model to try to 25 predict cladding behavior. There is no direct relationship MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
63 1 necessarily to what happened at Davis-Besse.
2 And, whether Nuclear Information Resource Services 3 thinks you have guardian angels really has no relationship 4 to that research.
5 MR. JANSSEN: Absolutely. I 6 wanted to make sure that there was research for everybody 7 here that missed the point. This isnt a nuclear power 8 issue. Im not for or against nuclear power, and I dont 9 think these were in a position or a stance against nuclear 10 power.
11 This is a stance against FirstEnergy and its 12 management of a nuclear reactor. And you talked about 13 getting a second chance, and things of that nature. Can 14 you really get a second chance when youre operating a 15 nuclear reactor? But thank you.
16 MR. RULAND: You mentioned 17 accountability. Lets see, the entire management was 18 changed virtually, the Licensee has not been able to 19 operate for what, now, its 22 months about now, you know, 20 a facility thats probably in excess of a billion dollars.
21 Basically, its been a money sink instead of a money 22 source.
23 Basically, theyre waiting on us. Sounds like to me 24 thats accountability. Now, it might not be the 25 accountability that maybe you want, but I think its MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
64 1 accountability. And we continue to hold them accountable, 2 in fact, after restart. And our license frankly holds them 3 accountable for their entire duration of their operation.
4 And I, Im arguing here that this is just an additional set 5 of accountability that were holding them to. And, you 6 know, were not letting them off the hook now and were not 7 letting them off the hook later.
8 So, I dont agree with your statement that were not 9 holding these folks accountable. If I was them, I would be 10 feeling accountable.
11 MR. GROBE: The other thing 12 is that we regulate based on performance. And Bills using 13 the word accountability, and we hold people accountable to 14 their performance. And the decision on restart of this 15 plant will only be made based on performance, not based on 16 perceptions or attitudes, but based on performance. And 17 thats performance as validated by our independent 18 assessment. So, the decision will be made once we conclude 19 that they can perform safely.
20 Anybody else have any questions or comments?
21 MR. RULAND: One more comment.
22 Allen Attwater, if youre still here, you talked a little 23 bit about, you know, I think the number you used was three 24 folks that were anti-nuclear. I heard something, something 25 to the effect that they shouldnt be able to comment or MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
65 1 they shouldnt comment.
2 I think it takes a lot of courage to come up here 3 and talk to us. Were quote the experts on this matter.
4 So, these are folks that feel strongly about their 5 positions. They take the time to come out here and talk to 6 us, and I think that shows some courage; particularly with 7 an audience that is mostly FirstEnergy folks here.
8 So, you know, in a long tradition of dissent in this 9 country, I think we try to afford them every bit of respect 10 for their opinion, as the people of FirstEnergy folks. So, 11 you know, Ive heard folks say that theyve done us a 12 disservice and I dont believe they have. Theyve come up 13 here and ask us questions to make us squirm.
14 So, lets, you know, we ought to keep the debate 15 going and keep the questions coming.
16 One final comment about the letters that we get, the 17 thousands, we call them the thousands of letters. You 18 know, we have, we ship some to Headquarters, process them, 19 and Ive read them; and theyre in crayons and there is all 20 sorts of letters. Its kind of a personal way, kind of a 21 touchstone for me to, these are real folks, real American 22 citizens that have concerns about the plant. Maybe they 23 dont, arent completely informed, but, you know, theyre 24 real folks; theyve got concerns. And it brings to my job 25 a certain reality.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
66 1 So, while not holding a referendum on whether the 2 plant should restart, but it helps inform us and keep us, I 3 think, grounded a little bit, so anyway.
4 MR. GROBE: And, frankly, 5 its what our country is all about. Right. And we 6 appreciate it.
7 MR. ATTWATER: I just wanted to 8 apologize. I didnt mean to make it sound like it was a 9 bad thing that them three gentlemen give their opinion. I 10 just did not want, and I think I can speak for a lot of 11 citizens in Ottawa County, we do not want people out there 12 with petitions in hand coming on our front doorstep trying 13 to shut down Davis-Besse or Brush Wellman, and especially 14 Davis-Besse on the grounds of, with nuclear power.
15 Amy Ryder made a comment that she thinks they should 16 convert Davis-Besse to a coal burner or other source of 17 energy. I think the only source is nuclear power. And 18 thats what I was trying to comment on. I was not prepared 19 to comment today, so I do apologize to them three 20 gentlemen.
21 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you 22 very much.
23 If there is no additional, if there is no additional 24 comments, let me remind you that our next routine public 25 meeting is January 13th, right here in Oak Harbor High MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
67 1 School at 2:00 and 7:00.
2 And, its possible that well be having a meeting in 3 the Ottawa County area later this month to consider the 4 restart at Davis-Besse. At that meeting, the purpose of 5 the meeting would be for FirstEnergy to present their views 6 on why the plant is ready. It would not be a meeting where 7 we would make a decision. The NRC would be in the mode of 8 listening to the perspectives and challenging the 9 perspectives of Davis-Besse. Any decision would be made 10 after that meeting.
11 Thank you all for coming this evening, and we look 12 forward to seeing you again.
13 (Off the record.)
14 ---
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
68 1 CERTIFICATE 2 I, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter and 3 Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio, duly 4 commissioned and qualified therein, do hereby certify that 5 the foregoing is a true and correct transcript of the 6 proceedings as taken by me and that I was present during 7 all of said proceedings.
8 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and 9 affixed my seal of office at Norwalk, Ohio, on this 10 13th day of December, 2003.
11 12 13 14 Marie B. Fresch, RMR 15 NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF OHIO 16 My Commission Expires 10-10-08.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO