ML033530515
| ML033530515 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  (NPF-003) |
| Issue date: | 12/03/2003 |
| From: | NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML033530515 (118) | |
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2 PUBLIC MEETING 3 BETWEEN U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O350 PANEL AND FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 4 OAK HARBOR, OHIO 5 - - -
6 Meeting held on Wednesday, December 3, 2003, at 2:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, Ohio, 7 taken by me, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter, and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio.
8 9
PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
10 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 11 John "Jack" Grobe, 12 Senior Manager, Region III Office
& Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 13 William Ruland, Senior Manager NRR
& Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 14 Christopher Scott Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector 15 U.S. NRC Office - Davis-Besse Jon Hopkins, 16 NRR Project Manager - Davis-Besse Jack Rutkowski, NRC Resident Inspector 17 Randal Baker, Reactor Engineer Region III Office 18 Geoff Wright, Team Leader Management/Human Performance Inspection 19 FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 20 Lew Myers, FENOC Chief Operating Officer 21 Mark Bezilla, Vice President Davis-Besse Clark Price, Owner - Restart Action Plan 22 Steve Loehlein, Manager - Nuclear Quality Assessment 23 Linda Griffith, Employee Concerns Program Manager 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
2 1 MR. GROBE: Good afternoon.
2 Welcome to FirstEnergy and to members of the public. Thank 3 you for accommodating this meeting today. This is a public 4 meeting between the NRCs Davis-Besse Oversight Panel and 5 the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company.
6 My name is Jack Grobe. Im Senior Manager from the 7 NRCs Region III Office in Lisle, Illinois and Im the 8 Chairman of the NRCs Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
9 Could I have the next slide, please.
10 The purposes of todays meeting are to discuss the 11 NRC Oversight Panel activities, particularly focusing on 12 those activities that have occurred since our last public 13 meeting on November 12th and to allow FirstEnergy to 14 present the status of activities in their restart plan.
15 Next slide, please.
16 The agenda for todays meeting is similar to our 17 prior meetings. Well make some introductions and opening 18 remarks. Then, Ill summarize very briefly the information 19 that was discussed at the November 12th public meeting last 20 month. Discuss the current NRC activities that have 21 occurred since November 12th.
22 FirstEnergy has a presentation that they plan on 23 making regarding their Return to Service Plan. Focus today 24 will be on restart activities, the Cycle 14 Operational 25 Improvement Plan and Safety Culture and Safety Conscious MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
3 1 Work Environment.
2 After FirstEnergys presentation, including whatever 3 questions the NRC has, well adjourn the business portion 4 of the meeting, take a brief break, and then have an 5 opportunity for public comments and questions for members 6 of the public that well attempt to answer.
7 I would like to take a moment and introduce the NRC 8 staff that are here today. On my immediate left is Bill 9 Ruland. Bill is the Senior Manager from our Office of 10 Nuclear Reactor Regulation in our Headquarters Offices in 11 Rockwell, Maryland, and hes Vice Chairman of the Oversight 12 Panel, the NRC Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
13 On Bills left is Jon Hopkins. Jon is the Licensing 14 Project Manager for the Davis-Besse facility, also in the 15 office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
16 On the far end of the table is Jack Rutkowski. Jack 17 is one of the Resident Inspectors at the Davis-Besse plant, 18 works at Davis-Besse every day.
19 On my immediate right is Scott Thomas. Scott is the 20 Senior Resident Inspector and Scott supervises the 21 inspection program at the Davis-Besse site.
22 On Scotts right is Geoff Wright, and Geoffrey is 23 the Team Leader of the Management and Human Performance 24 Team. Thats the team thats looking at Safety Culture, 25 Safety Conscious Work Environment, Employee Concerns MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
4 1 Resolution, and other activities that focus on the culture 2 of the Davis-Besse facility.
3 We also have Randy Baker. Randy is running the 4 slides right now. Randy is a Reactor Engineering from the 5 Region III Office in Lisle, Illinois.
6 Jan Strasma is the Public -- one of the Public 7 Affairs Officers in Region III and hes in the audience 8 somewhere.
9 Also in the audience is Rolland Lickus. Rolland is 10 the State and Government Affairs Officer for Region III.
11 And, of course, we couldnt live without Nancy 12 Keller, who is out in the foyer. Nancy is the Resident 13 Office Assistant, and she provides invaluable service in 14 having these meetings run smoothly.
15 Lew, would you take a moment and introduce your 16 staff?
17 MR. MYERS: Sure. Okay.
18 We have a couple people in the audience.
19 Gary Leidich, the President of FENOC, is with us today 20 here.
21 Bob Saunders, our previous President; and his wife, 22 Carol, is with us today. Glad to have Bob back up from 23 Virginia.
24 Joe Hagan, the Vice President of Engineering 25 Services and Oversight, Engineering and Services with us MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
5 1 today.
2 Fred von Ahn, VP of Oversight is also with us.
3 And then, at the end of the table, Linda Griffith; 4 shes new at the table, our Employees Concerns Manager.
5 She will be providing some insights today.
6 Clark Price, the Restart Program Manager is to my 7 left.
8 To my right here is Mark Bezilla, our site 9 Vice President.
10 And then, Steve Loehlein, Vice President -- the 11 Manager of Oversight, Manager of Oversight, is also with us 12 today.
13 So, with that, I think were ready to go forward.
14 MR. GROBE: Thank you very 15 much.
16 I believe we have some public officials here in the 17 audience today. Would you like to stand and identify 18 yourselves, please?
19 MR. ARNDT: Steve Arndt, 20 County Commissioner.
21 MR. PAPCUN: John Papcun, 22 Ottawa County Commissioner.
23 MR. KOEBEL: Carl Koebel, 24 County Commissioner.
25 MR. WITT: Jere Witt, County MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
6 1 Administrator.
2 MR. GROBE: Okay. Very good.
3 Thank you very much.
4 As I mentioned before, this meeting is open to 5 public observation. Please note that this is a meeting 6 between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FirstEnergy.
7 At the conclusion of the business portion of this meeting, 8 but before the meeting is adjourned, the NRC staff will be 9 available to receive comments from members of the public 10 and answer any questions that members of the public may 11 have.
12 There are copies of our December newsletter in the 13 foyer. This is another edition of our monthly newsletter 14 that provides key information regarding the NRCs 15 activities at the Davis-Besse facility.
16 In addition to current activities, there is several 17 pages of historical background information; and on the very 18 last page is specific information on how you can contact 19 the NRC regarding matter concerning the Davis-Besse 20 facility and also how you can access information easily on 21 Davis-Besse on the NRCs Web site.
22 There is two additional aspects of the monthly 23 update that I wanted to just touch on briefly. As many of 24 you are aware, weve received several thousand letters and 25 emails from concerned citizens regarding the Davis-Besse MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
7 1 facility; and attached to the back of the December 2 newsletter is a copy of the letter that we have sent. We 3 have responded to every letter and email that weve 4 received that contained a return address or email address.
5 So, you can feel free to read the letter that we use to 6 respond to those. We will continue responding to letters 7 that we receive expressing concern about the Davis-Besse 8 facility.
9 On the very first page of the NRC update there is a 10 brief description of the process that the NRC goes through 11 in situations like plants that are in the condition 12 Davis-Besse is in, to evaluate the readiness for restart.
13 It describes the process at Davis-Besse includes several 14 steps. The FirstEnergy provided a restart report in late 15 November to the NRC, which documented holistically all of 16 the activities that they have accomplished over the last 17 approximately two years to evaluate the issues at 18 Davis-Besse and address those issues. And that report 19 concluded that they were ready to discuss with the NRC 20 restart authorization.
21 There is several inspections that are ongoing, and 22 Ill talk a little more about those later, that are 23 necessary to complete before restart should be considered.
24 In the process for restart, the NRC intends to 25 conduct a public meeting; and that meeting will be noticed MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
8 1 in our normal process, our normal procedures, where we give 2 members of the public ten days prior notice regarding the 3 scheduling of the meeting.
4 I anticipate that that meeting will be sometime in 5 the third week of December. Once we issue a meeting notice 6 identifying the date of that meeting, as I mentioned well 7 give ten days notice, thats our best estimate of when the 8 meeting will occur.
9 Of course, there could be activities that occur at 10 Davis-Besse which would result in the postponement of that 11 meeting, but we want to give as early notice as possible 12 when the meeting may happen. It may be delayed, if 13 necessary, based on activities that go on at the plant, but 14 at the time we notice the meeting, that will be our best 15 estimate of when the meeting will occur.
16 At that meeting, FirstEnergy will present their 17 bases for belief that the plant is ready to restart. One 18 of the key items of information in addition to all of the 19 historical information thats occurred to-date will be the 20 assessment of the operating organization; and that doesnt 21 just include the Operations Department, but it includes all 22 of the departments that are necessary to support effective 23 operations of the Davis-Besse plant.
24 The assessment of their performance during the early 25 heatup of the plant and this heatup will be very similar to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
9 1 the heatup that occurred prior to the Normal Operating 2 Pressure Test that occurred a couple of months ago. There 3 were a number of operating challenges that came to the 4 forefront during that heatup process and the transition to 5 what we call Mode 4 and Mode 3 of Operations.
6 Those activities will occur without nuclear heat, 7 the plant will be heated up using the heat thats generated 8 by just simply operating the reactor coolant pumps, but 9 thats a much more challenge operational time at the plant, 10 and we will be interested in FirstEnergys assessment of 11 how their operators perform during that process.
12 We will also have inspectors observing during that 13 round-the-clock timeframe.
14 So, if for whatever reason that meeting is 15 postponed, it may result in postponement of the restart 16 meeting, but again, we tend as best we can to notice that 17 meeting ten days ahead of time.
18 Following that meeting, there will be no decision 19 made by the NRC at that meeting. Following that meeting, 20 the NRC will evaluate our ongoing activities, inspection 21 activities, and evaluate FirstEnergy performance. And, at 22 an appropriate point in time, if the panel concludes it 23 believes the plant is ready to restart and operate safely, 24 it will make that recommendation to Jim Caldwell, the 25 Region Administrator in Region III. Jim will then MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
10 1 certainly question the panel on the basis for its 2 conclusions and recommendations, and consult with two 3 individuals in headquarters, at Headquarters Office; one is 4 Jim Dyer. Jim is the Director of the Office of Nuclear 5 Reactor Regulation, has responsibility for all 103 6 operating reactors in the United States, as well as Sam 7 Collins, the Deputy Executive Director for Reactors. Once 8 Jim consults with those two individuals, and if hes 9 satisfied that the plant can be operated safely, at that 10 point in time the NRC would make a restart decision.
11 We are not focused on schedule; were focused only 12 on safety, and our responsibility is in that area.
13 Once a restart decision is made, appropriate people 14 will be notified and then a press release will be issued so 15 that the public will have information regarding that 16 decision. In addition, a letter will be issued to 17 FirstEnergy documenting the basis for the restart 18 decision.
19 So, thats described in a little bit more detail in 20 the December newsletter; and, certainly, if you have any 21 questions on that topic, well be happy to answer them at 22 the appropriate time during the meeting.
23 Also in the foyer is a copy of the NRC Public 24 Meeting Feedback Form. We appreciate the feedback we get 25 from folks. We get several of these after each meeting.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
11 1 And, please, if you have any suggestions for how we can 2 improve our meetings, we would appreciate getting them, 3 because were always looking for an opportunity to 4 improve.
5 We are having this meeting transcribed today by 6 Marie Fresch.
7 Welcome back, Marie.
8 The purpose of that transcription is to maintain a 9 record of the meeting. The transcription will be available 10 on our web page in approximately 3 to 4 weeks. Its 11 important, because were having this meeting transcribed, 12 that the speakers clearly use the microphones to ensure 13 that Marie can hear the speakers and also to ensure that 14 the audience can hear.
15 Next slide, please.
16 Let me just give a very brief summary of the 17 November 12th meeting. The NRC presented the results of a 18 number of inspections during that meeting; including the 19 results of the Normal Operating Pressure Test Inspection 20 and the Corrective Action Team Inspection. And FirstEnergy 21 presented information regarding their progress toward 22 restart; two activities that were a result of the 23 Corrective Action Team Inspection, and that is the 24 Improvement in Engineering Calculation and Improvement 25 Activities in Improvement Program. Those two improvement MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
12 1 activity topic areas are contained among eight other topic 2 areas for continued improvement during Cycle 14, contained 3 in the Restart Report that we received in late November.
4 So, if anyones interested in a more comprehensive listing 5 of the Operations Improvement Plan, its available on the 6 NRC Web site as an appendix to that report.
7 FirstEnergy also discussed the results of the Normal 8 Operating Pressure Test, and other key events that need to 9 occur prior to restart of the facility.
10 Next slide, please.
11 There is two activities that have occurred on our 12 side of the table since the last public meeting; one of 13 them is the NRC has closed Restart Checklist Item 2.c, the 14 title of that checklist is Structures, Systems, and 15 Components inside Containment.
16 There was a series of inspections that were 17 conducted beginning, I believe, the summer of last year 18 through early this year, that addressed much of the work 19 that we needed to do to have confidence in FirstEnergys 20 assessment of the safety equipment that was inside 21 containment. There were three outstanding technical 22 issues. I wont go into them. Theyre documented in our 23 inspection reports that we needed to follow up on.
24 FirstEnergy addressed those issues and we did 25 follow-up inspection of those three technical issues and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
13 1 found them satisfactorily resolved. Resulted in the panel 2 having comfort that sufficient work had been done regarding 3 Structures, Systems, and Components inside Containment and 4 that we could close that Restart Checklist Item.
5 In addition since the last public meeting, three 6 Senior Reactor Analysts, these are individuals that have 7 extensive experience in nuclear plant operations and 8 inspection, and also have training and experience in the 9 area of probablistic risk assessment were at the site; and 10 the purpose of their activity was to evaluate the backlog 11 of work that will be remaining at the time of restart.
12 This was a comprehensive review of the risk 13 significant systems. And, the systems were chosen such 14 that over 95 percent of the safety of the plant, what we 15 refer to as risk reduction, was addressed and a review done 16 by the backlog inspection team.
17 The team did a comprehensive review of backlog work, 18 including things like maintenance work orders, engineering 19 work change requests, design changes, temporary 20 modifications, operator workarounds, as well as reviewing 21 procedure change, outstanding procedure change requests, 22 preventative maintenance, and outstanding Condition 23 Reports.
24 The team also reviewed System Health Reports that 25 were conducted by FirstEnergy, and a risk analysis that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
14 1 FirstEnergy had conducted of the backlog inspection.
2 The team concluded that the Licensee had 3 appropriately categorized all of these backlogged issues as 4 post-restart work, meaning that this work was not necessary 5 prior to the restart of the plant to assure safety of the 6 plant operations; however, a significant number of the 7 backlog work items have no target dates for resolution. It 8 was a concern of the team that there was a significant 9 necessary resource commitment to effectively manage the 10 backlogged work, particularly in the area of Design 11 Engineering and System Engineering.
12 So, overall, the team was assured that restart 13 scoping was satisfactorily accomplished and deferred 14 actions would not have a significant impact on the safety 15 of the plant, however continued management attention would 16 be necessary to assure that the appropriate resources are 17 committed to being able to work off that backlog concurrent 18 with safe operation.
19 Thats an activity that should the plant be 20 authorized to restart would be a continuing focus of the 21 NRC.
22 Next slide, please.
23 There is several activities that are continuing. I 24 introduced earlier, Geoffrey Wright, the Team Leader on the 25 Management/Human Performance Inspection. Hes here today MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
15 1 because a number of the topic areas were going to be 2 discussing directly affect his ongoing inspection in a 3 Safety Culture and Safety Conscious Work Environment area.
4 That inspection is ongoing and will likely be ongoing for a 5 couple of more weeks.
6 In addition, of course, we have the three Resident 7 Inspectors. Scott Thomas and Jack Rutkowski are here at 8 the table, and Monica Salter-Williams who is working. And 9 they are inspecting day-in and day-out routine operator 10 activities, maintenance and testing activities, as well as 11 engineering activities.
12 In addition, the High Pressure Injection Pump 13 Testing began late last week, continued through the 14 weekend, and continues as we speak. And we had a pump 15 specialist from our office at Nuclear Reactor Regulation 16 out through the weekend observing those testing activities 17 and our inspection in that area continues.
18 Next slide, please.
19 There is several activities that have not yet 20 begun. First is a Restart Readiness Assessment Team 21 Inspection. That team has been established and is staffed 22 with Senior Resident Inspectors and Resident Inspectors 23 from across the country. They will be on site beginning 24 next week, December 8th, I believe. The inspection is 25 currently scheduled for two weeks, but will continue as MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
16 1 long as necessary, such that the NRC has an opportunity to 2 observe the complex plant operations that occur during the 3 heatup and transition to Mode 4 and Mode 3.
4 The purpose of that inspection is to do the final 5 evaluation of the Licensees control of returning equipment 6 to an operating status, and then managing that equipment 7 through the transitions of the plant up through normal 8 operating temperature and pressure.
9 We do anticipate later this month a Restart Meeting.
10 And, as I mentioned earlier, well be noticing that meeting 11 at least ten days before the meeting is scheduled. And we 12 have our next routine public meeting scheduled for January 13 13th here at the high school. So, we look forward to you 14 being back visiting with us at least on January 13th, if 15 not at the public meeting on restart.
16 Next slide, please. Thats the first slide for the 17 evening, so I dont think Ill go into that at this time.
18 Without any other opening comments from the NRC, 19 Lew, I would like to turn the meeting over to you.
20 MR. MYERS: Thank you very 21 much, Jack.
22 I think our opening slide is very interesting 23 shows the major milestones and accomplishments that weve 24 made to-date, and were at the point, youre correct, where 25 we have submitted our report for NRC review and approval of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
17 1 restart.
2 Next slide, please.
3 Today, our desired outcome is to demonstrate that 4 the plant has a robust Safety Culture and good Safety 5 Conscious Work Environment. Were going to spend a lot of 6 time in that area in our presentation today.
7 Additionally, is to provide you with information on 8 our Cycle 14 Operations Improvement Plan, which will 9 address some of the issues concerning backlogs and all that 10 you brought up.
11 And finally, the proposed work scope that you asked 12 for last time, Mid Cycle 14 Outage. Those are the areas 13 that were focusing on.
14 The agenda, Im going to spend quite a bit of time 15 today talking about the Employee Alignment Sessions on 16 Safety Culture. So, a combination of Alignment Session on 17 all the activities that we have to accomplish the next 18 cycle in Safety Culture. And then the Readiness Restart 19 Reviews, which we perform our own Safety Culture Assessment 20 as the Management Team as part of that Restart Readiness 21 Review. Im going to spend the time there.
22 Then, the Safety Conscious Work Environment Survey 23 Outcomes. We have Linda Griffith with us today. Shes new 24 at the table. So, Linda is going to provide us new 25 information on the outcome of that survey.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
18 1 The Nuclear Quality Assessment Overview is something 2 we continue to do. Quality Assessment performed their own 3 interviews to assist Safety Culture and Safety Conscious 4 Work Environment. We look for correlation there.
5 Then Cycle 14, Operational Improvement Plan, Mark 6 Bezilla is scheduled to talk about that. The work scope 7 plans for the Mid-cycle Outage, Mark will take that.
8 And then, if time permits and hopefully does, 9 Schedule for Remaining Activities; Clark Price is with us 10 today and will cover that presentation.
11 With that, move on to the next slide.
12 From a Safety Culture standpoint, Performance Safety 13 and Health Associates Incorporated led by Doctor Sonja 14 Haber performed an independent assessment of the 15 Davis-Besse Safety Culture last February of 2003. Many of 16 the areas at that time demonstrated a positive Safety 17 Culture, were identified in her report.
18 They included; safety is clearly recognized by most 19 of the organization as a value; accountability for our 20 safety was present and clear in most organizations; safety 21 is integrated in most of the activities in the 22 organization; and, a safety leadership process existed at 23 the plant during the time of that review.
24 Several areas, however, needed increased management 25 attention that were identified in the report. Problems MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
19 1 still existed in the, in the transition to accomplish 2 implementation of the safety message. Do people really 3 understand the difference between Safety Conscious Work 4 Environment and Safety Culture?
5 Accountability and ownership for safety were not yet 6 visible and its accepted in some organizations; safety is 7 not yet or was not yet consistently integrated into the key 8 activities of the plant; and, the values and attitudes of 9 the work force were generally positive, but personnel were 10 not aligned, they were not aligned with a common set of 11 values and understanding of safety; and, safety was not a 12 learning driven in the organization.
13 All Restart Actions provided. Well provide you a 14 Management/Human Performance Excellence Plan, and theyre 15 now all complete. In fact, we have overperformed in 16 several areas. For example, we have trained each of our 17 employees on Safety Culture and Safety Conscious Work 18 Environment. I dont know of another utility thats spent 19 the time to train each and every employee under Safety 20 Culture and Safety Conscious Mods.
21 After that, we had each and every employee assess 22 our Safety Culture. So, assess us as a management team, 23 and grade us on a Safety Culture standpoint. We want to 24 know what the employees were thinking.
25 Dont misunderstand what Im going to tell you MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
20 1 then. Safety Culture is learning driven and much work is 2 yet to be accomplished as we move into our long-term 3 operational plan. We have not arrived. I dont think 4 thats a term that youve ever arrived.
5 I am pleased to tell you, however, that we have 6 built an enduring organization rooted in safety practices 7 and consistently aligned at all levels within the 8 organization.
9 We are implementing the vision of performance, the 10 characteristics are present in our management, in our 11 processes, and in our people that ensure daily activities 12 receive a strong safety focus.
13 Our core values are seated in recognition that each 14 and every employee can make a difference. Management must 15 provide the attention warranted to plant activities and we 16 think were demonstrating that in the field every day.
17 This value is guiding our daily schedule, our plant 18 material conditions, our improvements in safety margin, and 19 our perception of preparation of the daily work activities 20 as we do our risk assessments on each and every activity.
21 Next slide.
22 At one of the public meetings, you asked us about 23 the FENOC values. I remember that well. You know, the 24 Executive Leadership Team internalized that question since 25 that meeting. Under Gary Leidichs, President of FENOC, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
21 1 leadership, we have worked diligently to ensure our vision, 2 our values were built to last, and are clearly communicated 3 and understood within our organizations.
4 Let me share these values with you. First, 5 Teamwork; a cooperative effort by a group or a team. I 6 believe that what doesnt kill you will make you stronger.
7 Davis-Besses outage has improved not only our teamwork at 8 Davis-Besse, but between the teamwork between our other 9 plants, and most importantly our new corporate 10 organization.
11 Accountability. Accountability and Ownership has to 12 have the power to perform an activity in a quality manner.
13 This value is rooted in individual Safety Culture 14 Assessment.
15 Accomplishment; something done admirably or 16 incredibly. We have many incredible accomplishments during 17 this outage that were pleased with.
18 We have established a strong senior leadership team 19 and management team at the Davis-Besse plant, and we 20 believe theyre walking the talk on a daily basis.
21 I believe we have made great strides in our employee 22 indoctrination through both training and performance.
23 Our goal setting, problem solving, and 24 decision-making practices have been anchored in our 25 procedures and we have demonstrated these practices each MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
22 1 and every day as we run into problems in our daily 2 activities.
3 When we attack problems, we now look for long term 4 performance and improvements to safety margin. Thats a 5 major difference in justification of the normal regulatory 6 requirements. I believe that we have the standard for 7 safety culture throughout the FENOC organization.
8 Next slide.
9 The concept of Safety Culture was originally defined 10 within the nuclear industry in the International Atomic 11 Energy Agency in ISEG-4, which we reviewed a document 12 published in 1991. The ISEG-4 definition of Safety 13 Culture, "That assembly of characteristics and attitudes in 14 the organization and individuals which establishes that an 15 overriding priority nuclear plant safety issues receive the 16 attention warranted by their significance."
17 We use that as the basis of our definition. At the 18 beginning of this outage, myself included, I believed that 19 most of our people did not know the difference between 20 Safety Culture and Safety Conscious Work Environment, nor 21 their relationship. Weve grown a lot since that time. I 22 now believe that most of the employees can clearly respond 23 to these two definitions down to the mechanical effort and 24 the attributes important to these concepts.
25 Let me remind you of the FENOC definition that has MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
23 1 been cursive, our cursive process. It is that assembly of 2 characteristics and attitudes, both characteristics and 3 attitudes, in organizations and individuals, an individual 4 rooted in safety, if you will, which establishes an 5 overriding priority towards nuclear safety activities, and 6 we ensure that these activities receive the attention 7 warranted by their significance.
8 Safety Conscious Work Environment is the environment 9 in which people are encouraged; you dont wait for them to 10 come forward, you encourage them to identify problems; are 11 confident that the problems will be effectively evaluated 12 and corrected, corrected and are protected from 13 retaliation.
14 Next slide.
15 The Shine Presentation, presentation of Model Safety 16 Culture, 1992, was recognized as the first assessment 17 concept. In the Shine model, culture is assumed to be a 18 pattern of shared basic assumptions which are invented, 19 discovered, or developed by an organization as it learns to 20 cope with problems of survival and cohesiveness. Shine had 21 three, a three-level model that assessed the organizations 22 artifacts, claim values, and basic assumption. You know, 23 that just really doesnt fit a group of engineers.
24 In our model, which is very similar, and is based on 25 the ISEG-4 model, we have three commitment areas that are MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
24 1 assessed. They consist of Policy Level Commitment Area, 2 Local Management Commitment Area, and most importantly, the 3 Individual Commitment Area. Filling these commitment areas 4 are 17 attributes that we have enhanced using about 40 5 pages of criteria that the company has developed over the 6 past year.
7 Our process is multiple methodologies to ensure 8 convergence of the facts. It also has strong line in 9 management ownership that ensures team alignment.
10 A yellow criteria is not necessarily a failure. It 11 indicates that all major criteria are acceptable in our 12 definition, with a few requiring management attention.
13 A red criteria, however, indicates that several 14 major criteria do not meet accepted standards, so they 15 dont meet our accepted standards, and require immediate 16 management attention.
17 Next slide.
18 Many actions have been taken to assess the Safety 19 Culture since we performed our Management/Human Performance 20 Root Cause. This root cause took several months. It was 21 completed in July of 2002, not that long ago.
22 The Root Cause Analysis Team used the event and 23 cause factor analysis, hazard barrier analysis, management 24 oversight and the risk free, MORT, if you will, process, 25 change analysis to determine the root cause of the failure MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
25 1 to identify, to grade reactor vessel head issue.
2 The Root Cause Analysis Team consisted of 3 FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company employees from Perry 4 and our Beaver Valley Plant, who were very experienced in 5 assessing and performing root causes. The team was 6 augmented by an independent contractor who specialized in 7 conducting root cause analysis and assessments of nuclear 8 power plants. Additionally, members of the Institute of 9 Nuclear Power Operations provided input as well as industry 10 oversight of the teams activities.
11 The team established a system that captured over 69 12 personnel interviews and 229 documents, with a causal 13 factor chart that was approximately one hundred feet long.
14 We found that a production focus established by management 15 existed that resulted in taking the minimum actions to meet 16 regulatory requirements, and accepted the degradation of 17 plant equipment.
18 We developed a strong Management Action Plan and the 19 Management/Human Performance Improvement Plan to correct 20 these problems and ensure sustained performance. We 21 presented that plan to you at one of these meetings.
22 To ensure continued improvement after startup, the 23 plan included development of a Long-Term Improvement Plan 24 for actions that we present to you in our Restart Return to 25 Service Report. We have submitted that plan with our MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
26 1 Integrated Restart Plan in November.
2 Many actions have been taken that would prevent 3 similar issues in the future. Let me share some of these 4 with you.
5 A new corporate organization with corporate 6 governors now exists that did not exist before.
7 We created a Safety Culture and Safety Conscious 8 Work Environment that I truly believe is unique to the 9 industry.
10 We chartered an Independent Assessment Team by 11 recognized experts. We shared the results of our 12 assessment with you in a public meeting. We compared their 13 attributes and the model with our process on Safety Culture 14 to ensure consistency. We anchored our process in a 15 procedure and performed internal assessments at every 16 critical evolution as weve returned the plant to service.
17 We had to make sure that we were ready to perform 18 each and every step. We have completed our Restart 19 Assessment. That will be shared with you today.
20 We went beyond our plans by training each and every 21 employee on Safety Culture and Safety Conscious Work 22 Environment. We then had each employee rate our Safety 23 Culture. No names were used in these ratings.
24 We have developed a comprehensive Long-Term Business 25 Practice that routinely will assess Safety Culture MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
27 1 throughout the FENOC organization, not just at 2 Davis-Besse. The results show good alignment between the 3 management team and our employees.
4 I am extremely pleased, extremely pleased with the 5 correlation of the areas of strength and the areas needing 6 continued improvement between our management assessment and 7 the employees reviews.
8 Next slide.
9 There are some very important areas showing positive 10 results from our employees. 99 percent of our employees 11 indicate that our policies on Safety Culture and Safety 12 Conscious Work Environment is now a core value, and most 13 importantly we are walking the talk. This core value is a 14 normal way of doing business at our plants.
15 Being a nuclear worker has certain requirements that 16 each of us must accept as part of our legal 17 responsibilities. 99 percent of our employees understand 18 this unique responsibility to raise either a nuclear safety 19 question or a quality concern.
20 Several areas require management long-term 21 attention. 66 percent of our employees believe that 22 management values training and the development of our 23 employees. This is a basic part of accomplishment of our 24 accomplishment value that we must continue to focus on.
25 This is understandable considering the effects of this long MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
28 1 extended outage.
2 We now have a new operator licensing class and well 3 start another next year to ensure we address the operator 4 problem. We have many new engineers that need to complete 5 the FENOC specific qualifications. Well be working on 6 that next year. There is a strong focus next year for 7 training.
8 Another area of focus is cross-functional 9 communications. We believe that as an, as we implement our 10 normal schedule, which is now scheduled to start any day, 11 that we will see improvement in this area. We will 12 continue to focus at the 4-Cs meetings; Mark will be 13 taking those meeting over; and the organizational team to 14 look for areas of improvements in this functional area.
15 I am very pleased with the alignment of our 16 employees on their survey compared to the management 17 survey. Not necessarily the scores, but the alignment of 18 the specific areas. I believe the alignment sessions were 19 a positive experience by both our management team and our 20 employees.
21 With that, I brought with me today a short tape that 22 I would like to share with you on that process.
23 (Tape played as follows) 24
Title:
FENOC, A New Beginning 25 RANDY FAST: Im really excited about MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
29 1 today, truly an opportunity to get all of our employees 2 together and walk through some learning maps. The current 3 realities map. That map uses the Nuclear Energy 4 Institutes common process for operating the plant, 5 maintaining the plant, our engineering reliability to 6 support elements. As we walk through the current 7 realities, we will we look at our current performance 8 against industry standards.
9 LYNN HARDER: My responsibility will 10 change significantly with respect to going forward and the 11 Adventures Map Training weve gone to the last couple of 12 weeks, focusing on our new strategic objectives with fleet 13 alignment of top performance in our new shared applicance 14 of the safety operation of the facility. It will be 15 incumbent upon the leadership of the organization of all 16 people to ensure were properly focused on our Safety 17 Culture and Safety Conscious Work Environment for safe 18 operation of the facility.
19 ANDREW MINGAS: We keep the map in 20 line, in line of what were doing, it will help us to focus 21 on what we need to get done in order to do our job better 22 and how much we are integral to the whole plant. Were not 23 just a person or someone working on our own little project, 24 but what we do impacts on others in the way they get their 25 job done.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
30 1 LEE MITCHELL: I can see where 2 everybody now is taking more of an ownership accountability 3 aspect of things and weve learned through the 18 months 4 that it starts with the individuals. The company and 5 management can stress things over and over again, but each 6 individual has to take that personal accountability and 7 that ownership and I have to apply myself and we can do all 8 the pretty maps and all the pretty learns that we want to 9 do, but unless each individual takes it upon theirself and 10 say, I make a difference, I, it has to start with me, then 11 things are really as they were. Thats what we want to get 12 away from. Things are not as they were. We can not do 13 business as weve done it.
14 COREY HAMILTON: The meeting today 15 was rather enlightening. I got to see a lot of the 16 different plant interrelations, with the different part, 17 departments how they work together.
18 TODD PLEUNE: I think the 19 important thing I want to take back from this is when I see 20 an opportunity for process improvement in another group, to 21 find a way to bring it up, maybe that groups manager or 22 through the Corrective Action Process, but some of those 23 ideas I have let go in passing, maybe there is someone else 24 who might be able to run with them.
25 ANONYMOUS: All of us need to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
31 1 take a little bit more time to understand each other, 2 listen more closely at whats being said, and again have an 3 empathy for who we were and how we fit together as a team.
4 I think all of us can be stronger and safer for our future.
5 AL DAWSON: I can take this back 6 and say this is what I believe in and behave like it and 7 make it important to me and encourage others around me to 8 behave like it.
9 MR. GRABNER: Were on the right 10 track in these sessions and Im very pleased with the way 11 were going. The way weve improved, getting the different 12 groups together, is an excellent method of really driving 13 home the point that we all depend on each other, we all 14 have to work together. Its not someone elses problem, or 15 some other group has to solve it, its every one of us 16 doing our jobs, and cooperating with all the rest of the 17 people here on our site, get the plant restarted, and more 18 importantly, get a sustained good operation once we 19 restart.
20 WENDY ROBY: I think this team 21 building effort right now is really good and strong, the 22 different methods of different groups. And how were 23 working together and working with other people from the 24 organizations that usually we dont work with, and 25 understanding what their jobs, who they interact with, and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
32 1 what complaints they might have or positives that they 2 have, that they see, that I didnt see.
3 ANONYMOUS: The invigorating 4 part of the meeting was to see all the different 5 departments, all the different controls that were a part of 6 our tables. And that way, it had more of an understanding 7 of how an order comes to play when I receive it and it goes 8 to the field, and the word process in between each other.
9 ANONYMOUS: What were doing 10 is a very good step in the right direction of trying to 11 make us work as a team. I think thats key to us getting 12 back to a normal plant.
13 POLLY BOISSONEAULT: Its about the 14 team, I think. Communication is very important. We have 15 to make sure the other department or individual understands 16 our expectations, and through communication, that improves 17 teamwork.
18 RANDY FAST: What youll see as 19 you monitor the folks that are in this process, theyre 20 very engaged; theyre talking, you see various smiles and 21 very pensive looks. The facilitator really is not drawing 22 any conclusions. Theyre only driving the process and the 23 individuals are coming to their own conclusions.
24 ANONYMOUS: Its a tug of war, 25 but it cant be management on one end and employees on the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
33 1 other end. Were all in this together and we all need to 2 pull the same way.
3 ANONYMOUS: Its like were at 4 halftime right now. The ball is going to be on our side of 5 the field. Its our turn to do something with the ball, 6 start trying to run with it. And to be strong and to take 7 over that second half. You know, focus that part of our 8 restart, to let us move on with the plant and let 9 Davis-Besse run strongly and come back as a full, strong, 10 number one running again in the nation plant.
11 (End of tape).
12 MR. MYERS: That was a much 13 better presentation that I could ever do.
14 Both Mark and I attended each and every one of these 15 sessions. We found them extremely valuable and exciting.
16 I would like to take a few moments now to go to the 17 next slide, share some of the data with you. This slide is 18 very busy, difficult to use, so let me just sort of walk 19 through it.
20 This slide, if you will, is sorted by departments.
21 Then, up above, by questions that were part of the survey 22 that the employees completed. And then as you look down, 23 it shows on a grade of 1 to 6 how we fared in each one of 24 the areas.
25 If you take a few moments and look at this slide, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
34 1 this slide then demonstrates the results by area. So, we 2 got the three basic areas, you know, management level, 3 policy level of commitment, management level and individual 4 level of commitment and then by group.
5 In the policy, in the policy area, the average 6 rating was 4.9 out of 6, indicating good agreement with the 7 implementation of each of the Safety Culture criteria.
8 Our employees strongly agreed that safety was a core 9 value. The quality oversight area is a concern that, the 10 concern is self-assessment is used for improvement. The 11 Quality Assurance Organization, if you will, there is a 12 number here of about 2.7, and that number is the largest 13 deviation that we saw in any of the groups to that 14 particular question.
15 And it came from our Quality Assurance area, and 16 Steve is trying to understand that now.
17 In the plant management area, the center area here; 18 the plant management commitment area; the average rating 19 indicated agreement to somewhat agreement. In the 20 criteria, visible commitment to raise safety, we were 21 extremely happy with a 97 -- or rather an 87 percent 22 agreement rating. In the criteria of management value and 23 training, we need to apply additional management focus in 24 that area. And if you go back and look at the assessment 25 that we did as a management team, the same two issues are MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
35 1 there.
2 In the individual commitment area, which is this 3 area here, individual commitment area, 80 percent of the 4 people agree that Safety Culture attributes are in place.
5 What we are most happy with is the understanding that it is 6 my personal responsibility to raise a safety or quality 7 concern was, our employees gave a rating of 97 percent.
8 Were extremely pleased with that number; however, not 9 satisfied. We wont be satisfied until that number is a 10 hundred percent.
11 Next slide, please.
12 This slide, if you will, has the data that, and the 13 next few slides show the distribution of how each of the 14 776 employees that assess the Safety Culture rated a 15 specific area. The slide shows the distribution and 16 policy -- this slide shows the distribution and policy 17 level commitment. Im not going to go through all that.
18 In questions 1.d and 1.g, there are high numbers of 19 disagreement, numbers of disagree, higher numbers than we 20 would like to see. Were rolling out our new business plan 21 at the present time with specific performance criteria and 22 the budget to support the performance goals as we speak.
23 We will focus on the communications of this product in the 24 Townhall Meetings and the 4-C Meetings and expect to see 25 some improvements of the, this area of questions 1.d MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
36 1 through 1.g.
2 Once again, in those areas, even though were not 3 satisfied with the overall rating, the rating was still 4 high, above 70 percent.
5 Next area, next slide.
6 Once again, shows the distribution of the 776 7 employees in our plant to the management commitment area.
8 So, heres the questions, heres the organizations, and 9 there is the various scores.
10 The overall rating was 88 percent of our employees 11 either strongly agrees or somewhat agrees with each of the 12 criteria. None of the criteria had a rating below 74 13 percent.
14 Two areas of focus would be in teamwork and training 15 qualifications. Once again, in alignment with what we 16 believe as a management team. We are already, already 17 working to implement our online scheduling process that we 18 believe will help with the teamwork. We will also focus 19 our folks on our operator pipeline, we started that, and 20 the maintenance training and our new engineering 21 qualification as we move into the next year. And that was 22 addressed in the areas of concern in this section.
23 The last and most important section, next slide, is 24 the individual area. And once again, that shows the 25 distribution of the questions for the 776 employees that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
37 1 rated this commitment area. And what I like about all the 2 questions here, the lowest, all the, all of the questions 3 were somewhat agreed to or higher, at least 87 percent of 4 our employees. So, we were really pleased with that data.
5 MR. GROBE: Lew, before you 6 go on. Some of the numbers you just quoted dont exactly 7 match with the slides Im looking at. Could you go back to 8 slide 11 for a moment?
9 MR. MYERS: Which one?
10 MR. GROBE: Slide 11. Have 11 you done these surveys at all three of the FirstEnergy 12 sites?
13 MR. MYERS: No.
14 MR. GROBE: This slide on the 15 very left slide under departments, first department listed 16 is Beaver Valley. Is that, you kept using numbers.
17 MR. MYERS: We had Beaver 18 Valley people in the sessions.
19 MR. GROBE: I see.
20 MR. MYERS: Of the 776 21 employees, some were from corporate, some were from Beaver 22 Valley that were surveyed. We have people from all of our 23 organizations, some people are on loan at our plant, so it 24 included them.
25 MR. GROBE: You keep saying a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
38 1 number in the high 700s. There is a number that N equals 2 833, number of site population, in the upper left-hand 3 corner of that slide.
4 MR. MYERS: Yeah, if you go 5 look at that number, let me go back to that.
6 MR. GROBE: I wanted to make 7 sure.
8 MR. MYERS: The number Im 9 using is the number of our employees at the site.
10 MR. GROBE: So this could 11 include contractors?
12 MR. MYERS: Yeah, there may be 13 some also.
14 MR. GROBE: And then slide 15 13, if you go with that slide for a moment. I think I 16 heard you state that there were no numbers below 70 percent 17 where there was agreement, some level of agreement, but at 18 2.h, which is management values training, I read that as 66 19 percent. Am I not reading this correctly?
20 MR. MYERS: Thats correct, 21 Jack. Im sorry.
22 MR. GROBE: I just wanted to 23 make sure I had the right data, because I was having a 24 little trouble following the numbers.
25 MR. MYERS: Sorry, I didnt MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
39 1 see that number. Okay?
2 MR. GROBE: Okay.
3 MR. MYERS: Okay, but the 4 numbers were very good in those areas.
5 The next area I would like to discuss are the Safety 6 Culture Assessments that we have performed. I discussed 7 that Doctor Sonja Haber performed a Safety Culture 8 Assessment earlier.
9 Prior to fuel load in March of 2003, we, 10 FirstEnergy, FENOC, performed the first Safety Culture 11 Assessment. At that time we shared the results in a 12 meeting similar to this, where all three areas, commitment 13 areas, these are criteria, all three commitment areas were 14 rated as yellow at that time. Eight of the seven criteria 15 were rated as yellow -- 17 criteria, Im sorry.
16 We shared those results previously, so I wont go 17 into it. A yellow rating does not mean by our definition 18 that the commitment area of the criteria is broken. Yellow 19 is defined in our process as all major criteria and 20 attributes are acceptable with several requiring prompt 21 management attention.
22 We look, we took strong actions as provided to you 23 as part of that Management/Human Performance Action Plan to 24 address these issues at that time.
25 Then in July, the next slide, we performed another MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
40 1 assessment prior to performing the Near Operating Pressure 2 Temperature Test. We were performing these assessments as 3 we return the plant to service and every minute lost. We 4 found in our second assessment, showed very good 5 improvement. In fact, the policy level and the individual 6 level commitment areas were rated at that time and we 7 shared that with you as white. We still had some concerns 8 in the plant management commitment area, and there were a 9 couple of the criteria that also had some concerns, and we 10 shared that with you at that time. Those were areas still 11 needing improvement.
12 Next slide, please.
13 We just completed in November, our Restart Readiness 14 Safety Culture Assessment between November 13th and 19th.
15 And Mark led that meeting, it lasted four days. When I did 16 it, it only lasted two days.
17 The assessment over that four-day period was, we 18 think, comprehensive and thorough. This assessment showed 19 substantial improvement in all commitment areas. This 20 would indicate that all major criteria and attributes are 21 acceptable with a few criteria requiring management 22 attention. So, thats what the white indicates. And there 23 is a few criteria that require management attention.
24 I believe that this performance is very noteworthy, 25 since the criteria was revised between those assessments to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
41 1 be significantly more stringent than it was in the first 2 two. In other words, we took, as you guys know, we took 3 some of the criteria, the specific criteria, and what would 4 have been rated probably a, a white in the past, would now 5 maybe be a red. Not in every case, but some cases. The 6 criteria was much more stringent.
7 So, this overall improvement with that changing 8 criteria being more stringent, were pleased with.
9 In the policy commitment area, all criteria was 10 assessed as either white or green.
11 In the plant management commitment area, two 12 criteria were rated as yellow, needing management 13 attention. So, thats the plant management area and there 14 is the two criteria.
15 Commitment to Safety was assessed as a yellow, 16 because of the -- yellow, because of the actions and 17 operational events during the NOP/NOT Test.
18 Problem-solving criteria was assessed as yellow as 19 management prerogative. In other words, it really did not 20 grade out as a yellow, but we just, we thought that it 21 should be, so as a management prerogative, we made that 22 yellow.
23 Management observations were assessed as yellow, due 24 to the lack of our intrusiveness to allow these issues to 25 happen; that were discussed at the last meeting. Even MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
42 1 though they were not, Jack, as you said, extremely 2 significant to safety, we should have found and prevented 3 the issue.
4 In the commitment to continuous improvement area, we 5 assessed that as yellow. Thats the one here, because of 6 the need to complete several of the activities in the work 7 schedule, such as operator workarounds, control room 8 deficiencies, maintenance rule systems needing attention.
9 What did you say the numbers were?
10 MR. BEZILLA: At the end of the 11 week, the control room deficiencies should be at two; 12 operator workarounds should be three or four; and 13 maintenance R1 systems prior to restart should be one in 14 red, A1. And thats actually a new one, I believe its 15 heat trace, what will be one A1 at restart.
16 MR. MYERS: In summary, most 17 of these activities were scheduled, many are completed 18 now. And we would expect that as we come to you for 19 restart, that area should be at least white.
20 In the individual commitment area here, the drive 21 for excellence was assessed as yellow because of the need 22 to complete scheduled activities also. Sometimes the 23 criteria hits you in both of the areas. So, the need to 24 complete scheduled activities, drove that yellow. And the 25 management decision to extend several open restart --
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
43 1 Nonrestart Condition Reports.
2 Our process has you complete a Condition Report 3 after 60 days or something like that. Weve made a lot of 4 management extensions during the outage just because of the 5 massive number of Condition Reports we created. And, as 6 you know, we have a workload that we have to address of 7 Nonrestart Condition Reports after restart. So, thats the 8 reason we assess that yellow.
9 We made that management decision, thinking it was a 10 good decision, but it still did not, we wouldnt make it a 11 visible. That decision was made, and we need to continue 12 to work on it, on the non-workload after restart.
13 In summary though, we are confident that the Safety 14 Culture at Davis-Besse Station fully supports restart. I 15 believe that the film demonstrated many of our values. We 16 will continue to monitor the effectiveness at various 17 plateaus during the startup and power ascension.
18 Thank you very much.
19 MR. RUTKOWSKI: Lew, I just have 20 one or two questions about comparing your recent survey 21 results with the roll-up, which I believe is the roll-up, I 22 believe has to do, rolls up to the Restart Safety Culture 23 Assessment, so basically slide 13 rolls up into slide 17.
24 MR. MYERS: They were 25 different assessments.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
44 1 MR. RULAND: Okay. I 2 understand that, but the most, well, two thirds of your 3 folks said, that when answering the management values 4 training development, two thirds said they essentially 5 agreed to some degree.
6 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
7 MR. RULAND: And about a third 8 disagreed with that.
9 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
10 MR. RULAND: I then asked 11 myself, well, how does that reflected in your Restart 12 Safety Culture Assessment; just trying to look for 13 consistency.
14 MR. MYERS: If you went down 15 and looked at the specific criteria, we had training. I 16 have to pull the report out. In fact, we sent you the 17 report. Youll find the need for training was one of the 18 specific questions in the attributes area that weve rated 19 very, very hard. In fact, we may have rated it red; Im 20 not sure. I have to look through the report. It was in 21 line with the safety concern that the employees have.
22 Now, weve taken action. Our subcommittees are 23 meeting. We started our Restart Operations License class.
24 We have another license class starting next year. Were 25 also looking for some additional help in the Operations MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
45 1 area. The Engineering Qualification Program will be a 2 focus for us next year, and were restarting all our 3 maintenance training too. So, that is an area of concern 4 and we consider it an area of concern also.
5 MR. RULAND: I understand 6 that. I guess Im just looking to make, the results should 7 be relatively consistent.
8 MR. MYERS: You wont see it 9 on this particular slide. If you look at the report we 10 sent you, you will find its very, very, its covered very 11 well. Okay?
12 MR. GROBE: Other questions?
13 Okay, very good.
14 MS. GRIFFITH: I am Linda 15 Griffith. Im the Employee Concerns Program Manager at 16 Davis-Besse. I am an 18-year employee at Davis-Besse and a 17 lifelong resident of Northwest Ohio.
18 I am personally committed to ensuring that we 19 maintain a healthy Safety Conscious Work Environment where 20 employees are willing to raise concerns without fear of 21 retaliation. I am proud to be here today to discuss the 22 results of the survey which was conducted in November.
23 I have a vested interest in the success of 24 Davis-Besse and will do everything in my power to ensure 25 that the health of the sites Safety Conscious Work MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
46 1 Environment is maintained.
2 Next slide, please.
3 My desired outcomes today are to provide you with a 4 summary of the Safety Conscious Work Environment Survey 5 results and compare them to the surveys that were conducted 6 in March of this year and August of 2002.
7 I am also going to discuss the analysis of the 8 results and the opportunities for improvement based on the 9 results of analysis.
10 The purpose of the survey is to ensure the Safety 11 Conscious Work Environment is maintained and to provide 12 insight for those opportunities for improvement.
13 The questions from all three surveys were aligned 14 and all respondents were anonymous. Respondents to the 15 November survey included 780 company and contract employees 16 which equates to a 75 percent response rate, which we were 17 very pleased with.
18 This slide indicates the overall comparison of the 19 data of the three surveys. The three sets of bars there 20 are on the slide depict the results from the August 2002 21 data which is the top bar; the March data which is the 22 middle bar, and the November data which is the third bar.
23 And they are split out into the four areas that we assessed 24 with the survey questions.
25 The green bars indicate agreement with a question MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
47 1 that was asked; the red bars indicate disagreement with a 2 question that was asked; and the white bars indicate the 3 respondents identified a dont know response.
4 The surveys assess the four pillars of our Safety 5 Conscious Work Environment. Pillar 1 is willingness to 6 raise concerns. These questions included whether the 7 employees are encouraged and willing to raise concerns 8 without fear of retaliation through their chain of 9 command.
10 The normal problem resolution is Pillar 2. These 11 questions are in connection with Corrective Action Program, 12 initiation of Condition Reports and the effectiveness of 13 the resolution.
14 The third pillar is the Employee Concerns Program.
15 Questions here referenced the willingness of employees to 16 raise concerns through the Employee Concerns Program if 17 they did not feel comfortable with their management or the 18 Condition Report process. Questions in this category also 19 assessed the support by management of the Employee Concerns 20 Program.
21 Preventing and detecting retaliation is the fourth 22 pillar, and these questions refer to training individuals 23 and their management have received and whether or not the 24 employees have been subjected to retaliation or know others 25 who have been subjected to retaliation for raising nuclear MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
48 1 safety or quality concerns.
2 As you can see, based on this overall analysis page, 3 both the March and the November surveys show a significant 4 improvement over the August results. Even more 5 encouraging, the November results indicate continuous 6 improvement in all areas.
7 If we go on and discuss in detail willingness to 8 raise concern which is pillar 1 --
9 MR. GROBE: Linda, before you 10 go on, just a couple of contextual questions, if you dont 11 mind.
12 MS. GRIFFITH: Okay.
13 MR. GROBE: Was the population 14 surveyed in August, March, and November the same?
15 MS. GRIFFITH: We surveyed 16 contract and company employees in all three surveys, yes.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay, second 18 question. Youve got three bars, green, white and red 19 here. Did you only ask three levels of question or were 20 there multiple graded options for the individuals to select 21 in the survey?
22 MS. GRIFFITH: There are a 23 number of questions, and as you go along, you will see the 24 question and the individual response.
25 MR. GROBE: I didnt ask my MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
49 1 question clearly. For example, in the survey that Lew 2 presented, there were six different options for an 3 individual to choose from strongly disagree to strongly 4 agree. Did you have a similar type of survey where you bin 5 these into three colors or more than three choices?
6 MS. GRIFFITH: No, there were 7 five choices total. The choices were strongly agree, 8 somewhat agree, dont know, disagree, somewhat disagree, or 9 strongly disagree. So, there were five options.
10 MR. GROBE: Okay, very good.
11 MR. RULAND: One more 12 question, textual question. The distribution of the 13 nonresponders, was there any pattern discernible about, you 14 said 75 percent of the folks didnt respond. Do you have 15 information about, were they concentrated in a specific 16 area?
17 MS. GRIFFITH: There was no 18 common theme to those individuals who chose not to respond 19 to the survey.
20 MR. THOMAS: Linda, you had 21 characterized March and November, the comparison between 22 the March and November results as continuous improvement, 23 but at least looking at the culmination of the data thats 24 presented here, looks like its pretty much plateaued and 25 in one case, in Pillar 3, its actually, there is more MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
50 1 disagree, disagreed in March. So, what piece am I not 2 seeing in your characterization of the results?
3 MS. GRIFFITH: Well, as were 4 characterizing these results, we are looking at, for 5 example, we looked at the number who agreed versus the 6 number who disagreed. And there was an improvement in all 7 the areas. Granted in the particular area that you pointed 8 out, Scott, number three, there was only one percent that 9 agreed. As far as the dont knows, you cant really 10 factors those in as agreeing to the question or not 11 agreeing to the question, so.
12 MR. THOMAS: Im just looking 13 at the extremes; the red and the greens; especially the 14 reds, I guess I was focused on. It seems like the data has 15 pretty much plateaued within a percent of give or take.
16 So, I was just interested in your characterization of it, 17 its a continuous improvement. Im trying to understand 18 the piece that Im missing that would lead you to 19 characterize it that way.
20 MS. GRIFFITH: Looking at the 21 agrees mostly; however, as you go through it, there is 22 definite room for improvement in the areas that we do see a 23 larger number of completely disagree with that statement.
24 MR. BEZILLA: Scott, I think 25 Linda, as she goes through here, I think when she gets in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
51 1 the next couple of slides, that will help answer your 2 question. Okay?
3 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
4 MS. GRIFFITH: Pillar 1, which 5 is Willingness to Raise Concerns, there is an additional 6 item on here; and thats the arrows. The arrows depict 7 whether the trend is noted as steady trend or improving 8 trend.
9 As you can see on this slide, all the arrows are 10 horizontal, indicating that is a steady trend. The 11 specific questions for each pillar and their trend is 12 comparing them to the March data.
13 This is the first six questions for Pillar 1, which 14 Pillar 1 had the majority of the questions on the survey.
15 There are 13 that were similar between the three surveys.
16 This slide indicates that employees understand their 17 responsibility to raise concerns and that they feel they 18 can approach management with their concerns without fear of 19 retaliation. This is encouraging; however, the challenge 20 will be to ensure that these results do remain strong.
21 Continuing on the next slide, the results from four 22 of the seven questions on this particular slide, still with 23 Willingness to Raise Concerns, show an improving trend.
24 The other three show a steady trend. This is indicating, 25 based on the questions that were asked, that employees MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
52 1 agree management wants workers to raise concerns and that 2 their supervision will address those concerns.
3 Overall there is a noted willingness of employees to 4 raise concerns without fear of retaliation; however, this 5 is an area that requires continued management attention to 6 ensure that all levels of the organization are aligned with 7 the various methods utilized to address issues.
8 MR. HOPKINS: Linda, let me ask 9 a question for the improving trends, how much difference 10 relatively did you need to be able to call them improving 11 trend versus a neutral trend?
12 MS. GRIFFITH: I use a factor of 13 two percent. If it was two percent or less difference, it 14 stayed at a steady trend. If it was greater than two 15 percent, it was noted as an improving trend.
16 MR. HOPKINS: Okay, thank you.
17 MS. GRIFFITH: Next slide 18 identifies Pillar 2, the normal probable resolution 19 process.
20 MR. GROBE: Just one more 21 question before you get off Pillar 1. And you can answer 22 this question as we go through each of the pillars.
23 Last time we received this data, I believe, Im not 24 sure who presented it, but Randy Huey had a, I think it was 25 Randy, had a breakout of data by department and a rather MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
53 1 detailed analysis of the data that showed that there were 2 certain departments that seemed to show possibly some 3 trends. And Im certain that youve done similar data 4 analysis and youre just presenting us the summaries of the 5 data today.
6 In Pillar 1, were there any particular departments 7 that showed a unique trend or an area of concern that 8 youre applying a particular focus on?
9 MS. GRIFFITH: As far as 10 Pillar 1 goes, the areas that have been identified that 11 need improvement include -- and this is just general, 12 management expectation on safety and quality, and their 13 reflection and appraisals were more discipline for that 14 particular question, as well as management caring more 15 about safety than cost and schedule. Those are two areas 16 of an improvement site-wide that we need to focus on.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay. When you 18 break it down into individual departments, were there any 19 particular areas of concern of focus?
20 MS. GRIFFITH: There is 21 Engineering, there is Operations, Quality Assessment, and 22 Chemistry seemed to be the pocket areas that need to focus 23 on that, but as a site, thats an issue that needs to be 24 addressed.
25 MR. GROBE: Okay, I would be MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
54 1 interested in getting the data breakdown, and just to get a 2 little bit more depth in the analysis, so if you could 3 provide that to us, I would appreciate it.
4 MS. GRIFFITH: I would be happy 5 to.
6 MR. GROBE: As you go through 7 the other pillars, if you could provide similar 8 information, I appreciate it.
9 MS. GRIFFITH: Okay, I will do 10 that.
11 MR. LOEHLEIN: Jack, I would like 12 to take a look at some of this data in our department, and 13 one of the things you have to be careful about is hard to 14 deal with when youre talking about departments on this 15 data.
16 (microphone problem) 17 MR. LOEHLEIN: When you look at 18 the broad range of how the questions are presented, some of 19 them are asking about the departments or the people, 20 individuals supervision for their department, others are 21 worded for the organization at large, so to catch us, get a 22 clear understanding of this by saying a department has a 23 certain vent or lean in a pillar, its, it does take time 24 to look at the data and say, well, is this an area that 25 this department feels is weak for the organization or is it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
55 1 weak for their department and/or their supervision. So, it 2 does take time to look through that data and get some sense 3 out of it.
4 MR. GROBE: Okay, I 5 appreciate that, Steve. Let me make sure I understand what 6 you said. Its very important, if I understand correctly, 7 to carefully look at the question as asked in which youre 8 putting the data down to a department level, make sure you 9 understand whether the question was asking about a 10 departments perception of a site-wide activity or 11 departments perception of that departments activity. Do 12 I understand you?
13 MR. LOEHLEIN: Right.
14 MR. GROBE: Okay, great.
15 MR. LOEHLEIN: A clear example 16 would be questions that clearly reflect whether the people 17 in your organization feel free to raise issues, but there 18 is, there is another question that maybe asks about the 19 Davis-Besse culture at large. Well, that would not be the 20 same context in terms of who, who is being rated on that 21 answer, by that department.
22 MR. GROBE: Appreciate that, 23 thank you.
24 MS. GRIFFITH: Okay. We are at 25 Pillar 2. The Normal Problem Resolution, which as I MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
56 1 mentioned before, includes a Condition Report Process, 2 Corrective Action Program.
3 All of the indicators are showing an upward trend; 4 however, that was a site-wide trend that we need to focus 5 on as far as employee confidence in the Condition Report 6 Process. Some of the questions that were asked in this 7 particular, for this particular pillar, included items like 8 prioritization and timeliness and effectivity of the 9 program.
10 I think what is important to note here, that 11 although the trend is improving, there is still definitely 12 room for improvement. I think part of negative responses 13 to these particular questions associated with this pillar, 14 are more than likely committed to the large number of 15 Condition Reports that have been initiated, and the time 16 that it has taken to work that down.
17 We can not let our guard down as far as continuing 18 to strengthen this program, and that will be the going 19 forward plan for the site. Employee confidence in the 20 Condition Report Process is getting better; however, 21 continued management focus is warranted to ensure that the 22 issues are resolved effectively and within a timely 23 manner.
24 As far as the Condition Report Process, Pillar 2, 25 those areas that rated that significantly low, I did MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
57 1 identify that that was a site trend that we need to focus 2 on; however, the areas include Plant Engineering, 3 Operations, Maintenance, and Security, are the areas that 4 stood out more than the others.
5 The next slide indicates Pillar 3, which is the 6 Employee Concerns Program. One of the three questions 7 thats indicated here shows an upward improving trend while 8 the other two remain steady. This indicates that employees 9 agree they can use the Employee Concerns Program without 10 fear of retaliation. There is room for improvement in this 11 area as well, and a focus will be to increase employee 12 awareness and improve employee confidence in the program.
13 Those organizations that rated this lower in 14 relationship to the overall site, include Regulatory 15 Affairs, Chemistry, and Operations.
16 Pillar 4 on the next slide is Preventing and 17 Detecting Retaliation. All four questions associated with 18 this pillar show an improving trend. This indicates that 19 supervisors have the training and the knowledge to prevent 20 and detect retaliation and employees have not been 21 subjected to retaliation nor are they aware of others who 22 have been subjected to retaliation for bringing up nuclear 23 safety and quality concerns. A challenge to this as well, 24 being to ensure that this positive trending continues.
25 Those organizations that rated this pillar higher MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
58 1 negative responses than the others, include Security and 2 the Maintenance Organization.
3 I might point out that the red bar on this 4 particular slide is, indicates, although it was a 5 disagreement with statement, the statement is; I have been 6 retaliated against; and employees disagreed with that. And 7 next question was, Im aware of others who have been 8 retaliated against; and employees disagreed with that 9 statement too, which is why we have an improving trend in 10 that area.
11 MR. GROBE: So, on those last 12 two questions, red is good.
13 MS. GRIFFITH: Red is good.
14 Thats right.
15 As I have discussed today, there is improvement in 16 the health of our Safety Conscious Work Environment. There 17 is a strong commitment of plant site management to ensure 18 there is continuous improvement, which is vital to a long 19 term success as a site.
20 I would be happy to answer any additional questions 21 you might have.
22 MR. GROBE: I have one 23 question. Its not actually on the subject matter you 24 presented today; its since I have you, I have a question.
25 In addition to the Safety Conscious Work Environment MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
59 1 focus area, you also have a Safety Conscious Work 2 Environment Review Team?
3 MS. GRIFFITH: Yes, I do.
4 MR. GROBE: Affectionately 5 called SCWERT.
6 MS. GRIFFITH: Yes.
7 MR. GROBE: And that review 8 team has a number of purposes and functions, that one of 9 those is to ensure that when the company is going to be 10 pursuing anything that can be perceived as a personnel 11 action from the most inconsequential activities of moving 12 people to different jobs to the most consequential of 13 termination, something of that nature, that there is no 14 risk that that personnel action is based on retaliation for 15 raising safety concerns.
16 I was wondering if you could help us understand, 17 its my appreciation that that committee only works at 18 actions against FirstEnergy or FirstEnergy Nuclear 19 Operating Company employees, does not look at contractor 20 employees in situations where actions are taken against 21 contractors.
22 Could you help me understand how the committee or 23 review team fulfills its charter of trying to assure a 24 Safety Conscious Work Environment if youre not looking at 25 all workers and employment actions taken against all MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
60 1 workers at the site?
2 MS. GRIFFITH: Yes, I can 3 address that.
4 The Safety Conscious Work Environment Review Team in 5 September reviewed the layoff criteria that each contractor 6 that we do business with has. We also have in the purchase 7 order documentation itself, the agreement we have between 8 FirstEnergy, as well as the contracting company, that they 9 will maintain the Safety Conscious Work Environment.
10 Now, as part of the exit process with our contract 11 employees, each employee is offered the opportunity to have 12 an exit interview with the Employee Concerns Program 13 representative. We receive each and every one of those 14 forms. If there are any issues that the employee does not 15 wish to discuss with us at that particular time, they may 16 write it down or request a call. We call every single one 17 of those employees back to see what the issue was, get 18 initial information, and investigate it, if it is really an 19 employee concerns issue. And, at that point in time, well 20 relay those results.
21 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, while 22 you wouldnt necessarily -- to make sure I understand what 23 you said -- while you wouldnt necessarily evaluate any 24 kind of employment actions taken at the time of the action, 25 you feel that through your exit survey opportunities, you MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
61 1 would become aware of any retaliatory actions at that time?
2 MS. GRIFFITH: Thats correct.
3 And the Employee Concerns Program is also available to all 4 employees on site, including contract employees. And if 5 contract employees feel that they have been retaliated 6 against, they come through our program and we investigate 7 those issues.
8 MR. GROBE: Okay.
9 There is clearly no requirements to these kinds of 10 activities. This is something that youve taken upon 11 yourself to provide increased confidence in these areas.
12 So, there is nothing that defines what the best way to do 13 this is. So, I appreciate, one, that you do have SCWERT, 14 and that we have no requirements in the area, but it is 15 important many times in contract organizations can be a 16 source of Safety Conscious Work Environment and retaliation 17 fears among employees, because its easier to hire and fire 18 contractors than it is employees.
19 And its certainly an area that we need to pay 20 attention to. So, I understand that you feel that youre 21 getting sufficient information from the exit interviews.
22 This is an area of continuing inspection by Geoffs team, 23 and we will continue to look at this, and the panel will 24 certainly receive feedback from Geoff and his team 25 members.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
62 1 Any other questions?
2 MR. WRIGHT: Just one follow up 3 in that area, Jack.
4 Jack mentioned that one item, that the SCWERT is to 5 look at. The other one is to anticipate, because a Safety 6 Conscious Work Environment is oftentimes what people think 7 and believe as opposed to what might actually be. The 8 other action for a SCWERT team usually is to look and say, 9 if this action is taken, what effect might it have on the 10 organization.
11 Along Jacks line, Im going to have more 12 information on what you do with contractors now, which is 13 an after-the-fact, if a person wants to talk to you. Do 14 you have anything in place or do the contractors that 15 address the other piece; when theyve already taken the 16 action, is someone looking at what effect that may have on 17 the organization?
18 MS. GRIFFITH: We have not taken 19 a look at that particular item.
20 MR. WRIGHT: Okay.
21 MR. GROBE: Okay. Other 22 questions?
23 Its about 20 to 4. Why dont we take a brief 24 break.
25 MR. MYERS: Jack, I have one MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
63 1 thing real quick. The question was asked about the 2 training. If you go look at the report on the 16th that we 3 sent you on Safety Culture; when it comes to training, our 4 requalification training, the overall training here is 5 rated as white. If you go down to requalification 6 training, thats rated pretty well. In the areas of 7 continuing training by the review commitment, we rated that 8 is as yellow. And then, restart training we rated as 9 yellow, which is the correlation we have on that.
10 MR. GROBE: Okay, thanks, 11 Lew.
12 Why dont we take a ten minute break, and reconvene 13 at ten minutes to four. Thank you.
14 (Off the record.)
15 MR. GROBE: Okay, Steve, why 16 dont we get started.
17 MR. MYERS: Jack, could we 18 clarify a couple things?
19 MR. GROBE: Pull the 20 microphone a little closer.
21 MR. MYERS: Okay. The total 22 number of employees was 833. That was correct. It was 98 23 percent of the population. Some of the people were out on 24 leave and stuff like that. The total number of FENOC 25 employees, like some of our, a lot of our permanent MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
64 1 employees are not FENOC employees, like 70 something. So, 2 the total population is 833; there is no contractors.
3 And then one other slip I made this morning I found 4 out is Joe Hagan is Senior Vice President.
5 Thats all I have.
6 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
7 (microphone problem) 8 MR. LOEHLEIN: Thank you, Jack.
9 My presentation today is going to provide the 10 results of the Nuclear Quality Assessment Interviews that 11 we conducted a few weeks ago. The purpose of our interview 12 approach is to independently assess Safety Culture and the 13 Safety Conscious Work Environment by using an alternative 14 method for written surveys. This provides us an additional 15 opportunity to confirm the accuracy of these measurement 16 methods.
17 Next slide, please.
18 We conducted an interview, a set of interviews like 19 this early in 2003, and the methodology we applied this 20 time is very similar, shows approximately ten percent of 21 the staff, of which 40 percent of them were repeat members 22 from the sample we took early in the year.
23 We conducted them as face-to-face-interviews. They 24 were all of supervisors and below in the organization. And 25 the questions were focused on Safety Conscious Work MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
65 1 Environment, Safety Culture, and organizational 2 effectiveness. My presentation will include data from the 3 key questions in these areas.
4 Next slide, please.
5 The first of these questions asks our people, "Do 6 you believe that management wants employees to report 7 problems adverse conditions?" We got a 93 percent 8 affirmative yes to that question.
9 Next slide, please.
10 The next question we asked folks, "That since last 11 February of 2003, when we did the earlier interview, have 12 they themselves via the Corrective Action Program, where an 13 issue they themselves addressed, adequately addressed?"
14 So, its a two-part question. 78 percent stated that they 15 had identified an issue, which was quite an increase from 16 the February results. At that time, only 61 percent had 17 indicated that they themselves had identified an issue.
18 And more than four out of five agreed that in the interim, 19 the six month period, their issue had been adequately 20 addressed by the Corrective Action Program.
21 Next slide, please.
22 Now, the next three questions need to be considered 23 together. Thats because in the first two questions, were 24 asking people about their perceptions concerning inhibitors 25 to Safety Conscious Work Environment. And in both cases MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
66 1 some people indicated a perception that things had happened 2 that might hinder identification of issues. Yet in the 3 third question, youll see that this has not affected their 4 confidence, their personal confidence, and their own 5 ability to raise issues without fear of retaliation.
6 So, if we look at this first question, "Are you 7 aware of instances where another individual raised an issue 8 and considered the response incomplete or unacceptable or 9 was retaliated against?" Again, a two-part question. 23 10 percent indicated they had heard of responses they thought 11 were incomplete or unacceptable, and 9 percent said they 12 had heard of an instance of retaliation.
13 You look at the next question. "Are you aware of 14 any specific events in which would discourage employees 15 from raising concerns?" Once again their perception of 16 having heard of such a thing occurring, 14 percent said 17 yes.
18 And, the third question in the series though, when 19 asked, "Do you believe you can raise any nuclear safety or 20 quality concern without fear of retaliation?" We had an 21 over 95 percent yes response.
22 So, one of the benefits of doing interviews instead 23 of just taking surveys is you get some intelligence, how do 24 you deal with data that seems to conflict that way. And 25 this is a case of perceptions. What we got from these MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
67 1 interviews, people had heard things secondhand, what have 2 you, that they may feel may hinder peoples willingness to 3 raise issues, yet in terms of their own personal space and 4 their own confidence and their own management to be able to 5 raise issues about fear of retaliation is very high 6 positive response.
7 MR. HOPKINS: Steve, any of 8 these negative responses about fear of retaliation, were 9 they grouped in any department?
10 MR. LOEHLEIN: No, as a matter of 11 fact, because of what that might reflect, John, I had my 12 staff keep those things confidential, obviously, but I had 13 the people doing the brief follow-up and make sure, are 14 there any issues that theyre aware of that are not being 15 properly addressed, safety or quality or otherwise, based 16 on those feelings. And in every case, they told us, no, 17 the safety quality concern that they had heard of had been 18 resolved since they had heard about it.
19 So, there was no, we had no pattern. I would say 20 the only pattern was, is a pattern of secondhand 21 experiences is probably the most, the best way to put it; 22 things they had heard rather than things they had 23 experienced.
24 MR. HOPKINS: Thank you.
25 MR. WRIGHT: Steve.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
68 1 MR. LOEHLEIN: Yes?
2 MR. WRIGHT: With the 3 information that you have gathered from here, though, was 4 there anything that you felt should be passed on to either 5 Lindas group for an independent look or put into the 6 Corrective Action Program? I mean, you had 23 percent 7 consider responses to be incomplete or unacceptable. Did, 8 were you able to gather enough information to feed that 9 back into the system to have some sort of assessment done 10 saying is this good or bad?
11 MR. LOEHLEIN: As I mentioned to John 12 a few minutes ago, that was the reason for the follow-up 13 action with those people that have made those statements to 14 see if anything deserved follow-up; and in every case they 15 told us no.
16 When you get to the slide that talks about the, 17 there is a later one, talks about timeliness and 18 effectiveness of corrective actions, we had similar 19 follow-up. We wanted to make sure if there was anything 20 that needed to be followed up on, was it being followed up 21 on. And the response basically we got, Geoff, was the 22 safety and quality issues had been addressed. They didnt 23 always agree with maybe the method somebody used to arrive 24 at a conclusion or the surrounding corrective actions, but 25 they felt that the safety and quality issues had been MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
69 1 addressed.
2 MR. WRIGHT: Okay, thanks, 3 Steve.
4 MR. LOEHLEIN: I think were on 5 slide 34 now.
6 This question, this reflects proceed level of 7 organizational effectiveness, it asks, "Do we apply the 8 right level of effort for timely and effective corrective 9 actions according to the level of significance of the 10 issue?" This is organizational effectiveness, sort of a 11 safety culture. 74 percent said, "yes" or "most of the 12 time."
13 And this is where the no answer, the reasons for the 14 no answers, I think, provide some enlightenment. Got some 15 examples.
16 People that said no, said they felt some Condition 17 Reports are overcategorized; in other words, they feel they 18 got too high priority.
19 There is some concern about the volume of Condition 20 Reports that the organization needs to take on.
21 Some concern people expressed on a focus of the 22 competing goals of trying to address back logs as opposed 23 to addressing issues that deserve priority right now.
24 A few people mentioned they felt the threshold for 25 Condition Reports were too low. We had issues in the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
70 1 process that were so minor that they shouldnt be in the 2 process. And thats sort of an example.
3 What we found was, again, the pattern in that 4 example, if you look at 86 respondents of interviewees; 13 5 percent, what I saw here, at least five or six different 6 reasons given for a no answer. So, there is no definitive 7 pattern for what constituted a no.
8 Next slide, please.
9 This one, in an earlier slide that I think Lew 10 presented, we presented a Safety Culture Model. That 11 Safety Culture Model was presented as part of the Adventure 12 slide. So, we asked this question soon after the, the 13 employees were all exposed to the whole Safety Culture 14 concept at different levels of accountability. So we asked 15 it from the three perspectives; the individual commitment, 16 plant management, policy level commitment.
17 And, see here, that the breakdown on the numbers, 18 individuals ready for restart, based on Safety Culture, 93 19 percent; plant management, the opinion was 91 percent; and 20 that the policy or corporate level, 87 percent. I think 21 the numbers indicate that individuals had the highest 22 confidence in themselves.
23 Thats probably human nature. I know I would feel 24 that way. If anybody asked me how I felt about myself, I 25 sure would score myself well.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
71 1 Next slide, please.
2 Our summary conclusions are that overall worker 3 willingness and responsibility to raise issues is very 4 strong. That was the over 95 percent number, and they said 5 they would do that without fear of retaliation.
6 And, also there is a large majority believe that the 7 Safety Culture at the station is ready for safe restart.
8 And, in these key areas, the results clearly are consistent 9 with the other methods we reported on earlier today.
10 Do you have any specific questions?
11 MR. GROBE: I have one 12 question. In your Operational Improvement Plan for Cycle 13 14, there is a commitment that Nuclear Quality Assessment 14 would perform two Safety Culture Assessments during the 15 calendar year 2004. Is it going to be similar to this 16 assessment?
17 MR. LOEHLEIN: I heard the 18 question, youre asking if we are going to do follow-up 19 Safety Culture Assessments?
20 MR. GROBE: Right.
21 MR. LOEHLEIN: I thought we were 22 doing one per year.
23 MR. GROBE: Actually, youre 24 correct, its fourth quarter of 2004, and fourth quarter of 25 2005.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
72 1 MR. LOEHLEIN: Thats what we 2 would do a year from now, similar approach.
3 MR. GROBE: All right.
4 Linda, youre also committed in this report to do 5 an Employee Concerns Program Survey. It will be a similar 6 structure to the one you did this year?
7 MS. GRIFFITH: Yes.
8 MR. GROBE: Good, thank you.
9 Any other questions? Okay. Thank you.
10 MR. BEZILLA: Okay. Next slide, 11 please.
12 My desired outcome today, Jack, this portion of the 13 presentation is to provide you information in regard to our 14 Cycle 14 Operational Improvement Plan.
15 Next slide.
16 Our Cycle 14 Operational Improvement Plan is 17 developed and we have begun implementation in a number of 18 areas. The purpose of the plan is to first provide a 19 transition path from our Return to Service Plan to normal 20 plant operations. Second to anchor the changes and 21 improvements that we have made in our plant, our people, 22 and our processes. And third, to ensure continued 23 improvement through Cycle 14.
24 Next slide.
25 The plan was put together with a focus on the four MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
73 1 primary safety barriers, that being Individual, our 2 Programs, Management, and our Oversight Function.
3 Next slide.
4 This picture illustrates how when posed with a 5 challenge there are multiple barriers present to prevent an 6 event from occurring, and to have the event the barriers 7 must fail.
8 Next slide.
9 The next picture illustrates our approach in regard 10 to keeping challenges from becoming events. That being to 11 ensure that we have Competent Individuals, Strong Programs, 12 Experienced and Engaged Management, and Intrusive 13 Oversight. We believe by focusing on the above, we will 14 prevent events.
15 Next slide.
16 As you can see, our Cycle 14 Operational Improvement 17 Plan has ten initiatives. Each initiative has an executive 18 sponsor. And to the right of the slide, depicts the 19 barriers that we believe will be positively influenced by 20 the actions taken to improve our performance in these 21 initiative areas.
22 Next slide.
23 The next three slides depict some of the focus areas 24 and items from the plan, and Im just going to run through 25 a few of those.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
74 1 For example, in regard to Improving Organizational 2 Effectiveness, we will provide additional training to our 3 managers in the areas of leadership, what is it, what does 4 it look like, and how to perform observations to get the 5 most out of time spent preparing for and conducting 6 observations.
7 In regard to Operations Improvement, we will 8 continue implementation of our Operations Excellence Plan, 9 which includes the benchmarking of top performing plants 10 and stressing Operations leadership of our site, and 11 improvement in operator training, just to mention a few.
12 In regard to Maintenance Improvement, we will focus 13 on improving the quality of maintenance through 14 self-assessment, benchmarking, training, and constant 15 reinforcement of craft ownership of plant equipment.
16 Next slide.
17 In the area of Training, we will provide additional 18 training to our staff on design and configuration control 19 and our planning improvements to the qualification training 20 of our engineers.
21 In regard to Work Management, we are implementing 22 the FENOC common process to Work Management and we have a 23 workload reduction plan for Cycle 14.
24 In regard to Engineering Improvements, our focus 25 will be on improving safety margins through design MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
75 1 assessment and plant hardware changes. We will continue 2 our Latent Issues Review efforts and we will implement 3 actions to strengthen our Calculation Process 4 Implementation.
5 MR. HOPKINS: Mark, I have a few 6 questions or comments here. These sort of touch both 7 Engineering, Operations, and Maintenance.
8 There is a couple of license amendments that are 9 being prepared that will be submitted to us, I believe in 10 December; one sites set points for change set points in 11 tech specs and one sites diesel generators for frequency.
12 My understanding is we will be starting up using 13 guidance from the NRC with regards to Administrative Letter 14 on one of them and our engineering letter in operability on 15 the other one.
16 What I want to get to is, it would be good to get 17 those done, you know. I mean, its nice to not be 18 operating in, under generic letter, or under the added 19 letter, or anything like that. The changes are complete 20 and sent in and we review them promptly. And thats in 21 operational improvement that you show your operators or 22 your engineers that idea.
23 I just wanted to ask, as far as you know, do you 24 still intend to submit those license amendments in 25 December, or?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
76 1 MR. BEZILLA: Yes, I believe 2 thats true.
3 MR. MYERS: Yes. One is being 4 prepared now.
5 MR. BEZILLA: Im checking out 6 there with my Engineering Director, and he says yes.
7 MR. HOPKINS: Okay. Ill talk 8 about another license amendment later, but go ahead, thats 9 fine for right now.
10 MR. BEZILLA: Okay. Next 11 slide.
12 In the area of Safety Culture, we will continue to 13 assess our performance and refresh our knowledge on what it 14 takes to ensure Safety Conscious Work Environment at 15 Davis-Besse.
16 Jack, you mentioned a few of the assessments that 17 well be doing on an ongoing basis.
18 In regard to Procedure Improvement, well continue 19 to train on, observe, and provide feedback for our people, 20 on procedure use and adherence.
21 On Corrective Action Program Improvement, we will 22 implement our Apparent Cause Improvement Plan and we will 23 focus on reducing our Condition Report and Corrective 24 Action Workload.
25 In regard to Oversight Improvements, we are MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
77 1 supplementing our internal quality assessors with external 2 people. This helps provide for a broader, different 3 perspective. And we are also taking more of a 4 cross-functional look at activities and evolutions.
5 These are some of the highlights from our plan.
6 Next slide.
7 We will periodically review our plan, our 8 performance, and well use performance indicators designed 9 to measure effectiveness, and through the use of external 10 assessment of our implementation and effectiveness.
11 Next slide.
12 Our External Assessments will focus on our Safety 13 Culture, the quality of our engineering products, and the 14 effectiveness of our Corrective Action Program.
15 Next slide.
16 MR. RULAND: Just 17 clarification for me. When you say effectiveness of the 18 Corrective Action Program, just elaborate a little on what 19 you mean by effectiveness in this case.
20 MR. BEZILLA: Yes, Bill. From 21 the CATI, you guys provided us feedback that our Apparent 22 Cause Assessments and Evaluations could be improved. So, 23 we put a plan together. Were taking action. Were going 24 to get some external help to check us periodically and make 25 sure we are being more effective. And if we have to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
78 1 adjust, we will make another adjustments from those 2 observations that we have.
3 MR. RULAND: Thank you.
4 MR. BEZILLA: Okay.
5 In conclusion, I believe our Cycle 14 Operational 6 Improvement Plan will anchor the changes that have been 7 made in our plant, our people, and our processes, and will 8 cause continuous improvement in these areas through Cycle 9 14.
10 Additionally, we have external assessments planned 11 to provide us feedback and allow us the opportunity to 12 check and adjust our focus through the Cycle.
13 Any questions?
14 MR. GROBE: Yeah. I have a 15 couple. You touched on a little with respect to the CATI, 16 Corrective Action Team Inspection findings. And, also, I 17 have some questions in the area of Safety Culture.
18 The details of this plan are included as Appendix D 19 to your Integrated Report to Support Restart dated November 20 23rd, and this is on our Web site.
21 As you briefly highlighted, there is ten areas of 22 initiative. In the Safety Culture area, which is section 23 seven, called Continuous Safety Culture Improvement 24 Initiative. With the exception of some Safety Conscious 25 Work Environment training, all of the activities under this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
79 1 improvement initiative are monitoring, and assessing 2 activities.
3 Could you talk a little bit more about what actions 4 youre taking to improve the Safety Culture?
5 MR. BEZILLA: Okay. Jack, I 6 understand your question is what actions are we taking to 7 improve Safety Culture?
8 MR. GROBE: Your microphone 9 is cutting in and out.
10 MR. BEZILLA: Is that okay?
11 Okay. If you look at our --
12 MR. GROBE: Works fine when 13 you dont talk. (laughter) 14 MR. BEZILLA: Right. If you 15 look at our plan, most of these actions are monitoring and 16 assessments, all right. As we and others have said, we 17 believe we have a pretty strong Safety Culture, Safety 18 Conscious Work Environment, and weve worked hard over the 19 last year plus to, Ill say, to reign those things into our 20 everyday processes.
21 As an example, our morning meetings that we go over 22 Safety, Safety Culture, we have Safety Conscious Work 23 Environment reminders throughout the plant, in our work 24 scheduling documents, those type of things.
25 What our plan was, we are going to continue to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
80 1 refresh our people on what Safety Culture means, what 2 Safety Conscious Work Environment means, and then through 3 our monitoring and/or assessments, if we notice areas of 4 degradation or areas of concern, then we will take 5 additional management attention.
6 So, its pretty much a continuing, continue feeding 7 what we have started from a Safety Culture, Safety 8 Conscious Work Environment perspective.
9 Lew reminded me, through our Safety Culture 10 Restart Readiness Review, there were some areas that had 11 graded out like yellow. We had specific Condition Reports, 12 well have actions that well go attack those specific 13 items, but from a plan perspective it is monitoring and 14 assessing; and based on the feedback, if we have to make an 15 adjustments for additional things, well do those.
16 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thats an 17 interesting observation. I appreciate that. I had 18 forgotten that your procedure, business practice, that you 19 call it, includes an expectation at certain levels to 20 generate a Condition Report and then an opportunity at 21 other levels to generate a Condition Report.
22 Is it possible that you would generate Condition 23 Reports from the results of these periodic surveys and 24 assessments, say monthly assessments and periodic 25 assessments throughout the year of 2004 and 2005?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
81 1 Im trying to figure out how -- I dont believe what 2 youre telling me is that youre satisfied with Safety 3 Conscious Work Environment, Safety Culture, because in a 4 number of those areas more than ten percent of your people 5 werent aligned with your expectations in some areas, but 6 Im trying to understand what actions youre going to be 7 taking to continue the improving trend that Lew and Linda 8 and Steve had talked about.
9 MR. BEZILLA: Let me first say, were 10 never satisfied with the Safety Culture, Safety Conscious 11 Work Environment. As an example of an action taken, you 12 had asked Linda earlier in her presentation, were there 13 deltas around, Ill say, from the site results in specific 14 areas. Just yesterday, Linda came into the Senior 15 Leadership Team, had talked to us through her assessment; 16 had talked about providing each of the managers with their 17 picture as compared to the site.
18 And then what we had asked Linda to do was, based on 19 her assessment, anyone that appeared to have, to have a 20 delta from the site perspective, were going to have those 21 managers come in and have discussion with them on their 22 results and on the action they need to take. Based on 23 those discussions and the managers review, Jack, I would 24 see some Condition Reports being written to document that 25 and be able to track their actions to improve Safety MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
82 1 Culture, Safety Conscious Work Environment in their 2 specific areas. Does that --
3 MR. GROBE: Yeah, its, these 4 are difficult questions. Safety Culture is a difficult 5 issue to deal with.
6 Would your Trending Program within the Corrective 7 Action Program, would that give you any insights in the 8 areas that culture may be declining?
9 MR. BEZILLA: Yes. An example of 10 that would be, part of our department performance 11 indicators, various sections have like one percentage of 12 the employees are actually generating condition reports.
13 If we would see a drop off on the percent of people in this 14 section preparing Condition Reports, that could be 15 something that would trigger a CR that says, hey, lets go 16 look at how come were having a down-turn on the percent of 17 people creating or generating CRs within a specific 18 department.
19 MR. MYERS: Jack, some of the 20 data well be using basically comes out of the --
21 physically comes out of the Corrective Action Program. The 22 Corrective Action Program is the program.
23 MR. GROBE: Lew, once upon a 24 time you described to me a practice that you had of kind of 25 every once in awhile, I think it was quarterly, you kind of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
83 1 take time out and pull your Senior Management Team aside 2 and spend a day or two looking at performance overall.
3 MR. MYERS: Right.
4 MR. GROBE: Is that something 5 that is a business practice?
6 MR. MYERS: Its in the 7 self-assessment. Its a section of the Self-Assessment 8 Business Practice. Its called Collective Significance 9 Review.
10 MR. GROBE: Im trying to 11 figure out how all this pulls together to result in actions 12 to move forward and identification of areas to move forward 13 in. I see lots of assessments, but I dont see how its 14 all pulled together.
15 MR. MYERS: Assessments roll 16 into individual Condition Reports. Condition Reports, you 17 know, we look at trends through Collective Significance.
18 If we see a negative trend, then that, that would cause us 19 in Collective Significance to take a senior level action, 20 you know. So, I think it does tie together fairly well.
21 In the Collective Significance Reviews, we look at 22 not only the CRs that are generated, but industry issues 23 that we see, issues from the NRC. We also trend ourselves 24 using the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations data. We 25 can go right into that data.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
84 1 So, if we see negative reviews, once again, those 2 things always generate a CR. We will generate a CR each 3 and every time we see negative reviews that we document in 4 our corrective action.
5 MR. GROBE: What procedure is 6 it again that describes that?
7 MR. MYERS: Self-Assessment 8 Procedure.
9 MR. GROBE: Self-Assessment.
10 MR. MYERS: Its a NOP. I 11 worked on that section.
12 MR. GROBE: Its a corporate 13 level procedure that applies to all three sites. Okay. I 14 think I need to get a copy of that procedure.
15 MR. MYERS: Its 2004.
16 MR. GROBE: Okay. One of your 17 slides here, you talk about Independent External Focus 18 Assessments. When you say, Independent External, does that 19 mean independent of Davis-Besse or independent of 20 FirstEnergy?
21 MR. BEZILLA: It could be both, 22 Jack. What weve been doing is bringing folks from both 23 corporate, Beaver Valley, and also filtering in beyond the 24 FENOC industry individuals and/or like INPO individuals to 25 help us with assessments.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
85 1 MR. GROBE: Okay. When we 2 presented the Corrective Action Team Inspection results 3 last month, we highlighted a couple of areas of concern; 4 one being Apparent Cause Assessments and we characterized 5 that as a thinking problem on how people think about 6 observations, issues, and evaluate them, and also expressed 7 a concern about the engineering correct -- or engineering 8 work products that corrected deficiencies.
9 You focused in Engineering Quality and Corrective 10 Action Program. Those were broad trends, but there were 30 11 violations or 28 violations. I cant remember the exact 12 number that were identified by that inspection, which is a 13 fairly significant number of violations. I cant remember 14 an inspection in the last five years that had somewhere 15 approaching 30 violations.
16 So, I dont want to give the impression because we 17 identified a couple of trend areas that those were the only 18 areas of concern in the Corrective Action Program and 19 Engineering Program Implementation. I highlighted earlier 20 today the results of the Backlog Inspection, which had 21 particular focus concern in the area of System Engineering, 22 Design Engineering and the ability to manage those back 23 logs.
24 So, I think its very important that you have 25 external assessments. I think its also important that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
86 1 that external focus include individuals and organizations 2 external to FirstEnergy, but I would urge you to broadly 3 look in these two areas, Engineering and Corrective Action, 4 because I think the overall trends that you saw were not 5 necessarily all of the issues that you need to be focused 6 on.
7 We may have additional questions regarding your 8 Operational Improvement Plan. Whats essential, if 9 Davis-Besse restarts, the types of behaviors that resulted 10 in, for lack of a better term, bereft, that resulted in the 11 head degradation dont occur; and if a decision is made 12 that the plant can restart, that may be based on a belief 13 at this point in time that it can be restarted and operated 14 safely, but this Operation Improvement plan not only takes 15 you from where you are today, which would be a decision, if 16 that were to occur, that youre safe today, to ensuring 17 that it doesnt become unsafe in the future.
18 So, I think this is critically important to the 19 long-term sustained performance at Davis-Besse. So, we 20 will likely have additional questions on this, and I 21 appreciate you submitting it to us.
22 Any other questions at this time?
23 Okay. Go ahead.
24 MR. BEZILLA: Okay. Now let me 25 switch topics. What I would like to do is briefly talk MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
87 1 about the Work Scope and Mid-Cycle Outage.
2 Next slide, please.
3 We would perform or have to perform our Mid-Cycle 4 Outage in March, 2004, if were not successful in obtaining 5 permission to extend ours through steam generator 6 inspection interval. Were preparing a License Amendment 7 Request to request an extension on the surveillance 8 interval that would enable us to perform our Mid-Cycle 9 Outage about January 2005. That would provide us with 10 about a year of operation prior to our Mid-Cycle Outage.
11 And the outage is currently scheduled to last approximately 12 21 days.
13 And Jon, you may ask when. I believe the 12th, 14 December 12th, is the date were shooting to get that to 15 you.
16 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
17 MR. HOPKINS: I have a few 18 comments. You dont have a whole lot of review time for us 19 on this one. And its, we have your, the report you 20 submitted to the NRC over the last two inspections, 2002.
21 Were looking at that. We have looked at that. Well look 22 at that. Well look at your amendment application.
23 Its likely that we would develop some questions.
24 So, in the time it takes you to respond to those questions 25 and our review and everything, it really isnt much time MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
88 1 left for the license amendment.
2 And the other thing I could say, what time, what 3 time there is, we will probably take all of it in 4 reviewing; and, for a positive finding.
5 But as far as your planning for possibly an outage 6 in 2004, first quarter, I think you probably are already 7 there or probably winding up contract workers or whoever 8 else.
9 MR. BEZILLA: Okay.
10 MR. HOPKINS: Thats the point I 11 wanted to make. There is no way I could get this review 12 done by January 15th or anything like that, you know, for 13 you to line up contract workers to do something.
14 MR. BEZILLA: We appreciate 15 that. We understand we need to get that to you in 16 expeditious fashion. We used the owners group. Weve 17 scoured the industry. Weve had previous submittals.
18 Were making sure we have quality documents. We have some 19 additional information from B and W for the care that would 20 provide the generators through the extended shutdown here.
21 So, we believe we have a new document for you.
22 Additionally, we have contracts in place, if we have 23 to do the inspections in March, we will be ready to do the 24 inspections in March.
25 MR. HOPKINS: Okay.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
89 1 MR. BEZILLA: Okay, next slide.
2 This slide depicts the major work planned for the 3 Mid-Cycle Outage, and that being Steam Generator Eddy 4 Current Inspections, Incore Nozzle Inspections, the 5 Undervessel Inspections; Control Rod Drive Nozzle 6 Inspections, Reactor Vessel Bare Head Inspection, Boric 7 Acid Leak Inspection of Reactor Coolant System itself; and 8 then various surveillance testing that would be needed to 9 support operations through the spring of 2006, which would 10 be the next refueling outage for Davis-Besse.
11 And we also have Contingency Plans for the Loop 2 12 Reactor Coolant Pump Gasket Replacement, if that would 13 dictate that that would be needed to be done.
14 MR. THOMAS: Mark, so assuming 15 there is no outer gasket leakage indications on Loop 2 16 Pumps, is it your intention to do the pump refurbishment 17 during the 14 Opero, or is it too soon to tell?
18 MR. BEZILLA: Scott, if we would get 19 the extension, to the -- surveillance requirement. Were 20 taking a look at that mid-cycle and/or the next refueling 21 outage. We have to determine where it makes the most sense 22 to do it, okay, from an efficiency standpoint as well as a 23 resource standpoint to accomplish that task.
24 Weve ordered the material. If we would do the 25 inspection in March and have a problem, we can change the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
90 1 gaskets. There is other work we would like to do to the 2 Reactor Coolant Pump that we wont have all those parts and 3 pieces on hand until probably 2005; late 2004, 2005.
4 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
5 MR. GROBE: Couple of 6 questions on this slide -- some clarifications 7 actually.
8 You specifically mentioned a Reactor Vessel Bare 9 Head Inspection, and then talked about Control Rod Drive 10 Nozzle Inspection. Those are the same activity.
11 MR. BEZILLA: Well look at the 12 nozzle and my intent was to look at the flanges.
13 MR. GROBE: Okay, that was my 14 next question. Not only are you looking at the nozzle head 15 interface, but youre also looking at the flanges.
16 MR. BEZILLA: Thats correct.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay, good. And 18 then the Incore Nozzle Inspection, that will be a bare head 19 on the bottom head?
20 MR. BEZILLA: Correct.
21 MR. GROBE: I was confused, 22 because you specifically said reactor vessel bare head. I 23 wasnt sure which head.
24 MR. BEZILLA: Both.
25 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, thats MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
91 1 a Bare Head Inspection of both the upper and lower Reactor 2 Vessel Heads, Control Rod Drive Nozzle and Flange 3 Inspections and Incore Nozzle Inspections, as well as Boric 4 Acid Corrosion Inspection of the entire Reactor Coolant 5 System. Thats the detailed inspection of the Reactor 6 Coolant System to look for indications of leakage, and then 7 any follow-up activities are appropriate.
8 MR. BEZILLA: Thats correct.
9 MR. GROBE: I dont think I 10 have any other questions.
11 Bill?
12 MR. RULAND: Mark, should I 13 interpret this, that if you do, in fact, have to shut down 14 to do the first quarter 2004 contingent inspection, thats 15 essentially really a misnomer to call it a Mid-cycle; its 16 an early cycle outage, for lack of a different, lack of a 17 better term; so, that you would be operating essentially, 18 assuming that you have permission to restart, you would 19 operate for three months, do the inspections, and then 20 there would be whatever remainder of that fuel cycle until 21 you did another inspection.
22 MR. BEZILLA: 20 some months 23 probably, 21 months.
24 MR. MYERS: We think it makes 25 more sense to run a year, twelve months, and then look at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
92 1 it; gives more of a reliance of the other two inspections.
2 MR. RULAND: I think we agree.
3 MR. MYERS: Okay.
4 MR. GROBE: When we had talked 5 last month, we had specifically talked about you submitting 6 a letter describing this. Is that still your plan or is 7 this the description of your Mid-Cycle that you have 8 planned?
9 MR. BEZILLA: We have a letter 10 drafted, and it may have went out yesterday. It was 11 planned to go out yesterday, but Lew was gone.
12 MR. GROBE: I was probably 13 here yesterday.
14 MR. BEZILLA: If its not, Jack, 15 it will be this week.
16 MR. GROBE: Great.
17 MR. BEZILLA: Its on the way.
18 MR. GROBE: Okay. Any other 19 questions?
20 Okay. Thank you very much.
21 MR. BEZILLA: With that, I will 22 turn it over to Clark.
23 MR. RULAND: Mark, before you 24 go ahead, I would like to circle back to the previous 25 presentation you had about the Engineering Quality External MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
93 1 Focused Assessments, you discussed.
2 As I think you folks have already admitted that your 3 Engineering Organizations minus a number of contractors at 4 this stage, that folks that help you through the extended 5 outage, so your Engineering Organization is essentially 6 substantially different than when, during this whole 7 outage.
8 Im interested in the scope of that External Focused 9 Assessment. One could postulate that problems youre going 10 to face might not in fact, if you do have problems, might 11 not in fact be the same problems or the same areas that you 12 need to focus ongoing forward, as you might have had 13 previously. So, Im interested in what the scope of that 14 External Assessment is going to be, if you know at this 15 stage.
16 MR. BEZILLA: Just a couple pieces, 17 Bill. The Engineering Organization, we still have a number 18 of contractors, theyre helping us. Weve hired a few of 19 them, so all that knowledge and experience has stayed with 20 us. All right?
21 As far as the engineering assessments for next year, 22 I dont have the specifics on that. There will be a few of 23 them. We have a Nuclear Operating Procedure that dictates 24 what areas well look at, and what I would expect is that 25 Jim Powers and his team, they know where some of their MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
94 1 weaknesses are, and through the Quality Organization, they 2 take a broad perspective and theyll help us if they think 3 there is areas that need special attention or could benefit 4 from an external assessment. And then our Trending Program 5 through the Corrective Action Process, may point out 6 initial areas where we have also External Assessment. I 7 just dont have the specifics with me today.
8 MR. RULAND: Thank you. But 9 another way maybe of me understanding what you would have 10 told me, is that youre not going to focus just on those 11 areas that the CATI team pointed out, weaknesses of 12 Engineering Products, rather youre going to look at the 13 Engineering Organization more broadly. Is that a fair 14 statement?
15 MR. BEZILLA: That is correct.
16 We may look at an area that we think is solid, because it 17 may not be solid, it may be solid on the surface.
18 MR. MYERS: If you go look at 19 our Self-Assessment Procedure we talked about, it drives 20 that broad base. We drive Self-Assessments, Corrective 21 Action.
22 MR. RULAND: Thank you.
23 MR. BEZILLA: Okay, with that, 24 Ill turn it over to Clark.
25 MR. PRICE: Thanks, Mark.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
95 1 Okay, today I would like to provide everyone with a 2 status and update of where were at with our Restart 3 Activities.
4 Ill first discuss some of the key items that we 5 completed since the November meeting and then describe some 6 of the key activities we have remaining and then walk 7 through our finer key milestones that we have for restart.
8 Even though its only been three weeks since our 9 last meeting, weve completed some significant milestones 10 and activities; and four of them we have listed here.
11 Weve completed our Restart Readiness Safety Culture 12 Assessment, that Lew Myers described earlier, and yesterday 13 we issued the final report as described in our business 14 practice for that assessment. That was a major milestone 15 in our, in our moving forward for restart.
16 On November 24th, Jack, you referred to this 17 earlier, in accordance with Confirmatory Action Letter, we 18 submitted the Integrated Restart Report to request NRC 19 approval to restart the plant. That report also included 20 the Operational Improvement Plan we discussed today and, 21 again, another major milestone, restart milestone.
22 We have completed the installation of both the newly 23 modified HPI pumps and have completed testing of pump 24 number 1, and will begin testing pump number 2 later this 25 evening. Successful testing of these two pumps, again, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
96 1 that weve been discussing over the last several months is 2 another major milestone in our plant restart.
3 And last night we completed the replacement of 24 4 breakers with fuse disconnect switches to achieve breaker 5 coordination in our plant Electrical Distribution System, 6 an issue we discussed at the last two public meetings that 7 was emerging over the last few months. We completed those 8 breakers. We do have seven additional breakers that we 9 have identified that we also want to change out prior to 10 restart that are related to Appendix R. Those new fuse 11 disconnect switches will be in Friday, and were currently 12 developing the schedule for those replacements.
13 Next slide, please.
14 This slide identifies some of our remaining key 15 activities that we have for restart. The first item is 16 Completion of the Operations Improvement Action Plan 17 described by Mike Roder, our Operations Manager, at the 18 last public meeting. The primary restart actions under 19 this plan conclude this week with the successful 20 requalification of our Operations crews.
21 In several of the past public meetings we have 22 discussed our continued efforts to address issues within 23 the Electrical Distribution System of the plant. They were 24 identified through our new highly enhanced Electrical 25 Transient Assessment Program, that we referred to as ETAP, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
97 1 and we expect to come to closure on those issues this 2 weekend or early next week.
3 We will be completing our Service Water Pump Number 4 2 Baseline Testing this week. Again, another significant 5 major activity for us in the last few weeks, and another 6 major activity for restart.
7 We are also replacing two coolers in our Emergency 8 Core Cooling System Room Coolers. These coolers have 9 developed small leaks over the past several months, and we 10 have decided not to repair them, but to replace them with 11 new improved stainless steel coolers.
12 Then, also, at the end of the week, we plan to be 13 completed with the restart required activities associated 14 with Containment Air Cooler Transcient Resolution, that 15 were issues that came up as a result of the August 14th 16 loss of grid that the plant experienced, and were going 17 through those actions now, through analytical resolution, 18 and a final modification to be done at the plant this 19 week.
20 And, finally last, but not least, is our remaining 21 open NRC 0350 Panel Restart Checklist Items. We currently 22 have eight that remain open. We need to get our activities 23 completed and the inspections completed and do whats 24 necessary to support the panels decision for closure on 25 those Restart Checklist items.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
98 1 Next slide, please.
2 Okay. This final slide is our final key milestones 3 for restart which will be --
4 (wrong slide/changed slide) 5 On December 5th, we will be having our final planned 6 meeting with our Restart Overview Panel to gain concurrence 7 for Restart. Its a major meeting for us. We have a 8 number of action items that we discussed at the last public 9 meeting that came out of the Restart Overview Panel. Most 10 of those action items are similar to things weve discussed 11 today; things looking forward in our Operational 12 Improvement Plan and things that theyve asked us to give 13 them some additional feedback in, meeting on Friday. So, 14 were preparing to do that.
15 On Monday, December 8th, well be transitioning to 16 our Online Work Control Process. This is a major 17 transition for us out of the Outage Work Support Center and 18 Outage Processes weve been in for the last, well, for the 19 entire outage, which has been led by our Outage Director; 20 and moving to an Operations Work Support Center that will 21 be led by the Operations Shift Manager. Another key 22 milestone in our transition for restart.
23 On Monday also, we as discussed earlier, expect to 24 have the NRC Restart Readiness Inspection Team arrive on 25 site with a plan that this meeting is 11:00 on Monday, and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
99 1 expect that team to be there for the duration of our plant 2 heatup and mode ascension.
3 Then, on December 9th, next Tuesday, were going to 4 be having another management meeting, our continued 5 activities to readdress our Restart Readiness. This will 6 be looking at the department and section, its readiness for 7 restart. We have had our Mode 4 and 3 meetings for our 8 Restart Readiness and Safety Culture. A week ago we had 9 our plant systems that we reviewed, and now these will be 10 the Organizational Readiness for Restart Meetings that will 11 occur on Tuesday.
12 Then on December 11th, we plan to be in a position 13 to go to Mode 4. Then follow, the following day by Mode 3, 14 and be at full temperature and pressure by the weekend, by 15 next weekend.
16 The following Monday, December 15th, were scheduled 17 to have our Management Restart Readiness Review Meeting 18 that will then be for Mode 2. And there we will go to 19 assess things weve gone through in Mode 4 and 3. We will 20 be re-reviewing our Safety Culture Assessment, some of the 21 things Mark talked about. Well be looking at where we now 22 stand on some of our different attributes that we had in 23 that Safety Culture Assessment relative to plant 24 readiness. Well be looking at the plant systems and any 25 existing mode restraints, and well be looking again at the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
100 1 organization readiness to proceed to Mode 2 and plant 2 breakout.
3 Then, the last slide lists out the final restart 4 milestones that we have, which will be, as we discussed, as 5 Jack, we discussed earlier, a public meeting to request 6 NRCs approval for restart.
7 Following approval, we will then move to Mode 2.
8 That is what is defined in our Return to Service Plan as 9 Restart. That will be followed then by going to Mode 1.
10 And, at that point, then well have a management hold 11 perform an effectiveness review of our startup activities 12 to that point, looking at the performance of both the 13 people and our plant, and then assessment of our readiness 14 for continuing to power operations.
15 Following that meeting, we will then synchronize the 16 grid. And then we have another planned hold as we ascend 17 in power, to approximately 50 percent power. Well do 18 another effectiveness review and assessment of our 19 readiness to continue on to full power and escalation to 20 hundred percent.
21 MR. THOMAS: Clark, what do you 22 foresee as the duration of these hold periods?
23 MR. PRICE: I expect, Scott, 24 that theyre probably going to be maybe two to three 25 hours2.893519e-4 days <br />0.00694 hours <br />4.133598e-5 weeks <br />9.5125e-6 months <br />. Well get together, management team will get MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
101 1 together, well talk through what weve seen. Well have 2 the oversight managers that are on shift, give report out 3 on how the shifts have performed. Well take as long as we 4 need.
5 MR. THOMAS: I just wanted to 6 get an idea, in your mind, what these hold periods 7 encompass.
8 MR. MYERS: My experience from 9 some of the other plants, it would take a half a day, four 10 hours1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br />. Come in and make sure, are you working your plan, 11 has it been effective, and then make sure youre ready to 12 go forward. Just like a check.
13 Right now we have everything very well lined out 14 down to the key activity. Are we being effective? And if 15 you got some issues, then well take longer, you know.
16 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
17 MR. MYERS: Things go well, it 18 should be about four hours.
19 MR. PRICE: Okay. Then, well 20 continue on to one hundred percent power operation.
21 Then we do have another activity, approximately 30 22 days following restart, where we will perform a final 23 Restart Effectiveness Assessment, that well look back at 24 all of our activities and assess our performance over that 25 period of time.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
102 1 In conclusion, I would like to say that we have a 2 good plan for restart. We continue to diligently work this 3 plan. We are very proud of what weve accomplished to-date 4 and we are looking forward to the opportunity to request 5 and receive NRC approval for restart.
6 Any questions?
7 MR. WRIGHT: Clark, just one 8 item. During the restart readiness prior to entering Mode 9 2, I think it was December 15th, in that meeting, youre 10 going to go back over those areas that were of some concern 11 during the last Restart Readiness Review; those areas that, 12 thats a yellow or had specific items, CRs written to 13 address those or specific areas where you had an 14 organization that was not performing where you wanted it to 15 be at that time, or earlier?
16 MR. PRICE: We expect, as you 17 know, Geoff, weve written Condition Reports on all of 18 those specific areas that were yellow in the Restart 19 Readiness Assessment. Well go through those Condition 20 Reports and the corrective actions and address whether 21 weve made suitable progress on those corrective actions 22 before we move forward; and that will all be addressed in 23 that meeting.
24 MR. WRIGHT: That is the 25 meeting youre going to do that?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
103 1 MR. PRICE: Thats correct.
2 MR. GROBE: Just, one 3 observation. This morning, Tony Alexander and Gary Leidich 4 presented a briefing on some materials. I suspect that --
5 Ive reviewed the slides from that presentation. I suspect 6 because of the preparation of the slides, and the 7 continuing conduct of activities, that there was one item 8 that Im sure was clarified during that meeting, but the 9 slide specifically says that high pressure injection pumps 10 have been modified, installed and tested; both of them.
11 And the testing of pump number 2 had been delayed just a 12 bit because of an oil pressure problem and that testing is 13 going to happen this afternoon or this evening.
14 Its just, causes some confusion with me, just 15 wanted to make sure.
16 MR. MYERS: As you know, we 17 planned on having that testing done, but the oil pressure 18 issue. When the slides were prepared, we planned on having 19 the testing done.
20 MR. GROBE: Thats what I 21 suspected, okay, good.
22 MR. MYERS: Once again, we had 23 the oil pressure issue. We stopped, put a troubleshooting 24 team together.
25 MR. GROBE: Okay.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
104 1 MR. MYERS: Okay.
2 MR. GROBE: Any other 3 questions for Clark? Im glad we had time to hear Clark 4 today.
5 MR. PRICE: Well, thank you.
6 MR. GROBE: Okay. Lew, do you 7 have any closing comments?
8 MR. MYERS: You know, we have, 9 I could spend an hour on Safety Culture.
10 MR. GROBE: Thats not 11 necessary. Last month we ended up with all of our Chinese 12 food, and I think it was in Rollands trunk, because we 13 didnt have time to eat it. So, it would not be adverse to 14 us that we have time for dinner.
15 MR. MYERS: Okay. I do, I 16 think that today we, our desired outcome was to talk about 17 our Safety Culture, our progress we made toward Restart, 18 Safety Conscious Work Environment. If you listen to our 19 value today of safety, key word accountability and 20 accomplishment, we showed the tape of our people. Thats 21 the best presentation I could do. You heard those values.
22 When you look at things from a, are they positively 23 correlated; you see convergence. You saw convergence in 24 the tape. You saw convergence in the Safety Culture 25 assessment we did. You saw convergence in the Safety MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
105 1 Culture Assessment that the employees did. And then, the 2 Safety Culture assessment of their oversight group. So, I 3 really believe that the data that weve given you about 4 concerns moving forward is good data.
5 We believe that there has been significant 6 improvements in the plant; material condition on the plant 7 programs; the safety margins, meaning our systems are 8 unique now, like our FLUS System; and most important, most 9 important, our people have a strong safety focus.
10 We have compared -- we have a strong corporate 11 commitment that we gave you to ensure in our Long-Term 12 Improvement Plan to ensure that we continue to commit to 13 move forward.
14 We will be requesting your authorization to start 15 the plant up. Weve done that in writing. We look forward 16 to that meeting. We thank you for todays presentation.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay, very good.
18 Thank you.
19 Any comments or questions for the, further questions 20 from the staff?
21 I just wanted to make a couple observations. Last 22 month we presented the results of the Corrective Action 23 Team Inspection. The panel has not yet closed that 24 checklist item and continues to work off evaluation of 25 those inspections also and decision on whether that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
106 1 checklist item is ready to close.
2 In addition, there is two other very important 3 activities that are ongoing or will start shortly; one is 4 Geoff Wrights inspection Management/Human Performance, 5 thats Checklist Item 4.b, I think, on the effectiveness of 6 your Safety Culture Management Organization, Human 7 Performance at the plant.
8 And then several of the checklist items under 9 Section 5 of the Checklist concerning Readiness for Restart 10 will be contributed to, the closure of those will be 11 contributed to by certain of the resident staff. Its a 12 significant equivalent to that as well as the Restart 13 Readiness Assessment Team Inspection. Those activities are 14 ongoing.
15 We would expect to hear your assessment, not only of 16 whats happened over the last 20 months, I guess, but also 17 whats going to be happening over the next several weeks at 18 a restart meeting. The job is not done yet. And there is 19 still performance to be demonstrated before the NRC could 20 consider restart.
21 So, scheduling of the meeting, as I mentioned 22 earlier today, is difficult. We need to give ten days 23 advance notice to the public. We cant conduct the meeting 24 unless youre ready to present us your assessment of 25 operational performance; and I dont mean the plant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
107 1 operators, theyre certainly part of that; but your 2 organization and its effectiveness in operating the plant 3 through Modes 4 and 3.
4 So, if need be, that meeting will be delayed. I 5 would expect by the end of this week to be making a 6 decision on when you think we can conduct the meeting and 7 well certainly give ten days notice prior to the conduct 8 of that meeting, but things are rather fluid and it could 9 change.
10 Clark described a schedule that was predicated on 11 everything going great, and it doesnt always happen that 12 way, so we will maintain flexibility.
13 I want to emphasize the importance of your Operation 14 Improvement Plan for Cycle 14. If we get to the point in 15 time where Davis-Besse is authorized to restart, the work 16 isnt done, and we certainly are concerned about that, and 17 we appreciate that you recognize that and have developed 18 that plan.
19 This Oversight Panel does not disappear if the plant 20 is authorized to restart. The public meetings dont 21 disappear. Were going to be here until such a point in 22 time that the agency is able to conclude that Davis-Besse 23 has operated sufficiently well for a sufficiently long 24 period of time that the routine reactor oversight process 25 would be effective in providing oversight at Davis-Besse.
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108 1 That could likely be six months, a year, or more.
2 One critical component of that is the validity of 3 the performance indicators that are part of the Routine 4 Oversight Process. You report those performance indicators 5 to us quarterly, and theyre published on the NRCs Reactor 6 Oversight Process Website.
7 The performance indicators in most of the areas are 8 still valid; for example, the Health Physics area, the 9 Emergency Planning areas, the Security and Safeguards 10 areas, but most if not all of the performance indicators in 11 the Operations area and the Systems area do not provide 12 sufficient information to us at this point in time to be 13 useful in planning inspections and evaluating performance.
14 So, the panel will stay in existence until the 15 performance indicators are providing useful information and 16 the panel concludes and recommends to NRC management that 17 Davis-Besse is ready to go under the Routine Reactor 18 Oversight Program.
19 So, well be around, and its certainly going to be 20 a busy month, and well be here for another many months to 21 come.
22 Anybody else have any comments or questions?
23 Okay, with that, lets take about a ten minute 24 break, and adjourn the business portion of the meeting, and 25 then well recommence at 10 after 5 for any questions from MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
109 1 the audience.
2 Thank you.
3 (Off the record.)
4 MR. GROBE: Okay. Lets 5 come to order here. This portion of the meeting is an 6 opportunity for members of the public to provide comments 7 or ask questions. And, well have a similar meeting at 8 7:00 this evening for anyone who was unable to attend this 9 afternoon or if you really are interested and want to 10 provide comments at both meetings, that is certainly 11 acceptable also.
12 Why dont we start by inviting elected officials or 13 representatives of elected officials forward; and if you 14 could, youre interested in providing a comment or asking 15 question, come forward to the microphone, sign your name, 16 there should be some sheets of paper, a pen there, and go 17 ahead and speak clearly into the microphone.
18 Are there any elected officials or representatives 19 of public officials here today that have comment or 20 questions?
21 Okay. Lets just open the floor to anybody else 22 that has a question or comment.
23 If you could state your name and go ahead.
24 MR. BURKE: Certainly. Its 25 Shawn Burke, with HSBC Securities.
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110 1 I had two related questions, maybe you can help me 2 out. The first, can you tell us how the 0350 Panel has 3 received information or updates from the NRCs Office of 4 Investigations, particularly regarding the extended outage, 5 and can you kind of give us a feel for how that process has 6 worked with the panel?
7 MR. GROBE: Certainly. The 8 Office of Investigations is a specific office of the 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission that looks into the cause of 10 violations, where there is information that the violation 11 may have been the result of something more than an 12 oversight or error.
13 The investigation began early in 2002 and continued 14 through September of 2003. On a regular basis, the Office 15 of Investigation has provided briefings to the Oversight 16 Panel members and kept the panel apprised of information 17 that they were identifying and concerns that they had.
18 At the completion of the investigation in September 19 of this year, the Office of Investigations provided 20 briefings to the panel, to James Caldwell, Region 21 Administrator in Region III, to the Executive Directors 22 Office in his direct reports as well as to the Commission 23 itself.
24 That report that was issued in September was 25 provided to the Department of Justice consistent with MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
111 1 agency procedures and the federal investigation into 2 circumstances prior to the beginning of this outage 3 continues.
4 Its being led by the U. S. Attorney in Cleveland, 5 and its a team of U. S. Attorney staff, the Department of 6 Justice staff in Washington, and the NRCs Office of 7 Investigation staff, as well as a number of our technical 8 staff.
9 There is two ongoing activities with respect to the 10 results of the investigation besides the ongoing federal 11 investigation. One of those is that the NRC staff, and 12 this was a team of technical staff both from the Region and 13 Headquarters, as well as legal staff, enforcement staff, 14 evaluated the results of the Office of Investigation review 15 to determine whether there was a need for any immediate 16 enforcement action.
17 And, the procedures for doing that are clearly 18 described in our enforcement manual. The threshold for 19 taking an enforcement action is a high threshold, and it 20 requires the agency to conclude that there is an 21 immediately threat to public health and safety.
22 That review has been completed and the NRC has 23 concluded that there is no need for immediate enforcement 24 action as a result of the O. I. findings.
25 The second thing that the agency has ongoing is a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
112 1 senior executive from the Office of Nuclear Reactor 2 Regulation has been assigned to monitor the progress of the 3 ongoing investigation, federal investigation to be 4 cognizant of any emerging information that may come to 5 light that might cause a safety concern on the part of the 6 NRC.
7 I believe I answered your question.
8 MR. BURKE: The second 9 question is somewhat related. If the United States 10 Attorney -- sorry. If the United States Attorney from the 11 Northern District of Ohio concludes his investigation 12 before the plan is brought on line, can that interrupt the 13 restart process if he chooses to indict the company or 14 workers; or just trying to figure out how his influence 15 might come to bear on the restart process?
16 MR. GROBE: Any questions 17 regarding the ongoing federal investigation needs to be 18 addressed to his office. The agency, if the Department of 19 Investigations, excuse me, the Department of Justice 20 investigation is concluded, the one being led by the U.S.
21 Attorney in Cleveland, the agency would receive the results 22 of that investigation and we would take appropriate 23 enforcement action.
24 Absent knowing when the investigation will be 25 completed and what those results are, thats difficult to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
113 1 comment on the rest of your question. It would simply be 2 speculative.
3 MR. BURKE: One last thought.
4 Is the Inspector General for the NRC, which I think doesnt 5 report to the NRC Chairman, but instead reports to 6 Congress; are they still looking at the Davis-Besse outage 7 or have they concluded their investigations?
8 MR. GROBE: The Inspector 9 General doesnt investigate our Licensees, the Inspector 10 General investigates us.
11 MR. BURKE: Correct.
12 MR. GROBE: And, there are no 13 ongoing investigations that Im aware of into circumstances 14 surrounding the NRC activities prior to shutdown of 15 Davis-Besse.
16 There is a, a different investigative arm of 17 Congress, its called the General Accounting Office. That 18 does have an ongoing review, which was requested by three 19 different federal elected officials; I believe its one 20 senator and two representatives; that gave them marching 21 orders to evaluate certain aspects of the NRCs performance 22 and thats ongoing. I expect that to be completed sometime 23 next year.
24 MR. BURKE: Its helpful, 25 thank you.
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114 1 MR. GROBE: Is there anyone 2 else?
3 MR. FINN: My name is Mark 4 Finn. Im with T. Rowe Price. I just wanted to follow-up 5 on the question asked by Shawn Burke.
6 If the DOJ, Attorney General, or the attorney from 7 the Northern District of Ohio has not completed his 8 investigation, is there anything to keep you from giving 9 permission to restart the plant? I guess as that 10 investigation is going on, does the absence of a finding on 11 his part keep you from giving permission to restart the 12 plant?
13 MR. GROBE: Well, the U. S.
14 Attorney doesnt have any role in the decision on 15 restarting the Davis-Besse plant. The agency has completed 16 its review of the results of the Office of Investigations 17 investigation, and concluded that there is no need for 18 immediate action on the part of the agency. Consequently, 19 we will await the results of the ongoing federal 20 investigation before any action is taken.
21 As I mentioned earlier though, we do have a Senior 22 Executive from our Headquarters Office of Nuclear Reactor 23 Regulation, who will be monitoring the ongoing 24 investigation, and any information which is developed 25 during that investigation with sensitivity to the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
115 1 identification of safety issues that might need 2 consideration or immediate action on the part of the NRC.
3 As Im sure youre aware, a Grand Jury proceedings 4 is a secret proceeding, so information cannot be disclosed 5 that is identified or pursued through the Grand Jury 6 process.
7 I think Ive answered your question.
8 MR. FINN: So, if the restart 9 meeting were to be held, you would then conduct the meeting 10 and then perhaps check back with the individual that --
11 MR. GROBE: Maybe I wasnt 12 clear. Information that is disclosed through the Grand 13 Jury process -- Im not an attorney, maybe we have one in 14 the audience that could better explain this than I can.
15 Its my appreciation that information disclosed in the 16 Grand Jury process is secret information that cannot be 17 shared with anyone.
18 The senior executive I was referring to from our 19 Headquarters Office has been made an agent of the Grand 20 Jury. He can become privy to that information through the 21 agreements he has signed. He can not disclose any of that 22 information. The only time that anything will come to our 23 attention, will be if during the course of the federal 24 investigation, information became a concern to him that 25 its an immediate safety concern. He would negotiate with MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
116 1 the Department of Justice and discuss whether or not some 2 of that information could be shared with the agency.
3 I have not been involved in anything like that in 4 the past, so Im not a very good person to give you further 5 clarification on your question. But its a very, for good 6 reason, its a very carefully controlled process; both from 7 the standpoint of protecting the rights of individuals, as 8 well as from the standpoint of protecting the veracity of 9 any future criminal prosecution.
10 MR. FINN: I understand.
11 That was very helpful. Thank you.
12 MR. GROBE: Somebody have an 13 easy question?
14 MR. MELENDES: I am Chris 15 Melendes from VBS. I just have one quick question.
16 You talked about the restart meeting. And the 17 timing from the conclusion of the restart meeting to when 18 the order for restart or the approval for restart is given; 19 how long is that? Are we talking days, are we talking 20 weeks, are we talking months? Do you have any examples of 21 previous processes where youve gone through that might 22 give us some light on that?
23 MR. GROBE: There are many 24 examples. I dont have the specific number of minutes, 25 hours2.893519e-4 days <br />0.00694 hours <br />4.133598e-5 weeks <br />9.5125e-6 months <br />, or days, but there have been -- many is probably a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
117 1 wrong number -- several plants that have restarted under a 2 0350 Process. Probably close to a dozen over the last 3 decade.
4 So, you could research those plants and find out 5 exactly how many days, minutes, or hours transpired between 6 the restart meeting and authorization for restart. I dont 7 anticipate it would be a long time.
8 By contrast though, I cant recall in recent history 9 a plant that has had this much interest and scrutiny under 10 an 0350 Process, from a large number of stake owners with 11 different prospectives; and that complicates the process 12 somewhat, as far as communication and consideration of 13 different points of view.
14 So, it will take some time, but its certainly not 15 going to be months, I think was the longest one you used.
16 MR. MELENDES: Thank you.
17 MR. GROBE: That wasnt an 18 easy question. Waiting for an easy one.
19 Okay. With that, we stand adjourned. And we have 20 another meeting at 7:00 here this evening.
21 Thank you.
22 (Off the record.)
23 - - -
24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
118 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 10th day of December, 2003.
11 12 13 14 ______________________________
Marie B. Fresch, RMR 15 NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF OHIO My Commission Expires 10-10-08.
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO