ML041180091
| ML041180091 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 04/08/2004 |
| From: | FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML041180091 (74) | |
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2 PUBLIC MEETING BETWEEN U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O350 PANEL 3 AND FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY OAK HARBOR, OHIO 4
5 Meeting held on Thursday, April 8, 2004, at 6 1:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, Ohio, taken by me, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter, 7 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, Senior Manager, Region III Office 12 & Chairman, MC 0350 Panel William Ruland, Senior Manager NRR 13 & Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel Christine Lipa, Projects Branch Chief 14 Christopher Scott Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector 15 U.S. NRC Office - Davis-Besse John Jacobson, Senior Inspector 16 Region III Office 17 FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 18 Lew Myers, FENOC Chief Operating Officer Robert W. Schrauder, 19 Director - Support Services Mark Bezilla, Vice President/Plant Manager 20 Clark Price, Owner - Restart Action Plan 21 - - -
22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
2 1 MS. LIPA: Good afternoon. I 2 would like to welcome FirstEnergy and members of the public 3 for accommodating this meeting today. This is a public 4 meeting between the NRC Davis-Besse Oversight Panel and 5 FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company.
6 My name is Christine Lipa and Im with the NRC. Im 7 a Branch Chief in the Region III Office, and Im 8 responsible for the NRCs Inspection Program at 9 Davis-Besse.
10 So, well go to the next slide, which is, has the 11 purposes for the meeting today.
12 As you can see, the NRC will be going first in this 13 meeting today and will be presenting some recent activities 14 that weve done and our assessment of activities to-date, 15 and then well turn it over to FirstEnergy for a discussion 16 of their assessment of the startup activities and other 17 activities going forward.
18 The next slide has the agenda. I would like to 19 start off with introductions at the NRCs table.
20 To my left is Jack Grobe and hes the a Senior Manager 21 in the Region III Office in Lisle, Illinois. Hes the 22 Chairman of the Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
23 Next to Jack is Bill Ruland. Bill is the a Senior 24 Manager and the -- Senior Manager with the NRC and is the 25 Vice Chairman of the Oversight Panel and Bills position is MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
3 1 the Director of Project Directorate III in the Division of 2 Licensing Project Management in headquarters.
3 On my right is Scott Thomas. Hes the Senior 4 Resident Inspector at the Davis-Besse facility.
5 Running our slides today and he will be joining us 6 up on the stage later is John Jacobson. John is a Senior 7 Inspector in Region III, and is on the Oversight Panel, and 8 he has responsibility for the Engineering area.
9 Also in the foyer today on your way in is Nancy 10 Keller. She is the Resident Office Assistant for the 11 Resident Inspector Office.
12 And Viktoria Mitlyng is on her way, and shes our 13 Public Affairs Representative for today.
14 And Lew, if you want to go ahead and introduce your 15 folks.
16 MR. MYERS: Yes. Good 17 afternoon.
18 Ill take a few moments to talk about the people at 19 the table. Our Plant Manager, Barry Allen, was going to be 20 here, but hes moving his family up to the Oak Harbor area 21 and Port Clinton.
22 And then our Operations Manager, Kevin Ostrowski, is 23 back at our site, so he is not with us today.
24 To my right is Mark Bezilla. Mark is our Site Vice 25 President, and he is in charge of the Operation at the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
4 1 site.
2 And to our left is Clark Price. Clark has been the 3 Manager in the 350 Process, and today hes going to discuss 4 some of his new duties that hes taking on out.
5 In our audience, we have Fred VonAhm. Fred is the 6 VP of Oversight. And also Gary Leidich. Gary is our 7 President of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, here 8 today.
9 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
10 Then, are there any public officials or representatives of 11 public officials in the room today?
12 MR. KOEBEL: Carl Koebel, 13 Ottawa County Commissioner.
14 MS. LIPA: Hi, Carl.
15 MR. ARNDT: Steve Arndt, 16 Ottawa County Commissioner.
17 MS. LIPA: Welcome, Steve.
18 MR. PAPCUN: John Papcun, 19 Ottawa County Commissioner.
20 MS. LIPA: Hi, John.
21 MR. WITT: Jere Witt, County 22 Administrator.
23 MS. LIPA: Thank you, Jere.
24 Okay. This meeting is open to public observation, 25 obviously. This is a business meeting between the NRC and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
5 1 FirstEnergy. So, at the conclusion of the business portion 2 of the meeting, but before the meeting is adjourned, we 3 will have time for public comments and questions.
4 There are several copies of documents in the foyer 5 that I wanted to talk about briefly. One of them is a set 6 of slides that Im using. Another one is a set of slides 7 that FirstEnergy will be using.
8 I also have a public meeting feedback form that you 9 can provide information back to us on this meeting. We 10 also have a copy of the February 26th Recommendation Memo 11 that the panel used to provide to Jim Caldwell with their 12 basis for recommending approval of restart.
13 Then, on the way is another stack of documents, 14 which is the Restart Approval Letter, which was actually 15 the letter that Jim Caldwell signed to FirstEnergy 16 approving restart and providing the basis on that. And you 17 should be able to look for that at the break. Hopefully, 18 it will be here by then.
19 We are having this meeting transcribed today by 20 Marie Fresch to maintain a record of the meeting, and we 21 plan to post the transcript to the webpage in about 3 to 4 22 weeks. So, it will be important that the speakers use the 23 microphones today, so that everybody can hear.
24 Then, lets see, what else is on for the rest of the 25 agenda for todays meeting. We have some more NRC MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
6 1 activities, discussions, and then well turn it over to the 2 Licensee. Well be taking a break after about an hour.
3 And, then, that will be before we adjourn the meeting with 4 FENOC, and then well take another break and go into the 5 public comments, for questions of the NRC.
6 So, the next slide talks about some significant NRC 7 activities since our last public meeting, which was held on 8 February 12th. That was actually held at Camp Perry.
9 During that day, we actually had two separate public 10 meetings. One was an exit meeting, a public exit of two 11 recent inspections. (microphone problem) 12 So, one was a public exit meeting of two 13 inspections. Those were the follow-up inspections to the 14 Restart Readiness Assessment Team, and then the other 15 inspection results were from the Management and Human 16 Performance Follow-up Inspection.
17 Then later on that day, we had the public meeting 18 with FirstEnergy for the Licensee to state the basis for 19 their request for restart of the facility.
20 The next slide talks about the restart decision that 21 was made on March 8th. And I wanted to back up a little on 22 that topic in the timeline.
23 (microphone problem) 24 MS. LIPA: The Restart 25 decision-making, the panel has been following a very MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
7 1 specific -- can you hear me in the back?
2 (microphone problem) 3 MS. LIPA: Obviously, the 4 panel had been following the Restart Checklist and the 5 Confirmatory Action Letter items and weve been updating 6 those on a monthly basis.
7 Then the panel recommended to the Regional 8 Administrator in this February 26th document that we had in 9 the foyer, that FENOCs performance was sufficiently 10 improved to support safe restart and operation. And we 11 provided that to the Regional Administrator, Jim Caldwell, 12 in Region III.
13 Then Jim Caldwell considered the restart 14 recommendation. He reviewed the panels activities. He 15 spent a couple of weeks interviewing panel members, 16 interviewing inspection team leads over the last two 17 years. He visited the site. And he put together his list 18 of questions that he had for us.
19 Then he consulted with the, the Executive Director 20 for Operations, and the Deputy Executive Director for 21 Operations for Reactors and the Director of NRR. Then on 22 March 8th is when Jim Caldwell signed the letter that 23 actually lifted the hold on restart.
24 Then, also the panel, along that time line, we had 25 briefed the Commission -- Commissioners Technical MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
8 1 Assistant.
2 The basis for the restart decision was the Panel to 3 determine the Licensees performance was adequate for safe 4 restart and operation. We used a very deliberate and 5 methodical 0350 process. And as I mentioned before, all 31 6 items of the Restart Checklist are closed, and all six 7 items on the Confirmatory Action Letter were considered 8 completed.
9 We did consider as part of our decision and the 10 commitments that the Licensee had submitted in their 11 Integrated Report to support restart; and that was, what we 12 call the Cycle 14 Commitments, and theyre up to Rev. 3 now 13 and those are all publicly available on our webpage.
14 Next slide, please.
15 Another important part of the Restart Approval 16 Letter was that there was a Confirmatory Order in that 17 letter. That order will ensure effective assessment and 18 sustained safe performance. It actually requires 19 FirstEnergy to perform outside assessments, independent 20 assessments of activities in four areas; Operations, 21 Corrective Actions, Engineering and the Safety Culture 22 area.
23 So, those are annual assessments. Theyre not 24 self-assessments, theyre independent assessments, I guess 25 is the proper term; annual assessments for five years.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
9 1 There is also specific requirements in this order 2 for a Mid-Cycle Outage, and to do specific inspections of 3 the upper and lower vessel head.
4 The next slide talks a little bit about the restart 5 notification on March 8 when we issued the approval 6 letter. We had a communications plan to notify the 7 appropriate people. We notified Senators and Congressmen, 8 Representatives, Governor of Ohio was telephoned. We also 9 coordinated with other federal agencies, and informed other 10 state and local officials. And Jim Caldwell held a press 11 conference through the bridge lines to provide his 12 statement and answer questions from the press.
13 Next slide shows what weve done for coverage of 14 startup activities. Weve augmented the Resident Inspector 15 staff to have round-the-clock coverage beginning with March 16 9th, which is when the Licensee planned to go to Mode 2, 17 which was the beginning of startup preparations. Then, we 18 had a minimum of two inspectors per shift, which included a 19 Senior Inspector or Senior License Examiner and a Resident 20 Inspector. So, we had two people per shift for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a 21 day for most of the period from March 9 until a hundred 22 percent power.
23 One exception was during the feedwater system 24 extended outage, to work on the feedwater valve that we 25 talked about before, the utility shut back down. And MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
10 1 during that period of time, we did go to extended coverage 2 rather than round-the-clock, to two shifts a day. That was 3 March 17 through 24. Then, we resumed back to full 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> 4 coverage on March 25 through full power.
5 And the actual performance, our assessment of 6 performance during that time was that the operator 7 performance was good. There were a couple of areas of 8 concern, that we will be holding an exit with the utility 9 tomorrow. That will be in our inspection report that well 10 publish in about 30 days.
11 There were a couple of issues in the maintenance 12 area that we had some concerns over. And the Licensee has 13 corrective actions in place to correct those deficiencies.
14 But overall, the significant positive observations regard 15 operator performance.
16 The next slide talks about the ongoing panel 17 activities and NRC activities for the rest of calendar year 18 2004.
19 The Oversight Panel will continue to remain in 20 place. Were reassessing the panel membership and whether 21 there will be some changes in the post restart period.
22 That would make sense to make the panel stronger. And in 23 any case, the panel will remain in place and continue to 24 assess Licensees performance.
25 We continue to have a third Resident Inspector.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
11 1 That was authorized for two years, so that will be in place 2 throughout 2004 and most of 2005.
3 We will be planning specific special inspections 4 that go beyond the baseline, so Davis-Besse will receive 5 the baseline inspection that all the other plants in the 6 nation receive. In addition to the baseline, there will be 7 additional special inspections as necessary.
8 One area will be to confirm the Licensee actions 9 that are required by the Confirmatory Order, and also 10 additional inspections to review the areas that the 11 Licensee has made commitments in, their improvements plans 12 that theyve committed to. So well do special 13 inspections. We will be doing special inspections on 14 several of those areas to make sure that those commitments 15 are on track, and effective.
16 Also, as part of the normal reactor oversight 17 process, the baseline inspection relies on performance 18 indicators; and since many of those performance indicators 19 do not provide meaningful information at this point due to 20 the extended shutdown, we will be augmenting baseline to 21 compensate for some of the performance indicators until 22 those are on full. And, then, obviously, appropriate 23 enforcement action will be taken following completion of 24 all investigation activities.
25 So, thats kind of our plan for 2004.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
12 1 The next slide shows ongoing NRC activities. I 2 mentioned earlier, we have a Resident Inspection Exit 3 tomorrow and the Resident Inspection Report ended at the 4 end of March. So, that will, those will continue to be 5 every 6 or 7 weeks, that will be exiting and issuing a 6 report.
7 Resident Inspections are ongoing all the time.
8 Continue to review Operational Performance.
9 And right now were looking at the next Public 10 Meeting, its tentatively for May 11, but we have to firm 11 up our plans before we make that decision. Well be 12 posting that appropriately when that decision is made.
13 So, thats all I have for now.
14 Anybody else want to make any comments at the table?
15 Okay. Then, we can go ahead and turn it over to 16 you, Lew.
17 MR. MYERS: Thank you, 18 Christine.
19 Today we have, its certainly our pleasure to be 20 here.
21 (microphone problem) 22 Thank you. Its certainly our pleasure to be here 23 today with our Davis-Besse plant at hundred percent power.
24 Whats more important is that we continue to demonstrate 25 our quest to return the plant to service in such a manner MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
13 1 that its not only back, but will continue to perform 2 better and go beyond industry standards in safe 3 operations.
4 Today, we have three desired outcomes. The first, 5 we would like to demonstrate the steps we have taken to 6 return the plant to service, actions have been performed in 7 a safe manner with safety first and with conservatism as 8 part of our normal behavior.
9 Second, Mark Bezilla will provide you with a 10 detailed list of the activities that we performed each week 11 by week, and since our last meeting. And well discuss the 12 areas that are positive and areas that gave us challenges.
13 Finally, Clark Price will provide you with some 14 information concerning his new assignment, the areas of 15 Operational Improvement Plan; Post Restart Actions and the 16 areas concerning Confirmatory Order.
17 Let me take a moment to assess our performance since 18 the last meeting in our quest for back, better and beyond.
19 First, we received your letter releasing the 20 restrictions for restart on March 8th. Neither the letter 21 nor the confirmatory action had any issues that we as a 22 management team were not aligned with. That resulted in us 23 being able to return that letter to you signed and approved 24 within a couple hours. We also believe that independent 25 assessment is a needed part of our quest of better and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
14 1 beyond.
2 On March 9th, we heated the station up using 3 nonnuclear heat in our reactor coolant pumps to Mode 3.
4 Thats greater than 280 degrees.
5 On March 11, we made the reactor critical, but below 6 the point of adding heat in preparation of our low power 7 fitness testing program.
8 We created criteria for bringing the reactor 9 critical normally with what we call a plus or minus.5 10 percent delta K/over K, but thats our criteria.
11 We had administrative criteria was well below that 12 as we pull the reactor critical. We had some questions and 13 our staff decided to drive the rods back in to assure we 14 had a clear understanding, clear understanding of the 15 response, and then made a boric acid adjustment.
16 We completed low power physics testing as planned 17 and demonstrated the core behavior. I believe that during 18 that period of time, my assessment of behaviors was good.
19 On March the 16th, we synchronized to the B grid.
20 We were approximately 25 percent power, testing our 21 equipment in preparation where we plan to shut down and do 22 the overspeed trip testing of the main turbine, and then 23 make any needed repairs that we found.
24 We found that our feedwater valve 780 did not 25 operate properly. We formed a decision-making team to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
15 1 determine the cause. I was positive and pleased by the 2 safety culture and the behavior of that team.
3 We shut the plant down and performed an overspeed 4 test as planned. Once again, was pleased with the 5 operations performance and the overall behavior.
6 On March 16th, we were approaching Mode 3. Less 7 than 280 degrees and was prepared to work on the 780 valve 8 that we discussed.
9 The one area that we were not pleased with and were 10 still not pleased with, it was the removal of the actuator 11 as we approached Mode 3. We, as a management team, walked 12 the actuator down, had a clear understanding of the steps 13 that were going to be taken to ensure a good performance.
14 We were not pleased as we went forward with the 15 communication to our staff and the way we implemented that 16 performance.
17 We then cooled the plant down to Mode 3 on March 18 17th. I was pleased with the operator performance, both 19 during the heatup, the startup and the cooldown. It was 20 not only event-free, but error-free. I believe that our 21 operators seated demonstrated during that time period are some of the 22 best industry standards.
23 We then prepared the 780 valve on March 23rd. Our 24 maintenance and our procurement personnel demonstrated good 25 ownership of the task once we got into it, and I also MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
16 1 believe demonstrated good positive safety cultures during 2 that time.
3 We heated the plant back up to Mode 3 and took the 4 reactor critical, not only event free-once again, but 5 error-free. Im pleased with the Operations performance.
6 We synchronized to the grid on March 27th as planned 7 and ended the outage. My overall assessment was good to 8 very good of the Operations staff. That was an area that 9 we had as a concern, several months ago.
10 (microphone problem) 11 That was an area of concern, as you remember.
12 We continued to perform our testing and reached the 13 hundred percent plateau on April 4th. We consistently 14 demonstrated good decision-making, good conservative 15 operations, and what I believe is good material condition 16 of the plant.
17 Let me provide you with some information there. Our 18 leakage rate today is about.02 gallons per minute 19 measured. Thats the minimum accuracy that demonstrates 20 good industry performance and a significant improvement in 21 the margin of safety between past operations. It also 22 demonstrates good integrity of the Reactor Coolant System.
23 Let me share some other information with you that I 24 brought today. If you look at our plant as we sit here 25 today, and you look at our effluent monitors, at the data MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
17 1 from 2002 to now, we have reduced the effluent monitors at 2 this time from a factor we call 1E -6 down to 4E -7. A 3 complete change of ten in performance.
4 You go look at our Containment. You look at the 5 four monitors in our Containment, the readings have gone 6 from 1E -3, which is 10 to the -3, to 7E -5; an improvement 7 of a hundred.
8 Finally, lets go look at our normal monitors in the 9 plant, monitoring the dose as we do our work in the plant.
10 Our, the average monitor, if you look at it in the plant, 11 is down from like, some of them have gone from 7 milligram 12 per hour to 0.8 milligram per hour, 7 milligram to hour to 13 1, or 25 milligram per hour to 1.5. And all are seeing 14 about a 40 percent reduction in the average area monitor 15 reading.
16 What does that mean? That means that weve been 17 successful in material conditions at the plant improving 18 the margin of safety. Thank you.
19 MR. BEZILLA: Thank you, Lew.
20 Good afternoon. I will briefly walk you through the 21 past eight weeks, highlighting some of our accomplishments 22 and challenges on our restart journey.
23 Next slide.
24 During the week of February 8th, we successfully 25 completed control rod insertion time testing. This is one MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
18 1 of the last items finished for the 350 checklist. We 2 respectfully requested permission to restart Davis-Besse on 3 February the 12th. Christine had mentioned that earlier.
4 We supported an emergency plant inspection, and we 5 maintained the plant in Mode 3 at normal operating 6 pressure.
7 One challenge of note was to our number one startup 8 transformer. Our operators had previously identified a 9 bushing that was leaking some oil. We subsequently removed 10 that transformer from service and repaired the leaking 11 joint.
12 Additionally, based on how we had to configure the 13 transformer to fix that leak, we essentially overhauled the 14 entire transformer and it should be good for another 20 15 years.
16 Next slide.
17 During the week of February 15th, we performed 18 maintenance on the number one Containment Spray Pump 19 coupling. We had made improvements to this component as we 20 had done previously to the number two Containment Spray 21 Pump. I think at a previous meeting I had mentioned we had 22 done some work on number two. We were planning to do it on 23 number one. We went ahead and did that work on number 24 one.
25 We performed our Mode 2 Restart Readiness Reviews.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
19 1 We asked ourselves, are we ready to safely restart 2 Davis-Besse. We said yes. We performed surveillances on 3 some safety significance components; number one Decay Heat 4 Pump, number one Aux Feedwater System -- components.
5 One challenge we had this week was with a 6 Containment Atmosphere Rad Monitor. We needed to replace a 7 few, Ill say hard to find, electronic parts. Our 8 materials group worked hard, scanned Ill say the country; 9 found the parts for us; and then, we subsequently changed 10 out those parts and successfully returned that monitor to 11 service.
12 Next slide, please.
13 During the week of February 22nd, we continued to 14 ready the secondary side of the plant for restart. We 15 removed air and added hydrogen to the Main Generator, as an 16 example.
17 Again, we performed surveillance on some additional 18 safety significance components; Number One Aux Feedwater 19 Pump Monthly Test, Number One Emergency Diesel Generator 20 Monthly Test, and we did some Steam Feedwater Rupture 21 Control System Test; again, readying the plant for 22 startup.
23 We received approval from the NRC to conduct a 24 Mid-cycle. That would be before March of 2005 inspection 25 of our steam generators. And Christine had also mentioned MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
20 1 Above Head Inspection and Below Head Inspection of the 2 Reactor Vessel.
3 We received and responded to your Draft Order for 4 Conditions for Restart. Lew had mentioned that earlier 5 about receiving that, looking it over, and sending it back 6 and saying we understand and we agree.
7 We conducted an Emergency Preparedness Media Tour, 8 which was well attended by representatives of the various 9 medias.
10 And, as you can see in the picture, Mr. Alexander 11 visited and toured the site on February 26th. And this was 12 Mr. Alexanders first visit as FirstEnergys CEO. Tony had 13 been here before, but not as the CEO.
14 And, in that week, there really were no challenges 15 of note.
16 During the week of February 29th, we improved the 17 material condition of some plant equipment. And the one of 18 note here is our Control Rod Drive motor generator set. We 19 worked on a couple to improve overall vibration performance 20 of that equipment.
21 We resolved our final Mode 2 and 1 restraints.
22 We closed up Containment. We had pulled out all our 23 Rad postings and essentially locked up Containment, and we 24 performed our personnel airlock leakage surveillance.
25 There were a couple of challenges worth mentioning MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
21 1 during this week. First was some oil drops that were 2 detected by our operators on their daily tours of 3 Containment. And this was on the 1-2 Reactor Coolant Pump 4 low motor bearing housing.
5 We inspected the area and we made a decision to 6 reduce Reactor Coolant System temperature and pressure and 7 remove that Reactor Coolant Pump from service. We then 8 went in and addressed the issue, which was really 9 tightening of some reservoir covers and we cleaned up the 10 residual oil.
11 We then returned the Reactor Coolant Pump to service 12 and returned to normal operating pressure within the 13 Reactor Coolant System.
14 We also looked at our other three Reactor Coolant 15 Pumps and saw no similar indications.
16 A second challenge we had to deal with was some 17 debris that had accumulated on our circulating pump suction 18 screens. We cleaned those screens and then we looked for 19 the cause. We believe the cause was grass that was 20 surrounding our cooling tower. The grass grows through the 21 summer, dies off in the winter. And then the weekend 22 before we had this problem, we had like 40 to 50 miles per 23 hour2.662037e-4 days <br />0.00639 hours <br />3.80291e-5 weeks <br />8.7515e-6 months <br /> gusts and winds and we believe that was the cause.
24 Lew and I made some personal inspections of the 25 area. And what we did was we removed the grass and weve MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
22 1 stoned that in. So, it looks pretty good now and we 2 believe weve eliminated the source. So we think that 3 were in better stead today and also going towards the 4 future.
5 Next slide.
6 March the 7th. During the week of March the 7th, we 7 received permission to restart Davis-Besse. We completed 8 our final Mode 2 Readiness Reviews. We entered Mode 2 and 9 actually we entered it a couple times. Lew had mentioned 10 on the first approach, we realized we werent going to go 11 critical on all rods withdrawn. The operators 12 conservatively inserted all of those rods. We made a 13 slight Boron adjustment, reperformed our calculations, and 14 subsequently went to Mode 2 and took the reactor critical.
15 We then performed Zero Power Physics Testing; and 16 upon completion of Zero Power Physics Testing, we had a 17 Senior Leadership Review of the results and all those 18 results were within tolerance within the predictions.
19 One item of note, and I mention this briefly, that 20 during that first approach to critical when we knew we 21 werent going to go critical with all rods out, the 22 operators took a very conservative decision to put all the 23 rods in; and we applaud that decision.
24 So, I just wanted to mention that. Again, not 25 really a challenge, but something of note.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
23 1 Next slide, please.
2 The week of March 14th, we achieved Mode 1, which is 3 greater than five percent reactor power. We performed an 4 Effectiveness Assessment and Readiness Review prior to 5 synchronizing the main turbine generator.
6 We subsequently performed the Main Turbine Overspeed 7 Trip Testing, as Lew said, and made preparations to return 8 the plant to Mode 4. During our power escalation, we noted 9 there was a problem with the Feedwater 780. Thats the 10 main feedwater control rod isolation valve that Lew had 11 mentioned briefly earlier.
12 We knew we would have to have the main feedwater out 13 of service to open the valve and conduct repairs. While we 14 were cooling the plant down, we made preparations to work 15 this valve. One item that we thought we could act on while 16 we were cooling down was removal of the motor operator; 17 however, we werent sure of the status of the disk in the 18 stem in that valve.
19 We made preparations to secure the stem and 20 carefully remove the actuator. However, when we turned 21 over from day shift to night shift, we did not communicate 22 a clear picture of what the hazards could be. The night 23 shift commenced removing the motor operator, and during the 24 evolution realized that the stem was moving with the 25 actuator. They stopped, as I would expect them to, and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
24 1 then challenged what they were doing.
2 We, Ill say management considered this a 3 significant near miss. We created a Standdown Training 4 Package, and throughout the subsequent weekend and into the 5 following Monday had standdowns with all of our personnel 6 to address the failures that had allowed this activity to 7 proceed to the point where a worker said, "Hey, this 8 doesnt look right, we need to stop." They should have 9 known ahead of time it didnt look right and it should have 10 been a planned stop, not an emergent stop, if you want to 11 look at it that way.
12 Ill say, as Lew said, we were not pleased with 13 that. We believe weve taken action to correct that. And 14 Ill say it was a good opportunity for us to reflect and 15 recalibrate ourselves.
16 Next slide, please.
17 During week of March 21st, we investigated and 18 resolved the problem of Feedwater 780. We rebuilt the 19 valve and changed the way we open the valve. We believe it 20 was a hydraulic lock issue and we changed the way we now operate 21 that valve. So, we dont believe well have a recurrence.
22 We heated the plant up to normal operating pressure, 23 near normal operating temperature. We entered Mode 2 and 24 Mode 1 and synchronized to the grid on March 27th.
25 One note worthy item that challenged us during this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
25 1 week was our Turbine Bypass Valves. We disassembled and I 2 believe improved the performance of four of six of those 3 valves. We rebuilt or improved, Ill say, some of the 4 internal characteristics of those four valves.
5 Additionally, we made actuator adjustments on all 6 the valves to improve their performance. And then 7 subsequently, through the planned heatup that week, the 8 valves did behave pretty well for us. I think we still 9 have a little bit of tune-up work that we need to do and 10 some additional adjustments, but overall the valves 11 performed pretty well for us during that heatup.
12 Next slide, please.
13 During the week of March 28th, we completed our 14 Nuclear Instrument and Reactor Protection System 15 Calibrations. We monitored and controlled Plant Chemistry 16 within specs and within action requirements. And we 17 watched the plant configuration carefully; this is mostly 18 on the secondary side of the plant; to make sure we were 19 cleaning up our condensate, our feedwater, and our heater 20 drains.
21 And what that really entails is to, you take a 22 penalty on thermal efficiency by putting the stuff back in 23 the condenser. Thats the most effective way of cleaning 24 it up and making sure were not putting contaminates into 25 the steam generators.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
26 1 We also hosted three Institute of Nuclear Power 2 Operation groups during that week. One was a previsit by 3 the Evaluation and Assessment Team that well have later 4 this month and early next month. The second was an 5 Operations Focus Team that observed operators in simulator 6 and in the plant. And the third was a group that included 7 industry peers that took a look at our Aux. Feedwater 8 System and essentially was a soup-to-nuts look. They 9 provided us comment and recommendations on how we could 10 continue to improve the availability and reliability of our 11 Aux Feedwater System.
12 A couple challenges occurred during this week with 13 our Integrated Control System. This is a system that when 14 everything is working fine, all the stations are on 15 automatic, and to raise power you essentially push a button 16 and you watch the plant respond.
17 We had two opportunities during the week where we 18 found abnormal behavior of that system. The operators took 19 control and took, Ill say, contingent actions if there 20 would be further problems with the system, and what we 21 found is we had to change out three electronic boards 22 within that system. We successfully did that and returned 23 that system to automatic, and its behaving well since that 24 time.
25 Additionally, we needed to adjust our nuclear MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
27 1 instruments. And this was based on an in-core detector 2 versus out-of-core detector correlation test that we 3 performed around 48 percent power. And this was an 4 anticipated potential item and we were prepared to do 5 that. We were not sure we would have to make these 6 adjustments, but based on the results of the test, we had 7 to make adjustments and we did make those adjustments.
8 Next slide, please.
9 Now, finally, during the week of April 4th, we 10 continued the adjustments to our nuclear instruments and 11 our Reactor Protection System set points and that was per 12 our plan and per our procedures. We, again, continue to 13 closely monitor plant chemistry and maintain the plant in a 14 condition to clean up condensate feedwater and heater 15 drains.
16 One challenge that we had earlier this week was with 17 a failure of our D2 Nonsafety Related Bus Normal Feeder 18 Breaker automatically trip when exercised. And the 19 sequence there is you close in an alternate feed and when 20 that alternate feed successfully closes in, the normal feed 21 automatically opens. We had lost indication of close 22 status, but we had not obtained indication of open status 23 on that breaker.
24 What we did was, the operator, Ill say, responded 25 appropriately. We put a plan together, and then what we MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
28 1 did was we essentially moved the plant, de-energized all 2 the lows off that bus and subsequently removed that breaker 3 from the bus.
4 And then we restored the bus and then set about to 5 put a replacement breaker in place. As part of putting the 6 replacement breaker in place, we found another issue, and 7 it had to do with a time delay relay, but we believe that 8 the issue with the time delay relay was associated with a 9 breaker not opening. And we changed that relay out and 10 then we successfully put a replacement breaker in, 11 exercised it a number of times, and then exercised it on 12 the breaker a number of times.
13 We are currently performing an autopsy on the 14 removed breaker. It appears there is some mechanical 15 linkage issues with that breaker, but were not finished, 16 so thats preliminary information.
17 In addition, we checked four similar breakers. We 18 determined that there were twelve other breakers that, Ill 19 say, fit the category of this breaker. Theyre all 20 nonsafety related, and we assessed their performance, and 21 all those other breakers had performed as expected and 22 showed no signs of problems.
23 Once we complete our autopsy, hopefully today and/or 24 tomorrow, well assess whether there is any additional 25 checks or actions that would be appropriate for those MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
29 1 sister breakers, if you will.
2 MS. LIPA: Mark, when do you 3 expect to know what the root cause of the failure was?
4 MR. BEZILLA: I talked to them, 5 Christine, right before I came over here. They were hoping 6 to have that finished up by end of business tomorrow.
7 MS. LIPA: Thank you.
8 MR. MYERS: Next slide, 9 please.
10 So, in conclusion, overall, the plant startup and 11 challenges were handled in a safe, deliberate, and 12 conservative manner. That concludes my presentation.
13 MS. LIPA: Mark, I had 14 another question for you. You mentioned several challenges 15 that came up over the last couple weeks. I would like your 16 assessment of work planning and communication within work 17 planning and execution, especially communication among 18 departments based on what youve seen.
19 MR. BEZILLA: Christine, thats 20 a good question. Ill say, in general, I feel pretty good 21 about the teamwork that were exhibiting. The Feedwater 22 780 was an exception and I talked about that. But as an 23 example, we had our Effectiveness Assessment and Readiness 24 Review at around 48 percent power prior to proceeding to a 25 hundred percent power.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
30 1 And as an example of some of the things we 2 instituted as a result of that meeting, is we had had a few 3 challenge calls set up, whereas an example, the operators 4 would be ready or the maintenance guys would be ready to do 5 an activity and then they would tone out the Senior 6 Leadership Teams, and then they would walk us through what 7 they were going to do, and then we would ask a bunch of 8 questions to make sure we were comfortable with their 9 knowledge and preparedness to do those activities.
10 We increased the number of challenge calls, based on 11 our Effectiveness Assessment and Readiness Review and that 12 was on March 28th.
13 We also wanted to make sure that the chemistry guys 14 were on those phone calls and to give us constant feedback 15 on how the primary and secondary chemistry was behaving.
16 We decided to go to an every three hour update call 17 with our staff, with Senior Leadership Team. So, every 3 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br />, 6, 9, 12, 18, 21, 24, 0300 hours0.00347 days <br />0.0833 hours <br />4.960317e-4 weeks <br />1.1415e-4 months <br />, we have a call 19 with the Shift Manager and with the Work Week Manager and 20 whoever the Management Representative is at the plant, we 21 have a Chemistry guy in there, and we have whatever 22 supervision was actively engaged on the phone. We dont 23 always have all of them, we have most of them most of the 24 time.
25 We get a status of the plant. We know what MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
31 1 activities are planned. We check on how things are going.
2 If they have any problems. Did they have any issues. Do 3 they need any additional help or assistance. And, we think 4 thats paying dividends for us.
5 An example of that would be our Op Superintendent, 6 when we were fussing with, Ill say, were in the position 7 of the plant one evening; we had that conference call.
8 Based on that dialogue, what he told me the next morning 9 when I came in and chatted with him, he said, "Hey, that 10 call lasted about a half hour." He said, "If we dont get 11 anything else out of any of these calls the rest of the 12 way, the dialogue that night would have paid for all the 13 other conversation that we would have." So, he was very 14 pleased with the input that he received that enabled him to 15 make, Ill say, a safe, conservative decision.
16 MR. THOMAS: Mark, what you 17 just described is not part of your normal functioning of 18 your plant and scheduling process. Its an interim type of 19 step.
20 Let me ask a more direct question. How do you see 21 the performance of communications in regards to turnover 22 between, say, night shift and day shift, and maintenance 23 activities between operating crews, and then 24 interdepartment communications between scheduling and 25 operations; what you described are ways to improve MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
32 1 communications, but theyre not typically part of your 2 normal processes; theyre interim fixes or ways to set 3 expectations or standards.
4 I guess my question is, how do you assess your 5 organizations performance without those interim measures 6 or are they needed now?
7 MR. BEZILLA: Good question, Scott.
8 If you would compare fourth quarter to first quarter; 9 fourth quarter of 2003 to first quarter of 2004, I would 10 say were much, much improved. And in general, I attend 11 most of those turnover meetings, so I get to listen on how 12 those guys are communicating. Plus, we have had our Shift 13 Manager Peer Verifiers at those turnover meetings and I get 14 those report-outs.
15 With respect to Feedwater 780; again, weve already 16 talked about; much improved and Im feeling more 17 comfortable with the communications thats occurring 18 between the day shift and the evening shift, work 19 management, Work Week Manager, Ops Shift Manager, the work, 20 or excuse me, the Maintenance Superintendents and 21 Supervisor, so I see a bunch of improved communication 22 within my organization.
23 MR. MYERS: I think what were 24 saying, if you look at where were at, the plant is up 25 running. We have the Management Team to continue to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
33 1 implement the standards that we want implemented and to 2 improve those standards going forward. So, you know, I 3 dont think its time for us to back off yet.
4 MR. BEZILLA: If I could add one 5 more comment to that. Weve been in the restart phase, 6 been at hundred percent here for a few days, but we still 7 have additional staffing. There is still problems that 8 were flushing out. Were dealing with the problems. So, 9 its going to be a little while before, Ill say, were 10 into normal, I would say probably a couple weeks before 11 were in normal. And to answer your question, Scott, 12 improved, improved communications.
13 MS. LIPA: Okay, anybody else 14 have any questions for Mark?
15 MR. RULAND: Just a couple 16 questions, Mark. Your Confirmatory Order that we issued 17 and you folks accepted, basically had four areas of 18 independent assessments; it was Operations performance, 19 quality of Engineering, Corrective Action Program 20 implementation and Safety Culture improvements.
21 Your presentation directly addressed your Operator 22 performance during this startup period. I think you 23 touched on or Lew touched on some, briefly on Safety 24 Culture. I was wondering if you had any observations about 25 what you detected in the area of quality of Engineering MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
34 1 work that occurred during this period, and the Corrective 2 Action Program implementation during this period?
3 I realize you might not have that information right 4 now. Im just looking for impressions. Do you have any 5 information in those areas at this point? Recognizing 6 were requiring you to do some, some assessments, 7 independent assessments later.
8 MR. BEZILLA: Good question, Bill.
9 Just trying to think of a few examples here for you. One 10 that Ill say, its a combination Engineering, Maintenance 11 and Operations, were some of the anomalies we had within 12 our Integrated Control System. I pick that one because 13 its a very sensitive system, and it controls the Reactor 14 Feedwater Turbine, so it has its tentacles throughout the 15 entire plant.
16 And when we had those issues, the operators behaved 17 appropriately. And then we put the team together; we had 18 our engineers involved, we had our technicians involved, 19 and we had Operations from what can you do to me while 20 youre solving this problem. And I think the teamwork 21 there was very good.
22 We also used some external experience, 23 engineering-type experience to help us on those, and felt 24 very comfortable with the rigor that the team had used to 25 put in place to, Ill say, methodically go through, attempt MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
35 1 to identify a problem, and set about how to go, you have to 2 remove cards and put new cards in. Thats always a higher 3 stress level for me, Ill say, right. And I thought they 4 did very well on dealing with that specific issue.
5 Lew, do you have other examples?
6 MR. MYERS: If I look back at 7 some of the milestones weve made. You know, we made some 8 modifications to our Aux Feedwater Pumps, and you gain 9 confidence as you test. Weve had testing, and the mods 10 have been running well. The Containment Spray Pumps, the 11 issues there. We worked on the HPI pumps, havent had any 12 issues there.
13 And its early yet, but our testing is indicating 14 that the modifications we made -- and the one that really 15 comes to mind that I think is just marvelous is ETAP, 16 Electrical Transcient Analysis Program, we did. We were 17 actually using that this past week when we had the 18 situation, the situation where we had the, the bus, the bus 19 breaker failure. If we hadnt had the ETAP done and 20 understood our electrical system like we did, I dont think 21 we would have been able to make the decisions that we 22 made. So, I think ETAP is really a big dividend as far as 23 those meetings and discussions I heard over in our plant 24 during that time.
25 So, in general, the thing you work on, the plant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
36 1 came up, its just pretty good material.
2 I think the other thing is, we changed a lot of 3 packing out from a Maintenance standpoint; our Packing 4 Program, Leak Rate Program and Engineering too, and I 5 described our leakages and what were seeing from 6 radiation. A lot of that contributes back to some of the 7 mod engineering that we did, some of the things that we 8 did. Its early, but the plant really looks good.
9 MR. RULAND: I reckon.
10 MR. BEZILLA: Bill, maybe a 11 little closer to home is our Physics Testing and the 12 In-core Detector to Out-of-core Detector Correlation Test, 13 I talked about. We had our Reactor Engineers and our 14 Reactor Protection System Engineer intimately involved with 15 our Instrumentation Control Technicians; and we went 16 through and found that we needed to make these 17 adjustments.
18 We had not done that evolution since I believe 96, 19 1996. So, we Ill say sat down and prejobbed reviews. We 20 had the Reactor Protection System Engineer with the 21 instrumentation control the individuals and do their 22 oversight. And Ill say that went off eventlessly --
23 flawlessly, eventlessly, that was good ownership, I 24 thought, by Reactor Protection System as well as the 25 Nuclear Engineers working with the management supervision.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
37 1 MR. RULAND: Thank you. I 2 dont have any more questions.
3 MR. GROBE: I have a couple of 4 questions and maybe a couple observations.
5 Over the past six weeks or so, youve done four 6 Readiness Assessments and Effectiveness Reviews prior to 7 various milestones. Did any of those assessments include 8 an evaluation of safety focus or safety culture?
9 MR. BEZILLA: Jack, those 10 Readiness Assessments -- or Effectiveness Assessments 11 Readiness Reviews, Ill say yes. And I smile a little bit, 12 because thats like a constant, its always there. Okay?
13 Its just constantly with us. We continue to ask our three 14 questions; are we keeping safety first and foremost, is our 15 schedule realistic and doable and are you keeping the 16 communications you want.
17 And pretty religious in my evening and morning 18 emails out to the troops; and if anybody has any question, 19 they dont hesitate to send it back and say, why did you do 20 this, why did you make this decision.
21 We have had some, Ill say, robust discussions on 22 some of the challenges that weve had in what weve done.
23 Ill give you an example. Just this morning, I had a 24 couple of my guys, yesterday, they wanted to do something 25 and I didnt think I agreed with that. So, we had a lively MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
38 1 debate and we ended up doing what they wanted to do.
2 This morning I sent them off a little note saying, 3 "Hey, I appreciate you speaking up, standing your ground."
4 And I wanted to make sure they understood my job was to ask 5 questions, assess risk, and make sure we ended up with the 6 best solution.
7 So, the answer, Jack, is yes, but its constant.
8 Its in the, its in the environment. Okay?
9 MR. GROBE: Have you seen any 10 recurrence of the attributes that contributed to the 11 performance last November on your Safety Culture Safety 12 Conscious Work Environment Survey?
13 MR. BEZILLA: I would say no, 14 although, I have a lot of conscious out there and I get 15 feedback from a number of sources. And, as I said, if they 16 think I may be off base or if they see something that may 17 not be exhibiting the perceived right behavior from a 18 Safety Culture Safety Conscious Work Environment, I get the 19 feedback just like that (snap). So do my people.
20 MR. MYERS: Were still 21 asking, the thing that drove us there, the three questions 22 were still doing every shift; and other than that, were 23 getting positive response from our employees.
24 MR. BEZILLA: From a personal 25 standpoint, Jack, this is my plant and I own it. Every MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
39 1 decision Im involved with, I go back and ask myself, is 2 that the right decision, was I safe, safe enough. It may 3 be a hard question to answer or ask, right, but I churn on 4 that stuff, and like I said, I get feedback on that; how is 5 my behavior, and how am I doing it, am I making the right 6 decisions.
7 MR. GROBE: Very good. Thank 8 you.
9 The week of February 22, you highlighted that you 10 did an Emergency Preparedness Media Tour. I understand 11 folks got an opportunity to get into the plant.
12 I commend you on that. I think its very important 13 to expand the knowledge base that the media has of what 14 goes on in the plant; and a hands-on eyes-on experience are 15 very beneficial to contribute to their ability to 16 understand whats going on.
17 One of the purposes of the Confirmatory Order that 18 we issued and the way in which its crafted is to ensure 19 continuing public availability of information, and 20 consequently the results of those self-assessments are 21 required as a condition of your license to be publicly 22 available.
23 So, I would encourage you to continue an aggressive 24 campaign in making the public aware of whats going on 25 inside. So, I commend you for that initiative.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
40 1 The estimated critical opposition was not due to 2 being properly accomplished as far as the boric 3 concentration coverage. What caused that calculation not 4 to be correct?
5 MR. BEZILLA: Okay. It wasnt that 6 it wasnt -- it wasnt that it wasnt correct, all right.
7 What we had tried to do was we tried to optimize our 8 activities. So, what the Reactor Engineers had done was 9 they had given some Boron concentration that was fairly 10 high. And then the target rod was up around 297, which is 11 all rods out is indexed at 300. All right. So, they had 12 tried to optimize that.
13 And, again, being zero power physics testing per 14 startup, you have prediction and you have band. Well, the 15 band was this, the band was this big (indicating). They 16 narrowed our target to like this (indicating). Because 17 with no more rods, I cant go critical. Okay.
18 What we saw was as we had gotten close, we knew we 19 werent going to get critical at that point. We could have 20 put the rods in to 150 rod index, which is like 50 percent 21 on group five, which is the first full group of rods. And 22 the operators asked a few questions.
23 Their perception was, it was going to take more time 24 to recalculate the Boron or make adjustments. And they 25 said, were not going to sit here, were going to go ahead MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
41 1 and put all the rods back in. They took a very 2 conservative approach; put the rods in. Like I said, we 3 applauded that action by the operators.
4 MR. GROBE: Was the operators 5 assessment that they would not go critical before all rods 6 out, was that a correct assessment?
7 MR. BEZILLA: Thats my belief, 8 yes.
9 MR. GROBE: How is it your 10 engineers didnt properly calculate Boron concentration 11 such as that you would be critical before all rods out?
12 MR. BEZILLA: Well, like I said, 13 there is a band; based on the best, based on predictions 14 and the best information they had, they made their 15 prediction. What we saw is we were off by about 17 parts 16 per million Boron. And the band was like plus or minus 50 17 parts per million Boron. This is where we predicted to 18 be. You could be off by plus or minus 50 parts per million 19 Boron. We were off by about 17 parts per million.
20 MR. GROBE: If I understand 21 correctly, they tried to calculate things a little too 22 closely.
23 MR. BEZILLA: Yes. Yes.
24 MR. GROBE: Okay.
25 MR. MYERS: Like he said, we MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
42 1 only, our change was only, were at 2200 at 50 PPM Boron, 2 we only changed Boron to 17 PPM.
3 MR. GROBE: I understand.
4 MR. MYERS: Thats a real 5 close, thats within the accuracy of the instruments 6 almost.
7 MR. GROBE: The Feedwater 8 Valve, Valve Number 780; you just briefly touched on the 9 root cause of that failure. Could you go into a little 10 more detail on the hydraulic issues that caused that valve 11 to fail?
12 MR. BEZILLA: Yeah, Jack. 780, I 13 will say, was disturbing to me, because I actually walked 14 that job down ahead of time with my Maintenance Director; 15 took me out, showed me what he was going to do, showed me 16 what his plans were, talked about the engagement he had 17 from the craft individuals, et cetera.
18 And, essentially what it was, we were going to make 19 a stem securing device, a clamp; put the clamp on, and 20 loosen up the stem, and watch for any stem movement. If 21 you saw any stem movement, you were going to stop and that 22 was the end of your task. So, that was essentially the 23 task. Okay.
24 Now, when we went through and laid that out, what we 25 didnt do is we didnt turn that over. We didnt turn that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
43 1 over at the craft level, the supervisor level, the 2 management level, the director level. All right. So, from 3 a communication standpoint we failed. All right.
4 When we actually got into that task, as I said, the 5 technician and the supervision that was out there, when 6 they started to loosen the stem that was tight, they had 7 some conversation, loosened up the actuator bolts and said, 8 "Hey, we have movement, this isnt right." Tightened 9 everything back up and stopped. All right. But that was 10 by surprise, not by prebrief and preview and being ready.
11 Thats where it should have been and it wasnt.
12 We looked at that as, Ill say, an overall failure.
13 What we did is put together a standdown package and 14 reviewed that. We walked through each of the barriers, 15 you know, Management Oversight Barriers, Management 16 Barriers, Document Barriers and Individual Barriers. We 17 went through that with each of our employees, because we 18 thought it was that significant; we considered it a 19 significant near miss.
20 MR. GROBE: I appreciate 21 that. I was actually asking a little different question.
22 The stem to disk separation occurred because of some 23 fracture of the ears on the disk. You indicated you just 24 never, you made a brief statement that was due to hydraulic 25 issues. Can you expand on that a little bit; and my MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
44 1 particular interest is why those hydraulic issues occurred 2 now and hadnt been anticipated?
3 MR. BEZILLA: Now I have a 4 better picture of the question. Okay.
5 MR. GROBE: It was all good 6 information though, thanks.
7 MR. BEZILLA: What we found, 8 Jack -- and Kevin, can you go back to, back one more.
9 Right there.
10 If I may, this is looking into the top of the 11 valve, all right. What you have in here is you have a stem 12 and the stem has a square, square end, if you will. And a 13 round shaft that comes out and then its attached to an 14 actuator and motor operator, okay.
15 What happened was, you see these four pieces. These 16 pieces would have, if you can picture, sort of curled over, 17 not touched, but curled over. And that stem laid in 18 there. So, when you pulled on this valve, it would pull 19 against these pieces that were over there. And the four 20 pieces are like right here, you can see them.
21 This valve, its a pretty tight valve. Its not a 22 split wedge, its actually a solid wedge disk, if you will.
23 And down at the bottom, it can flex a little bit, but in 24 the center, its solid, and at the top, you can see it can 25 flex a little, right.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
45 1 What we believed is when we shut that, we had a good 2 shut-off in there; and when we heated up the plant, the 3 area in here got full of fluid, if you will. And so when 4 the actuator tried to pull the valve out, it was 5 hydraulically locked and we couldnt pull it out.
6 There is a bonnet vent on this, but our procedure 7 said, "attempt to open the valve, if it fails to open, go 8 open the bonnet vents and then go open the valve." Well, 9 we changed our procedure now to say, "go open the bonnet 10 vents and then go ahead and open the valve." We believe 11 that will eliminate future problems with that valve.
12 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thank 13 you.
14 Just one more comment/question. This week, you had 15 a failure of the Delta 2 supply breaker; thats a nonsafety 16 related breaker, but nonetheless, because of the importance 17 of the electrical power to the safety of the plant, any 18 breaker failure gets attention by us.
19 For that reason, we dispatched an expert in control 20 systems, electrical control systems and breaker operation 21 from the Regional Office to be on site this week, 22 following your activities in this area.
23 During the course of that response to the breaker 24 failure, there were a number of concerns regarding internal 25 communication. I would like to hear any comments you have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
46 1 on those from how significant it appears that your 2 communication within your own organization wasnt as 3 effective as it could have been, particularly focusing on 4 the expectation and schedule for accomplishing a diesel 5 outage that had been scheduled previously prior to this 6 failure being identified; and then the communication 7 between your staff and the Resident Office was equally 8 challenged, I think, as far as the safety focus that your 9 organization had scheduled for that diesel outage.
10 Could you now give us any observations in that area; 11 and I realize youre still in the midst of working this 12 project.
13 MR. BEZILLA: I can address 14 that, Jack. I heard a little bit of that, but our intent 15 had been always solving the problem prior to proceeding 16 with the number two diesel outage. And, in fact, I had 17 sent that out in my morning and evening communications to 18 the site. So, I mean that goes to everybody, right.
19 And it was -- I was clear and I had told them that 20 they couldnt proceed without my permission as far as the 21 diesel outage until we had understood and resolved the 22 problem with the D2 bus. Okay.
23 So, if there was some confusion or mischief, it may 24 have been guys looking and asking and saying, "Hey, what 25 would be the risk?" Because we always do that, we always MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
47 1 ask what if. I know the guys had asked some of the risk 2 assessors, "Hey, what would be the risk if we proceed with 3 the diesel outage and not have the D2 bus back on normal 4 power supply.
5 So, I know those questions were asked, but as far as 6 any thoughts of proceeding with the number two diesel, I 7 dont think that would have occurred. Okay.
8 MR. GROBE: I understand that 9 was your perspective. And Deputy Director Division of 10 Reactor Projects in the Region, I was actually out of the 11 office on Tuesday, but the Deputy Director of Reactor 12 Projects was following this issue. And the communication 13 we were getting from the Resident Office wasnt nearly that 14 clear.
15 And to the point where 7:00 that evening, he called 16 your Plant Manager, Barry Allen, at home, and received just 17 as clear communication from Barry as you just articulated.
18 We did not receive that kind of clear safety focus 19 communication from your Operations organization, and it 20 wasnt clear to us at all what your plans were.
21 So, I would encourage you to initiate more 22 aggressive communications to the Resident Office to make 23 sure that your plans are clear; and also, Mark, if you 24 could call Christine to make sure we have a Regional 25 understanding of whats going on at the site is clear.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
48 1 This is a time of great interest in whats going on 2 at Davis-Besse, and its critically important always, even 3 more so right now, to ensure effective communication.
4 MR. MYERS: Jack, I called you 5 the other day and sensed some of that. So, I went to talk 6 to Mark and the other managers. We all believe we knew, 7 were all on the same telephone. We first knew the outage 8 of 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. We didnt know how long it would take us.
9 And were asking these questions. And, you know, so, but 10 we went back, based on the conversation we had with you, 11 and were going to try to improve that dialogue each time, 12 so when we have these conversations, the conversation we 13 have, well notify the Resident every time. So, were 14 going to close with that in mind now.
15 MR. GROBE: All right, thank 16 you.
17 Oh, one more observation. Lew, one of the things 18 that you identified from your perspective that contributed 19 significantly to the head degradation was a lack of focus 20 to problem solving; and created this Problem-Solving 21 Decision-Making process. Youve had the opportunity before 22 restart and during restart to use that procedure several 23 times. I think our assessment is, it works very well.
24 MR. MYERS: Yeah.
25 MR. GROBE: So, thats a good MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
49 1 improvement.
2 I just wanted to indicate that were looking 3 forwards to the opportunity when you get through these 4 restart equipment problems that we dont have to use it 5 quite so frequently.
6 MR. MYERS: Let me comment.
7 Its not part of the presentation, but I am extremely, just 8 extremely pleased with this. I remember a time, a year or 9 so ago, on Super Bowl Sunday, when we had a problem with 10 level control. Came out and called all the managers in, 11 said, "Where is our problem-solving, decision-making?
12 Where do we think this is coming from? How are we going to 13 get it together using our process?" Everybody sort of 14 stared at me.
15 Since that time, we have been using that process 16 faithfully. What Im really pleased with lately, Im just 17 glowing from the fact that, I was on call yesterday with 18 our shift manager -- I dont mean the shift manager, the 19 CA. But theyre sitting there and we had an issue. And 20 hes going right through the steps. At the end he said, 21 "Im through with step one. Im through with section one, 22 you know." During that time, clearly articulate what the 23 problem is, the plants stable, the status of the 24 plant, whats the problem, who should the players be, what 25 time and where are we going to meet to solve this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
50 1 particular issue. And he articulated what the issue was 2 and how we want to solve that.
3 Watching him go through that on his own and the way 4 he communicated yesterday, it was the highlight of my week, 5 you know. And I can sit here and tell you, I believe this 6 from the bottom -- I believe this sincerely, if we had 7 throughout the history, if he had approached any one of the 8 CRs the way we just discussed, we would not be here. Any 9 one of the 27 CRs, you know, if we would have just 10 approached it that way when we found it, we wouldnt be 11 here today.
12 So, I do think thats a healthy process. And Im 13 just delighted by the way were using it. Get your best 14 and brightest in the technical business, get your --
15 stablize, get your best and brightest together, make sure 16 you can articulate the questions, and then what are all the 17 technical issues that could cause this situation. Not a 18 bad way to do business, you know.
19 MR. GROBE: Okay. Just 20 before we move on to Clark, and well have time to get to 21 Clark today, I just wanted to highlight some things 22 Christine said earlier.
23 MR. THOMAS: Can I ask one more 24 question?
25 MR. GROBE: Sure, go ahead.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
51 1 MR. THOMAS: The 2 Problem-Solving Decision-Making procedure, is that process 3 for everyone thats entered or is that at management 4 discretion?
5 MR. MYERS: No, I think to 6 answer your question, if I understand, its process 7 driven.
8 MR. THOMAS: Could somebody get 9 back to me on that tomorrow, walk me through the process 10 that drives you to using that procedure?
11 MR. BEZILLA: Ill get back to 12 you, Scott.
13 MR. THOMAS: Well, let me add 14 to that. I agree with when its used, its effective in 15 determining the problems and getting to the resolution of 16 those issues, but the, when you enter that process, or 17 enter that procedure is, Im unclear on what level of issue 18 would drive you to use that procedure.
19 MR. MYERS: Lets look at 20 that.
21 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
22 MR. BEZILLA: I think, Scott, 23 the EEOP2 drives you to ER2000. Ill show you that 24 tomorrow.
25 MR. THOMAS: Okay, good.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
52 1 MR. GROBE: You started 2 talking Greek there for a minute. I understand.
3 I just wanted to highlight again Christines 4 statement of our observations of your performance and well 5 have an exit meeting tomorrow and Ill be at that meeting 6 and get a lot more detail, but we had over 30 inspectors 7 and reactor managers from around the country that assisted 8 over the last several weeks with our inspection effort to 9 provide round-the-clock observation of activities. Those 10 came from all across the country, all four regions.
11 Well, we did identify a number of issues and theyre 12 all fairly low level issues, well discuss those in more 13 detail tomorrow, but the general observation was that the 14 conduct of operations and control room, control of 15 evolutions was good.
16 Scott will get feedback from all the inspectors 17 before they left the site, and some even used the word 18 strong. Thats a positive outcome of our observations.
19 We expect to continue to see that.
20 Okay, Christine.
21 MS. LIPA: Were going to 22 take a ten minute break. So, I have 2:16. So, 2:26 return 23 please. Thank you.
24 (Off the record.)
25 MS. LIPA: Before I turn it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
53 1 over to Clark, I want to mention that Viktoria Mitlyng made 2 it here; and as promised, there are copies of the March 8th 3 approval letter on the table in the foyer, if you want to 4 pick one up.
5 With that, well turn it over to Clark.
6 MR. PRICE: Okay, thank you, 7 Christine.
8 Okay, good afternoon everyone. The desired outcome 9 of my part of the presentation today is to provide you with 10 an update of the improvement actions that we have taken 11 since the last public meeting with our Cycle 14 Operational 12 Improvement Plan. In addition, Ill be discussing progress 13 weve been making towards developing plans to meet the 14 requirements of the March 8th Confirmatory Order.
15 Next slide.
16 Just to revisit a little what we have discussed in 17 prior public meetings. Our Cycle 14 Operational 18 Improvement Plan is an extension of our Management/Human 19 Performance Excellence Building Block Plan. That was one 20 of the seven Building Blocks we had in our Return to 21 Service Plan.
22 In that plan, we identified we would have actions 23 that continue past restart. We have structured our 24 improvement plan around the concept of four safety barriers 25 designed to minimize errors and prevent events. Those MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
54 1 would be Individual, Program, Management, and Oversight 2 Barriers. I think youve heard Mark refer to those when we 3 use those in our assessment process during the restart 4 process also.
5 The plan serves to further strengthen and anchor the 6 Lessons Learned and the Corrective Actions weve taken 7 throughout the return to service of the plant.
8 Next slide.
9 The Operational Plan contains ten improvement 10 initiatives, and underneath these ten initiatives are 88 11 individual key actions. As Christine mentioned before, 12 these are commitments that weve made that are included in 13 the Op and Integrated Restart Report.
14 Included in that plan are also approximately 40 15 performance indicators aligned under each of the four 16 barriers. These indicators are designed to assist us in 17 determining whether or not we are having the desired 18 results of the improvement actions that were taking 19 underneath the Operational Improvement Plan initiatives.
20 And just to mention right here too, we are currently 21 in the process of working on a Revision 4 to the 22 Operational Improvement Plan making some further 23 refinements on key action items in the performance 24 indicators and well be docketing that to the NRC when we 25 do that.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
55 1 MS. LIPA: Clark, has have these 2 performance indicators been finalized yet?
3 MR. PRICE: Yeah, were in the 4 process right now, as a matter of fact tomorrow. We did 5 have an initial meeting on the 26th of March. We went 6 through all the indicators, did some refinements to those; 7 and as of tomorrow is the due date for the individuals who 8 own those performance indicators to have those completed 9 and to us.
10 I would mention what were doing with those 11 performance indicators is were using performance 12 indicators that weve developed specifically for the plan.
13 We have also used performance indicators that are part of 14 our business plan performance indicators, and also some 15 that come out of the Employee Concerns Program, performance 16 indicators are also included in that plan.
17 So, its a bringing together of several places where 18 we do performance indicators and looking at them 19 collectively with a focus on safety, which is what this 20 plan is for.
21 MS. LIPA: I would like to 22 suggest that some more detail on these performance 23 indicators would be a good topic for future meetings.
24 MR. PRICE: Okay.
25 Next slide.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
56 1 Each month we hold a management meeting for the 2 Operational Improvement Plan. We had, as I just mentioned, 3 we had our first meeting on March 26th. The meeting is 4 attended by the site Senior Leadership Team, site managers 5 and any other owners of key actions.
6 During these meetings, we discuss the status of key 7 initiative action plans, their coming due in the quarter 8 and any other long-term management plans that need to be 9 discussed. Well also be discussing as action plans are 10 closed, in the meeting well have each of the managers 11 discuss what they did to accomplish the closure of that 12 particular action.
13 We also discussed performance indicators, as I just 14 mentioned. Not only on an individual performance level, 15 but the beginning of this next meeting, we will be looking 16 at them collectively and making an assessment as to whether 17 these performance indicators are the right indicators for 18 us to assess these barriers. And also seeing whether were 19 having an overall improving, declining, or stable 20 performance at these barriers, safety barriers. So, were 21 going to, again, not just look at them individually, but in 22 a collective sense.
23 At the March meeting, we decided to also track the 24 other post restart commitments that were made at the 25 Integrated Restart Report and the supplement to that report MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
57 1 in the same fashion. So, were also right now in the 2 process of developing action plans for each of those 3 commitments to management and well monitor those in the 4 same monthly meeting.
5 As part of this meeting this month, well also begin 6 an implementation of the new Safety Culture Monitoring 7 Business Practice that well use to assess the health of 8 our safety culture in an ongoing basis.
9 Next slide, please.
10 This slide shows an overall status of our 11 improvement actions to-date. We had 34 improvement actions 12 that were identified in Appendix A of the Integrated 13 Restart Report in its supplement. Eleven of those are 14 complete. There were 94, or there are 94 improvement 15 actions identified in the Operational Improvement Plan.
16 To-date, 29 of those have been closed.
17 And we have Confirmatory Order requirements we are 18 tracking where we have six commitments identified there.
19 And Ill be talking about those in a little more detail in 20 just a few minutes.
21 The next slide has some of the first quarter 22 accomplishments from the Operational Improvement Plan.
23 Ill just go through these briefly.
24 Weve completed several Operations improvement 25 actions. As an example, one of the actions was to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
58 1 strengthen communications within Operations through 2 improved use of orders, standing orders. In order to 3 provide more consistent written communications to each of 4 the Operations, making sure each of the shifts get the same 5 information.
6 Mark always says one of our things we talk about 7 every morning; if we want to make sure we get it right, we 8 write it down; to make that communication strong and 9 lasting and consistent throughout the organization.
10 We developed the second item. We developed a 11 template to follow for forced outages, so we have 12 predefined evolutions and preidentified work to perform 13 based on the plant operating mode, that an unanticipated 14 outage would place us.
15 Another accomplishment was we completed Safety 16 Conscious Work Environment Training to site employees, 17 provided Safety Conscious Work Environment and Safety 18 Culture Refresher Training to the site supervisors. We 19 have now provided Safety Conscious Work Environment 20 Training to the entire site population.
21 And, another item, to improve the implementation of 22 Corrective Action Program, which is one of the Confirmatory 23 Order assessment areas. We have completed qualification of 24 21 apparent cause evaluators to-date and weve also 25 completed apparent cause training to the site managers.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
59 1 MR. MYERS: We have now 2 completed Safety Culture Training and Safety Conscious Work 3 Environment Training to all of our employees. I dont 4 know, certainly in this industry, anyone else who has done 5 this.
6 MR. PRICE: The next slide 7 identifies some of the second quarter highlights that we 8 have, well be working on this quarter.
9 We are making additional enhancements to our 10 Management Observation Program. That program is working 11 well for us, but we continue to enhance it.
12 We also will be benchmarking both industry and 13 within FENOC on the area of Conduct of Operations.
14 We have more improvements planned for the work 15 management processes this quarter, and we have a number of 16 significant action plans that are identified here. Slated 17 for completion are the layout schedules and priorities for 18 much of the work that well be accomplishing throughout the 19 remainder of this operating cycle.
20 Final action of note is Effectiveness Assessment 21 that we have planned again in the middle of May to assess 22 the effectiveness of the corrective actions taken in 23 response to the November 2003 Safety Conscious Work 24 Environment Survey.
25 Next slide.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
60 1 MR. GROBE: Clark.
2 MR. PRICE: Yes.
3 MR. GROBE: Before we go on to 4 the Order, I just have a couple of observations, and 5 questions.
6 Can you produce some sort of status report, a 7 periodic status report on the Section A and B, Appendix A 8 and B commitments, the status of those?
9 MR. PRICE: To-date we have 10 not, Jack. We do track those as part of the regulatory 11 tracking system. We have reports from that system.
12 However, what we will be doing going forward is assembling 13 a package each month for this monthly meeting that will 14 include all the action plans and all performance 15 indicators, so there would be a document created each month 16 that pulls all this together.
17 MR. GROBE: If you could make 18 sure we would get a copy of that, both Resident and the 19 Region of and NRR.
20 Second observation. This applies to the commitments 21 as well as the Order requirements. Weve established lead 22 inspectors for each of the four areas; Safety Culture, 23 Operations, Engineering, and Corrective Action. And, those 24 are Geoff Wright for Safety Culture, Dave Passehl for 25 Corrective Actions, John Jacobson for Engineering, and, of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
61 1 course, Scott Thomas for Operations.
2 If you could, Im not sure, do you have leads in 3 those areas or are you the chief cook?
4 MR. PRICE: I have overall 5 responsibility, but at this point we havent identified the 6 leads.
7 MR. GROBE: Its going to be 8 very important, because I anticipate were going to be 9 doing inspections throughout the year as you complete 10 activities. Its very important that you maintain 11 knowledge of those four individuals of what your status 12 is.
13 When you do establish leads, if thats the approach 14 or however you want us to communicate with the 15 organization, please let us know and we can work through 16 Christine on that.
17 MR. PRICE: Okay.
18 MR. GROBE: Final question.
19 In the restart letter that Jim Caldwell issued, it 20 indicated that should the scope or depth of any of these 21 commitments change or should the schedule change that we 22 expect you to notify us in writing.
23 Indicated at Revision 4 of the Operational 24 Improvement Plan is being prepared now, so we would expect 25 to receive that in writing.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
62 1 Have there been, other than Revision 4, are there 2 any changes in the scope or schedule of any of these 3 commitments?
4 MR. PRICE: Apparently, there 5 are no changes in schedule; there is one action that does 6 have a slight change in scope.
7 MR. GROBE: If you could make 8 sure as you get that close to final, that you communicate 9 with Christine, we would appreciate it so we know whats 10 going on there.
11 MR. PRICE: Well do that.
12 Yes, as a matter of fact, one of the six items I 13 mentioned with the Confirmatory Order is to ensure that we 14 do submit that docketed, and with the requirements that 15 were doing, Confirmatory Order, to make sure we document 16 our reasons for the change.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay, very good.
18 Thank you.
19 MR. PRICE: Okay. Continuing 20 on then on the Confirmatory Order. This slide, in these 21 final slides, I would like to discuss the progress we have 22 made to-date on our plants fulfilled the Confirmatory 23 Order requirements established on March 8th, 2004.
24 In general, the order requires annual independent 25 assessments in five areas for the next five years. The MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
63 1 order requires that we provide the NRC with a written plan 2 90 days prior to each assessment that identifies the scope 3 and depth of the assessment and the qualifications of the 4 assessors we choose for those assessments.
5 The order also requires that we provide an 6 assessment report within 45 days of the assessment 7 documenting the results of the action assessment; and 8 action plans that weve identified for the areas for 9 improvement that come from those assessments.
10 Separate from the annual assessments, the order 11 requires that we perform a visual bare metal examination of 12 the reactor vessel upper and lower head penetrations and 13 control rod drive mechanism flanges during the Mid-Cycle 14 Outage. That work is currently being scoped into our plan 15 Mid-Cycle Outage that will begin in mid January of 2005.
16 Next slide, please.
17 We are developing a project plan for managing and 18 carrying out the requirements of the Confirmatory Order 19 Assessments. I am the Project Manager of this plan and 20 Fred von Ahn, FENOC Vice President of Oversight, is the 21 executive sponsor for the plan.
22 We are developing a business practice to manage the 23 entire process for these assessments from the beginning to 24 the end. The business practice has two primary 25 objectives. First, to ensure that we have full compliance MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
64 1 with the Confirmatory Order; and the second is to enhance 2 our own internal self-assessment capabilities as we gain 3 lessons learned from these independent assessments, both in 4 their findings and also techniques and methods that they 5 use for those assessments. So, we want to learn and gain 6 experience and improve our self-assessment capability 7 through this process.
8 We have developed a tentative organizational 9 structure for the assessment plans. This organization 10 establishes, has a team approach for the individual 11 assessments. The assessment teams will typically include 12 two independent consultants, one of which will be the team 13 lead, and two independent nonFENOC nuclear utility experts 14 in the, experts in the assessment areas.
15 To support these teams, our plan is also to, and 16 also be our second objective in improving our internal 17 self-assessment capability, we plan to have support teams 18 which will not participate directly in the assessments, but 19 will provide assistance and administrative support to the 20 assessment teams. They will also be responsible for 21 initiating and facilitating development of the action plans 22 for any areas identified as needing improvement from these 23 assessments, which is also a required component of the 24 assessment report that we must submit to the NRC within 45 25 days following the assessment.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
65 1 MS. LIPA: So, Clark, are 2 you saying youre going to have the two independent 3 consultants and two independent utility folks on each team 4 or on each of the four assessments or is it going to be the 5 same team that does all the four assessments?
6 MR. PRICE: It will likely be 7 different teams for each assessment.
8 MS. LIPA: Thank you.
9 MR. PRICE: As weve been 10 developing our plan on assessment organization, were also 11 looking at adding an in-house assessment integrator to the 12 team. Like the support team, this assessment integrator 13 would be more of an indirect participant in the 14 assessments, but their main responsibility would be to look 15 at cross-cutting issues and themes that may come out of the 16 individual assessments, so that we have somebody thats 17 participating in each one who can see that identified and 18 will get that identified and get that to our Corrective 19 Action Program also to address. Somewhat similar what we 20 did with Safety Conscious Work Environment Survey where we 21 looked at cross-cutting issues that came out of those.
22 So, we think that would be a value added to this 23 process and well gain some more insight looking at 24 opportunities there in some cross-cutting areas.
25 Our tentative schedule for performing the 2004 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
66 1 Independent Assessments in four assessments areas is shown 2 here. Our goal is to complete the final assessment this 3 year in November.
4 We have the first assessment with Operations 5 scheduled in August, which is fairly aggressive. Because 6 of the 90 day plant cycle we have, we are working hard to 7 get the plant, get the team identified, get our business 8 practice through, and get the plan, this initial plan 9 submitted to NRC for review.
10 In conclusion, I believe we are developing a 11 comprehensive plan that meets the requirements established 12 by the Confirmatory Order. I also believe we have a good 13 sound Operational Improvement Plan, a process that would 14 continue to further strengthen and anchor the many 15 improvements and actions that we have made over the last 16 two years and ensure the safety -- continued safe, reliable 17 operation of the plant.
18 That concludes my presentation. Ill turn it over 19 to Lew for any closing remarks.
20 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
21 MR. GROBE: Before you close, 22 Lew, do we have any questions? Okay.
23 MR. RULAND: I have one 24 question, Clark. You said that the schedule to prepare for 25 the Operations Performance Independent Assessment was MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
67 1 aggressive. Could you elaborate a little further? I 2 mean, clearly the NRC, its in the NRCs interest and yours 3 to get the best possible plan, and doubtless assessment.
4 Is there some doubt in your mind that youre not 5 going, youre going to have a problem coming up with a plan 6 in sufficient time, or how do you characterize that?
7 MR. PRICE: No, its just with 8 the, with an August assessment and the 90 days, it gets us 9 into the May time frame, middle of May time frame, where we 10 have to have that plan developed and sent to you. So, we 11 have a lot of work to do between now and that time to get a 12 good assessment plan put together. That was my only 13 comment.
14 MR. RULAND: I understand, but 15 youre confident that youre going to have a plan that you 16 think is going to be acceptable to you and of course were 17 going to get a chance to look at.
18 MR. PRICE: Yes, we do. These 19 are obviously target dates for these. Our commitment is to 20 have them completed before the end of the year. Our desire 21 is to get them spread out over a period of time so we can 22 manage them well, not only manage the assessments, but the 23 results from those assessments, and do it in an organized 24 managed fashion.
25 To do that, we would like to have one a month MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
68 1 starting in August, and to be done in November, so we have 2 a little cushion at the end of the year in case something 3 would pervade that schedule, but also allow us to get the 4 final report submitted then also before the end of the 5 year.
6 MR. RULAND: Great, thank you.
7 MR. MYERS: Thank you. We 8 have three desired outcomes today. One was to discuss the 9 steps that weve taken to return the plant to service in a 10 safe, conservative manner. I provided our assessment 11 to-date of our performance and I think thats somewhere in 12 the good range. We did see some areas for improvement. I 13 shared those with you.
14 We also wanted to provide you with a timeline. I 15 think we gave you a detailed timeline of the startup 16 activities since the last public meeting, and we wanted to 17 show you the areas that we think weve accomplished well 18 and some of the challenges that we have. We did that.
19 Then, finally, Clark provided you, I think, with an 20 update of where were going with Confirmatory Action 21 Letter, the Operational Improvement Plan post-restart 22 here. And, in general, if you go look at our overall 23 vision that we have, its people providing a strong safety 24 focus, a strong safety focus; and we believe that delivers 25 top fleet operator performance.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
69 1 My message to this team is, we know the party is not 2 over. Weve got more work to do. Our biggest challenge 3 right now is not getting complaisant complacent; and we, as a 4 management team, are determined not to let that happen.
5 And thats all I have, thank you.
6 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thanks, 7 Lew. I wanted to cover two topics at the end here.
8 First is my impressions of the panel, this panel, 9 the NRC Oversight Panel, where were going; and, secondly, 10 to talk a little about future meetings. Jim Caldwell has 11 made it clear to me that this panel will provide oversight 12 assessment and guidance for NRC activities for at least 13 four quarters. That he would not anticipate any relaxation 14 of the panels oversight until its really into the 15 Mid-Cycle Outage next year.
16 So, the panel will be providing regular assessment 17 and guidance for NRC activities until such point in time 18 that it concludes that Davis-Besse can be returned to the 19 routine oversight process.
20 As far as future meetings, Christine and Bill are 21 slipping notes back and forth as far as structure on a 22 regular basis. Im thinking its appropriate that we could 23 get to a very structured and regular agenda. I dont see 24 any need for any significant deviations on the agenda.
25 I thought the assessment of facility performance, Mark, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
70 1 was very insightful and I think each time we meet we would 2 like to hear your assessment of facility performance. As 3 Christine mentioned, I think presentation of performance on 4 how your monthly performance of the plant is going.
5 I think the status and results of improvement 6 initiatives, and the compliance with the order would be an 7 appropriate thing every time we meet. And, I think also 8 the results of any other outside assessments. You 9 mentioned three outside activities that you were, either 10 had conducted or were preparing for during this 11 presentation. I think hearing the outcomes of those 12 assessments will be useful.
13 And then also I am always interested in hearing your 14 Quality Assessment Organizations perspectives on facility 15 performance. So, if we could include that on a regular 16 basis, I think that would be helpful.
17 Are there any other thoughts on content for these 18 meetings going forward?
19 MR. RULAND: I just have one 20 comment, Jack. The Mid-Cycle Outage, of course, was part 21 of the Confirmatory Order. And as you, as we get closer, 22 Ill be interested in preparations youre making preparing 23 for that outage. It will touch on not only your inspection 24 plans, but I would be interested in, well, in your Reactor 25 Coolant System Integrity Inspection Plans, but also the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
71 1 Steam Generator Two Tube Inspections.
2 As you know, the NRC issued a license amendment in 3 this area, and I know I and possibly the public are 4 interested in the Steam Generator Two Tube Inspection.
5 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Bill.
6 As Christine indicated, tentatively we have set 7 aside May 11 for the next meeting. And we need to finalize 8 that date and then finalize location and well be getting 9 that out to the public as soon as we can.
10 I anticipate that these meetings will continue on a 11 fairly regular basis, but I also anticipate planned 12 activities should get to the point where theyre fairly 13 routine sometime in the future. We may be extending the 14 time period between these meetings, depending on whats 15 going on on-site and on the public interest. Well just 16 kind of make that decision as things progress.
17 Any other thoughts or comments before we adjourn?
18 Any other comments, Lew?
19 MR. MYERS: No.
20 MR. GROBE: Okay. We stand 21 adjourned for the first half of this meeting.
22 MS. LIPA: Right. Well take 23 a ten minute break and then well be available for public 24 comments and questions. So, I have 5 until 3. That will 25 be at 3:05. Thank you.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
72 1 (Off the record.)
2 MS. LIPA: Okay. Were 3 ready for public comments or questions. If anybody has a 4 question for us or wants to make a comment for the record.
5 And, there is a sign-in sheet and a microphone staged at 6 the podium. So, feel free to come on up.
7 In case somebody is thinking about whether they have 8 a question or not, I want to say tonight at 6:00 were 9 going to have another meeting here. That will just be the 10 NRC talking, and it would be to summarize what we talked 11 about during the business portion of the meeting, and also 12 be available to answer comments and questions.
13 Does anybody have any comments or questions for us 14 now?
15 Okay. Well, the meeting is adjourned then. Thank 16 you.
17 (Off the record.)
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
73 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 11th day of April, 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