ML061460328
| ML061460328 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 03/25/2004 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 1-2003-045, 1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194 | |
| Download: ML061460328 (246) | |
Text
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INTERVIEW OF: Investigation Nos.1-2003-051F 1-2003-045 Conference Room 219 Embassy Suites Hotel 2815 Akers Mill Road Atlanta, Georgia Thursday, March 25, 2004 The above-entitled interview came on for hearing, pursuant to adjournment, at 8:00 a.m.
PRESENT:
On behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
EILEEN NEFF, Special Agent JEFFREY A. TEATOR, Senior Special Agent NRC Region 1, Office of Investigation and G. SCOTT BARBER, Senior Project Engineer Division of Reactor Projects PSEG SERVICES:
JEFFERIE KEENAN, Assistant General Solicitor Intgrmatili Itsti readr -Was 4e1 j~~ p~ith the fteedofl ci 14" &'108" Act. exemmtion
150 INDEX TO EXHIBITS EXHIBIT NO: IDENTIFIED 1 Pictorial Diagram Describing The Normal Chain Of Command On Line And In An Outage Situation 160 2 Study By Two Ph.D's, Yurkees And Dottson, From A Book Entitled The Law of Human Behavior 202 Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pa ae51 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 MS. NEFF: Today's date is March 25, 2004. The 3 time is 8:30 a.m. This will be a continuation of the meeting 4 from March 24 that ended at approximately 8:25, I believe, on 5 the 24th, 8:25 p.m. The persons present are the same, 6 speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff. Also present is 7 1Senior Special Agent Jeff Teator and Senior Project Engineer, 8 Scott Barber, nd Jeff Keenan and so what we 9 will do is, just prior to going on the record today we talked 10 about a few statements that you wanted to add to the record 11 and I think we are going to start wit irst 12 regarding information that we cgyered yesterday.
13 MR. KEENAN: Yes would like to provide some 14 information relative to the bypass valve event and 15 specifically the community control aspects of that and so, we 16 will let speak to those.
17 MS. NEFF: Okay, and before we do that, 1 will just 18 remind you, V -- I won't place you back under oath but that 19 you are still under oath and this is a continuation.
20 :
Iunderstand I am under oath, yes.
21 Could I have a few moments to finish?
22 MS. NEFF: Sure, we can take a quick break. It is 23 8:31.
24 [Whereupon, a short recess was taken.]
25 MS. NEFF: Okay, we are back on the record. It is Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 l now 8:35 a.m.
2 1Whereupon, am 11 4 was RESUMEd as the witness herein, pursuant to adjournment, 5 and upon examination, testified as follows:
6 EXAMINATION 7 BY MS. NEFF:
8 Q What you have there is some sort of a chart that 9 you are showing us?
10 A Yes, what I have diagrammed based on yesterday's 11 conversation and I would say my perception from our dialogue 12 is there may be some confusion with regarding the command and 13 control and how direction is provided to the control room and 14 how it may have played in the number 2 bypass valve decision 15 making associated with the March 17 shutdown.
16 So, what I have provided is a pictorial diagram 17 1that describes the normal chain of command when we are in 18 normal operations with the unit on line and the chain of 19 command when we are in an outage situation and there is an 20 additional group that is brought into the fold between one of 21 the levels.
22 In normal operations, the VP of Operations is the 23 primary accountable for assuring all functions associated 24 with the power plant facility are being maintained.
25 We have an Operations Director who takes on the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 day-to-day operations specifically around what I would 2 consider the tactical and the more operational oversight of 3 decision making that is being on day-to-day operations.
4 Below him is the Operations Manager who is truly 5 accountable for shift crew performance and the actual 6 manipulations and configuration control of the operating 7 equipment.
8 1 The Assistant Operations Manager, excuse me, is the 9 one who is primarily in charge and the Shift Managers take 10 directions from him in the chain of command. He is the 11 Senior SRO and Shift Managers are the on-shift SRO with their 12 specific groups.
13 Is this clear? I am just trying to make sure.
14 MR. BARBER: It is clear to me.
15 MR. TEATOR: It is clear.
16 MS. NEFF: Yeah.
17 THE WITNESS: I have also listed who are the people 18 l in each one of these positions. I did not list the Shift 19 Managers. You have those from yesterday and, as you know, 20 there are six or five associated with the Hope Creek 21 operations and so I just chose to stop at this point.
22 I have the position o 23 had the position of a 24 the position of as the 25 position offl Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
p 154 1 When we go into an outage situation and our 2 procedures allow us to make that determination sometimes in a 3 preventative, if we think we are going to shut down a plant, 4 we will staff in a certain way to have ourselves prepared to 5 provide automentation (sic] to the shift crews and when we 6 are in an outage, that what that means is when the plant is 7 not on line, or anywhere in between, then we align ourselves 8 with this particular set up, which is essentially the same 9 chain of command down to the Assistant Ops Manager.
10 What changes is we create what we call an Outage 11 Control Center, which is comprised of decision-making 12 managers who have the authorities from the various parties in 13 the organization for maintenance, from operations, from 14 engineering.
15 There is an Outage Manager who has primary 16 responsibility of organizing, coordinating all of the 17 information that comes in such a way that it is 18 comprehensibly understood such that a single point of 19 contact, which is typically a Shift Manager pulled off shift, 20 as an Ops Director inside of this particular group who does 21 provide immediate and direct feedback to the control room 22 crews and vice versa back to him, so that we don't have 23 multiple people talking to the crews. We only want one 24 person and we want it to be one person can have a 25 relationship with and has a clear understanding of what Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
pm 55 1 operations is.
2 We have elected to make that typically a Shift 3 Manager from this, who comes off rotation and fills that 4 position. He is empowered through the Assistant Ops Manager 5 to make decisions and to provide direction to the shift 6 crews.
7 BY MR. TEATOR:
8 Q So how does that change the AOM's position in this 9 Outage Command though and control the organization?
10 A It says that the Assistant Ops Manager has to use 11 the Outage Manager to have complete understanding because 12 what we don't want is the shift crew to be making decisions 13 on things when it is an extremely complex and the crews may 14 not have a complete understanding of all that is taking place 15 on a minute-by-minute basis or feedback that is coming back 16 from different places of the plant about current problems, 17 work issues and so on, and so what we try to do is the 18 Assistant Ops Manager has a group of people through the 19 Outage Control Manager to have clarity such that this 20 person's direction is in alignment with what he believes is 21 the right things to do based on the accumulative sum of all 22 of the information that has been collected.
23 So he becomes, in other words, there is another 24 layer between this person and here but it is an SRO Ops 25 Manager or a Shift Manager that takes the position of Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I Pa56 1 providing that clarity and understanding and sequencing to 2 provide what I would say is support to the actual operating 3 crew on shift.
4 This is a typical organization the industry uses.
5 It is not unique at Hope Creek. I can give you multiple 6 stations that have adopted this particular approach and it 7 was put in place. Primarily it was to provide additional 8 support to the shift crews when we get into highly complex 9 issues and what the intent was, was to improve human 10 performance, to improve coordination and to reduce what the 11 industry was finding was events, event situations, when we 12 were getting into complex type of things.
13 l So, its intent it to help, not to create a burden 14 or to create confusion.
15 BY MR. BARBER:
16 Q Can I ask a follow up to that?
17 A Yes, sir.
18 Q All right, let's start with the normal 19 configuration, normal alignment in a non-outage 20 configuration.
21 If there is a difference of opinion about what is 22 being planned from the AOM, which is the first-line 23 supervisor and the Shift Manager, who makes -- who has 24 decision-making authority to determine which way the plant 25 moves?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I 157 1 i A The AOM does because he is the Senior SRO in the z
2 I command, the control that directs license to operate the 3 functions.
4 Q So he can override the Shift Manager?
5 A He can.
6 Q And is that allowed by the way the license have 7 I been set up or the way the procedures have been set up to 8 implement license responsibilities?
9 A All I can tell you is from my understanding that 10 I the Senior SRO or the Assistant Ops Manager is designed to be 11 an advisor and to provide technical direction to the on-shift 12 crews. He typically is in consultation with the Shift 13 Managers on a regular basis about performances of the plant 14 configurations and those kinds of things.
15 Q Really I am trying to ask a real simple question.
16 I am just saying that the AOM and the Shift Manager are 17 having a discussion about something, and it is almost 18 irrelevant what it is, but it is something that will cause 19 the plant to move in one direction or another.
20 There is a difference of opinion, who has the final 21 say, who is the final decision maker responsibility where the 22 plant goes; is it the AOM or the Shift Manager?
23 A I think that if you are talking about a difference 24 of opinion, we are not talking about the difference in plant 25 position of things, we are talking about a difference of Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
.'1 158 opinion on should we go right or should we go left when it is 2 into a collaborative determination and we have people that 3 have differences, the Ops, the Assistant Ops Manager does 4 have the ability to give the final say so on that outcome of 5 the opinion.
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
7 MR. KEENAN: Just to clarify for the record. We 8 don't have any of the procedures here. We don't have the 9 tech specs.- -_ s providing his understanding based on his 10 experience.
11 If this becomes an important issue, we'd be glad to 12 provide those procedures and have another detail but we I i
Ii t 13 understand this discussion as being in the context of a i t
14 safety conscious work environment. o 15 MR. BARBER: Right. Okay.
16 MR. KEENAN: And we are trying to support that 17 understanding.
18 BY MR. BARBER:
19 Q I understand. Let's go over to the other model.
20 Who has the final decision-making authority in that model, if 21 you look at three end each day when the Outage Control 22 Center, assuming we are talking about the Shift Manager who 23 is in charge of that and the Shift Manager is on shift?
24 A It is still --
25 Q And I am talking about moving the plant. I am not Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1J59 1 talking about a decision about doing work, whether you are 2 doing work or you do some testing or not, who has the final 3 3decision-making authority about which way the plant moves?
4 A The Shift manager on shift.
5 Q Now why is that different in that case than the AOM 6 in the previous case?
7 A Well, it is the same. What you asked is if there 8 is a difference of opinion, who has the ultimate say so.
9 Well, in both cases it is here.
10 Your second line of questioning over here was who 11 makes the decision on maneuvering a plant a particular way.
12 Ultimately, the final say so becomes the Shift Manager on 13 shift.
14 Q Okay, I understand that that is your statement on 15 this but I thought you said in the first case, it was the 16 AOM?
17 A Your questioning was a difference of opinion. You 18 clarified that question and made it more specific and changed 19 l it for the second scenario and I answered it.differently 20 because-you asked a different question.
21 Q Okay, well, let me go back and clarify my first 22 question.
23 If there is a difference of opinion between the AOM 24 and the Shift Manager about which direction the plant moves, 25 whether it starts up or shuts down or holds or shuts down, it Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pep 160 1 l doesn't matter but, basically, we are talking moving, 2 l maneuvering the plant in a direction up or down, not a 3 decision about work, not a decision about whether to do a 4 test or not; who makes that decision, who has the authority 5 l and responsibility to do that?
6 A Clearly it is the Shift Manager on the crew on that 7 particular shift.
8 MR. BARBER: Okay. Thank you.
9X THE WITNESS: There has never been ambiguity around 10 that. Never.
11 MR. BARBER: Okay. Thank you.
12 MR. KEENAN: We can make that an exhibit if you 13 want.
14 MR. TEATOR: I think we should. We are going to 15 label this, and when we are doing today, we are going to make 16 all of this stuff as attachments too but we will label this, 17 since it is the first one that is going to be put on, as 18 Exhibit number 1. I will just write that on there. Is that 19 all right?
20 (Exhibit Number 1 was marked 21 for identification.)
22 MR. KEENAN: Yes, and if we could get a copy of our 23 exhibit before it becomes an exhibit, that would be 24 appreciated.
25 MR. TEATOR: Remind me and we will do that.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pm 161
. ffMR. KEENAN: Okay.
2 MR. TEATOR: All right. I have a couple of 3 questions.
4 THE WITNESS: Sure.
5 BY MR. TEATOR:
6 Q Now, let's talk about the bypass valve issue, okay?
7 A Yes. That is what I wanted to do.
8 Q All right, and let's talk about the outage --
9 A Yes.
10 Q -- And incremental control organization because 11 that is what was functioning there.
12 A That is what was functioning and so on the day of 13 the bypass, we were not in this typical alignment, we were in 14 this particular alignment, that is correct.
15 Q Now, it seems to me like, and correct me if I am 16 wrong, but I want to understand this, was the shift doing 17 something that the AOM didn't know about?
18 A I think in this cased, if I can, if you will allow 19 me to explain --
20 Q Yes.
21 A What I think was occurring, I think I can answer 22 your question.
23 When I gave testimony yesterday on the bypass valve 24 on the morning of the 18th. That was Monday morning after 25 the plant was shut down.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rae 162 1 Q Right.
2 A And, again, I want to repeat. The plant was shut 3 1 down at 6:00 a.m., or thereabouts, all rods in and the 4 reactor was not critical.
5 Where we were at was now continuing on into a cool 6 down phase, essentially getting into the proper mode to do 7 I the work on this particular bypass valve. That is what the 8 setting was about 6:00 a.m. in the morning.
9 Q Okay.
10 A My practice is to typically talk to different 11 people, particularly the Outage Control Center when we are in 12 l an outage to get some sort of a status update of how did 13 things go and is there any support that's required?
14 This particular morning, the shift, or the shift 15 control -- or the Outage Control Manager gave me feedback 16 from his engineering manager that was in there that we had a 17 different set of occurrences take place when the plant was 18 shut down, in that the valve that we thought yesterday was 19 not working suddenly worked this morning and that was 20 confusing to everybody as to why that was.
21 He also related to me that engineering now was 22 second guessing their thinking that they had from the 23 previous days.
24 On Friday, when the first anomaly was made known to 25 us, that the valve wasn't cycling properly or stuck into the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
oPage- 163 1 48 percent open position, there was a strong belief initially 2 that it was an electrical problem.
3 Our subject matter expertise was not very good on 4 the electrical diagnostics to this particular system. That 5 is why we were looking for GE.
6 We obtained GE on Saturday. Between our inhouse 7 expertise on EHC, our inhouse expertise of what we had 8 electrical and GE, they spent most of the day trying to 9 determine what is the source of the issue and is it an issue 10 because we, quite frankly, weren't sure.
11 Through the course of that day, it was determined 12 that it had moved from an electrical problem to they believed 13 the suspect was a mechanical problem but the context of what 14 the mechanical problem was still was unknown.
15 But it seemed pretty clear it was something that 16 probably was not going to be able to repair with the current 17 operating condition that we had and there was strong suspect 18 that more than likely we would probably have to go internally 19 to some components which require us to break condenser vacuum 20 which requires not to have the reactor in service.
21 So that was the decision making and the thinking 22 that was occurring on Saturday evening when I was involved in 23 some conference calls.
24 That is whe had said the plant is in a 25 steady state condition, although not optimal, I don't think Neal R. Gross & Company
- 202-234-4433 X7t
I Eg 164 1 the right thing to do is to shut down the plan without making 2 i sure that we are prepared for this unusual condition. That 3 made perfect sense and
- had proceeded with a direction to 4 go do that.
5 Now what I need to be clear is on this particular 6 weekend, this particular fellow was not here.
7 1Q 8 A He was not here, so this man was filling two 9 duties. He was filling the duty of watching his crews and 10 filling the duty of oversight in the, what is the total 12 operations of the facility and how things are going and 12 providing another role that he had not typically done.
13 Our procedures, or I should say our expectations is 14 that when someone of this kind of caliber is missing that you 15 delegate upward, not downward.
16 An error was made by this particular gentleman that 17 weekend and he delegated downward to this man giving double 18 duty to this guy on a weekend when his primary role should be 19 to do watching the crew operations.
20 Q And you were referring to 21 A To delegating downward to 22 Q I see.
23 A was unaware that that delegation had 24 occurred, although he knew wasn't there.
25 We had ourselves into what I would say a Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
tPage 165 1 misunderstanding of who was carrying what positions fro m m 2 tor It A >
3 l However, when I interviewed z s a part of our 4 investigation after the event, he clearly knew he had both 5 functions but said I may have been wearing the hat, I don't 6 know if I was fulfilling the expectations o 7 *w 8 The only reason I mention that is because it is 9 germane when I get to this part, when we are over here and 10 now we are in a shutdown condition.
11 When the plant was shut down on Monday morning, and 12 I call in, I made a call to this guy and said, how is it 13 going?
14 Q Talking to the guy that is Control Manager?
15 A Yes.
16 MR. TEATOR: All right.
17 BY MS. NEFF:
18 Q Do you recall who that was?
19 A No, but we have logs and so I, you know, I would 20 imagine it could be determined by looking at it who was on 21 that particular day but I don't remember who it was.
22 MR. TEATOR: Excuse me. Jeff, while we are on the 23 record, could we -- I would ask that we get who these people 24 are in that Outage and Control organization, when the plant 25 shutdown over this bypass valve issue.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pg 166 1 MR. KEENAN: Yes, the company will supply the logs 2 associated with that time frame. I would not that I would 3 not suspect that all the conversations that people had would 4 be reflected in those logs.
5 BY MR. TEATOR:
6 Q Okay.
7 A But if you're trying to determine who might have 8 been there.
9 Q Right.
10 A I am pretty sure that is probably captured.
11 Q Okay.
12 A We certainly had schedules for people and so as a 13 minimum, we have that.
14 lQ All right. Good.
15 A So, this gentleman is giving me feedback about the 16 information he had received from engineering and operations 17 about this anomaly that had occurred and I asked what are you 18 going to do?
19 He said we are talking right now between this 20 fellow and this fellow.
21 Q Engineering and --
22 A Engineering and operations.
23 Q All right.
24 A About what we should do. He said, I believe that 25 we will probably take on engineering's recommendation to do Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I FPa- 167 1 some additional cycling of the valve while we are in this 2 condition to try to fully understand any extent of condition 3 or any other anomalies that we may not be aware of that 4 should be factored into determining what is the course of 5 action that will occur in this particular valve?
6 To say another way is, there was some belief that 7 there may be something connected with the temperature and the 8 1 pressure and the conditions that exists at this point of why 9 things changed and there was an uncertainty whether it 10 contributed positively or negatively to now the valve working 11 and they wanted clarity and they wanted to cycle the valve.
12 I said, well, are you guys going to work all of 13 that stuff out? The answer was, we are going to work all of 14 that stuff out.
15 Q That is inside the Outage Control --
16 A That is correct.
17 Q -- Organization at that point?
18 A Which is a typical type of function when we have a 19 problem.
20 Q Right.
21 A Is to bring the heads of state now at this level 22 and talk about it and try to make some sort of determination 23 of what is the best action to take.
24 When that action is decided, typically what happens 25 is this person will talk to this person, make sure there is Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
- 168 1 alignment.
2 Q Who?
3 A Would be the Ops Assistant Manager.
4 Q And who would be talking to, the Ops AOM?
5 A The Ops Shift Manager inside of this particular 6 group.
7 Q Okay, I can't read your --
8 A I am sorry.
9 Q And for the record, when you indicate, there is 10 no way for the transcript to pick up and so that is why we 21 are --
12 A Thank you.
13 Q All right, so the Outage Shift Manager should be 14 communicating that with the AOM?
15 A That's right.
16 Q All right.
17 A Now, before this group will do anything.
18 Q Shift Managers.
19 A The Shift Managers, this person and this person --
20 meaning t and the Ops 21 Shift Manager in this particular group -- will have a 22 conversation and make sure that they are on the same page and 23 they agree, whatever that is, and this person here, the Ops 24 Shift Manager, will directly communicate to the Shift Manager 25 on shift and the Shift Manager will then implement what they Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 Y,
I Palp 169 1 1think the best determination is from the outcome of this 2 particular group.
,3 > Q It doesn't sound like that happened though?
4 A I believe it did.
5 Q You believe it did?
6 A Yes. Because, if I can continue, because in the 7 morning I was under the understanding from the conversation 8 that this testing, whatever that was, was going to be 9 pursued.
10 After hearing that, I gave no orders to anybody at 11 this point, absolutely none, just simply what is the current 12 status?
13 1 After that, I talked to this fellow, the I 14 and I had communicated to him:
15 { have you heard what the Shift Outage Control Center has 16 been identifying?
17 He said, I've only heard that the valve wouldn't 18 close. I said, yes, I have heard the same thing and I've 19 heard some other information about engineering wishing or 20 thinking some additional testing would be required.
21 I said, if that is true, they were suggesting we 22 may want to take advantage that we're in and fully understand 23 the valve behavior in these conditions before we lose the 24 opportunity and may or may not find the smoking gun 25 associated with the failure.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 yk9\.\
Peg-- 170 1 I said that seems to make reasonable sense to me.
2 i says I agree. I said, okay, what are you going to 3 do? said I will report to the Shift Outage Managers and 4 others and assure that we think we are on that path. I said, 5 very good.
6 Q That had to happen, is that when the cool down had 7 to -- I am going to use the word -- stop?
8 A Yes.
9 MR. TEATOR: All right.
10 BY MS. NEFF:
11 Q That would be the hold, the hold on?
12 A This would be what Scott was referring to earlier 13 as either the reduced rate or the hold, however we 14 technically determine it.
15 BY MR. TEATOR:
16 Q Okay, right, all right.
171 A Now, what I think has occurred -- and I am giving 18 you what I think, based on wh A alled me at about 19 9:30-ish or somewhere in there is because he did not know 20 that the crew was taking some action different than his.
21 At 6:00 in the morning,\ thought that we were 22 going to commence the cool down, that nothing had changed, 23 there was no new information, things were simply going to 24 continue to the cool down to the original plan.
25 This fellow, I don't believe talked to this fellow, Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 C{'
FUPel 171 12 meaning is the Ops Director I don't believe talked to the 2 Assistant Ops Manager about the conversation he and I had and 3 l the alignment we were getting from information sources inside 4 the Outage Control Center.
5 Consequently, I am speculating that the Ops 6 Director directly talked to inside of here. These people 7 1were already in that direction of doing the testing, thought 8 that they were in alignment with people and gave the 9 direction to the shift crew to maintain things and allow 10 engineering to do the testing.
11 Q That is what my question was. Did not know 12 up to that point --
13 A You will have to ask him that.
14 Q Right, but --
15 A But I am, from recalling now why the need for the 16 meeting that he and I had with the other parties at 10 17 o'clock or whatever time it was, was that what I was thinking 18 we were doing, what' twas thinking we were doing were not 19 the same and we are trying to find out why are they not the 20 same.
21 Not that I am right o was right or I was wrong 22 1or was wrong but simply we had a difference of 23 information understanding and we were not on the same page of 24 what was occurring.
25 I believe ,somehow between 7:30 and 9:30 Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
12 PFEl7 1 realized what was occurring and called me and said do you 2 know what is occurring? I said, well, here is what I know 3 and he said, I hope we are going to fix the valve. I said, 4 of course, we are going to fix the valve.
5 }I am understanding that engineering wants to do 6 some additional testing and, at that point, I said, look, 7 let's not have a conversation here over the phone, let's 8 bring all of the parties into my office and converse over 9 what is known and what isn't know and we will take whatever 10 the right actions are from that point. He agreed.
11 Q But when he called you, you described him as being 12 heated?
13 A Yeah, because I think he was surprised that the 14 crew was taking some action that he was not fully aware of 15 but I want to re-emphasize --
16 BY MR. BARBER:
17 Q The way it was described to us is the crew was 18 complying with the text spec. They were continuing with the 19 shut down because they thought it was their duty and 20 responsibility under their license.
21 They had contravening direction that told them to 22 hold the plant where it was, which was contrary to the belief 23 of what they needed to do to comply with the tech specs and 24 that information was shared with nd our 25 understanding is that is why he was concerned about the lack Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 C-_
(
Pezr 173
- 1. of progress.
2 A That may be, I mean that may be. I don't -- wasn't 3 part of any of those conversations between the crew o
- 4 and I want to make it perfectly clear, I gave no direction or 5 order to Shift Control Operations at all.
6 I had a conversation with only the Ops Director 7 about what we had heard and does this make sense and I left 8 lit in the assumed position that if we were doing the right 9 things with the right circumstances and with the right 10 information and what we were about doing made sense and this 11 fellow, the Ops Director, was the one who initiated any 12 actions of anything on what the Control Room was doing or not 13 doing.
14 Q You know the interesting thing about all this is 15 this organization was put in place to improve coordination 16 during forced outages and, in fact, in these circumstances, 17 i the way you are describing things, it did nothing but hamper 18 communication and coordination.
19 A Scott, I appreciate and I appreciate your point but 20 I don't know if the discussion here is to debate whether it 21 was improved or not improved.
22 We did a root cause of the whole thing to try to 23 understand our shortcomings. In fact, I think that is a 24 missing piece in your information, is that we did a very 25 comprehensive root cause investigation when I contracted Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
-j v
.Pge 174 1 i INPO, a member from our off-site Safety Review Board under 2 who was our site qualified root cause person 3 in operations and collected a team of people to do a complete 4 A to Z look at everything.
5 Both the technical aspects, the decision making 6 aspects, command and control aspects and cultural aspects 7 that we thought may be coming from this whole series of 8 [ events around this power excursion that occurred on the 17th.
9 It is fully documented and it covers all of the items you are 10 questioning me about.
11 And what was correct with it or what was incorrect 12 with it and what we thought the lessons were and what we 13 thought the corrective action should be from the shortcomings 14 that occurred in this situation.
15 Q That's really a different issue though. I mean 16 1 what we're talking about, we are talking about what happened 17 relative to the bypass valve.
18 i A So my--
19 Q And, no, you just said your activity events that 20 occurred and the really discrete issues --
21 A Scott, I am going to clarify again.
22 Q Okay.
23 A I disagree. The investigation covered the bypass 24 valve and all of the tentacles that came around the event of 25 the bypass valve. The power excursion, the valve problem Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pagl- 175 1 before the training that took place or didn't take place and 2 the subsequent actions about the response the station had or 3 didn't have associated with the plant from cool down to the 4 reaction to the reactivity event from the previous day and 5 did we take proper action and so I mean it is a comprehensive 6 review of all aspects including the specifics around the 7 bypass valve itself.
8 MR. KEENAN: If you don't have that report, we'd be 9 glad to supply it to you. I mea is trying to help you 10 understand the facts of this and present his viewpoint and so 11 if that report is helpful, we'd be glad to provide that.
12 THE WITNESS: I think it is important for you and 13 you should have it. It also covers the complete timeline and 14 the events analysis barrier breakdown of all the different 15 issues, including the 9:30 and 10 o'clock meeting between 16 myself and the other parties. We addressed that.
17 MS. NEFF: Then it should be helpful. We will take 18 a look at that later.
19 THE WITNESS: So I am trying to make it clear 20 whether, you know, you agree with our organization or not, 21 you know, you are certainly entitled to your views.
22 I am simply trying to explain how we operate and 23 how I participated in our chain of command and I was left 24 with the impression from ot yesterday that I ordered the 25 control room to do something and that is simply untrue.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 l ~At
Fad 176 1 BY MR. TEATOR:
2 Q I was going to ask that, did you?
3 A No.
4 Q That is where my question was going about, not 5 being in alignment witlW knowing what is going on?
6 A No.
7 Q All right and, you know, we -- this was an event 8 that left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths.
9 A Yes.
10 Q And we are just exploring it. We are here to 11 debate --
12 A I understand.
13 Q -- The organization but it does play into it.
14 A I know that.
15 MR. BARBER: And we need to understand it too. We 16 need to understand.
17 BY MR. TEATOR:
18 Q Any impressions that it left on the people, 19 especially in that meeting with, you know, JFIFO 1 JIN 20 yourself and it left big impressions on 21 those people in that meeting. Not good ones.
22 And we are trying to get -- explore that fully.
23 That is the purpose of going through this.
24 MR. KEENAN: And I think it would be helpful to 25 provide that other report because --
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PCl 177 1 MR. TEATOR: Right, okay.
2 MR. KEENAN: -- It's authored by somebody that is 3 1outside of that process and so --
4 THE WITNESS: Everything there is --
5 MR. KEENAN: -- It is the level of intent.
6 THE WITNESS: -- Was fully disclosed. There was no 7 bashfulness in our rights or in the things we should have 8 done better. Absolutely not.
9 BY MR. BARBER:
10 Q We actually were somewhat aware of that but the way 11 it was characterized to us wasn't strictly under activity 12 mismanagement events.
13 A No.
14 Q And it strictly involved that and what you in fact 15 led with is you said your activity management events. I 16 don't know if you even realized that.
17 A No, because --
18 Q When you clarified it, you added the fact that it 19 covered the bypass valves.
20 ! A -- Because my point of perspective is, since I was 21 part of it, was the reactivity was only the lightning rod 22 that brought all of these different elements around it, 23 including the pieces you are referring to.
24 I just didn't separate it from that event.
25 MR. BARBER: Okay. We will definitely look at it.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PaG 178 1 MR. KEENAN: Just for the record, we don't have 2 that report with us and so that report will speak for itself 3 with respect to what it contains.
4 jMR. TEATOR: Uh-huh.
5l THE WITNESS: And I also would encourage you to 6 talk towho was our 7 because he did an independent review. I had asked 8 him to an to bring forward anything that may be of concern 9 in the way we handled the situation.
10 Any matters, in other words, everything was fair 11 game and I believe it is important that you do talk to him 12 because he looked at many of the things that you were trying 13 to probe about yesterday.
14 BY MR. TEATOR:
15 Q All right, in that part of the report where it 16 talks about work environment, were there work environment 17 issues described in there like we have been talking about?
18 A I don't think to the degree perhaps of a safety 19 conscious work environment, not the way you were describing 20 it yesterday but some of the cultural elements that maybe, if 21 you took a step back, might tell you something about it, yes.
22 MR. TEATOR: All right.
23 BY MS. NEFF:
24 Q What did he bring you back specifically about that, 25 what were the concerns and developments?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Peg-- 179 1 A It simply was a review of the whole time line and 2 the defense barrier issues that came up and what he was doing 3 i was briefing me on his views of different parts than what he 4 thought we should spend time with.
5 And so it wasn't like one thing was better or 6 another, he was simply amplifying what was in the report and 7 making me clear from his perspective things that we should 8 make sure we are paying attention.
9 One of the things he said that we should pay 10 attention to was some of the dynamics and the interactions 11 and the communication alignment that occurred on multiple 12 occasions from, say, Friday night until Wednesday of the 13 following week when we actually generated the root cause 14 because there were an awful lot of things in between there 15 that were not handled very well.
16 MR. KEENAN: Is he still at the site, do you know?
17 THE WITNESS: Who?
18 MR. KEENAN:
19 THE WITNESS: can give you his number if you 20 would like it.
21 MR. BARBER: Yes, please.
22 MR. TEATOR: He is an off-site individual.
23 THE WITNESS: Right.
24 MR. TEATOR: But he is on site on occasion.
25 MR. KEENAN: He is still on contract with the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 f'\j 1a
Re3 180 1 congress to do that function.
2 THE WITNESS: NRB function. That is correct.
3 j MR. KEENAN: NRB function, yes.
41 MR. BARBER: He was actually the -- he was the 5 plant manager subsequently we had to when I was there since 6 he was in[?
71, THE WITNESS: And I believe that he would provide 8 you a complete unbiased and simply straightforward of all 9 issues that came forward from that particular set of 10 circumstances and, like I said, we were not bashful about 11 anything that we had discovered.
12 13 MR. TEATOR: Thank you.
14 THE WITNESS: You are welcome.
15 In addition to not only generating a site root 16 cause, I also called Hub Miller directly on Wednesday or 17 l Thursday of that week and alerted him of what we thought we 18 l were discovering and my disappointment of the whole set of 19 things that occurred.
20 And I also talked to the Vice President of INPO, 21 Mr. Bill Webster, and told him the same thing; and I also 22 called Mr. Mike Heffley of INPO, who is the Assistance 23 Director, because I thought we were going to need some 24 additional industry help in looking at what occurred.
25 Why did I do that?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 ii
5 ~181 1 One, I wanted to make sure that I made personal 2 1 contact with the heads in different places, that they had a 3 clear understanding of my sense of concern with what had 4 taken place and that we were going to try our best to get 5 every possible learning that came from this set of 6 circumstances.
7 Additionally, we generated with INPO what is called 8 a significant event notification, which was our way of 9 communicating to the industry what we thought our learnings 10 were from this and, once again, we were not bashful in 11 telling people some of the things that were sub-side issues 12 as well as the technical issues.
13 -BY MS. NEFF:
14 Q One thing that might not be so clear, at least to 15 me at this point, is at 9:30 you hear fro and you 16 and he aren't on the same page, as you've described it.
17 He thinks he is supposed to be doing one way and 18 you've learned from your discussions with the Outage Control 19 Center and fro here was being a hold-on 20 pattern.
21 And then you called a meeting at 9:30. What he 22 says to you, we need to fix the valve and you agree with, of 23 course, we are going to fix the valve.
24 How does it get to be under consideration that you 25 would be starting up? How did that even get into the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
e 182 1 discussion when you have that meeting at 9:30?
2 A Because the meeting that I had, I asked the 3 question of if we were unclear on what was the basis for 4 determining inoperability, well, we're clear on it and we had 5 now test data. With that test data satisfied the criteria 6 that was determined for inoperabiity because, if so, then I 7 had met the conditions that would suggest that resolved the 81 issue.
9 That doesn't mean I would have done it. It is just 10 that I wanted to create the conversation about what do we 11 know or what don't we know.
12 In addition, engineering had mentioned that because 13 of an anomaly that occurred, they were changing their view 14 potentially that perhaps it is not a mechanical issue, it was 15 an electrical issue and this was one of the befuddling things 16 from Friday night is was it electrical or mechanical. We 17 couldn't absolutely pinpoint it although more gut feeling 18 believed it was mechanical.
19 When the valve suddenly worked, there was a second 20 i guessing of, well, maybe it is electrical. Well, you know, I 21 believe my job and others is to explore that. If it is 22 electrical, well then what will we do to repair it, and if it 23 is electrical and we don't have to be intrusive, well then 24 maneuvering the plant in other directions would be useless 25 and would be a waste of energy and a distraction. Not that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pege 183 1 we would or wouldn't, I am just trying to create the 2 conversation of is that valid or invalid with what I think 3 are my smartest people in the room. The heads of state from 4 work management, the heads of state from maintenance, the 5l heads of state from engineering and the heads of state from 6 operations.
7 i So, I thought my role in oversight was to explore 8 all of the options that we had in front of us and hopefully 9 out of it by a consensus get clarity and make the right 10 decisions. That is ultimately what occurred and I think what 11 we are in debate about is was my management style appropriate 12 or inappropriate to get the valve coming, not whether we got 13 l the right income, because we did get to the right outcome and 14 I take exception that it was a three-hour meeting. I think 15 it was probably 45 minutes to an hour.
16 Now, I am wondering where did this three hours come 17 from? I think the three hours came from the 7:30 to 10:30 or 18 11:00 is about three hours before we moved the plant into 19 another direction, not that it was a three-hour meeting.
20 Q That's possible. How far did you push for that 21 consideration?
22 A I was pushing more t for the startup, what I was 23 pushing more for wa rr y around the determination 24 of inoperability because it's easy to say its inoperable 25 because it doesn't work. Well, what doesn't work and what Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I Pae4 1 didn't it pass and what surveillance or what criteria are we 2 using so that we know how to understand that in order to make 3 the fixes and then do the postmaintenance testing to 4 validate, we've substantiated the evidence to support we've 5 resolved the bases for why we called it inoperable.
6 And that was not clear to anybody, including I 7 Now, that is what the discussion was. Now lay have 8 thought I was challenging him or he might have thought I was 9 challenging the ship. What I was challenging was the room.
10 has the responsibility with his crew to make the call. I 11 had no problem with that.
12 When he makes the call, I expect him to be 13 accountable to help us understand what does it take to 14 resolve the condition so that we can satisfy the crew and the 15 bases for the position we are in in order to restore the unit 16 to service. I think that's what my fiduciary responsibility 17 is.
18 BY MR. BARBER:
19 Q One thing that is not clear though to us, or to me 20 anyway, is why after multiple reports from the individuals 21 that were the closest to the problem that there was in fact a 22 mechanical finding, a mechanical sound, a clanking sound 23 where people who were actually in the field with the valve, 24 the ones that are in the best position to understand what 25 they've heard, what the symptoms are, what the nature of the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
We 185 1 problem is, that all of a sudden there is this thought that 2 i it could be something totally different.
3 Even though the valve ended up going shut, what was 4 later determined was it was a hold down bolt for number 5 5 l turbine bypass valve.
6 A I am familiar with what it was.
7 Q It came out and actually it wedged itself between 8 the disk and the seat of the number 2 valve.
9 A Yes.
10 Q We have pictures of that.
11 A So do I.
12 Q I am sure you do and what was troubling for us was 13 that you had first account -- firsthand reports from 14 personnel in the field that provided that.
15 Now, if there was an electrical problem, it would 16 have been in addition to that and our regulations are pretty 17 specific on what the requirements are when you have a 18 significant condition adverse to quality.
19 You have to identify the root cause --
20 A I appreciate that, Scott.
21 Q And take extensive corrective action for that 22 occurrence.
23 A I understand that too and I fully support that to 24 the core of who I am. I also will tell you, is that through 25 your inspections, the NRC's inspections and our own, one of Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
a F~ese 86 ,
1 our shortcomings at our power plant has been ineffective 2 troubleshooting and root cause determinations that we have a 3 tendency of finding the first simplistic thing, going after 4 it, and then finding out it was the wrong thing and that we 5 iterate the problem solving and we find ourselves in event 6 situations.
7 And perhaps we swung the pendulum too far but, 8 given that feedback, and given those understandings, we 9 challenge ourselves more to say do we have all of the 10 possibilities understood.
11 I got that the first indication may be this. Why 12 is that the case? Why isn't that the case? Are there other 13 contributors or other fault mechanisms that may contribute to 14 the whole picture and we are trying to discipline ourselves 15 to not just take the simple fix and move on.
16 I believe that philosophically that's all we were 17 attempting to do. Not to disregard any first-hand 18 I information but just to augment or supplement it with 19 anything else that might contribute to the conditions that we 20 have.
21 MR. KEENAN: And, you mentioned the resert 22 pump seal purge as an issue yesterday on the record and so 23 you have, uh, you have explained your thought process with 24 respect to that. Is that congruent with what was transpiring 25 here?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pae 187 1 THE WITNESS: Yes, it was no different. In the 2 seal purge situation, you know, it became relatively obvious 3 after we had to shutdown because we had a seal failure. The 4 seal failure was increased leakage over, or a slow 5 degradation over time that was telling us probably more than 6 likely there was foreign material beginning to destroy the 7 hard faces of the seal.
8 Well, that's not normal. There is something that 9 is contributing to that. It doesn't just happen, so this 10 issue of when you took the seal apart, there was one camp of 11 people that said just put the new seal in. You know, so 12 what? Just put it on the one end. It is not safety related.
13 Well, it is true, it is not safety related. It is 14 true seal purge, not safety related. What we are talking 15 l about, moving the plant in very large maneuvers, started some 16 shutdowns because of potentially inadequate reliability 17 issues which are great challenges to the operations of the 18 facility. I believe that is just as risk significant as 19 anything else.
20 Now, we had a difference in philosophy between my 21 management team and myself in that concept and in the 22 previous week when we fixed the resert seal, we stayed down 23 two additional days to resolve the seal purge system and I 24 will tell you I was alone in that decision making as well.
25 If you need to have clarification on that, please Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
-- _f1.88 1 call because and myself were the only 2 two on that page with our senior management team.
3 BY MR. TEATOR:
4 Q How did that go, talking about --
5 A That went just as --
6 Q -- You dealing with your senior management team.
7 A I would say it was just as controversial as the 8 situation we had here with the bypass valve.
9 Q I am talking about the people above you.
10 A How did it go?
11 Q Yeah, I mean you had to communicate that to your 12 bosses.
13 A Yeah, I didn't communicate that the week that it 14 was occurring. What I did, and you asked me about the 15 relationship withl&j and schedule and I thought 16 about that. During the actual shutdown of the first shutdown 17 we had to fix those equipment issues that you have mentioned, 18a we had a defined schedule for that and we were a couple of 19 days off from that.
20 But I didn't talk to etween when I first 21 handed him the schedule and what we actually did.
22 We had the bypass valve occur and we had to go deal 23 with that and that took another six or seven days and so our 24 total duration being down was some 14 days.
25 About every three or so weeks, two to three weeks, Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
189 1 sometimes four weeks, myself and my peers and) 2 would have a video conference with' nd discuss 3 the issues of the plant and so this was our way of giving him 4 l insight of how things are going and he would provide us 5 feedback from his perspective on things and other company 6 matters that we should be aware of.
7 I did a lessons learned from the forced outage and 8 the planned outage and put a time line together, and I am 9 sure you can find it from', n a video conference 10 package that was sent up north to him that became the bases 11 after Hope Creek was put back in service that he and I and 12 others had conversation about what did we do?
13 Well, and where was our shortcomings? In that 14 discussion,{ '0et me know that he was not happy about some 15 of our performance and he told me the consequences of some of 16 our performance issues in financial terms.
17 Q Where are we talking about?
18 A Oh, he said something like the total duration of 19 the plant being down was $20 some million, $20 or $25 million 20 and that was due to gas prices being up. Hope Creek is 100 21 PS weighted share value to the company and we had to buy 22 power and some reasons, so all of these different things 23 collectively made it more significant than maybe it would 24 have been other days or months of the year. It was more of 25 kind of an unusual set of circumstances from the outside Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Fey 190 1 market place.
2 l That being said, all 1was doing with the money 3 side of it was simply telling me how influential we are and 4 how important it is for us to be precise and thorough in what 5 we do and I had told him in my Lessons Learned Review that 6 there were things that were preventable and that we added 7 time because of some inadequacies in the way we were managing 8 the business and that led to the conversation of, well, the 9 total scope was this. That's about $2 million a day or $3 10 million a day, so what he was doing was saying, you know, if 11 you want to try to put the value of good management into 12 perspective, it can be $3 million a day.
13 Okay, I accepted that accountability because that 14 was my job. I told him that what I would offer him is that 15 we will dig deep into the issues. We will put it into the 16 Corrective Action Program and will try to be as critical as 17 we know how to be to cause us to learn and to improve from 18 where we had been.
19 Q Yesterday or last night, you mentioned that you 20 made a courtesy call to + specifically about the bypass 21 valve issue.
22 A Yes.
23 Q A short call?
24 A Yes.
25 Q Did you make that same call t bout the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 Ap I'
Feqa 191 seal issue that we've just discussed?
2 A No. The general relationship that we have with\
3 is we give him a planned approach for this outage that we 4 were going after with the resert pump and the throttle diesel 5 and the SRV was we had said, here is the work, here is what 6 we think it is going to take, here is the critical path. We 7 think it is going to be about six or so days.
8 We talked about it. He says okay, I understand.
9 It was really not that big of a conversation, it is just like 10 you have everything you are going to need and let me know if 11 there is anything I can do.
12 MR. KEENAN: Correct me if I am wrong but I thought 13 was off that weekend and that is why 14 received the call on the bypass valve thing, is that correct 15 or--
16 THE WITNESS: Yes and no.
17 MR. KEENAN: Okay.
18 THE WITNESS: I called 4 for two reasons. One is 19 because I had a conversation with him previously in the week 20 and he asked me how it was going and I said it looks pretty 21 good that we should finish up by the weekend and have it back 22 on line.
23 When it became clear Friday night, while we did put 24 the plant on line Friday and we couldn't go above 120 25 megawatts or something like that the bypass valve and so my Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 All AllI
Pm 92 1 view was, well, I will do some troubleshooting and figure it 2 out and see what the issue is before I really make any kind 3 of calls to anybody at this point because I really have 4 ; nothing to report yet.
5 When it became clear on Saturday after the 6 conference call that this was more serious than what was 7 originally anticipated, we knew we were going to have to take 8 the plant off line, I felt now there is a significant 9 deviation from what we had told him previously that it was 10 worthwhile to give him a call.
11 Why did I give him a call? Because Jeff was right.
12 In the normal chain of command, I would have called I Jand 13 told him and that would have been the end of it but because 14 was gone that weekend, 4elegated me the 15 responsibility to make sure that I was communicating to him 16 on differences around Hope Creek and I said, okay, I will.
17 BY MS. NEFF:
18 Q That call was on Saturday then?
19 A Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am.
20 Q How did he respond to that?
21 A Okay. You know, it was, uh, you know, he -- he 22 just said, boy, you know, we always seem to have trouble 23 bringing a plant back and darn valves and, you know, if you 24 want me to shake up GE, I will, if you need them.
25 I mean it was just kind of a typical conversation Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pe B193 1 of showing support and also a sensitivity of let's make sure 2 iwe do the right things and usually, like I said, the 3 l conversation wasn't very long. It really wasn't depth 4 provocative.
5 It was just along the lines of informing and 6 allowing him to ask any questions based on his own personal 7 icuriosity and he asked me was the other pieces of equipment 8 we had worked on during the week that they worked. I said, 9 yeah, it looks like they are working, you know. The resert 10 pump is working, the SRV isn't leaking and the diesel works 11 and so, I mean, that was it.
12 BY MR. TEATOR:
13 Q I have a question. A couple of minutes ago you 14 made a comment perhaps we swung the pendulum too far in 15 talking about probing questions on issues. What were you 16 talking about when you said that?
17 A I thought I was answering more of the pendulum of 18 l why, why we didn't take the first bit of firsthand 19 } information and just jump on it and I said, well, because we 20 had gotten an awful lot of feedback the hard way, that we 21 were -- that is not a good systematic approach to 22 troubleshooting or problem solving, that we now are more 23 conscious -- conscious or are we being thorough and are we 24 being comprehensive before we just run out and jump on 25 something and I said we have sensitized ourself to that maybe Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
p 94 1 to the point we are oversensitive to it. That is all I 2 meant.
3 Q Were you talking about operability of 4 determination? Is that what you were talking about that?
5 1 A I just meant that it involved the valve itself when 6 he was asking about, you know, you had firsthand information 7 and the guy says I heard it plank, why wasn't that good 8 enough?
9 Q Right.
10 A And I just was responding saying, well, I have 11 probably been learning the hard way that may be the obvious 12 but it may not be everything and in that, what happens is 13 that when you take that approach, philosophically that you 14 are going to ask five more lines before you just act.
15 I thought part of my oversight function was to ask 16 more whys and that is what is what I had been trying to do 17 was to ask more whys to create stimulated thinking and are we 18 comprehensive?
19 Q Right.
20 A Now, some people take that positively and some 21 people do not and, as I said before, I am, you know, I am 22 pretty dumb and I am, you know, I have got in the 23 business. I have been beat up a lot and so I understand the 24 lessons learned and so I am passionate about not repeating 25 mistakes and so I try to the best of my ability to pass along Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I , e195 1 l those difficult lessons and hopefully those people don't have 2 to learn it the same way.
3l Now, sometimes, you know, my passion might get 4 misunderstood but it is not intended to cause a strong arming 5 or anything else. I truly believe to who I am that being 6 thorough and taking all sides of things is important to 7 understand the complete facts of things because some of our 8 issues at Hope Creek and Salem have been we have been 9 operating and taking decisions on opinion-based issues rather 10 than absolute fact and that's been another issue for us in 11 our Corrective Action Program, is to be focused on what are 12 the true facts and make decisions based on the facts.
13 And so that is the philosophical approach that I've 14 been trying to instill. It is not easy when you have a 15 j culture where people have been allowed to behave on opinion-16 based information and it has been wrong many times and so 17 when you are trying to move from this place to this place, it 18 does require some pretty firm type of interactions.
19 And my job was to help us change what had been past 20 practices to do something differently, to do something 21 better. Like I said, the issue, if anything, that I would 22 take away from this meeting or some of the others was perhaps 23 I should have been more clear on what I was trying to -- the 24 purpose I was trying to get at rather than just behave the 25 way I am doing to try to make change without understanding Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 and I think people can, at times can probably 2 1 misunderstandings and I know that people will tell you that, 3 that they don't understand always where I am coming from.
4 But I come from only one place, doing the right 5 thing, being conservative. I haven't been in the business 21 6 years and made it to this point without believing and 7 practicing those principles to the core of who I am.
8 I accept the fact that I can improve in my behavior 9 at times. I certainly accept that.
10 BY MR. BARBER:
11 Q Could I ask a question as this point? You know, I 12 was listening to what you have described over the past 10 or 13 15 minutes and one thing that struck me was, you kn when 14 you were talking about, talking wit you 15 know, lessons learned and things of that nature and, you 16 1 know, what the value of good decision making is.
17 And inherent with that is, you know, the mentioning 18 of the $3 million a day, whether it is $3 million or $1 19 million, whatever the right number is but that philosophy --
20 and I understand that you are in business but that is a 21 production event. There is a production emphasis there.
22 A Yeah.
23 Q So what you weigh in the balance and, again, this 24 goes to deregulation and the way the environment is today is 25 you have production and, on the other side, the balance is Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pupl 97 1 safety.
2 A Yes, sir.
3 Q And what you have is you have a tipping point. You 4 have, you know, in each of these cases you have production on 5 lone side of the argument and you have safety on the other.
6 What we are trying to assess is how those issues 7 play out in the events that, you know, that we are reviewing.
8 A I understand.
9 Q And what's a little troubling is that in the 10 instances we are looking at, other than the one you mentioned 11 about this hill purge, it seems like senior management when 12 ! they are involved with an issue is strictly pushing the 13 production side of the argument and we don't see a consistent 14 emphasis on the safety side or maybe there is some of that 15 but we just don't see it and we don't see it on looking at 16 root causes and we don't see it when we are looking at 17 ! corrective actions. We see it on the production side and I 18 guess what I would like to do is I would like to get your 19 reaction to that.
20 A Well, I mean the business we are in is a production 21 business. Our philosophies have been to try to do it is to 22 come from safety that will generate reliability that will 23 j generate cost effectiveness.
24 I mean we have tried to reinforce and ground those 25 principles over and over and over.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 You can be safe and do absolutely nothing and I 2 l think it is a degree of risk, and I think that is what you're 3 describing is there is risks in everything that we do. Is it 4 la manageable risk and is it an appropriate risk given the 5 circumstances that we are in and I believe that that is why 6 we try to have collaboration with different people is to try 7 to get those perspectives so that we are thinking from those 8 places.
9 The other is that there is an awful lot of 10 inefficiencies that occur and I have to get rid of the 11 inefficiencies. I am trying to get at those inefficiencies 12 because, yes, I am bound to keep our business safe and, at 13 the same time, is to make it a viable asset, you know, to the 14 company because the company has invested in it and they have 15 invested in it that we would always do things safely but they 16 are also asking us to be efficient in our decision making, 17 efficient in our processes and efficient in getting things 18 done and one of our, I'd say, our shortcomings has been that, 19 well, we haven't been focused on that.
20 Right or wrong, I think the marketplace did cause 21 that in some fashion which I told you earlier in a previous 22 conversations is that you asked about deregulation and has it 23 changed things? Well, to some degree it has. It puts more 24 focus on the importance of that efficiency and how that can 25 influence the outcome of not the plan but the outcome of the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Lr~199 1 company.
2l That doesn't mean that I am trying to confuse that, 3 you know, we are always into the, uh, costs versus safety in 4 our decisions. I don't believe for a moment that we ever 5 I make a decision based on costs.
6 We make the decision on what do we think the right 7 thing to do is and, well, you know, everybody has a different 8 view of what the right thing is and so I try and others try 9 not to be the sole person that says this is what is right or 10 what is wrong.
11 We try to get enough of the talent in the 12 organization to participate and so hopefully what we are 13 doing is getting a balanced view of risks and in doing so, we 14 understand the contingencies and the compensatory measures or 15 other things we may have to place to manage that risk and 16 that is typically how we try to run the business every day.
17 I don't think that is out of alignment from anybody else.
18 Now, because maybe that is more in our 19 t conversation, people may tab that as saying you are more 20 production focused than safety. That may be true.
21 BY MR. TEATOR:
22 Q That is what we've heard.
23 A However, please don't mistake that because we are 24 bringing some of that in our language that that is somehow 25 taking away the fundamentals or the premise of what we are Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rqe 200 1 trying to come from philosophically, do everything right the 2 first time. That has never changed. It has never changed.
3 lBut, you know, people are, I think wrestling with, 4 it is always, I think a do-ability that seems to occur every 5 day on almost anything is, is it safe or, you know, is it 6 production?
7 I think those are unproductive conversations.
8 It comes down to how much risk is there? Is there an 9 appropriate risk that the company can accept; the company 10 being all of its employees, and do we understand it well 11 enough in order to go forward with something or not to go 12 forward with something. If you choose to go forward, are we 13 prepared in some sort of a defense methodology to protect 14 ourselves? I believe that is coming from safety and I 15 believe that is how we try to do business at the site.
16 But, you now, I am certainly not going to discount 17 what you've said that some people might see that differently.
18 Q And it seems that, you know, it seems -- and you 19 started yesterday with the fact that those plants haven't 20 really been good performers for a long time.
21 A No, they have not.
22 Q Do you think that because of that, that these kind 23 of discussions maybe leave people with the impression that 24 there is production undermine because there is so many things 25 to deal with down there. There are so many decisions that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
FPa~ 201 1 1 have to be made.
2 i A And I think what we are talking about is usually 3 and, again, I am coming from my experience of at being at 4 ,several other plants that weren't doing so well and have gone 5 from not doing so well to doing fairly well.
6 lIt is usually around performance standards and 7 expectations around performance standards and does the 8 management hold those standards and reinforce those 9 standards.
10 And if you have been allowed not to have any 11 standards or substandards or subpar standards for years and 12 years and years and someone comes in and says, well, those 13 are no longer acceptable, it is not well received initially 14 because people are saying, well, it was okay yesterday. Why 15 is not okay today? And there begins I think the changed 16 management of culture.
17 And it was clear that INPO and yourselves probably 18 were telling us in a variety of different Inspection Reports 19 and INPO Reports that performance standards at the facility 20 coming from those who uphold those performance standards are 21 not being reinforced and they are being allowed to either be 22 overlooked or simply ignored and, well, I'd like to believe 23 the reason that I was brought into Public Service was to try 24 to provide an approach to try to raise standards.
25 But I can tell you from first-hand experience at Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 at at that when you have long cultures 2 of low performance standards and trying to suddenly raise 3 them in a quick amount of time, there is an awful lot of push 4 back.
5 There is an awful lot of change in morale and, if 6 you will, I'd like to draw you another picture because this 7 is a principle that I think is characteristic when you go 8 through a changed culture direction. If that would be okay?
9 MS. NEFF: Go ahead.
10 THE WITNESS: Can I take a few minutes to draw it?
11 MS. NEFF: We will take a break.
12 MR. TEATOR: Yeah, we will take a break. Off the 13 record.
14 MS. NEFF: It is 9:41.
15 [Whereupon, a short recess was taken.]
16 MS. NEFF: All right. We are back on the record.
17 l It is 9:50 and what you are showing us is a diagram. It 18 looks like the X and Y's have to do with the diagram here.
19 THE WITNESS: Yes.
20 e (Exhibit Number 2 was marked 21 for identification.)
22 MS. NEFF: Why don't you explain that?
23 THE WITNESS: What I have provided you is a study, 24 an outcome of a study by two Ph.D's called the Yurkees and 25 Dottson and they created a book of some sort that is called Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
age- 203 1 The Law of Human Behavior.
2 This was a study that they did with the railroad 3 industry under deregulation and then they gave seminars to 4 the utility business who, a few years ago, also was going 5 under similar types of circumstances and what they were 6 talking about is understanding culture and recognizing what 7 one must do once you recognize what culture you have.
8 In the railroad industry under regulated type of 9 l business, it was viewed that people became entitled. In 10 fact, the example that was given by these folks was that up 11 until 1994, every train ticket that was purchased a portion 12 of that price was to pay for a position called the core 13 handler. That is how exaggerated things had gotten in the 14 regulated business, the railroad business and why they found 15 themselves incapable of being competitive when they were put 16 into a deregulated position is because they had an 17 entitlement culture of generating essentially a no 18 j accountability environment.
19 1 Now, this particular law is simply is an XY axis of 20 that performance is proportional to the level of anxiety that 21 ! exists and it is a bell-shaped curve and every person --
22 every person at every site, no matter how you look at it, has 23 a zero anxiety and 100 percent and what the law says is that 24 at a 50 percent anxiety -- that would be called a health 25 discomfort about where things are at -- is where your maximum Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pg 204 1 performance occurs.
2 And depending on where you are, that gives you some 3 insight on what may be your cultural situation.
4 This curve simply points out is that on the low end 5 this is not an -- it is an approximate, say, it is only left 6 to mean that somewhere between zero and 50 percent, there is 7 a low end and that is called an entitlement culture and 8 somewhere on the 80 to 100 percent, it is called extremely 9 high anxiety. Some may even term it as fear.
10 The belief is, is that if you are an entitled 11 culture there are certain attributes one can observe. No 12 decision making, low performance, no reason to change, low 13 accountability and that that is not something that is a 14 failure of any person, it is simply a set of circumstances 15 that has created that type of set of circumstances.
16 So, the message that was being provided when I was 17 involved with this and it will tell you where I come from 18 when we are talking about making change and raising 19 standards.
20 Salem - Hope Creek has been a longstanding low 21 1 performer and I believe, and I think others do, that 22 characteristically these same attributes exists or, said 23 another way, there is an entitlement culture that exists at 24 that facility and, therefore, people don't believe that they 25 need to do something different than they are doing.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PA 205 1 tThey believe the standards that they are at are 2 good enough. In the meantime, the standards are changing and 3 they are not changing with that. They don't recognize the 4 need or appreciate the need because the belief is for 40 or 5 j 50 years, who cares?
6 {I work every day, I get paid every day, the plant 7 is always going to be here. Well, those circumstances have 8 changed.
9 Now --
10 BY MS. NEFF:
11 Q Where to you see that at the time, do you see that 12 across the board, do you see the Union, the Union and 13 management or where were you seeing that entitlement culture?
14 A I see it everywhere.
15 , Q That is throughout?
16 A Absolutely. Absolutely. So, all I am going to 17 tell you here is that when you elect to change standards, 18 when you elect to change or raise standards in a culture that 19 is somewhat entitled, you can't simply push people out of it 20 slowly. You have to cause more of a higher level healthy 21 discomfort in order for them to change the level of thinking 22 they have been at and to cause more interaction in order to 23 get to a different plan of understanding.
24 These particular people said that successful 25 companies that have found this from their studies have found Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PER206 1 that you have to really push hard to get people out of their 2 comfort zone, and I am sure you have heard those words 3 before.
4 Now, what that means is that you take more of a 5 larger extreme, and there is a point, and this point is 6 tenuous. The point is, is you are just at the level where 7 you may be converting to I am going to improve or I am going 8 to increase the anxiety level by the way people perceive 9 things.
10 There is two questions generally that you can look 11 for when you push higher levels of standards. One is what's 12 going to happen to me? That is not the good question. That 13 is the reactive question.
14 Or the question you are looking for people to say 15 when you are changing culture is what can I do? And that is 16 where I want people's minds at is to get into what we have 17 been doing is unacceptable. We have to get to a different 18 level and so I push the envelope in a variety of different 19 ways to raise standards so I can get people to say what do I 20 need to do, because if I have them in this space, then I can 21 begin the redevelopment, the re-education, the ability to 22 penetrate their previous thinking and begin a process of 23 moving to a different level of performance.
24 However, when you are in this particular period of 25 time, there are attributes that become apparent. Morale Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
RA 207 1 isn't always the highest. There is a rethinking that occurs.
2 1 There is confusion that occurs. There is reflection. There 3 is a push back. There is uncertainty. All of those things 4 are natural expected outcomes when you begin a significant 5 change process, particularly when you are talking about a 6 culture of entitlement.
7 If you can get people to this point where they go 8 from what's going to happen to me from a selfish perspective 9 to what can we do to be successful, you can begin the re-10 establishing of expectations where people get rewarded now on 11 a different set of behavioral competencies and you begin to 12 change the performance level of the organization.
13 And, what I would tell you, is this is exactly what 14 we are experiencing at Salem and Hope Creek is a raising of 15 standards. Significant raising of standards is necessary.
16 However, there is push back because it is different 17 than what they have been doing for four years and so what I 18 would tell you is some of the things that you are. describing 19 to me are not unexpected when we are talking about improving 20 our standards.
21 For example, we are going to improve our standards 22 in making sure that before we make decisions that we are not 23 hitting the first thing that is obvious and that we are 24 becoming more thought provocative and encompassing all of the 25 elements about what we are doing.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Iage 208 1 XThere is a push back that is associated with this 2 that is different than the way people have been doing it 3 before. It is different in the way they have been rewarded 4 in the past and I will tell you is I think some of the things 5 that you are feeding back to me would suggest that we are in 6 this stage of moving from one performance level to another 7 and, in that process, you have a variety of emotions, a 8 variety of perceptions, a variety of understanding things.
9 There is a period of managing this that is a little 10 bit tenuous but if one can stick to the ground and keep 11 moving, critical mass will be developed and you will change 12 performance. That is the theory and quite frankly I have 13 been exposed to it first hand at several different places and 14 have seen that actually occur but it takes a great deal of 15 strength. It takes a great deal of I'd say willpower and 16 sticking to a particular position. It takes strong 17 leadership in a variety of different areas.
18 Some of the conversations that we had yesterday 19 about performance issues with the bargaining unit and having 20 to make higher levels of performance change and why the need 21 of supporting our first-line supervisors was all coming from 22 this type of understanding.
23 When you draw a line differently today than it was 24 yesterday, people are not going to be pleasantly happy with 25 the fact that they have to provide more than they had been in Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
g 209 1 the past.
2 BY MR. TEATOR:
3 Q The thing we have heard though is that in pushing 4 this higher level of standards, people, numbers of people 5 have taken from that that there is now more of an emphasis 6 that is being placed on production over safety. That is when 7 numbers of people --
8 A I understand.
9 Q I am just telling you and we've heard that.
10 A I understand that.
11 Q So that's, it is not just a push back, people are 12 thinking that production is being exercised over safety and 13 so that is an issue that we've seen.
14 A You know, I am not going to -- I don't know what 15 people, how they take things or perceive things. I don't 16 know. I mean I don't necessarily believe that some of the 17 things you are saying are unexpected.
18 Clearly if it is pervasive, well that's an issue.
19 Q Right.
20 A I don't -- I am not in a disagreement space with 21 that. I don't know what the level of pervasiveness is. I 22 honestly don't know.
23 I will tell you is that we continue to be even 24 today still a low performer and the larger message that comes 25 from those that do independent assessments continue to say Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
210 1 their largest issue is a lack of accountability and a lack of 2 follow through of performance standards and so our 3 management's behavior has been to improve that side of 4 things. Including with ourselves, meaning the people that 5 report to me or the people I report to.
6 Q I guess management has got to be just really 7 careful in some of the things that they push on, like this 8 bypass valve issue; and I am not being -- I am just saying it 9 is the impression that was created with these people.
10l A So I mean I understand that and I mean -- and all I 11 am trying to do is to provide you a context of thinking that 12 I am coming from, of the lessons learned that I have acquired 13 in different places and the level of questioning.
14 l And I try to question as a way of trying to 15 stimulate better thinking and, like I said before, perhaps of 16 anything I am taking away from here may be is that I have to 17 explain my questioning before I begin the questioning as a 18 way to try to set people into a position of understanding 19 that this is not intended to be personal or this is not 20 intended to send a wrong message. It is simply intended to 21 try to understand the complete facts of things and to 22 hopefully make a better decision. Because we have had 23 interactive dialogue, the collective group will be more 24 successful.
25 BY MS. NEFF:
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
P Ae 2 1
1 Q You talked about being in here you are trying to 2 move the group from this entitlement stage and on this 3 diagram, it looks like you have got a level of anxiety that 4 indicates where the optimum performance would be.
5l When you get to the other end of it though, I think 6 you testified and you said you could actually move into the 7 space where there could be some fear and this causes morale 8 problems and confusion.
9 How did -- when you were pushing for this to get 10 your -- just looking at it from the perspective of Ops 11 Management, when you are looking to get them out of that 12 entitlement space, how did you temper that message so that 13 you didn't get into here, into this extremely high anxiety, 14 poor decision making mode and end up with confusion?
15 A There is nothing simpler to say than it is a lot, 16 an awful lot of shoe leather which means one on one time with 17 people such as I've spent a lot of time with -
18 not in an adversarial type role but to tell him or to work 19 with him that what we are going to reward today in behavior 20 is how you think differently and how you bring in lessons 21 learned and how you extract the talent from the organization 22 more effectively in making decisions?
23 That has not been something that we necessarily had 24 as a routine practice and partly some of the reasons we had 25 some events is that we were shortsighted by not having the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 r, <<a ni
I As 22 1 full extent of the organization's talent.
2 So, what I am telling you is that you use different 3 situations. Yes, it may be I am creating a discomfort with 4 the idea that I will do follow up with these people to try to 5 j get them to understand, or my management team will do follow 6 up in order to try to help them and coach them along of what 7 behavior do you want?
8 Well, the behavior I want is improved thinking.
9 The behavior I want is you to engage others into thinking 10 through things, to don't feel that you are loan wolf and that 11 you have to carry the weight of the world on yourselves.
12 Disperse some of this stuff. Bring 'em in. That is why we 13 1have an organization that the size that we do.
14 So it is just a lot of one on one personal time.
15 Personal time I take with people. It is the expectations I 16 lhad with my senior management team which is why we engaged 17 GAP International and initially Kymn Harvin was to try to get 18 people to understand what their true job was.
19 The true job was not about making the decisions 20 necessarily about the specifics of the plant but to change 21 the behavioral system that is generating the low performances 22 that we've had in the past and that it takes a lot of one on 23 one time. It requires you to develop some sense of healthy 24 discomfort about things because only through a healthy 25 discomfort will change occur.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
IP 213 1 - Now, you know, I am not trying to sell you on 2 l anything. I am simply telling you where I was coming from.
3 Where I believ j coming from. Where I believe some Zs 4 i of these initiatives.
5 Now, we have packaged them in different ways to not 6 make it too far on one side. The best week ever, the best 7 outage area were all about creating healthy discomfort to 8 change our performance standards and we used some of these 9 facilitators to try to work through these difficult times 10 where we are now being said to do something very different 11 and we have this -- I don't know if we can do that. We 12 wanted to help people work through that. That was the true 13 purpose behind those things. Somehow it evolved into 14 something very different.
15 i BY MR. TEATOR:
16 Q What do you mean by that?
17 A I think Kymn Harvin lost focus of what that was.
18 The focus was to help change performance standards. The 19 focus was to improve the management leadership into doing 20 better coaching with their people, not to become a line 21 1 manager herself.
22 Q You are talking about her specific job at work?
23 A Yes.
24 Q All right.
25 A And that is where, when you asked me before, Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Page 214 1 yesterday, when you said, that it was destructive. That 2 is the part that is disruptive.
3 Q onst=&ive to I think is the term you had used.
4 A It may be.
5 1 MR. TEATOR: Anymore on that?
6 MS. NEFF: No. At this point, no.
7 MR. TEATOR: Scott?
8 $MR. BARBER: No.
9 MR. TEATOR:
10 THE WITNESS: No, sir. I have given you what I 11 wanted to make I clarified from yesterday's discussions and 12 hoped this was more successful than maybe some of the 13 interactions we had.
14 MR. TEATOR: Fine. Jeff, you wanted to put 15 something on the record?
16 MR. KEENAN: Yes.
17 MR. TEATOR: And then you wanted to add something 18 and after doing that, we are going to take a break.
19 MR. KEENAN: Fine.
20 MR. TEATOR: All right.
21 MR. KEENAN: Obviously, switching gears, towards 22 the end of yesterday's discussion, you played a tape for us, 23 a secret recording of the discussion between Kymn Harvin and 24 I saw it to be highly unusual and since this situation, 25 as been cooperative and candid both yesterday Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
q 215 1 and on October 6 and I have reviewed the statement and had 2 discussions with him. I don't see that there is a conflict 3 based on the context and the explanation provided by' 4with specifics to the 50.7 issue.
5 I do think it is important to preserve legal 6 protection on the admissibility of the material. I think 1 that there is a potential there of a genuine question of law 8 and, as such, given the voluntary nature of this Sterview, I 9 would respectfully request reservingjlA ability 10 to discuss this recording without prejudice to the underlying 11 jurisdiction or admissibility of such, so to be clear, this 12 testimony is expressly provided only if the recordings are at 13 some point deemed to be admissible or otherwise allowed under 14 governing federal and/or state law.
15 MR. TEATOR: Can I stop you for a minute, Jeff?
16 MR. KEENAN: Absolutely.
17 MR. TEATOR: Can you say that again?
18 MR. KEENAN: Yes, that last sentence.
19 Yes, to be clear, right, the testimony is expressly 20 provided if the recordings are deemed to be admissible or 21 otherwise allowed under governing federal and/or state law 22 and that goes to the heart of the poison fruit discussion we 23 had yesterday that if, in fact, the tapes are deemed to be 24 inadmissible or have been taken in an inappropriate manner, 25 the testimony based on that I would seek to preserve the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
.Pe216 1 ability to strike that as well.
2 MR. TEATOR: Go ahead.
3 MR. KEENAN: Okay. We obviously expect the NRC's 4 role and we appeal to you to remain open to the understanding 5 and context that now has since his memory has 6 been refreshed and particularly as it relates to the 50.7 7 concern.
8 Based on my review of Kymn Harvin's complaint, 9 j actually her complaints, the answer particularly on the same, 10 same person, it appears that there may be other recorded 11 discussions either with or others. has no 12 knowledge of any other recordings with Ms. Harvin and, as 13 such, we are going to have to evaluate that on a case by case 14 basis if there is other discussions.
15 MR. TEATOR: Other tapes discussion?
16 ' MR. KEENAN: Other tape discussions and so, with 17 that, as we spoke yesterday, *#was going to have a couple 18 of statements and, unless you have any questions of me?
19 MR. TEATOR: Yeah, I am just going to say, look, we 20 are going with forward with what we had to do and what we 21 understand we can do here today.
22 Your questions on the law, they are going to be 23 answered by someone else at another time and you understand 24 that. We are not agreeing or disagreeing with what you're 25 saying but I appreciate the fact that you wanted to put that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 AS\ KC
EP 217 2 on the record.
2 MR. KEENAN: Yes.
3 MR. TEATOR: All right.
4 MR. KEENAN: - has cooperated fully and 5 completely and wants to support this process. I don't think 6 we have feted the admissibility or inadmissibility of these 7 tapes and if it is deemed later that they are not admissible, 8 I simply need to preserve that as legal protection.
9 MR. TEATOR: Okay. Thank you.
10 MR. KEENAN: Okay.
11 BY MR. TEATOR:
12 Q J you wanted to say something?
13 A Yes, a few things. First, I feel it necessary to 14 apologize to all three of you. I found yesterday's meeting 15 difficult and different than the meeting we had in October 16 and I am not sure if I understood all of the possible 17 expectations from the meeting and so I believe I may have 18 responded a little shortly with some of you and it certainly 19 wasn't intended to be personal or anything else. It is just 20 I found myself taken aback a little with the kind of 21 questioning and some of the judgments that were being made.
22 I just was not prepared I think for that possibility in 23 yesterday's meeting. It was different than it was when we 24 talked in October and so I would just offer that I apologize 25 for that and I won't -- I have a better understanding of the Neal R. Gross & Company f
202-234-4433 V -
- (I-
I Pm- 218 1 scope of the meeting and will do a better job interacting 2 with you.
3 I am very surprised by the tape that has come 4 Wforward and it is really distressing that I have to learn 5 1 here that it was secretly done and I certainly want to 6 provide context and understanding of what is recorded. That 7 is what I would like to provide you.
8 I didn't have a detailed recollection until 9 listening and reading the transcripts from Kymn Harvin's 10 recording and, as Jeff said, I appreciate my memory being 11 refreshed on the material.
12 The meeting that I had with Kymn during that tape 13 was to be supportive for a person that had just been told she 14 was no longer an employee.
15 I thought the most appropriate thing with her was 16 to empathize and to appreciate the situation that she was in 17 and, quite frankly, not kick somebody who is already down.
18 The setting is different than most of the settings 19 I am generally in. Most of the settings I'm in is talking 20 about plant equipment issues and this was a very, very 21 different type of setting and traditionally or typically I am 22 involved with.
23 As I said, the setting with Kymn, meaning as I was 24 involved with Kymn on that last day, was a bit unusual. It 25 wasn't the best of situations. was gone that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
ag 219 1 particular day and the HR Manager was unable to be found and 2 so I found myself caught in the middle and confronted with 3 the responsibility of dealing with it but I want to state 4 clearly that I have been truthful and candid with you in what 5 I have provided you yesterday and this morning and what I 6 have provided you back in October and I don't have any 7 changes to any things that I've said.
8 I will certainly provide clarifications to any 9 things that come up from the tape that was brought to my 10 attention. I have provided to you thus far what I knew, what 11 my thoughts were and on the very subjects that were covered.
12 I was not' Kymn's boss. I didn't terminate her and 13 I wasn't making the employment decisions with Kymn Harvin.
14 That was clearly 7 15 To the best of my knowledge, Kymn has not raised 16 any subjects of nuclear safety to me. I have reviewed the 17 Kymn Harvin Complaint and it is apparent to me that there may 18 be other tapes and I certainly would like the opportunity to 19 review and explain them as we go forward. As I said, I found 20 the tapes yesterday a surprise.
21 I have in managing nuclear power 22 plant operations in a variety of different positions and I 23 feel I have a solid track record and I do understand what 24 nuclear safety is and that it's paramount in the way we made 25 decisions.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
' V____
Pa~e 220 1 iI think and behave coming from that philosophy and 2 I believe that is what success in the business looks like. I 31 understand the consequences of not living to the expectations 4 of the regulations, I fully appreciate what the regulations 5 are, why they are put in place and the expectations I and 6 others have in upholding them.
7 I had no motivation to do anything contrary to that 8 and certainly not in anyway to be detrimental to Kymn Harvin.
9 That concludes my remarks.
10 MR. TEATOR: I just had a couple of comments on 11 them. You mentioned the words judgments, that you were 12 saying we were making yesterday, I am just going to -- they 13 weren't judgments.
14 Our questioning of you yesterday was much more 15 focused than in October based on the vast of field work we 16 have done since then, meaning, you know, it is our job to 17 dive into this kind of stuff, get information. We have 18 gotten a lot of information. We are nearing the end of what 19 we are doing and so we know a lot more than we did in October 20 so the questioning is going to be more focused yesterday and 21 today.
22 MS. NEFF: And we will push with this 23 contradiction, not a judgment, we are looking for what 24 happened. You can expect that.
25 THE WITNESS: I understand that and I had thought Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pae 221 1 about that from yesterday's discussions. I would only tell 2 you is that in my understanding initially it landed to me as 3 though judgments were being made on your half to ask at this 4 point and I was debating with you on your opinions and 5 1 judgments of that information and I just was not probably 6 well prepared in my thinking to be ready for that.
7 Now, I am far more prepared for today as far as 8 what the discussions might lead to and I understand and 9 appreciate the questioning that you are doing and the level 10 of focus that you now have given the information that you 11 have and, yes, I understand that there will be some targeted 12 type of questioning and I am fine with that.
13 MR. TEATOR: Especially for, I mean for the 14 Commission to find out what, if there is a problem with the 15 work environment and a person in your position, it is very 16 important to find out your perspective. We need to push on 17 that kind of stuff.
18 THE WITNESS: I understand.
19 MR. TEATOR: For the Commission to get a complete 20 answer and so the licensee can get an answer and so that is 21 where that is coming from.
22 THE WITNESS: I understand.
23 MR. TEATOR: Do you want to take a break, a quick 24 break?
25 MS. NEFF: Nothing else?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 MR. TEATOR: Right.
2 MS. NEFF: Well, let's go off the record. It is 3 10:20. We will take a quick break.
4 [Whereupon, a recess was taken.]
5 MS. NEFF: It is 10:54 and we are back on the 6 record. At this point, what we would like to do is run 7 through the transcript of that tape recorded meeting between 8 you and Dr. Harvin that was dated March 27, 2003.
9 Do we all have a copy of it?
10 MR. TEATOR: Yes.
11 MS. NEFF: All right. We will have some questions 12 as we go through this and I believe our first question comes 13 up on --
14 MR. TEATOR: On page 2, I have a question o 15 THE WITNESS: I can't write on this, right? In any 16 way?
17 MR. TEATOR: No. Do you need paper?
18 THE WITNESS: I am just looking to tag things 19 periodically if I need to go back maybe.
20 MR. TEATOR: Do you want some stickies?
21 THE WITNESS: That is fine.
22 MR. TEATOR: Take some of those.
23 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
24 MR. TEATOR: And if you have answered a similar 25 question before, we apologize. We feel it is necessary to go Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 t\ --- ~L
Fe 223 through this.
2 THE WITNESS: I understand.
3 MR. TEATOR: And ask the direct questions, okay?
4 THE WITNESS: Yes.
5 BY MR. TEATOR:
6 Q All right, so if you would go to page 2 there at 7 line 12, beginning with line 12, if we could look at that a 8 little bit and we could talk about Dr. Harvin telling you 9 what she has just been told b nd that Dr. Harvin 10 indicates that she was told by someone that you were involved 11 in the decision making to have her position eliminated, can 12 you comment on that? said you were.
13 A She is saying that' aid 14 Q Well, I will read it then. Line 12 15 [Reading] I can't answer that. I don't know. I 16 have no idea other than he is saying you're finished and 17 I am not in this decision making at all.
18 Line 15 reads from Kymn Harvin.
19 [Reading] Well, said you were.
20 Were you involved in that decision making at all?
21 A No.
22 Q Did you have any discussions wit 23 surrounding that, that decision?
24 A I had discussions wit afte ad 25 said, uh, Kymn Harvin's position was eliminated and that Kymn Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
' l is
Pag 224 1 Harvin would be on the 45-day wait list or candidate pool 2 list for other potential positions in the company and 3 ihad told me what the process was and just was informing 4 me how the transition potentially could go.
5 Q Okay.
6 A I was not involved with any discussions with 7
- or, on the decision making to terminate the 8 position or at what time that position should be.
9 Q Meaning moving it up?
10 A Yes.
11 Q You were not involved in that decision?
12 A No.
13 Q To move up Ker out date?
14 A No.
15 Q All right. Go to page 3, please, line 5 reads --
16 beginning at line 5, it reads -- it is talking:
17 [Reading] I talked to her about that and I said we 18 will be having the line management do that if you're 19 going to do that. I don't know if we will or we won't 20 but I don't know of anything that would constitute a 21 change in that so the motivation has been to move things 22 up and that's what it is.
23 That's talking about moving uprhe r, the date she is 24 going to leave?
25 A Yes.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 I'
A225 1 Q The motivation, why? Did you know why there was a 2 motivation to move it up?
3 A What we were talking about is the motivation, at 4 what point would she no longer have access to the property, 5 not moving up her 45-day total time period with the company.
6 I think -- this is my opinion is that initially when the 7 decision was made that that position was going to be 8 eliminated, there was an expectation that some amount of time 9 would be allowed for closure of site activities, whatever 10 those may be she was involved with, and then she would have 11 the opportunity of seeing if there were any other positions 12 in the company that could be nuclear or that could be 13 external to nuclear.
14 I would say that lessons learned and experience 15 when you're handling cases of position elimination, there was 16 a motivation that suggested maybe we should not allow the 17 person to have such an extended period of time, that may be 18 tough for the person and tough for those that are left behind 19 at the facility and so it was my understanding fro and 20 hat it was a better thing to do than to allow 21 some long period of time was shorten it up.
22 Q And you are saying that was andAa 23 discussion with you?
24 A I had no discussion with either one of them about 25 that. I am only telling you that I believe those two had a Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
",'VC
,a-. 226 1 discussion and you asked me why the motivation. I was trying 2 to clarify it as I think the motivation.
3 Q All right.
4 A Based on some interactions I had once with 5 once with # two different occasions on just 6 things in general with people when you terminate employment 7 is that it is not a good thing to allow that person to stay 8 on for an extended period.
9 Q Okay, at the top of page 4, please. Dr. Harvin is 10 talking and I will read beginning at line 1.
11 [Reading] Dr. Harvin: Well, we had that. This 12 week we have got to follow up on all the 30-day 13 assignments and we are having our big meeting on 14 Wednesday. I have been integrally involved in that.
15 ~Kymn, I am not telling you anything 16 other than they want it over.
17 They want it over. Who is the they you were 18 referring to? L g 19 A and What she is referring 20 to is activities that she was involved with. We talked 21 previously yesterday about some initiatives from an INPO 22 response that I and others were accountable for and she had 23 some involvement with n some of those points 24 and she was expressing in this areas that who is going to do 25 some of these activities if I am gone?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PK- 227 1 Q Okay. Go down to the bottom of page 4, please.
2 Beginning on line 24. That is halfway into words you are 3 using.
4 A Yes.
S Q I will begin with:
6 [Reading] You work fo and he said you are 7 out and HR is following it. How much simpler could I 8 make it? I can't control it. I love you but I can't do 9 anything about it. I can't.
10 And then the top of page 5, line 3.
11 [Reading] I have been ordered.
12 Ordered, what were you referring to there? Who was 13 ordering you and what are you being ordered to do?
14 A Where I am responding is that first Kymn was trying 15 to, I would say, attempt to see if I could intervene in some 16 fashion to retain her longer term employment.
17 ad told myself and the other these 18 decisions are final and we are expected to implement them in 19 whatever support functions and that is an order.
20 In other words, it wasn't like an order, go do 21 this, it was I am telling you this is final and there is no 22 more discussion on it.
23 Q To continue on there, line 3:
24 (Reading] What do you want me to do? I have to 25 salute and I am saluting.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Am 228 1 A Right.
2 Q What are you referring to there, I have to salute 3 and I am saluting?
4 A The expectation was, is the positions were 5 eliminated and they are not open for discussion and when 6 someone says it is ended for discussion, my terminology is, 7 yes, sir, I understand that and I will salute to that.
8 Q That is what you are referring to there?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q Okay. Forget this transcript for just a minute.
11 Did she have any reason to believe that she was going to come 12 work for you after as gone?
13 A No. I think where there may be some terminology in 14 here was there was a discussion Kymn and I had somewhere in 15 late 2002, maybe 2003 where potentially, maybe we should move 16 Kymn, since she was spending more time in the power plant 17 areas, you know, with line management of maintenance and 18 operations and those were my domains of responsibility, we 19 had a discussion of perhaps it would be better that she 20 reports to me versu and I said, well, that is an 21 interesting conversation, I will talk to ! about that.
22 I did talk to about that. said, no, I 23 want her to continue as a direct report to me, and my belief, 24 this i ,who is saying my belief, is that that's the 25 best way we should manage this type of job function at our Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
,-lfOf-'
1 facility.
2 Q When the information got out tha was 3 retiring, did you give her any indication that after s 4 gone, there is a possibility she could come work for you, to 5 continue there at the site? Working for you now, since 6 is gone she could be working for you?
7 A I don't know if I had a direct conversation in that 8 manner. We may have, you know, worked around that as a 9 possibility since it was uncertain what exactly was going to 10 remain going forward or what wasn't going to remain going 11 forward with the transition fro to 12 I knew that Lad a different view on certain 13 things than < did and so I say it may have been a natural 14 type of all discussion over time of, well, maybe there might 15 be a change in job reporting if this was considered to be 16 deemed as important to continue.
17 But I don't believe I had any conversation that was 18 giving the impression that that was something that would 19 occur at all. I think it was one of those responses, if 20 there was dialogue, that may be an idea, left in an open 21 ended kind of condition.
22 Q Did you make, I will just use, concrete commitment 23 to her that she would come work for you --
24 A No.
25 Q After as gone?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
230 A No.
2 Q Anything more on page 5?
3 A And the reason I can say no so clearly is because I 4 was given clear understanding that that was a staff function 5 area and that was not negotiable what was going to be done 6 with that.
7 BY MR. BARBER:
8 Q Is it possible you could have made a commitment she 9 could have interpreted as permanent before you had the 10 discussion with 11 A It is possible and I say that from discussions that 12 we had in late 2002 to 2003 when she was participating in 13 some of these improvement initiatives based on the INPO 14 report. We did have a discussion that said, well, maybe it 15 would be better, you know, since you are working mostly with 16 me is just to report to me.
17 So I suppose one could go away from that 18 conversation thinking that is going to happen since I have a 19 position of authority.
20 However, I have a boss just like shelhad a boss and 21 that was never his intent and certainly never something he 22 wanted to pursue.
23 Q One thing I am not clear on is why would you say 24 something like to her if you thought she was included in the 25 needs improvement category? It just doesn't fit.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 iV .
mF 231 1 A I understand your confusion but we have, you know, 2 we do performance reviews on people throughout the year.
3 Needs improvement does not mean they are throwaways. Needs 4 improvement means, is that some quality time is necessary by 5 the supervisor to that particular person to roll improvement 6 some direction to resolve maybe shortcomings in different 7 areas.
8 It is a management job to take that responsibility 9 on. I mean that is one of mine and other jobs is that when 10 we know that there are people that have needs improvement is 11 that is a flag to us to suggest we should take it on as part 12 of our responsibility to care and feed and help in some 13 manner an improvement initiative or direction for that 14 particular person.
15 Some people, you know, improve and some people 16 don't. That is why it is not instantaneous that because 17 someone is rated now as needs improvement that would suggest 18 get rid of them. It simply says, okay, there is some quality 19 expectations that are going to be necessary to try to improve 20 this person's performance and you try to do a manager to 21 supervisor employee, generate a plan of what that might look 22 like and then you spend some amount of time to try to see if 23 it changes things.
24 Maybe it is a month, maybe it is six months, you 25 know, it depends on what the performance issue is. So, no, Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
ap 232 1 it is not an immediate expectation to suggest, Scott, that 2 because someone has a needs improvement that that would mean 3 don't have that person be actively employed in places where 4 there will be maybe needs that can be fulfilled by her 5 services.
6 On the other side of it, sometimes we pick jobs to 7 put people on because we view that as that may be exactly how 8 they can get the developmental growth as part of their plan 9 for improvement.
10 Q Well, I could sort of understand that based on the 11 sequence and the timing, may be better if it was exact when 12 you had the discussion with her but relative to this 13 discussion, you know, what I recollect from yesterday is you 14 were describing in Decembe asked for input on how well 15 she was doing.
16 You gave him some written input but it wasn't too 17 flattering. It was very critical and you felt it was 18 deserved and then you had that meeting with your peers at 19 house on a Saturday in January sometime, not any 20 special time but in January and you graded her as needs 21 improvement an said no, she is probably unsat.
22 That is what I got out of that discussion from yesterday.
23 A Yes.
24 Q And then there is this desire on art to 25 eliminate staff positions, so there is this logic that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
a 8233 1 follows from my own mind that she is, you know, that her 2 position is potentially going to go away and yet I look at 3 what you're saying here and it kind of conveys a different 4 approach and I don't understand that. I don't understand why 5 it went that way.
6 MR. KEENAN: That is not a question, is it? Is 7 that a question?
8 MR. BARBER: Well, I am trying to understand why 9 you are telling her what you are telling her if you thought 10 that she had performance problems. Why didn't you just tell 11 her she performance problems?
12 MR. KEENAN: Is the question why didn't W 13 /she had performance problems?
14 MR. BARBER: I'd say so, yes.
15 MR. KEENAN: Okay, can you answer that?
16 THE WITNESS: I was not her supervisor.
17 Performance problem discussions is something that is 18 generally confidential and it is between the immediate 19 supervisor and that person. That would be outside of my 20 purview to take on that. That is tenuous to do that and so 21 we expect the immediate supervisor to have that candid 22 discussion and to work with that person.
23 People that are outside of that particular food 24 chain respect that and try to support in a way that might be 25 helpful. That's it.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
p 234 1 MR. TEATOR: Okay, we will probably have some more 2 questions on that through this but why don't you go ahead?
3 BY MS. NEFF:
4 Q We are going to be on page 5. We are there, it 5 starts around line 15 and it isiKymn Harvin saying she went 6 to meet with to find out who made the decision, who 7 made it clear to him and nobody else and then shelmakes 8 comments that she asks if could choose to retain 9 me and he said yes.
10 [Readingl I talked to him about what I am doing 11 over here, about all of the issues, how scared people 12 are. They think we are making bad nuclear safety 13 decisions. He said that is a bunch of bullshit and then 14 he picks up the phone after I leave and call 15 and says I want her out of here. What does that tell 16 you?
17 What is she talking about here?
18 A I don't know.
19 Q You don't know what she means when she says people 20 are scared and they think we are making bad nuclear safety 21 decisions?
22 A No, I don't know what conversation she had with 23 She was emotionally responding that she was unhappy 24 with the discussion that she an had.
25 I have no idea what it is that she was talking Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 1 I'S'
PaED 235 1 about or what it was. Quite frankly, I didn't believe it was 2 my business.
3 Q Okay, that leads me to a couple of questions 4 though. If you don't know and you hearfher make a statement 5 like that, bad nuclear safety decisions, why wouldn't you 6 pursue something like that? You are 7 A The only answer I can give you is that I had a 8 sense that what she did talk about with although I 9 can't say I know absolutely but I believe what she was 10 telling Q because of I would say previous interactions I 11 had with her,, is that some of the cultural issues that were 12 still continuing to occur in Kymn's mind, those were nuclear 13 safety.
14 and I and others had conversations about 15 cultural issues as not being nuclear safety issues but being 16 performance issues that the management team was working on 17 the various initiatives to improve them and she gave me all 18 indications that that was what she had told 19 Now, did I confirm that? No, I didn't but I 20 suspected that because of, I would say, the closeness that I 21 did have with Kymn, you know, she told me on a regular basis 22 what kinds of conversations and some of the content that was 23 occurring between some of the people she was interacting with 24 including nd not on this particular day, but on a 25 different time, and I believe we talked about that in our Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 4111 I
I Rga 236 1 October one, she had come back to me after a discussion that 2 she had wit )and said that she had expressed cultural 3 issues an had said, well, you know, that is not 4 nuclear safety and she thought it was.
5 Q What cultural issue though? Did she have an 6 incident, an event?
7 A No. She had no specific event. All she could talk 8 about was, well, isn't fully engaged in doing 9 his leadership job. That is a nuclear safety issue. I said, 10 Kymn, that is not a nuclear safety issue. Why would -- well, 11 because there are performance issues not being addressed.
12 Right, there are performance issues not being addressed.
13 That is a standards issue, that is an 14 accountability issue with and with his supervisors and I 15 said that is an ongoing continuous type of improvement 16 initiative, you never are perfect on a given day but if you 17 are saying that is the sole source of nuclear safety, you 18 have to give me an example of where is it that you see it and 19 some specific event or equipment issue or something that 20 wasn't properly dealt with.
21 Well, then there was nothing. There was no 22 discussion. It was just a feeling that she had because of 23 some of the emotions of people she was interacting with that 24 she was responding to.
25 Q A little further down here on page 6, you are Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Re237 1 responding to her, she is asking you what to do about it and 2 you tell her -- this is line 10.
3 [Reading] You say goodbye like you were told to.
4 This is not, I told you before, didn't I tell you 5 before, Kymn, this is the wrong place? I told you that.
6 I said don't fool with it. This isn't the right thing.
7 What do you mean by that? This is the wrong place.
8 I said don't fool with it.
9 A rShe believed that there was someway I could 10 manipulate the system to keep her job and I said that is the 11 wrong place to begin doing business. That is inappropriate 12 for you to think that I can exercise some sort of counter 13 measure to my superior boss. Don't fool with it. That isn't 14 the right thing.
15 Q This looks like it more specifically goes to her 16 concern. She is still on this concern that she raises to 17 it looks like, and I am going from 5 into 6, 18 about all here is about how scared people are. They think we 19 are behaving bad safety decisions and he calls that bullshit.
20 She says what did I tell you? You say I don't know. She 21 says you are officer of the company and you tell her to stop 22 holding you accountable for something you are not accountable 23 for.
24 A The context of that --
25 Q And then she says, well, what do I do? And then Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 I1S
Fad 238 1 you say, you say goodbye. It doesn't look like she is asking 2 you to save her job here. What it looks like it reads is, is 3 you are addressing how she raised her concern. What it looks 4 like is she can't raise her concern. Why can't she raise her 5 concern at this point?
6 A I would tell you that that is not the perception 7 when I was interacting with her. The issue she was driving 8 l me towards was I don't want to lose my job. What do I need 9 to do to keep my job? Can you do something different to keep 10 my job? You are an officer of the company and I told her, 11 Kymn, that is the wrong approach to take on trying to keep a 12 job when it has been decided the position has been 13 eliminated.
14 What you should do, and later on in here, was there 15 are posted positions, you should try to bid on those and see 16 if you can find opportunities in other areas of the company.
17 That is the proper think to do.
18 MS. NEFF: Okay.
19 BY MR. TEATOR:
20 Q She is very emotional in that part of the 21 conversation.
22 A Very much so.
23 Q When she says:
24 [Reading] You are an officer of the company.
25 It is like --
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
mFp 239 1 MS. NEFF: She is shouting.
2 THE WITNESS: Yes, I know that.
3 BY MR. TEATOR:
4 Q Like a plea?
5 A I know that and I think because she thought because 6 I have officer on my name that somehow it allows me to wave a 7 magic wand and change everything. To change the decisions of 8 other officers of the company that had made a decision that 9 is final and there is *a protocol.
10 I did follow on that protocol before this ever came 11 to pass and the answer was -- it is earlier in the transcript 12 -- the answer is the answer. It is final and that is the way 13 they want it done and I respected that and so I was 14 implementing the expectations of my bosses that this was a 15 done deal.
16 Q Talking about that on page 6, line 15, Dr. Harvin 17 says:
18 [Reading] Are they after me?
19 You respond:
20 [Reading] They are after you. They are after 21 others.
22 Who is the they you are talking about there?
23 A The changes of downsizing the organization to 24 improve our focus on being in alignment with the rest of the 25 industry and I use the word "they" as simply describing the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Alp 240 1 initiatives from business planning and others who had been 2 assembling the strategy on where we are going to optimize and 3 consolidate the company resources and that there were going 4 to be others besides her, that it is just a matter of time 5 before we get down to a continued downsizing or reducing of 6 numbers.
7 Q Continuing on there, line 17:
8 [Reading] And it is only a matter of time, I will 9 be in the same position.
10 Why did you think that at that point?
11 A That was an empathetic statement of saying, you 12 know, if you think anybody has permanency here, that is an 13 untrue statement and what I meant by that is you can be 14 downsized because of position elimination or you could find 15 yourself in a position of not performing to the expectations 16 that somebody above you had established and I might find 17 myself in a position no different than anybody else of no 18 longer being required.
19 And all I was trying to te11'her is that I am as 20 equal in this whole thing as anybody else. Even though our 21 titles are different, anything is possible.
22 There was a lot of discussion whether we needed as 23 man y on the site. 7s said on 24 numerous occasions that he wasn't sure he liked the idea of 25 having _ on the site.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I P 241 1 It was also looked at, and I don't know if you knew 2 this but in the Navigan Study, the Navigan Study said for our 3 kind of a site there should only b 4 There was clear understanding that there would 5 probably be some downsizing in the number of I didn't 6 know if it would be me or not, I don't know, but it sure 7 could be.
8 MR. TEATOR: Anything more on page 6?
9 MS. NEFF: No.
10 BY MS. NEFF:
11 Q On page 7, line 3 begins, it is Dr.
12 Harvin and I will read it.
13 [Reading] This is so inconsistent with what we say 14 you stand for, not eliminating my job. That is not the 15 point but how it is done, how it is communicated making 16 you the bad guy, changing the timetables.
17 On line 7, you respond:
18 [Reading] Welcome to the realities of this 19 company. It has been this way all along for 20 years, 20 all along. Do you think I am in charge of this place?
21 It looks like "uh-uh."
22 What did you mean by that statement, do you think I 23 am in charge of this place?
24 A I meant in charge of Enterprise.
25 Q What is Enterprise? Tell me what that is?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pae 242 1 A Enterprise is the parent company of the various 2 subsidiary companies, nuclear, fossil, global and --
3 Q Energy resources?
4 A Energy resources, and even though I may have 5 specific accountability for nuclear, that does not mean I am 6 in charge of the Enterprise. I work for Enterprise.
7 Enterprise makes the determinations of how business will be 8 done across the different business units and the issue of 9 downsizing or the issue of improving costs and those kinds of 10 things were Enterprise type of expectations across the board 11 and I told'\her that, you know, this is the way it has been 12 for years.
13 Enterprise is in charge and they are the ones that 14 have the ultimate, I'd say they can make those decisions and 15 fmy job is to implement those decisions.
16 Yes, I give input to those decisions. Sometimes it 17 is received. Sometimes it is heard and said thank you for 18 that but we are still going to be -- the answer is no. Okay.
19 Q Who was in charge of Enterprise at that time 20 period?
21 A s 22 Q 23 A Yeah.
24 Q I heard what you just said but when I read: Do you 25 think I am in charge of this place, it sounds to me like you Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 ipX.--
Iut 243 1 are talking about the plant, the site?
2 A I realize that and that may be, uh, the place to me 3 was my words of saying the entire company and because she had 4 said earlier, well, you are an officer of the company, that 5 somehow that gave me greater input into the total decision 6 making of Enterprise. The answer is it didn't. The officer 7 of the company simply put me in a position at nuclear when we 8 became a separate company was accountability as part of the 9 assets.
10 When we were in emergency situations, I had to have 11 officer approval in order to do whatever was necessary to 12 protect that plant if we were into an emergency type of 13 situation. That is why we were given those titles. Not that 14 it meant I had some superior type of decision making 15 influence in the Enterprise.
16 I am, you know, in the pecking order, I am a worker 17 in that category when you look at it from the highest to the 18 bottom.
19 -MS. NEFF: That finishes that page.
20 Page 8, right?
21 MR. TEATOR: Yes.
22 BY MS. NEFF:
23 Q Looking at the Kymn Harvin'on page 8, it is you 24 speaking and you are talking about having discussion with 9 25 hat was an interview.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
RE 244 1 [Reading) It was an interview. I said to you 2 three weeks ago, Kymn, don't think, plan this. It is 3 changing. It is not going to be what it was. There is 4 complete distrust with Enterprise and Nuclear, complete.
5 What do you mean by that? Complete distrust 6 between the two organizations?
7 A I believe there is and the distrust comes from 8 had a position of being the single point of 9 contact between Nuclear and Enterprise. He became our 10 corporate interface for everything.
11 The Enterprise had put nd 12 of the Nuclear Company. He was a direct 13 report directly to not for the rest of the 14 Enterprise, just-to 15 That gave l a pretty large autonomous 16 capability in doing business which means, we did our own HR 17 work, we did our own hiring and firing, we did our 18 promotions, we did everything i8cally on site.
19 When the decision was made tha 3was going to 20 retire, very subtlety at the same time was a change in the 21 reporting relationship that was going forward.
22 No longer would the Chief Nuclear Officer report 23 directly to the CEO. Now, he was going to report to the 24 President of Public Service Power..That was s 25 Wh ei1 became into the picture, we now Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 I
Av -'
ag 245 1 had another set of HR and rules of governments that we hadn't 2 been participating in the past and now had to participate in 3 and it was very foreign to us.
4 We also learned becaus was no longer between 5 us and Enterprise, we become - myself and -- had 6 a lot more face to face time with some of those others in the 7 Enterprise.
8 It became very clear by their conversations with us 9 that they were very dissatisfied with some of the things that 10 we were doing, thought that we had, uh, in some cases 11 mismanaged some resources and they were skeptical about what 12 kinds of things we were doing.
13 I translated all of that by saying I think there is 14 an element of distrust from them to us and, you know, whether 15 that is true or untrue but that is how I perceived it.
16 I would suggest that you talk to the other and 17 see if they would have a similar view. I would be very 18 surprised if they wouldn't have similar types of remarks.
19 They make use a different word than distrust. I don't know 20 but they clearly will tell you that there was a very 21 different way of doing business and it became almost like a 22 cold shower and we found out by interfacing now with the 23 people that IWj1ad previously interfacing with, we didn't 24 have the relationships established with them. We didn't have 25 some of the confidence of some of them and I think that put Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 A~ l l1
Ads 246 1 us into some difficult periods of time of doing activities 2 and I translated it, as I said, assigned boy. You know, I 3 thought they trusted us more than they did.
4 BY MR. TEATOR:
5 Q The time period you are talking about now when this 6 change is occurring, is it in March?
7 A February, March, April time frame. In other words, 8 there was no difference in the way things were taking place 9 until the day the announcement that 4cwas retiring.
10 That day, things changed. Even thoughY3 as 11 still Fs"-7and the company changed the way it was 12 doing business even though he was still sitting in the chair.
13 We didn't recognize it and I don't believ 14 did either.
15 Q What date was that again thatr ro-I I announced?
16 A I don't know that.
17 MR. TEATOR: you?
18 MR. KEENAN: I don't have it offhand. We can get 19 that, supply that to you.
20 MS. NEFF: Does early March sound right?
21 THE WITNESS: Could have been. I thin ^
22 was put in place on April 1. Yeah, that is when 23 his--
24 MR. KEENAN-: Yeah, I believe.
25 BY MS. NEFF:
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I Re 247 1 Q Do you recall when the time period was between the 2 announcement and when he actually left?
3 A It was a good 30 or 40 days.
4 Q So late February?
5 A Yeah, came down to a staff meeting 6 and told us privately wit , presence that', s 7 going to retire and asked us to keep it quiet until an 8 announcement was going to be made and the company had put in 9 place the necessary announcements for that.
10 So I think it was probably late February, a few 1 days, maybe a week past five days and then a formal 12 announcement came out to the entire population of the site 13 and across the whole company.
14 MR. TEATOR: Okay.
15 BY MR. BARBER:
16 Q Could I ask a follow up to this?
17 I just, I want to try to understand better some of 18 the things you are talking about. Could you provide some 19 specifics just to line up the structure? You talked about 20 like HR policies?
21 A Yes.
22 Q You know, I don't know if there are other business 23 policies. Could you give me some examples of what you are 24 referring to?
25 A One was we had a capital project that we were Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 Kt,1 In
I D~e 248 1 working on was the replacement of steam generators and we had 2 done an initial cost estimate in 1999 and 2000 and had made 3 provisions to generate the specs and go buy the generators.
4 We have them fabricated and we were on that path and had made 5 those commitments and then, uh, when we were getting closer 6 to the plans for doing the engineering, the installation and 7 the construction estimates for the whole thing, we found that 8 there were some mistakes made in the original estimating that 9 was done.
10 The site did those estimates. We, our site, did 11 those. It was done by the corporation under some of those 12 programs and processes that they manage.
13 We found that the job was going to be quite a bit 14 more than what was originally anticipated and there was a lot 15 of heartache over how could that possibly happen and that it 16 seemed like whatever explanation we gave, it just sounded 17 that we didn't do our job very well and that, uh, they needed 18 to provide maybe more oversight on some of these things that 19 we were doing and that message came through from the 20 Corporate Review Board.
21 So I, you know, that just sounded to me like, my 22 words, it was a competence problem what you're doing and we 23 are going to have to provide more insight because it looks 24 like you guys don't know how we work.
25 BY MR. TEATOR:
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Ala 249 1 lQ Is it roviding that?
2 A No, it was, who it really came from was one of the 3 other executives,' That is one example.
4 MR. TEATOR: Anymore, Scott?
5 MR. BARBER: No, that's good.
6 BY MR. TEATOR:
7 Q Could we stay on page 8 for just a minute, at line 8 9, if you could look at that, please? And this is you 9 talking now, The sentence reads:
10 [Reading] I said to you three weeks ago 11 don't think ... playing this. It is changing. It is 12 not going to be what it was.
13 What made you have that conversation with her three 14 weeks prior to March 27th, which is the date of the report?
15 A Because this lines up with the announcement date 16 that was retiring. Whe -- when it was announced 17 [was going to retire, there were things we were doing 18 that we suddenly found there was a significant change in the 19 way we were doing business.
20 The project was one and how we had to get funding 21 approval and a whole difference in the way we had to go 22 through that process that we were very unfamiliar with.
23 Another item was we had several people that we were 24 attempting to hire and we had done the interviews with those 25 people and we even were generating some offer letters.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
e 250 1 When the announcement happened, those things were 2 put into a pause condition. We didn't know they were put 3 into a pause condition. We thought they were moving forward.
4 Some time was passing and we are going, what's going on and 5 then it became evident to us by some interactions that the 6 approvals are going to change and who has to approve it?
7 What is okay and what is not okay?
8 Forms that, you know, now we weren't accustomed 9 that we had to use in the way we had to do business because 10 we were running through the corporate enterprise instead of 11 just locally on site and what I was seeing by that is that 12 those were just examples because it was, truthfully it was 13 frustrating me and others that we made changes. We didn't 14 recognize some of those changes and we didn't know how we 15 were to operate from a process perspective inside of what 16 were some rule changes and so we didn't know what it took to 17 be successful and so we kept bumping into the wall and 18 learning the hard way.
19 And what I told Kymn in this sentence I was 20 referring to is there is a lot of changes that are probably 21 going to take place and I think we are just getting the 22 initial sense of it and the answer I was seeing about it is 23 not going to be what it was is we no longer are going to be 24 an autonomous site all by ourselves.
25 We are now part of a larger picture of things and Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
lb-251 1 that brings in a whole nother level of involvement and 2 management decision making.
3 Q When you had that discussion with Kymn, I am going 4 to say earlier in March, was she saying or doing something 5 then that you were warning her about to not get into? Don't 6 do that, don't say that. Was it going toward that kind of 7 thing? Was there something that she was doing or saying in 8 your eyes that you were trying to warn her from doing?
9 A I don't believe so. I mean what I was trying to do 10 was to tell her that in a variety of different ways, you 11 know, because she wasn't understanding, is that the position 12 has been eliminated and I am going to try a whole different 13 bunch of ways to tell you the same thing, the position has 14 been eliminated.
15 That is a change. Not only is that a change but 16 there is a whole bunch of other changes that are occurring 17 and those are going to happen period and to think that you 18 are going to be able to influence that because the momentum 19 and the decisions have been made to move forward in those 20 things is not a prosperous endeavor.
21 MR. KEENAN: Is there a foundation to the 22 discussion three weeks ago? Did we talk about?
23 BY MR. TEATOR:
24 Q Do you recall having discussion with Kymn three 25 weeks ago prior to the March 27 discussion?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 A Like I said in the early time when was 2 announced that he was retiring, we were all doing a lot more 3 discussions with things because we seemed to be learning 4 things the hard way about what was being done differently. I 5 am sure I had a conversation with Kymn about some of the 6 interactions I was having and some of the difficulties I was 7 encountering as a result of the change process.
8 Q But any specific recollections?
9 A No. Do you mean like a time or a date? No.
10 BY MS. NEFF:
11 Q Following Jeff's question and I am jumping ahead to 12 page 10, the conversation that stays along this line. Page 13 10, starting at around line 3, starts to describe what was 14 happening.
15 [Reading] The books is being written so I tried to 16 tell you the best I could it is coming and you should 17 not stay. You should not stay. You don't want to find 18 yourself caught up into it and being crucified.
19 Crucified is a pretty strong word for her --
20 A Yeah, it is.
21 Q -- Wanting to stay there. What was she doing that 22 she would find her self being crucified for?
23 A Again, she was lobbying to keep her job and I saw 24 her going down a martyr type of approach when I could see 25 what the outcome would be. It is just more frustration and Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 I Pq ,!,1
Re 253 1 disappointment and I said don't get yourself caught up in 2 that. That is just not productive and all you're going to do 3 is make people upset and I think they are going to think less 4 of you, so don't do that. Just, that is not a productive 5 thing to do.
6 What I was trying to do was to get her to accept 7 lthe fact -- and it is very difficult when someone hears today 8 is it. Because, as you know, when you have an emotional 9 event like that, or a traumatic event like that, first there 10 is the shock. It is just plain shock and then there is anger 11 and then there is grief and then there is hopefully moving 12 on.
13 Quite frankly, I was trying to deal with all three 14 of those in one meeting session and so whether I handled i t 15 appropriately or not, I certainly was trying to give her the 16 best advice I knew how and, again, I may have used words that 17 could be interpreted in a lot of different ways but my intent 18 behind those words was,!Kymn, you are trying to, you are 19 trying to wish your way into keeping a position that has been 20 decided to move on and you are going to do all sorts of 21 things to try to keep yourself in.
22 I think that is just going to find extreme 23 disappointment and you may find yourself, you know, thinking 24 you are a martyr and I said don't, don't go in that direction 25 and get yourself crucified and, like I said, that was just Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
P F: 254 1 terminology I used to say that you could find yourself in a 2 l worse condition than you are purely because you are trying to 3 change a very clear decision on something and it is not going 4 to be changed.
5 And you don't want, and I believe this, you never 6 want to leave on a bad foot with anybody. You don't want to 7 burn bridges. It is just not good business to be done and so 8 accept the fact that the position has been eliminated.
9 And, yes, I will help you trying with the grieving, 10 I will help you get through the anger, I will try to help you 11 through, you know, the moving on but see if you can't move 12 through that stuff and hold your head high and do the best 13 you can and learn from what you can and move on but don't try 14 to, you know, burn bridges before you go as a way of thinking 15 that you can maintain some sort of a grasp on maintaining a 16 position.
17 MS. NEFF: Okay, I had skipped that, so if there is 18 nothing on page 9, we can keep going from there.
19 BY MR. TEATOR:
20 Q Yes, just a follow-up question. Page 10. Eileen 21 read an area to you, line 6, 7,, 8; why on 9 do you continue 22 to say to her:
23 [Reading] I would take it that it is purely 24 position elimination.
25 And then it goes inaudible.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
P8e 255 1 A Yeah.
2 Q Why don't you read that?
3 [Reading] Maybe it was something really more than 4 that but this is how you should take it, Kymn.
5 Was there something more to it?
6 A There was nothing more to it. I was simply trying 7 to clarify the same way, over and over and over, is that this 8 is nothing more than position elimination.
9 This is not saying you're fired. It is saying this 10 position has been eliminated and now you find yourself in a 11 pool where you have to actively determine if your skill sets 12 match needs the company has in other areas. That is all this 13 is.
14 BY MR. BARBER:
15 Q Could I ask a question on this?
16 I still, I want to go back to my earlier question.
17 You say it is position elimination but yet in this instance 18 in December where you were asked to provide input and 19 discussion in January, it was more than that. It was 20 performance.
21 A As I said to you yesterday, I believe that two 22 elements came together at the same time for Kymn Harvin.
23 One, the position of excess staff was identified.
24 We didn't know who was going to be in there and who wasn't 25 going to be in there. Concurrent with that was performance Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
pe 256 1 reviews that were being done and I think most people would 2 say if position elimination matches with poor performance, 3 that is probably a pretty good place to begin starting to 4 look at where downsizing may make the best sense and that 5 occurred with her.
6 Q Well, but that would mean it is not purely position 7 elimination. It is position elimination and there are 8 performance issues that need to be addressed.
9 A She wasn't fired here, Scott. She was in the pool 10 of looking for other work. She was not terminated. The 11 position was eliminated. That is all that occurred at this 12 stage of the game.
13 MR. BARBER: Okay.
14 BY MS. NEFF:
15 j Q Okay, continuing on page 10 --
16 A And, by the way, I believe she was told she wasn't 17 ! being terminated, she was being put into the 45-day determine 18 if your skill sets match the others. If you do, great. If 19 they don't, then here is how we handle that by company policy 20 and severance.
21 BY MR. TEATOR:
22 Q What is your basis for having that belief?
23 A Because that is our company policy, when you say a 24 45-day wait period.
25 Q Right, but you said I believe she was told --
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pm257 1 A Meaning I don't know absolute but because 2 7 }lnd others had said she is in the 45 day, that tells me 3 she is in this company policy of being managed.
4 BY MR. BARBER:
5 Q One thing that seems inconsistent with that though 6 is if you go back to page 2 and just at the very beginning of 7 this, you know, she is asking:
8 [Reading] Do you have a minute? Yeah. So, you 9 see I got a call fro yesterday saying you 10 won't be out by Friday. Who does? He said you did. I 11 have not made the decision, has. just sat 12 and told me the end of the week, that's it and I said 13 okay.
14 And then it continues but the decision, and the 15 discussions in this instance does not revolve the 45-day 16 waiting period or 45 days to look for another job. This 17 seems very clear that she is being told you are off the site.
18 You are going by Friday, and this is on Thursday. This is, 19 so it is one day.
20 A Yeah, and I think she knew more than that. I know 21 for a fact that she was told at least five days prior when 22 the date was, that it was being moved up, and she avoided all 23 of us to have to deal with that conversation. Every one of 24 us.
25 BY MR. TEATOR:
Neal R. Gross & Company ./! I ..1I ,
202-234-4433
3 258 1 Q Go into a little more detail on that, the five 2 days.
3 A That initially it was thought that when she was 4 told the position was eliminated, we would give her some 5 amount of time to stay on site.
6 Q Right.
7 A And see if there were some jobs that had open 8 positions she might be able to qualify for and bid on.
9 Q Right.
10 A I know that-she bid on a few jobs. I know she did.
11 She told me she did.
12 As time was passing, I am pretty sure that 13 an Wwere getting feedback from people that were 141 interfacing with Kymn that this is not a good situation for 15 us or for her.
16 She is extraordinarily emotional and she is trying 17 to lobby with anybody that will see if they can't find a job 18 for her and because she gets feedback that she is not 19 qualified, you know, she breaks down and cries and people are 20 saying I don't know how to deal with a person like this. I 21 think this is maybe larger to manager than you might think.
22 And all of that feedback gets t v and to 23 and they say, well, you know, maybe we should move up 24 the date and she still has the full 45 days to look for work 25 but the time period that she stays physically on the nuclear Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 vJ /
n 259 1 site property reduces down to a couple of weeks and that is 2 what she was told, was that your presence on the site is 3 going to end at this point.
4 Q All right, who is that feedback coming from that 5 you just described? Do you remember who?
6 A I am positive that -- I am pretty sure that came 7 directly from 8 Q Right, but --
9 MS. NEFF: From where?
10 MR. TEATOR: Yes.
11 MS. NEFF: Where was he getting the feedback that 12 she was emotionally disturbing to people?
13 MR. TEATOR: People didn't know how to handle?
14 THE WITNESS: I think from the variety of calls he 15 was getting from various people that she was interfacing 16 with.
17 MR. TEATOR: So we have to go to him for that, is 18 that what you're saying?
19 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
20 MR. TEATOR: All right.
21 THE WITNESS: And I believe he would tell you there 22 were people that, you know, just didn't know how to handle 23 some of the interactions with her given some of the emotional 24 state thatrshelwas in and I think they were, you know, trying 25 to do their job and didn't know how to necessarily work with Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 f
APa 260 1 her.
2 MR. TEATOR: We will go to him for that. All 3 right.
4 BY MS. NEFF:
5 Q But you said a little more than that too, you said 6 that she had this information you knew for a fact five days 7 l earlier and then she avoided talking --
8 A Yeah, called --
9 Q -- Explain some of that.
10 A Yes, called me and I work very close 11 with HR because I was quite frankly running a large number of 12 the population at the site and so he and I had a 13 conversation. It was five days before this end date of 14 Friday, whatever date that was.
15 Five days prior to that, he had called me and said, 16 we are going to be moving up the end of access date for 17 Kymn to this Friday.
18 I said, okay, have you talked to her yet? He said 19 no, we are trying to find her and she has been avoiding me.
20 I said, you had better find her quickly because I think 21 you are going to have your hands full between now and the end 22 of the week and I don't think it is going to be pleasant on 23 Friday when that day arrives.
24 BY MR. TEATOR:
25 Q What made you think that and say that to Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
FR 261 1 A Because I was very clear on how emotional Kymn was 2 and how she was taking it and she was completely broken up.
3 Had expressed to me financial concerns that she had. She had 4 problems. She was in a temporary residence and she 5 says I don't know what to do and how I am going to be able to 6 manage my financial position if I am not working.
7 I know that she was extraordinarily stressed over 8 the fact that she didn't have certainty and how she was going 9 to manage some of her financial positions and she made that 10 very clear to me.
11 BY MS. NEFF:
12 Q How was it couldn't locate her, when she 13 was on site, how was it that he couldn't communicate with 14 lher 15 A He made calls to her and asked for her to come over 16 f and see him an_ _heidnlt do that. In other words, Kymn has 17 a pager. Kymn has a phone. QOW came over a couple of times 18 to her office to find her. She was never in her office.
19 left messages on her phone, he tried to page 20 her and none of those were returned.
21 BY MR. TEATOR:
22 Q Was she inside a protected area, her office?
23 A Yes.
24 Q How abou 25 A No. He is not in--
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 4 (A'
Pe 2S2 1 MR. KEENAN: He's in TB2.
2 THE WITNESS: Yeah, he is in TB2. He is not in the 3 protected area. Thank you.
4 }BY MR. TEATOR:
5 Q She was inside the protected area, right?
6 A She was in the protected area, yes.
7 BY MS. NEFF:
8 Q Now, the way you are saying that kind of indicates 9 that she thought that he was going to tell her. She was 10 avoiding him specifically?
11 A Absolutely.
12 Q Okay, then how was it indicated to her that her 13 date was going to change at that point? How would she have 14 known about that?
15 A It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out 16 that when HR is calling you and it says it is of the utmost 17 and urgent importance that you talk that it only means one 18 thing. It means that the date is being moved up because that 19 has happened on other occasions with other people and those 20 kinds of rumors are out and about in the facility.
21 0 Can you think of any, can you name anybody that 22 that has happened where the date has been accelerated?
23 A Not offhand.
24 Q Is it an unusual circumstance to give somebody 45 25 days and then shorten that?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
1 A No, it is not. It is a case by case decision.
2 Q How about at that point in time in 2003 with the 3 position eliminations that were going on, had that been done 4 by anybody else?
5 A I believe it had and I would suggest that you talk 6 to who was heading up some of the other 7 parts of position elimination with the IEP in the Business 8 Planning Area because there were other people that were in 9 similar type, types of circumstances.
10 I know some dates were allowed to go further. I 11 know some dates -- I am saying it by the conversation 12 had with me, I can't tell you the specifics but I know for 13 sure he can, of where there was a case by case determination 14 on some of this.
15 MR. TEATOR: And, Jeff, I would ask that if the 16 licensee has that information for those positions that were 17 being eliminated during that time period for the list of 18 people whose dates were accelerated. If that exists, we 19 would like to have that.
20 MR. KEENAN: Yes, I can talk to our HR Department.
21 I think HR as it goes to ould probably 22 have the records of the folks that were let go along with 23 their notification dates and then final dates.
24 THE WITNESS: Yes.
25 MR. KEENAN: We would be glad to provide that.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 -
pg 264 1 THE WITNESS: Yep.
2 MR. TEATOR: Thank you.
3 BY MS. NEFF:
4 Q Okay, just one Other thing on that. You are 5 indicating that you knew it was five days before you had the 6 conversation or five days before her last day which would 7 have been March 28?
8 A Yes.
9 Q When you had the conversation with nd 10 he had indicated to you he was trying to find her.
11 A Yes.
12 Q Did he tell you how long he had been looking for 13 her, when was that decision made and how long did it proceed?
14 A Called me every day. He called me Monday. He 15 called me Tuesday. He called me Wednesday and said, he asked 16 for help on Wednesday. Look, we have got to find this person 17 and make sure that she understands that Friday is her last 18 official day on site.
19 Q So it would have started with you around the 23rd 20 then?
21 A Approximately, yeah.
22 Q Because that was a Monday.
23 A It was a Monday.
24 Q You agree with that?
25 A Uh-huh.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
14- 265 1 Q Okay, I think we are at the bottom, look at the 2 bottom of page 10, let's go down to the very last line. It 3 is you speaking here 4 A Uh-huh.
5 Q And you made the statement:
6 [Reading] I have done my communicating to where I 7 think the plan is and have documented where I believe 8 the issues rest and it is clear to me that I am being no 9 more to her than you are.
10 Breaking it apart, at this point in time, what are 11 the issues that you are talking about?
12 A Where are you now, what line are you on?
13 Q At the top of page 11.
14 A Okay.
15 Q Where you say I have done my communicating, it 16 starts at the bottom of page 10, last line.
17 [Reading] I have done my communicating to where I 18 think the plant is and have documented where I believe 19 the issues rest.
20 MR. KEENAN: Take your time, You have to read 21 the context.
22 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
23 [Pause.]
24 Yeah.
25 BY MS. NEFF:
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I Pe 2G6 1 Q My question is what are the issues that you have at 2 this point in time?
3 A I was asked b nd others to provide some 4 feedback as part of the turnover fo o uh -- what 5 we thought some of the larger items that would be important 6 to communicate to the new guy that we were focusing on and 7 why we were focusing on those areas and that is what I was 8 providing.
9 I had provided that I saw problems in some of our 10 HR business. I said there is problems with our dealing with 11 performance with the Union and said I see some problems with 12 our defense in depth with some of our operations practices.
13 You know, I just gave general areas to f the new 14 guy on the block. If you are asking me in 10 sentences what 15 do you think you would give me as what you're working on and 16 where do you think some of the larger challenges are and that 17 is what all of us did. I did, the other two guys that were 18 reporting to 1 we all did the same thing and it was to 19 try to give, you know, a relatively comprehensive 20 understanding for to talk from, to use wit +
21 with regards to the turnover.
22 Q And then you follow that with:
23 [Reading] And then it is clear to me that I am 24 being no more heard than you are?
25 A Yeah, I gave some feedback and I got some feedback Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 i QL
ne 267 1 in return that --
2 Q Was this 3 A Yes, that some of my comments were inappropriate, 4 not as professional as they could be and I took a sensation 5 that, well, I tried to give some understanding and it looks 6 like I am going to have to try again, that I didn't do very 7 good in my first try at this.
8 Q What are you talking about there from her 9 perspective, no more heard than you are?
10 A I think I was only making a comparison that -- I am 11 speculating because I don't quite remember what I meant by 12 this sentence, but I speculate it is that when decisions are 13 made, and this is the way it is, then trying to change that 14 decisions is a losing battle and I found that as W was 15 taking over and taking over fr I saw other changes 16 and now the change of command is different from who is doing 17 the talking but I saw now clear expectation changes that it 18 doesn't matter what I think in these particular areas, that I 19 think we should do it this way or that way.
20 1 The facts are, the decisions have been made. This 21 l is the way they are going to go and now I no longer. I am 22 just like you, I mean I have a responsibility to follow these 23 orders and to implement the expectations as best I know how 24 given those understandings and I can challenge them all I 25 want but the likelihood of that making an outcome difference Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
e 268 1 1 probably is a worthless effort.
2 For example, I complained -- and I will be very 3 clear with you -- I complained strongly about HR and the 4 practices and our dealings with performance and I tol A 5 that I thought it wasn't a very helpful group and that it was 6 making my job harder and that I thought that it was some of 7 the source of why we have had systemic low performance.
8 says I appreciate that but the facts are the 9 company policies are the company policies and I am expecting 10 you to implement them. I said, I got that, sir. I get it.
11 To say it another way, I tried to give j in my 12 view, my opinions on some things and I tinted it toward some 13 sarcasm and that was inappropriate on my part to do that and 14 called me to account for that, for being sarcastic, not 15 that the fact that the item I was bringing up didn't need 16 l attention but more it was the flavor I put on this.
17 Can we take a break for a minute?
18 MR. TEATOR: Sure.
19 MS. NEFF: It is 11:59. We will go off the record.
20 [Whereupon, a recess was taken.]
21 MS. NEFF: It is 12:28 p.m. and we are now back on 22 the record.
23 MR. KEENAN: What page are you on?
24 MS. NEFF: We are up to page 13.
25 BY MS. NEFF:
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
'1 1
Ptge 269 1 Q And on page 13, roughly around line 16, you are 2 having a conversation and you are talking about -- to Kymn 3 Harvin.
4 [Reading] You have gotten into timing and cleaning 5 . up before the turnover is complete. That is all it is.
6 If you think it is more than that, you are wasting 7 emotion and don't do that.
8 She responds:
9 [Reading] Well, I guess I am naive because I was 10 really very hopeful that we could put the real issues on 11 the table and really deal with them.
12 And you state:
13 [Reading] The real issue is with who is in charge 14 and the real issue of who is in charge. Is Enterprise i
15 in charge, is the site in charge, is the Union in 16 charge? It is clear both of those parties don't want 17 nuclear in charge? That much is clear and has 18 I been in charge and you can debate whether he did good or 19 not but the facts are I think he kept non-nuclear people 20 from running the place into the ground. The change that 21 has occurred now is fossil is running the place. Fossil 22 what? Fossil nd neo-types. Fossil, as you know, 23 is just numbers. Fossil, like I don't understand 24 nuclear. Fossil, like we do the same things we do in 25 other parts of the company. I will say that is what is Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
. ajarKpL
PAl 270 1 occurring at this point and that is the direction it 2 looks like it is going to go. They want that.
3 All right, let's talk about this and, in 4 particular, the issues as you saw it with who's running your 5 site and the fact that it is now being run by non-nuclear 6 types. That is what is coming through here.
7 A Yeah, Enterprise. Enterprise is non-nuclear. It 8 doesn't mean they don't have nuclear understanding but with 9 the shift that reported to the and now (reports 10 to _ _is a non-nuclear guy.
11 Q All right, but you say right in here: Fossil, like 12 I don't understand nuclear.
13 A Yeah, that was a comment based on some of the 14 feedback we had from the Capital Review Board specifically 15 for when he said some comment to me along the line 16 of you try to make nuclear something very different and that 17 it has to be different than the way the rest of the company 18 operates and the rest of the way the company makes decisions 19 and it was along the effect of that line of saying nuclear 20 ! may be a different technology, nuclear may be -- has 21 deferences in the differences but in the way decisions are 22 made and the way the company functions as a collective whole.
23 It is a component of the whole.
24 BY MR. TEATOR:
25 Q You make the statement though that the change Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
lPa271 1 that's occurred now is fossil is running the place. Not 2 Enterprise. You are using the word fossil.
3 A Poor words on my part. I used, that was an analogy 4 to say that a was in charge. ( in the previous 5 period of time before 0 retired, ,ran all generation 6 but it was essentially the fossil side of the business.
7 Even though he was President of the Power, 1 8 ran nuclear independent of fossil generation and reported 9 separated to 10 Now, we have ,,who has been doing fossil --
11 that was a terminology I used -- now running nuclear.
12 Meaning is we have the reporting chain up through to 13-14 j Q All right.
15 A So, I characterized' - œs fossil because that is 16 what he had been doing for the last three or four years.
17 MR. BARBER: But really that has sort of a negative 18 connotation to it though?
19 THE WITNESS: I simply stated that as fossil 20 and now he is running nuclear.
21 BY MS. NEFF:
22 Q Right, but just before that you state what 1 23 had done was kept fossil from running the place into the 24 ground and so it is more than a negative connotation. You 25 are looking at it in the overall, this isn't good for us?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I ae272 1 A Yeah, I gave a perception that I was unsure whether 2 this was a good thing. I thought the reporting chain 3 directly to was the right thing in that you have 4 a direct line from nuclear directly to the 'and I just 5 believe principally that that is a good way of running the 6 railroad and so I disagreed with the company philosophy of 7 making the change and I vented it with someone who listens.
8 BY MR. TEATOR:
9 Q You make the statement there in that very area on 10 line 5 and 6.
11 [Reading] I think he, kept non-nuclear from 12 running the place into the ground.
131 To me that smells of a hint o was getting 14 pressure from corporate.
15 A I think he was. I think ot pressure a lot 16 about the things we were doing and what that pressure looked 17 like, you know, my sense is the larger item was why is 18 nuclear so much different than the rest of the business units 19 inside Enterprise and I belie focus was we weren't 20 ready to be in the fold with everybody else.
21 We hadn't standardized some of the procedures and 22 the processes. We will had fundamentals that we were trying 23 to establish and I thin belief was that those things 24 needed to be separate and worked on before we should become 25 another widget in the total company Enterprise.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 1')
p 273 1 Q But the phrase: From running the place into the 2 ground, is to me -- we are trying to understand what you 3 meant by that? What was going on?
4 A It is a perception I had.
5 Q All right.
6 A And I don't know if it is right or it is wrong. It 7 is only by my interactions. is a numbers man. He is 8 extraordinarily good with it. I mean he is a finance person 9 and is an entrepreneur, if you will, and I thought one of the 10 things that we had that I thought was very good was the fact 11 that we had a direct line wit who understood nuclear, 12 and ho had been a plant manager in nuclear that 13 it made our conversations very easy to have about subjects 14 that unless you have been in nuclear, it had no value or no 15 meaning to you.
16 And so I saw this change potentially and as being, 17 uh, maybe not the best of things, because now we are going to 18 be explaining everything we are doing and I saw explain what 19 we're doing sounding like it is going to be more difficult to 20 be able to make change or more difficult to get approvals on 21 things and I believe that the longer it takes to solve things 22 you slowly erode your performance inside of the plant and 23 that is what I was trying to say is that I am hypothesizing 24 that it is going to take more time to get things through, 25 whatever we have got to do.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rae 274 1 In the meantime, the clock is still ticking on the 2 site and I think we are just going to find ourselves in more 3 challenging positions than we previously had.
4 Now, is that right or is it wrong? I don't know 5 but I mean that was my perception of things initially when we 6 made the changes in the work structure.
7 Q Whil- as still in charge, uh, and even maybe 8 going back to 2002/2001, did he tell you that there were 9 attempts made by Enterprise to change how nuclear was being 10 run, that he felt weren't good, could cause problems?
11 A I don't know.
12 Q I mean it is a real general question but when I 1-3 read the comment you make there, it sounds to me like 14 was getting that kind of thing and he was fighting it. Was 15 that going on to your knowledge?
_ -7 16 A I think that id have pressure in a variety 17 of different ways to be more like the rest of the company and 18 I think (was saying all in due time and now is not the 19 time and I do believe in that position, he probably had 20 periodic battles and, you know, there is some sarcasm in here 21 and so I mean this is some of my, you know, kind of stuff and 22 so--
23 Q Yeah but the flavor is what's --
24 A Yeah.
25 Q This is all in that March 2003 time period where Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 U
Pag 275 1 you guys had issues at the plant there happening too and 2 people are taking different messages from it. People further 3 down below you are taking those messages.
4 A These are not conversations I had with anybody.
5 Q Right.
6 A I mean right or wrong I was in a situation where 7 Kymn was leaving the company. She was very upset. I tried 8 to try to tell her that it is not with you.
9 It is clear that there is a shift in the way we do 10 a lot of things here and, you know, I tried to give her 11 examples of, you know, you are not the only one who carries 12 some concern about some of the changes we may be going 13 forward in and it wasn't meant to indict anybody in senior 14 management.
B 15 It was my translation of things and simply saying, 16 you know, just because you may be lower in the reporting 17 chain than I am, we have equal kinds of frustrations when we 18 are dealing with major changes in the way we have been doing 19 things.
20 Was it helpful or not helpful, I don't know. I was 21 simply trying to say to her I am just as human as you are.
22 Q Yeah, it sounds like you are, and even listening to 23 the tape, you are venting a little bit too.
24 A I was. Yes, I was. I mean, yes.
25 BY MS. NEFF:
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Alp 276 1 Q Okay, we are going to -- we are still on 14 here, 2 line 14 and it is Kymn Harvin speaking and she says:
3 [Reading] Yeah, those guys have got to see, see 4 that, that is what really scares them that when you have 5 non-nuclear putting pressure on nuclear people to make 6 decisions and the non-nuclear people don't understand 7 all of the aspects involved in what they are asking for 8 or pressuring for. That was that whole issue at Hope 9 Creek about, you know, do we go back up before we find 10 out why that valve -- you know all of that, and so that 11 is what they told me was it is like who is running the 12 show and thank God, you didn't succumb to the pressure.
13 They were afraid you would and if anybody weaker was in 14 your job, what do you think would have happened?
15 And you say:
16 [Reading] I don't know.
17 And then you talk about taking a beating from nd with setting $25 million a month revenue 19 and I think we've covered some aspects of that before.
20 A Uh-huh.
21 Q But going back to this, in your general statement 22 that Kymn Harvin did not express nuclear safety concerns to 23 you, how do you reconcile that with what you are hearing 24 here?
25 A Well, you know, I guess it is a matter of Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 Aj j
P 277 1 interpretation of what is nuclear safety. Because we have 2 opinions or feelings or hairs on the back of our neck with 3 intuition that says, gee, we have made a change from fossil 4 to nuclear running things, is that in itself a safety issue 5 or a nuclear safety issue? The answer is no, there is no 6 specifics to that. It is simply a point of opinion will the 7 operators think?
8 Well, the operators read the same organizational 9 chart changes I did. That is their conclusion that, well, 10 now we are reporting to fossil versus nuclear.
11 Q But it is more specific than that here on this page 12 because what she is telling you is an issue that you are 13 obviously involved in. It is the bypass valve and it goes 14 along the way we've had a conversation before about that.
15 She says that is what that whole issue is so critical about, 16 do we go back up before we find out why that valve -- you 17 know all of that.
18 It is more than just a very vague sense that might 19 be somebody's misconception. She is saying non-nuclear 20 people putting pressure on nuclear people to make decisions 21 and she ties to a very specific incident.
22 A I discounted it because I had more first-hand 23 knowledge about the valve than anybody did and I knew what 24 the issues were or what they weren't and I knew what the 25 decision making was or wasn't and I had it documented across Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 aif
Alp 278 1 the board all of the elements that went with it at that point 2 in time.
3 And so, this -- she didn't tell me anything other 4 I than express feelings from people but there was no facts 5 behind the feeling when I had the facts in a structured root 6 cause approach in looking at all of the components and 7 pieces.
8 BY MR. TEATOR:
9 Q What she is bringing to you is not -- we are not 10 debating a technical issue.
11 A Yeah.
12 Q It is this is what the operators are thinking it is 13 an environment issue. They are seeing production and if this 14 is not production over safety.
15 A We had this discussion earlier --
16 Q Right.
17 A -- Even with Okay, you know, I guess to 18 say that there is never going to be a discussion about 19 starting the plant up before it is time, you know, is a 20 discussion that occurs at every plant somewhere in a given, 21 month, year or period of time.
22 Now, what you hope for is that professionals in 23 their business --
24 [Brief interruption.]
25 MR. TEATOR: For the record, that was just a brief Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 -i (iI "'
tae 279 1 interruption. We are going to stay on the record. Continue.
2 THE WITNESS: Do you want me to continue?
3 MR. TEATOR: Yeah. Thanks, Scott.
4 THE WITNESS: What you hope for is that 5 professionals will put things into the right perspective when 6 you are having dicey conversations. Conversations that are 7 controversial and what you look at is what was the final 8 outcome? Was there a problem in the final outcome? The 9 answer everybody will tell is, well, no. But it was hard 10 getting there.
11 Well, I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad 12 thing. I don't know if it means anything more or less about 13 the environment. It is the way it is.
14 But what was the result? Did we make an 15 inappropriate decision? Did we not do the right thing? Did 16 we not fix the equipment? Did we not fully look at it?
17 The answer is no, we did all of those things and so 18 I am going okay, it took us three more hours to make sure we 19 were clear on something. Is that a problem?
20 Q Well, for these people it was.
21 A I got that.
22 Q And she is telling you that, so we are asking you 23 how can you say that you didn't recognize that, her bringing 24 that work environment issue to you, production over safety as 25 a nuclear safety issue or concern?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
g 280 1 A Because I saw it as we did not make the 2 inappropriate decision and because I thought others had 3 thought the same thing I did, that I was surrounded with, was 4 that we did a comprehensive review of what we were doing and 5 that the right outcome occurred.
6 I have heard those discussions probably any number 7 of times in other areas, I mean other kinds of items in the 8 power plant, this plant and other plants. It is one of the 9 ongoing sagas that we are plagued with that Scott said 10 before. Is it balanced between, you know, production and 11 safety?
12 Well, I don't know if there is, you know, a balance 13 makes like one always wins, well, no, we are not trying to 14 say one always wins, we are saying if you are coming from 15 being safe, then you will make the right decisions in the 16 production arena.
17 Now, it may not be as easy to define what the risks 18 are. It may not be as easy to find all of the facts and it 19 may take us some zigzagging to get to the right point but 20 let's keep disciplined about trying to do that and I think 21 the right things will occur and, in this case, that is 22 exactly what occurred.
23 And I didn't see this situation any different than 24 other kinds of discussions we've had and other kinds of 25 equipment issues or plant issues that had some more kinds of Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
F6 281 1 rings to it.
2 Well, because for every example that we could say 3 here, I can give you 200 examples that would tell you we 4 didn't start the plant up because we hadn't finished 5 something and so I mean what do people want to grab onto when 6 they are making their case?
7 If you have an agenda that says I think, you know, 8 something. Well, then you have found information that 9 suggests it. All I try to do is provide balance.
10 I appreciate where you are coming from but here are 11 some other cases that would say, well, do you just discount 12 those? And people will say, well, I was angry with this one 13 over here.
14 Well, okay, I understand. You were angry with this 15 one over here but the facts are when you look at everything 16 collectively, some decisions are easier to arrive at than 17 others but is there any place where you see that the decision 18 making wasn't proper or a specific issue that you think 19 wasn't properly done in the actual addressing of an equipment 20 issue or performance issue or something in there that really 21 had direct nuclear safety and protection of the core, people 22 would say, well, no, I just didn't like how we got here.
23 Okay, I understand it and I tried to work with 24 people and give them that sense of it is difficult when we 25 are in some of these changes and this is why we try to talk Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
p_ 282 1 more about conservative decision making.
2 The operating principles that govern the business, 3 just because we use those criteria as ticklers to make sure 4 that if we keep a rigorous approach to things, we will always 5 make the right calls.
6 Q But she tags this concern with pressure, uh, 7 production onto the)Hope Creek Op tguy. It is not her. She 8 is saying this is what I am being told byg and she is 9 bringing that to you.
10 I mean, you know, safety concerns, that's a pretty 11 broad thing.
12 A Yes, it is.
13 Q And that's the way the Commission looks at it also.
14 A Then I what I will tell you is I did not see it as 15 nuclear safety because some people said I feel that it took 16 longer for us to get to this decision.
17 I look at it as the nuclear safety issue if there 18 is one was about did we make the right decision? Did we have 19 l the right people in there? Did we take the right actions?
20 And the answer to all of that was yes, yes and yes.
21 BY MS. NEFF:
22 Q It goes a step further though. When she is giving 23 you this incident and talking about the pressure from non-24 nuclear people in the decision making and she says to you 25 directly, you know, thank God you didn't succumb to the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Fd 283 1 l pressure. They were afraid that you would.
2 Later on in it, you talk about -- this is also on 3 page 15 -- that it doesn't mean that everything is as clean 4 as one would like because a lot of people have input and want 5 to have input and by their position have input and sometimes 6 take a little longer to get to the decision.
7 And then she mentions by name:
8 [Reading] Well, talking about here.
9 You know
- wreally thought you were going to go the 10 other way, production over safety. Again, very specific 11 concern and he was very upset, very upset.
12 A was the one that I had direct interaction 13 with in the couple of days prior to that on the seal purge 14 line. as making the decision, was pushing the 15 decision as the to temp mod that 16 out of the starting up of the plant, to take that piece out, 17 bypass it, block the valve, something like that and I scolded 18 him for that was completely unacceptable to take that kind of 19 approach and he was very angry with me that I had. uh, not 20 taken his position of starting up without the valve, that 21 starting up without the valve was okay, and I told him I 22 cannot reach that position and will not and he said I think 23 you are F'd up.
24 I said I appreciate that, I outrank you in 25 these kinds of things and I thought that this was a better Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Age284 1 decision just to put the plant per the design.
2 Q So this is a day later and your position is set 3 forth. He was upset with you for what he thought was a 4 production over safety question?
5 A That is correct and I think some context here is 6 necessary because he was very, very angry with me in the 7 l previous couple of days and, you know, I hope that people get 8 over things relatively quick. Some do, some don't. I have 9 usedq and many times as a good guy/bad guy. I mean, you 10 know, sometimes he is on the right, sometimes he is on the 11 left but it is good because it creates, as I said, a healthy 12 discomfort to have the conversations to make sure you are 13 looking things.
14 This doesn't mean he is always right, it doesn't 15 mean I am always right but the healthy discomfort allows us 16 to have the conversations that get to the right things.
17 I calle his particular case because I 18 wanted to hear his side of things.
19 BY MR. TEATOR:
20 Q Which case, the bypass valve?
21 A Yes.
22 Q All right.
23 A Specifically I wanted to hear his case. I had all 24 of these people in the room because I want to hear what all 25 of you are thinking. I heard what everybody was thinking.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I ~Pa~e285 Wad what do you recall him saying?
Q say, j1 2 A I don't know exactly what he said but it was 3 along the lines of when is mad, he doesn't say a whole 4 lot, I have to pull it out of him. That is a behavioral 5 trait he has.
- 6 He came into the room. He was dead silent. The 7 conversation as you pointed out was an awful lot between #J 8 and I initially an periodically had piped in saying 9 just shut the plant -- just go to cold shutdown and let's be 10 done with it. Just shut the thing down and let's be done 11 with it.
12 I said, I got it. I got it. I want to 13 finish my conversation with -on what is the basis of 14 operability, what is the basis of inoperability? I just want 15 to make sure we are clear and, engineering, I want to hear 16 from you what is it we are going to do if he says that is the 17 condition of inoperabiity? And that was the discussion we 18 tried to have.
19 Now, when we got all different parties into it, 20 what you saw was tempers starting to go from very angry to 21 now becoming more, I'll say, aligned. It doesn't mean people 22 were bruised in their egos but what we came out with was the 23 decision and, again, to my recollection I didn't think it 24 took that long.
25 I thought it was only an hour but we came to the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Fd 286 1 consensus is that we have enough information. Yes, we now 2 know some information from the floor. Yes, we know some 3 information about how the valve closed currently. We now 4 have clarity on what agthinks inoperability is and it looks 5 like the right thing to do is to continue going forward and 6 go inside the components and do these things.
7 I saw it as a very successful type of interaction.
8 s Maybe.a little painful but successful.
I I
9 Q When Kymn tagged this, uh --
10 A By the way, Kymn was not part of the meeting and so 11 Kymn is only giving you hearsay.
12 Q What she has heard from people in the meeting, 13 right.
14 A I don't know who these people are.
- 15. Q Well, she is telling you at this point thatJ -
16 17 A I don't know what context that they are giving it 18 to you in.
19 BY MS. NEFF:
20 Q But, interestingly, this issue about the pressure 21 keeps coming up, it is said to you a number of different ways 22 with the last one that I haven't covered yet, on page 16:
23 [Reading] After talking about nd his 24 upsetment, I think he knew the pressure you were under.
25 A I believe - of course, we are under Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
{i:..
Lnq287 1 pressure.
2 Q And you are agreeing with that and saying:
3 [Reading] It is only going to get harder.
4 A I am saying as the environment is putting more and 5 more pressure on us to produce the higher levels of capacity, 6 the higher levels of reliability, the higher levels of 7 safety, that is a change in standards.
8 What it says is even though we may be at these 9 standards currently, we have to take it another level higher 10 in all fronts than where we are and that is going to put more 11 pressure on us to do business differently, to think 12 differently and to challenge ourselves far more than we have 13 been doing thus far.
14 Q But directly regarding this incident, I can see 15, where your explanation is that it's because all of the focus 16 is on this place, because you are making money. That is 17 your explanation right here.
18 MR. TEATOR: You are making the money.
19 BY MS. NEFF:
20 Q The pressure is on you because you are making the 21 money and the other operations are not as --
22 A Yeah.
23 Q : --As successful but when she says to you about 24 the valve and the pressure that is being put on you by non-25 nuclear people and thank God you didn't succumb to the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Ra 288 1 pressure --
2 A First of all, I don't know where she is bringing in 3 this pressure, because there was no pressure on me, as I told 4 you yesterday, to start the plant up, the bypass was the 5 problem. Zero.
6 The only pressure was the pressure we had for 7 ourselves to be effective and efficient in making the right 8 decisions and then commit to some sort of plan of attack and 9 then go follow through and do that.
10 Q That leaves me with a couple of questions here. If 11 there was none on you and given this conversation, how very 12 specific she is being.
13 A Uh-huh.
14 Q Why do you leave her with the impression that there 15 was? Why do you leave her with the impression that it was 16 thank God you were in between all of that?
17 A That is her conclusion. I don't know why she drew 18s that conclusion.
19 Q But you are not doing anything to correct this.
20 You are not -- you are letting somebody in a very upset state 21 run with what you are saying is a misperception.
22 A This is a lady who is extraordinarily emotional at 23 the end. I don't know if she heard anything during this 10 24 to 15 minute conversation. She only wanted me to hear what 25 she had to say.
I-Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PaFoe 289 1 She only wanted me to hear her feelings on things 2 and so I tried to do that. No matter what I would say, it 3 wasn't going to make any difference because the answer she 4 wanted to hear was I was going to save her job or somehow I 5 would try to pull a string to save her job. I couldn't do 6 that.
7 BY MR. TEATOR:
8 Q Okay, we are not talking about her job now. We are 9 talking about things you are saying.
10 A I know that. I'm saying --
11 Q That we are getting to.
12 A Right, I know that and I am trying to say is I was 13 using various things to try to understand where she was at, 14 tell her what I thought of different things but it wasn't 15 meant -- and what I was doing it for was to try to tell her 16 that some decisions are final and that's the end of it and so 17 get over it.
18 BY MS. NEFF:
19 Q In another conversation, did you indicate 20 , hat you were under pressure from to start the 21 unit back up when the bypass valve unexpectedly closed?
22 A I don't know. I mean I, uh, I can tell you we had 23 a video conference with before we shut down the 24 plant initially to do the repairs.
25 l All right, I had the conversation with on Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
b 290 1 Saturday of the first week after we brought the plant back 2 and we had a problem with the bypass valve. I didn't talk to 3 fter that until after the plant was back up on line and 4 en I put a lessons learned type of document together which 5 I sent him and we had discussion about that and so I think 6 people are taking the time periods and are blending them a 7 bit.
8 We did have a conversation with after the plant 9 was back up and he did give me an accountability lecture 10 about performance and did I understand what was occurring but 11 it was after the plant was back up on line.
12 Did I share some of that stuff with people? Yes.
13 People asked me how did the video conference go? Oh, 14 a tough one today.
15 Q Did you share that withv,Kymn Harvine 16 A I believe I probably did.
17 Q Did you indicate to er7at any point in time that 18 you were under pressure from in making that decision 19 and considering --
20 A No.
21 Q Pushing the plant back further?
22 A I don't believe so. The decision to start up the 23 plant was -- I can only tell you what I thought. The 24 decision to start up the plant I thought was clearly in my 25 hands, mine being thedMUI not by anybody else.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rd 291 1 In other words, I don't think anybody was 2 pressuring me at that point at all to do anything other than 3 to resolve the items that we have.
4 If we are going to talk about pressure or 5 perception of pressure, I believe it came from, after the 6 plant was back up and then the knowledge of the consequences 7 for the 17 or 14 days we were shut down and what the impact 8 to the company was because I did talk to people about
. 9 message to us an Wwas at that particular video 10 conference and simply told us what the first quarter data 11 summarized looked like for the company and what the 12 contribution of nuclear was into that total picture.
13 I had never seen that before that particular day 14 and I did pass along to people that particular understanding 15 and I also told you that we had a complete 16 big meeting with everybody and told everybody the first 17 quarter numbers because that was one of the hairy things we 18 wanted to do was to keep people informed on how we were doing 19 with our performance targets. Safety-wise, capacity-wise, 20 loop hole index, costs, all that kind of stuff and we made a 21 big hoopity-do about keeping everybody informed because we 22 got feed in 2002 that says you have got to keep us more 23 informed.
24 And so, unfortunately, the first quarters numbers 25 that came out the end of March, around this particular time -
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 tSl 1-
Fad 292 1 - I don't know what day it was, there was an awful lot of 2 discussion about the Hope Creek impact to the bottom line.
3 I think every employee heard that.
4 BY MR. TEATOR:
5 Q I just sensed when Eileen was asking you about 6 whether you had that conversation with E . Harvinkor not that 7 you were struggling a little bit.
8 A Because I don't know if I did or I didn't. I know 9 that I had the conversation in some fact after I understood 10 the financial impacts and some, I'll say, you know, putting 11 me under the microscope by the executives that I didn't 12 fulfill what I thought we should have been able to do.
13 Q Okay, but I want to go back to Eileen asked you a 14 specific question. Did you tele r. Harvin-[aat you were 15 under pressure fro to turn the plant back on during 16 this bypass valve incident?
17 A I don't recall. I honestly don't recall. I don't 18 know if I did or I did not.
19 Q If you did, why would you?
20 A I don't know if I did or I didn't. I mean I can't 21 answer something I am not sure of. I don't know.
22 Q I will ask you the question. Were you under 23 pressure from o turn the plant back on?
24 A I've answered that before.
25 Q I know, but I need--
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
293 1 A The last conversation I had with was Saturday 2 night before the bypass valve, we took the plant down. I had 3 no conversations with him. There was no exchange in anything 4 other than make sure we resolve the item and let me know how 5 things are going and so if there was any pressure, it 6 certainly didn't come from there.
7 BY MS. NEFF:
8 Q But this is the conversation that we believe it 9 occurred and- mn HarviŽ<ot the information from you that 10 you were under pressure to start that unit back up when the 11 valve went --
12 A No.
13 l Q You are saying, you are kind of being a little I 14 don't know, I don't recall. Did you telkiergs'hat?
15 A No.
16 Q Do you recall anything that would givper h at 17 impression?
18 A First of all, I think you are changing some of the 19 things that I am saying.
20 Q Okay.
21 A The only conversation I had was with 22 was Saturday night. There was no discussion about the 23 turnaround time or what we needed to do other than we have to 24 go figure out why this bypass valve isn't working. That was 25 it.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Ea 294 1 Monday morning comes in, the only conversations I 2 am having is what is the problem with the equipment, what are 3 you going to do with it and how are we going to go about 4 resolving it?
5 A That was it. Now, there is an expectation that we 6 have for ourselves that we are timely and turn the plant 7 around as soon as it can be turned around.
8 Now, that is an expectation. In other words, if the 9 plant could be turned around in 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, then it should be 10 turned around in 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. If the plant should be turned 11 around in five days, then do it in five days but don't turn 12 l it around in seven days when it should have been done in five 13 because you goofed off.
14 You know, it is like you've got to be accountable 15i that when you are in these situations that you do what is 16 required, you are efficient, you are effective, you are 17 timely because of the fact that, well, the plant does have a 18 large contribution, you know, to the overall profile of the 19 company.
20 Now, if you are saying is that induced pressure?
21 Okay, then it is.
22 BY MR. TEATOR:
23 Q Is it?
24 A Sure it is but is it bad pressure, I think is the 25 best question.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Fd 295 1 Q Well, that is the message that we are getting now.
2 A I understand some people say it is bad pressure.
3 Q Yeah.
4 A I am going to tell you, is I know of no other, uh, 5 it has been the ongoing dialogue every day for the last A 6 i that I have been in the business, whether it is this 7 company or another company, is this company any different at 8 it than others? No.
9 There is always the expectation of being when the 10 units can produce, we expect them to produce and, okay, so in 11 that we translate that to say we need to get going on things.
12 We need to be timely and we need to be, uh, complete in our 13 commitments and live to our commitments.
14 BY MS. NEFF:
15 Q But then as the effect existed in this particular 16 incident, did it have any effect on you at that point in 17 time, knowing the pressure on you and knowing that they want 18 to know where that unit is going to be in a day or take five 19 days or one day; before you knew what the bypass valve 20 problem was specifically, did that pressure translate into 21 you pushing for startup simply because the valve won't close?
22 A No, absolutely not.
23 Q If I were to tell you that there is a recorded 24 conversation, if I were to tell you there was a recorded 25 conversation indicating otherwise, how would you respond to Neal R. Gross & Company X 202-234-4433
1 1 that?
2 A Well --
3 MR. KEENAN: I think we indicated we would like to 4 review any discussions that may have --
5 THE WITNESS: Without knowing when we are talking 6 about I don't know. You asked me is did anyone put pressure 7 on me to say you have to do something and bring this plant 8 back. I am telling you is I'd say it is no. I was in it. I 9 lived it and so I don't know of anyone that made me do that.
10 To say it differently is the answer is there wasn't anybody.
11 The only pressure that there was was self-imposed pressure by 12 me and the people around me.
13 Now, is that an issue? Well, it may be.
14 MR. TEATOR: Yes, right..
15 THE WITNESS: Because of our believe of being 16 ' timely to bring the plant around but that is different than 17 saying did someone order me to do something?
18 The answer I would answer to you is nobody ordered 19 me to do anything.
20 MS. NEFF: I understand the distinction.
21 THE WITNESS: Now, is there a sense that there is 22 always this push to try to bring things back?
23 Yes, there is.
24 Would I relate that to people?
25 Yes, I would.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Ear 297 1 Now, is someone making the connection between 2 1 that's elling you that, that is 3 telling you or I am telling you? No, nobody told me. They 4 never were involved in anything like that for this bypass 5 valve, not at all.
6 MS. NEFF: Okay. I am through 16 now.
7 MR. TEATOR: Well, I just have got a couple of 8 questions.
9 BY MS. NEFF:
10 Q On line 15--
11 A What page?
12 Q Page 16.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q The same area of discussion but it is recorded here 15 and transcribed that -- well, I will start at line 9. This 16 lis you, 17 A Yes.
18 Q [Reading) It is only going to get harder because 19 there is less money the company has these days. Gas 20 prices are out of the roof. There ain't no business 21 coming from Global and you could run an expensive gas 22 unit but all you would do is break even and so who is 23 making your money? Well, this place, and now all of a 24 sudden they are on the bandwagon lik is. They 25 l want 95 percent capacity. Ninety-five percent gives you Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 A '"-
1 no margin, zero. That's flawless. That really is 2 flawless execution.
3 A Yes.
4 Q It is talking about margins here.
5 A Yeah, and it is taken out of the wrong context and 6 so let me try to explain.
7 Q Right, but let me just tell you, I mean what we are 8 seeing all of this and reading it and hearing what people's 9 impressions were coming out of that bypass valve meeting and 10 to us, it sure smells of pressure and so go ahead --
11 MR. KEENAN: " wants to respond.
12 MR. TEATOR: So go ahead and explain.
13 MR. KEENAN: I think he can only give you his 14 perspective. He can't give you the collective perspective 15 or --
16 THE WITNESS: I don't know. What this was saying 17 is that we wanted to be top quartile in all parameters. Top 18 quartile is 95 percent capacity, is less than 2 cents per kw, 19 total product cost and INPO Index of about 97.
20 I mean when you are at that level, there is no 21 margin for mistake anymore. That is what that meant. There 22 is just at that level of precision, execution and doing 23 things is flawless and that was a quest we were trying to go 24 after to try to stimulate our people to improve performance 25 was we needed to be flawless at the point of contact because Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 I '.:,.I"
Py 299 1 we were having problems in those areas and those were the 2 primary reasons that we gaps from the performance levels of 3 not being top quartile.
4 It wasn't that the plant equipment was bad. It was 5 that we were making a lot of mistakes.
6 BY MR. TEATOR:
7 Q But the units, it doesn't sound like they were 8 operating anywheres near that level and --
9 A They were.
10 Q -- And yet the drive it appears to be that is where 11 you want to get, so that is a big leap.
12 A We were at a 91-1/2 percent capacity at this point 13 in time.
14 Q On Hope Creek?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Okay.
17 A All three units, I don't know if Hope Creek was 18 exactly 91. I can tell you that the cumulative sum in the 19 first quarter of the year is near or about 91 percent 20 capacity and we were meeting our Business Plan of 91. That
- 21. was our Business Plan was to achieve a 91 percent capacity 22 for the year. In the first quarter, we had been doing that.
23 Now, what I was trying to articulate in here is 24 that money is getting tougher to get. It is harder to 25 justify and so the way you have to get money is to produce Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PAlp 300 1 more in revenue in order to give the opportunity to invest 2 and with the way we can control that is by improving our 3 capacity from this level to the next level and plants that 4 are INPO 1, sales 1, in all of their scores are doing those 5 things and that is what we want to do.
6 Now, is that pressure? Yes.
7 BY MR. BARBER:
8 Q Who set those goals?
9 A Those goals were set through our Business Plan 10 Review, you know, the company set this.
11 Q Are those realistic goals?
12 l A Yes.
13 Q Now, I will go back to your discussion. Yesterday 14 we talked about how you were going to short your outage 15 duration from 50 days to 25 days as a goal.
16 A Uh-huh.
17 Q And the way you described it was incremental, that 18 you were going to go from 50 to 35 down to 30 and then down 19 to 225, incrementally, progressive, measured and here it 20 sounds like this is a big stretch. A big, big production 21 push.
22 A Well, I would tell you to be top quartile, we said 23 that for four straight years whil w as there.
24 BY MR. TEATOR:
25 Q That was a goal? That was a goal?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Inne 301 1 A Yes.
2 Q All right.
3 A That was a goal. Top quartile changes every year 4 as you know. Plants get better and better. Plant quartile, S what these numbers were coming from, I defined top quartile 6 in 2003, first quarter of the year, was 95 percent capacity.
7 That is what top players were doing.
8 So we wanted to be top quartile and we have 9 committed to the company and the company said, yes, we want 10 that, then this is what we are trying to accomplish.
11 First quarter results were at about a 91 percent.
12 Now, did we have an expectation of being a 95 percent 13 capacity in the first three months of the year? No, but we 14 thought by the end of 2003 we could-achieve top quartile 15 numbers, by the end of the year going into 2004 and that was 16 an expectation for us to try to achieve.
17 Our strategy to make that happen was around 18 flawless execution. It was a let's do things right the first 19 time. Let's put precision in what we do. Let's improve our 20 human performance. Let's bring more collective thinking when 21 l we go do things. Let's put the fence and depth around the 22 fact that the processes are good things, that pre-job briefs, 23 training, peer checks, all of the things, this is how you 24 don't have these kind of mistakes that occur and that's what 25 we thought had the largest opportunity to close the gap that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Re302 1 we were missing to be in the top quartile numbers and that 2 was based on pretty thorough GAP analysis of looking at all 3 of the shortcomings that we had from 2002 and comparing it to 4 other places in the industry and that is why we, our Business 5 Plan was embarking in 2003 by improving, you know, standards, 6 improving accountability, improving performance around those 7 expectations.
8 Q What were the nuclear safety goals for that period 9 of time, very specific, nuclear safety?
10 A We measured nuclear safety by the INPO Index and 11 the INPO Index was to be at 93 or 94.
12 Q And what type things go into that?
13 A Radiation goes. There is 10 things that go into 14 it. Chemistry, the CPI Index, Fuel and Tiring, capacity, 15 forced loss rate.
16 Q All right, let's just talk for a minute about the 17 ones that involved equipment reliability, forced outage or 18 forced loss, things like that. What kind of success are you 19 having in those areas?
20 5 A Well, we were an outlier in forced loss rates 21 compared to other plants. Forced loss rates in 2003, 22 beginning of the year, was less than 2 percent and we were 23 running around, 12-month average around 4 percent, so we were 24 twice the industry average.
25 What we thought, given how we were attacking Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Fad 303 1 things, and our Business Plan said if we fix these things, 2 put the money in these places, we will shorten the equipment 3 issues and we will see a reduction in the forced lost rate 4 and we did see that occur.
5 We did see that occur, by September of 2003, the 6 INPO Index was around 94 to 95 and our forced loss rate was 7 just about 2 percent and I say it wasn't magic. It wasn't 8 beating people up. It was from doing the things that were in 9 the business plan we said we were going to do. It was these 10 pieces of equipment and focusing on the human performance of 11 the aspects of the way we were doing business.
12 Now, I don't personally see those as bad 13 objectives. I got the fact that not everybody has the same 14 appreciation for those things and may take them in a number 15 of different ways but that is the measurement standards I and 16 other plants used to compare ourselves to determine whether 17 or not we are firing on all eight cylinders from all 18 perspectives in running the power plants. Public nuclear 19 safety, radiological safety, industrial safety, capacity and 20 costs.
21 MS. NEFF: Anything else on 16?
22 MR. TEATOR: No.
23 BY MS. NEFF:
24 Q Let's go to the top of 17. You are talking about 25 carrying an officer title and it doesn't mean shit. Kymn Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
304 1 Harvin asked who had more power, . And you agree 2 absolutely. Absolutely, as soon as the announcement was made 3 tha s leaving, the power changed and that's it. We 4 are now under a completely different process.
5 She mentions he doesn't have a nuclear background, 6 right? He did not, did he?
7 A He is not a degreed, you know, nuclear guy. He is 8 a degreed engineer and he has also a finance background. I 9 don't think he has ever been a chief nuclear officer or in 10 the chain of command running a power plant, you know, like a 11 VP or a plant manager or those kinds of capacities. I don't 12 believe that but not to say that he is not familiar with what 13 nuclear is, he just never has been in the line management 14 position inside of a plant that I am aware of.
15 Q Okay, let's look at the comments that are there.
16 We are talking about who has the power and then it is your 17 comment that it may be even to think one should expect, even 18 in a new environment and for a deregulated company that runs 19 a nuclear power plant and Harvin says:
20 [Reading] Well, the Salem guys told me that they 21 thought that would be our demise.
22 And you respond:
23 [Reading] Well, it has been the NRC's position 24 from the word go and Chairman Jackson said that a few 25 years ago about deregulation. Deregulation is going to Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
ID 305 1 be watering down slowly to see a safety culture change 2 in nuclear power and will ultimately end nuclear power.
3 The very thing that it was intended to do was to be a 4 rival entity and it ends up causing people to make a 5 poor decision because of economics and it ends up being 6 economically not viable anymore.
7 Can you explain -- and the context of this 8 conversation, it is more than Kymn Harvin coming to you with 9 a concern about decision making and who is running the plan, 10 you're actually, it looks like, agreeing with her, with this, 11 and you have extended it a bit about the deregulated 12 environment that you are operating right now?
13 A Yeah, I have no bones about telling you that. I 14 told you that the first time. I think deregulation does have 15 a tougher position on us, it does, it is a fact of life.
16 You know, we can accept it or not accept it but it 17 is a fact and if we are going to stay in the business, you 18 have to work inside of it.
19 Okay, that being said, I used Chairman Jackson, I 20 listened to her give a presentation a few years ago where she 21 was concerned about deregulation and whether or not people 22 would make the right decisions.
23 I simply told Kymn that, yeah, this is an industry 24 potential concern and I has educating her that it is not just 25 the operators think, it is what the Chairman of the NRC Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
R- 306 1 thinks.
2 Now, it is even true? Well, only performance will 3 tell us that.
4 BY MR. TEATOR:
5 Q We are only talking about performance there. You 6 mentioned deregulation is going to be the watering down 7 slowly to see a safety culture change in nuclear power.
8 Did you see that happening, that artificial island?
9 A No.
10 Q As a result of deregulation. I know that goes back 11 a couple of years when that happened, did you see that type 12 of change occur in there?
13 A No, what I will tell you, and this again goes back 14 to the conversation we had in October is you asked me that 15 very question and I said, well, I don't know if it's eroding 16 but it takes longer for us to get some things approved than 17 it used to. That is what I can tell you.
18 Sometimes now the justifications that are necessary 19 to make investment in a plant doesn't pass the tests because 20 we have no tests in the bank, you know. We didn't have to 21 pass hurdle rates and internal rates of return or things like 22 that. Those weren't in the equation a few years ago.
23 All that was in the equation is do you think it is 24 a good idea? Yeah, it is a good idea. Well then, go do it 25 and there was no time for that.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
307 1 Okay, today the economics and the environment that 2 we are in, I didn't make the rules up. I mean Americans made 3 the rule up that we want freedom of choice and deregulation.
4 Okay, what that translates to now is we now apply the same 5 business practices that every other competitive company 6 operates under and so if I have a job to fill this glass with 7 water as an investment job of some sort, well, it has to pass 8 certain criteria and demonstrate rates of return.
9 Not to be confused with that it is a specific 10 nuclear safety and I know that is somewhat judgmental but, 11 you know, if it is very crystal clear with issue like we had 12 to buy control rods because we don't have any. Okay. That 13 is like a done deal, go get 'em.
14 We need to fix surf water. Oh, boy, well that is, 15 surf water is not a safety system. It is a reliability 16 issue. The NRC would challenge us and say, well, surf water 17 is important because if it is not operating right, it will 18 have challenges to the operators because it will have to deal 19 with transits.
20 Yes, that is true but it is not safety related. It 21 is not an absolute necessary to protect the reactor or shut 22 it down. It is true it is a challenge. It is true we have 23 to fix it.
24 However, that job isn't going to be fixed in the 25 same kind of automaticness as a set of control rods are Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rn 308 1 because you can operate the plant differently to manage 2 around those issues.
3 The grasping season, I will give you an example.
4 Okay, if you don't want 20 percent reductions during February 5 and March, what is another way of dealing with it? Run the 6 plant at 80 percent capacity. I mean you don't need all of 7 the circulators. That is an alternative. That is a business 8 alternative that is within the.company's purview to decide to 9 do versus saying I am going to go spend $65 million and put a 10 new surf water structure in place.
11 Those are the kinds of things we are now in 12 discussion over that a few years ago we were not.
13 Q Was that new environment causing people that 14 artificial arm to make poor decisions because of the 15 economics? I mean you say that in here. I am looking --
16 A I don't think so.
17 Q -- Right, you say that and --
18 A This is --
19 Q Why does that have to be done?
20 A This is a philosophical kind of discussion. I 21 didn't say that this was happening on site. I just said that 22 Chairman Jackson had said these things and I heard her say 23 that and, you know what, there is some truth potential to 24 that when you look across things. There is that potential to 25 occur. That is what I was agreeing to.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pap 309 1 Now, you asked the question, is there something 2 specifically an artificial arm would have fell into that? I 3 am not aware of something like that.
4 In fact, we were very sensitive to that when we put 5 the Business Plan together for 2003. We were very clear on 6 what the top ten items of equipment we were going to fix, 7 what top initiatives we were going to go after and are those 8 the right things to close the gaps where you had weaknesses 9 because in previous years, we wouldn't fix the right things.
10 We were deluded in the way we were going about things.
11 So, in 2003, we wanted to be very prescriptive and 12 very clear and kill those things dead and that is how we put 13 our money and that is where we placed the emphasis.
14 l And, personally, from my perspective at least in 15 the first nine months that I was there in 2003, that worked 16 better than I had seen us do in any other year, even though 17 we had less money total for the year than we did in the 18 previous year.
19 BY MS. NEFF:
20 Q After this particular incident, the bypass valve 21 incident -- let me back up. The way this is worded, the way 22 you are talking here on page 17, line 11, we've gotten into 23 the pressure that is on the place because you are a producer, 24 you're making money, and then you are talking about how you 25 are not going to get the flow of execution at that site. It Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Fl' 310 1 is your belief it is not going to happen given attitude, 2 certain attitudes.
3 A I think it is a challenge, yes.
4 Q Well, you indicated that pretty clearly on that 5 page. On page 17 --
6 A That was my belief. I mean people can counter that 7 but that was my belief is that we weren't performing, you 8 know, flawless, that was a fact based on the kinds of events 9 and issues that we were having and it is documented in the 10 Corrective Action Program and, quite frankly, I think that is 11 one of the reasons why we got the cap item in the purge 12 inspection from the NRC. It said the same thing.
13 l Q Yes, I am saying you are making it clear you don't 14 think that is a possibility on the-site at this point in 15 time. That is your statement here.
16 A You realize that sometimes I speak in absolutes and 17 1not everything is absolute so, you know, was I probably fully 18 careful on every single word I chose when I am talking to a 19 person that is having a high emotional day, I use general 20 words at times.
21 Not to be confused with is that an absolute 22 statement of personal belief. Well, you know, nothing is 23 that clear.
24 Q Let me finish this through because when we get 25 through it, we are talking the power change and wit' Neal R. Gross & Company l l 202-234-4433
Pa 31 1 leaving and the power change at that time and you are talking 2 about being run by people without the nuclear background.
3 The way you word that, it may that these aren't the 4 things one should expect given the new environment. The 5 thing that you are talking about here is pressure, the bypass 6 valve incident and to answer Jeff's question to go a step 7 further, if this is an indication to you of the kind of 8 pressure or the kind of consideration and you are tagging it 9 to the deregulated environment, while you were there, did you 10 come up against another instance that you would have felt 11 this way about?
12 It looks like this is something that is new for 13 you. This is something that you are going to see because of 14 the deregulated environment that you are in. This is 15 something one should expect given the deregulated 16 environment?
17 A It's true. We should expect in a deregulated 18 market the processes for approval of things and demonstrated 19 value add as a different component than it ever did before.
20 I think that what was occurring was that in 21 the position that he had, directly reporting to-- we were 22 able to bypass, right or wrong, but I think we did bypass 23 some things that other areas of the company had to go prove 24 their, you know, bottom line value and I think was 25 probably more charismatic at times to be able to win overl" !
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 7' i, I!
ReR 312 1 on various things.
2 And, you know, right or wrong, I mean I just saw 3 that as being a value add because I thin and, were 4 very close from an understanding of the nuclear business.
5 When the power shift occurred t o nd the 6 first thing that occurs is we are very heavy into a whole 7 bunch of new processes, my first reaction was, you know, on a 8 venting place, I hope that this turns out to be good. My 9 first impression is, I don't like it.
10 But, it was only 30 days from announcement 11 and the time this occurred so my first set of interactions 12 with them weren't pleasant.
13 BY MR. TEATOR:
14 Q Talking about the discussion with about 15 the money? Is that what you're talking about?
16 A Yes. You know, we didn't do very well there. I 17 was trying to hire some people and I got told no, not wait 18 and I had, you know, other kinds of difficulties that I was 19 l trying to work through and I just found, well, if this is 20 process, this is going to be tough.
21 Q Right, now Eileen asked you about can you recall 22 another incident or issue like the bypass valve issue after 23 that. That was part of her question. Were you involved with 24 your people on an issue like that?
25 A Put just a little bit more shape to it. What do Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
P 313 1 you mean by another one like that?
2 Q Well, nonalignment. The operations people not 3 being aligned with where you're going and where they think 4 they're going. Is there one?
5 A Yeah, there is another one that comes to mind. I 6 am surprised you haven't mentioned it quite frankly.
7 It was with Salen surf water after a scram. I have 8 forgot, I think it is unit -- the regrassing event, you know.
9 A big head came in one night, unit one dropped to 40 percent 10 power. Unit 2, we actually scrammed the unit, manually 11 scrammed it.
12 We were down for five or six days on unit 2 fixing 13 equipment, cleaning the grass. Unit one was being maintained 14 about 40 percent. We were just getting routine hits. I mean 15 shift after shift, you know, every time the tide moves.
16 Q You say hits, you mean the grass is coming in?
17 A Uh-huh.
18 Q Okay.
19 A It is really strange though the way it works is 20 when the tide is high, it is not when you get the problem.
21 It is when the tide goes up, the grass gets drawn in because 22 the water level drops and so the volume area to draw water 23 from changes considerably and the grass plugs things quickly.
24 We had I think there are six circulators on the 25 unit and every one of them had a problem of some sort after Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pag 314 1 the scram and so one at a time we were going through them, 2 diagnosing what the issues were, what we had to go after and 3 putting a game plan together in kind of a matrix fashion.
4 What have we got to do with the screens? What have we go to 5 do with the pump? What have we got to do with the valves, 6 you know, and how to make sure that everyone, every train is 7 ready to bring the plant back.
8 I don't recall what day it was but, uh, we had 9 reached a point where we had done a review from the scram and 10 then did a review of what does it take to restart the plant?
11 There is a documented type of on-site review.
12 and others, and other 13 people had collected all of the information from the scram 14 and done a review and then had made a determination that this 15 was the criteria to restart the plant and, essentially, in 16 this case, we had met all of the criteria and we were 17 allowing ourselves to start back up with four circulators 18 instead of six, so we were not starting up with a full deck.
19 Q Which unit?
20 A Unit 2. We were, uh, the Safety Review Committee, 21 which is chaired by the Operations Director, and others had 22 said, well, we should probably put some hold points in the 23 power ascension so we don't put ourselves into -- if we lose 24 a circulator we don't have a significant transient with the 25 plant and so we had four good ones, a fifth was coming back Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 ( Q
R 315 1 ten hours from whenever the thought was we were going to 2 start up and the sixth one was going to come back 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> 3 from that. Something like that, within 36 hours4.166667e-4 days <br />0.01 hours <br />5.952381e-5 weeks <br />1.3698e-5 months <br />.
4 And so the plan was is to start the unit up with 5 four circulators, bring the plant to 40 percent. We thought 6 the time it was going to take to go from zero to 40 percent, 7 you would have the fifth circulator back. We would validate 8 the fifth one worked and then bring the plant up to 80 9 percent.
10 We hoped by that point we would have the sixth 11 circulator back and then we were comfortable in bringing the 12 plant back up to full power. That was the power ascension 13 idea and that was what was documented in the On Site Safety 14 Review Committee score count.
15 And, uh, one evening and I don't remember which 16 evening it was, where I had left some part in the day that we 17 had -- we were completing all of the signatures and the shift 18 was doing the checklist verifications before making the mode 19 change.
20 Somewhere in the evening, I got a call from --
21 there was a conference call I had gotten from a series of 22 people. It was 23 who was the on the shift that 24 particular night.
25 Q -- j 1
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rae-316 1 A I don't know ifln, as on or not. I 2 don't -- I am not sure. I know -- he might have been.
3 MS. NEFF:
4 THE WITNESS: M was on and so was 5 l I think that was pretty much the people that were on 6 the conference call with me and they were calling me. I 7 don't know if they were all in a room or if they were in 8 different places but this group of people called me.
9 And what they had -- who was not in 10 the operations change of command, he was in charge o 11 _ had said -- was leading the discussion about 12 whether we should start up the plant and I said, okay, well, 13 what is the concerns?
14 Well, we think that we need to have six circulators 15 back before we make mode change. I said, okay, well, what's 16 different now than earlier when the Safety Review Board said 17 l four has been enough and here is the steps to come up and it 18 was a roundabout discussion of saying, well, we just are 19 uncomfortable with that and I said, okay, well, why are we 20 running the unit right next door with four circulators who 21 have exactly the same condition; are you going to shut down 22 that plant?
23 They said, no, that plant is safe. I said, well, 24 okay, why is that plant safe with four and the one that is 25 shut down that we have four is unsafe to start up?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 .
RPg 317 1 Well, there was no good answers. It was just 2 people were not comfortable with things and it was a useless 3 dialogue back and forth and I said, I find no substance in 4 what you're describing to suggest that this Unit 2 is any 5 different than Unit 1.
6 You're telling me Unit 1 is fine but you don't want 7 to start up Unit 2, I am sorry, I don't understand what we 8 are doing or why we are doing it.
9 BY MR. TEATOR:
10 Q Okay, [ phonetical] agreed that they 11 wanted five?
12 A I don't know. I thought it was four.
13 Q Not six?
14 A And then it was five and then it was six and so I 15 am only telling you what I recall was four was enough to make 16 mode change, five was to go above 40 percent power and six 17 was enough to go above 80 percent power. That is what I 18 remember.
19 Q So you are in this conversation?
20 A In this conversation.
21 BY MS. NEFF:
22 Q What are the things -- you are saying they weren't 23 comfortable with things, what were they saying they weren't 24 comfortable about specifically?
25 A They said we weren't confident in the overall Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PeRi 318 1 l reliability of surf water. I says, well, what does that 2 mean? Well, you know, what if one train fails? I said, 3 well, okay, if we are at four and you lose one and you are 4 running at three, does that change the influence of the power 5 plant if you are sitting at 40 percent?
6 Well, no, but we could lose two. All right, what 7 happens if you were to lose two? Well, if you lose two, then 8 you would have to scram the unit.
9 I said, well, okay, what do we think the confidence 10 level is of two circulators, you know, not being reliable?
11 Well, we could debate whether it was or it wasn't, you know, 12 I we have had problems in the past, that kind of discussion and 13 I said, well, did we do a lockdown on what we have? Yes, we 14 have a lockdown on what we have. Are they working the way 15 they are supposed to? Yes, they are. Do we have any 16 problems with grassing at this point? No, we do not.
17 I said, well, it sounds like we have met the 18 criteria of what the Safety Review Board was expecting for us 19 to make the mode change and so I just don't understand why we 20 are not making the mode change.
21 What is it that you are telling me is that a 22 concern other than you just are uncomfortable with it?
23 At a certain point, I said, well, I don't, I simply 24 don't understand it and then I aske I 25 sai , ,doyou have any specific concerns, are there any Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rae 319 1 safety concerns associated with bringing the plant up and he 2 said, no, there is not and I said, well, then I believe we 3 should start the plant up and let's do that, and we did.
4 Now, there was fallout from that as you might 5 expect. However, in this particular case I did ask that 6 question specifically to the shift manager on shift and he 7 gave me the affirmation that the plant was okay. He didn't 8 see anything and that he was not uncomfortable with it but I 9 had other people in the room who were uncomfortable and so, 10 you know, I tried to work through what the uncomfort was and 11 all it came to is, well, there might be a reliability issue 12 with issue with the circulator and we want to prevent 13 challenges to the outriggers. Excellent discussion.
14 So the risk is how much challenge do we think we 15 have and can we manage that risk in a way that minimizes 16 those challenges and the answer was yes and that is what the 17 Safety Review Board also had said and that's what we were 18 trying to fulfill was the implementation of it.
19 I said if you disagree with that, then the Safety 20 Review Board should reconvene and, you know, propose what 21 they think the differences ought to be and why that is.
22 BY MR. TEATOR:
23 Q Who were you having the most discussion with during 24 that call?
25 A I believe, was probably the largest Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
R 320 rig 1 nrrl -A 2 Q All right. During the call, did the tourists, the 3 middle and later part of the call, did it become more between 4 you and aving the discussion?
5 A I think so. It changed hands but the two primary 6 parties that I was talking to was (initially and I 7 was a little irritated that as doing the discussion 8 since he is not in the chain of command for operating the 9 power plant and that is when arted talking and I was 10 comfortable with" alking--because he is the other
~aXking+because 11 12 The ad said very the 13 little during the whole time, if anything. Why the choice of 14 who talked to me, I don't know. I mean that was how it 15 turned out and, you know, the dialogue continued for a period 16 of time where there was no specific issue identified.
17 Yes, surf water is not the most reliable of systems 18 that we had at Salem. That is also well documented by -- I 19 think anybody that knows anything about the plant.
20 However, it seemed like the risk was manageable 21 given the way we were expecting to try to provide some 22 minimal impacts if in fact we did lose one and BO there was 23 contingency to assume if we did lose one how we would manage 24 the power profile ascension to have minimum impact.
25 I thought that was a fair conclusion by the Safety Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
'Lany
Fp 321 1 Review Board and I expected that the managers would implement 2 the Safety Review Board's recommendations because they made 3 the recommendation to me to start up based on that and so 4 .then I am expecting us to be accountable to do what we said 5 we were going to do.
6 The conversation ended and the 7 confirmed that there was no problems with the plant and that 8 he was comfortable starting the plant up and he said I am 9 going to start the plant up[.
10 BY MS. NEFF:
11 Q Had he been there all along in that conversation, 12 0 Had 1he ee 13 A I believe he was. I don't know that for an 14 absolute but I believe he was.
15 I also did follow-up conversations with each one of 16 these people to find out how did things land with them, you 17 know, what was their concern? What was their, you know, what 18 19 lreally was it and all I could gather was just apprehension.
And I said, you know, I am not trying to tell you 20 to do something that you shouldn't do but what I am trying to 21 do is you've got to give me something to work with so we can 22 address it.
23 You can't just say I'm nervous. Why are you 24 nervous? Let's explore why you are nervous. What can I do 25 to address it and the answer only came back as we want six Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 8,\t 1' 1.'
i
g 322 1 circulators.
2 Well, I know it doesn't take six circulators to 3 start the power plant. It is not a safety-related system and 4 that is purely in the space of judgment to determine what you 5 do or don't want to do with things with that.
6 BY MR. TEATOR:
7 Q During that discussion did it get heated and 8 personal with 9 A I don't know. Say the question again?
10 Q Well, from what we understand, the conversations i; did get heated and personal between you andK 12 What do you recall of that discussion wit and, 13 in your opinion, did it get like that?
14 A I didn't think so but that's my -- was there foul 15 language used? I am sure there was but heated would imply 16 there was some sort of forceful tone with me or something 17 l like that. I don't recall having that kind of conversation.
18 I think I asked the why question a lot of times and 19 it was frustrating people that I was taking that approach.
20 Q Did you challenge manhood during 21 that conversation, due to the fact that maybe he wanted more 22 circulators before going up than you thought were necessary, 23 did you challenge his manhood regarding that?
24 A Why do you use manhood?
25 Q It is the word that was used with us. That is what Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Elk 323 1 we have learned.
2 A Manhood?
3 Q Well, I could speculate what that would be but I 4 think, yes, that is the word that was used. Did the 5 conversation get like that between you an
.6 A Well, your description is one that confuses me as 7 that, because the conversations I thought we were having was 8 all around why is it okay or why is it not okay to start up 9 with four or five or six and so if that is being translated 10 as challenging manhood, then I would say, yes, I did.
11 Q Well, it has been described that it got personal 12 between you an and that during that personal 13 disagreement discussion, you in fact challenged his manhood 14 about what he wanted to do and what he felt he needed to do 15 the turn, to run the plant that way?
16 MR. KEENAN: So the question is do you have any 17 recollection of a personal exchange there, conversation?
18 THE WITNESS: I don't know. I don't remember, you 19 know, personal manhood, I just don't know how to translate 20 that into something that would tell me what the answer to 21 that is.
22 BY MR. BARBER:
23 Q Do you feel like you had to get belligerent in 24 order to make your point, because he wasn't getting your 25 message?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Fe 324 1 A I didn't think so.
2 BY MR. TEATOR:
3 Q Did you use a term like wimp? I mean I am throwing 4 things out there to try and job your memory, something along 5 those lines?
6 A Maybe. I might have -- I don't know whether it was 7 directed at any person. I said, well, I probably said if I 8 did, it would have been something along the lines of, guys, 9 we are in the business to run these places. What is it that 10 we are nervous of? I mean you can't just tell me we are 11 nervous and then not be able to describe it so that action 12 can be taken.
13 I am sure I had conversations around that multiple 14 times.
15 Q With 16 A Yeah.
17 Q How abou(
18 A I think I told o stop talking to me.
19 Q Is the way the things started, the phone call got 20 to where there was just you and having a discussion?
21 A Well, there is a period of time when -- well, 22 first, you can only have a conversation like that, two people 23 can participate and so it changes in the room. I am on one 24 end and I know I am the one that is always doing the dialogue 25 on one end.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Ear 325 1 Q Right, on your end, right.
2 A Now, tarted the conversation, then some 3 others pipe in and then. I thin and I probably 4 ended up in half of the conversations as it was towards the 5 end.
6 Q Right, that's what we heard.
7 A And then the last maybe couple of minutes was a 8 conversation I then tried to have with the shift manager.
9 They told me the shift manager was on the call. I was 10 actually glad that he was on the conversation and I asked him 11 specifically, is there anything you believe that is of a 12 safety concern that would prevent us from starting up the 13 plant? He said no and when he said no, then I said, I 14 expect us to start up the power plant.
15 Q o?
16 A 17 BY MS. NEFF:
18 Q Do you recall left the conversation at some 19 point?
20 A I don't know. I wasn't -- they wasn't in any room 21 I was in. I mean I am at home and I think they are at the 22 power plant.
23 BY MR. TEATOR:
24 Q Did he announce on the call that I'm done, I'm 25 through, something like that?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 t'.., ,
A 326 1 A I don't know. I don't know.
2 Q You talked about, a little bit about the fallout 3 from that discussion. Did you have fallout discussions with bn 4 'airt
- A=
Z I
5 A Yes.
6 Q Let's talk about those. Can you tell us what those 7 would were about?
8 A Once again, I thought it was a very productive 9 conversation an pologized to me the following day and 10 said that, uh, he wasn't well prepared for the discussion.
11 He appreciated me pushing back and said next time, you know, 12 I understand your expectations and this wasn't properly 13 handled and I told him I would agree with that.
14 I said what is the learning from this? Our 15 discussion was what the learning was.
16 Well, we had a Safety Board Review that said these 17 were the things. We did the right things. Now I got it 18 maybe someone in the crew challenged you on that but it is 19 your job to address the challenge. It is not your job to 20 call me and have me address the challenge. It is your job to 21 address the challenge. I want your thinking. I want your 22 decision making.
23 He didn't provide me his decision making or his 24 thinking. That is what I was upset about and he had that 25 primary responsibility in the chain of command.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pae 327 I.C /
1 Q Bu is the isn't he?
2 A Yes, he was.
3 Q So why did lave that responsibility, was 4 there a turnover in theret 5 A No, I think it became -- because the decision to 6 start up the plant administratively is, by procedure, rests 7 with the higher levels in operations.
8 The actual turning of the mode switch and beginning 9 the startup is the shift manager's accountability.
10 Q Right.
11 And si 3 was in the space of I'm not telling the 12 shift yet it is okay to start the plant up, so he was taking 13 the responsibility of, from all of our operational procedures 14 and readiness to start the plant.
15 -There is an administrative sign off at the end that 16 says are you ready to start up the plant and essentially you 17 do a formality turnover of this document to the shift and the 18 shift then, you now, has management's concurrence that it is 19 acceptable to begin restart, pending any issues that may be 20 out there at this point that based on the shift manager's 21 localized expertise on what is going on may be factored in.
22 So he gets to decide when it actually starts up.
23 BY MS. NEFF:
24 Q 25 A The shift manager does, after the turnover is done.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
-~ I a-- gI 2 : i ,
n- 328 1 So what we were doing was an adrninistrative 2 determination of were we ready to start t1he plant. That is 3 what that discussion was and that wasL an an f 44 accountability and they didn't: do that.
5 I was holding them to account tco do their job 6 responsibility.
7 Q And you are saying that you didr1't see them doing 8 their job,. in particular here, beccause he couldn't 9 explain why he needed more circulators for* the startup?
10 A Why is he taking exception to tlhe Safety Review 11 Board? What was it that, was it new inforrmation or change to 12 something that would suggest that after arn independent body 13 of which some of his people were on said tthey think it is 14 okay.
15 -MS. NEFF: You know, I have to a.sk for a break 16 here. I need to review some factors about this incident 17 review before we go any further, okay?
18 Maybe now would be a good time for a lunch break, I 19 would suggest, and then we can finish.
20 MR. TEATOR: Absolutely.
21 MS. NEFF: It is 1:50 p.m., let' s go off the 22 record.
23 [Whereupon, at 1:50 p.m., a rece Ss was taken, to 24 resume at 3:10 p.m., the same day.]
25 Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Ruq 329 1 AFTERNOON SESSION 2 MS. NEFF: All right, we are back on the record.
3 It is approximately 3:10 p.m.
4 Whereupon, 5 . j 6 was RESUMED as the witness herein, was examined and testified 7 further as follows:
8 EXAMINATION 9 BY MS. NEFF:
10 Q A question for you is, have you ever heard the term 11 holding the plant hostage?
12 A Yes.
13 Q And what does it mean and how have you heard it 14 used?
15 A I think my term of it would be is that there is 16 something that is keeping the plant where it is. You know, 17 there is some sort of leverage that is bounding the existing 18 position that the station or the plant may be in.
19 Q Could you give us an example of what that would be?
20 [Pause.]
21 A I am drawing a blank right this minute of an 22 example that comes to mind or one I could generate to give 23 understanding to it but maybe we could come back to that.
24 Q Do you recall if it was used in the discussion that 25 we were talking about before regarding the circulators in Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
j 330 1 Salem?
2 A I am only speculating here. It would be it is 3 possible someone might say that the outstanding reliability 4 issues on surf water might hold the plant hostage to improve 5 beyond where it currently is.
6 BY MR. TEATOR:
7 Q How about from this aspect? A particular 8 individual in operations decision making holding the plant 9 hostage? Not a piece of equipment but a person taking a 10 position that holds the plant hostage?
11 A That's possible. Someone might say something 12 along those lines or use it in that type of phraseology. A 13 particular individual has the ability to put a restriction in 14 some fashion and that holds the plant at some status level 15 that it currently is.
16 Q Did you ever use that term in questioning somebody 17 on whether they were in fact doing that, holding the plant 18 hostage, a particular individual?
19 A I have used that phrase but a particular 20 individual, uh, no, about a particular individual but I can 21 think of an outcome from decisions that I may have used that 22 characterization.
23 Q What are you talking about?
24 A The one that comes to mind and I don't know when in 25 time it was but it was probably in 2002 somewhere, we had a Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
AID 331 1 diesel generator cooling water valve off of the service water 2 header from Salem. I don't remember which diesel it was and 3 the valve had some problem with it that made the diesel 4 questionable about its operable status and the interpretation 5 that ended up being utilized was not only is the line that 6 comes off this main header inoperable but we made the main 7 header inoperable as well and I think when that situation 8 occurred, I said that's holding the plant hostage in a non-9 conservative approach.
10 BY MR. BARBER:
11 Q :What specifically was, uh, why did you make that 12 assessment?
13 A Because the specifics around that one were that the 14 line could have been isolated and we called that particular 15 line inoperable but we also called the main trunk inoperable 16 which then put us into an extremely restrictive position 17 because of the header being out, we now inopt a whole bunch 18 of other potential pieces of equipment that now made it very 19 difficult to manage the plant and so we made the situation 20 more difficult for-us than it was and that would be an 21 example of where I may have characterized as saying that is 22 holding us hostage erroneously.
23 MS. NEFF: Moving on from that, Scott, are you 24 finished with that exhibit?
25 MR. BARBER: Yes, thank you.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
332 1 BY MS. NEFF:
2 Q Okay, we are going to jump to the transcript from 3 April 3, the Winston Straun transcript. Did you review?
4 A Are we done with the remaining pages, because I had 5 stopped at page 17 or 18 and so I didn't know if you were 6 through with at least round one of this.
7 MS. NEFF: Yes.
8 MR. TEATOR: We are through with that.
9 MS. NEFF: We are finished with that one.
10 THE WITNESS: Okay. That was very clear. Thank 11 you.
12 BY MS. NEFF:
13 Q All right, we are looking at the Winston Straun 14 transcript that is dated April 3, 2003.
15 A Okay.
16 Q And we have some questions for you on page 6. You 17 are asked the question -- actually I should say it leads in 18 from page 5.
19 A Okay.
20 Q Page 5, around line 16, are you aware of this 21 individual and I should say that the individual that you are 22 talking about here at this point is Kymn Harvin, is that 23 right? You are being interviewed about --
24 MR. KEENAN: Why don't you take some time?
25 THE WITNESS: Yeah, I need to start from the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
ER 333 1 beginning. I am not sure here. You may be right.
2 lMS. NEFF: Okay. Let's go off the record, okay, 3 Rose? It is 3:17 p.m.
4 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.]
5 MS. NEFF: Okay, it is 3:20 p.m., we are back on 6 and I should establish for the record we are looking at the 7 April 3, 2003 interview. On page 2 of that interview, it 8 notes by Mr. Megary that before they started the interview 9 with you, it was explain in an off the record conversation 10 the nature of the investigation.
11 Can you explain to us what was told to you at that 12 time?
13 .,THE WITNESS: As I understood, these particular 14 fellows from this organization were hired to respond to a 15 complaint that Kymn Harvin had generated, you know, a couple 16 of page letter to -- and sent it to and I read 17 the letter during that particular, uh, brief, if you will, at 18 the beginning to understand what was said because I hadn't 19 seen the letter before.
20 I had heard one existed but hadn't seen it and then 21 from that point, these fellows said we would like to ask you 22 questions and have some information regarding some of the 23 items that are being talked about in this particular letter 24 and I agreed with that and that then formed an interview and 25 the answers that are here.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
. rl'.-8b izi
R- 334 1 BY MS. NEFF:
2 Q Okay, now we are looking at page 5 of the 3 questioning for you. It starts with, this is line 10:
4 [Reading] Do you recall the individual suggesting 5 1 that there is an increased risk of nuclear safety errors 6 due to the alienation, poor morale or lack of 7 empowerment which itself is created by inadequate 8 management?
9 And it follows here, I think they break it down for 10 you, and your response is:
11 [Reading] I have heard the person you are 12 referring to imply that some of our employees believe 13 from their perceptions that more attention could be 14 placed in the items that they have brought and 15 documented from a timeliness perspective.
16 And further into page 6 now, you say:
17 (Reading] And the question you raised that I am 18 thinking through is the issue of was there an increased 19 likelihood of nuclear safety events from any of the 20 items mentioned. I am not aware that those words were 21 used. I am trying to make sure I am clear. Nuclear 22 safety is a very different set of terms to me than to 23 say could we have mistakes made by people and so I am 24 going to distinguish it by saying I have not heard 25 her -- I am sorry, I have not heard the person say Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rae 335 1 nuclear safety.
2 Okay?
3 A Okay.
4 Q Go to page 19 and 20.
5 A Uh-huh.
6 Q I am sorry, I have put you too far, it is page 18, 7 okay?
8 A All right.
9 Q And the individual indicates that members of 10 management have nuclear safety --
11 A I am sorry. What sentence?
12 Q I am sorry, 18 line 16. Page 18, line 16.
13 A Okay. Thank you.
14 Q The individual indicates that members of management 15 have nuclear safety concerns but they haven't raised them.
16 [Reading] Are you aware of any member of 17 management having nuclear safety concerns?
18 You say:
19 [Reading] No, I am not.
20 Are you aware of the individual having ever made 21 that statement, ever expressing a concern that members 22 of management have nuclear safety concerns?
23 Your response is no and then on the top of page 19, 24 you state:
25 [Reading] I want to make sure I am clear that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
l Alp 336 1 l person has never made the point to me to say nuclear 2 1 safety. The person has sai has some items maybe 3 you'd want to talk him about and has some items 4 that might require some involvement from you.
5 And farther down line, line 9 on page 19:
6 [Reading] Never has it been as an example, 7 has nuclear safety concern or as a nuclear safety 8 concern.
9 Then later, at page 19, go to the bottom of it and 10 they are reading you a sentence.
11 [Reading] I told hat the company's 12 production at the expense of safety approaches has 13 concerned and pressure members of management to have to 14 design choices that honor safety first.
15 Then they ask, they are asking you:
16 [Reading] Do you recall the individual raising 17 that?
18 And your answer is no, you do not.
19 And on page 22, I believe it was, the question to 20 you is, on page 22, beginning at line 3:
21 [Reading] Are you aware of anybody suggesting that 22 they felt production driven with respect to the safety 23 decisions they had to make?
24 And you say you know of no specifics.
25 Now, what we are looking at are a couple of areas Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 Iraji..
i Page 337 1 where obviously they are talking nuclear safety concerns.
2 A Uh-huh.
3 Q Okay, and in each of these areas that I am 4 outlining for you. Based on what you've heard from Kymn 5 Harvin in your conversation that occurred one week earlier.
6 A This taped conversation.
7 Q Right, this taped conversation from March 27, just 8 a week before this, based on what you've heard from her, how 9 is it that you respond to this with:
10 [Reading] I know of no specifics. No, I haven't
- 11. heard her say nuclear safety 12 In that conversation, she uses the words nuclear 13 safety.
14 A I have no explanation. I mean, in fact, I was 15 surprised when I saw the tape and the transcripts that the 16 words nuclear safety was used in the way that it was.
17 I don't know. I mean I don't remember or recall 18 hearing that the issues that she had been talking about 19 connecting the words with it's nuclear safety and here is 20 the specific that suggests why it is.
21 What I have heard her say was that I think there is 22 some morale issues. I have heard her say that I think there 23 is some leadership issues in maintenance or there is some 24 leadership issues with the shift managers. We need to do 25 something and I would agree, yes, we need to do something.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
p 338 1 Those are things that we have in our focused area 2 with! the to be able to detect.
3 Now what I had said in here in all of these is that 4 myself and others never saw those as specific human, specific 5 nuclear safety because they weren't tied to anything directly 6 that would suggest there is something to look at other than 7 generalities that those are concerns that are out there in 8 the work place.
9 I would agree those are concerns that we've had in 10 the work place but the translation of them into something 11 that has been a direct influence or impact as a result of it, 12 I could not -- I didn't know of anything, I didn't know where 13 anything was brought to anyone's attention that would suggest 14 that is the issue and so I answered it based on that basis.
15 Q In spite of what she was telling you in that 16 discussion the week before and she raises it as nuclear 17 safety, she raises it as concern of others actually. She is 18 betraying it as concerns of others, the operators. She 19 actually says the Hope Creek operations.
20 A But you also note in that description there was no 21 specific other than her yague mention of the number two 22 bypass valve which I told4herI thought the number two bypass 23 valve was safety significant and we documented as safety 24 significant and so it wasn't thatfshetwas providing me any 25 other specific example to draw that conclusion from those Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 2
'1~ d-
Pa 339 1 1 general feelings that were out there.
21 And so I believe that I had, or we had addressed 3 anything that was a specific from that kind of dialogue and 4 l because I knew the specifics that was going on with that 5 particular investigation, I felt that we had done what we 6 could or should have done with what was known.
7 These leadership initiatives that I had told you 8 about before we all part of trying to improve the morale in 9 some of the harder spots that we had in different parts of 10 the organization and, you know, I don't view those without 11 some connection to it to be more than people's opinions or 12 their feelings about things and I try to respect people's 13 opinions and feelings but I don't know how to deal with 14 people's feelings and opinions unless they can point me to 15 something and show me how that's translating into something 16 that really has a nuclear safety by the definition of it.
17 Is it affecting reactor safety? Is it affecting 18 core management? Is it affecting LCO time? Is it affecting 19 the way we are doing maintenance? Is it affecting the way we 20 are doing procedures? Is it affecting the way we are 21 implementing our processes around specifics that might 22 specifically influence the core?
23 I could not find those things nor did she give me 24 those things.
25 Q It seems as though she did when she hits it right Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
340 1 on with the Hope Creek bypass valve incident and she says to 2 you that it is the consideration there of production over 3 safety and considering that you would start up without 4 finding why that valve did what it did.
5 A But you're hypothesizing that we were going to do 6 that but we did not.
7 MR. TEATOR: But she is telling you of the 8 perception there.
9 MS. NEFF: Right, the perception there.
10 THE WITNESS: I understand that the realities are 11 that is not what occurred. That is not what occurred and so 12 I can't answer the question anymore than saying, well, I know 13 what we did. I know what decisions we made.
14 Yes, I told you earlier that perhaps we could have 15 gotten alignment around some of the communication gaps 16 quicker, more timely, and I accept that but when I look at 17 was there anything not done properly associated with the 18 actual decisions in terms of effecting nuclear safety, 19 associated with any of that equipment and what we were doing 20 around it, we made the right decisions and we did fix the 21 equipment and we did not place an inappropriate value on 22 protecting the plant versus, you know, producing electricity.
23 BY MR. TEATOR:
24 Q What she is bringing to you in that March 27 25 conversation, the taped conversation is that there is a Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pt 341 1 perception that production over safety was the drive and 2 Winston Straun, the attorney, specifically asked you that on 3 page 22. So, again, the question is why? Maybe you didn't 4 believe it but she did bring that issue up, why didn't you 5 tell them that during that interview?
6 The question is, are you aware of anybody 7 suggesting that they felt production driven with respect to 8 the safety decisions they had to make?
9 It is a pretty broad question. It is not an ally.
10 A You know, I can't give you anything that is beyond 11 what I provided in that I guess I was looking for in 12 answering the question for these fellows was, was there 13 something that it was factual that really had evidence of 14 something being done in an inappropriate manner or may have 15 influenced an inappropriate manner where the outcome was not 16 what we expected and that was due to production over safety.
17 I knew of nothing that I could go to. Now --
18 BY MS. NEFF:
19 Q What would make you do that? What would make you 20 screen to that level of fineness because right here on page 21 14 -- I think it is all of page 14 -- is an appeal to you.
22 They are not hearing anything from you and she has 23 obviously involved you in her concern here and so we are 24 trying to get from you what do you know on her concern?
25 I mean it starts right at the top of 14 that they Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 0'
1 are telling you they don't have a lot of specificity to work 2 with.
3 A And that was a dialogue we had considerably and we 4 were on and off the record at different points and I said I 5 don't know how to answer these questions if there is no 6 specificity.
7 Now, we did agree in the conversation was there 8 items around, have you heard these things of, uh, we should 9 be more timely on things, that maintenance leadership needs 10 to be improved or there is insufficient alignment at certain 11 points and I answered those in previous times to say, yeah, 12 I've heard those things but never in the construct of saying 13 here some of the things have become an exact nuclear safety 14 issue.
15 And even when I hear that they are saying it is 16 nuclear safety, I always ask the question can you give me a 17 specific that helps me understand what is it I need to do or 18 how is it I can go about trying to address the issue.
19 And usually, and in all the cases that I was with 20 this dialogue is that there were no specifics and I said, 21 well then, I don't know how to answer the question other than 22 to say I don't know of anything specific. I don't know.
23 Q Right and -- go ahead, Jeff.
24 BY MR. TEATOR:
25 Q I am sorry. On line 17, and Eileen characterized Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Br 343 1 it as an appeal, and I look at it that way too. They are 2 asking you so if anything triggers in your mind that this 3 individual had some concern, that is what we need to know.
4 Having said that, based on our discussions thus far 5 1and it is still early in the interview, it is on page 14.
6 A Uh-huh.
7 Q Having said that based on our discussions thus far 8 has anything in the back of your mind been triggered that 9 there may have been something the individual was referring to 10 and we are trying to understand with what she told you in 11 your discussion with her on March 27th, this is how long 12 after that?
13 MS. NEFF: Seven days.
14 MR. TEATOR: Seven days. Why didn't you share?
15 Maybe you didn't believe what she was saying or felt she was 16 specific and a butt, why didn't you share that with them at 17 that point?
18 THE WITNESS: I have no explanation. Perhaps, you 19 know, I can only give you what I am thinking now, is that I 20 honestly didn't recall her saying nuclear safety in the 21 conversation we had until you showed it to me.
22 I am going, well, I don't remember that and my 23 guess is I didn't probably remember it either even in the 24 seven days after that.
25 I really was thinking prior was there anything I Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
pC 344 1 was connected to or that was bringing past opinions and 2 feelings into something that was tangible that I could relate 3 to and that is what I answered is I don't know of anything 4 like that.
5 BY MR. BARBER:
6 Q Is it possible that you discounted what she said 7 just because of the lack of specificity to the concerns?
8 A I'd say that is probably a reasonable assumption, 9 Scott, and, you know, whether that was right or wrong, I 10 don't know but my sense is that is probably the way I made 11 judgment is that I could not hear some things that led me to 12 do something beyond the we need to improve, you know, the 13 overall attitude at the site.
14 Well, that is clearly a focus of mine with the 15 initiatives we had and in the improvement plans in various 16 areas was exactly that and that is what I was relying on to 17 address those items and felt then, if that is all it is, well 18 then I have that stuff covered. I have that stuff documented 19 and I have that stuff being focused on.
20 Now, if we can take it one step and say is there 21 something specific? Without the specifics, I probably judged 22 that it was more feelings than it was anything else and they 23 probably discounted that there was something of substance.
24 BY MR. TEATOR:
25 Q Let me ask you this. Was this something that Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
F& 345 1 caused -- and we are asking these questions about Kymn 2 j Harvin.
3 A Yeah.
4 Q Her complaint, her letter to -- was 5 this something that caused you to be reluctant to share with 6 them what she told you? Not that is right or wrong but just 7 what she told you, repeating to them what she told you was 8 just something that made you reluctant to do that?
9 A Boy, I don't think so. I mean now maybe I went 10 mentally dumb when they were asking me the questions but I 11 was searching as hard as I could for anything that I thought 12 may have been brought to someone's attention around a 13 specific item that really was in the nature of nuclear safety 14 is at least the definitions that I understand it to be and I 15 asked them, I thought on several occasions, is there anything 16 that you could point me to where I can try to help out in 17 that determination.
18 Q Right, then they go more broad in their question.
19 When you had an interaction with them, I see that in the 20 transcript, then they come back with these things on 14 and 21 say, look, let's be real general here.
22 A Yeah.
23 Q We don't know, we are trying to find out.
24 A Yeah.
25 Q And they are coming to you for help.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
346 1 A Yeah, I understand.
2 Q And information.
3 A I understand that. So, you know, the only answer I 4 could give you is I made judgement in some fashion that what 5 I had heard did not constitute nuclear safety, not to be 6 confused with was there some sort of action or documentation 7 or something around that to try to address it.
8 I was coming from the perspective of if I heard it, 9 are we addressing it? Whatever it was and I guess I believe 10 too here in front of you that that is what we were doing.
11 BY MS. NEFF:
12 Q You have to look at the circumstances here on the 13 tape recorded conversation. This paragraph long here that is 14 around the bypass valve and it is talking about who is 15 running the plant.
16 She has already mentioned to you that she went to 17 She mentions at least twice that she raised 18 concerns to him and it is her belief at this point that she 19 now escalated out of there for having done that.
20 She makes it a very big statement in there, a very 21 clear statement that it is her concern that non-nuclear 22 people are pressuring the plant to make decisions without 23 understanding what it is they are asking for and what their 24 pressuring for and so --
25 A I can't discount what her feelings or opinions are.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
, 1 1h P(
zt E347 1 I guess the only way I know how to address it is that someone 2 can say can you point me to where that is being applied so I 3 can look into it and then try to take some specific 4 understanding and action to it.
5 When the EHC or the bypass valve was mentioned, my 6 brain went immediately to I am addressing that. I know 7 wholeheartedly we have covered that from, you know, from A to 8 Z and there isn't anything in there that we haven't 9 uncovered.
10 I also knew that Kymn didn't know that because she 11 wasn't part of the investigation and I hadn't told her there 12 was an investigation, so -- our root cause type of review --
13 so, when you take that example out and now we are just 14 getting to philosophy of is going to be the right guy 15 or the wrong guy down the road? Well, that is just purely 16 speculation.
17 There isn't substance one way or another to suggest 18 that there may be anything at all because, quite frankly, 19 had never been in the job until just the last couple 20 of, you know, weeks and so there is clearly no evidence other 21 than just, you know, suppositional thought on what a possible 22 future might be.
23 Well, that is just purely speculative and opinion, 24 including me and, as you point out, yeah, I gave my opinions 25 on some things.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 -
348 1 Q Right.
2 A That doesn't mean by opinions are right.
3 Q Right, but the whole smell of that large part of 4 the conversation with Dr. Harvin, the taped conversation, is 5 about perceived pressure, increasing production.
6 A I know that.
7 Q Right.
8 A You are right.
9 Q And decision making.
10 A That is clear.
11 Q And who is in charge now and now Winston Straun's 12 commenting here seven days later what is she talking about 13 and that part of the conversation is not shared with them so 14 they know what/her concern is maybe more about and we are 15 just trying to get it. It is seven days. We are trying to 16 get understanding for why that wasn't shared and we are 17 asking you again. I know you're --
18 A I don't know what else to tell you anymore at this 19 point.
20 Q Well, I went to the reluctance question.
21 A Okay.
22 Q And you said there was nothing that made you 23 reluctant to share that.
24 A No, there was nothing that kept me in a hold back 25 or anything like that. I truly was trying to search was Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
pB349 1 there something there that said ah, yeah, that could be a 2 nuclear safety item.
3 I discounted feelings and perceptions as being 4 nuclear safety, yes, I probably did and so, therefore, it 5 didn't come into play because I had already judged that as 6 being non-nuclear or as not being nuclear safety.
7 MR. TEATOR: Jeff, you were going to help clarify 8 something?
9 MR. KEENAN: I just thought that it might be 10 helpful with your thought of askingA C his overall 11 perspective of that discussion with Ms. Harvin now, now that 12 his memory has been refreshed and we have been able to review 13 the transcript to ask him what his overall -- what the 14 overall context is.
15 MR. TEATOR: We haven't gotten to that yet.
16 MR. KEENAN: If we haven't, I mean what were the 17 key takeaways? That' 8.the --
18 MR. TEATOR: For you, what were the key takeaways?
19 MR. KEENAN: Yes, do you think that is a fair 20 question?
21 THE WITNESS: Well, I don't know who is answering 22 the question.
23 MR. KEENAN: Well, I am asking the NRC.
24 MR. TEATOR: Yeah, the only thought had been I have 25 some follow up on that. Why don't you go ahead and tell us Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
' h4l
Pag 350 1 that?
2 MR. KEENAN: So, let me clarify. You had a --
3 I don't know how long the discussion was -- a less than ten 4 minute discussion with Ms. Harvin on March 27. /
5 We reviewed the tape, reviewed the transcript, you 6 have given a couple of hours of testimony on it. What was 7 your overall takeaway of that discussion as it has now been 8 made cleay in your mind?
9 THE WITNESS: The isn't anything more revealing in 10 looking at the specifics than what I had thought at the time 11 that I had the meeting with her.
12 I don't have any changed view of, you know, if I 13 have a different focus on nuclear safety or somehow did I 14 misunderstand or mischaracterize?
i 15 I would say, no, I don't have any difference in the 16 way I am thinking than I did before and my rationale was what 17 she was telling be about certain things I believe we were 18 addressing and I believe that they were being looked at.
19 Some of them more specific, some of them a little soft and 20 l have a longer duration of taking action to and didn't find at 21 that point a cause for a concern or a cause for doing 22 something different than already what was being done.
23 I mean that is the best way I -- I mean so that is 24 my takeaway is, I mean I got to where she said nuclear safety 25 and I'll tell you I don't remember her telling me that.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I Pag 351 1 Now, maybe when she said it and attached it to the 2 valve, I stopped listening past a certain point but when she 3 said the valve is nuclear safety, I know I was coming from we 4 I were addressing that valve as completely as one knew how to 5 do and I didn't think that there was anything more that could 6 be done than what we were doing and that management was 7 reacting and was proper in the actions it was going forward 8 on that.
9 Because I did see that particular as a true, 10 because there is a specific with it, as a real possible 11 nuclear safety concern, you know, from all of the different 12 elements that went with it.
13 MR. KEENAN: What about the employment aspects of 14 the discussion? Can you comment on that element?
15 The employment aspects of Kymn coming to you with 16 concern about her position?
17 THE WITNESS: I saw no -- I knew of nothing or any 18 kind of influence that would suggest in anyway shape that 19 this position elimination or the decision that her time was 20 up was the result of some sort of response to information she 21 was providing that was in, you know, a nuclear safety space.
22 I knew of nothing like that or had had any indication of 23 anything like that.
24 BY MR. TEATOR:
25 Q I have got a question on that.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
ae 352 1 She tells you on March 27 that when she brought --
2 she had her discussion withm8 discussed her concerns 3 with him. She is not real specific but she tells you that 4 she had a discussion with . that in her mind that 5 escalated her departure from the site.
6 A I see that connection that you're making.
7 Q No, she mad it. She did and so I am asking you, do 8 you know if her going t then caused that escalation to 9 occur?
10 A I know of nothing like that. I know of nothing 11 like that and I say that because, one, I wasn't part of the 12 conversation; two, I didn't make the decision; three, I 13 didn't make the decision for it to be moved up. I was not 14 involved in any of those --
15 Q I am just trying to --
16 A Conversations or decisions.
17 Q I am trying to explore are you aware of any 18 information which suggests to you that the escalation 19 occurred because she went to with and had that 20 discussion with him?
21 A No, as I said earlier to you, I thought that -- and 22 this is speculative on my part because, and the only person I 23 had talked to was is the reason the date was 24 being moved up was because of feedback.
25 Others had said that, you know, we have got the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
- A\ \
P 353 1 walking wounded, you know, running around and this isn't 2 going well and she is an emotional person and people were 3 struggling with how to work with her and deal with her during 4 this period of transition and they just said, you know, maybe 5 the better thing to do is to move her off site and let her 6 continue her employment opportunities outside of the double 7 fence.
8 MS. NEFF: I am finished with that. Are you 9 finished with any discrepancies?
10 MR. TEATOR: Yes.
11 MS. NEFF: Scott, do you have one?
12 MR. TEATOR: Actually, I do.
13 MS. NEFF: Do you?
14 BY MR. TEATOR:
15 Q The addendum to the Winston Straun transcript.
16 A Yes.
17 Q There is the very short addendum. You just saw 18 that?
19 A Yes.
20 MR. TEATOR: All right, I have just got to get 21 myself to it now. It is pretty short. I think it is just 22 about a page.
23 MS. NEFF: Fifteen lines.
24 MR. TEATOR: Yeah.
25 THE WITNESS: Oh, I am sorry, okay.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
pa 354 1 MR. TEATOR: I guess it is page 2 I am looking at.
2 MR. KEENAN: this is a subsequent interview on 3 April 23.
4 THE WITNESS: Okay.
5 MR. KEENAN: Supplemental interview.
6 THE WITNESS: All right.
7 MR. KEENAN: Via telephone conference.
8 BY MR. TEATOR:
9 Q Right. am going to ask you about this -- it 10 is page 2 of the addendum.
11 A Yes.
12 Q There was a follow up phone conversation between 13 d yourself.
14 A Okay.
15 Q Do you see that?
16 A Yes, I do.
17 Q In there, he asks you on the last question.
18 [Reading] Do you recall Kymn Harvin raising the 19 specific safety concerns of others?
20 And based on what, the discussion she had with you 21 on March 27, that whole conversation, how can you answer no 22 to that?
23 A It is no different than the question you asked me 24 earlier on the April 7 one. I made a conclusion from earlier 25 that the items that # was raising with the issues, that the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I DaFp 355 1 one possible nuclear safety item was being addressed and I 2 saw no further action that could be or should be done.
3 And the other items were feeling things and I 4 didn't view them as nuclear safety and, quite frankly, I know 5 from conversations I had had wit and well before Kymn 6 Harvin ever had any discussions, was that as a collective 7 group of senior managers, we didn't see that some of the 8 attitudes or some of the perceptions that people had as being 9 anything other than this is part of the change process we are 10 trying to do, is to elevate the performance, and so people 11 have different perspectives on things.
12 In fact, on a couple of occasions, we had senior 13 management get together wit to talk through, you know, 14 these things and how to -apply them and that we collectively 15 didn't see those kinds of improvement or weakness areas as 16 nuclear safety and so it didn't come to me that that would be 17 nuclear safety.
18 MR. TEATOR: Okay.
19 BY MS. NEFF:
20 Q Just to get this perfectly straight and in their 21 approach to you on both of these occasions regarding these 22 concerns with her, I mean it is a very specific interview 23 driven toward what are Kymn Harvin's concerns.
24 You are saying that you didn't disclose this 25 conversation that you had with her the week before because Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 a, /
Rp 356 1 I you either didn't recall hearing it as nuclear safety, you 2 didn't believe it was a nuclear safety concern or you thought 3 that it was already being addressed. Sort of a mix of those 4 three.
5 A Yes.
6 Q You more or less screened it out? I mean you heard 7 the concerns but you screened them out and didn't provide 8 them to Winston Straun at this point?
9 A I would say that is probably true.
10 Q What would your motivation be for doing that when 11 they are specifically asking you on the 3rd what her concerns 12 are and then they go to the trouble of following up with you 13 20 days later?
14 I mean it keeps coming at me. Can you help us out 15 here? What were the concerns? What did she have? Did she 16 have specific concerns?
17 A All I can tell you is that my line of answering the 18 question was coming from was there specifics beyond just the 19 general feelings of things and I answered it from that 20 perspective because I thought that was the question that was 21 asked.
22 Q It might have been an interpretation on your part 23 with your specifics beyond the general feelings of things 24 because they are asking you for anything that would have 25 triggered it in your mind at that point.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Re- 3E7 1 A You know, I --
2 Q It looks like you screened it. You screened them 3 out and we are just trying to figure out --
4 A It certainly --
5 Q -- What would motivate you to do that when they are 6 coming directly to you for your help? That's it.
7 A Then the only comment I can give you is maybe I what 8 misunderstood what they were asking or the intent of 9 they were asking.
10 I thought what they were asking is, was I aware of 11 things that were not being addressed? Things that I thought of 12 were being addressed I did not think was in this scope I
13 stuff. Why? I don't know why. I gave you why as because 14 thought management was going to right things and, therefore, 15 I was doing the right and proper things.
16 MS. NEFF: Okay, I am done.
17 MR. TEATOR: Yep, me too.
18 MS. NEFF: Scott, what have you got?
19 BY MR. BARBER:
20 Q I have a number of -- this may go to the question discrete 21 you had mentioned earlier regarding, you know, other would like 22 issues and events asked but I have some of those I 23 to go through and get your take on.
24 A Sure.
25 Q Okay, let me back up. What I want to do is I have Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rg 358 1 in chronologic order roughly.
2 A Okay.
3 Q They may not be exact but it is just, kind of let's 4 go back. You said you were hired o n when you 5 originally started you were the 6
7 A Yes.
Q" 7 8 And then in latetm~ www"" Iyou picked up 9 I . nd then ln WM, Myou 10 picked up __ [Tl1W Vresponsibilities, is 11 that about right?
12 A It's about right, yeah.
13 Q Included 14 A Yes.
15 Q Okay, now going back to the time after July.
2.6 Obviously, you are coming on board, you are working for new 17 71 18 Somewhere about a year later has a fairly 19 significant meeting with a group of Salem and Hope Creek SROs 20 about whose authority is needed to raise plant power level 21 authorizations.
22 A Yes.
23 Q Do you recall that, that meeting?
24 A August, I believe it was in August and I thought it 25 was August of 1999.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 it i ts
la!- 359 1 Q Was it '99?
2 A Yes.
3 Q It might have been 2000 but --
4 A August 20 of 1999.
5 Q Okay.
6 A I believe is the specific date, yes, I remember it.
7 Q Okay, could you kind of summarize what was 8 discussed there and your take on that?
9 A Yes, the plant, this is Hope Creek specifically, we 10 had a lightning strike. I don't remember if it was in the 11 evening or the early evening or late evening but we had a 12 lightning strike on that day and there was a curvation in the 13 switch yard, not too uncharacteristic when you have a high 14 voltage system and you have an electrical strike, and we 15 actually had some surge protectors on various pieces of 16 equipment go from an AC power to an battery back up type of 17 mode to provide, initially it is to allow a seamless transfer 18 of that kind of a transient but gives you time to take action 19 before and now you get, you know, when the batteries go bad, 20 you will start seeing various pieces of equipment begin to 21 change position.
Z2 In this particular case, as I remember, we had this 23 kind of protection scheme on some faux steam or, uh, yeah, 24 faux steam to some feed water heaters and what had occurred 25 is that these valves through this transient ended up closing.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I pm 36 1 I don't know how many. One, two, three, four, some number power level to respond to the 2 and the plant came down in some sort of review by the 3 transient and then there was some which was, I think that was--
4 current w as at that date, 5 you know, I don't know who the it was b u t 6 that time. I was going to speculate 7 I don't know if it was or wasn't.
) was 8 I do know that the or 9 and I do know that the something like that I thinkt wa 10 what had occurred is 11 I know it was on that shift did not recognize 12 that the shift crew that was and that they were saying to 13 that these valves had isolated thing everything is fine at 14 their line management that we up to bring the power plant back 15 this point and we are going 16 l to full power.
it had dropped 17 I don't remember what power level 18 1 to, but like it was 80 percent or something like that.
and we weren't 19 The plant was brought up in power expected and apparently the 20 achieving all of the outcomes it. In some manner, the 21 shift that was on didn't recognize thtj who typically 22 new shift that was coming on wi 4:00 in the morning and did 23 the guy who came in at 3:30 or what but 24 kind of rounds. So, I don't know who initiated on an Mecognized 25 let's just say the new shift coming Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 pt1'1 C I
I
I a 361 1 there was off conditions on these Oxteen [?] valves and that 2 they had raised power with a condition that wasn't right and 3 so as. anybody would, we did an investigation and tried to 4 understand what all that was and then we communicated 5 communicated that to an was pretty upset 6 over that because he said, how can -- how can the plant be 7 brought up in power and we don't know the configuration of 8 the plant and how come we didn't do a full scope of extended 9 condition and understand where we are deviating from 10 expectations and yet the shift feels comfortable to-go raise 11 power without doing a thorough review and so he was pretty 12 angry with that.
13 He called all of the operators and all of us, we 14 all had seminar sessions with him and he proceeded to tell us 15 that first, the power plant does not belong to anybody on 16 this site. The power plants below t nd ama that 17 management has the responsibility of assuring there is proper 18 oversight and concurring with the -- uh, and provided shift 19 support before we make major changes in the power plant 20 unless it is of imminent significant concerns and requires 21 the operators to take immediate action.
22 And what that meant was is that if a piece of 23 equipment breaks, you expect the shift to take whatever 24 action is necessary.
25 If something is in the space of it is not Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 J Ati 1C
1 imminently of a safety concern or emergency, then the 2 expectation is to have management do a review.
3 Management being people off of just the shift crew 4 to do a comprehensive review of things and that crew doesn't 5 have the authority to just simply raise power without that 6 comprehensive review being done.
7 Now, either they do it or we have others do it but 8 it has got to get done as a fundamental before the operators 9 suddenly make change in reactor power.
10 Q Okay, well, it sounded like the guidance was 11 related to both increasing power and decreasing power other 12 than in emergency conditions or --
13 A Yeah.
14 Q -- Conditions of imminent equipment issues and 15 things like that?
16 A Yes, essentially, you are right. It was around 17 making, you know, significant power changes. Well, what is 18 significant? And, you know, there were some rules of thumb, 19 50 megawatts, 100 megawatts, something like that. Then when 20 we are making power changes greater than that in a non-21 emergency issue, then the crew itself doesn't have just 22 automatic capability of doing that without getting 23 concurrence from their chain of command.
24 Q What would you say the reaction of -- was this just 25 Hope Creek or was it Hope Creek and Salem?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
- Alpe 363 1 A Hope Creek was the first group of people that was 2 talked to since the event occurred there, but it was 3
4 Okay.
5 A Who went to everybody.
6 Q Okay, what would you say the reaction of the 7 various SROs were who had that guidance?
8 A I think they took that, as you said, a challenge to 9 their manhood because they hear say that they are not 10 in charge of the plant and that perception potentially of 11 they couldn't exercise their license responsibilities under 12 what they thought they were given and so they had hardship 13 over what they thought philosophically fro 14 Q Was there any direct outfall as a result of that?
15 A Direct outfall? Could you --
16 Q Was there any type of rebellion or were there any 17 grievances of any sort filed, was there any concerns raised 18 with the Employee Concerns Program? To your knowledge, was 19 there any allegations brought to the NRC about what happened 20 at the time?
21 MR. KEENAN: That is a couple of compound questions 22 there.
23 MR. BARBER: About four questions. He can answer 24 each one individually.
25 MR. KEENAN: Either one or maybe you could just ask Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
. ./ '2-
R 34 1 what did 'know happened as a result of that meeting?
2 MR. TEATOR: Go ahead, Scott. Anyway you want to.
3 MR. KEENAN: Is that what you wanted?
4 MR. TEATOR: Go ahead, Scott.
5 [ THE WITNESS: Well, I could -- the answer is I 6 don't know the answer to any of those specifically but what I 7 can tell you is probably secondhand conversations that, you 8 know, by walking around, people would give you comments and 9 the comments that I had gotten was very mixed response on 10 that whole thing and some hostility in the expectations being 11 changed, meaning is that the shift thought they didn't --
12 shift crews thought they didn't necessarily have the 13 authorities that they once did and that they were expected 14 now to have additional support when things occurred and that, 15 in essence, they had to have a recommendation that went some 16 review process before the shift could make maneuvers, you 17 know, major power changes.
18 And that was a very different process and different 19 structure that had a lot more rigor than had been in place in 20 order to validate that when things happen, we fully 21 understood it before things went forward.
22 And, like I said, the shift crews had never been 23 accustomed to that. That is not the way business had been 24 done and that was a clear shift in standards tha 25 expected all of us to implement and we did that.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 II
Palp 365 1 MR. KEENAN: I didn't mean to cut in on you. It is 2 just helpful to have one question.
3 MR. BARBER: I thought I asked one question. It 4 was a general open-ended question.
5 MR. KEENAN: Okay.
6 MR. BARBER: And I got not a -- it wasn't 7 responsive, I got a what do you mean and so I tried to 8 clarify.
9 MR. KEENAN: Yes, and I didn't mean --
10 MR. BARBER: I was trying to provide a series of 11 questions to give you an idea of what I was looking for.'
12 MR. KEENAN: Yes, I understand.
13 BY MS. NEFF:
14 Q Was that implemented through the tarp process? Is 15 that where the tarp began?
16 A Yes. Several things occurred from that. The tarp 17 process as you mentioned which was a rigger around an 18 infrastructure of when things happened and at what threshold 19 we defined things that would say we need to bring support to 20 the shift and to provide some understanding of these things.
21 And then do some sort of an independent review of 22 it and provide recommendations to the shift to move the 23 plant, which ultimately they either did or did not. I mean 24 they always had the choice after the recommendation.
25 We also, I think initiated the air free clock.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 Y)%1 i/
E 36 63 1 Again, that was an item that had been in place and then it 2 was dropped and then it was resurfaced and it was resurfaced 3 is because the industry was using that as a vehicle to try to 4 establish thresholds of events that would trigger focused 5 attention and hopefully learnings from so that we could 6 improve.
7 And that was put in place so it had been there, 8 Scott, and then it just kind of fell off somewhere and then 9 it got reinvigorated after the August 20 lightning strike.
10 Q okay, well, did you get any special guidance in 11 acting in ehalf in this role? I mean did -
12 expect, we talk bout it being the genesis of the tarp 13 process but there was also this -- part of this was some 14 approval from senior management. Was that delegated to you 15 or was that -- did that reside wit Did have to 16 approve of whatever that threshold was, the 50 or 100 17 megawatts?
18 A .wouldn't have to approve it bu 19 expected to be notified what was going on and what he really 20 was after was are we applying the rigorous approach behind 21 the decision making that ultimately is being communicated to 22 me and so he was inserting himself by making sure
- 23 me, and were taking a 24 leadership role in implementing those expectations including 25 we all were put on weekends and week rotations to be part of Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 I/('{ 1--/
I 367 1 the actual participants in the final decision making from an 2 oversight that we accomplish the expectations that were met 3 and then we had the responsibility of letti ow.
4 Sometimes it might have been my weekend. Sometimes 5 it might have bee weekend but that was the 6 way we operated the place going forward from that point.
7 Q Was the weekend coverage requirement or 8 expectation, was that something that continued for a long 9 period of time?
10 A Yes, and to my knowledge it is still in place 11 today.
12 Q Okay, and it was --
13 MR. KEENAN: I just one clarifying statement, is 14 this line of questioning going toward the safety conscious 15 work environment issue? Is there anyway to just indicate on 16 the record that *s not the focus of potential 17 wrongdoing related to this line of questioning.
18 MR. TEATOR: You are not, W 19 THE WITNESS: I understand I am not.
20 MR. TEATOR: He is being questioned as a witness to 21 further probe the work environment stuff that we --
22 MR. KEENAN: As opposed to the 50.7 or 50.5 issue 23 we were talking about earlier.
24 MR. TEATOR: Sure, work environment.
25 MS. NEFF: We would tell you if you were the Neal R. Gross & Company -
202-234-4433
- 36B 1 subject of a potential violation that we are looking into.
2 This is work environment.
3 'MR. KEENAN: Okay, that's appreciated.
4 THE WITNESS:. Well, I have been in conversation all 5 day. I don't understand what you just said but that's okay.
6 MS. NEFF: I think Jeff was looking at it, when we 7 are talking about this particular incident, is there some 8 violation tied to it.
9 MR. KEENAN: Yes.
10 MS. NEFF: Looking at you as a subject.
11 MR. KEENAN: To just give me more comfort because 12 the questioning is broader and open ended and we are getting 13 into some technical.
14 MR. BARBER: I am sure, knows a lot of this 15 technical.
16 MR. KEENAN: Oh, I am sure. I am sure. I am just 17 looking at it from --
18 THE WITNESS: The aspects.
19 MR. KEENAN: An aspect. So that is on the record.
20 I appreciate it.
21 BY MR. BARBER:
22 Q Let's move on to the next area I wanted to touch 23 on.
24 A Did I answer what you were looking for?
25 Q I think so because, actually, what I want to do is Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 5tA
} Ail 369 1 I wanted to get into a couple other events and issues and 2 some of this actually is back up for that.
3 A Okay.
4 Q Okay, the next item I wanted to talk about had to 5 l do with some testing of the safety injection valve and, okay, 6 let me set the stage a little bit.
7 Apparently, there was -- there was a refueling 8 outage and there was a startup coming out of that and there 9 was some leakage through some valves, safety injection 10 valves. I think they were for the Braun injection tank, they 11 were check valves or MOBs and then there were some question 12 about how much leakage there was, which valves were leaking.
13 A Yeah.
14 Q Was it an operability issue?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Was -- you are familiar with that?
17 A Oh, very much so.
18 Q The information that was reported to us was that 19 there was, there was a pretty extensive debate about the 20 valves and whether they were operable, whether they were 21 inoperable, whether testing was necessary, whether it wasn't 22 necessary. Could you give us your knowledge of that issue?
23 A And I believe this was the check valves going back 24 with the hot loops, isn't that correct?
25 Q I believe that is correct.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
I PA 370 1 A And somehow there was a surveillance on a couple of 2 check valves around the bib tank and in doing that particular 3 surveillance, or whatever it was, they were going this 4 doesn't look right and I don't remember all of the details 5 but I think it was something like the pipe is hot, there is 6 pressure here, there shouldn't be pressure here or something 7 like that and that just led into a variety of different 8 discussions of where would this be coming from and so P&IDs 9 were pulled out and people were looking at what this might be 10 and there was an extensive effort to look at all the 11 different check valves that were coming off the hot loops 12 that may have communication with this particular line or some 13 version of it.
14 And, yes, I remember -- I can't tell you the 15 special leakage numbers but there was a great deal of debate 16 over, well, what is acceptable leakage, what is not 17 acceptable leakage. What is leaking if it is leaking? How 18 do you test that and, honestly, I don't know what the 19 conclusion was when we first had identified it but what we 20 did do, there was an outcome from it but I don't remember 21 what led us there but what we found was that we should be 22 doing testing differently when we are coming up from the 23 plant, from a start and there is ways that we can test this 24 loop and check things.
25 And there were a couple of startups that we had Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
p 371 1 where we had just miserable results on some of these valves 2 and, you know, we had to fix them one at a time.
3 We even had a forced outage once. We went after a 4 couple of them and it wasn't easy finding which ones were 5 actually the culprit. It wasn't as intuitively obvious as it 6 originally came out to.
7 But I don't know what the source of consternation 8 was other than it was a difficult problem to solve. We 9 didn't know where exactly or how exactly everything was 10 interacting and it did take some time to figure it out and 11 actually get to the point of resolving it by fixing several 12 valves in a refueling outage and I believe, you know, one was 13 the larger culprit of the problems than unit 2.
14 Q What was reported to us through this issue is that 15 operations in the form of the Shift Manager and the Assistant 16 Operations Manager wanted to do some additional testing, that 17 engineering felt that it was unnecessary and 18 intervened and said I am making the final decision we are not 19 doing the testing, we are going to continue with the start up 20 and there was no further discussion.
21 As you indicated earlier, it was very similar to 22 your interaction with it was a final decision 23 and they felt they did not have a say in the matter as it was 24 described to us.
25 A Now I don't know if we are talking about the same Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
e 372 1 valves and I wish I had better memory than I am having at 2 this point but -- and we may be talking two different 3 problems here, that is the reason why I am commenting here.
4 We had problems with SI check valves going to the 5 hot loops that were leaking. They were material condition 6 issues.
7 We also had some surveillance testing about a 8 couple of check valves, I believe that came off of an RHR 9 loop to the bib tank and there was an inlet and outlet of 10 something or some combination of it and we had imposed in 11 some manner, and I think there was even belief there may have 12 been a commitment to the NRC on it, about doing some sort of 13 monthly or quarterly surveillance on these couple of valves 14 and I am going to tell you I don't know exactly what the 15 scope of the testing was but something that Says go check 16 these periodically.
17 I do remember that w had questioned that because 18 it required us to inop something in order to do these tests 19 and I don't remember what we inopted, if it was RHR or not 20 and the questions were being asked and I thin as 21 spearheading, what is the basis behind those, where did this 22 commitment come from, is it really a commitment to the NRC or 23 is it a commitment to ourselves, is it a hard commitment, 24 what was it?
25 And I think the conclusion -- and I am saying on Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Iad 373 1 the subject that the check valves off the hot roof with these 2 other ones and I do remember that there was some debate over 3 the testing of these and whether that was okay or not okay 4 and that it turned out that there was not a firm commitment 5 to the NRC. It was an internal commitment in that we had the 6 privilege of deciding to do it or not do it and had 7 decided he didn't think we needed to do that.
8 Q Okay.
9 A That is what I remember from this kind of it may be 10 they are related or maybe they are not.
11 Q So your recollection is that this wasn't, that this 12 lparticular instance was not an operability issue. It was 13 j strictly within setting the terms of doing it?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Okay. All right, thanks. I have another discrete 16 issue I'd like to discuss. This one had to do with a problem 17 that occurred, I believe it was in late 2001. It had to do 18 with the severe degradation of the stationary compressors.
19 A Yes.
20 Q Let me kind of give you, to set the stages, I 21 understood --
22 A It was the summer of 2001?
23 Q It could have been the summer. I wrote late but, 24 you know, it could have been August or it could have been 25 summer.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
374 1 A It was summer.
2 Q Okay, there were two out of three air compressors, 3 stationary compressors arrived initially. This was at Salem.
4 A Yes.
5 Q And then the third one tripped, there was a diesel 6 generator -- not a diesel generator -- diesel backup 7 compressors that were available. They were started and then 8 there was a tarp team that was called out and, again, we will 9 go to the management contact, our understanding was you were 10 the management contact and the tarp leader started his tarp 11 process and there was an intervention, as we understand it, 12 on your part and he was trying to lay out a methodical review 13 of the issue and you made a comment to the effect that why 14 are you doing this? Why don't we get compressors on site and 15 not worry about what we are going to do with the unit? Do 16 you have a recollection of that?
17 A No, I don't, not that but I think what I do 18 remember is we had, uh, the instrument air compressors have 19 some common piping and some common valves that are very, very 20 difficult to ever get at unless you have the whole thing 21 down.
22 And I think we ended up is that we had a couple of 23 compressors that were down as you said and one that was 24 running that seemed to have salve reliability and the diesel 25 backups were there and if you have been on Salem, Salem has Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
PT 375 1 had diesel backups for quite some time.
2 You know, I know that I have some difference of 3 opinion with how we were approaching the problem solving with 4 what was at hand but I don't remember what, what it is we 5 were talking about. I am drawing a blank as to what the 6 specifics were or were not.
7 I know that, like I said, I was in that meeting and 8 there were a couple of others in it and -- but, like I said, 9 I am drawing a blank as to what was it that we were having 10 the conversation about.
11 Q The way it was characterized to us was we are 12 putting production over safety. You were basically telling 13 the tarp that they were headed down the wrong path. They 14 needed to get some blankety-blank air compressors on site.
15 They needed to get air matter. That you need not worry about 16 moving the plant and that this was witnessed by a number of 17 people and confirmed through further review.
18 A Yeah, I think the issue was is that we had one
- 19. compressor in service and tripped. We had the diesels 20 working and the instrument air header was stable and the 21 belief he had was, well, let's shut the plant down.
22 I said, well, what is the concern at this point?
23 Well, you know, we are running on the diesels and they break 24 so let's get some additional diesels and let's fix the 25 problem and let's get the equipment back that we want the Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Ampv376 1 plant to run on. That should be our focus.
2 As you are aware, the loss of instrument air is a 3 dual unit shutdown. That is a huge transient for the plant.
4 The plant was steady state at this point and it seemed to me 5 that the right thing to do was keep the plant steady state 6 and let's fix the equipment so we don't put ourselves through 7 an induced transient we don't need to do.
8 Q If the process was a thorough and allowed to be 9 bedded properly, could it not have come to that conclusion on 10 its own? Was this early on in the discussion about what to 11 do?
12 Basically the initial, okay, what are our options?
13 This is one options. There are how many others?
14 A Well, I don't know. I suppose that is possible. I 15 don't know. I mean I was called in. They asked for my 16 advice. I gave them my advice, you know, that is what the 17 team asked me. They said, please come in and give us your 18 advice.
19 Q Okay. Anything else you want to add to that?
20 A Huh-uh.
21 Q okay, we will go on to the next issue. This is 22 roughly a year later, plus or minus, summer of 2002 and you 23 may or may not have any knowledge of this but it had to do 24 with the Salem Meteorological Tower or that tower for the 25 site I should say.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
RE 377 1 A Uh-huh.
2 Q But what the problem was is there was some 3 excavating going on the in the area of the Met Tower.
4 A Uh-huh.
5 Q And a backhoe or something went through a power 6 cable and there was a loss of the met tower?
7 A Yes, uh-huh.
8 Q There was kind of a big push to bring a temporary 9 Rootsy diesel generator --
10 A Yes, I am familiar with that.
11 Q -- To the location to restore power for the tower?
12 A Yes.
13 Q And our understanding was, and what was the 14 protocol that the main focus we were trying to deal with in 15 a certain time period was to avoid reporting to the NRC the 16 loss of the met tower and that although nothing was done that 17 was overtly unsafe from an industrial safety standpoint, that 18 the temporary modification process was not followed, that 19 under normal circumstances a temp mod, this was in the 20 process of the temporary modification.
21 A Uh-huh.
22 Q With the appropriate safety reviews done ahead of 23 time, prior to the hook up.
24 A Uh-huh.
25 Q And then once that was perfectly acceptable, then Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Arx 378 1 the hook up would have been made.
2 A Uh-huh.
3 Q The way it was described to us was that was done 4 after the fact.
5 A It was.
6 Q And there was no acknowledgement or no LER or 7 things of that nature or anything that described the lack of 8 vigor in following the temporary mod process.
9 A I don't know if an LER was needed or not but I mean 10 I would have to read what the tech specs say but I was pretty 11 certain that when it came forward how that was assembled. At 12 least in the meetings I was at, that was not considered an 13 acceptable practice and I thought that there was corrective 14 actions documented to do the review and determine why that 15 was done the way it was and dispositioned within the CAP 16 program. Now that is my recollection of it.
17 MR. BARBER: Okay.
18 BY MR. TEATOR:
19 Q Were you involved in a decision-making process with 20 what was done with that issue that Scott just discussed?
21 A No.
22 BY MR. BARBER:
23 Q Okay, all right, if you didn't have any 24 involvement, we can just move on. So you were aware it 25 happened but you did not play a decision-making role?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
FgR 379 1 A No.
2 Q Okay, the next issue, I think you have, probably 3 have at least some awareness of, uh -- that has to do with 4 another issue we are looking into as part of this review.
5 It has to do with a steam leak on the length of the 6 MP-1 pump turbine at Salem, an S-42 valve.
7 A Okay.
8 Q This was a leak that occurred about September 2002 9 time frame.
10 A Somewhere in there, yes.
11 Q And the information we had reported was that the 12 at the time, went out and isolated the 13 steam leak. There is some question as to whether or not he 14 had the specific authorization of the shift manager. Are you 15 familiar with that?
16 A I am.
17 Q Were you involved with any of the discussion either 18 before, during or after that and, if so, in what role, from 19 the standpoint of whether you were on site or off site?
20 A It was a Saturday. I was the, once again, the duty 21 guy for the weekend and I was called b hat 22 said we just had a steam leak or something and that, uh, this 23 MS-42 valve and we're going to have to back down the unit to 24 take off the heat pump and depending on the problem, we may 25 have to take the unit off line because it may be un-Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
TR-e 380 1 isulatable.
2 Okay, he says I am going to -- I said okay.
3 says I am going to go up to the plant and I am going to head 4 up the troops and we will make sure we are doing the right 5 things. Okay. Fine, keep me informed.
6 Several hours later. It wasn't too long and so I 7 am going to say it was probably within a couple of hours, I 8 got a call from saying we've isolated the issue. We 9 don't have to take the plant off line. We are at about 50 or 10 60 percent power. We are going to bring the feed pump back 11 and we've got the condition arrested.
12 I said, wow, okay. You sounded like it was death 13 before and now all of sudden, you know, it is okay. I have 14 no idea of what we did or how we did it other than this leak 15 was isolated.
16 It wasn't a part of any conversations other than 17 information to me, and I was at home at the 18 time, telling me the initial situation and then the 19 conclusion of the situation.
20 I did know that in the Monday time frame after the 21 weekend, there was some scuttlebutt about Industrial Safety 22 and one of the Chief Union Stewards had said that the work 23 practice and the implementation by a-fsenior managerf 24 _ was completely inappropriate or something to that 25 effect.7' Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pace 381 1 was in charge of an he 2 headed up a review of ,that.
3 Concurrent with that, I was the single point for 4 grievances to be reviewed at in step 3 of the process for the 5 site. I received a grievance from the Union through the 6 normal chain that had stated that there was a failure to 7 practice industrial safety and management doing bargaining 8 unit work. I mean in the contract's face, whether it is safe 9 or unsafe is not really in the domain of the Union contract.
10 What is germane to the Union contract is who is supposed to 11 do that work.
12 We have an agreement with the Union that bargaining 13 unit work a management person did that and so my view was 14 that that was inappropriate.
15 That was my end of involvement. No end of 16 the involvement was more of the specifics of what actions did 17 itake? What was the communication between the shift.
18 Who knew, who didn't know and all of that kind of stuff.
19 I don't know what the details of the investigation 20 actually turned out to be. I wasn't part of it. I mean so I 21 can only tell you at this point that I know what some of the 22 actions were out of it but what the actual conclusion was, I 23 am not sure.
24 MR. BARBER: Okay. All right. Let's move on to 25 the next -- did you have follow up?
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 T1'
1 BY MS. NEFF:
2 Q Was there more to it? More to the actions out of 3 it that you want to add to?
4 A Well, I know there was a discussion about was there 5 industrial safety practices done correct? That was one theme 6 and it had to do with the use of ladders and fall protection 7 and that kind of stuff and the information that I had heard 8 was that work was done off a ladder without the proper fall 9 correction and there was some shimmying on a pipe to get to 10 this particular valve. Whether that is true or untrue, I 11 don't know. That is just what I've heard and so that was 12 viewed as being setting the wrong example or the wrong 13 standard for industrial safety.
14 The other thing that I had heard was that there was 15 some sort of conflict of such between the hat 16 was on and nd I think it wa that was the 17 on shift.
18 I don't remember who told me about things but, you 19 know, it doesn't matter. I was aware that this potential 20 existed, that there was this conflict.
21 It just so happened by coincidence Tuesday, 22 Wednesday, Thursday of that week I happened to be in the 23 control room and I talked t about things in general 24 and I just asked him a casual question, what happened the 25 other day? I mean I heard that, you know, you were all bent Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 I- /
Pqe 383 1 out of shape about, you know, this being done and he says, 2 well, who told you that and he goes, we didn't have a 3 problem.
4 We had a problem with the equipment. A said he 5 would go out there and look at it. The Union fellow, the 6 l equipment operator was a little, uh, skiddish about how to go 7 l about doing this. I guess the two of them exchanged ideas 8 an said I'll do it and if you are okay with that and he 9 went up and closed the valve or something like that and it 10 seemed initially that things were okay.
11 And my conversation wit l seemed similar, that 12 he thought people were blowing things up out of more 13 proportion than actually was true.
14 Now, I wasn't part of the investigation so I can 15 only tell you these are some of the conversations I had with 16 people and what they said.
17 BY MR. TEATOR:
18 Q During that conversation with did he give 19 you any indication that he did not know that' 20 is it 21 MS. NEFF: It was 22 MR. TEATOR: Was going to go out and close the 23 valve.
24 THE WITNESS: I don't -- I don't remember. I mean, 25 so I would have to say I don't know. Could you ask it in Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
n 384 1 absolutes, please? Could you repeat the question again?
2 BY MR. TEATOR:
3 Q Yes, during that conversation you had wit 4 you asked him how is things going?
5 A Yes.
6 Q Or what happened? During that conversation did he 7 give you any indication that that night when this event is 8 going on that he did not know tha was going to 9 close that valve?
10 A I don't think he knew and so I'd answer your 11 question by saying new that the operator an were 12 out there. I don't know if 'knew specifically who closed 13 the valve.
14 Q Did he give you any indication that he did not know 15 that the valve was going to be closed by someone?
16 A Oh, I didn't hear that. In other words, I thought 17 that in some manner ad dispatched people to go look at 18 this and to assess the situation and nd this 19 operator ended up doing it.
20 Q Right, looking and assessing are different than 21 closing it.
22 A I see. I can't answer, I don't know. I don't know
- 23. if assessing means take the action or if assessing was report 24 back and then I will order you to take the action. I don't 25 know. I don't know.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Rm 385 1 MR. TEATOR: Okay.
2 MR. BARBER: Do you have anymore on that?
3 MS. NEFF: No.
4 BY MR. BARBER:
5 Q Okay, another issue. This is, and you may or may 6 not have any knowledge of this but again, I will just give 7 you a little background and then ask you some questions about 8 it.
9 This happened to be that it is a Hope Creek issue.
10 It is a, uh, it was a loss of cross load indication, which 11 is, it is a computer program that was used to verify certain 12 parameters that are needed after the unit was power operated 13 and my understanding is, the previous hundred percent ratio 14 on power is 3293 megawatts thermal and the new hundred 15 percent power after tower operating I think was 3339 16 megawatts thermal. That is roughly --
17 A That is correct.
18 Q Roughly 40 to 50 megawatts --
19 A Thermal.
20 Q -- Thermal.
21 A Right.
22 Q Forty to 50 megawatts more and our understanding 23 was the plant power was being solely increased between 3293 24 and 3339. There was a loss of cross load indication, and 25 some problems with the computer.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
R- 386 1 The reactor operator had made a recommendation 2 because of the nature of the problem, that there were some 3 changes taking place with Z-9 and he felt that it was 4 conservative to lower power back below the 3293 threshold 5 which would be over a hundred percent power threshold and 6 which the existing computer program could buy or could verify 7 and when we are talking maybe a one to two percent power 8 increase at the most had discussed it with his peers, other 9 reactor operators and himself, they concluded that that was 10 appropriate and before they could inform the supervisor that 11 that was their intention and wanted to get his buy in and 12 were proceeding to do that and then somewhere in the midst of 13 the evolution or prior to it actually starting, the shift 14 manager came back and said, told them to stop.
15 And there was a lengthy discussion about the need, 16 why they felt they needed to take this conservative action 17 and was it really needed? Couldn't they stay where they 18 were? Couldn't they use APR admin indication or other 19 indications to verify that in fact they weren't exceeding 100 20 percent power?
21 A Uh-huh.
22 Q And this was viewed as an example of a potentially 23 nonconservative decision. It was viewed as a potential 24 production over safety issue and I just want to know did you 25 have any discussions or involvement, any awareness of this --
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
p 387 1 zero?
2 MS. NEFF: You are indicating a zero.
3 THE WITNESS: Thank you, I know nothing about this 4 specific set of information.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay. All right, we didn't have a 6 really good time frame on that and so, uh --
7 MS. NEFF: That was spring 2002, if I remember 8 correctly.
9 MR. BARBER: 2002?
10 MS. NEFF: Spring 2002.
11 THE WITNESS: I mean I knew we were doing upgrades 12 in the spring of 2002. I do recall some, you know, trouble 13 with the cross flow but I don't know anything that you are 14 describing here.
15 MR. BARBER: Okay, all right, I won't -- I actually 16 had a fairly long description of turbine bypass load but I 17 think you have covered that in enough detail.
18 THE WITNESS: I hope so.
19 MR. BARBER: So we will'skip over that.
20 THE WITNESS: Could we, please?
21 BY MR. BARBER:
22 Q And if you ever happen to hear about the activity 23 of management of that?
24 A Which one is that?
25 Q The one on Sunday.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
388 1 1 A Oh, okay, that was closure on that weekend.
2 Q Yeah, the normal power. Now, do you want to add 3 anything on that? We didn't really spend a lot of time 4 talking about that. Most of the discussion we were all 5 trying to determine the bypass valve.
6 I mean our understanding was, is that you did not 7 become aware of this until I think Wednesday. Actually, I 8 think M became aware of it during the discussion 9 in sort and then you were informed then and you went through 10 it and you started telling us who is talking and called a 11 bunch of people on Thursday how that --
12 l A Yes.
13 Q -- Tuesday folks had at INPO --
14 A Somehow when I got a notification I read on Tuesday 15 it was mid day Tuesday. X as in sort and we connected and 16 we said did you know this, did you know that and I'm going 17 what happened here and that prompted this get the troops 18 moving here, this could be not a good scene.
19 Q Did you ever have any discussions with any of your 20 reports on this issue as to why you didn't know about it 21 sooner?
22 A Yes.
23 Q What were you told on that?
24 A And was the one I had specific 25 conversation of because I did learn he was aware of it on Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
<X ,-
pa 389 1 Monday morning. I don't think he was aware of it Sunday or 2 Monday morning, say, midnight to 6:00 a.m. that something of 3 that magnitude had occurred.
4 He did know when was going off shift, he debriefed and said I don't think things went as well 6 as they should have here and, uh, however, as focused 7 with the plant where it was and dealing with some of the 8 things they were talking about Monday morning and so he was 9 focused on that and told jto go home and to come back 10 Tuesday and we would work on it.
11 And I think *told me after all of this 12 investigation stuff, he said that that was inappropriate on 13 his part, that he had the responsibility as of 14 being aware of something like that, to notify the chain of 15 command and he recognized that was a deficiency.
16 Also recognized that because it was reactivity that 17 management was unable to take action for several days in 18 order to get to the full genesis of what had occurred and I 19 think said, you know, I'd be surprised if he would say it 20 any differently. I said that was an error on my part.
21 Q It has been reported to us that he was distracted 22 because of the lengthy discussion on Monday morning revolving 23 around the turbine bypass valve and what to do with that and 24 how it worked with the plant and how to leave the plant.
25 A Because I can say I had direct eyeball to eyeball Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433 j j ! 3V-
- Re 390 1 with W that is not true.
2 Q Okay. Do you have any follow ups on that?
3 No? Okay. The last issue I'd like to mention was 4 the Hope Creek emergency de-stair and inner core leak. This 5 was a circumstance where there was a small drip from an inner 6 core piping, either the pump or piping and it got worse, it 7 started, the magnitude had increased over a weekend. The 8 pump was declared inoperable.
9 A Is that the one we had under discussion back in 10 October, you and I?
11 Q Yes.
12 A That is what I remember.
13 Q That was part of it and your repair attempts had 14 failed.
15 A Yes.
16 Q You had to shut down. The unit came from full 17 power and had about 40 percent.
18 A Yes.
19 Q Engineering had turned things around by that time 20 and I think your characterization of that was, is that you 21 were disappointed with engineering because they didn't 22 understand the design basics of the system.
23 A That's right.
24 Q Then one thing that we didn't really discuss at the 25 l time was -- I mean you made an assertion that that was your Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
lAlp 391 1 take, or your take away from that. At least that is what I 2 remember from looking at the --
3 A That was based on the involvement, knowledge I had 4 with the people that were wrestling with the issue and how we 5 captured the lessons learned from that three or four days of 6 effort, and I believe that is what we documented to the NRC 7 as well is that there was design basis information 8 particularly around the thrust that you can go either side 9 and requirements that you need on the pumps if you are going 10 this way or that way and some tools or something to that 11 effect that you need to have and we didn't have it captured 12 into the vendor manual. We didn't have it captured some 13 other places. We didn't even know that.
14 We had past occurrences that the shim stuff had 15 been changed and we didn't understand why we had the shim 16 change and so I mean, you are right, I said is that we didn't 17 understand the design basis behind those components.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay. I guess that's it. I don't 19 have anymore unless, did you have any follow up questions on 20 any of these?
21 MR. TEATOR: No, I don't.
22 MR. BARBER: Did you have anything else you wanted 23 to add on any of the things we have just discussed?
24 THE WITNESS: No.
25 MR. BARBER: Okay. Thank you.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
Pge392 1 MS. NEFF: Anything further at all on any other 2 event? If not, on anything that we have just discussed, do 3 you have anything you would like to add at this time to 4 anything we have covered in these two days?
5 Anything you would like to add to the record at 6 this point?
7 THE WITNESS: I don't think so.
8 MR. KEENAN: Maybe we could take a quick break?
9 THE WITNESS: All right, and maybe --
10 MS. NEFF: Take a break, think about it and we will 11 regroup and then we will probably wrap it up at that point.
12 THE WITNESS: Yep, okay.
13 MS. NEFF: All right, it is now approximately 4:46.
14 We will go off the record.
15 [Whereupon, a short recess wias taken.]
16 MS. NEFF: Okay, we are back on the record. It is 17 approximately 5:03 p.m.
18 We had essentially concluded and we have nothing 19 further to add to the record at this time, is that right, 20 Tim?
21 THE WITNESS: Yes, I don't have anything further to 22 add from what we have previously discussed. All I would say 23 is I appreciate your patience with me and giving me the 24 opportunity to try to explain things and the patience to 25 allow that to occur and so I think you for that.
Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
. -- 393 1 MS. NEFF: And, likewise, we are very appreciative 2 of all the time it took for you to pass through these issues 3 with us in these two days, you and Jeff both, we appreciate 4 the time you took away from what you're normally assigned to 5 and it was great deal of your time and we recognize that and 6 we thank for that.
7 A couple of closing questions. Have I or any other 8 NRC representative, Scott Barber, Jeff Teator offered you any 9 promises or rewards or threatened you in any manner in 10 exchange for your information today?
11 THE WITNESS: No.
12 MS. NEFF: And have you appeared here freely and 13 voluntarily?
14 THE WITNESS: I have.
15 MS. NEFF: Okay, at this point, we will conclude 16 the interview. It is 5:04 p.m.
17 [Whereupon, at 5:04 p.m., the interview was 18 concluded.]
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Company 202-234-4433
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Interview of Docket Number: 1-2003-051 and 1-Of603-045 Location: Atlanta, GA were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the I
transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
Warren Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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