ML040440468
| ML040440468 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 01/21/2004 |
| From: | NRC Region 1 |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML040440468 (127) | |
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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, January 21, 2004, at 6:00 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 Christine Lipa, Projects Branch Chief Christopher Scott Thomas, 15 Senior Resident Inspector U.S. NRC Office - Davis-Besse 16 Jon Hopkins, NRR Project Manager - Davis-Besse 17 Jack Rutkowski, NRC Resident Inspector Anthony Mendiola, 18 Section Chief PDIII-2, NRR Monica Salter-Williams, 19 NRC Resident Inspector 20 FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 21 Lew Myers, FENOC Chief Operating Officer Mark Bezilla, Vice President 22 Barry Allen, Plant Manager Kevin Ostrowski, 23 Manager - Plant Operations Dave Imlay, Shift Superintendent 24 of Plant Operations 25 ---
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
2 1 MS. LIPA: I would like to 2 welcome FirstEnergy and members of the public for 3 accommodating this meeting tonight. This is a public 4 meeting between the NRCs Davis-Besse Oversight Panel and 5 FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company.
6 My name is Christine Lipa and Im a Branch Chief for 7 the NRC in the Region III Office located near Chicago. And 8 Im responsible for the NRCs Inspection Program at 9 Davis-Besse.
10 The first slide goes through the purposes of this 11 meeting, which are to discuss the NRC Oversight Panel and 12 NRC activities at the Davis-Besse facility; and then after 13 that, to allow FirstEnergy to present the status of 14 activities in their Restart Plan.
15 So, the next slide is the agenda. These are the 16 things well be covering tonight. Well take a break after 17 about an hour and 15 minutes, wherever we need it 18 accordingly.
19 I would like to make some introductions for the NRC 20 side up here at the table. To my far left is Jon Hopkins.
21 Hes a Project Manager for the Davis-Besse facility and 22 hes located out of Headquarters.
23 Next to Jon is Tony Mendiola. Tony is the Section 24 Chief in the Projects Department in NRR.
25 On my left is Jack Grobe. Jack is the Senior MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
3 1 Manager in the Region III Office, and hes also Chairman of 2 the Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
3 Bill Ruland on my right is the Senior Manager in 4 Headquarters and hes the Vice Chairman of the Oversight 5 Panel.
6 Next to Bill is Scott Thomas. Hes the Senior 7 Resident Inspector at the Davis-Besse plant.
8 And then next to Scott is Monica Salter-Williams.
9 Shes a Resident Inspector at the plant.
10 We also have Jack Rutkowski, another Resident 11 Inspector, running the slides for me.
12 And we have Nancy Keller in the foyer welcoming you 13 on the way in.
14 Jan Strasma with Public Affairs is here.
15 And, I believe thats it for NRC tonight.
16 Ill let you introduce your folks.
17 MR. MYERS: Okay. Is this 18 working?
19 Okay. Before I do that, I would like to take just a 20 moment if I could. This week, I think the State of Ohio 21 lost a really fine citizen. We lost our Chief Executive 22 Officer and Chairman of the Board, Pete Berg. We were in a 23 meeting with you, Christine, when we got the news. I want 24 to take a moment tonight and just talk about that for a 25 moment.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
4 1 If I look back at the restart of the Davis-Besse 2 plant and my career with FirstEnergy, there is two things 3 that came to my mind. The first one was approachable. You 4 know, Pete Berg was probably the most approachable CEO I 5 ever met. He spent many hours coming to our Davis-Besse 6 plant during the shutdown; stayed early in the morning 7 until late at night meeting with all of our employees. He 8 personally had me bring our SROs to meet with him and spent 9 a couple of hours during this extended shutdown. And he 10 was always concerned about the staff and the people at this 11 plant and throughout our company.
12 The next thing I think about is integrity. Through 13 my years at Perry or Beaver Valley and Davis-Besse, when he 14 came here, he always told us to take the time to do the job 15 right. That was always more important than anything else 16 in his leadership style was integrity.
17 I know Tony Alexander, our new CEO, and Pete worked 18 together for 30 years; and we at FirstEnergy are deeply 19 saddened by his loss. He passed away on January the 13th.
20 He was 57 years old. So, its been a very, very trying 21 week for all of us. So, I just wanted to start out with 22 that.
23 With that, we have several people with us in the 24 audience tonight. Fred von Ahn is our Manager of Quality, 25 VP of Quality Assurance.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
5 1 Gary Leidich is with us also, President of FENOC.
2 At the end of the table is Kevin Ostrowski, Manager 3 of Operations is with us.
4 Barry Allen, Plant Manager, to my left.
5 Mark Bezilla, site VP, to my right.
6 And Dave Imlay is next to him.
7 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
8 Next I would like to offer any public officials to 9 introduce themselves.
10 MR. PAPCUN: John Papcun, 11 Ottawa County Commissioner.
12 MS. LIPA: Hi, John.
13 MR. KOEBEL: Carl Koebel, 14 Ottawa County Commissioner.
15 MS. LIPA: Welcome, Carl.
16 MR. ARNDT: Steve Arndt, 17 Ottawa County Commissioner.
18 MS. LIPA: Steve.
19 MR. WITT: Jere Witt, County 20 Administrator.
21 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you, 22 Jere.
23 Okay. Then I would like to point out a few thing.
24 This meeting is open to public observation. This is a 25 business meeting between the NRC and the Davis-Besse or MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
6 1 FirstEnergy folks here. And at the conclusion of the 2 business portion of the meeting, but before the meeting is 3 adjourned, the NRC staff will be available to receive 4 comments and any questions from members of the public.
5 There are copies in the foyer of the January edition 6 of our monthly newsletter, and copies of both our slides 7 and the FirstEnergy slides for today, this meeting.
8 Let me just talk a little about the newsletter.
9 This provides kind of a summary of whats been going on 10 lately from the NRC perspective, what kind of activities 11 weve been doing and whats coming up. And there is also 12 information on the back page on how you can reach the NRC, 13 the Public Affairs staff, and also access to our NRC 14 webpage for additional information.
15 We also have in the foyer a Public Meeting Feedback 16 form that people can use to provide comments to us on how 17 this meeting goes.
18 Also, were having this meeting transcribed today by 19 Marie Fresch, and that will maintain a record of the 20 meeting. Then, that transcription will be available on the 21 webpage within a few weeks. Its important that all 22 speakers use the microphone tonight, so the audience and 23 the transcriber can hear.
24 The next slide is a summary of the topics that we 25 had in our routine monthly meeting here last month, on MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
7 1 December 3rd. And the transcripts from that meeting are 2 posted on our webpage.
3 The next slide, I would like to talk a little bit 4 about some significant NRC activities since that December 3 5 meeting.
6 First item, we reviewed the Licensees activities 7 associated with Restart Checklist on the Testing Program, 8 and this will be documented in the routine Resident 9 Inspection Report, which is scheduled to be issued by the 10 end of January.
11 Next, we had the NRC Inspection Team was on site for 12 the Restart Readiness Assessment. They completed several 13 of their planned activities on site the week of December 14 15, and they held a public exit meeting to discuss their 15 results on December 19th. And were planning to bring back 16 most of the same team members at a later date to complete 17 the objectives of that inspection plan.
18 Next, we have the Management and Human Performance 19 Phase 3 Inspection. They also completed most of their 20 planned activities while they were on site the week of 21 December 15th, and they also held a public exit on December 22 19th. Members of that team were back on site last week and 23 that inspection continues, which is my next bullet, the 24 follow-up inspection.
25 So, the next slide will show some other NRC MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
8 1 activities since that December 3rd meeting. And this 2 describes three public meetings that we had in December; 3 and all those transcripts are available on our webpage.
4 And, the next slide is continuing activities. And 5 Operations performance is being assessed by the Resident 6 Inspectors. And as I mentioned earlier, we plan to bring 7 back the Restart Readiness Inspection Team in the future.
8 And then the Resident Inspectors that we have on 9 site, our three inspectors that are here every day, and 10 theyre stationed permanently at the site, and they inspect 11 a broad spectrum of activities; including engineering, 12 maintenance and testing in addition to operations, of 13 course. And the Resident Inspectors issue reports every 14 six or seven weeks.
15 And I think, yes, this next slide talks about the 16 upcoming inspection, which has not been determined when 17 that will be yet. And also public meetings, right now we 18 dont -- thats a tentative date, and well post everything 19 on the website once the dates for upcoming meetings are 20 firmed up. And, thats really all I have for now.
21 Lew, over to you.
22 MR. MYERS: Thank you, 23 Christine.
24 I always start out with some desired outcomes for 25 the meeting. Tonight our desired outcomes will demonstrate MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
9 1 that our Davis-Besse plant continues to take conservative 2 actions needed to support safe, a safe plant restart. And 3 were going to brief you on some of the activities weve 4 accomplished during the month, and we continue to focus in 5 that area.
6 I want to provide information on the changes in 7 leadership in our programs that ensure the fleet 8 consistency in the Conduct of Operations. There has been 9 some changes and Ill discuss those later in our leadership 10 at our plant.
11 We want to demonstrate that the Operations 12 Improvement Action Plan supports meeting industry 13 standards, and it continues to support that. And provide 14 information on the recent NOP Normal Operating Pressure 15 Test -- not test, that we took the plant to normal 16 operating pressure and brought it back down. We have 17 information on that tonight, and the results of our 18 assessment during that time.
19 First up, I would like to take a few moments and 20 update you on some of the activities this month. Mark 21 Bezilla will discuss the present plant status. From an 22 Operations standpoint, Barry Allen, our Plant Manager, will 23 talk about the Operations issues that weve seen. And the 24 Operations Performance will be discussed by Kevin 25 Ostrowski.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
10 1 So, Ill start out, if you would, talking about some 2 of the plant activities since our last meeting.
3 Go to the next slide.
4 The Davis-Besse plant continues to progress toward 5 restart. We sincerely believe that now. Successful heatup 6 was completed on January 5th. Let me talk about how it 7 really started out.
8 Back on December the 21st, we implemented the 9 Davis-Besse online weekly schedule, our normal work 10 scheduling process, which is a major step in getting us out 11 of the construction mode that weve been talking about, 12 high pressure injection pumps and everything for these many 13 months. So, we implemented that online schedule.
14 On December the 30th, at 2045, we started the plant 15 heatup into Mode 3. That heatup is, what I would call, a 16 complex evolution requiring manipulation of the plant 17 itself, because of reheating the plant up, starting it up, 18 and everything; placing into service and moving into 19 service many of the Operations systems and equipment for 20 testing. And we started our reactor coolant pumps on our 21 heatup, all four reactor coolant pumps. We took off the 22 RHR pumps, we shut the plant-- what I would call a complex 23 evolution. So, we started the heatup around 12:30.
24 On 12-30, 2115, myself and the site Vice President 25 had some discussions on the Operation activities and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
11 1 completed some surveillances. After we changed modes, 2 there was a bunch of surveillances that come due.
3 We stopped the heatup at that time. We wanted to 4 demonstrate our conservative approach to this complex 5 evolution, so we didnt want to be doing the surveillances 6 and all these operational activities while we were heating 7 the plant up, a parallel path. So, we stopped the heatup 8 and thats the reason we did that.
9 We took a couple days; and on January the 4th, or 10 2nd, rather, at 2035, we resumed the heatup. We 11 then stabilized our normal operating pressure and 12 temperature on January the 5th at 9:55, with no major 13 errors.
14 The heatup was evaluated overall as successful.
15 Thats not to say we didnt have some issues that well 16 talk about later, but there were no major errors that we 17 assessed the heatup as successful.
18 There were three operational issues we identified 19 between the time we heated up and we stablized in Mode 3, 20 that normal operating pressure temperature. And then while 21 we were doing, after we heat up, we test our auxiliary feed 22 pump. And during the test, the auxiliary heat pump, we 23 identified a very, very small weepage in the casing. And 24 we went into a 72-hour action state on January the 7th.
25 So, we were at normal operating pressure until January 7th; MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
12 1 and at that time went to the 72-hour action stay.
2 We completed what I consider another very complex 3 evolution of cooling the plant back down, taking the pumps 4 off, and going through the operational modes, putting 5 through the RHR system back on. This is a, we completed 6 that evolution on January the 9th, back into Mode 4 at 2:33 7 a.m. This evolution was completed error-free. We think 8 that cooldown of the plant went extremely well.
9 At that time, Jack, I called you and notified you 10 that I think that we would need to delay the Restart 11 Readiness Assessment Team Inspection based on the cooldown, 12 and some of the issues affected the equipment; the Aux.
13 feed pump issue and other equipment issues we have, and 14 well discuss those tonight. And also to address the 15 administrative issue that we saw while we were up at Normal 16 Operating Pressure Test.
17 And today, I would status you that weve repaired 18 all the equipment. In fact, we didnt just go into one 19 auxiliary feed pump, we decided to go into the others ones 20 and do some extra maintenance on that to ensure that it 21 doesnt develop any casing leakage in the future.
22 And right now, as we sit here today, were in the 23 final resolution of some door issue that weve identified.
24 And we are presently preparing to return the plant to 25 normal operating pressure temperature probably this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
13 1 weekend. That would be our target.
2 During this extended time, we decided to go ahead, 3 as I told you all before, we intended to make some 4 additional leadership changes after plant startup. We 5 decided to go ahead and make those changes.
6 Since we had this delay, we wanted to strengthen the 7 operational leadership in our plant. So, with that, on 8 January the 10th, we had some new management assignments.
9 Ill share those with you.
10 Kevin Ostrowski down at the end of the table is our 11 new Operations Manager. Kevin has a really broad based 12 experience. Kevin has worked in all three of our plants.
13 In fact, hes the only one I know of thats worked in all 14 three of our sites besides me.
15 So, he is an SRO from our Beaver Valley Station. He 16 was a Shift Supervisor. He was an Operations Manager and 17 he was a Plant Manager. He then, after we took over the 18 operations of the Beaver Valley station, he went over as 19 Director of Maintenance and Nuclear Services to our Perry 20 station and worked there for a few years.
21 And then we brought him over, because we wanted to 22 increase our Operational strength, as a Regulatory Affairs 23 Manager about six months ago. So, weve now announced that 24 Kevin will be the new Operations Manager.
25 Next slide, please.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
14 1 Additionally, we wanted, we made a change in the 2 Operations Superintendent area. Dave Imlay has been, is 3 now our new Shift Superintendent of Plant Operations. Dave 4 is at the end of the table.
5 Dave holds an active SRO, Senior Reactor Operators 6 license of the Davis-Besse station. Hes been the 7 Superintendent. Hes been in Operations and been a 8 Superintendent of Maintenance. Hes had 15 years of 9 experience at Davis-Besse and held several management 10 positions; the last one was in our training department.
11 So, he, if anybody, understands the complex operations and 12 what were trying to accomplish.
13 I believe you set your standards through training.
14 Dave does that. And he also brings experience from other 15 plants in the industry with him. So, Dave is our new 16 Superintendent of Operations.
17 When we did that, we also took Bill Mugge, who we 18 sent off for some development at INPO for some time. We 19 considered that a really good way to gain broad-based 20 experience. Bill holds an SRO at the Davis-Besse plant.
21 Hes got 16 years experience and held various management 22 positions in Operations, Training, and Security. In fact, 23 at that time, he was our security man.
24 So, he served as, the reason he came back to us a 25 year or so ago, and served as an Industry Evaluator at the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
15 1 Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. He had actually 2 been out evaluating the operations of other nuclear power 3 plants. So, putting him in the Work Management position 4 strengthens our ability to coordinate scheduled work 5 activities at our station.
6 So, we went ahead and made those management changes 7 and I wanted to share those with you tonight. We think 8 those changes will really strengthen our operational focus 9 at our plant, and help us continue progress at our 10 Davis-Besse station.
11 Thats all I have.
12 Mark.
13 MR. BEZILLA: Thank you, Lew.
14 Good evening. My desired outcome for this evening 15 is to provide you with an update of the plant status and to 16 demonstrate that the plants material condition will 17 support safe restart.
18 Next slide, please.
19 First, let me discuss some items that we have 20 recently addressed. Lew mentioned a few of these. The 21 number one Aux. feedwater pump turbine was tested when we 22 reached normal operating pressure. We can test it on Aux.
23 steam, but until we get to normal operating pressure, we 24 dont have the ability to put main steam and test it at 25 normal conditions.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
16 1 A slight casing leak was observed. We made initial 2 attempts to address the slight leak without success. We 3 then decided the right thing to do was pull the plant down 4 to Mode 4 where the Aux. feedwater pump is not required and 5 perform an inspection and repair.
6 We mustered vendor support, as well as FENOC 7 support, and determined that there was a better way to seal 8 the joint on the turbine casing. We then decided to 9 disassemble and make the same improvements on the number 2 10 Aux. feedwater pump turbine casing seal. We believe these 11 efforts will provide for leak tight seal and will improve 12 the reliability of the Aux. feedwater pumps.
13 The next item I would like to cover is Number 2 14 Containment spray pump motor to pump coupling problem we 15 encountered. During a run of the containment spray pump, 16 we noticed a rise in bearing temperature. The operating 17 crew took prompt action to secure the pump, declare it 18 inoperable, and request a problem-solving and 19 decision-making effort.
20 The problem-solving and decision-making team set 21 about to determine what could be the cause of the rise in 22 bearing temperature. We found the motor to pump coupling 23 had slipped. We solicited vendor and FENOC help and 24 subsequently repaired and we believe improved the coupling 25 fit.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
17 1 We then inspected the Number 1 Containment spray 2 pump motor to pump coupling and saw no evidence of a 3 similarly nature on this component. We will be prepared to 4 enhance this components coupling at a future planned 5 outage. I believe thats within the next month or two.
6 The next item I would like to speak about is a 7 reactor coolant root isolation valve that was noted to have 8 a slight leak at its body to bonnet seal weld. And these 9 are a little fuzzy (indicating). Its hard to see, but 10 that seal weld is in this vicinity of the valve itself.
11 Okay.
12 This was found during our normal operating pressure 13 walkdowns. We subsequently repaired by rewelding this seal 14 weld area.
15 Additionally, we noted that this was the second of 16 this type valve to leak. We had found another valve 17 similar to this one leaking at the same area during the 18 first Normal Operating Pressure Test back in the fall. We 19 then noted that we had replaced eight of these valves 20 during the outage.
21 So, we decided to go and do additional inspections 22 on the remaining six valves. We performed dye penetrant 23 tests on the remaining six valves body to bonnet seal area 24 and found them to be satisfactory. This effort provided us 25 with additional confidence that these valves would be MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
18 1 leak-free through the next operating cycle.
2 Finally, I would like to take a moment and briefly 3 mention a project that were currently working on. Were 4 in the process of strengthening nine doors in our turbine 5 building. We determined if there was a main steamline 6 break in our turbine building, some of the doors normally 7 providing access to important equipment could be opened by 8 the initial pressure wave of the break.
9 So, were taking actions to strengthen the affected 10 doors to minimize the impact of some important equipment.
11 We believe were improving safety margin of the plant.
12 The last item I would like to mention is the 13 formation of a Mode 2 and Mode 1 Look Ahead Team.
14 Although, we have had the plant in normal operating 15 pressure a couple of times, when we receive permission to 16 restart, there will be additional pieces of the plant that 17 will be put in service for the first time in a couple 18 years. For example, the main feedwater pumps using main 19 steam, the main turbine, and the main generator associated 20 with the main turbine.
21 This Look Ahead Team is taking a systematic look at 22 what equipment problems might arise during restart. The 23 team is then formulating contingency plans. We believe 24 this will position us to be ready and able to quickly 25 respond to any additional equipment issues that might MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
19 1 arise.
2 MR. RULAND: Mark.
3 MR. BEZILLA: Yes?
4 MR. RULAND: Just two 5 questions. You said you were going to prepare the Number 1 6 Containment spray pump motor coupling at a later outage?
7 MR. BEZILLA: Thats correct. We 8 inspected it, saw no evidence of a similar nature to the 9 slippage we had seen on Number 2, and we have planned for 10 the next time we take that component out of service to make 11 the improvement to the coupling. I think thats in the 12 next couple weeks.
13 MR. ALLEN: Bill, thats 14 currently scheduled for February 16 is the current time for 15 that activity.
16 MR. RULAND: This is a routine 17 outage that you take on the systems on a weekly basis; 18 thats the kind of outage youre referring to?
19 MR. BEZILLA: Thats correct.
20 MR. RULAND: And could you 21 refresh my memory about why you were looking at the turbine 22 building doors; why you were doing that analysis?
23 MR. BEZILLA: Yes. Ill do my 24 best, but I have somebody who is probably better in the 25 audience to help me answer that question right.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
20 1 During the outage, we had been looking at high 2 energy line breaks, we were focusing on the auxiliary 3 building and also on the auxiliary feedwater pump area of 4 the turbine building because it has specific like 5 communications to the turbine building proper. And, we 6 assessed those areas.
7 We had made upgrades to some of the equipment 8 associated with the auxiliary feedwater pumps to upgrade 9 their environmental qualifications through the outage, but 10 when we had looked at the turbine building within our 11 updated safety analysis report, we had said in there 12 looking backwards in time that if we had a main steamline 13 break in the turbine building, the pressure increase, 14 because of the volume of the turbine building, would be 15 insignificant and shouldnt pose a threat to any 16 equipment.
17 Well as a follow on to that activity, our engineers 18 were working with a computer model; Gothic Program is what 19 its called. And as they were working to improve that 20 model, in looking at our turbine building and its main 21 steamline break, we got some information that said, uh-oh, 22 the pressure might be higher than what we had assumed in 23 our Updated Safety Analysis Report.
24 Initially, we had one door that we thought was a 25 problem. So, we took action, I believe it was over this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
21 1 past weekend, to address that one door, but we continued to 2 look at other doors. And then what we saw is that we 3 werent assured that the pressure pulse that we would see 4 with that break wouldnt affect other areas.
5 And, so, while we were looking at the analysis in 6 parallel, we said, lets just go strengthen the doors and 7 harden the facility in case the analysis shows that we need 8 to withstand a higher pressure. So, were currently 9 working both paths. Were strengthening the doors to have 10 them withstand a higher pressure shock wave due to that 11 break, and then were also working on the computer model to 12 see where the pressure is actually at and did we have to 13 make the improvements. But thats where were at.
14 MR. RULAND: Thanks. So, to 15 summarize; while youve made these fixes now, you havent 16 reached your final conclusion of how necessary or to what 17 extent those doors need to be strengthened. They may need 18 to be strengthened, but it sounds like youre making those 19 modifications preemptively. Is that, maybe thats the 20 word.
21 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
22 Everybody is nodding their head, thats correct.
23 And were also doing this, were taking these 24 actions, the reason we got to look at this, it was an 25 evaluation of a bullet we put in our Corrective Action MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
22 1 Program. So, were taking the actions as part of our 2 Corrective Action Program. Thats where were at at this 3 time.
4 So, we thought it was a really good catch by our 5 engineers. I would compliment them on that.
6 MR. RULAND: If Im not 7 mistaken, Scott, you can refresh my memory. The NRC, we 8 havent inspected this area; we have done some preliminary 9 looking about the matter, but --
10 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
11 MR. RULAND: -- we still need 12 to do some inspections in the area.
13 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
14 MR. THOMAS: You still need to 15 finish the root cause.
16 MR. MYERS: Right.
17 MR. RULAND: Okay, thank you.
18 MR. BEZILLA: Okay, next slide, 19 please.
20 Now let me speak of the current plant status. We 21 are in Mode 4 with the Reactor Coolant System at 22 approximately 250 pounds per square inch and approximately 23 260 degrees Fahrenheit. We have two reactor coolant pumps 24 in service and the other two are ready for service. The 25 steam generators are moving heat and the secondary plant is MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
23 1 in service with condenser vacuum status. Our safety 2 systems are ready to support Mode 3 and normal operating 3 pressure. And we are working on strengthening the turbine 4 building doors, as I spoke.
5 Next slide, please.
6 In conclusion, the material condition of the plant 7 is good. We will support safe restart. And, as Lew 8 mentioned, as issues arise, they will be addressed through 9 our Corrective Action Process with the focus on improving 10 our margins of safety.
11 Any questions?
12 MS. LIPA: Yeah, Mark, you 13 talked about the nine doors, but also that other plant 14 systems are ready for Mode 3. Are the doors the major 15 restraint from Mode 3 from a hardware perspective at this 16 point?
17 MR. BEZILLA: Thats correct, 18 Christine. We had addressed the equipment issues that were 19 initially on our radar screen when we reduced from Mode 4--
20 or Mode 3 to Mode 4, and theres been a couple other items 21 that weve taken care of. The doors are essentially the 22 last hardware item that we need to take care of prior to 23 heating the plant back up.
24 MS. LIPA: Okay. Then Bill 25 talked a little about the doors and why you were looking in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
24 1 that area, but I guess Im wondering if you can tell 2 whether there might be any similar issues like that that 3 will come up before Mode 3. If youre looking at that 4 issue, and based on why you were looking at that issue, do 5 you have any other issues that are in the same type of 6 not-completely-reviewed-yet category? Do you know what I 7 mean?
8 MR. BEZILLA: Christine, thats a 9 very good question. We have a high volume, low threshold 10 Corrective Action Program. As we do our Restart Readiness 11 Reviews, we scrub those. The management team reviews 12 those; their people review those. And we have affirmations 13 that say, hey, weve looked, weve looked at our workload 14 of corrective actions that are outstanding and we believe 15 that were acceptable to move forward.
16 Now, can I sit here and tell you absolutely there 17 are no issues in that backlog, no, but I have a high 18 confidence that we have all the issues addressed and are 19 appropriate before we heat the plant back up to Mode 3 and 20 to normal operating pressure and temperature.
21 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
22 MR. MENDIOLA: If I could ask a 23 question about the, related to the reactor coolant valve 24 and the Look Ahead Team. What process did you use to say, 25 hey, weve had two of these valve fails, or two of these MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
25 1 valves we replaced now, and then realize you had all this 2 other, all these other valves that need to be looked at and 3 then you went to go look at them. Which one in your plant 4 currently in place programs did you use in following 5 through on that?
6 MR. BEZILLA: Thats also a good 7 question. I would say there were two things. We had the 8 first seal weld issue, right. We had walked down the 9 remainder of the Reactor Coolant System, had seen no other 10 issues with these valves. Believed that to be an isolated 11 case within our Corrective Action Process. Took care of 12 that as a go fix-it item. All right.
13 During the second walkdown, when we had a second 14 valve that we found, again, through our Corrective Action 15 Process and through Management Review, we said, hey, this 16 is the second item. Hey, its similar to these other six 17 valves that we put in. Lets not wait. Lets go take some 18 additional action.
19 So, it was our Corrective Action Process that we as 20 management team meet every morning. We review the 21 Condition Reports and we also look for trends and/or things 22 that may require additional attention.
23 MR. MENDIOLA: Is this something 24 that the Look Ahead Team may be addressing or would 25 address?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
26 1 MR. BEZILLA: Yes. What the 2 Look Ahead Team did is, we took some previously or 3 currently licensed individuals and, from various 4 disciplines; put them together and said, hey, based on some 5 of the things weve seen through the first normal operating 6 pressure test and the second rise in normal operating 7 pressure, take a look at all of our equipment that has not 8 yet been placed into service or other equipment that we 9 will, when we get permission to restart, be putting into 10 service. What problems have we seen in the past? What 11 problems has the industry seen? And are there things that 12 we can either go check or have contingencies in place that 13 are more probable to occur as we start placing those into 14 service.
15 So, that was the charter of the team.
16 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay, I understand 17 the difference, thank you.
18 MR. BEZILLA: Okay.
19 MR. GROBE: Before you go on, 20 Mark. Two, actually one question about two items on slide 21 number 10.
22 The first one was the Aux. feedwater casing leak and 23 the containment spray pump motor coupling problem. What 24 were the causes of those two issues?
25 MR. BEZILLA: Jack, the first MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
27 1 one is the Aux. feedwater pump turbine casing leak. This 2 is like a metal to metal fit. Okay. We had used some 3 Electric Power Resurge Institute, EPRI. We had used EPRI 4 guidance and Terry Turbine to assemble our component. Im 5 getting into sort of the bug dust, right, but you put down 6 this glue, if you will, and then you put this bead of 7 sealant material in there. And we did that during the 8 outage. We also did that after the first NOP test, right.
9 We still had a slight case leak.
10 So, this time, what we did is we got the vendor of 11 the person that makes this sealant media, if you will, this 12 material. We had them and we had the turbine vendor in.
13 What they said is you need two beads of this stuff. You 14 need to double this up. They gave us like an engineering 15 joint, if you will, which went beyond the guidance. The 16 EPRI guidance that was out there.
17 So, we used vendor intelligence as well as the Terry 18 Turbine vendor in intelligence and we believe we have a 19 stronger, and we have more confidence in the joint. Again, 20 I wont be a hundred percent competent until I get up to 21 NOP, normal operating pressure, and run my surveillances 22 and put steam through the turbine, but we believe it just 23 wasnt a good enough joint, and that was based on the 24 information we got from the venders.
25 MR. GROBE: Is this a commonly MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
28 1 used sealant material?
2 MR. BEZILLA: This is commonly 3 used sealant material and we were using industry guidance 4 to make this seal. We will give feedback to the industry, 5 if we see that the seal doesnt leak when we get up to NOP, 6 we will send that out on generic guidance.
7 Now, from a containment spray pump motor, the pump 8 coupling --
9 MR. THOMAS: Before we leave, 10 the Aux. feed pump, there was also a moisture and lube oil 11 issue associated with this low pressure steam leak. Have 12 you conclusively determined that that issue was a result of 13 this low pressure steam leak or, I guess have you 14 determined the cause of that yet?
15 MR. BEZILLA: Right. Scotts 16 question has to do with moisture intrusion into the bearing 17 housing that houses the oil for one of the bearings 18 associated with the turbine. The steam leak was in the 19 vicinity of the bearing. And that bearing has a dust cover 20 and has a labyrinth seal to keep the oil in and keep stuff 21 out. But the steam moisture could come over there, we 22 believe was migrating into that miriad housing.
23 Scott, were taking samples. We took samples when 24 we ran Aux. feed. We also take samples when we get up to 25 NOP and do the testing in NOP. We believe that that slight MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
29 1 casing leak in the bearing was causing the water 2 intrusion. Well take samples to assure ourselves and once 3 were able to get back to test the component at normal 4 operating pressure.
5 MR. MYERS: (inaudible) 6 MS. FRESCH: Im sorry. I couldnt 7 hear you.
8 MR. BEZILLA: Lew was talking about 9 the volume of water. We started out at like 80 part per 10 million, just fresh out of the barrel. And after we had 11 run the components, we saw like 160 parts per million and 12 then it was up to 180 parts per million. That equates to 13 maybe six drops of water, from a quantity and volume 14 standpoint.
15 MR. GROBE: And the cause of 16 the containment spray pump to motor coupling issue?
17 MR. BEZILLA: Yeah, containment 18 spray pump, Barry, you may be more knowledgeable than I am 19 on that. Do you want to address that?
20 MR. ALLEN: Sure. Jack, the 21 containment spray pump coupling, the way that coupling was 22 designed to be installed on shaft was an interference fit, 23 and it only had one set screw, but the set screw did not 24 actually go down to the shaft itself; it actually went to 25 the key, to kind of help secure the key.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
30 1 And so we disassembled that -- actually before we 2 disassembled it, we just kind of quarantined it to do an 3 investigation. You can see where we hit, its blue 4 originally, and you can see the offset of marks where it 5 had moved, the coupling had moved.
6 So, what we found is we did not have the desired 7 interference fit on it. I dont know the exact, its been 8 in service a long time, so over many years. It had 9 essentially, I think that coupling had moved to the point 10 where it got us off our, you know, our magnetic center 11 versus our thrust on our pump.
12 So, we went to inspect the other containment spray 13 pump, verified that there had not been any movement there, 14 but again, we plan on dealing with that issue in February, 15 to protect the tray, which is a good time from a safety 16 perspective to go work on that pump.
17 But essentially, we wound up coming back, remachined 18 the couplings, with the vendor got the design interference 19 fit we needed for the coupling, and then reinstalled that 20 back on the shaft.
21 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
22 MR. BEZILLA: Okay. If no more 23 questions, Ill turn it over to Barry Allen, my Plant 24 Manager.
25 Barry.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
31 1 MR. ALLEN: Thank you, Mark.
2 Good evening. As the new Plant Manager at 3 Davis-Besse, my desired outcome tonight is to update you on 4 the actions Ive taken since our previous public meeting.
5 During the recent plant heatup, I monitored the 6 implementation of our operational administrative controls, 7 and through that observation I concluded that while our 8 existing procedural controls were adequate, our 9 implementation of those controls did not meet my standards 10 for performance.
11 Next slide.
12 During the heatup, I saw three administrative 13 control issues which concerned me. The three issues are; 14 first, our operational-type activities were not adequately 15 detailed and described in our integrated work schedule to 16 the level they needed to be. Second issue I saw was we 17 failed to recognize and appropriately log one technical 18 specification entry. The third issue we saw was one 19 instance of technical specification action not being 20 completed within the allotted time.
21 What I want to share with you tonight is the actions 22 that Ive taken to improve our operational control and 23 elevate those up to meet my standards.
24 In order to thoroughly evaluate our operational 25 control issues, I chartered a very small, but experienced MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
32 1 Root Cause Team to assess our performance against FENOC and 2 industry standards. The team was set up to assess the 3 issues, determine the causes, and recommend corrective 4 actions.
5 We had an 18-member team assembled and we asked Jim 6 Powers, who is here, who is our Director of Engineering, to 7 sponsor that team. Jim is not in a direct chain of command 8 with the Operations organization, so it gave us a good 9 independent look for response from that team.
10 We had an extremely strong team, and the team leader 11 we utilized was Russ Kearney, who is our Operations Manager 12 of our Perry station. We also brought over the Operations 13 Manager, Pete Sena, from the Beaver Valley station. Also, 14 listed several Shift Managers there from FENOC plants that 15 were on the team: Ray Hruby also from Beaver Valley. They 16 also included Tom Veitch. Hes our FENOC Operations 17 Programs Manager. So, hes kind of common Conduct of 18 Operations individual from the corporate perspective.
19 Again, other individuals on that team are listed that we 20 used to form that Root Cause Team.
21 The FENOC Team independently identify three root 22 cause issues. The first issue is Operations shift 23 personnel did not consistently implement our standards and 24 qualities. Second issue they identified was our Operations 25 shift supervision did not consistently enforce our roles MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
33 1 and responsibilities. And the third issue they identified 2 was our Operations leadership was ineffective in correcting 3 the inconsistent performance.
4 Next slide.
5 MS. LIPA: Barry, before you 6 move on. Maybe youll get into more details later, but 7 with root causes you also say why, why, why. Do you have 8 some reasons why these things occurred or will you get into 9 that later?
10 MR. ALLEN: I think Ill cover 11 that, Christine, if you give me a little more time.
12 MS. LIPA: Okay. Go ahead.
13 MR. ALLEN: Let me back up.
14 Just go back one slide.
15 I think its probably best to answer that here, 16 Christine. Thats a good question. If you look at the 17 first bullet up here, it says, "Our shift personnel did not 18 consistently implement our expectations and standards in 19 the field." And you ask why? That will drive you to the 20 second bullet, which really is "Our shift supervision was 21 not holding our folks out in the field accountable to 22 properly enforce those roles and responsibilities." And if 23 you ask why that occurs, then you really come down to the 24 third bullet in the root cause which was "Our leadership 25 was ineffective in holding the organization accountable to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
34 1 correct the deficiencies we identified."
2 MS. LIPA: Thank you.
3 MR. GROBE: Let me take that 4 just a little bit further, Barry.
5 The first bullet, "Inconsistent implementation of 6 the work control and surveillance test." I think actually 7 the wording in the Root Cause Report, it says, "Operations 8 shift personnel are not consistently exhibiting 9 accountability and ownership to perform the requirements of 10 the Work Control Process, Conduct of Operations, and 11 Surveillance Test Program."
12 Is that because they didnt know what the 13 requirements of those programs were?
14 MR. ALLEN: Jack, I believe in 15 most cases, I believe we understood what the requirements 16 were. I think we challenged the organization some. For 17 instance, Ill go back to the, not having the proper level 18 of detail in the Operations schedule. I think in some 19 cases we did not have owners assigned to those activities.
20 We did a poor job of executing those in some cases.
21 In other cases, I believe we knew what the 22 requirements were and met our procedural requirements.
23 In some cases, we saw other tech instances, where we 24 saw not procedural requirements, but expectations as 25 something to strive for, not necessarily something we saw MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
35 1 at the site level rigor or procedure requirement, so we 2 were not executing those as we should have. And we were 3 not holding folks to meet those standards.
4 MR. GROBE: So, some 5 scheduling issues and work assignment issues, people didnt 6 fill ownership for certain activities and they did not 7 follow your procedures; and then management, your 8 supervision and also your management didnt adjust that to 9 oversight and mentoring and training or whatever was 10 necessary?
11 MR. ALLEN: Thats correct.
12 You know, for example, we debriefed some of the 13 information of the RRATI Team had previously. Some other 14 things, like prejob briefs, you know, not consistently 15 using the format in prejob brief and some of those type 16 issues also.
17 MR. GROBE: Right. I think 18 also with respect to prejob briefings, all the right people 19 werent necessarily at all the briefings.
20 MR. ALLEN: That is correct.
21 In the third bullet we had there on the tech spec aspect, 22 which we did not complete within the allotted time. The 23 Maintenance personnel did not attend the same brief that 24 the Operations personnel did. So, we did not meet our 25 expectation.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
36 1 MR. GROBE: How does this 2 relate to the issues regarding inadequate prejob briefs 3 that you previously identified in taking actions to 4 address?
5 MR. ALLEN: I believe we have 6 made tremendous progress on our prejob briefs, Jack. And I 7 think theyve been very consistent. Previously, we had not 8 identified an issue with not involving, like the test down 9 in Maintenance up in the control room face-to-face with the 10 reactor operators, and with the senior reactor operators.
11 So, this was not an issue I had seen before; 12 however, in the missed tech spec action, in one action, 13 that was pretty clear once we took a look at that event, 14 that we had a good brief from a Maintenance perspective in 15 the Maintenance shop, but they did not have really the tech 16 spec knowledge and training to understand where they were 17 in terms of technical specifications in that mode.
18 And then, whereas, the operators, the licensed 19 operators had knowledge and responsibility, they did not 20 communicate that information to Maintenance personnel. So, 21 we started that activity not being on the same page as we 22 should be.
23 MR. GROBE: Okay. Good.
24 There was just one other technical specification 25 action statement represented a unique opportunity for you MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
37 1 to observe your staff.
2 Feedback is a challenge. (microphone) 3 And it was in this short time frame emergent-type 4 issue that these deficiencies manifested themselves. Do 5 you have plans to observe activities over the next several 6 weeks, similar activities?
7 MR. ALLEN: Jack, we are 8 observing those activities every day. Kevin is going to 9 talk in great detail about that.
10 MR. GROBE: Okay.
11 MR. ALLEN: In fact, for the 12 last several days, every time we get entered, an action 13 statement, tech spec, or fire hazard analysis, any type of 14 license requirement or have exited that, we begin to 15 acclimate. So, all throughout the day, were able to 16 observe, even if were not in the plant site, because were 17 entering and exiting LCO for that. So, we have quite a bit 18 of rigor instituted on that.
19 MR. GROBE: Okay.
20 MR. MYERS: You know, its 21 important to say too, as we come through this entire heatup 22 and everything, that weve done all the surveillances we 23 talked about. There were probably hundreds of 24 surveillances and these are the three issues we saw on the 25 surveillances. We did the others successfully.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
38 1 Even though the one you were just talking about, 2 there was communications between Operations and 3 Maintenance; and Operations told Maintenance to put the 4 transmitter back in service. Well, Maintenance did that.
5 They did exactly what they were told, but they took longer 6 to do it than the one hour.
7 And they went through a, they went and did a formal 8 procedure change process. We really have been focusing on 9 procedure adherence. They went through the normal 10 procedure change, and got that completed and went and put 11 that valve in.
12 What we felt happened is communications of the need 13 of urgency wasnt there. So, there was dialogue between 14 the Shift Manager and the Maintenance Craft, but it wasnt 15 good, close, good communication. You have a one hour 16 action, we need this put back right now. That failed.
17 MR. THOMAS: But the flip side 18 of that is, it wasnt followed up by the Operations staff 19 to ensure. There was no time clock running for them to 20 ensure that action, because its their responsibility.
21 MR. MYERS: Right, right, we 22 would agree with that. Weve done some things that Barry 23 talked about. Were increasing the barriers, that 24 institution of responsibility shift. Barry discussed 25 that.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
39 1 MR. ALLEN: Actually, Ill 2 let Kevin speak to that too. I think thats a good example 3 now, for instance, when we do that, we actually designate a 4 reactor operator to be responsible to track that. And, 5 then, the other day, we exited two reactor operators with 6 two independent timers, you know, timing an action 7 statement. So, I think weve come a long ways in that to 8 involve the reactor operators in that oversight.
9 MR. MYERS: One of the things 10 we wanted to do was strengthen our leadership. Its our 11 experience at the other two stations that the reactor 12 operators perform that function. We dont see the same 13 function being done exactly the same way at the Davis-Besse 14 plant. We cant see that until we get up into these 15 situations.
16 So, what weve done, thats one of the reasons we 17 have to make the moves, put Kevin in charge of Operations, 18 because hes worked in all three of our plants and knows 19 how we take, take information out, how the roles and 20 responsibilities are consistent with all of our other 21 plants. We think that will strengthen our leadership at 22 the plant.
23 MR. ALLEN: Next I would talk 24 about actions taken. First thing we did was charter a High 25 Impact Team to assess our Conduct of Operations.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
40 1 Essentially we assessed our Conduct of Operations 2 against FENOC standards and against industry standards. We 3 found some areas that we could improve in, but it 4 essentially showed me that if we consistently implemented 5 existing procedures or processes that we had in place, we 6 should have gotten a satisfactory performance.
7 Okay. We found some areas to improve, but we 8 overall had a pretty good process. Nevertheless, based on 9 the deltas that this High Impact Team found, weve taken 10 actions to form additional rigor in our operational 11 administrative controls and talked about a couple of those 12 briefly; let Kevin talk about those in more detail in his 13 presentation.
14 Also, I think in regard to this, that weve had 15 significant changes in Operations leadership with Kevin and 16 Dave here tonight presenting that change in leadership.
17 Also we chartered and implemented a new Shift 18 Manager Peer Verification Program to provide effective 19 review of our operator action and corrective actions 20 taken. I think we discussed before about our oversight 21 managers and how weve had those folks in an oversight role 22 back, fairly nonintrusively from a crew standpoint. What 23 weve done now, were using shift managers from other 24 stations, top individuals, and theyre actually providing 25 peer verification to the shift managers and senior reactor MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
41 1 operators in the control room.
2 So, were not monitoring these monitor activities 3 throughout the plant. As the shift manager now, SRO gets 4 out the tech specs to look at actions hes taken, were 5 actually requesting an independent peer verification from 6 this shift manager. So, thats helping us ensure were 7 doing a good job in meeting our standards and 8 requirements.
9 So, were utilizing those individuals as we enter 10 the next tech specs, place systems in and out of service, 11 to perform surveillances, as we perform post-maintenance 12 and post-modification testing, were getting a peer 13 verification. Its not a peer check, they dont sign on 14 our process and procedures; we are getting a peer 15 verification.
16 Also assign managers to monitor specific corrective 17 actions, so as we laid out corrective actions to take to go 18 deal with our Conduct of Operations, weve assigned 19 specific line managers with specific activities and 20 functions to go monitor and assess our effectiveness in, 21 and then to provide feedback to Kevin.
22 I wont go through all of them, but for instance, 23 are we actually getting peer check on tech specs? Is a 24 reactor operator actually authorized to do maintenance work 25 to stop. Were getting the reactor operator to sign at the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
42 1 same time the senior reactor operator signs the work 2 order.
3 Is the shift manager actually spending, is he 4 actually maximizing the amount of time he can spend in the 5 control room as opposed to being involved with other 6 activities? So, managers have those specific records to go 7 out and monitor and then document that for observation data 8 base, but yet relay to Kevin and hell have that on a 9 timely basis.
10 And weve added more detail of our operational 11 activities into the integrated station work schedule. So, 12 if you look now, youll see, you can see procedure status 13 even in our work schedule. We may have swung a little too 14 far, but youll see things like initiate mod, temperature, 15 and pressure to Attachment 18. Youll see the Reactor 16 Coolant System gets to this temperature, close this valve.
17 So, we actually have a very fine level of detail for many 18 of the operations out here.
19 Next slide.
20 MS. LIPA: Barry, you talked 21 a little about benchmarking with the other FENOC plants.
22 How do you see these actions; bringing you in line with the 23 other plants, or improving things, so that Davis-Besse is a 24 leader among the other plants; where do you see this in 25 regard to that?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
43 1 MR. ALLEN: Well, I think, I 2 think -- why dont you back up a slide, Kevin. Well go 3 back and look at the actions talked about.
4 The Impact Team that we chartered, that was made up 5 of, that was made up of folks, we had a Beaver Valley shift 6 manager, actually two Beaver Valley shift managers, a 7 Davis-Besse instructor, Perry shift manager and Davis-Besse 8 shift manager on that team. They work pretty much in 9 parallel with the Root Cause Team, so we have folks in that 10 group.
11 What we were looking for was not just how does 12 Davis-Besses Conduct of Operations with a capital C, 13 Conduct of Operations, compare with FENOC, but at the same 14 time we took, like, INPO, Institute of Nuclear Power 15 Operations, publishes a Conduct of Operations guide.
16 So, we also, when we were looking at deltas, it was 17 not just whats our delta between ourselves and Perry or 18 our delta between ourselves and Beaver Valley, but also 19 whats our delta between the industry standards in our 20 Conduct of Operations.
21 So, its a tool utilized not only to help 22 Davis-Besse see if we have some areas we could improve from 23 a FENOC standpoint, but also what can we do to align with 24 the optimum best in the industry.
25 MR. THOMAS: Did this Root MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
44 1 Cause Team and High Impact Team, did they give you any 2 specific examples of where Davis-Besse was outlayers?
3 Lets limit it to FENOC, when we compare it to Beaver 4 Valley and Perry.
5 MR. ALLEN: Yes, Scott, we 6 have about, its about a three or four page list. When I 7 look through it, one of the things that, from a Davis-Besse 8 perspective, okay, checked out was, we had not done as 9 clear a job of, say, defining our roles and 10 responsibilities as our sister units had done. Okay.
11 So, the other FENOC stations had more clear roles 12 and responsibilities for reactor operators, for instance, 13 to say, hey, that individual needs to help monitor, or that 14 individual specifically will be assigned a track action 15 statement, for a short duration on COs. The reactor 16 operator then will get the annunciator, will actually get 17 the annunciator response procedure out and go through it as 18 opposed to the unit supervisor.
19 So, they had some, I mean, we had all those actions 20 described for someone in our organization to do, for 21 instance, but we didnt have it at the same level and 22 descriptiveness as our sister stations did.
23 I mean, theres some deltas there, I think well 24 take advantage of. Now, we have Tom Veitch, who again is 25 on the Root Cause Team, who is the Operations Program MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
45 1 Manager for FENOC. So, hes taking all that information 2 back I believe the first week of February, and the 3 Operations for FENOC will get together to work on some of 4 the common Conduct of Operations. So, we would take 5 advantage of that information.
6 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
7 MR. ALLEN: In conclusion, our 8 implementation of our Operational Administrative Controls 9 during the recent heatup did not meet the standards that I 10 require.
11 The FENOC Root Cause Team essentially handed me a 12 platform that I could utilize to drive immediate 13 significant improvement throughout the Operations 14 Organization from the top down and then to anchor that 15 policies change and the Conduct Of Operations in our 16 programs and processes.
17 I believe Ive taken strong actions to strengthen 18 our barriers, which will help provide our defense of depth, 19 to help discover, get to the error and event situation.
20 The competent individual barrier, if you take a look at 21 that, I think we strengthened and formalized our roles and 22 responsibilities of both our Reactor Operators, our Senior 23 Reactor Operators and our Operations leadership to improve 24 our individual performance there. Kevin will again talk 25 about some of that in more detail.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
46 1 And although our operational administrative controls 2 were adequate, we have implemented more formal control and 3 rigor to strengthen those Conduct of Operations programs 4 and processes. And, again, Kevin is going to give you more 5 detail what weve done specifically to help shore up and 6 strengthen and broaden that wall.
7 We believe we strengthened our management barrier by 8 placing Kevin and Dave in key leadership positions. And 9 theyre in positions in which they have previously been 10 successful. So, we feel extremely good about the 11 experience that weve had in our Operations Manager and 12 Operations Superintendent.
13 Weve also strengthened our independent oversight 14 barrier, through our more intrusive Shift Manager Peer 15 Verification Program, and through our line manager 16 monitoring specific corrective actions for consistency and 17 for effectiveness, and timely feedback to both the 18 Operations Manager and myself.
19 Any questions?
20 If not, I would like to turn the presentation over 21 to the Operations Manager.
22 MR. GROBE: Barry, I just have 23 one. The words you used was Operations Peer Manager, Shift 24 Manager Peer Verifiers.
25 MR. ALLEN: Shift Manager Peer MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
47 1 Verifiers, thats correct.
2 MR. GROBE: Could you explain 3 the difference between the Operations Oversight Manager and 4 this position in a little bit more detail, and share with 5 us where these Shift Manager Peer Verifiers are coming 6 from.
7 MR. ALLEN: Yeah, Jack, I 8 would be glad to. The Operations Oversight Managers were a 9 combination of FENOC employees, typically shift managers 10 and industry folks we brought in. And we essentially put 11 those individuals in a position where we asked them, and we 12 targeted them, depending on what we were seeing at 13 different issues that we wanted to get some independent 14 looks and oversight.
15 Those individuals were tasked really with providing 16 coaching to the shift manager. Okay. So, they were 17 nonintrusive. Essentially asked them to not be disruptive 18 of controller crews. To take notes and feed us those 19 observations on observation cards. And when appropriate, 20 in quiet time or whatnot, they provide some input, coaching 21 to the shift manager and/or the unit supervisor, if the 22 shift manager was not available.
23 So, we clearly had them in a classically defined 24 oversight role, if you would like to think of it like 25 that.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
48 1 The Shift Manager Peer Verification Charter was 2 written up. And, again, thats not intended to provide 3 oversight; its actually intended to structure an informal 4 peer verification of licensed activities that our shift 5 managers and supervisor are taking.
6 So, an Operations Oversight Manager might have stood 7 back and after an evolution occurred might have made a 8 comment that said, "I think you should have gotten the tech 9 specs off the shelf and looked at them as opposed to 10 relying on memory." That might have been an observation.
11 And, we might have taken that and dealt with it, you know, 12 as we gathered that.
13 The way this is structured, when that SRO is 14 actually making a tech spec entry or exit, he actually has 15 to turn to the shift verifier and ask him for verification 16 that hes, hes basically taking correct action. So, its 17 just a much more intrusive verification of not only, Jack, 18 I think, the actions were taking, but the thought 19 processes were taking in ensuring that we do have the 20 right individuals actively engaged in that.
21 So, the things that Kevin is going to talk about, 22 were involved with our reactor operators and all of those 23 kind of folks to make sure theyre helping us be successful 24 and not relying on one individual in the control room to 25 make a call. Theyre there verifying, if its my MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
49 1 responsibility as unit supervisor, the designated reactor 2 operator to track his time clock, theyre there to verify 3 that were there to do that, log that appropriately in the 4 unit log who did that. So, theyre given a very intrusive 5 look in that respect.
6 MR. GROBE: And who are these 7 people, the peer verifiers?
8 MR. ALLEN: There will be one, 9 at this time it will be one outside FENOC individual from 10 Entergy, who has been here as an oversight manager. The 11 others, were utilizing FENOC employees, the majority of 12 which are coming from Beaver Valley and Perry stations.
13 But one of the things we did validate and we went 14 back in the Operations Oversight Manager Data we had 15 gotten. We got quite a bit. There was a mixture of FENOC 16 employees and also industry folks from the outside. We 17 saw, looking at that data, that our FENOC folks were as 18 critical or more critical on average than what we were 19 getting from the industry folks.
20 So, we got quite a bit of run time over the 21 Oversight Manager Program. Looked like we were getting 22 pretty consistent valve results from both FENOC and 23 external employees; and, therefore, we elected to let the 24 majority of the independent folks return to their home 25 stations, and were utilizing FENOC.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
50 1 MR. GROBE: And the principle 2 focus of these peer verifiers is going to be Conduct of 3 Operations and not operational decision-making; is that 4 right?
5 MR. ALLEN: Thats correct.
6 MR. GROBE: Because these guys 7 are not licensed on Davis-Besse?
8 MR. ALLEN: Thats correct.
9 And the rules of engagement are, Jack, it does not alter 10 responsibility of the licensed operators to take 11 appropriate action to protect the health and safety of the 12 public. And if there is any question about action to be 13 taken, the licensed folks on shift, its their 14 responsibility to make that decision. They do not need 15 concurrence from a shift manager, peer verifier. They are 16 merely put in there to help us improve our performance and 17 to coach us through everything we can to verify one on 18 one.
19 But they are clearly not of our shift, they have no 20 responsibility, authority, or accountability for actions of 21 the shift, other than they report to me as Plant Manager 22 and they provide me feedback, and feedback to Kevin, on a 23 daily basis.
24 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
25 MR. THOMAS: Before we leave MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
51 1 the root cause, did the Root Cause Team provide you any 2 assessment of the quality of the Corrective Actions 3 developed as a result of the issues that you, that occurred 4 during the Normal Operating Pressure Test?
5 MR. ALLEN: The Root Cause 6 Team looked at not only this event, but they did go back 7 and look at a couple other events. And what they said was, 8 some actions that you had out there looked like they might 9 have been affected, but we did not implement them yet.
10 They identified some other actions that we had not done an 11 effective job of implementing. So, we got some feedback 12 from the team, thats correct.
13 And, again, as Lew said, they gave us some feedback 14 on some actions that they felt like we implemented very 15 well.
16 MR. THOMAS: Did they come to 17 any conclusions or opinions on whether if you would have 18 carried through and implemented them correctly, did they 19 believe that, how would that have impacted your performance?
20 MR. ALLEN: Scott, I think I 21 go back to what I said earlier, if you laid out our rules 22 for Conduct of Operations, had we done a good job of 23 consistently performing in the requirements we had, of 24 holding ourselves accountable for that performance, we 25 would have been successful.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
52 1 Thats what I got from that team. Yeah, we can 2 improve our Conduct of Operations, Procedures and 3 Standards, but if youve done a good job with consistent 4 implementation, you know, you should be successful.
5 So, thats really I think more, we got that insight 6 from the Root Cause Team and again from the High Impact 7 Team. We went and looked at the deltas between us, and 8 those between FENOC.
9 MR. THOMAS: All right.
10 MR. MENDIOLA: Jacks question 11 put a thought in my mind. Specific question is, did this 12 Root Cause Team provide any operational improvement 13 specific actions to take versus these global generic 14 actions to take?
15 MR. ALLEN: Yeah, thats 16 really the thrust of Kevins presentation, Tony. Kevin 17 will go through those in some detail.
18 MR. MENDIOLA: Ill hold the 19 questions until then.
20 MS. LIPA: Any other 21 questions for Barry?
22 What were going to do now is take a ten minute 23 break and then well go to Kevin.
24 Thank you.
25 (Off the record.)
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
53 1 MS. LIPA: Okay. Go ahead, 2 with Kevin.
3 MR. OSTROWSKI: Thanks, 4 Christine.
5 Good evening everyone. My name is Kevin Ostrowski.
6 Im very excited to once again be part of FENOC 7 Operations.
8 This evening, Ill be communicating to you my 9 charter from my management, my assessment of Operations, 10 strengthen controls and accountability for strict 11 compliance in the implementation of the Conduct of 12 Operations, and the Corrective Actions Effectiveness 13 Assessment during our heatup to normal operating pressure.
14 My charter for Lew, Mark and Barry is simple and 15 its in alignment with our FENOC position. That is 16 "Safety-focused plant operation through consistent 17 implementation of a rigorous Conduct of Operations."
18 Im committed to this charter, and every day keep focused 19 on nuclear, industrial, and radiological safety.
20 My Assessment of Operations is based on three 21 tools. First, the Operations Improvement Plan 22 Assessments. These were done during the Normal Operating 23 Pressure and Temperature Tests. I also have received 24 feedback from the on-shift management observers, and Im 25 also using my daily face-to-face communications and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
54 1 observations with my Operations group staff.
2 My initial observations is that there was improved 3 performance in the most recent heatup and cooldown, based 4 upon the Operations Improvement Assessment.
5 Ive also observed improved organizational 6 leadership by the shift managers. For example, in the last 7 eleven days, Ive observed the shift manager and just 8 recently demand that a nitrogen bar be replaced on the 9 service water valve to preclude that particular system to 10 becoming inoperable.
11 I also noted another shift manager concerned with 12 the return to service and safety-related equipment that 13 demonstrate focus on the schedule for return to service of 14 that piece of equipment.
15 And also on a daily basis I hear the equipment 16 operators routinely communicate to the shift managers the 17 need for timely equipment return from Maintenance. For 18 example, this morning, an equipment operator noted that 19 there was timely maintenance required on a control room 20 drive mechanism fan and the reactor coolant system vent 21 valve.
22 I have observed that the, there has been 23 improvements in the shift turnovers, the prejob briefings 24 and log injuries, specifically of tech spec actions have 25 been taken.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
55 1 I have observed shift managers engaging the 2 organization in plant issues. Last week, we had a shift 3 engineer that asked for and received timely resolution to a 4 bolt inspection problem that was identified. And recently, 5 I heard a shift manager get timely response from the lube 6 oil system engineer and the system engineer for the motor 7 vehicle feedwater pump on a question he had with an 8 observation of the local lube oil level indication.
9 The Operations Improvement Assessment Plan also 10 identified that the operators have been adhering to the 11 plant procedures, and it was noted that their operating the 12 plants was consistent with the training.
13 There have been a noted couple of areas where there 14 are opportunities for improvements, specifically in the 15 area of Conduct of Operations. The Conduct of Operations 16 did not meet our fleet standards. In the recent example of 17 the tech spec action not completed in the time allotted, 18 we needed to improve the tracking of tech spec actions by 19 the shift manager, the unit supervisor, the reactor 20 operator, and include emphasizing this information in the 21 prejob briefings.
22 There have also been inconsistencies in the 23 ownership and accountability as evidenced in the various 24 issues identified during the Normal Operating Pressure and 25 Temperature Tests.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
56 1 MR. RULAND: Kevin?
2 MR. OSTROWSKI: Yes, sir?
3 MR. RULAND: As I understand 4 it, these initial observations were based on what you 5 described in the previous slide about the assessment tools; 6 is that, on slide 23, you discussed these observations?
7 MR. OSTROWSKI: Thats correct.
8 MR. RULAND: The previous 9 slide, you listed the assessment tools. Im inferring from 10 that, these are the tools that ultimately led to these 11 observations.
12 MR. OSTROWSKI: Thats correct, 13 Bill. The Operational Improvement Assessment Plan 14 assessment, I was able to read through and get the feedback 15 from the oversight managers and the assessors on a couple 16 of those items; namely, the heatup and cooldown 17 performance, as well as the adherence to plant procedures 18 and the consistency of the operation of the plant with the 19 training.
20 MR. RULAND: From those three 21 different assessment tools, is there any differences in how 22 those three different tools, the conclusions, the 23 conclusions or the, I should say the outputs that youre 24 getting from those tools? Do you see any discrepancies 25 where one tool might say that, just hypothetically, that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
57 1 operating the plant consistent with training, and maybe 2 another tool said something slightly different.
3 Im just trying to understand if there was any 4 differences between what those tools had been telling you?
5 MR. OSTROWSKI: Bill, I 6 cant think of any specific examples with things that would 7 have demonstrated inconsistencies between the tools.
8 I know that the two items, the oversight managers, 9 the on-shift observers, were a large input to the 10 assessment plan as well. That data has been fairly 11 consistent with regards to the observations, and its those 12 observations that help build the assessment.
13 So, I cant say there was any significant 14 differences in those assessment tools. In most of the 15 items I have on my initial observation is from my first 16 eleven days of actual personal contact with the shift crews 17 in day-to-day operation. And that is the items that I can 18 say have been encouraging to see that there have been 19 improvements in some areas. Nonetheless, there is still a 20 need for improvements in the consistency of the Conduct of 21 Ops.
22 As had been previously mentioned, the analysis of 23 the Conduct of Ops that was done between the three stations 24 and the INPO Conduct of ops, does contain and show that 25 there are numerous areas where we need to be more specific MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
58 1 and more rigorous with regards to our approach to the 2 Conduct of Operations. As well, we need to continue to 3 emphasize and drive the ownership and the accountability 4 for the operation of the station.
5 We need to be an Operations driven organization.
6 And I see in the last eleven days, Ive seen, as I pointed 7 out in the examples, things that have told me that we are 8 moving in that direction. So, it has been encouraging to 9 see the shift managers, the operators, the unit supervisors 10 and equipment operators are showing that they do have 11 ownership for the station. And Ive certainly committed to 12 them my support to help them become an Operations driven 13 organization.
14 MR. RULAND: Thank you.
15 MR. OSTROWSKI: Barry spoke about 16 the Root Cause Analysis on the tech spec action that was 17 not taken in a timely fashion. As a result of that root 18 cause analysis that Barry spoke of, we took Barrys 19 corrective actions. Today, the reactor operators co-sign 20 for the authorization of maintenance on safety-related 21 instrumentation.
22 Just yesterday, we had two reactor operators work 23 closely with the shift manager in looking at a specific 24 tech spec for a reactor protection system channel. It was 25 the reactor operators who helped the shift manager work MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
59 1 through the tech specs and actually made a very accurate 2 determination of the requirements for the tech spec. As it 3 turned out, it was not necessary to enter the tech spec 4 because we had the appropriate number of channels, but it 5 was the involvement of the reactor operators that was 6 different, certainly demonstrating ownership and teamwork 7 with the application of tech specs.
8 Today we require peer checks on technical 9 specification actions. We ask for a member of the 10 operating crew to peer check the individual reading aspects 11 and require that they actually log the name of the peer in 12 the station log.
13 We have improved turnover of tech spec actions. If 14 a tech spec action goes through a turnover, we are 15 requiring that the, that the owner of the tech spec action, 16 in this case, for example, the reactor operator, to log the 17 name of the next reactor operator that has taken the 18 turnover and the ownership for the tech spec action.
19 We have improved the log injuries for the tech 20 specs. We require more explicit details with regards to 21 the time of injury, exit, the required actions, and as I 22 said, the owner for the tech spec action and the tracking 23 for that.
24 As Barry mentioned, we also set a timing. Its 25 another reminder, another defense mechanism to alert us MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
60 1 before a tech spec action will come due. As example of a 2 tech spec action were to be a one-hour action, the timer 3 may be set for a half an hour. And, understand where 4 youre at halfway through that period so you can take 5 appropriate action before the one hour comes due.
6 Barry also mentioned the use of the peer reviews.
7 And I can very firmly answer your question, Jack, with how 8 these peer verifiers are being used. Ive had the 9 opportunity in the last three days to talk to all of the 10 licensed operating crews, where we discussed the 11 expectations of both the peer verifiers as well as the 12 operating crews.
13 I was very passionate about this particular item and 14 Ive very strongly communicated the fact that these peer 15 verifiers are peer verifiers; they are not members of the 16 line organization; and as such, the shift manager and the 17 crews have the ultimate responsibility and the ownership to 18 operate the station in accordance with the license and by 19 technical specifications.
20 The peer verifier is a peer. They will help us and 21 if they are not present, we are to operate the station in 22 accordance with our license.
23 So, that role and responsibility has been clearly 24 communicated to the operating crews. As a peer is 25 available, they can use and they should use that peer.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
61 1 Its another defense mechanism.
2 Currently, Im handling the individual 3 accountability in accordance with FENOC policies, 4 including Human Resources and the use of the Safety 5 Conscious Work Environment Review Team. I feel strongly 6 that these and other Corrective Actions support plant 7 heatup.
8 MR. THOMAS: Kevin, can I ask 9 you a question real quick?
10 MR. OSTROWSKI: Yes.
11 MR. THOMAS: Two of the 12 specific Corrective Actions out of the Root Cause, lets 13 address them one at a time. One, was the Ops Manager will 14 typically spend a portion of each day monitoring, mentoring 15 shift personnel. This will be documented by field 16 observation card.
17 MR. OSTROWSKI: Correct.
18 MR. THOMAS: I guess, would it 19 be a correct statement to say that some of the things that 20 you have pointed out in your presentation are observations 21 on your -- while you were conducting this and have been 22 documented on observation cards?
23 MR. OSTROWSKI: I didnt hear the 24 last part of the question, Scott, please repeat.
25 MR. THOMAS: Youve pointed out MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
62 1 a number of things. And, I was wondering if some of those 2 have been documented on field observation cards as part of 3 this corrective action?
4 MR. OSTROWSKI: In my specific 5 case, yes. The item I mentioned with regards to the 6 assistance by the reactor operators on the tech spec which 7 occurred yesterday, and that was documented on the field 8 observation card. As well as the briefings that I 9 conducted with the operating crews; those briefings were 10 also documented as monitoring and mentoring the shift 11 operator.
12 MR. THOMAS: Typically, as part 13 of this monitoring/mentoring shift personnel, how much of 14 that on a day-to-day basis would be control room type 15 observations?
16 MR. OSTROWSKI: For the Corrective 17 Actions include -- first of all, the shift managers spend a 18 portion, a majority of his time in the control room, his or 19 her time. The Operations Superintendent, Dave, in this 20 case.
21 MR. THOMAS: Ill get to Dave 22 in just a second.
23 MR. OSTROWSKI: Im just saying, 24 in each case, the monitoring and mentoring the shift crews 25 includes both control room time as well as field time.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
63 1 MR. THOMAS: Right.
2 MR. OSTROWSKI: I typically visit 3 the control room once or twice a day, and get into the 4 function of various levels of activity. And those are the 5 times I get to monitor the shift personnel.
6 MR. THOMAS: Okay. Dave, 7 pretty much the same question. There is a very similar 8 Corrective Action that addresses the observation. And what 9 observations, while carrying out this Corrective Action, 10 what observations have you noted and were they documented 11 on observation cards; and typically, how much of your day 12 is spent in the control room observing shift personnel?
13 MR. IMLAY: Okay. Ive been 14 spending two to three hours a day, since Ive been 15 reassigned to the job, in the control room observing the 16 operation of the crew, and spent a lot of time talking with 17 the shift manager about his role; and specifically, Ive 18 been charged with implementing several of the actions 19 directly related to the technical specification, increasing 20 the rigor formality tech spec of requirements; and I have 21 documented my observations in the Operations cards for the 22 turnovers and the control room observations.
23 MR. THOMAS: Thank you.
24 MR. MENDIOLA: Can I ask a 25 question about the computer reviews? You may have stated MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
64 1 and I apologize. How many peer reviewers or peer checkers 2 are you adding per shift?
3 MR. OSTROWSKI: We anticipate 4 there will be one peer verifier per shift.
5 MR. MENDIOLA: What, would that 6 person be licensed at any level or is it required to be 7 licensed or is it an SRO or RO?
8 MR. OSTROWSKI: The individuals 9 that have been the peer verifiers, as well -- and the 10 transition was made from oversight managers to peer 11 verifiers, typically have Senior Reactor Operator licenses 12 at Beaver Valley, Perry and the other stations.
13 MR. MENDIOLA: So, this peer 14 review will be, if you will, reviewing at the SRO level 15 with the other SROs in the plant?
16 MR. OSTROWSKI: Thats correct.
17 MR. MENDIOLA: Or the ROs in this 18 plant?
19 MR. OSTROWSKI: They have the 20 ability to be used as peer in all positions. The primary 21 individual it was intended for was the shift manager.
22 As an example, on Sunday, there was an individual 23 from the Beaver Valley Station in the control room. The 24 shift manager was performing some notifications to 25 management of a first-aid that was taking place in the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
65 1 mechanical shop.
2 During the notification process, after the shift 3 manager had made the notifications, the peer verifier in 4 this case asked the shift manager if he had made all the 5 proper notifications and what procedure he was using. The 6 shift manager responded, he was using this procedure and 7 notified this level of management. And that was the extent 8 of the peer check.
9 So, in that case, it was, again, nonintrusive. He 10 did not interfere with what the shift manager was doing, 11 but at the completion of the task, questioned him on the 12 details of what he had just done.
13 MR. MENDIOLA: Did he have any 14 peer disagreements, where the SRO shift manager said, Im 15 going to do this, and the peer disagreed; or do you have in 16 place a process to resolve that issue?
17 MR. OSTROWSKI: Im not aware of 18 any disagreements. I do know that as part of the charter 19 and also as part of my briefings and communications with 20 the shift crews, its very clear that in the event of a 21 disagreement with a peer, that the shift manager again 22 holds the license, and has the ultimate responsibility for 23 the safe operation of the station, in accordance with that 24 license.
25 So, while we do get different opinions based on how MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
66 1 the other stations do business, we have our own procedures 2 and that is what we expect our operating crews to operate 3 by.
4 MR. MENDIOLA: And, lastly, is a 5 peer reviewer work station, if you will, only in the 6 control room or is it also outside on the plant as well?
7 MR. OSTROWSKI: The peer reviewer 8 can peer check outside of the control room as the shift 9 manager also does some of his tasks outside of the control 10 room. The primary individual we have asked him to peer 11 check has been the shift manager, so that particular 12 function can be carried wherever the shift manager goes, 13 but as well, still available in the control room proper to 14 assist as a peer check for any of the other positions.
15 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay, there is one 16 last question. How long are you going to have peer 17 reviews?
18 MR. OSTROWSKI: Peer verifiers 19 will be in place through a hundred percent power.
20 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay, thank you.
21 MR. OSTROWSKI: Lastly, I feel 22 strongly that these and other Corrective Actions support 23 the plant heatup, but I also noted our Operations 24 performance during the Normal Operating Pressure Assessment 25 period will confirm our effectiveness and our readiness for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
67 1 restart.
2 In summary, I have my charter, and Ill continue to 3 perform assessments and implement Corrective Actions. I 4 recognize that I need to demonstrate our readiness in 5 Operations to safely heatup and start up and operate 6 Davis-Besse.
7 Are there any additional questions?
8 MR. GROBE: Yes. Kevin, I 9 have one or two. In your Ops Improvement Implementation 10 Action Plan, I think youre on Revision Four of that. Its 11 been updated since this most recent Root Cause. And there 12 is a number of Corrective Actions in this plan that have 13 been completed in October and November and December. There 14 are some that are listed as completion dates in January, 15 and I think there is even one or two in February.
16 These have dates on them, but not milestones. If I 17 understand you correctly, from slide 25, all actions 18 necessary to support mode change and heatup to normal 19 operating pressure have been completed. Is that what 20 youre saying?
21 MR. OSTROWSKI: No, they have not, 22 Jack.
23 MR. GROBE: Okay.
24 MR. OSTROWSKI: We still have to 25 complete some -- we still have actions to complete prior to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
68 1 heatup, and startup, and then into a hundred percent 2 power. One specific item is to include some of these 3 Corrective Actions into our, the one that specifically Im 4 thinking of is the one I need to complete, where our formal 5 documentation of the instruction to the Superintendent, the 6 Op Superintendent, Dave, needs to be documented. So, while 7 we verbalize it, I need to document that on a piece of 8 paper and put it in, in part of our Performance Management 9 System before I can close out that specific Corrective 10 Action.
11 There are other Corrective Actions that are 12 scheduled right now prior to the plant startup, and those 13 have yet to be completed. As an example of one of those, 14 we are working towards scheduling our operating crews to a 15 visit to the Perry station or to the Beaver Valley station 16 in order to work shoulder to shoulder with one of the two 17 operating plants. We have to work through the complexities 18 of the shift crew schedules and look for opportunities to 19 get them there. Thats one example of something we want to 20 complete before we take the reactor critical.
21 MR. GROBE: Thank you. It 22 would be helpful to me if you could at some time, Ill be 23 on the sight tomorrow also, to annotate the Ops 24 Implementation Action Plan for which actions are required 25 prior to Mode 2. That would be of interest to me, because MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
69 1 all it has in here is dates and its difficult to tell what 2 your activities are required prior to Mode 2, what youre 3 holding yourself accountable to.
4 Dave, on slide 23, Kevin provided a number of 5 observations and a number of those were positive 6 observations since you and he have taken over your new 7 roles in the Operations organization. The last bulletin on 8 slide 23 were some statements regarding areas where Conduct 9 of Operations did not meet expectations.
10 I was wondering if you could share with us a couple 11 of observations since youve taken over as Operations 12 Superintendent areas where youve observed activities that 13 were not consistent with your expectations and what actions 14 you took in response to them.
15 MR. IMLAY: Okay. Again, Ive 16 been working closely with the shift managers to ensure that 17 they understand their roles, that theyre, theyll coach to 18 uphold and implement all of their tasks in a manner to 19 support safe and event-free operation.
20 Weve had a shift manager meeting and I have weekly 21 shift manager phone calls, where I go through and discuss 22 issues that they have that might be affecting performance 23 or just a review on expectations.
24 There was a night when the crew was working to 25 restore Containment Spray Pump 2. And the task was MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
70 1 completed at around 2100 hours0.0243 days <br />0.583 hours <br />0.00347 weeks <br />7.9905e-4 months <br />. And we expected and I 2 expected that the crew would promptly receive the work 3 orders from the Maintenance organization. And they would 4 have a debrief from the field technicians, the operator and 5 engineer who were at the Containment Spray Pump observing 6 the maintenance test to ensure all issues were identified.
7 Well, it was, come to find out, that there was one 8 transmitted, not two, to the operators in a timely manner, 9 so several hours had passed. So, to get to the point, when 10 I came in on days and ended up finding out what the facts 11 were, I coached the shift manager on what the expectations 12 would be.
13 We had a good discussion to agree on the facts 14 associated with the events that transpired that night, and 15 then offered examples of things to do in the future. One 16 thing that has been very effective for me is to bring on 17 the support that you need, have a clear agreement on the 18 three-part communication on what that is youre requesting, 19 clear ownership and due date on when its going to be 20 done.
21 So, I offered the shift manager some expectations 22 for performance in the future, and well continue to 23 monitor and give the shift manager feedback, both positive 24 and further opportunities to improve.
25 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Dave.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
71 1 MR. IMLAY: Do you have 2 any questions about that one anecdotal example?
3 MR. GROBE: No.
4 MR. IMLAY: There are, again, 5 I can go on, maybe not in such specific detail, but again, 6 my role has been to manage and implement the change as 7 weve gone through and raised the rigor and formality of 8 our tech spec implementation. So, Ive been spending a lot 9 of time with the crews. Again, the craft, the words, to 10 change words into the expectation documents that theyre 11 going to read and understand what that looks like, you just 12 cant do that and mail it in; you have to spend time with 13 the crews, talking with them, coaching them as they go 14 through it, sitting down looking at log entries after and 15 provide them feedback.
16 As we started doing the logging requirements that 17 Kevin has discussed in detail, the coaching was necessary 18 to ensure that the peer check was received before you 19 removed a tech spec or license requirement equipment from 20 service. If a piece of equipment is in standby, people 21 performance and function, we want the peer check before the 22 crew takes that action to remove equipment from service.
23 And there was several examples of where the log 24 entry ties might not indicate that the peer check was done 25 prior to that action. So, I coached several operators in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
72 1 that regard.
2 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thank you.
3 MR. IMLAY: My pleasure.
4 MS. LIPA: Any other 5 questions?
6 MR. MYERS: Okay. Let me take 7 a few moments to close. Now, I was asked several questions 8 during the break, maybe this will clear it up.
9 We hope, we will continue to implement our current 10 Return to Service Plan and Operations Improvement Plan.
11 We improved our heatup assessment today, and 12 Revision 4 of our Operations Improvement Plan, which 13 implements the actions, the actions taken since Restart 14 Readiness Review Inspection, and the actions that were 15 taken due to our own internal assessments.
16 In general today, we talked about material 17 condition. Material condition of our plant is good. The 18 Reactor Coolant System is tight. Our equipment is 19 generally operating very well, considering a two-year 20 extended shutdown. In fact, when we heat the plant up, we 21 did detailed calculations of our Reactor Coolant System 22 leak rates and our calculations indicate zero leak rates, 23 which indicates a very tight Reactor Coolant System.
24 We continue to demonstrate improvements in our 25 implementation, complex evolutions. A complex evolution is MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
73 1 starting a major piece of equipment, heating the plant up, 2 shutting the plant down, return, you know, shut the plant 3 down, or making a reactivity change or something like that, 4 some surveillance test. Those are all complex evolutions.
5 We continue to show good performance in those areas.
6 We have taken strong actions to validate and 7 implement our Conduct of Operations, went step-by-step 8 through each and every part of it. We are receiving good 9 feedback and demonstrating improvement in prejob briefs, 10 shift turnover and procedure usage. In fact, were seeing 11 very good procedure usage at the present time.
12 Our overall assessment of the recent heatup and 13 cooldown was satisfactory. What does that mean?
14 Perfection? No. We demonstrated three issues tonight that 15 we want to discuss. That means performance was acceptable 16 with a few criteria requiring some management attention.
17 Thats what were doing; giving those criteria management 18 attention.
19 Next slide, please.
20 We have developed at FENOC some NOP assessment 21 criteria. We believe that this, this criteria is good and 22 would help us in requesting restart. Let me share some of 23 the criteria with you.
24 No inadvertent -- the first four things: No 25 inadvertent safety system actuations, no significant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
74 1 events, no integrated plant operating procedure content 2 errors, no unplanned entry into technical specifications.
3 Attached to that are Human Performance issues, so we 4 would not expect to see Human Performance issues in those 5 areas.
6 Consistent implementation of Conduct of Operations, 7 actions taken by management that show an improving trend.
8 That, we would say, thats where we go back and look at a 9 corrective action were taking and see if they appear to be 10 effective.
11 The work implementation schedule adherence is at 90 12 percent or above. And then we do what we call a risk 13 profile. That is how we operate the plant within, and 14 moving the equipment within the risk assumed by the design, 15 and we would expect that to match the scheduled adherence.
16 Our approach at FENOC we feel is strong and has 17 strong safety focus and demonstrates our commitment to 18 conservative operations and conservative return to service 19 at our plant.
20 Our ratings that satisfy these criteria, we believe 21 will result in a successful restart. We have. That 22 doesnt mean every specific piece of criteria has to be 23 perfect, but well rate our overall performance prior to 24 requesting restart from the NRC.
25 Thank you very much.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
75 1 MR. THOMAS: Lew, can I ask you 2 a question? Along with these Normal Operating Pressure 3 Assessment Criteria, there is, Ill call it, a grading 4 scale that uses colors; green, white, yellow and red. I 5 would just be curious how using that grading scale, how you 6 would assess your last heatup?
7 MR. MYERS: The heatup we 8 assessed as white, which is satisfactory. And the 9 definition I gave during my presentation was performance is 10 acceptable with a few criteria requiring management 11 attention. Thats exactly the definition I use for 12 satisfactory.
13 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
14 MR. HOPKINS: I have a specific 15 question, Lew. And someone else may. The definition of a 16 significant event for this assessment criteria.
17 If you have all control rods inserted and receive an 18 unplanned scram signal, such that no control rod scrams 19 because its already at the bottom, would that qualify as a 20 significant event?
21 MR. MYERS: I would have to 22 sit here and go through that. The way we would evaluate a 23 significant event would be an event that we used our 24 Corrective Action Program in and we define as significant 25 adverse to quality. If it fits that criteria once we went MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
76 1 through it, it would be yes. I cant sit here and go 2 through that.
3 MR. HOPKINS: You go through 4 that criteria, thats acceptable.
5 Along the same line, just a detail and question 6 though. Risk profile that matches the schedule. If youre 7 doing diesel generator surveillance, plant surveillance, 8 and you get a loss of all offsite power, would that 9 automatically cause you a problem with the risk profile or 10 would it be a matter of how fast you could return your 11 diesel generators?
12 MR. MYERS: What that would 13 do, what we mean by that, every time we take a safety 14 related piece of equipment out, we take it out in specific 15 order. We would not take, for instance, probably an Aux.
16 feed pump probably the same time as a high head safety 17 injection pump because theyre both designed to run decay 18 heat.
19 That being said, we take a HPI pump for routine 20 maintenance, we would assume we take it out at a certain 21 time, put it back in. If we assume that its going to be 22 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, or be out 7 days, that would not match up with 23 the profile. I would say that would be a failure.
24 MR. HOPKINS: Okay. Thank you.
25 MR. RULAND: Lew, you said MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
77 1 that, that youre going to rate yourself against these 2 criteria before you ask, come, approach the NRC. Now, is 3 that for, to schedule the restart meeting or ask our 4 permission to restart, Restart Assessment Team showing back 5 up?
6 MR. MYERS: We would come up 7 and start, you know, we think the heatup and cooldown that 8 we performed, we rated satisfactory, white. Now, that 9 being said, we have to go do our own assessment before we 10 come to you and ask you to, if you want to bring the RRATI 11 team back in. Thats your choice. If you didnt want to 12 bring them back in, I wouldnt complain to you about it.
13 If I come to you and tell you were ready, we would 14 tell you, you could bring the RRATI Team back in or you can 15 tell us to start up, whatever you want to do.
16 MR. RULAND: So, let me ask 17 this question again. So, it sounds like to me, if Im 18 hearing you right, that youre going to rate yourself 19 against this criteria --
20 MR. MYERS: Yes, sir.
21 MR. RULAND: -- at some stage.
22 And based on your assessment, if youre satisfied that 23 youve made, that youve passed this criteria.
24 MR. MYERS: Yes, sir.
25 MR. RULAND: Youve met the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
78 1 acceptance criteria, youre then going to say, youre going 2 to ask us to send our inspectors back on site, and well do 3 the inspection; thats kind of the way you see it?
4 MR. MYERS: Yes, sir. If you 5 dont want to do that, thats okay.
6 MR. RULAND: No. I appreciate 7 your -- never mind. (laughter) 8 MR. THOMAS: Back to the 9 grading. Are you through, Bill?
10 MR. RULAND: For now, yes.
11 MR. THOMAS: Okay. One of 12 your, as part of this grading scale, this green, white, 13 yellow, red; one of the criteria, if you will, is greater 14 than one unacceptable criteria means the overall rating 15 could be no better than yellow.
16 I was curious, one of the criteria is consistent 17 implementation of Conduct of Operations, so your assessment 18 is that that was effectively implemented during the last 19 NOP?
20 MR. MYERS: Overall, we would 21 say after we got the NOP/NOT, that we had some issues.
22 But, our heatup and cooldown we rated overall satisfactory, 23 yes.
24 The cooldown was error-free. The heatup, we did 25 have one issue in the heatup, but we rated those two as MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
79 1 white. Then when we stabilized that, well look at an 2 assessment period there too.
3 And, we did add some new criteria also. The 4 criteria I just gave you is what were going to use going 5 forward. Its not the same criteria we used for the recent 6 session. We added some organizational criteria; is that 7 right?
8 MR. BEZILLA: Yes, thats 9 right.
10 Scott, I was just helping Lew there. That specific 11 consistent implementation of Conduct of Ops, thats new for 12 moving forward, okay, that was not part of what we had had 13 set up as our criteria for the most recent heatup and then 14 subsequent cooldown that weve conducted.
15 MR. THOMAS: Well, the original 16 criteria was just go/no go type of criteria. These had 17 this grading scale, so Im just trying to understand how 18 this factors in, trying to match the criteria to whats 19 acceptable performance by the grading scale.
20 MR. MYERS: We added this 21 particular one, additional criteria, because of some of the 22 assessments we did. So, we want to make sure were 23 focusing, down at the bottom weve added additional 24 criteria. I havent gone back to do a detail assessment, 25 but based on the assessments we performed, we would say MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
80 1 satisfactory heatup and cooldown.
2 Thats all I can say.
3 MR. THOMAS: So, just one more 4 question. So, acceptable performance for requesting 5 restart would be yellow or greater; yellow, white, green?
6 MR. MYERS: We would not, we 7 rated ourselves yellow, we would take some action and 8 validate the effectiveness of that action before we came to 9 you for restart. So, we may rate ourselves as yellow, but 10 we would take some actions and look at the effectiveness of 11 that action before, before we came to you all for restart.
12 MR. THOMAS: Likewise for 13 white, would that be an acceptable threshold to --
14 MR. MYERS: White would be an 15 acceptable threshold, but we still may take some action.
16 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
17 MR. RULAND: Lew, Im 18 encouraged by this assessment criteria. While we havent 19 looked at this in great detail, Im encouraged that this 20 sounds about right for the type of things you are looking 21 for yourself -- looking at yourself about. Thats a 22 sense.
23 You know, were not satisfied yet, because frankly, 24 we dont know how this is going to turn out.
25 MR. MYERS: Right.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
81 1 MR. RULAND: And, of course, 2 Scott and his team, the inspectors, you know, other 3 inspectors are going to come down and test you on this, on 4 how youre doing in this area, but Im encouraged by this.
5 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
6 MS. LIPA: Okay, any other 7 questions?
8 MR. GROBE: Just a couple of 9 observations. The last 30 days have been interesting 30 10 days.
11 MR. MYERS: Yes.
12 MR. GROBE: The Restart 13 Readiness Assessment Team performed an inspection. On the 14 19th of December, they had a public exit and provided a 15 number of observations that indicated that there were some 16 performance issues. You acknowledged that those issues 17 existed and prepared to respond to them.
18 Then, we had a meeting late December that presented 19 your progress in those areas. Also late in December, Lew, 20 you and Mark decided that some performance issues continued 21 and you suspended progress in the Operations activities, 22 you conducted a thorough Root Cause Assessment. I believe 23 that Root Cause Report is now issued; is that correct?
24 MR. MYERS: Thats correct.
25 MR. GROBE: Good. You brought MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
82 1 in good people to do that assessment, and they drew some 2 conclusions that were insightful. One of them was, had the 3 Corrective Actions from the Corrective Significance 4 Assessment in October been more thoroughly implemented, 5 that these issues shouldnt have occurred.
6 Youve begun to implement some actions and Kevin and 7 Dave are part of that. It was good to hear from them 8 tonight.
9 The discussion tonight I think was very good. I 10 want to go back to a couple of points though. One was the 11 discussion focused very heavily on technical specification, 12 limiting conditions for operation and performance. And 13 while thats important, thats the latest greatest 14 example. It is gratifying to hear Daves comments that 15 certainly your improvement actions are not limited to that 16 area. I appreciate your example regarding the interface 17 between Maintenance and Operations and their expectations.
18 You have a number of criteria here on page, slide 19 27, and those are all good criteria. In my mind, the most 20 important one is the fifth one; thats consistent 21 implementation of Conduct of Operations.
22 MR. MYERS: Mine too.
23 MR. GROBE: Careful, 24 deliberative, safety-focused Conduct of Operations day in 25 and day out. Thats a precursor to prevent all of these MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
83 1 other conditions. And, a specific hit on any one of these 2 may or may not be important. Whats important is why. And 3 I heard a number of the folks here at the table asking why, 4 why did these things happen.
5 Thats a question that were going to be continuing 6 to ask ourselves as we observe activities, as to why this 7 activity is going on and why this activity was going right 8 and why this activity may not be going right, as we 9 continue to do our inspections. Thats the key. Its not 10 whether or not any of these individual criteria are green, 11 white, yellow or red. I dont want to diminish the 12 importance of the criteria in doing these assessments, but 13 its the, its whats beneath the performance that is going 14 to be the telling factor as to whether or not these 15 corrective actions are going to last into the future.
16 Thats the challenge that this panel faces. Its 17 not only, is your Operations during the five days that 18 youre going to be observing activities or during the five 19 days that RRATI Team will be observing activities, but 20 whether or not your performance will be continuing at a 21 consistent level in the future. So, thats our restart 22 criteria.
23 The bottom line and I think you know me, Lew, is 24 were all born and raised in Missouri. So, our goal is you 25 need to show me. And well be inspecting with the Resident MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
84 1 Inspector Staff augmented with the folks from around the 2 country.
3 Anything else, Christine?
4 MS. LIPA: No.
5 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
6 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
7 MS. LIPA: Okay. This 8 concludes the business portion of this meeting.
9 Before we take a break, I wanted to address a couple 10 of questions that had come up during the break. On our 11 earlier slides we talked about a potential next public 12 meeting in March. We didnt address February. There is no 13 February meeting set yet. We may still meet in February, 14 but were holding a meeting late in January, so well be 15 sure to give the proper ten days notice, but thats really 16 all I can say at that point.
17 Then, the second question was, we had planned to 18 provide some results of our follow-up to the 19 Management/Human Performance Phase 3 tonight. They were on 20 site last week and theyre not completed yet. So, we will 21 be providing the results of that inspection at a later 22 public meeting.
23 So, that answers a couple questions we had. What 24 well do now is take a ten minute break and come back for 25 public questions and comments.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
85 1 MR. GROBE: I hope nobody 2 took that literally. I dont know if any of us were born 3 or raised in Missouri. (laughter) 4 (Off the record.)
5 MS. LIPA: Okay, we would 6 like to invite anybody who has a comment or question for 7 the NRC to come up. And as is our usual custom we would 8 like to start with local members of the public first. So, 9 just come up and sign in and state your name for the 10 transcriber. And let us know whats on your mind.
11 MS. WHARRY: Good evening, 12 ladies and gentlemen. My name is Elizabeth Wharry, and I 13 live in Carroll Township. I am pro nuclear and I have been 14 since I was in short pants. I am retired. I am a domestic 15 goddess. My husband happens to work at Davis-Besse.
16 What I have to say this evening is purely 17 rhetorical, but I am here to tell you that I have absolute 18 confidence in the employees being able to bring this plant 19 on-line. I have maintained my position that they are 20 intelligent, well-educated individuals; and Ill still say 21 that to this very day. But let me tell you the human side 22 of being a spouse of a Davis-Besse employee.
23 Clara at the NRC made a comment as I walked in that 24 I was living with a stranger. In some ways, yes, thats 25 very true, but fortunately, we have a strong enough MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
86 1 marriage where we are able to rely on each other, turn to 2 each other, and support one another.
3 During the time that Davis-Besse has shut down, I 4 have been a single married parent. And in September of 5 2002, we had a new baby come into our home. My toddler was 6 34 months old.
7 In the last two years, I have put up with having our 8 lives turned topsy-turvy. I wont go into the specific 9 details, but suffice it to say that there are times that I 10 have to remember that I am dealing with human beings and 11 that we all make mistakes. And if today is a line that 12 youre going to make mistakes, youre going to be 13 forgiven.
14 In part, I hold the NRC responsible for some of the 15 insanity as far as the working hours go at Davis-Besse.
16 And if youll excuse the absolute total crassness of this 17 expression, I am here to tell you ladies and gentlemen to 18 stop picking the fly shit out of black pepper when it comes 19 to Davis-Besse, and understand that these are fine, 20 intelligent, capable human beings.
21 Thank you.
22 MS. LIPA: Thank you for 23 your comment.
24 MR. KOEBEL: Good evening. My 25 name is Carl Koebel, Ottawa County Commissioner. And I MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
87 1 know that I speak on behalf of my cohorts, John Papcun and 2 Steve Arndt, when I ask to be put in the record that we 3 have observed that management through their own 4 self-assessment has recognized their weaknesses and have 5 taken the appropriate action to correct it.
6 We applaud them in their efforts to seek perfection 7 before startup. We know, we believe in the ability of the 8 employees, the leadership of management, the dedication and 9 commitment of ownership, and the support of the NRC 10 overview committee, that by working together, Davis-Besse 11 will be the most effectively operated and safely operated 12 nuclear power plant in the nation, and we look forward to 13 its restarting. Thank you.
14 MS. LIPA: Thank you, Carl.
15 MR. GROBE: I think its 16 appropriate to recognize that Carl was just recently 17 elected President of the Ottawa County Board of 18 Commissioners. So, those of you that live in Ottawa County 19 congratulate him when you get a chance.
20 MS. LIPA: Anybody else have 21 any comments or questions from the local community? And, 22 now well go to others.
23 MR. RIDZON: Paul Ridzon, 24 McDonald Investments. I came here looking for some 25 feedback on what you had seen as far as Human Performance, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
88 1 and youve indicated that youre not going to comment on 2 that tonight. Just wondering if there is some specific 3 reason and the time frame for when we could get some 4 comments from those inspections.
5 MS. LIPA: Well, I mentioned 6 earlier that the Management and Human Performance Phase 3 7 Follow-up Inspection, they were on site last week; and they 8 accomplished most of the activities that they had on their 9 inspection plan, but they were not able to complete all of 10 those activities. So, weve decided it is best to wait 11 until theyre done before we talk about their results 12 publicly. So, thats really not much more to it than 13 that.
14 Right now, were looking at the next public meeting, 15 which I dont have a date for you today, unfortunately, but 16 it shouldnt be too long. So, the next public meeting will 17 be when were likely be talking about those results, 18 provided theyre completed with their inspections by then.
19 MR. RIDZON: Is that the late 20 January meeting?
21 MS. LIPA: No, today is the 22 late January meeting I was talking about. What I was 23 saying earlier, since were already late in January, thats 24 why we didnt have a date picked in February yet.
25 MR. RIDZON: Thank you.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
89 1 MS. LUEKE: My name is Donna 2 Lueke and Im a local citizen.
3 There has been some speculation recently that 4 Davis-Besse may be sold, or that FirstEnergy might merge; 5 at least in print anyway. What would happen to this 6 process if either of these things would happen? I know 7 you said that FirstEnergy is the Licensee and the only 8 Licensee for Davis-Besse. So, what, what would happen if a 9 new owner?
10 MS. LIPA: Im just 11 struggling to make sure I know the best answer right now.
12 We have a process for license transfers, if it would come 13 to that, but the 0350 Process would continue to do what 14 were doing with our Restart Checklist and our inspections 15 and our activities. So, I think that that would go through 16 its process and we would continue on our process. I cant 17 think of anything right now that would affect one or the 18 other.
19 MS. LUEKE: So, a license 20 transfer doesnt necessarily mean relicensing; is the only 21 procedure just like a paper transfer or what?
22 MR. RULAND: The NRC has a 23 process that we use for license transfers. And a number, 24 as youre well aware, a number of plants, much more, 25 increasingly greater frequency of, in the last two years, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
90 1 plants have changed ownership. The plants operate the day 2 before, if they happen to be operating. If theyre 3 operating the day before the license is transferred, they 4 continue to operate after the license is transferred.
5 So, its, the 0350 Process is focused on operational 6 safety. We have separate folks that worry about the, the 7 financial aspects of it. We would still have to make sure 8 that the buying entity would be qualified, but we have a 9 separate, you know, branch of folks to do that review, but 10 for me personally, we would continue to observe operational 11 safety and I dont think there would be a significant 12 change in what were doing.
13 MR. LUEKE: Okay. Just two 14 more questions.
15 MR. GROBE: Donna, before you 16 go on, I think its important to make it clear that we have 17 not heard anything about any license transfer activities or 18 indications of that whatsoever.
19 MS. LUEKE: I was just curious 20 is all what would happen.
21 MR. GROBE: Would you move the 22 microphone closer.
23 MS. LUEKE: Closer? Okay.
24 We hear a lot about the stress that everyone has 25 been under, people with Davis-Besse, and I would imagine MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
91 1 that the NRC personnel arent immune to that either. And, 2 in my experience, in corporate America, you can only 3 undergo stress of long hours for so long before it affects 4 performance.
5 Has this, I havent heard FirstEnergy address that; 6 and I wondered if, if you are looking at that when youre 7 looking at FirstEnergys personnel?
8 MS. LIPA: Well, I know that 9 part of our Management and Human Performance Inspections 10 look at the whole picture, as far as what all the Root 11 Causes were and what the Corrective Actions were. And I 12 know that as part of our inspections, we look to see if 13 there are operational problems; and if there is one, what 14 the causes were. And, as far as I know, we dont have any 15 examples where we see that there have been performance 16 problems as a result of this stress that youre referring 17 to.
18 MS. LUEKE: It seems that 19 there have been several problems with the control room 20 operators. Do you think that is all contributing?
21 MS. LIPA: Well, we looked 22 for the operational performance problems that have been 23 discussed. Some of those, the Licensees completed their 24 Root Cause, and weve taken a look at their Root Cause 25 Assessment. There were a couple of recent ones. Im not MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
92 1 sure if youve had a chance to thoroughly look at their 2 Root Cause to understand what all the contributors were.
3 We were talking about why do those things happen; 4 again, why, why, why. But based on what we have seen so 5 far, we havent seen that stress was a contributor to any 6 of the performance problems weve been discussing.
7 MS. LUEKE: And the last we 8 heard that the degraded reactor head was still being 9 studied. Is that process still going on? Has it been 10 completed?
11 MS. LIPA: I dont have a 12 good status on the, where that project is at.
13 MR. GROBE: The only 14 information I could give you is probably four to eight 15 weeks old, shortly after some information showed up in the 16 newspapers regarding some preliminary conclusions. I know 17 that there was, a decision made to do some additional 18 testing and some additional analysis of data before any 19 conclusions could be drawn on the research results. So, I 20 dont have any further information beyond that.
21 MS. LUEKE: Are you in the 22 loop on that? Does that come to you automatically, those 23 results, or how does that process work?
24 MR. GROBE: The ongoing 25 research into cladding behavior is really unrelated to what MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
93 1 were doing here, in a sense that the purpose of that 2 research is to better understand metal performance under 3 those conditions for future use. It really doesnt have 4 anything to do with Davis-Besse. Its related to 5 Davis-Besse in the sense that Davis-Besse provided an entry 6 opportunity to think about those kinds of questions, but 7 its not critical to the activities that the panel, the 8 panel stays closely connected with, simply because the 9 potential for public interest and in the issues that we 10 stay closely connected, because were so closely connected 11 with you.
12 The second activity thats ongoing in research is 13 whats called an accident sequence precursor analysis; and 14 thats a broad risk analysis, much more broad than the type 15 of risk analysis that we do as part of our inspection 16 finding assessment. We call this a significance 17 determination process.
18 The accident sequence precursor, again, is related 19 to future-looking activities and whether or not there is an 20 opportunity to learn something about operating performance 21 or our regulatory activities, not necessarily related to 22 the plant itself.
23 So, again, we maintain awareness of those 24 activities. Both of those are looking forward and theyre 25 research activities that are focused on what can be learned MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
94 1 and applied elsewhere across the board at nuclear power 2 plants, across the board with respect to how we do our 3 regulatory oversight programs.
4 MS. LUEKE: When the used 5 reactor head was removed, there was also a lot of residue 6 from the Boron. I dont know if you call it Boron powder, 7 whatever it is. What happened to that? Is there like a 8 giant shop vac they sucked it up with, or is that, is it 9 radioactive, and how was that disposed of?
10 MS. LIPA: Youre talking 11 about the boric acid in the Containment Building?
12 MS. LUEKE: I would imagine it 13 was in Containment. It was shown in photographs and they, 14 the filters were catching part of that.
15 MS. LIPA: I dont know 16 specifically. The Licensee has a normal radioactive waste 17 process that they use. I know weve had inspectors look at 18 the radioactive waste process. I dont know if it was 19 specific to how they handled the boric acid, but they would 20 have a process for what to do with that. As far as I know, 21 they followed that process and disposed of it properly if 22 thats what they did.
23 MS. LUEKE: I was just curious 24 because I assume that is something that is relatively 25 uncommon that you hadnt seen in other plants before, so I MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
95 1 didnt know if there was a specific process for that.
2 MS. LIPA: No, it wouldnt be 3 anything different than any other, than a utility would do 4 to dispose of things they dont need. So, it would be 5 nothing special.
6 MS. LUEKE: Okay, thank you.
7 MR. GROBE: We have to be a 8 little careful. Ive not thought of that question. Its 9 an interesting question. Im not sure if the RAD Waste 10 Manager is here, but low level radioactive boric acid might 11 be considered mixed waste, so it might require special 12 handling.
13 Its not something we inspected per se, but its an 14 interesting question. If you want us to get back to you, 15 we can do some looking into that, and get back to you 16 separately.
17 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, I would 18 appreciate that. Thank you.
19 MR. GROBE: Yeah, Bill asked 20 me to define what mixed waste is. There is different 21 requirements for different types of hazardous materials.
22 Radioactive material is a certain type of hazardous 23 material. Medical wastes are a different kind of 24 harzardous material. Chemical wastes are a different 25 kind.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
96 1 And, there is occasionally a situation where you 2 have a type of waste that crosses boundaries. Might be, 3 for example, a medical waste thats radioactive; or an acid 4 or strong base that is a certain type of chemical waste 5 thats radioactive; and thats whats referred to as a 6 mixed waste. It has different handling requirements.
7 So, its an interesting question. I hadnt thought 8 of that one before. Thank you.
9 MR. WHITCOMB: Good evening. My 10 name is Howard Whitcomb, and Im a resident of Ottawa 11 County. I have some prepared comments, a couple of 12 questions that I formed tonight from what I heard from the 13 presentation from FirstEnergy.
14 The reason we are all here at these public meetings 15 is because of FirstEnergys failure to implement existing 16 site procedures. The failure to implement the Boric Acid 17 Monitoring Program resulted in the hole in the reactor 18 vessel head. Arguably, I guess it could have been debated 19 whether that was a significant procedure that was being 20 violated at the time, but it did result in a hole in the 21 reactor vessel head; and were here, tonight, 23 months 22 after its discovery, discussing it.
23 Im concerned when I hear the minimization of 24 management, "Well, okay, its a failure to follow up or 25 implement procedures, but weve corrected it." Well, 23 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
97 1 months have passed and we shouldnt be failing to implement 2 procedures.
3 I also challenge the validity of using nonlicensed 4 operators as peer reviewers, peer verifiers, whatever the 5 term is, in assessing the performance of your licensed 6 operators at Davis-Besse. Even as a resource, I question 7 their value.
8 With respect to the improved safety culture weve 9 heard in the last several meetings that FirstEnergy claims 10 has occurred, I offer the following:
11 FirstEnergy is logging political support of its 12 restart efforts through the endorsements of individual 13 politicians as well as township committees. FirstEnergy 14 does so by inflating its perceived contribution to the 15 local economy, rather than its ability to meet or exceed 16 the specific safety mandates which protect the health, 17 safety, and welfare of the public at large.
18 While the local involvement of our community 19 leadership is noteworthy, we must exercise caution and 20 avoid a blind acceptance that Davis-Besse is once again 21 safe simply because our community leaders say so.
22 A production over safety mentality still persists 23 within FirstEnergy management as exemplified through 24 FirstEnergys recent promises to Wall Street analysts that 25 it is ready to restart the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
98 1 Station. Said promises are predicated upon unrealistic as 2 well as unapproved schedules.
3 Additionally, the recently highlighted employee 4 survey results indicate that four critical departments, 5 that is Operations, Maintenance, Plant Engineering, and 6 Quality Assurance still present serious doubt regarding the 7 effectiveness of the touted improvements in safety culture 8 at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.
9 Intimidation of the work force through threats by 10 senior management staff, including the Chief Operating 11 Officer, have recently occurred. Additionally, recent 12 staffing changes involve the same persons who held similar 13 positions of authority during the events immediately prior 14 to the discovery of the hole in the reactor vessel head.
15 The Quality Assurance Department is still in the 16 mode of explaining away identified anomalies, rather than 17 establishing and maintaining a strong independent position 18 which reflects an achievement of higher standards of 19 performance.
20 During the meeting on December 29th, 2003, the Vice 21 President of Oversight reported that the plant Engineering 22 staff did not have confidence in the work schedule because 23 management continued to practice purging or deferring a 24 significant number of preventative maintenance activities 25 from the schedule.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
99 1 The deliberate and conscious refusal to perform 2 maintenance is the reason why a hole in the reactor vessel 3 head occurred. It remains obvious to even the casual 4 observer that FirstEnergys superficial maintenance 5 practices formally identified in 1985 continue to this 6 day.
7 The recent Auxiliary Feedwater System problems are 8 the most recent example. Problems with the Auxiliary 9 Feedwater System have occurred and repeated themselves in 10 1985, 1987, 1994, and last week.
11 The time to properly re-evaluate and reshape 12 FirstEnergys maintenance practices is long overdue. Most 13 importantly, the Quality Assurance Department has failed to 14 recognize the continuing maintenance problems and has even 15 recommended to the NRC that the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power 16 Station is ready to support restart.
17 FirstEnergy has failed to identify the establishment 18 of any meaningful improvements to its corrective or 19 preventative maintenance program over the last 23 months.
20 As previously reported, by myself, at prior meetings, of 21 NRCs findings contained Harold Dentons August 14, 1985, 22 letter to the Toledo Edison Company; formally identified 23 serious deficiencies in Maintenances practices at the 24 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.
25 Mr. Denton generally characterized the longstanding MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
100 1 maintenance practices as being superficial. The same 2 principles apply to FirstEnergys deliberate refusal to 3 inspect and clean the reactor vessel head of boric acid 4 prior to its discovery of a pineapple size hole in the 5 reactor vessel head in March of 2002.
6 With respect to its deficient maintenance practices, 7 FirstEnergy has failed to identify any specific safeguards 8 that have been established and implemented to prevent a 9 relapse of old habits that put off until tomorrow what 10 could be done today.
11 FirstEnergy has simply failed to identify those 12 corporate management mechanisms that have been changed and 13 improved. Further FirstEnergy has additionally failed to 14 provide demonstrative evidence that any problematic changes 15 that have resulted in any quantifiable improvements as it 16 relates to the overall status of the material condition of 17 all plant equipment.
18 Finally, the public has been apprised of the NRCs 19 home progress regarding the identified nuclear regulatory 20 failures as contained in the Lessons Learned Task Force 21 Report issued in October 2002.
22 There still exists a public perception that the root 23 causes underlying the weaknesses of the NRC actions which 24 in effect contributed to the creation of a hole in the 25 reactor vessel head have not yet been satisfactorily MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
101 1 corrected to a degree that adequate assurance now exists 2 that a breakdown in the regulatory process does not recur 3 in the future.
4 While it appears that the NRC has recently taken a 5 hard-line stand by openly challenging the true 6 effectiveness of FirstEnergys improved safety culture 7 claims, such position is very late in coming. An 8 understanding of the lack of safety culture problems at the 9 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station has been known to the NRC 10 for some time. It is now questionable whether the NRC 11 truly understands the depth and breadth of this 12 historically elusive and recurring issue.
13 To the NRC, walk through the plant and make note of 14 how many deficiency tags which are greater than two years 15 old still exist on equipment. Determine why the 16 philosophy of only supporting the accomplishment of work 17 necessary to support the restart of the plant still exists 18 today.
19 Examine the unusually high number of rework 20 activities performed by the Maintenance Department over the 21 last two years. Examine the number of deferred and/or 22 delayed preventative and predicted maintenance activities 23 during the last two years. Interview the work force and 24 determine why there still remains a significant number of 25 people who are either hesitant to report problems to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
102 1 management, or are indifferent to do so.
2 Finally, the results of the investigations of both 3 the Office of Investigation and the Federal Grand Jury in 4 Cleveland have not yet been made public. It is premature 5 to hold any public meeting regarding the restart of the 6 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station until such time that 7 members of the public may make inquiry and analyze the 8 results of those investigations, as well as present any 9 questions and submit any concerns they may have to the 10 NRC.
11 Additionally, the status of the material condition 12 of the equipment at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station 13 remains unknown. The Corrective Action Program remains 14 incomplete and therefore cannot be audited for accuracy.
15 These issues collectively suggest the restart of the 16 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station is not possible at this 17 time.
18 Thank you.
19 MS. LIPA: Thank you for your 20 comments, Howard.
21 MS. TRENHOLME: My name is Liz 22 Trenholme.
23 MR. GROBE: Could you just --
24 I have a couple of observations in response to the comments 25 that Howard made.
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103 1 The one, I believe weve talked about this 2 inspection in the past, and the report has been issued. We 3 specifically conducted an inspection of the activities that 4 are in whats referred to as the backlog; those are 5 activities that are not planned to be completed prior to 6 restart; to ensure that FirstEnergy has properly 7 prioritized those, there is no undue risk associated with 8 those backlog activities.
9 As I mentioned, that inspection was completed. I 10 think the report was issued in December -- no, January 11 5th. Very good. And, certainly, youre welcome to read 12 that inspection and get a sense for how we assessed 13 specific issues you were talking about.
14 One other activity that I just wanted to comment on 15 that you raised, thats the ongoing investigation. Its 16 very important to recognize that the Oversight Panel and 17 the NRC more broadly has been deeply involved in assessing 18 the results of the Office of Investigations work, and has 19 concluded that there is no need for immediate safety 20 action, enforcement action based on safety concern from 21 those results.
22 We appreciate the results of that investigation have 23 not been shared publicly because of the ongoing activities 24 of the U. S. Attorneys Office. So, its, this is an 25 activity and an issue that has been fairly studied by the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
104 1 NRC, and the ongoing investigation is continued to be 2 monitored by a senior executive from the Office of Nuclear 3 Reactor Regulation to ensure that if any information 4 emerges from the ongoing investigation that could indicate 5 a potential safety issue at Davis-Besse or any other 6 nuclear plant in the United States, that thats promptly 7 brought to the attention of the Regulatory Commission.
8 So, I think those are the two issues I wanted to 9 clarify.
10 MR. RULAND: As I look down 11 this list of -- I think I was keeping relatively good 12 notes, Howard. Based on my observation of this list, I 13 dont think there are any substantive new issues that 14 youve raised. Clearly, youve spoken about these issues 15 in the past. And I think in a number of areas, I frankly 16 think youre wrong.
17 You said the NRC was late in coming to the safety 18 culture issue. As you know, Davis-Besse identified 19 themselves the safety culture was part and parcel of the 20 cause of the reactor vessel head problems. It was 21 something that we have been inspecting, in spite of the 22 fact that our guidance is not clear. We felt frankly an 23 obligation to go after this issue, and go after it we did.
24 The NRC continues to struggle with how to inspect 25 this, and how to ensure ourselves that we ferret out the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
105 1 issues that are out there; and we continue to do that.
2 So, I frankly dont think weve come late. And I 3 assert, contrary to your assertion, that we have been 4 actively involved in this issue, and spent significant NRC 5 resources.
6 Secondly, I think -- by the way, these are only 7 mine, the two most significant comments I need to make. I 8 think you said, "no quantifiable improvements in the 9 material condition of the plant." As somebody that has 10 toured the plant personally on several occasions, frankly, 11 thats bunk. It just isnt true. There is significant 12 material improvement in this plant, and its just an 13 incorrect assertion.
14 MR. GROBE: I think there is 15 one other observation. I apologize for making you stand 16 there for a few minutes. I think its important to note.
17 The safety is taken very seriously learning from the 18 past. In the specific case of Davis-Besse, we had the 19 Lessons Learned Task Force that was completely independent 20 of what was going on here at Davis-Besse, which took a very 21 thorough look of what happened in the past. Thats the way 22 we approach all of our business.
23 Its important that we learn from the past, but live 24 in the present. And our inspections and our assessments 25 that are being done today and have been done since the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
106 1 shutdown of this plant in February of 2002 formed the basis 2 for the conclusions that we make. And, as I said, its 3 important that you learn from the past, where we draw our 4 observations and conclusions for the present.
5 Go ahead, maam.
6 MS. TRENHOLME: My name is Liz 7 Trenholme, and this is Theresa Szentendai. Were 8 representing Ohio Citizen Action.
9 We would just like to deliver some letters to 10 Mr. Caldwell and theyre letters from citizens from around 11 the State of Ohio.
12 We would also like to quickly read two letters which 13 we feel represent some of the key public views.
14 MS. LIPA: If you could speak 15 up just a little or get a little closer to the microphone.
16 MS. TRENHOLME: Im sorry.
17 We would just like to deliver these letters to 18 Mr. Caldwell. Theyre from citizens around Ohio and how 19 they feel about everything. We would just like to quickly 20 read you two letters that we feel represent some of the key 21 public views.
22 The one Im going to read is from Beth Harrod.
23 Shes from North Olmsted, Ohio.
24 "
Dear Mr. Caldwell:
My family lives in a western 25 suburb of Cleveland, Ohio along Lake Erie. We also MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
107 1 maintain a summer home on the southwestern shore of the 2 Sandusky Bay. Directly across the bay stands the 3 Davis-Besse Power Plant. The plant has always been a 4 concern for both my family and neighbors and we are 5 concerned with the problems and mismanagement at that 6 particular plant.
7 It has been nice to have that plant closed. Im 8 most afraid of the situations that we are not aware of.
9 May I remind you that public safety should definitely have 10 priority over big business. I am currently concerned with 11 the fact that FirstEnergy may be reactivating FirstEnergy.
12 FirstEnergy does not appear to be capable of effectively 13 and safely operating some of their facilities, let alone 14 starting up Davis-Besse.
15 Now, it is my understanding that you have the 16 authority to keep Davis-Besse closed. I would ask that you 17 use this authority wisely and prudently, keeping in mind 18 the safety of these people who live and work near that 19 plant. It would be comforting to know that if Davis-Besse 20 were to reopen, that it would be run by a company which is 21 better capable of operating it in a safe and effective 22 manner.
23 Thank you for your consideration. Beth Harrod" 24 MS. SZENTENDAI: My name is 25 Theresa. Im going to read you a letter from Fred Chase MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
108 1 Steiner, he is from Bay Village, Ohio. Im just going to 2 read a couple paragraphs from this.
3 "The people at FirstEnergy have been far from 4 outstanding in both their business practices and their 5 facilities operations. While I understand that there have 6 been inroads made in the physical fortitude of the plant to 7 Davis-Besse, there are certain questions about the 8 procedures and operations and the veracity of FirstEnergys 9 commitment to the proper operation of nuclear facilities.
10 Even if a plant makes the grade in terms of 11 construction in grading facilities, it also receives a 12 grade in personnel and management. After all, you build a 13 Ferrari, but its not worth anything if you dont know how 14 to drive it. Operation of a nuclear plant, such as 15 Davis-Besse, should not be any different. Accountability 16 is not required, it is demanded by those of us who would 17 move throughout our home out of harms way should 18 FirstEnergy fail in their responsibilities."
19 We also have some copies of these letters sitting up 20 there in case you would like to read them yourself.
21 MS. LIPA: Okay, those 22 letters will be included in the stack.
23 MS. SZENTENDAI: Yes.
24 MS. LIPA: Thank you for 25 coming. Since I havent seen you guys here before. I want MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
109 1 to point out the monthly newsletter that we have that has a 2 lot of good information in it. That will help, I think, 3 illustrate for you the breadth and depth of the NRCs 4 activities with respect to Davis-Besse, especially the 5 Restart Checklist that we have in here, just to give you 6 the idea of the types of thing were doing before we 7 consider restart. We have, you know, a formal process; the 8 0350 Process is what its called, and a lot of NRC 9 activities before we would consider restart.
10 MS. WEIR: Hi, my name is 11 Shari Weir. I have an observation and a question. The 12 observation is, that on Saturday, it will have been two 13 months since FirstEnergy initially submitted paperwork to 14 the NRC indicating it was ready for consideration for 15 restart. And yet, in the two months, an amazing amount of 16 activity has happened, both in terms of blunders and in 17 terms of operational and procedural changes.
18 Clearly, FirstEnergy on November 24th was not ready 19 to restart Davis-Besse, yet they thought they were. And 20 the only reason that the changes were made is because the 21 NRC is carefully scrutinizing all phases of the efforts of 22 the Davis-Besse.
23 So, the observation is that, frankly, this is very 24 scary. And, I just wanted to point that out.
25 The question that I would like to raise involves MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
110 1 the-- on the weekend, there was a quick news item in the 2 newspaper indicating that the NRC is conducting an 3 investigation of overtime at Davis-Besse.
4 In May of 19-- May of 2002, Citizen Action asked 5 the NRC to look into the overtime at Davis-Besse. Then, 6 Sonja Haber in her report also noted the overtime that was 7 rampant at Davis-Besse and pointed out that over a long 8 period of time this could cause a number of significant 9 problems.
10 Month after month at these meetings we hear workers 11 and family members talk about exhaustion and frustration, 12 and now the NRC is doing an investigation. And I would 13 like to know the scope of that investigation, and also how 14 that investigation interacts with the 0350 Panel.
15 MS. LIPA: Let me take an 16 attempt at answering your question. I know I have seen 17 some news articles that talked about the issue of overtime 18 and some specifics, but I wasnt aware of that it said the 19 NRC was doing an investigation.
20 MS. WEIR: It was in the 21 Plain Dealer on Saturday.
22 MS. LIPA: Okay. We do 23 inspections, so let me talk a little about inspections and 24 maybe there is something else that youre talking about.
25 We have, we did an inspection on overtime that was MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
111 1 documented in a report last fall. I believe, Scott.
2 MR. THOMAS: 15 or 17.
3 MS. LIPA: Yeah. 15 or 17, 4 one of our routine inspection reports, where we looked at 5 some overtime issues and how they were controlling overtime 6 and whatnot, and published the results of that review.
7 And we havent determined exactly what we plan to do 8 in the near term, but its definitely on the agenda for the 9 0350 Panel to determine what needs to be done, if anything, 10 with respect to another inspection on overtime.
11 So, I cant tell you today specifically what we plan 12 to do, but I dont know of any investigation. Thats a 13 completely different realm. I dont know of anything 14 myself.
15 An investigation would normally be by the Office of 16 Investigations, where they would come out to see if there 17 is any, any wrongdoing or any issues that are beyond the 18 scope of what we would do for an inspection report.
19 MS. WEIR: So, it could be 20 something thats just beyond the scope of this panel?
21 MS. LIPA: Well.
22 MR. GROBE: Its several 23 things. We have an ongoing Management/Human Performance 24 Inspection, and the focus of that inspection currently is 25 evaluating the Licensees assessment as to why results of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
112 1 their November Safety Culture and Safety Conscious Work 2 Environment surveys showed a decline in some departments in 3 the response levels, positive response levels with the 4 staff of those departments.
5 FirstEnergy completed assessment that was led by the 6 Vice President of Oversight, Fred von Ahn. He had a number 7 of people on that assessment as to why there was declines 8 in a number of departments, while the overall indication 9 was an improving trend; several departments showed 10 declines.
11 So, the Management/Human Performance Team is looking 12 into that issue. FirstEnergy concluded that, in talking 13 with the people, feedback that they were getting from the 14 people, was that to some extent decline in the positive 15 response of the surveys was related to the extended work 16 hours.
17 It is important to note that we have not observed 18 any particular safety issues that either FirstEnergy or we 19 have attributed to fatigue, but FirstEnergy is evaluating 20 the impact of work hours on their staff and taking 21 actions. Were also evaluating them.
22 So, Im not sure what the Plain Dealer was talking 23 about. We dont have any particular investigation into 24 work hours, overtime usage currently. What we do have is 25 an examination of the November Safety Culture and Safety MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
113 1 Conscious Work Environment survey results and what might 2 have contributed to the declines in feedback from various 3 departments, and what actions FirstEnergy is taking, 4 whether or not those actions seem appropriate.
5 You raised another issue that I had on my little set 6 of notes here that I wanted to mention in my closing 7 remarks at the first part of this meeting. I really 8 appreciate you raising that issue. That has to do with the 9 importance of the capability of self-assessment. Youre 10 absolutely correct. November 23rd, FirstEnergy sent us a 11 letter that said that they had taken appropriate actions 12 and they were ready for restart.
13 Since then, weve had a lot of interesting 14 experiences and observations. We have had a number of 15 opportunities where the RRATI, Restart Readiness Assessment 16 Team Inspection was delayed, and then we had that 17 inspection on site with some negative findings, and 18 FirstEnergy continues to take actions.
19 Weve requested FirstEnergy to consider 20 supplementing that report, particularly focusing in the 21 area of effectiveness of self-assessments, and why we 22 should have confidence in their self-assessment.
23 They just completed a Root Cause Evaluation on the 24 most recent operational issues, and that was done by a 25 number of people from outside Davis-Besse. And Ive MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
114 1 personally reviewed that assessment, and heard the results 2 of that assessment, and it was a very thorough and 3 comprehensive assessment.
4 As I indicated earlier, I didnt want to use the old 5 adage "Im from Missouri" or "The proof is in the pudding",
6 whichever one you want to choose, the bottom line is, had 7 they identified the right corrective actions and do they 8 implement them properly and are they able to effectively 9 assess their performance once those corrective actions are 10 implemented. And those things, were going to be taking a 11 very careful look at, so I appreciate your comments.
12 MS. BUCHANON: My name is Sandy 13 Buchanon. I have a couple of other comments and questions 14 about the Safety Culture Assessment. First is, Im 15 wondering if youve had a chance to interview any former 16 employees on this question of how the extended hours may 17 have effected safety. We, for example, have a gentleman 18 who has come to us that wasnt able to make it tonight, was 19 going to contact you separately, who left Davis-Besse 20 because of the extended hours. He felt he wasnt 21 performing well and could have been making some poor safety 22 decisions. He fortunately was able to find other 23 employment, but I wonder if you might not get more evidence 24 of possible problems by talking to people who are not 25 currently employed at the plant.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
115 1 MS. LIPA: I can tell you 2 that Im not aware that we have interviewed anybody who has 3 left the plant. So, so far we havent. And, if this 4 person that youre talking about has any concerns, they can 5 certainly call us, because we wont find him. If he wants 6 to find us, he has to find us.
7 MS. BUCHANON: I was just saying 8 as a category that might be an important group of people to 9 look at, because as we know also some of the most critical 10 comments have come from outsiders, outside the industry or 11 people who have may left the facility.
12 As we all know, mistakes are made when youre 13 tired. They may show up in a situation like this and we 14 might not know about them for quite awhile.
15 The other thing I would like to ask about was this 16 whole evolution of personnel and safety culture. And as it 17 was said more succinctly, I would like to quote Port 18 Clintons recent editorial, which is titled "FirstEnergy 19 fails to restore any public confidence."
20 And in part it said, "Late last week, FirstEnergy 21 announced another realm of management changes at 22 Davis-Besse. These in response to "incidents" in which 23 workers did not properly execute, "administration 24 controls."
25 "What are we to make of this? Well, it seems that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
116 1 from February of 2002 until December of 2003, FirstEnergy 2 had failed to fix these problems, which of course are 3 management problems. Now FirstEnergy wants to convince the 4 NRC that it has done in a handful of weeks what it couldnt 5 accomplish in about 22 months. Were not buying it."
6 Unquote.
7 And they go on to say the plant should restart, but 8 not with FirstEnergy in charge.
9 The recent management changes that were made appear 10 to be all personnel who have either been working at FENOC 11 for many, many years or even working at Davis-Besse 12 itself. And the question I have comes from having worked 13 with some other companies who I have actually seen change 14 their safety cultures, but it takes a lengthy amount of 15 time. It is a whole process of moving through the 16 operations.
17 And as your evaluation goes on of safety culture, 18 personnel that was changed last week, how long will it take 19 to figure out whether new promises of changes in safety 20 culture are going to go by the boards the same way as we 21 saw the last round of management. Can you analyze in two 22 weeks or four weeks whether there has truly been a change 23 at this operation?
24 MS. LIPA: Well, I cant give 25 you a specific answer today. Obviously, we have more MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
117 1 inspections planned. The major focus of what we were 2 talking about today were the Licensees Root Cause 3 determinations, some recent errors that were made, and root 4 causes for those errors.
5 And, yes, we asked a few questions about why. We do 6 a lot more than just talk about it in this meeting. Well 7 look at their root cause document, understand the 8 specifics. Thats what the inspectors will do.
9 And, so, we have plans to look into detail, more 10 detail on what the Licensee is telling us. So, I cant 11 answer your specific questions today.
12 MS. BUCHANON: But I question, my 13 question has more to do with how you as evaluators can 14 evaluate what is really a very thorough culture, thats the 15 word, cultural change in an operation on the basis of, you 16 know, a few weeks of so-called changes. How do you tackle 17 that?
18 MS. LIPA: I dont think we 19 would attempt to try to determine the impact of this 20 particular change on safety culture. What were looking at 21 is what are they doing in the Operations area to improve 22 the performance. What have they done so far? What are 23 they doing in the future?
24 And we have a different team thats looking at the 25 Safety Culture. What were really doing at Safety Culture MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
118 1 is looking at the Licensees own things that they have in 2 place to measure and monitor and improve Safety Culture.
3 Were not doing an independent Safety Culture Assessment 4 ourselves. Do you understand the difference there?
5 MS. BUCHANON: I do, but as a 6 member of the public, that doesnt make me feel a whole lot 7 better.
8 MS. LIPA: Right. Well, Bill 9 talked a little earlier about this whole Safety Culture 10 area being new to us and something we spend a lot of time 11 and have spent resources on. And we really do have, we 12 spent a lot of time looking at what the Licensee is doing 13 to monitor Safety Culture and to assess changes that have 14 been made, but were not doing an independent Safety 15 Culture Assessment.
16 MR. GROBE: Sandy, I think, 17 first off, I appreciate you coming to our meetings. And I 18 know you are busy. Im glad to see you here.
19 I think were connecting together a couple of things 20 that are not properly connected.
21 The Management and Human Performance Building Block, 22 I think is what FirstEnergy calls it, and we have an 23 inspection that mirrors that building block, has been an 24 ongoing effort over the past two years to improve the area 25 of Safety Culture. And there is some, I think the number MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
119 1 was over 130 specific actions that have been taken.
2 FirstEnergy has been monitoring on a regular basis their 3 performance in that area. And performance might not be the 4 right word; its more of a set of behaviors, organizational 5 behaviors.
6 The issues that are going on in the Operations 7 Department are really different types of issues. These 8 arent organizational effectiveness and organizational 9 cultural issues. I believe they are individual performance 10 issues, more on a micro scale as contrasted with a macro 11 scale.
12 It doesnt really matter to us which manager is in 13 one position, as long as those individuals have integrity.
14 What matters to us is performance. And what we will be 15 measuring is the performance of the organization. And we 16 wont make a determination as to whether or not this plant 17 is ready to restart until were able to see performance 18 that is, that is at a consistent, acceptable level, such 19 that we have confidence that in the future will remain 20 consistent and acceptable.
21 Performance has steadily improved over time. And 22 there is no relationship whatsoever between performance 23 today and performance that resulted in the degradation of 24 the head. The question is, is it at a level that gives us 25 confidence in the future that should we authorize this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
120 1 plant to restart, that it will be restarted safely and 2 consistently operated safely in the future.
3 So, I hope that helps clarify the issue.
4 MS. BUCHANON: I certainly agree 5 thats the question, whether the changes are sufficient.
6 And its very hard from a public point of view to get a 7 handle of how youre evaluating all that, and I know youre 8 struggling with that too, so I appreciate that you share 9 with us as we go through this process the different 10 criteria. And I guess well hear more about it in March.
11 Thank you.
12 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
13 MS. LIPA: Anybody else have 14 any comments or questions for us?
15 MR. MATHERBY: Good evening, I 16 would like to thank you, the NRC 350 panel for showing up 17 tonight.
18 MS. FRESCH: Excuse me. Your 19 name, please?
20 MR. MATHERBY: Including the 21 public in this whole discussion as we go through the 22 restart. Ill get to it. My name is Greg Matherby, Im a 23 operator at Davis-Besse.
24 MS. LIPA: If you want to 25 pull your mike up, so you can stand tall.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
121 1 MR. MATHERBY: As I said, first 2 of all, I would like to thank you for coming out tonight, 3 and over the last 22 months involving the public in this 4 whole restart effort.
5 I am an operator at Davis-Besse and Im also a local 6 citizen of Ottawa County. And, Ive gotten up and spoken 7 several times before and my first and foremost thing is, I 8 am a family man, and ensuring the safety of my family is my 9 first and foremost thing.
10 I go to Davis-Besse, I work to earn a paycheck to 11 have a life outside of my work. Over the last two years, 12 correct, there have been a lot of hours. A lot of people 13 have worked hard to bring this plant back to where its 14 at.
15 But I would like to address several of the things 16 that some people brought up, as an operator person down in 17 the trenches working on a day-to-day basis. One of the 18 things thats been brought up is this whole thing about the 19 change, the delta between the margin of November Safety 20 Conscious Work Environment survey.
21 I was one of the operators, because we are one of 22 the groups that was identified that had a decline. And I 23 had a decline. Some of it was perceived, some of it was 24 real based on basically the NOP Test. And I would like to 25 bring that up. Because to me a Safety Conscious Work MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
122 1 Environment is if you have a problem, you bring it up, and 2 youre not afraid to bring it up.
3 Before the whole thing with the head happened, I 4 think a lot of people would have just, yeah, were doing 5 okay because the plant is running good; we have no 6 problems. Operations, we dont stand like that anymore.
7 If we have a problem, were not afraid to bring it up.
8 And therefore thats the reason I think you saw some 9 of the declines. Weve had questions. Those questions 10 have been addressed. This has been seen in the last two 11 months, because management has not been afraid to say, 12 "Okay, we dont have this working just the way we expect it 13 to. We wont go any further until thats taken care 14 of." or "The attitudes that we have here, we want to make 15 sure that were all on the same book, working out of the 16 same book, before we go forward."
17 We brought up, as far as the Conduct of Operations, 18 Im in the licensing class thats going right now.
19 Hopefully, in about six months, Ill be one of the people 20 in the reactor, in the reactor operator shoes, that the 21 public will be relying upon to ensure that we are operating 22 within our technical specifications in accordance with our 23 license. We take that very seriously.
24 Whenever I first started the training program, which 25 is before the whole head degradation incident came into MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
123 1 fact or into effect, whenever we would be training, we 2 would operate out of knowledge. Not anymore. If there is 3 ever a question when were down in the simulator, going 4 through some areas, we have little green book. Its called 5 our "Operations Expectations Excellence Handbook." And if 6 there is a question, we look it up. We want to see exactly 7 what the expectation is, because unless you train the way 8 that its written, youre not going to operate the way that 9 youre supposed to.
10 So, I would like to bring that up, that first of 11 all, for working very diligently as far as our Conduct of 12 Operations. Second of all, with your Safety Conscious Work 13 Environment, how do you get better? You bring up things 14 that you feel need to be addressed and theyre addressed; 15 whether that be in this survey certain things that happen 16 during the NOP test, as I said were real or perceived, but 17 they have been addressed.
18 Second of all, Mr. Whitcomb brought up as far as 19 green tags, material deficiency tags, notifications as 20 theyre now called. Its funny he brought that up. He 21 said, "How many are two years old?" Because in my 22 particular shift, we started doing little things, because 23 we wanted to see how many we could find out there that were 24 greater than two years old. Miraculous, kind of funny that 25 you brought that up at this particular time. We found MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
124 1 two. Im not saying thats all there is, but we looked 2 diligently for them.
3 We also write quite a few now, because before where 4 we would accept stuff. We dont do that anymore. Whether 5 it be a broken lining or anything else, were going to 6 write a deficiency because we want those things addressed.
7 Because if you look out for the small things, you wont 8 accept whatever small things lead to bigger things, such as 9 why are we having this boric acid showing up in our 10 radiation samples. We dont understand it, but were going 11 to live with it, because we think its this. Now were 12 pushing the issues.
13 I hadnt planned a speech, so Im a little nervous.
14 Lastly, I would just like to say, as I said, Im a 15 family man first. I love my job. I love what I do. I go 16 to my job each and every day. I put my 110 percent forth.
17 But I do that so that I know that my family is safe. We 18 live near the plant. I would never do anything to put them 19 in harms way.
20 I go home. I enjoy the time I have with my family.
21 I look forward to more time. But until we restart this 22 plant, I understand the commitment I have to make to get to 23 that point.
24 I appreciate your time. Thank you.
25 MS. LIPA: Thank you.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
125 1 Anybody else have any comments or questions for us?
2 Okay, I guess not.
3 Well, thank you all for coming. Good night.
4 (Off the record.)
5 ---
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
126 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 31st day of January, 2004.
11 12 13 14 Marie B. Fresch, RMR 15 NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF OHIO 16 My Commission Expires 10-10-08.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO