ML060690413
| ML060690413 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 03/09/2004 |
| From: | Neff E, Teator J NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| FOIA/PA-2005-0194, OI-1-2004-002 | |
| Download: ML060690413 (106) | |
Text
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ++ + + +
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 .INTERVIEW
_ - - - - - _ x 6
7 IN THE MATTER OF:
8 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No. 1-2004-002 9
( L ED 10 (CLOSED) 11 - - - - - - - x 12 Tuesday, March 9, 2004 13 Training Center 14 PSEG Nuclear 15 Salem, NJ 16 17 The above-entitled interview was conducted 18 at 4:47 p.m.
19 BEFORE:
20 SPECIAL AGENT Eileen Neff 21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT Jeff Teator 22 ALSO PRESENT:
23 Project Engineer Ted Wingfield 24 I
Infriato nfntioin tis ec was dewa this, record l(eted d NEAL R.AND eletCOURT REPORTERS GROSS TRANSCRIBERS inaccordance with the Freedom of
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2 1 APPEARANCES:
2 3 On Behalf of PSEG Nuclear and the Witness, 4
5 JEFFRIE J. KEENAN, ESQ.
6 PSEG Assistant General Solicitor 7 Nuclear Business Unit--N21 8 P.O. Box 236 9 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 4:47 p.m.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is March 4 9th, 2004. The time is approximately 4:47 p.m.
5 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, with U.S. NRC 6 Region 1, office of Investigations.
7 Also present from the same office is 8 Senior Agent Jeffrie Teator, and from the Division of 9 Reactor Projects, Project Engineer Ted Wingfield.
10 What follows is an interview of 11 who is currently 12 employed by PSEG Nuclear as 13 Jat the Salem 14 station.
15 PSEG Nuclear Assistant Solicitor General 16 Jeffrie Keenan is also present and will describe the 17 purpose of his appearance today, shortly.
18 As agreed, the interview is being 19 tape-recorded and will be conducted under oath.
20 The location of this interview is the PSEG 21 Nuclear Training Center at Salem, New Jersey.
22 The subject matter of this interview 23 concerns the handling of a steam valve for a main 24 feedwater pump turbine, VMS-42, in September 2002, and 25 s being interviewed as the subject in NEAL R. GROSS hft COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. /
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4 1 this investigation.
2 The allegations involve potential 3 violations of technical specification 6.8.1 as related 4 to station operating practices required for equipment 5 control, 10 C.F.R. 50.54(j), "Conditions of Licenses 6 and Operating Apparatus and Mechanisms Other Than 7 Controls," and 10 C.F.R. 50.5, "Deliberate 8 Misconduct."
9 is appearing here today 10 voluntarily. And understanding what I've explained to 11 you, do you wish to go forward?
12 Yes, I do.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can we, before we go 14 any further, place you under oath? Would you raise 15 your right hand, please.
16 Whereupon, 17 18 having been first duly sworn, was examined and 19 testified as follows:
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you.
21 What I'll ask you to do is -- Jeff, please 22 describe the purpose of your appearance here today.
23 MR. KEENAN: Yes. My name is Jeff Keenan 24 and I work for PSEG Services as Assistant General 25 Solicitor. Today I'm representin and PSEG in a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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5 1 joint capacity. I have reviewed issues relative to 2 the 22-MS-42 valve. I'm not aware of any conflict.
3 Should a conflict arise, we'll take a break from the 4 record and best handle that.
5 We would also like the ability to review 6 the transcript when it's available -- of course, under 7 the purview of the NRC.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right.
9 ( do you understand the purpose of Mr.
10 Keenan, as described?
11 Yes, I do.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Does your 13 employer require you to have an attorney present when 14 you are interviewed by NRC Office of Investigations?
15 No, they do not.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Were you in any way 17 threatened with any adverse action if you did not 18 request corporate counsel?
19 No, I was not.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Will the 21 presence of Mr. Keenan hinder your testimony in any 22 way?
23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you 25 understand that you have the right to a private NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 interview with me at your convenience?
2 Yes, Ido.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: With that 4 understanding, do you wish to continue at this time?
5 Yes, I do.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I'll state for 7 the record that before this interview commenced we 8 were interviewin n regard to a different 9 matter, and doing so we established some identifying 10 information and your background information.
11 And what I'll do is give a summary of your 12 PSEG Nuclear employment. And you can correct me if 13 I'm wrong, but --
14 Okay.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
16 17 im-MR, - MM 18 1"Monaft .agmi 1--7MKM- MIAKWAM93m" mi.,
MI 19 --
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20 These are all 21 positions you held at Salem.
22 Correct.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that correct?
24 I A Correct.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
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7 1 The is not on 2 shif t; that is 3 responsible for the shifts.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Responsible for the 5 shifts?
6 Correct.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Explain that.
8 ,,YYou have an 9 at m 1_11wff 10 ~So 11 the shift designates the responsibilities, responsible 12 for the performance of the shifts. Staff is 13 responsible for the procedure group, procedures, say, 14 temporary standing orders, that type of thing, the 15 more staff-type activities.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So from hIW 18 19 20 21 Correct.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay, why 23 don't we go -- we'll go to the time frame, September 24 2002. The steam leak developed, is my understanding, 25 on the back shift.
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8 1 Correct.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was pretty --
3 pretty late at night.
4 Correct.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you explain your 6 purpose, your presence there that day, and what 7 capacity you were in?
8 Yeah, we -- one of the 9 expectations that my manager at the time, who was 10 , had, was that if we were doing plant 11 manipulations on the back shifts, that one of us, 12 either himself, 13 would be present for power 14 changes, whether it was up, down, or any other 15 significant testing that was going to take place. So 16 on the specific day in question, September 21st, I 17 came in late to work -- I don't know; it was sometime 18 in the afternoon -- to support the turbine valve 19 testing which was scheduled for that night on Unit 2.
20 To perform turbine valve testing, power had to be 21 reduced to 47 percent for the testing to commence. As 22 such, that was 23 24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Of that 25 evolution or of the whole shift?
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9
/
7---
-N 1 Of that evolution.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The testing?
3 i 3= Yeah.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Specific 5 to that testing?
6 _" Correct.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you came in --
9 you were saying you came in late in the afternoon. At 10 what power level were you when you came in?
11 I believe when I came in we 12 were at 100 percent power. And I believe I watched 13 the shift start the down-power, and then I proceeded 14 to my office once I felt comfortable with the 15 activities that were in progress, and asked to be 16 notified when we were -- prior to performance of the 17 test.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The -- so at 19 what point in time are you in the evening, then, when 20 you're going to your office?
21 9oI'm not sure exactly what 22 time I went to my office. I know it was approximately 23 11:00 o'clock when Van Ford came to my office to get 24 me and reported the steam leak.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At around 11:00 p.m.?
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10 1 Ye 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So what 3 happened from there?
4 So Van came in, said, "Hey, 5 we have a steam leak, and the 22-MS-42 has been 6 identified. You want to come take a look?" I said, 7 Sure. n from -- physically from the 8 location of the steam leak, is within, I would say, a 9 hundred yards, if not less, same elevation. It's just 10 basically through one door: walk out my open office 11 door, down the hallway, through a door into the 12 turbine building.
13 And as soon as we opened the door to go 14 out, we could both hear the noise and see the steam.
15 And Van's first comment to me was -- upon entering the 16 turbine building, was, it's gotten worse since he 17 looked at it last, which was, you know, several 18 minutes prior to coming to my office.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And what were 20 you observing at that point, and what kind of a --
21 kind of a plume and --
22 It was a pretty significant 23 steam leak.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what way worse?
25 I mean, I don't know how it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 was worse. He said just the size of the steam plume 2 or the leak was worse, right, so I would imagine that 3 the plume was extending further than it was when he 4 was out there earlier. My guestimate would be that 5 the plume at that time was maybe extending 20 feet 6 from the valve itself.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you got 8 out there --
9 Yeah.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- to see it 11 the first time?
12 w row~__Es Yeah.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. And what 15 were you discussing at that point?
16 _ >Actions that were in place.
17 I think we were -- our discussions were, you know, had 18 he -- anybody else been notified? The response was 19 no, so we proceeded up to the control room. We didn't 20 spend a lot of time there at the -- at the leak site, 21 went back to the control room, and initiated a call to 22 the plant manager at that time, who was Carl Fricker, 23 and wound up having a conference call with Carl 24 Fricker, Lon Waldinger -- I know Ken Cutler was on the 25 conference call. He was at that time -- I don't think I I
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12 1 he was on the initial call, but I think we may have 2 beeped him while we were on the conference call, and 3 then he joined in. But the initial call was to 4 discuss the fact that we had the leak.
5 There was some discussion about could we 6 fix the leak on-line. We have a company that we use, 7 which is Team, Incorporated, which comes in, and they 8 do leak repair on an active steam leak, and we've used 9 them. We used them several times before here, before 10 this event, and numerous times following the event.
11 They're every effective, and usually can get to the 12 site in a short amount of time. They're -- I think 13 they're within forty-five minutes of the site.
14 MR. KEENAN: They're a specialty outfit 15 that does just this kind of thing?
16 Yeah.
17 MR. KEENAN: Okay.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And what was 19 the name? T-Nuke?
20 iihowTeam.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Team.
22 T-e-a-m, Inc.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You lost me a little 24 bit on that.
25 - I I'm sorry.
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13 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It sounded like there 2 were two phone calls. Was there one phone call and 3 then another phone call?
4 9 There -- that should be 1K_
5 another one. I think in this one there was one phone 6 call, and we either paged -- while we were on this 7 conference call paged Ken Cutler; somehow, Ken Cutler 8 was in on the conference call. And I can't remember 9 if -- I know he wasn't part of the initial conference 10 call when he was beeped by Carl Fricker or Lon, but we 11 may have linked him from another phone into that 12 phone, and he joined the conference call.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Joined in. And his 14 position is what?
15 At that time -- he no longer 16 works with the company, but at that time he was, for 17 lack of better terms, our leak supervisor. He owned 18 our leak program, so that was identification and 19 repair of any leaks, both steam, water, air, whatever 20 leaks were out there.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so that's 22 yourself and these three individuals, Carl Fricker, 23 Lon Waldinger, Ken Cutler.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Van Ford?
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Van Ford on that call NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 to.o?
2 D Right, Van. Well, Van was 3 sitting in the office with me, yes.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And yourself.
5 Correct.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you had five. All 7 right.
8 So what's the result from these 9 conversations, then, bringing Team in?
10 The conversation -- what 11 we're leaving the conversation with was that Ken was 12 going to pursue Team, Inc., to see what time frame we 13 could bring them to the island to effect repairs. And 14 that's kind of how that conference call was left, is 15 that we would hold where we were and get an evaluation 16 back from Team, Inc., on how long it would take them 17 to respond. And if it looked like it would be a short 18 time frame, that that's the path weId pursue, would be 19 Team, Inc., to repair the leak.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And when 21 you're holding where you were, at what -- at what 22 power level are you now?
23 If you don't mind, can I 24 take a look in there, because --
25 MR. KEENAN: Sure.
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15 1 I k.
know our goal; we were 2 heading to 47 percent. I'm just not sure where --
3 like the time line on the conference call.
4 MR. KEENAN: Yeah. For the record, we 5 have the Salem operating logs for that evening. That 6 would be September 22nd, 2002 for Unit 2, starting 7 with the 1900 shift.
8 Okay. So based on using 9 there the best recollection, we were at 47 percent, 10 which is our target, which was our target power for 11 the night. So like I said, it was about 11:00 o'clock 12 when Van came down and notified me of the leak. We 13 proceeded back to the control room. Obviously, while 14 we were waiting for the conference call, for people to 15 call back in that we had paged, we had some 16 discussions which led into the entry into the abnormal 17 operating procedure for AB steam. And that's why I 18 can see the entry time for the AB steam is 2318. And 19 if you look, two minutes prior to that was when we 20 were -- we had reached 47 percent. So during this 21 conference call we were already holding at 47 percent.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you'd 23 entered this abnormal rocedure?
24 Correct.
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: AB steam, you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 call it?
2 Yeah, correct.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 22- --
4 I'm sorry, for the -- which 5 one? Holding at power, or the entry?
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For the entry.
7 "A .2318.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, for the entry 9 to the abnormal procedure.
10 _ Correct.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Thank you.
12 Okay, so now what happens here, now that 13 you've entered into the abnormal condition?
14 When you --
15 MR. KEENAN: Okay.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's going to be 17 the procedure?
18 9Well, you follow it just as 19 -- and I think you may have a copy here.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This one here?
21 MR. KEENAN: Yeah, I have it stamped.
A-_
22 rhis is the old one.
23 MR. KEENAN: You need the one that you 24 used that evening.
25 "Whip Okay.
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17 1 So the control room supervisor -- now I'm 2 not involved in the actual use of the procedure. The 3 control room supervisor would be directing the 4 procedure. While we were on the conference call 5 having our discussion, they would be addressing the 6 control -- the AB steam.
7 So the first thing is, you go to the 8 Attachment 1, which is to initiate that. If you --
9 requirements for -- basically, that's your 10 requirements for a trip, right? Those are your 11 guardrails for the procedures, so if anytime these 12 things happen, you take the actions, requirements. In 13 most cases they're going to be reactor-trip, confirm 14 the reactor-trip, isolate -- isolate the main steam 15 line. So they review that, then you go through and 16 basically just answer a series of questions. If you 17 want, I can walk right through the procedure.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah, let's go 19 through -- yeah, let's go through --
20 Okay, so 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's go through what 22 they had, what you were going to do.
23 i The CRS is going to -- and 24 the way we do this at Salem is, the CRS has a 25 procedure, he reads it, and then the reactor operator NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 responds to the questions, either a Yes or No answer, 2 and they go to that path, right?
3 Is the main turbine latched? In this 4 case, yes, we were on line.
5 Is emergency hydraulic system properly 6 controlling main turbine load? Yes, it was; we didn't 7 see any load perturbations at that time. As you can 8 see, they reached that step. Whenever you kick to 9 bypass a step, you always log the time. So that was 10 approximately four minutes after entry.
11 And you're transitioning to step 3.7:
12 reduce turbine load in accordance with SO Turb 2 to 13 lower power to less than 100 percent, as indicated on 14 power range nuclear instrumentation. So that step is 15 there, with the thoughts that the plant is operating 16 100 power, you have a steam leak which causes the 17 reactor power to go above 100 percent, so this is the 18 step that would have you reduce power back down so 19 you're not in an over-power condition.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
21 Right. If any MS-10 valve 22 is malfunctioning, replace it. That wasn't the case.
23 If any steam-dump valve is malfunctioning, 24 they're to press 17 Alpha-Bravo; steam valves weren't 25 malfunctioning.
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19 1 Is a steam generator or safety valve 2 partially open or leaking? Answer to there -- that 3 was No.
4 Then transition to step 3.21.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What are all 6 those Ws there?
7 That's Bill White's 8 initials.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
10 That's the control room 11 supervisor.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
13 MR. KEENAN: That's consistent with the 14 completed sign-off sheet in the back, which is on page 15 12 of 12 of the procedure, indicates who was signed 16 off on this procedure.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. That's 18 helpful.
19 _ > Okay, so it's 2330; they're 20- going to step 3.21. 3.21, is reactor power and RCS 21 temperature stable? We hadn't seen any effects from 22 steam-flow indications or reactor power, reactor 23 temperature, of the steam leak, so the answer is Yes.
24 3.23, is the cause of the excessive steam 25 flow stopped? Obviously, no, it had not been.
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20 1 Transition to step 3.27. Is there 2 indication of a steam leak in the containment? This 3 was a known steam leak, they knew exactly what --
4 where it was, and there was no indications that it was 5 in the containment.
6 Transition to step 3.34: continue with 7 this procedure to 3.35. And they do that specifically 8 -- when you see a step in a procedure like that, they 9 do that specifically to heighten the attention to the 10 caution box there. So the caution is, extreme caution 11 is necessary when locating steam leaks. Leakage from 12 high-temperature, high-pressure systems may not be 13 visible. Superheated steam and steam leaks concurrent 14 with steam generate tube leaks will require release 15 calculations by written protection. In this case we 16 had no tube leaks, identified or actual.
17 . 3.35, send operators to locate source of 18 steam outside containment. So you can see there, 19 that's just showing that he knew where it was, and 20 identified that in the procedure.
21 Is there any indication -- is there 22 indication of a steam leak in the inner or outer 23 containment penetration areas? No; we knew where it 24 was at that time, 23- -- I think that's 2335. Okay.
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21 1 the present plant condition? So this is where 2 initially Bill holds while we're getting the 3 information, can we get Team, Inc., in here to fix the 4 leak. All right. So -- so he's got 3.39 circled, 5 standing here waiting for a determination, can it be 6 isolated or not, with the isolation being -- method 7 being Team, Incorporated, coming in and, I'll say, 8 shooting the valve. And that's where they inject the 9 Furmanite or whatever else they put in the box for the 10 sealant.
11 And as you can see, 2333, 35 from the 12 previous step to 0016, where it's determined that we 13 can isolate it, right, so during that time frame --
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We can?
15 Well, if you look, that 0016 16 designates that he answered No to step -- and go to 17 step 3.42 at that time.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
19 9 At 0016.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, with 21 a line drawn on it here?
22 Correct.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
24 We're referencing the 25 narrative again. So at 0016 we had already completed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 our second call back with Lon, Carl, and Ken Cutler, 2 and determined that we could not get Team, 3 Incorporated in here within a reasonable time frame to 4 support repairing this steam leak. And I think, if I 5 remember, during that, during the conference call, it 6 was estimated to be several hours before they'd be 7 able to get to the site. So based on that 8 information, the end result of the conference call was 9 that we would shut the plant down.
10 And there was some discussion as far as 11 what that meant, as far as "Hey, to isolate this leak 12 we're going to have to do a main steam isolation on 13 the VMS-10s," and et cetera. But our intent was -- at 14 the end of that conference call, was to shut the plant 15 down and isolate --
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is the second 17 conference call, then?
18 Correct.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Is it the same 20 people on this conference call, or are there others?
21 It's at least those same 22 people. There may have been others, I don't recall.
23 But I know all those individuals were on the second 24 conference call.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about anybody NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 along with Lon Waldinger from senior management? Mr.
2 Garchow, Mr. O'Connor, were they on that phone call?
3 OW I don't -- I don't recall.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You don't 5 recall them being on it or you don't know if they were 6 on it or not?
7 I don't recall them being on 8 it.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How long -- how long 10 does this call last, this decision that you're going 11 to shut down? Is it a lengthy call? I mean, what's 12 your time frame here?
13 I would say it was probably 14 ten minutes or less, the second call. I mean, it was 15 pretty much clear that we didn't have a mechanism to 16 stop the steam leak at that time, right, because our 17 -- the only reason we held up earlier was, we thought 18 we could get Team, Incorporated in here to do it.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
20 Once it became apparent that 21 they weren't going to be here for several hours, we 22 talked about the leak not improving, right? And 23 obviously, as we reduced power, steam generator 24 pressure rises, which causes the leak to worsen also.
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24 1 was causing the steam leak to be worse than what it 2 would have been at, say, 100 percent. But to get off 3 line, it's going to -- obviously, the steam pressure 4 is going to increase and it's going to worsen the 5 leak, too. So the longer we sat here and potentially 6 cut the leak path that was coming out, was just going 7 to make it worse when we -- when we shut down. So we 8 didn't -- we didn't waste a lot of time during this 9 discussion.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you under 11 a time constraint at that point to shut the plant 12 down? Was there an action statement that you were 13 approaching or had entered already where it gave you 14 a certain amount of time to shut the plant down?
15 No, not that I can -- I'll 16 reference the narrative again, but --
17 MR. KEENAN: would LCOs be entered 18 into the control room narrative log?
19 Yes, they would.
20 MR. KEENAN: Under any conditions for 21 operations?
22 N Yes, they would be.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you see one 24 in there after looking at it again?
25 No.
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25 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. All 2 right.
3 9 And I don't -- I mean, there 4 was no -- I just want to clarify, there was no -- that 5 night there was no sense of time pressure, other than 6 the fact that we had a major steam leak in the 7 secondary line.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
9 So we left the -- we left 10 the conference call with everybody aligned, in that 11 the course of action would be to commence a unit 12 shutdown, and which would involve isolation of the 13 MS-167s, which are the main steam isolation valves, 14 and that was the only mechanism that we had to isolate 15 the steam leak.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you in 17 alignment with that decision also?
18 Oh, yeah.
19 So, then we went from that conference 20 call. Van went in to talk to his control room crew 21 about brief- -- starting to brief for the down-power 22 in the plan. I think I went back out to the turbine 23 building to look, to once again look at the steam 24 leak, see what the condition was, and started looking 25 at it and, you know, identified where the steam leak NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 was. The first time I had looked at it with Van, I 2 didn't take a lot of time to actually identify where 3 the leakage was coming from.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
5 So the second time, when I 6 went back out, I took a little more time to identify 7 exactly where it was coming from, the body, the bonnet 8 leak. And it was kind of odd in the characteristics, 9 that it was all on the downstream side of the valve.
10 So I think at that time, sometime during that period 11 of time I went out and had a discussion with a 12 maintenance superintendent or supervisor, to one of 13 our maintenance supervisors, and asked him, based on 14 those characteristics, would closing the valve isolate 15 the leak, since it's on the downstream side of the 16 valve. And he believed -- he told me that he believed 17 it would, that --
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
19 (I believe his -- there were 20 two. All the shifts had two maintenance supervisors 21 on, and I believe I talked to Dan Franklin. And Tony 22 Wescott may have also been involved in part of the 23 discussion. He may have been on the conference calls 24 earlier too, or in the control room with Van and I.
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. So you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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27 1 were out there and you meet up with this maintenance 2 supervisor. And you ask him what?
3 Asked him, based on where ( Q 4 the leak is and his knowledge of, right, the internals 5 of what that valve looks like and how the valve 6 functions, closing the valve, would that isolate the 7 steam leak, because of the characteristics and where 8 it was on -- just on half the valve, on the downstream 9 side. And the said, "Hey, it's a valve; you close it, 10 and there'll be no pressure on that side of the -- of 11 the valve assembly."
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this is -- by 13 name, do we know who this is?
14 Dan Franklin.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Dan Franklin. And 16 the other one was Tony Wescott, who was --
17 a He was involved earlier. He 18 may -- he may have been the individual that went and 19 beeped Ken Cutler to get him involved with Team, Inc.,
20 or Tony may have called Team, Inc., himself. But 21 somehow, he was involved with getting ahold of the 22 contractor that we used for the leak repair.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So the people from --
24 who were involved with maintenance with Cutler -- is 25 Franklin's position different than Cutler's position, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 and this is isolable?
2 Yeah. I had -- Kenny wasn't 3 there to visualize it, and I had not posed that 4 question to Ken.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so he --
6 Because from Kenny's 7 perspective, right, isolable in the previous context 8 was based on just the availability of Team, Inc., to 9 report to the island --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
He-11 -- and be able to build a 12 box around this leak and shoot it with --
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
14 Furmanite material.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But in Franklin --
16 with Franklin, he has a little more information, in 17 that the leak is on the body, on the bonnet, in this 18 location downstream from --
19 Right. Right.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- from the 21 particular valve.
22 Right.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so he has more 24 information there. Okay.
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Because you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 describe it for him. Is that right?
2 Correct 3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
4 9) Correct. And I mean, I 5 wasn't -- in no way was I asking Danny about making a 6 decision, I just asked him about the characteristics 7 of that, of any valve, right, of that design: "If I 8 close it, what's the pressure downstream of the 9 valve?"
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So what 11 happens then?
12 So I come back to the 13 control room.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's going on in 15 the control room at this point?
16 They're briefing for the 17 down-power and -- they're briefing for the down-power.
18 Van and I start to have a discussion, and 19 I -- you know, I informed Van that I believed that 20 closing the valve, closing the 22-MS-42 will isolate 21 the steam link -- steam leak, and kind of briefly 22 informed Van what we would need to do -- to support 23 closing the valve. One would be to swap over both.
24 Right now you have both steam generator feed-pumps 25 operating. Well, if I'm going to isolate steam to one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS /t 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 of the feed-pumps, we have to take -- reduce the speed 2 on that and take all the load and put it on the other 3 feed-pump, so you don't affect feedwater pressure, 4 supply flows, anything. So we had that discussion.
5 I think we -- I think I asked Van to hold 6 the brief, hold up the brief that's going on for the 7 down-power, to swap over the feed-pumps and make that 8 the priority now, to swap the feed-pumps over, which 9 you would have to do eventually, anyway. You'd have 10 to take one of the feed-pumps out on the down-power, 11 about 40 percent power, by procedure.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was that done?
13 Had it been done yet?
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No; when you 15 suggested that to Van, was that done?
16A >Yes, it --
16 17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is it in the 18 log?
19 Yes, it's -- well, it's not 20 in the log that they swapped it over. It's in the log 21 that they tripped it later on, after -- where did I 22 see it?
23 MR. KEENAN: Take your time.
24 That's right. I know I read 25 it. At 0139.
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31 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: 0139 a.m.?
2 *fiww 1)Correct.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And what does 4 it say?
5 That's "Tripped 22 steam 6 generator feed-pump in accordance with SOCN2 steam 7 generator feed pump operation."
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What does that 9 mean to people somewhat like me?
10 You hit the trip button.
11 It's -- so before then -- I mean, the trip on the 12 feed-pump, right? Before then, the way the procedure 13 is laid out, you take all the load off the pump and 14 you take it down to minimum speed, so it's sitting 15 there basically at idle, 1100 rpm, not providing any 16 flow, not doing anything but sitting there idling.
17 These steam generator feed pumps, if you 18 don't -- you can't leave them in that condition. If 19 you do, after a period of time they build up exhaust 20 hood temperatures, and it would -- could result in a 21 trip on a high exhaust hood temperature. So 22 procedurally, we don't let them idle for a long period 23 of time.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So was that 25 pump brought down to an idle point?
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32 1 Yes. Yeah.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When did that 3 begin?
4 I came back to the control 5 room, I had the discussion with Van about what we 6 needed to do to support attempts to close the MS-42.
7 And I can't remember if I asked him or suggested that 8 they hold off on the brief for the down-power and 9 focus on swapping the feed-pumps over. And shortly 10 thereafter, that occurred, where the one feed-pump was 11 -- speed was reduced, and the load transferred over to 12 the 22 -- or excuse me; the 21 steam generator 13 feed-pump.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Looking at the 15 log then, when do you think that load was starting to 16 be reduced? Because it was tripped at 1:39, right?
17 jjm Yeah. I'm sure we would 18 have logged it.
19 MR. WINGFIELD: Would there be a 20 procedure, that would have been signed that 21 night by the shift, or was that within the realm of 22 operator action?
23 No, there wasn't a 24 procedure, but record retentions, you would probably 25 only retain the last, on page -- the sign-off page, so NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. -:C (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
33 1 it would be in the --
2 MR. WINGFIELD: Is there a --
3 I'm trying to tie it to the 4 overhead alarms that came in.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
6 : Because when I came back, 7 the whole discussion between Van and I about "Hey, I 8 believe that closing the MS-42 would isolate the steam 9 leak" --
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
11 From Van's perspective, you 12 know, he said, "I don't think that's safe to do from 13 a personal safety standpoint." And we discussed that 14 for a period of time. The rest of the crew continued 15 to brief for their down-power.
16 During the brief, it was interrupted 17 several times with overhead alarms associated with --
18 the first one that came in was a hot spot on one of 19 the transformers in the turbine building. And 20 initially we didn't tie that directly to the steam 21 leak; we thought it was kind of coincidental, if it's 22 not.
23 But upon identifying that, immediately 24 thereafter we identified a ground indicating on one of 25 the 125 buses that powers the control power for that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 same bus. So then we were starting to see the effects 2 of the steam on the buses located right down in the 3 same area.
4 If you look at the steam leak, it's about 5 twelve feet off the floor, and within two feet on a --
6 on a horizontal plane from the group buses I'm talking 7 about. So the distance between the first bus and the 8 steam leak is within -- physically within five feet.
9 And then the buses are aligned in horizontal rows, and 10 all four of them are -- could potentially be affected 11 by the steam path.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I want to get 13 back to this issue here; you brought it up. Okay?
14 Yeah 15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You went to 16 Van, told him that by isolating the valve, it would 17 stop the steam leak. You had discussions about that.
18 Right.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But then you 20 went into this thing about switching over power from 21 one pump to the other.
22 Right. And I kind of jumped 23 ahead of myself, in that Van and I were having that 24 discussion, right, but the decision wasn't made that 25 that's the path we were going to go, right? I was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 talking to Van, saying, "Hey, I believe it's 2 isolable."
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
4 Decision had not been made 5 that that's the path that was going to be taken. Now, 6 I was kind of bouncing it off Van to get his 7 perspective, what he thought. You know, he brought up 8 the --
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Said, "I don't 10 think it's safe."
11 Right, he brought up the --
12 you know, "Hey, how are you going to get there?"
13 Because the way this is -- this is designed, is that 14 there's an installed stanchion right below the valve 15 for an operator to get there and operate the valve.
16 Well, unfortunately, that's the direct path of the 17 steam plume. So from that perspective, I agree it 18 wouldn't be safe to climb up that stanchion and stand 19 there in the steam path.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's what he was 21 raising to you?
22 Correct.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And you agreed 24 with that?
25 C Correct, that -- to take NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 1 that path. But I suggested that "Hey, you can use a 2 ladder." Because as part -- when I went down there 3 and looked at it, right, I looked at -- okay, let me 4 survey this: if I had to have somebody close this, 5 how would they do that? And there's an opening 6 between the bus and the stanchion that you could put 7 a ladder in and operate the valve out away from the 8 steam plume -- the steam plume is in the opposite 9 direction -- and still have clear access to the valve 10 handle there. So I kind of explained that, and --
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To Van Ford?
12 To Van.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you give 14 him that detail which you just described?
15 (k I don't know if it was -- IC_
16 no, I'll say no, I did not give him that. I told him 17 I thought it could be done safely. Because I don't 18 think that -- I don't remember at that time. I know 19 when I went down there earlier, I had looked and saw 20 that there was an opening there and that you could use 21 a ladder. So I don't recall. I don't believe that I 22 told Van at that time that "Hey, you know, I can do it 23 this way and it will be safe." I may have later, but 24 I don't -- I don't believe it was that early on in the 25 discussion, because they were still -- the control NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 room was still briefing the down-power.
2 And then we started getting these alarms, 3 which caused a -- basically, an interruption of the 4 brief. So we got the first one, started talking about 5 the first overhead alarm, which was like about five 6 minutes after midnight, and started talking about the 7 effects of the steam leak on the plant equipment and 8 how that could potentially affect the continued 9 down-power. And at that time it wasn't as big as it 10 will be later in the discussion. Kind of rushing 11 here, I know.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Don't rush.
13 ay.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This is -- we 15 need to get all this out. Don't rush it.
16 And I know there -- I don't 17 remember having a lot more conversation with Van about 18 closing the valve. Because I can remember standing to 19 the side of the control room watching the brief occur, 20 and then we get the second overhead alarm indicative 21 that the steam in the turbine building is having a 22 bigger impact than we originally thought. And that 23 was approximately thirty minutes later.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So from 12:05 to 25 12:35?
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38 1 tCorrect.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So did you have that 3 discussion about closing the valve with anybody else?
4 You don't recall having it with Van Ford. What about 5 with anybody else?
6 The specifics, later. As 7 far as why I thought it could be safe?
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.
9 I may have had --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point in time 11 before it happens.
12 Not yet. I know I discussed 13 it with Bob Cordry, who was the work control 14 supervisor who -- I had told Van that I was going to 15 have him go down and be my safety man, and also asked 16 Bob to come down and be my safety man. And on the way 17 down there, I explained to him how I was going to do 18 it with the ladder.
19 And I don't remember if I specifically 20 told Van -- I mean, I remember telling him that I 21 thought it could be done safely, that obviously it 22 wasn't going to be that, you know, I was going to 23 charge into this plume of steam and close the valve.
24 But I'm sure that I would have told him that it was a 25 -- that I had looked at it and put a ladder beside it; NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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39 1 otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to tell him why 2 I thought it was safe and why he didn't. Now, later 3 on in my discussion -- the reason I questioned that is 4 because later on in my discussion, you know, I'11 tell 5 you an interaction between Van and I after I'd closed 6 the valves.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So we'll go 8 back to that 12:35 --
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yeah, we don't 10 want to go to the after --
11 ::9)Right.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We want to get 13 before.
14 Right.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's do the 12:35 16 time frame. I mean, this is -- now you're having 17 second alarms, more --
I 18 (M Yeah, this is now 0035, we 19 get Juliet 39, which is the 4-kV group bus transfer 20 failure alarm. And this came in in conjunction with 21 another Alpha 17, which is indicating that we had a 22 ground on the overhead alarm system. This -- that 23 alarm coming in, the group bus transfer failure, 24 really concerned me. What that alarm tells me as an 25 operator is that there's -- basically, when I go to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 transfer from the unit ops power transformer supplying 2 power to the reactor coolant pumps and the group 3 buses, that typically at 20 percent, or if I just took 4 the turbine off, that would automatically transfer 5 over to the site providing power, right? What this 6 alarm tells me is that that's probably not going to 7 happen.
8 So from standing in the control room 9 seeing these alarms, now I'm thinking if we continue 10 to shut the plant down, I don't think that's the 11 safest thing to do, because when I go to transfer 12 those buses, they're most likely not going to 13 transfer, I'm going to lose my reactor coolant pumps, 14 won't have natural circulation, and I'm not sure what 15 other effects it will have if I lose all my other 16 group buses. I mean, I know what other effects will 17 be out there. I'll basically have, you know, minimal 18 oil supply to my bearings on my turbine, et cetera.
19 But my main concern is from an RCS perspective and 20 losing the reactor coolant pumps.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What's RCS?
22 Reactor coolant system. K 23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
24 Now, granted, we have 25 procedures and have been trained to address natural NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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41 1 circulation conditions. But that is not -- something 2 that I don't want to walk into, knowing that I'm 3 heading down that path, if I can avoid -- avoid it, 4 right, by taking some other prudent actions.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, stop 6 for a minute.
7 Okay.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: These alarms go 9 off. You're thinking this, what you just told us, 10 right?
11 Riht 12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you 13 communicate that with Van?
14 Yeah. I mean, I remember 15 specifically having that discussion about what those 16 alarms could mean to us, right, about "Hey, that alarm 17 is telling me that I may not have my group buses 18 transfer when we get down" -- I mean, because to come 19 off line, I have to transfer my group buses. And I've 20 got an alarm that tells me I have no reliability that 21 that function is going to happen if I continue down, 22 when I can transfer.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did he agree 24 with your opinion on that issue?
25 He -- I think, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 realistically, he didn't know what that meant. I 2 mean, we knew that in ultimate, if it was the worst 3 case, is that that's what it meant.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
5 But he wasn't sure if the --
6 we were getting the alarm because the relay was wet, 7 or if the capability for the bus to transfer was 8 really affected.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. So 10 where are we at on the time line?
11 M So that's probably at 0040 12 now. We discussed the effect in the control room, 13 right, and now you have pretty much the entire 14 operating crew discussing what this means to us, as 15 far as potential for loss of group buses, loss of 16 reactor coolant pumps, natural circulation, and just, 17 you know, an uglier day than it's already been. And 18 the real focus is on the loss of the reactor coolant 19 pumps and natural circulation.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The possibility of 21 that?
22 Correct.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so how does 24 that affect their plans at this point?
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43 1 that -- I go to Van and we have the discussion about 2 -- you know, I tell Van that, hey, the solution here 3 is to close the 22-MS-42. Van once again says he 4 doesn't think it's safe. And I say I can do it, 5 right? He says -- he said to me "Who's going to close 6 it?" And I said, "I'm going to close it." And he 7 said, "You're going to close it?" I said, "Yes, I'm 8 going to close it." There wasn't a lot more 9 discussion on that about why I was going to, or if 10 somebody else -- from my perspective, the reason I 11 wanted to close it was -- is that I could see that 12 there was a potential safety issue there, right?
13 Although I could see myself closing it and not being 14 in the steam path, not being subjected to steam flow 15 or even heat, but if the leak were to get worse while 16 you were up there, it could create, you know, an 17 injury, right? Worst case, I didn't want to subject 18 somebody else -- to put them into that position. I 19 couldn't live with myself if I'd have asked somebody 20 else to do it and they would've got hurt. And that's 21 why I said that I would go do it; I didn't want to 22 jeopardize or put somebody else in harm's way.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Break down that 24 conversation again --
25 Okay.
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44 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- if you 2 could, bit by bit.
3 Yeah.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, go 5 ahead. And we'll ask you some questions about it.
6 Specifically with the 7 interaction between Van and I?
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yeah.
9 I know that I had gone to 10 Van. I said that the success path, success path here 11 to prevent being challenged from a loss of reactor 12 coolant pumps, is to isolate the steam leak.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
14 Right. All the information 15 we have tells us that closing the MS-42 will isolate 16 the steam leak. Van's perspective is "It's not safe 17 to do; who's going to do it?" I said, "I'll do it."
18 Now, honestly, if Van wouldn't have challenged how --
19 the safety of doing it or not doing it, that probably 20 may have resulted in a different outcome of who closed 21 the valve. But I felt that if Van's saying it's not 22 safe to do, then I don't really have a right to say, 23 "Well, I want one of your equipment operators to close 24 it," also.
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
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45 1 All right. And I don't 2 remember a lot more discussion there, and I did --
3 from there, we also, as part of that discussion, had 4 to have the control room swap over to the feed pumps, 5 so this is where that comes into play.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's what I 7 want to get at; okay.
8 -And I'm trying to -- I'm 9 trying to put that time line in there, if -- if we 10 started doing that transfer after we got the first 11 alarm which indicated we were starting to see effects 12 of it, or if it was attached to the more significant 13 alarm, in my mind, which was, once I saw that the 14 group buses weren't going to transfer over.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who provided 16 that direction to the reactor operator to do that?
17 9 To swap over?
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Uh-huh. That's 19 who would have done it, the reactor operator, right?
20 Yeah.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That 22 direction's got to come from somebody. They don't 23 touch equipment unless they're told to do it?
24 That's correct.
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So who told NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 them to do that?
2 I'm trying to -- I mean, I 3 was in discussion with the reactor operator about 4 doing it, and I don't remember if Van was involved, or 5 Bill White.
6 MR. WINGFIELD: Would it have had to have 7 been one of those two? Because one was a CRS and one 8 was a shift manager, right, so --
9 Could have been, yeah.
10 MR. WINGFIELD: The CRS, right?
11 ) It could have been. I don't 12 remember the specific direction being given. I 13 remember hearing it, and I can see him --
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But it was 15 somebody, though.
16 Right. Yeah, I agree, 17 somebody -- he didn't do it on his own.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
19 2 I remember seeing him doing 20 it, but I don't remember a specific direction from 21 someone telling him to do it.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know who 23 the RO was who did it?
4 24 Yeah, Bill Wallace.
I 25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
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47 1 Bill Wallace.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Bill Wallace?
3 Yeah.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So, then, for 5 that acti on to have occurred, someone must have been 6 in agreen tent with that course of action. Is that 7 correct?
8 To transfer over?
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
10 *ww_^www^~ Yes.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you tell me 12 if Van Ford was in agreement with that?
13 That -- to swap them over?
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
15 I want to say that Van gave 16 the direction, but I just can't recall. I know Van 17 didn't think it was safe to close the valve.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You're talking 19 where the steam is coming out now?
20 Yeah, right.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I' m talking 22 about up in the control room.
23 Yeah. I can't -- I can't 24 remember the specifics to that, that guidance, and 25 whether or not Van agreed with swapping over. I mean, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 I don't remember a lot of resistance about swapping 2 the steam generator feed-pumps, or a lot of discussion 3 about doing that.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How about Bill 5 White? You know if he -- do you remember if you -- if 6 he was in agreement with that course of action?
7 ,D _ Specifically, no, I don't 8 remember.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Had you taken 10 over the actual management of the shift at that point?
11 Were you directing the control room on the actions 12 that were going to be taken?
13 I say no, in that the reason 14 I don't remember Bill's involvement is because all my 15 discussions were going through Van, trying to maintain 16 the chain of command.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
18 And that's why I can't 19 remember like specifically Bill's thoughts, 'cause --
20 I mean, there was some group discussion-type 21 interactions. But my intent was not to take over the 22 23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Could we 24 take a break off the record for a minute? It's about 25 5:34.
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49 1 (Whereupon, at 5:34 p.m. off the record 2 until 5:51 p.m.)
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is just about to 4 run out, so what we're going to do is just end it, go 5 to side B. It's approximately 5:51 p.m., after a 6 break; we'll flip.
7 (Audiotape switched.)
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're on side 9 B. It's 5:51 p.m.
10 We just want to go back a little bit and 11 cover some issues on the conversations that were 12 taking place. We'll start with you and with Van Ford.
13 How many different conversations did you have at this 14 point? I mean, is it all one long one, is -- are 15 there two conversations here? At what point in time 16 does he ask you who would close the valve? Is this 17 coming up earlier or is this coming up later?
18 Well, I want to say it was 19 after we received the overhead alarm indicating that 20 our group bus may not transfer. To me, that was kind 21 of the point that it was -- became critical in the 22 decision, that, hey, we had the capability to isolate 23 this steam leak, and we needed to take actions before 24 further degradation occurred, or loss of group buses, 25 et cetera, as a result of the steam leak. And I think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 that's where the major conversation was between Van 2 and I about going and closing this valve.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Does the log 4 show that, what time it is that that alarm --
5 It says 0035. In 6 approximately fifteen minutes, at 0050, is when I had 7 notified the control room that the valve was closed.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was this the last 10 conversation that you had with him before the valve 11 gets closed?
12 As part of that conversation 13 when he said, you know, from his perspective it wasn't 14 safe, and I don't remember the exact conversation, but 15 my answer to his safety was that I was going to close 16 the valve, and I would take Bob Cordry, who happened 17 to be standing in the doorway of the control room, 18 with me as a safety man, right?. So not necessarily to 19 steady the ladder -- ladder, but to stay over and 20 notify the control room if something went awry.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What did he say to 22 that?
23 9I don't -- I don't remember 24 a response. He may not have had a response. Because 25 I think that -- I think the "Hey, I'm going to take NEAL R. GROSS PK-(202) 234-4433 COURT REPdOTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 Bob Cordry with me" was kind of upon exiting, leaving 2 the control room.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were walking away 4 from the conversation?
5~ Correct.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And again, 7 specifically your statement to Van Ford was what?
8 That we needed to close the 9 valve to isolate the steam leak, 'cause the future 10 consequences of this, the steam on the buses -- and 11 I'm paraphrasing -- Van's reply was something to the 12 effect of "Who's going to close the valve?" And my 13 response was "I will close the valve." And then there 14 was a discussion about safety, and whether Van brought 15 that up again or if that was the first time -- I think 16 that was not the first time that he had brought up 17 that it wasn't safe to close the valve. And then my 18 response was that I would take Bob Cordry with me as 19 a safety guy, as a safety person.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To do what?
21 To notify the control room.
22 I mean, I don't think we discussed there what 23 specifically -- at Salem, if I tell you I need a 24 safety man, it goes without saying what he's doing, 25 right? He's either -- he's providing a backup. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 1 in this case was someone to stand by the phone and 2 notify the control room if conditions changed as a 3 result of operating the valve, or if I'd fall off the 4 ladder or, you know, something were to happen to me, 5 that he would notify the control room.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In that conversation 7 did Van Ford say anything further about "We're 8 briefing for a down-power in this abnormal condition"?
9 I don't remember if it was 10 that specific conversation. I know that briefing was 11 in progress for the down-power.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you had 13 this last conversation with Van before going to close 14 the valve?
15 Yeah, this -- the control 16 room supervisor, I believe, was reading -- was leading 17 the brief, and then Van and I had our conversation 18 away from the center in the control room area.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How positive 20 are you that you told Van that you were going to go 21 close the valve?
22 I'm positive that I said 23 I'll -- I was asked, "Who is going to close the 24 valve?" And I said, "I am closing; I am going to 25 close the valve." I'm absolutely positive of that, NEAL R. GROSS
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53 II I II 1 that interaction.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And the CRS is 3 briefing the shift the way the shift still thinks the 4 plant is going to, though, correct?
5 That's correct.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that a 7 conflict?
8 No, because procedurally, 9 right, in AB steam -- don't forget we're in that 10 abnormal operating procedure which is giving the 11 direction, right? We're still following the path.
12 We're under the belief that the steam cannot be 13 isolated, and the path is to shut the plant down.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
-15 So you don't want to hold up 16 the shut-down to determine whether or not closing the 17 NS-42 isolates the leak, because that's also more time 18 that you're inducing the group buses to a steam 19 environment, and also delaying the actions which are 20 ultimately going to isolate the steam leak, which is 21 to close the main steam isolation valves.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. But 23 the shift is proceeding towards shut-down. You're 24 going down a different path.
25 And that's I'IC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's my 2 impression.
3 That's perfectly acceptable, 4 because --
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why?
6 j There are two success paths, 7 right? You're taking parallel success paths. The one 8 success path is to shut the plant down, close the main 9 steam isolation valves and you isolate the steam leak.
10 The other potential success path is close the valve 11 that's leaking and isolate the steam leak. So you're 12 taking parallel success paths.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Go back to the 14 pump swap.
15 15 Yeah.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did that have 17 to be done to shut the plant down?
18 Yes.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So that was --
20 had to be done either way?
21 Correct.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: For either 23 reason, whether the plant's going to be shut down or 24 you go out and close it?
25 Correct. And procedurally, NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4 (
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55 1 about the same power level is where you do that, about 2 45 percent, and the IOP would drive you to do -- to 3 transfer over.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was that pump 5 shut down for -- for which reason, to -- for -- to get 6 it ready for plant shut-down or to allow for you to go 7 close the valve? Which one was it?
8 Honestly, I can't remember.
9 I would say that most likely for me -- to allow me to 10 shut the valve.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What makes you 12 say that?
13
- Oh, because of the time 14 frame that it. occurred. I mean --
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Make me 16 understand why the time frame is important.
17 - Well, they were -- don't 18 forget, they're still in the brief for the down-power, 19 right?
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
21 So it would be unlikely that 22 you would be performing actions in the procedure for 23 the down-power if you're still briefing it.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. All 25 right.
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56 1 Al ight.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So to your 3 knowledge, had the shift started to take actions to --
4 for the down-power at that point? Or are they still 5 briefing for it? I mean, we're --
6 Yeah.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're really 8 slicing this pretty tight, but it's important.
9 Yeah, and I -- and 10 unfortunately, those aren't the -- unfortunately, 11 right, they're not the high points of what sticks out 12 in my memory, either, but --
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But they are 14 now?
15 BRight. I can't remember if 16 they had started orations dilutions (phonetic), or if 17 they were ongoing just to offset the effects of xenon 18 from the previous down-power, but I know that there 19 were orations taking effect, right, or reactivity 20 management taking effect. And I can't remember if 21 they were specific. Because don't forget, you've 22 already done a greater than 50 percent load reduction 23 in the shift, right? So in the first -- in the last 24 several hours you've already done a greater than 50 25 percent load reduction. So you're in the procedure NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 driving the load reduction, you're taking actions to 2 do the load reduction --
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
4 -- in that procedure. So 5 I'm not -- I'm not sure which ones were being taken as 6 a result of pre- -- of the previous down-power, or in 7 touch with this coming down-power, only because I 8 wasn't privy to, you know, that -- the IOP procedure 9 or the AB-steam, exactly where they were in the 10 procedure.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So is it your 12 position that the pump swap occurred for you to go 13 shut the valve, to allow you to do that?
14 I believe so.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And why, again?
16 Just make me understand why, again. You mentioned 17 timing.
18 Well, timing, if you look at 19 -- I can remember having a discussion with the PO, who 20 was Bill Wallace, about swapping the pumps. And I 21 can't remember if that was -- I don't -- I'm pretty 22 sure that was before he had started doing it, about 23 that's one action we would have to take to allow 24 isolation of the valves. Trying to piece it together, 25 looking at the time line from when he was doing that, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4C 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 knowing that the control room was still in brief --
2 and I know they were in brief because we hadn't taken 3 any actions, by the narrative log, to start the load 4 reduction. So based on that, you would -- I wouldn't 5 expect an operator to be performing procedural steps 6 in the down-power procedure while the brief was going 7 on to do the down-power. I mean, you could use that 8 guidance in the procedure to support, like, my attempt 9 to go out and isolate the MS-42, right? You have the 10 procedure guides to swap them. And that may have been 11 the path that was utilized. But if it was, it was 12 utilized for the purpose, not solely for the intent of 13 reducing power.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is Bill Wallace part 16 of the brief for the down-power?
17 2) Yeah, the brief was -- the 18 brief was being held in the control room proper, 19 right? I mean, you couldn't take the individuals out 20 of the control room to go in a conference room, which 21 we typically do for briefs, due largely, in part, 22 because of the ongoing evolution of the steam leak, 23 the effects thereof, the 53 percent power reduction 24 that had already occurred, and the reactivity 25 management required for that.
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59 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So how far did 3 the RO have to go to go swap the pumps?
4 Nowhere; it's right there.
5 Remember the horseshoe I drew before?
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
7 MR. KEENAN: It's right over here.
8 If you look, the steam 9 generator feed-pump -- when we're in an abnormal 10 operating procedure or emergency operating procedure, 11 the guy that is the plant operator, who I told you 12 typically sits here, his function, his role changes.
13 And he comes over lnd now he is basically stationed 14 here inside the horseshoe, standing up, right, 15 monitoring his equipment, and basically what you do 16 is, you draw an invisible line right down the center 17 of the horseshoe. So the reactor operator is 18 responsible for everything on this side, so you have 19 service water, component cooling, safety injection, 20 RHR, all your -- and instrumentation. All your 21 primary plant stuff is over here, more to the reactor, 22 and as such, the reactor operator owns that.
23 The plant operator, who was also your desk 24 operator prior to the event, now comes over and he 25 assumes responsibility for the balance of the plant, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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60 1 so all your secondary circ-water, switchyards all over 2 in here, ox-feedwater is right up here, and steam 3 generator -- main steam generator feed-pumps are right 4 in here. So he's there, so he doesn't -- it's not a 5 -- and typically, when we're in that situation, you 6 have your desk in this area. All the procedures for 7 the NCOs are right here on this rack, so it's just --
8 and the distance between here and here is about the 9 same distance.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So when he 11 swaps that pump, what happens to the board? Does a 12 light go on? Does a light come off?
13 Alarms -- you could, I mean, 14 depending on -- I don't think you would get any 15 alarms, especially with an operator of Bill's 16 experience level swapping over, because I think he 17 would be smooth enough to swap it, that you wouldn't 18 have any perturbations in digital feed or anything 19 else. You would get an alarm once you tripped it, but 20 like I said, just to swap it, you just take it to an 21 idle speed, so your other feed-pump picks up the 22 demand.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So it's not 24 just like pushing a button, then, it's -- you got to 25 do it --
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61 1 Well, it's just pushing a 2 button. I mean, you put the -- let's say I have 21, 3 22 feed-pumps. So I want to -- I want to take 22 to 4 idle, so I just put them in manual and reduce speed on 5 it, and this pump is going to automatically pick up 6 the load.
7 MR. WINGFIELD: Is there a -- like a low 8 flow for them or anything?
9 No, because your other pump 10 is picking up the speed to maintain the flow.
11 MR. WINGFIELD: So flow is not measured?
12 o 5) Pump independence?
13 MR. WINGFIELD: Pump independently; no.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you there 15 when he did that? Were you physically there --
16 Yes.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- when he did 18 that?
19 Yeah.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you recall 21 the CRS or any of the other people recognizing what he 22 was doing and knowing what he was doing?
23 Not specifically, no. I 24 remember turning around, I remember standing in this 25 area, maybe having a discussion with Van or something, NEAL R.GROSS A k Ir COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 'I 1%
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62 1 and turning around and seeing Bill over there taking 2 those actions, but I -- and I don't remember, and 3 that's why I said when you asked -- you asked earlier 4 who --
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, who 6 provided direction.
7 Specifically provided 8 direction. I mean, I remember having discussion with 9 Bill before that about "Hey, we're going to have to do 10 this to support closing that valve so if it is closed, 11 if it gets closed, we don't isolate the steam flow to 12 the pump." But I don't remember a specific -- Van or 13 Bill, you know, making a clear "Hey, Bill, I want you 14 to swap those steam generator feed-pumps."
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you have any 16 reason to believe that Van Ford did not know that that 17 was happening, that that direction was provided, and 18 that that RO did that?
19 )No, because he was in the 20 control room.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you believe 22 that he knew that that action had been directed to the 23 RO, and the RO had done that? Do you believe that Van 24 knew that?
25 I honestly don't know if he I NEAL R:. GROSS V@
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63 1 knew that or not.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'm asking your 3 opinion.
4 My opinion is, I can see 5 where you wouldn't know, as the shift manager. I 6 mean, he may be in a -- he may have been in a 7 discussion with me.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
9 Let's go to the CRS then. Do you believe that Bill 10 White knew that that direction was given, and that 11 that occurred?
12 9 I would believe he should 13 have know. I don't know whether he knew or not. I 14 would hope that the direction came from him, and he 15 directed Bill to do it, and as such, he knew it.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
17 My fear is, after talking 18 through this, that the discussion I had with Bill 19 about needing to take those actions was what 20 instigated Bill to actually do it without discussing 21 it with the CRS.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You're just 23 thinking that now, that that may have occurred?
24 Yeah. I mean, based on the 25 questioning rates on --
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64 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, we're 2 just trying to --
3 Right.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're trying to 5 find out who knew what, when they knew it, and who 6 approved what was going on.
Right.
7 8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're just 9 asking questions.
10 Okay. I mean, I would have 11 expected that how that feed pump got swapped over was 12 that the shift man at the CRS gave that direction.
13 And like I said, I can't remember. I know I discussed 14 it with Bill that we were going to have to do that, 15 and I guess when I turned around later, Bill --
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Bill White?
17 Bill -- Bill --
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Wallace?
19 Wallace.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Wallace.
21 4 Thank you. And I turned 22 around later, sawing it -- saw it happen, it wasn't 23 much later, made the assumption that he had 24 communicated with Bill the need to do that, and --
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Bill White.
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65 1 Bill White. Thank you. And 2 -- right. And between Bill Wallace and Bill White, 3 and the discussion, when I was look- -- you know, 4 when I turned around and saw it was happening, was 5 that Bill took the action to discuss it with Bill 6 White and got agreement to do it.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. Okay.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In your conversation 9 with Van Ford shortly before you went out to the 10 valve, is it possible that you didn't tell Van Ford 11 that you were going to shut the valve, that you were 12 thinking that you could get to the valve?
13 I know we had 14 that discussion earlier. The -- and this is a point 15 of contention, is -- you know, I know what I said to
- 16 Van before I left the control room was that I was 17 going to close the valve. And I said later on, I 18 would get to the point after I closed the valve where 19 that communication obviously wasn't clear in that --
20 I think I also said something to Van to the effect of, 21 when I was leaving, that I wanted him to stay in the 22 control room, because we had previous lessons learned 23 from -- over in a plant event that the shift manager 24 leaves the control room isn't -- control room, and 25 took actions outside the control room. So while I was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. -
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66 1 up on the ladder, initially the individual that I took 2 with me, Bob Cordry, stayed over by the phone by the 3 door, you know, a good fifty, sixty feet away from the 4 valve, outside the safe area.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Still in sight 6 of each other, though?
7 Yes. He could see me 8 directly.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was he on the 10 phone with the control room --
11 No.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- while you 13 were doing this?
14 He was not. And the phone 15 was right there, within his reach, and the plant page 16 was also directly below the valve, not -- not in the 17 steam path, but you know, easy access for myself or 18 Mr. Cordry if he came that way, which I bring up 19 because he does. But my intent was for him to stay by 20 the door, which I instructed him when I went up the 21 ladder and closed the valve. As I'm closing the 22 valve, I look and I see Cordry at the bottom of the 23 valve and the ladder, but I don't stop. I continue to 24 close the valve, because at that point where I was in 25 the valve closure I could see the steam plume NEAL R. GROSS >ca rll1O0T0OPDrTFR0 AKdn TOAKRCRIRFRO 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 1 reducing, so I know that closing the valve was having 2 an effect.
3 Continued to close the valve, get the 4 valve fully closed, and I turned around to come back 5 down the ladder, which was maybe a ten-foot extension 6 ladder, you know, maybe eight foot off the floor. I 7 see Van Ford at the bottom of the ladder, and right 8 away I'm like, why is Van here? Because, you know, I 9 thought it was clear that I expected him to stay in 10 the control room. I didn't want him to come out of 11 the control room.
12 And I think I asked him -- I know I asked 13 him, "Why are you here?" And he said something to the 14 effect of, "I wanted to see how this was being done 15 safe," or "I wanted to see" -- I'm trying to think of 16 exactly what he said. "I wanted to" -- something to 17 the effect of I wanted to make sure this wasn't being 18 -- this wasn't unsafe," or something to that regard, 19 questioning, you know, that he -- obviously, I did not 20 -- before I left the control room, did not give him a 21 good picture of how I was going to do that safely.
22 And that's why I said I thought I'd given him a good 23 picture of how I was going to do it safely, but 24 obviously after the fact, with the first thing that 25 responded to me with that, when I asked him why he was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 here -- I mean, obvi- -- I immediately felt that, you 2 know, I hadn't done an effective job of relaying to 3 him why it was -- why I felt it was safe. Because 4 that was his first comment, is, "Well, I wanted to 5 come see how this was being performed safely," or 6 something to that effect. And I knew the words in my 7 head earlier, but I just can't think what they were 8 exactly, but that was basic- -- the basic message that 9 I got.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he indicate to 11 you at that point in time that he was unsure what you 12 were doing with the valve? Is that why he followed 13 you? Did he give you any indication --
He 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- that he was unsure 16 what you were doing?
17 The message I got was, he /I 18 was unsure how I was doing it safely. And as far as 19 24 following-me to the valve, he -- he was not there. I 20 mean, it took a few minutes to close this valve. The 21 valve from the control room is about a thirty-second 22 walk. He was -- when I looked down, Bob Cordry was 23 there, and Van was not. And that was, you know, a 24 minute and a half or, you know, half way through the 25 cycle of this valve. So I would say he did not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 immediately follow me down there, or make any attempts 2 to stop me from leaving the control room with 3 questions on how it was going to be done safely, or 4 what my intent was.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So when you 6 finished turning the knob -- is that --
7 The hand-wheel.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The hand-wheel.
9 Is that when you -- knob, hand-wheel -- when you 10 finished doing that and you looked down, was Van Ford 11 there already?
12 ) Correct. But about half-way 1C-13 through, when I started seeing the effect, I looked, 14 because I didn't see Bob Cordry over there anymore.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
16 Now I see him here. I'm 17 like, well, you're not providing me very good -- I 18 didn't say this to him, but I'm thinking, you're not 19 providing me a very good safety function by being 20 right here. But I also saw an effect on the valve, so 21 I knew that to continue closing it was the right thing 22 to do, because it was isolating the steam leak.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was Bob in 24 contact with the control room while you were shutting 25 the valve? Do you know? You said the page was right NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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70 1 down there at the bottom of the ladder somewheres.
2 I don't believe he was.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Why did he move?
5 I honestly don't know. I 6 never got to that point, because by the time I got 7 down from the ladder Van was there, and I was more 8 focused on why Van was there than why Bob had come 9 over to the ladder. I think Bob may have come over 10 because he saw it have and effect, that the steam 11 plume was reducing.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Going back 13 again to the conversation that you had before you 14 leave the control room to go to the valve, your 15 statement, you recall, is, "I'm going to go and check 16 the valve, and I'm taking Bob Cordry as my safety 17 man," to -- directly to Van Ford.
18 Correct.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: His response to that 20 was?
21 I don't remember a response.
22 There may not have been a response. No -- there were 23 two separate -- it wasn't one communication. It was 24 two separate communications, the "I'm going to shut 25 the valve," and I'm sure there was a response to that, NEAL R.GROSS 1 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 and I just don't remember what it was. It wasn't, 2 "No, you're not." You know, it wasn't anything that 3 led me to believe that Van was adamant against me 4 closing it for any reason. He addressed -- he -- I 5 knew that he obviously had some safety concerns with 6 me closing the valve, from a personal safety 7 standpoint, but I did not get the sense that I was 8 going against any wishes, demands, desires that he had 9 by closing the valve.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You didn't get the 11 sense that you did that.
12 Correct.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did -- in doing that, 14 in that particular communication before you left to 15 close the valve, did you follow normal control room 16 communication procedures?
17 I'm trying to think if we 7c 18 made any communications. See, from my -- from my 19 perspective, was that I -- I assumed the control room 20 knew, right, where I was going to close -- when I was 21 going to close the valve, that was going to be 22 communicated through Van to the control room crew.
23 I'll say no, in that my expectation for the operating 24 crew is that if somebody's going out in the field to 25 take actions, that they would call the control room NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 prior to taking those actions, from the field 2 location, right?
3 In this case we probably could have --
4 you're looking at from the control room to the valve, 5 thirty seconds. The phone down there, I wouldn't have 6 been able to communicate with the control room because 7 of the noise from the steam leak. So you know, I 8 think that's why I didn't call the control room when 9 I was down there. And I'm trying to -- and I don't 10 remember, but you know, justify why I would have 11 thought this process there, is that thirty seconds 12 later. We have a lot of instances where operators in 13 the control room, they discuss what they're going to 14 go do, actions in the field, and they go do it, 15 because it's immediately following the discussion with 16 the control room. So you don't call the control room 17 and tell them, "Hey, I'm doing this." Of course you 18 are. You just told me you're doing it, and you left.
19 And that's where I was, is that I had just discussed 20 this with Van. He knew what I was going to do. And 21 after -- after it was closed, and the conditions were 22 prior, notify the control room. And that's exactly 23 what -- after it was closed, and the leak stopped, 24 immediately went back to the control room and informed 25 them that the leak had stopped.
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73 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But in going back to 2 your conversation with him, in terms of normal 3 communication, I understand unormal would be a 4 three-way. Stated, repeated, stated again by the 5 parties involved that this was going to happen. That 6 would be typical normal communications in the control 7 room, as I understand it.
8 For an order, that is 9 correct.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What do you 11 mean by that, for an order?
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's the 13 distinction?
14 For an order. Well, I'll 15 say Van did not order me to go close the valve, okay?
16 So for an order would be if I was reading this step, 17 "Is there an indication of a steam leak in -- in the 18 -- inner or outer pen -- penetration areas?" That's 19 not an order, that's a question, so the answer would 20 be yes or no. If it was "Isolate MS-42, n for example, 21 if our procedure said that, the RO would repeat back, 22 "Understand. Isolate MS-42,n and then that would be 23 followed by the CR saying, Correct." So that's an 24 order or a direction, not asking for information or 25 sharing information. E ff NEAL R. GROSS AC COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 So from my perspective, for me to go down, 2 no, there was not three-point communication in any 3 part of the conversation that Van and I were having, 4 no more sir -- no more so than did we have three-point 5 communication when we were on the conference call with 6 senior management earlier that night to determine that 7 we were going to do a shutdown. Right? At that point 8 we didn't have three-point communication either, 9 right? It was clear at the end of the conversation 10 that we were going to shut the plant down. But that 11 wasn't -- we didn't have three-point communication 12 with that. And I mean, this discussion was along 13 those same lines.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can I ask a 16 question?
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah, go ahead.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you're 19 closing the valve, however you're doing it, is the 20 control room able to see that by a --
21 No.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- by an 23 indicator or anything?
24 No. They -- they were 25 oblivious, from an indication standpoint, to the steam NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 leak.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Same as 3 you closing it.
4 Correct.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: They'd be 6 oblivious to that.
7 8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Nothing in 9 there would show the fact that --
10 It was closed.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- he's closing 12 the valve now.
13 Correct 14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. I'm 15 sorry. I just wanted to get that in there.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. My question 17 was more going toward the distinction that you made.
18 You're saying in that it wasn't an order to you, you 19 just stated what you were going to do to Van Ford. It 20 wasn't a three-point communication issue.
21 )Yeah. But at the same time, 22 it wasn't me ordering Van that I was going to do it, 23 either. It was a discussion that I would say, based 24 on, you know, learnings after the fact, that the loop 25 wasn't closed. I knew that Van had some issues with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 me closing the valve from a safety perspective, and I 2 knew that I had addressed those in my mind to make it 3 safe, and I tried to -- I believe I tried to relay 4 that to Van, but obviously, after the fact, it was 5 that I didn't, because he showed up down there to see 6 how -- how, in effect, I was doing it safely.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you learn of 8 issues after the fact in regard to how you 9 communicated what you were going to do?
10 Oh, yeah.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That there were 12 concerns there too?
13 Um -
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Not just from the 15 safety perspective, but from how you communicated it 16 to the control room.
17 Yeah, we -- I knew 18 immediately after closing this valve that there were 19 going to be issues associated with my closing the 20 valve. But unfortunately I didn't realize at the time 21 it would be from this perspective, right? I had had 22 up until that time, in my position a had 23 had a lot of interaction between union personnel and 24 management personnel, and unfortunately in my position 25 asQt I wound up representing all of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. /kCo (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
77 1 So 2 unfortunately the position -- and you take on the same 3 role, right, and you become the hated person because 4 you're making all the decisions.
5 So I knew within a couple minutes of 6 closing this valve, based on some discussion that I'd 7 heard -- overheard people saying, that the union -- in 8 my opinion, I thought the union was going to make a 9 rather significant issue that I closed the valve.
10 Right? From a union standpoint is -- you know, 11 there's an article in the contract that says, you 12 know, hall not operate equipment. Don't 13 take union jobs away. And I thought that that's the 14 path that this would take.
15 So when we called -- nwe,n I say, Van and 16 I called Carl and Dave Garchow and Lon back to tell 17 them that we'd isolated the steam leak, or that I had 18 isolated the steam leak, I also emphasized that to 19 Carl that, you know, I think there's going to be an 20 issue here from union personnel because I closed the 21 valve.
22 So we -- we took several courses of action 23 as a result of that when we had employees concerns, 24 doing a separate investigation on the actions taken, 25 interactions thereof, and then all those lessons NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 learned. That was rolled up into a roll-out that I 2 had to go to each shift and discuss each shift my --
3 the actions that I took, and the lessons that I 4 learned as a result of that event. And it's all more 5 the communications between shift managers, CRS, NCOs 6 and myself, and how those interactions occur. So 7 yeah, there was a lot of lessons learned.
8 And the other thing that came out of that 9 was, you know, there were equipment operators that 10 said, "Hey, had you asked me," you know, "I would have 11 closed it." So I think that's some of the biggest 12 learnings, is that, you know, don't take for granted 13 that just because you don't want to put somebody else 14 in jeopardy, that the necessary action is that you're 15 the only recourse left.
16 And then whole communication piece. I 17 mean, to me, did I communicate clearly and live up to 18 my own expectations? I would say no, because 19 obviously after the fact I've learned lessons that 20 everybody was not aware of what was going on, had full 21 communications, or felt that they were involved with 22 the decisions. But it wasn't intentional. Definitely 23 not.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did it go a little 25 further than that in the effect that the communication NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 had, in that it was seen as and 2 control of the control room? In particular, the shift 3 manager and the control room supervisor?
4 ( . _ I think that was a--I 5 don't remember if that was part of the roll-out from 6 the lessons learned, but I think that was brought up 7 as part of the -- the subsequent investigation.
8 Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity or -- to 9 read the investigation, so -- but I did have the 10 lessons learned package that was prepared to roll out, 11 and you know, I agreed with everything that was in 12 there. And as a matter of fact, it's probably here 13 somewhere. But -- and that was part of it, is that 14 the communications are vital to avoid having that 15 appearance, right, to make sure that everybody is in 16 the -- in the discussion, and the proper chain of 17 command is utilized.
18 MR. KEENAN: Take a quick break from the 19 record?
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We can do that. It's 21 6:23 p.m.
22 (Whereupon, at 6:23 p.m. off the record 23 until 6:41 p.m.)
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 6:41 p.m., after a 25 brief break.
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80 1 Going back to that point where you're up 2 on the ladder, you've notice Cordry's moved, he's 3 underneath you on the ladder, and you've successfully 4 closed the valve. At this point in time Van Ford's 5 arrived on the scene. What does he say to you first?
6 What I remember-is that I-7 I first spoke to Van and asked him why he was there.
8 And I believe his response was something to the effect 9 of, "I wanted to see how this was being done safely,"
10 you know, P1 wanted to see how you were doing this, 11 and it was safe," or, 'I was worried about your 12 safety," or something to that effect.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he give you any 14 indication that he did not know what you were doing?
15 He came to see what you were doing, and didn't know 16 what you were doing, in terms of actually manipulating 17 the valve?
18 No. Not that I recall. The 19 whole discussion was -- I mean, it was short and 20 quick, and then right up to the control room we went.
21 But it was -- his terminology may have been, "I wanted 22 to see how you were doing this safely," but it was, 23 from my perspective, that he wanted to see what 24 mechanism I was using to get to the valve, i.e., the 25 ladder, versus the installed stanchion, and how I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 thought it could be performed safely. And I mean, I 2 would question that if he didn't know I was closing 3 the valve, why would he go there?
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm sorry; can you 5 explain that? If he didn't know you were closing the 6 valve?
7 M . Yeah. The whole time frame 8 to closing the valve was a couple of minutes, right?
9 And that's from the time I left the control room to 10 the valve was closed. He did not follow me directly 11 there. He showed up a short time period later. So if 12 the question is -- or if it's in question whether or 13 not Van knew I was closing the valve, then how would 14 he show up at the valve within two minutes of me 15 leaving the control room?
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, you've 17 already said, though, that you're positive you told 18 him --
19 Oh, yeah. Right.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- that you 21 were going to do it.
22 Right. And I'm just --
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And are you 24 still --
25 -- just supporting --
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82 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Are you still 2 positive about that?
3 Correct. I know that I said 4 to Van that we had to shut the valve, who was going to 5 shut the valve, and I said, "I'm going to shut the 6 valve." Now, that was a little bit earlier than the 7 next discussion about can it be done safely. I told 8 him I was going to take Bob Cordry with me, and we 9 left the control room. And Bob was standing by the 10 door. You know, when you look at the horseshoe that 11 I had -- sorry -- put on here -- so I put it this way 12 for Unit 2, so that the CRS is here, Van and I are 13 approximately in this area, and then the door out of 14 the control room's over here, and that's where Bob 15 Cordry was standing. And from here to the door is 16 maybe fifteen feet.
17 So at the end of that discussion, walked 18 right to the door and asked Bob to come with me to be 19 a safety man, and we had a small discussion on the way 20 down there about, you know, what I was going to do, 21 what I needed from him, and then proceeded to close 22 the valve.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was Bob on 24 standby there waiting for you --
25 No, I think Bob --
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83 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- to take him 2 as your safety man?
3 No. I think Bob was 4 standing there observing the activities in the control 5 room.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So at the point that 8 you left the control room Van Ford was still of the 9 opinion that it would be unsafe, but you're telling 10 him what you're going to do, and then you go with 11 Cordry and go do it.
12 Correct.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And then he follows 14 you down, not immediately, but a couple minutes later.
15 Correct.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it possible to you 17 that he followed you down not immediately because he 18 expected you to return after you took a look at the 19 valve and made an assessment of what was going on down 20 there, and when you didn't return, he needed to follow 21 you?
22 From my perspective I 23 wouldn't think that was possible because that wasn't 24 the discussion. I mean, the discussion we had wasn't, 25 "Hey, I'm going to go look at it, and I'll come back NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 1 and talk to you."
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was clear that you 3 were going to go, you're saying?
4 Yeah.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your testimony is --
6 From my perspective --
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 'I'm going to close 8 the valve."
9 Right. The discussion that 10 I remember having and that I was involved with was 11 that I was leaving, and the valve was going to be 12 closed, and Bob Cordry was going with me as a safety 13 man.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And you told 15 that to Bob Cordry on your way to the valve?
16 Right.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You made your plans 18 with him to --
19 Correct.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And was he standing 21 there when you talked to Van Ford as well?
22 No. He --
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he within earshot 24 of that?
25 I can't say whether he was NEALR. GROSS tK COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 or -- whether the discussion was -- he heard the 2 discussion or not. I mean, he was within fifteen 3 feet. I'm not sure when he arrived there. I'm not 4 sure if he was there the whole discussion. I just 5 know that was -- that wasn't part of like a preplanned 6 evolution from my perspective, to utilize Bob as a 7 safety man. It was almost the end of the discussion, 8 and I turn around and see Bob standing there, and say 9 I'll take -- I'm taking Bob down as a safety man.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he and Van Ford 11 have any conversation?
12 Not that I can recall. I 13 don't think they did, because I think I grabbed Bob as 14 I walked by the door when he was standing there.
15 MR. WINGFIELD: What's Bob's position?
16 Work Control Center 17 supervisor.
18 MR. WINGFIELD: All right.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you and 20 Van are having that last conversation where he asked 21 who, you say, "Me; I'll close it," was there anyone 22 who -- else who heard that?
23 I would think that Bill 24 Wallace would have heard it, because -- I'm trying to 25 remember that discussion -- was -- and I can kind of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 remember, same as before, standing over here -- I'm 2 trying to piece together if this is the exact time --
3 and walking toward Van, who was over in this area, and 4 him asking that question, and me -- and I didn't say 5 "me." I said, "I'm going to close it," and that was 6 my -- that was my answer. "I'm going to close it."
7 So I think if anybody had the potential for 8 overhearing it, it may have been Bill Wallace in this 9 area.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was in your 11 earlier discussion.
12 Correct.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Not the one 14 immediately --
15 _orrect.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- before you went to 17 the valve.
18 Correct.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How much time apart 20 were those two discussions, did you say?
21 That's -- I would guess --
22 I would say ten minutes or less. I'm trying to put --
23 piece those with the alarms coming in.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So what might 25 Bill Wallace have heard you tell Van Ford?
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87 1 I honestly don't know. And 2 like I had told Jeff earlier, his -- until I --
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Jeff Keenan.
4 Yes. Thank you. Until I 5 had reviewed the abnormal operating procedure 6 yesterday, I couldn't even remember who the control 7 room supervisor was. So I cannot guess to what Bill 8 White heard or overheard.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Bill Wallace, 10 I said.
11 Oh, Bill Wallace?
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yeah.
13 I'm only saying what he may 14 have heard --
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
16 -- because of his position.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. What 18 may have he have heard, though? That's my question.
19 I think he would have heard 20 me state earlier to Van that I would be the one to 21 close the valve.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
23 )Idon't think he would have 24 heard the rest of the conversation, the later one 25 about going to close the valve, taking Bob Cordry, NEAL R.GROSS hi COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 1 that conversation, because that was right in this 2 area, and -- you know, this one, so he -- between Van 3 and I, we were, you know, within a foot of each other.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when you said 6 that to Van Ford, that you would be the one to close 7 the valve, did he respond to that? Do you remember a 8 direct response to that?
9_ He may have. I don't 10 remember. I don't remember what his response was.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It seems like it's --
12 just the fact that it would be you manipulating the 13 equipment, as you said, from lessons learned later on, 14 this became a big issue with the union, just the 15 hands-on fact that you were manipulating the 16 equipment. Was that something that was thrown out at 17 that time, that was even considered between you and 18 Van Ford, or anybody else --
19 9 It may have been.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- if you did that?
21 It may have been. I don't 22 -- I honestly don't think that was part of our 23 discussion, that, you know, "Hey, you're going to 24 five-oh'd," or anything to that effect. And as a 25 matter of fact --
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89 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Five-oh'd?
2 Five-oh'd is the section of 3 the contract, section 5.0, which says a 4 shall not perform the work of a union person, or 5 represented personnel.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I suspected that, but 7 I needed to --
8 Yes. For clarification, 9 like I said, I have vivid recollections of certain 10 actions taken because of immediately following the 11 closure of the valve, all indications that I had from 12 hearsay and discussions I heard between other union 13 guys was that was going to be a major bone of 14 contention, that I operated the valve. That never was 15 a bone of contention. That was never grieved.
16 The union personnel, subsequent 17 investigation, their concern was for my safety also, 18 that I was performing an unsafe act, a personal unsafe 19 act, right? And not only was that bad in the light 20 that I acted unsafely from their perspective, that 21 also, from a leader perspective, that I have 22 expectations that they work safely, and then I go 23 against those same expectations and do something 24 unsafe, from their perspective. And that's -- that's 25 where the bone of contention really came from, not --
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90 1 not that I operated the valve.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when you briefed
- 3. the crews on that afterward --
4 pb~y~W~r: Yeah.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- how did you 6 address that particular concern?
7 And I'm going to -- I'm 8 going to reference the 22-MS-42 lessons learned that 9 was rolled out to each of the shifts. The reason --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you know 11 who prepared that document? It's just for the record.
12 It's -- I don't see a date or anything on there. Do 13 you have --
14 No, there's no date on here.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There's no name?
16 No.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who prepared it? Do 18 you know? Do you know anything more about who 19 prepared that?
20 It was given to me by Carl 21 Fricker, so I believe he prepared it. Right?
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
23 And the information given in 24 here, including the comments and improvement 25 opportunities, were also provided in -- I was -- the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 1 discussion between Carl and I, when he basically, you 2 know, said that I needed to go talk to all the shifts.
3 And I agreed, right -- I knew that some action had to 4 take -- be taken to explain both my side of the story 5 and, you know, share with the crews the lessons 6 learned out of this event. So all these improvements 7 were Carl's wording, and they came from Employee 8 Concerns' investigation that was completed.
9 The Employee Concerns interviews that 10 occurred were initiated by myself at the -- after 11 discussion with Carl and I, I think the following day, 12 or maybe a couple days later when, you know, you saw 13 that this issue was not going away. It was -- you 14 know, I mean there was still concerns about it, and 15 you know, other talks about the actions being taken 16 inappropriately, unsafe. So Carl and I. wanted a
- 17. independent investigation done, and so we utilized the 18 resources of Tom Lake, who is our Employee Concerns 19 department lead.
20 And I was kind of disappointed, and I 21 expressed that to Carl, when -- when we started 22 discussing this, is that I was not involved or 23 questioned as part of that interview process. So what 24 you see here, and basically what I rolled out to the 25 shifts was not necessarily any input provided from me, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 1 based on from an interviewing standpoint, or from 2 preparations of the document. I'm not saying that 3 it's not correct. I mean, I agreed with it, and I 4 rolled it out. And that's why I rolled it out, 5 because I agreed with what was in here. But what --
6 and this is all I'm privy to as far as that 7 investigation, so I can only make conclusions based on 8 some of the comments that are in here as far as what 9 other people felt, or what -- the appearance it gave 10 to other people.
11 And specifically, earlier you had asked a 12 question about did I believe -- or, one of the lessons 13 learned out of this event was that I had basically 14 and I'm --
15 that wasn't your words exactly, but I think that was 16 question basically you were trying to get to.
17 So in this roll-out part of what I read to 18 shifts and I talked about is, *The OS is in charge of 19 the plant, it has the full authority of the CNO. He 20 must be cognizant of actions in the plant, and he must 21 in a position to maintain command and control. In C 22 this case, the and OS should have agreed on the 23 decision regarding the 22-MS-42 and the OS should have 24 stayed in the control room.'
25 So from my perspective, right, that night, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 and even to this day, I thought we both agreed on the 2 fact that the valve had to be closed. There was some 3 contention on whether or not that was safe to do, but 4 I did not feel at that time that I was going against 5 his wishes, or against his orders to go -- to not 6 close the valve.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How about 8 against procedure? Did you think you were operating 9 within procedures in doing what you --
10 By closing it off?
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- in doing 12 what you did? Yeah.
13 Yes.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Basis for that?
15 What's your basis for saying that?
16 AB Steam. As a licensed 17 SRO, right, we frequently train on abnormal operating 18 procedures to the point where you know them from 19 memory pretty much.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
21 At least --
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. Go 23 to AB Steam and show me where in there it allowed you 24 to do that.
25 Step 340 is -- basically NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 1 this step says, Isolate or repair the steam leak.'
2 So the question prior to that is, "Is the steam leak 3 isolable or repairable in the present plant 4 condition?"
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It says, "No."
6 Correct.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Because you 8 don't know?
9 Right.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right?
11 Right.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Line drawn down 13 to 3.42.
14 Correct.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right?
16 Reduce --
17 SR; SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Reduce reactor 18 power.
19 Correct.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But that's done 21 at 150.
22 0150. No, that's when they 23 went to section 4.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Oh.
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95 1 closed.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, but 3 before closing it do you have to reduce reactor power?
4 No. The reduce reactor 5 power was based on the earlier discussion that we 6 couldn't -- Team, Inc. couldn't get here in a 7 reasonable time to isolate it. So that -- at that --
8 (Audiotape changed.)
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 6:56 p.m.
10 What you were saying was what your 11 thoughts were at 0016.
12 0016. Correct. So at 16 13 after, by answering that question No, the only success 14 path that we thought about at that time was Team, Inc.
15 coming in and doing a leak repair. We've already 16 discussed the thought process after that about closing 17 the valve, and that'd be a potential path for 18 isolation.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
20 6 And so that's -- that's why 21 this arrow goes down to 3.42 at 0016. At that time we 22 did not believe the leak was isolable.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
24 And then later on after 25 discussions with the maintenance supervisor and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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96 1 subsequent alarms being received in the control room, 2 still didn't know if closing the hand wheel --
3 believed that closing the hand wheel would isolate the 4 leak.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. Based 6 on your conversation with Danny Franklin.
7 Correct. But wouldn't know 8 that until we actually closed the valve and 9 determined, yup, the leak is isolable.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
11 So the valve was closed, and 12 it's determined that it's isolable at that time, and 13 you come back and answer, "It is isolable," you close 14 the valve, and it isolates it. But you don't know 15 that until you actually close the valve.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. So what 17 made you think you could -- you would be within 18 procedure by closing the valve?
19 Well, knowing the intent, 20 just think in compliance with the procedure, right?
21 The intent of this step is to isolate the leak if you 22 can.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The abnormal 24 procedure?
25 Correct.
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97 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. So 2 using think-in-compliance with the procedure usage 3 guidelines, is that the intent of the procedure is to 4 isolate the steam leak, and I have a mechanism to do 5 that. And that's the procedural guidance to close the 6 valve.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did what you --
8 did your closing of that valve violate any of the 9 station operating practice procedures?
10 j None that I have identified.
11 I'll say none that were either identified by myself or 12 others in the investigation.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you tell --
14 besides Van Ford, did you tell anyone else that you 15 were going to close that valve before you did it?
16 Bob Cordry. Other than 17 that, no.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Anybody else in 19 the control room?
20 I don't believe so. I may 21 have -- I may have talked to Bill Wallace, but I don't 22 -- I don't recall, so I'd have to say no. I know that 23 I talked to Van, I know I talked to Bob Cordry.
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98 1 try and close the valve, if that's true --
2 JmWell, our earlier --
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- what you 4 just said?
5 Well, our earlier 6 conversation was that, hey, if that was a path, we had 7 to swap the pump, right? Plus you'd have to swap the 8 pump anyway in the subsequent down-power, right? But 9 you wouldn't want -- I mean, there was some discussion 10 -- and like I said, I remember discussing it with Bill 11 about that we would have to do that. We'd have to 12 take the load off that pump if we were going to --
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Which Bill?
14 Bill Wallace.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
16 Have to isolate that pump.
17 We'd have to swap the load off that pump if we were 18 going to isolate it, and then proceeded into a 19 conversation with Van about the -- having to isolate 20 the valve. And unfortunately I can't put those times 21 -- you know, was that a minute, was it five minutes?
22 But I--
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It would --
24 Go ahead.
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99 1 finish your thought.
2 I don't recall having a 3 specific discussion with anybody else in the control 4 room that that was my -- that at that time, I was 5 leaving the control room to go close the valve. I 6 mean, there was some discussions before, and -- about 7 that that was a success path, especially after we 8 received the first set of alarms, or -- yeah, the 9 first alarms, and the second one, is, hey, we can 10 close the valve.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It would seem that if 12 you communicated to the control room that the leak is 13 isolable, that would have been documented with the 14 time noted, right?
15 Not necessarily, because 16 until you closed it and isolated it, you didn't know 17 that it was isolable. That's why I say the procedure 18 -- you have to use think-in-compliance with the 19 procedure. You don't know any leak is isolable until 20 you actually isolate it, right? So the key is there, 21 is you -- I mean, better phrasing on the question may 22 be, Is the steam leak potentially isolable? If yes, 23 then attempt to close it. And then the next question 24 would be, "Did it isolate?" But the way the procedure 25 is written, you have to use think-in-compliance to get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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100 1 to the ultimate step which is going to isolate it, 2 because if I don't know, I can't say Yes, because then 3 I would never shut the plant down. I would just be at 4 the step that would say, "Isolate and repair the 5 leak."
6 So let's say in this case, the MS-42, we 7 take the path, we have clairvoyancy, and we know that 8 -- or at least we all agree, right, in that we're 9 going to close MS-42, and that's going to isolate the 10 leak. We take that path, "Is the steam leak isolable?
11 Yes." We take the path, we go down there and close 12 MS-42 and the steam leak doesn't isolate. Next step 13 is go to section 4, which is closing out the 14 procedure, so you'd never get the steam leak 15 addressed. You'd never shut the plant down, you'd 16 never do anything. And that's where 17 think-in-compliance comes into play with the 18 procedure, that you've got to attempt -- you've got to 19 close the valve to see if it is isolable.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was the 22 paperwork, to your knowledge, being filled out as the 23 night went along, or was it all filled out after the 24 fact?
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101 1 fill these out -- that's why they have time across.
2 You fill them out as -- this is the actual time that 3 he was at these steps. And the key -- when Van --
4 after Van had come down and got me at approximately 5 11:00 o'clock and we looked at the steam leak and went 6 back to the control room, part of the discussion 7 between Van and I were the entry requirements of this 8 procedure. And that's why you see the procedure was 9 entered at 23:18. They had identified the steam leak 10 earlier in whatever the narrative is, but they had not 11 entered AB Steam until Van came and talked to me, and 12 I asked if there were any abnormal operating 13 procedures. So if you look, the steam leak was --
14 notified the control room of the leak at 22:55, and it 15 was actually twenty-three minutes later when they 16 entered the AB.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At 23:18?
18 Correct.
19 MR. WINGFIELD: Do you have a copy of the 20 control room log that night?
21 No, I think we --
22 MR. KEENAN: Yeah.
23 We -do have a copy of it?
24 Okay.
25 MR. WINGFIELD: Very good.
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102 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have anything 2 further on that?
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 5 of any other procedures?
6 That supports what I said.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Isolation's fully 8 covered?
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I guess 10 generally, but --
11 .I think it --.I mean, just 12 if you look at the comments, right, that the CRS, who 13 was Bill White, wrote in the back of the procedure, 14 what you write when you're closing them out --
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
16 -- to kind of explain the 17 process you took through the procedure -- 'Procedure 18 entered due to a leak on 22-MS-42, and was isolated by 19 closing 22-MS-42," so obviously this is filled out 20 after the event.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That part.
22 Yeah.
23 The leak -- the whole thing 24 is, 'cause it starts -- you always fill these out with 25 the top line. You don't leave like two blank lines NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 1 and then start writing.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mean the 3 whole comment section is?
4 MRight.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
6 It's filled out at the same 7 time. It's post -- in this case, it's post-event.
8 Some guys write notes in there as we're going along, 9 depending on the time frames. And if it's a 10 short-duration event, as this was the case, you do it 11 after the fact.
12 The leak was on the bonnet. Step 3.39.
13 Leak was initially evaluated as no isolable the first 14 time in this step. And that's when we said, hey, 15 Team, Inc. can't get there. And while briefing the 16 controlled shutdown, the leak was isolated and the 17 step was reevaluated. So that's where that 18 think-in-compliance comes in, is that you don't know.
19 You can't answer it yes, it isolable, until you 20 actually attempt to isolate it. So once it's 21 isolated, then you say yeah, it is isolable, and the 22 step's reevaluated.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. At this point 24 I don't have any further questions. I don't think you 25 do, Jeff.
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104 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No, I don't.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything further?
3 Would you like to add anything further on 4 that, 5 I mean, there's a lot of 6 lessons learned out of this, right? It's unfortunate 7 that -- that this even had to happen in the first 8 place. It's unfortunate that there had to be lessons 9 learned coming out of it. As I stated earlier, my 10 position and my thought processes in this were not as, 11 I guess, how they appeared to be, which is the cause 12 of this investigation, which was, you know, to run 13 reckless into the control room and take P 14 and do everything as I deemed fit. In my 15 opinion, that night I was -- I thought I was 16 communicating properly with the proper people, being 17 Van Ford. You know, I wouldn't go to Bill White and 18 do the communications with him, because Van's the 19 shift manager. So maybe the communications were not 20 clear. We didn't repeat -- you know, three-point 21 communications and everything, which probably would 22 have eliminated a lot of the discussion. But in no 23 means was this, or any of that, any of that, total 24 disregard for procedures or command and control 25 function of the shift manager.
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II 105 1 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I'll go 2 through my closing questions for you, okay?
3 aokay 4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have I or any other 5 NRC representative offered you any promises of reward 6 or threatened you in any manner in exchange for your 7 information today?
8 No.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And have you appeared 10 here freely and voluntarily?
11 Yes, I have.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. It is 7:06 13 p.m. We will go off the record.
14 MR. KEENAN: Let me just add one thing.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm sorry.1 16 MR. KEENAN: One, we appreciate your time.
17 We would like to review the transcript. We understand 18 the seriousness of the issues. We did volunteer, and 19 we'll be glad to support your review process in any 20 manner, whether that's additional documentation or, 21 you know, additional discussion. So again, we 22 appreciate your -- appreciate your time.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. And we 24 appreciate the time both of you have devoted to this 25 today, and we've -- we you here on another matter, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS (2L4 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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'I and we 1 II it was a large portion of your time today, 2 thank you for that.
3 You're welcome. I Q 4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We'll go off 5 the record L. It is 7:06 p.m.
6 (Whereupon, at 7:06 p.m. the interview was 7 concluded.)
8 9
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