ML061770117
| ML061770117 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 10/29/2003 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1177 | |
| Download: ML061770117 (154) | |
Text
t Official Transcript IiJ of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Intervew Docket Number: 1-2003-051 f6 777111 Location:
Date: October 29, 2003 Work Order'No.: NRC-1177 Pages 1-15/53 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 LLfQwas Meteed I
. I.
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS INTERVIEW IN THE MATTER OF:
INTERVIEW OF II Docket_01 1- 2 0 0 3 0 5 1 X
H Wednes Octob 2 2003 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 1:25 p.m.
BEFORE:
Senior Special Agent Jeffrey Teator ALSO PRESENT:
Scott Barber NRC Region I Official NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4-433
2 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 1:25 p.m.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Today's date is 4 October 29th, the year is 2003, and my name is Jeffrey 5 Teator. I am the Senior Special Agent with the U.S.
6 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of 7 Investigations.
8 It's about 1:25 in the afternoon, and this 9 afternoon myself and Mr. Scott Barber are interviewing 10 11 This interview is taking place at his 12 residence. And what's your residenc 13 14 15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you. And 16 jprior to going on the record today, did 17 I present you with my credentials?
18 Yes, you showed me your 19 badge and your ID card.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And do you have 21 any objection today to providing sworn testimony to 22 Mr. Barber and I?
23 Not at all.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Raise your 25 right hand for me, please.
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3
- ':*'* -';okay.
i7 --. j -
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
3 you swear that the information that you are about to 4 provide to me is the truth, the whole truth and 5 nothing but the truth?
- 6. I do.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you.
8 we're here today to follow up on an 9 allegation and some information you provided to NRC 10 Resident Inspector Mel Gray(phonetic), last Friday, I 11 believe the 24th of October.
12 It's, so we need to get additional detail 13 from you regarding that. Again, participating in the 14 interview today with me is Mr. Barber. Scott, would 15 you identify yourself for the record, please.
16 MR. BARBER: Sure. My name is Scott 17 Barber, I'm a Senior Project Engineer with the 18 Division of Reactor Projects.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: U 20 this is --
21 V I'm going to turn the light 22 on for you.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
24 j1*19-this is a voluntary interview. I mean do you
-7(
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4 1 wish to go forward and provide us with the information 2 we're going to be asking you about?
3 k _aw*i _10 I feel like I have an 4 obligation to do so.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Could 6 you state your full name for the record, please, and 7 spell your last name?
8 10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you. I 11 should of asked you this before, but do you have a 12 form of identification on you?
13 Not on me, but I'll bring it 14 out.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Go get it and 16 we'll take a short break.
17 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 18 briefly went off the record.)
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we're 20 back on the record, and, rihas provided me with hi Driver's License, as a form of 22 identification.
23 This shows your Driver's License 24 Identification Number to be, the letter NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 41'213IDLnnIf l C) knIT %I;: tMW
5 1 It shows your date of birth as 2 is that correct?
3 That is correct.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And it 5 shows a former address on here asI2i t
'6 Is that your former 7 address?
Yes, sir.
8 9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, here is 10 this. Thank you for that. What is your date, I 11 already did your date of birth. Where were you born?
12 13- SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And what 14 is your Social Security Number?
M **1 15 16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And I just got 17 your home address. Do you have a home telephone 18 number here?
19 j It will changing shortly.
20 It-9 And it will be turned off the 4th.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The 4th of 22 November?
23 November, correct.
24 SR.,- SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, and what 25 is your cell phone number?
1 NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And how 3 long will that remain in service? Will that be --
4 At least a month.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And you, 6 you're moving from the area on what, Friday?
7 ' Well, Friday, Saturday, 8 Sunday, the date is getting softer.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And you and 10 your family are moving to where?
11 12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, do you 13 have a new address there?
14 Yes.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Could you give 16 it to me, please? .......
17 ~.R' 18 19 ol i 20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, do you 21 have a phone number there, yet?
22 (j'" No.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Did you 24 ever serve in the United States military?
25 No.
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7 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
2 Have you attended college?
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Have you 5 graduated from college?
6No 7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. How many 8 years of school do you have in?
9 10 i 11 12 13 14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And when 15 were you hired to work at, did you work at Salem or 16 Hope Creek?
17 . I worked at Hope Creek, my 18 primary job, and I worked at Salem for utages.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, when were 20 you hired to work at Hope Creek, when was that?
21 aft M-22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And what were 23 you hired as, what was your job?
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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8 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And when was 2 your last day of employment?
3 4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was it a 5 voluntary separation?
6 Yes.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. You 8 weren't fired or anything, were you?
9 -- No, I felt like there was no 10 future for me there because I was the one that spoke 11 up often and they don't really care for that.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we're 13 going to go over --.. Mel Gray'1ataloged ten specific 14 issues that you brought up to him. And we're going to 15 go over those with you, but, during the course of 16 asking questions about those specific things, I want 17 you to talk about what led you to want to leave 18 (inaudible), okay?
19 i*: :Sure.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you left, 21 who was your supervisor? Do you remember who that 22 was?
23 V Well, my ser%iorsupervisor 24 was (inaudible).
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9 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And what was 2 his title?
3 -V k~ 4~k..
4 5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At Hope Creek?
6 At Hope Creek.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And how long 8 was he your supervisor, approximately?
9 The last two or three 10 months.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And before 12 that, who would have been in your position that you 13 ultimately reported to?
14 1:* (inaudible).
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: (
16 (inaudible)?
17 OM I( He's also (inaudible).
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And how long 19 did you report to Mr. (inaudible), around?
- A year.
20 21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Before him?
22 (inaudible) 23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Same title,
- '*"....."Yes .
24
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10 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And how long 2 did you report to him?
3 'About a year. Because while 4 we're in training we don't work for them.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you left, 6 who was your immediate supervisor? Was there a 7 general - -
8 : There's five of them. You 9 see, I had five supervisors and; (phonetic) was 10 the!
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So you worked 12 on *then?
13 : I was with Control', but we 14 managed the work for the shifts.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Uh huh. And 16 you're moving out to Are you taking 17 employment at 18 19:'o 20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:. In the 21 22 *1Yes. My boss will be 23 ,hop I think that's how you say it.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And when is 25 your first day going to be out there?
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11 1 It's either the 10th or the 2 $12th of November, they haven't decided because of the>\
3 i holiday.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You've got a 5 lot of driving to dobetween here and there, right?
6 l (inaudible) 7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yeah, is that 8 what you've got it figured out to?
9 Well, six, but five nights.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mentioned 11 . -Can you give me a general 12 description of your job duties, day-to-day job duties?
13 Real general.
14 ,Basically, if it needs to be 15 done and it has to be touched, we touch it.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You manipulate 17 valves, operate equipment?
- Yes.
18 19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At the 20 direction of the Control Room?
21 22 MR. BARBER: Are there instances when you 23 have to do that without (inaudible) or (inaudible)?
24 Is there anything that's protocol, but it's a skill 25 craft type thing? - NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1.They have a very limited 2 skill of the craft. And they found that recently some 3 of the Hirees don't have as much experience as they 4 expect, so a lot of the skilled craft is going away, 5 I think, procedurally, because of, we've had several 6 recent events where, you're supposed to know that, and 7 they didn't know.
8 Almost everything is proceduralized now.
9 MR. BARBER: Okay.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's, now the 11 firsts thing I'd like to talk about is an issue you 12 raised to44el Gray'that involved cheating during a 13 qualification training.
14 Ys 15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you go 16 ahead and tell me about that first, when your training 17 began, you can start there.
18 1 OOkay, we started March 26th, 19 2001, was our first day in training. And we finished 20 up just before Christmas with all the classroom and 21 all of that. And we actually qualified, our OJTO days 22 and my classes (inaudible) eight to ten months later 23 for all four buildings was me at (inaudible).
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13 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So when did you 2 become a 3 On or about?
4 This spring, March.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Spring, 6 /* *,Yes.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And if began March of) 8 9 Yes.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Almost, that's 11 a total of a two year process.
12 It should have taken about 13 18 months. And one of the things that I mentioned to 14 fMeli was part of the process of their managing 15 information was that if you spoke up, if there's 16 something that was quote/unquote out of line, they 17 would not support you on getting qualified.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to 19 talk about that. I saw that in the allegation, too.
20 But if you could go* right to what you thought was 21 cheating during your qualification training and 22 reporting problems during (inaudible).
23 Talk about the cheating issue first, if 24 you would. And be specific as to when you, when it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1'M RPH-Iff ISI AND AVE.. N.W.
14 1 occurred and who it involved and what particular 2 training it involved.
3 Well --
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: First, when?
5 It first started --
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When did you 7 first see it?
8 Probably the first week 9 when, like when we do our basic stuff, they didn't 10 really cheat on that. They started cheating in the 11 buildings.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Meaning what?
13 That was (inaudible). I 14 think our first building was the Reactor Building.
15 And a lot of the information is you either memorize it 16 or read it. It's not something you, that you can know 17 from somewhere else.
18 And that was when it seemed like the first 19 cheating really started.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Tell me what, 21 how the cheating --
22 : They were actually pretty 23 organized as a group. What they would do is a third 24 person would ask for help on a test, draw the 25 Instructor's attention.
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15 1 And then another person would then ask 2 another person for information on the test.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, so 4 it's, I'm trying to understand. So you guys are in a 5 classroom?
6 Ys 7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Somebody on the 8 far side of the class might raise their hand. The 9 Proctor would come over and answer that person's 10 question. The guys on the other side of the room, 11 meanwhile, would be trading answers, is that what 12 we're talking about?
13 MYesV 14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Tell me who was 15 doing that? We need to go find out?
16 :4 Well, the thing was is that 17 ..
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What I need you 19 to understand is, if there's guys in that plant 20 operating valves and equipment who don't know what the 21 hell they're doing, that could be a health and safety 22 issue for the public.
23 are 24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So that's, 25 that's why we need to know.
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16 1 Right. The people that I 2 can say I definitely saw doing this were( . r 3 (phonetic) (inaudible), and 4 phonetic). The other people I cannot say I 5 certainly saw them for sure.
6 MR. BARBER: (inaudible) 7
- [' ,.. .
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All three of 10 those guys still working there at the Plant?
11 " Oh, yeah.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Are they 13 working in Hope Creek?
14 Yes.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Are theyA 16 right now?
17 Yes.
18 MR. BARBER: (inaudible) 19 Yes.
20 MR. BARBER: You said the company also 21 looked into and investigated your allegation?
- 22. 22 40 . Yes.
23 MR. BARBER: And did they, did they do 24 anything either from a disciplinary standpoint or from 25 an educational standpoint, in ensuring that those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
17 1 individuals learned the material that they needed to 2 learn?
3 At this point, I don't know 4 that. What I do know is I had asked for (inaudible) 5 on my part, because there's been a lot of pressure 6 from me while I've been there to be quiet.
7 And, so what they chose to do, to get the 8 information on the table, was to talk with our
-- *1 9 or whatever they call him, 10 , and he decided that the best path 11 to get this out on the table was to basically, they 12 were going to do a strict interview and they grabbed 13 everybody off shift to get answers.
14 And the idea being, get this on the table, 15 we'll talk about it and then we'll fix it, because 16 they can't go back. And the idea is, with the 17 confidentiality thing, they chose not to pursue 18 individuals, as far as I know.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: As far as what?
20 As far as I know, I don't 21 know that they are pursuing individuals at this time.
22 Because, you know for a fact, that if they told them 23 that that was going to happen, they'd all just shut up 24 and deny everything.
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18 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You brought 2 this, thi s cheating concern, to the attention of 3 - is that correct?
4 Yes.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, so we can
- 6. goto ,- and see what they did.
goi 7 Yes.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I want to go 9 back and find out a little bit more about the 10 cheating. Are you talking about the cheating went on 11 with at least these three individuals?
12 Yes.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: During an exam 14 or a number of exams?
15 The cheating finally stopped after I went to my (inaudible), and 16 17 explained to him that, I had complained to him 18 previously. I didn't find that this was going to help 19 the (inaudible).
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No, it 21 wouldn' t.
22 I said to him that we need 23 to do something because, in my previous experience, 24 when you were caught cheating, you lost your job, you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
you weren't going to work as an 1 lost your card, 2 anymore by the Union.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Had anybody 4 caught these guys cheating? I mean --
5 ** *Not that -- do you 6 understand what I'm saying?
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I understand, 8 and that's fine, I mean it's my job to find out 9 whether it happened or not, but were there others in 10 that room who saw the same thing as you?
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
13 . I can recall--
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who can 15 corroborate what you're telling me?
16 18 19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
20 21 Because during class, after they'd do their little 22 thing and they'd post the grades, they'd discuss the 23 grades. And then after the Instructor would leave, 24 they'd start giving the guys grief because they 25 already had low enough grades.
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20 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Wait a minute.
2 You've got to give me, I don't understand what you're 3 saying.
4 Okay. Class meets.
5 Different people at different times. is 6 one of the people, I'm trying to remember his name.
7 He gave them negative feedback saying, you know, guys, 8 this isn't good stuff, you shouldn't be doing this.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So 10 talking to that what 11 they were doing was --
12 Not acceptable.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Was it 14 done in a classroom setting where other people were 15 hearing this? Or was it one-on-one?
16 *In the classroom setting.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And you 18 heard do this?
19 Yes.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, how did 21 these three guys respond, 22 ,what did they say?
isiy 23 Basically, the response 24 always would go, I would say the same thing. And the 25 response would go on the order of ...
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21 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mean you 2 would be critical of them guys too?
3 gg: Oh, yeah.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
5 Verbally?
6 Verbally.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, go ahead.
8 And the response you would 9 get would be something to the order of you can't rat 10 out a Union brother or they can press charges against 11 you at the Union.
12 And they would say things like if you want 13 your time here to be normal, you know, you'd play 14 along or your life's going to be miserable.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: In what way?
16 Did they make specific threats to you?
17 Not at that time.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At some point 19 later did they?
20 Yes.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to 22 come back to that.
23 Okay.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did Ai ,
25
- L.to your knowledge, bring this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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22 1 cheating issue to their management's attention like 2 you did?
3 I would believe not, because 4 (inaudible) about keeping your mouth shut.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, so 6 you brought it first to (inaudible) attention, and did 7 he do anything about it?
8 Yes. The cheating came to 9 a screeching halt, I want to say for Auxiliary 10 Building exam because they assigned a management 11 Proctor for that test and for every test thereafter.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And how 13 many tests do you believe 14 cheated on, the way you described? On how many tests 15 and which ones that you remember?
16 . I would say all the Reactor 17 and all the Turbine Building exams.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All Reactor and 19 Turbine Building exams?
20 Yes.
21 MR. BARBER: How many was that, roughly?
22 k+r Eight to ten.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Eight to ten.
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23 1 MR. BARBER: And what's the nature of the 2 test? I mean what kind of material is being covered 3 in those exams?
4 They would do it in sections 5 of systems. And one test would be material you 6 covered on whatever system. And then you would do 7 that many in a final exam.
8 MR. BARBER: Was the information, was it 9 general system knowledge or was it that (inaudible) 10 operation (inaudible). How to manipulate certain 11 valves and what (inaudible).
12 Was it like skilled work, too?
13 No, we didn't do skill work 14 on our exams. That's part of that OJTOG Program.
15 MR. BARBER: Okay.
16 ,-.;That's where they'd measure 17 that part of it.
18 MR. BARBER: So this was just classroom 19 training?
20 Books, yes.
21 MR. BARBER: So you were learning about, 22 you were learning about systems based on their 23 location in the Plant?
24 Yes 25 MR. BARBER: Is what you're describing.
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24 1
2 MR. BARBER: All right, you said this 3 Turbine Building and --
4 - Reactor Building.
5 MR. BARBER: -- and Reactor Building were 6 at issue. But by the time you got to the Aux 7 Building, they had stopped?
8 Because (inaudible), like I 9 said, they have this whole secondary system of 10 communication where I don't know who to talk to, who 11 he let know. But they started placing management 12 Proctors in the tests.
13 MR. BARBER: You indicated before that, you mentioned l*****' .by name.
14 jYes.
15 16 MR. BARBER: And you said at least those 17 three that you saw, but you believe there were others 18 that were cheating also.
19 Yes.
20 MR. BARBER: (inaudible) numbers?
21 . I want to say at least half 22 the class, and there we re 12 of us.
23 MR. BARBER: Twelve, okay. So it could be 24 notentiall y six people total, is that what you --
the class, Dotentiall NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4-3')-2 0IJ.*'n= I1 AfI'A%II= M W
25 1..I'm thinking that's a fair 2 guess. It could be more.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay. Now, what you've 4 described, sounded like whatever was done was 5 orchestrated?
6 Yes.
7 MR. BARBER: So that there must have been 8 some discussion prior to the exam saying I'll ask a 9 question and when I ask a question, you can swap 10 answers or discuss your answers or whatever, however 11 they were doing it, and vice versa.
12 You ask a question and then we'll go to 13 the opposite side of the room.
14 - Correct.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you ever 16 hear that planning going on?
17 I thought they were joking, 18 really, when they would discuss this. They would say 19 things like, they would call it like an opportunity.
20 Like if someone did ask a viable question that would 21 be an opportunity for them.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: For them to 23 what?
24 To cheat, to ask somebody 25 else for answers. 7e NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, so my 2 question was did you hear them talk about planning on 3 doing this before the test?
4 Like I said, I thought they 5 were joking about it.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
7 Because I never thought that 8 anybody would do that.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But after you 10 saw what happened in the exam, did you then believe 11 they were joking?
12 40 No.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, so 14 is it a yes to my answer? Did you hear them talking 15 about planning--
16 - : Yes, I understood, yes, I 17 heard them plan what they were going to do.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
19 MR. BARBER: Let me ask a follow up to 20 that. So, presumably, maybe like the first time or 21 the first or second time --
22 :. Well, it wasn't just 23 planning, it worked, so just do it over.
24 MR. BARBER: Did you hear any further 25 discussions that was, you know, where they said, hey, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
1 I'll do this, I'll do that? Before you brought it up 2 to (inaudible), was there any --
3 No. Once they had a plan 4 that worked, they didn't discuss it anymore.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you tell 7 *--M (phonetic) who was involved in doing the 8 cheating? Namely did you name 9
10 11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No? You just 12 made a general.--
13 . I made a statement that 14 there was an act of cheating going on in our testing, 15 in our class and we really needed to address it 16 before, like you said, became like a public health 17 hazard.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yeah, it could.
19 Did"" ask you for the names?
20 I don't believe so.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
22 :r I don't remember him asking 23 for names.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who else do 25 you, now you were pretty solid, or you were very solid NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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28 1 in those three guys cheating. Any others that you can 2 tell me who did similar things?
3 -) I want to say that 4 (phonetic) and/, (inaudible).
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Spell his last 6 name?
7 8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
- 9. Yes. But, I mean they were 10 suspicious but, like I said earlier, I cannot prove 11 that.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What was 13 suspicious about what they were doing?
14 'Well, as I said before, when 15 you have people asking questions and then people 16 turning and looking.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Behind the 18 Proctor's back?
19 Yeah. But I wouldn't know, 20 I never saw or heard what they said. So, I couldn't 21 say yes or no.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But you saw 23 them asking --
24 That's all I heard.
)
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29 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And what 2 did you see of it hat made 3 you firmly believe they were cheating?
4 It was pretty obnoxious, 5 actually. They would just turn around and they would 6 look at him, and he would say the number and the guy 7 would give him the answer.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Like whisper?
9 . He'd turn around and he'd 10 just, he would look at him and he would say the 11 number. Maybe a whisper, but it was enough I could 12 hear it where I was sitting. And the guy would give 13 him the letter for the answer.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Multiple 15 choice?
16 Yes.
17 MR. BARBER: How did they know who would 18 know the correct answer? Did they have like a --
19 Well, no.
20 I think they have a photographic memory.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So was/
23 the one that was cheating off of them?
24 i He was asking them a bunch 25 of questions NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. NW.
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30 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So mainly then 2 it was asking the questions and 3 the answers?
- . Yes.
4 5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I don' t want to 6 put words in your mouth?
7 But is that what happened?
8 Oh, no, yes. Yeah, because 9 both of those guys, like I said, I think they have 10 photographic memories.
11 MR. BARBER: So, from an educational 12 standpoint, this is not integrity, from an educational 13 standpoint, should probably know 14 the material fairly well.
15 Yes.
16 MR. BARBER: Because of the way you 17 described them as having photographic memories. Where 18
( was kept, given an opportunity to ask 19 them for answers.
~Yes.
20 21 MR. BARBER: So he may or may not know the 22 material?
~Correct.
23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
1 MR. BARBER: But in any case, all three of 2 them exhibited poor personal integrity during these 3 exams?
4 5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who else could 7 corroborate what you're telling us regarding this 8 cheating, especially with PERU*b*
9 10 I would say everyone in the 11 room.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
13 iThere was 12 of us.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
1.7I'm trying to remember all 1.6 the names.
17 myself.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
19.
20 22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. Any 23 other examples of that type of cheating during written 24 examinations? Or did it stop after you brought it to 25 eattention?
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32 1 I brought it to R W 2 attention once, and nothing changed.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
4 I brought to him again 5 later, unfortunately the times are kind of vague. But 6 he evidently talked to someone and someone chose the 7 management Proctors (inaudible).
8 MR. BARBER: When actually was the timing 9 of this? I mean the time span of when this was taking 10 place? I mean you define it in terms of Reactor 11 Building and Turbine Building, but when in your 12 training process, program, was that, date-wise?
13 April/May until --
14 MR. BARBER: April or May of 2001?
15 Yeah, April/May of 2001, 16 until October, 2001, after the outage.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Anything 18 more on that, .that issue? Did you catch any heat from 19 Z-1 Yeah. I made a comment in 20 21 class that, you know, this is huge personal integrity 22 issue, right. Everybody now goes through a background 23 check. The idea being do you have integrity.
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1 And I said in class that if this were to 2 be found out, it would look badly on all of us, not 3 just them.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
5 Because the other people are 6 supposed to be (inaudible). And I made the comment 7 that it's really nice if they're trying to make 8 decision about our career future for us. It's very 9 polite of them.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: They, meaning 11 12 Well, like I said, other 13 people looked suspicious, so it's more than that.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
15 And then they would, and 16 their response was basically, and I also mentioned 17 like if the NRC found out, we could be banned from 18 nuclear power forever. And it's a pretty cake job.
19 They pay really well, for not a lot of 20 work. Right?
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
22 And they basically said if 23 you want this to be an easy job, go along, and if you 24 don't, we're going to make your life miserable.
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34 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who said that, 2 in those words?
3 The exact words, that was 4 from actually.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Really?
6 Ys 7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
8 I guess this is a group 9 thing and the reason I took tis Ididn't 10 really expect him to go after individuals, so much, 11 was that this is a culture there.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Anything 13 more on cheating and examination?
14 MR. BARBER: I have a couple more 15 questions.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Sure.
17 MR. BARBER: When you got through with 18 your exam or at the beginning or somewhere along the 19 process, is there a certain thing you have to sign 20 that says something to the effect that you've neither 21 given or received aid during this exam?
22 Yes, at the beginning of the 23 test and you sign it, yes, it's you and at the end of 24 the test you sign that, yes, it's your work.
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35 1 MR. BARBER: And does it specifically say, 2 do you recall, that you certify that you've neither 3 given or received aid during this examination?
4 It does not specifically 5 state that.
6 MR. BARBER: Is it provided in the 7 instructions on the cover sheet? Is there anywhere, 8 to your recollection, that when you're signing 9 something you're certifying that, you obviously 10 understand that, because you're describing it that 11 way.
12 But is there anything explicit, in your 13 recollection, to that effect?
14 I don't believe it is 15 explicitly written on the cover sheet, no. I believe 16 that it says if you sign it, it says a phrase, 17 something to the effect of, this is your work.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we can go 19 to the job to see that. That's a good point.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay.
21 I I was going to mention that 22 in the continuing training I had an episode, and that 23 really --
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Please, go 25 ahead.
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36 1 -- pissed me off.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When?
- When?
3 4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What training, 5 who involved?
6 f It was a (inaudible) 7 training, I don't remember the building. We do it by 8 system normally, and it's normally by building. And 9 I'm a slow test taker. I read the questions, I read 10 all the answers, I think about it and I answer it.
ii So most of the people there, they are 12 pretty shotgun. They read it, and that's how they get 13 them to miss questions is except, at the end of the 14 question or not in the question, to -mess them up to 15 make them read the questions.
16 And I was taking a long time and 17 individual asked me if he could look at my test.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
19 (inaudible) 20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: ( who?
21 LLJ 22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was he in your 23 initial training group?
24 No.
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37 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, 2
3 4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'm sorry.
5 -Oh, no, you guys have a hard 6 job to do. He asked me if he could look at my test.
7 And my assumption, because he was done with his test.
8 He had left the room and had come back to see if we 9 were done.
10 So then he was just going to look to see II how long it would be before I was done, because 12 everybody wants to hurry up and go home. And, at the 13 time, if you got done with the test earlier, you got 14 released after the test.
15 So they wanted to get home. So I thought 16 he was just looking at my test so he could say to the 17 guys, he's going to be 20 more minutes. Well, he 18 started giving me answers. And that --
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You weren't 20 done yet?
21No 22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And he started 23 giving you answers?
24 . Yes. And I was just, mouth 25 hanging open. The Instructor is, back to me, speaking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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38 1 to someone at the front of the room, and I'm thinking 2 if I say anything I'm dead in the water.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You're what?
4 If I say anything, I am 5 cheating, I am dead in the water. And all's that 6 person had to say is, I asked for the help. That's 7 all I have to do and I'm dead.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Tell me what 9 happened?
10 Well, he gave me some of the 11 answers, and I'm like, okay. I finally, I would start 12 writing for him, and then finally he left. And I 13 marked them on the test so that, if, basically if I 14 took the test and I passed it, I would have failed it, 15 had I not got that help, I was going to turn myself 16 in.
17 But at that point, I passed it without 18 that. If I had got them all wrong, I would have still 19 passed. So I decided to just keep my mouth shut 20 because, like I said, they really have this thing for, 21 you will face retaliation.
22 MR. BARBER: Why do you think he gave you 23 the answers?
24 I don't know, he wanted me 25 to hurry up and get done. I mean they have this huge NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
39 1 thing about if they can go home early, they'll do 2 whatever it takes.
3 MR. BARBER: So the policy was that they 4 could, that the class could leave when the last person 5 was done? Is that what you're describing?
6 . No, once we graded our test, 7 they gave us like two hours, I think, to take the 8 test, 30 or 40 questions. And when we were done, they 9 would grade them. They would sit down and go over the 10 ones that we missed.
11 Like they would go over the ones that more 12 people missed than --
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But couldn't 14 happen until everybody finished the test?
15 Correct.
16 MR. BARBER: I understand, okay. So, if 17 you would have gotten done sooner, then they could 18 have, you could have gone through the rest of the 19 process?
20Right 21 MR. BARBER: And they might have been able 22 to get home 20 minutes sooner --
23 Correct.
24 MR. BARBER: -- and you were taking 25 additional time?
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.ý ^&3^^r-r on$ A&II A%=~ LI A
40 1 Correct.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you 3 confront about this, after he did that?
4 My dealings with 5 you do as he says or you face the consequences. I've 6 had numerous occasions where (inaudible), where 7 there' s expectations of keep your mouth shut, don't 8 talk, cover up for your co-workers or else you're 9 going to -- and in their situation they just were here 10 to help get my qualification done.
11 MR. BARBER: Well, who is this guy? Is he 12 a classmate or is he --
13 He's a co-worker, he's an 14 15 MR. BARBER: Okay, but was he part of the 16 12 in your class --
17 No.
18 MR. BARBER: -- that was trying to get 19 qualified? Or was he just --
20 This is in requal. So he's 21 an(ýalready.
22 MR. BARBER: Oh, all right, so he's 23 already, okay.
24 24 "S. Yes.
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41 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let me go back 2 to when you're in your classroom training taking your 3 test where these guys are cheating, .
4 maybe others. Did you cheat there?
.No 5
6 SR. .SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Other than this 7 one occasion in requal training, can you offer any 8 other similar occurrences, incidents?
9 None that I can say I know 10 they were cheating. I mean if they were able to do 11 it, I didn't see them, like when they would look at 12 each other. It was plain as day, it's like you can't 13 miss it.
14 MR. BARBER: You pretty much talked 15 exclusively about what you saw, what you observed and 16 interactions that way. And one of the things you 17 mentioned is the Proctor being distracted.
18 In your view of what happened, was there 19 ever a situation where the Proctor should have 20 observed the cheating but either allowed it to 21 continue or --
22 I don't know. I don't know 23 that. Most of the guys that taught the class were 24 just trying to do their job.
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42 1 MR. BARBER: These are Training 2 Instructors, right?
3 Yes. What they are is 4 they're Union guys. That was supposed to be big kudos 5 for us with (inaudible) was that we had Operators 6 Training, and they felt that that gave a lot better 7 real world experience than a contractor.
8 MR. BARBER: So these were more senior 9 more experienced --
10 - Yes.
11 MR. BARBER: -- Nuclear Equipment 12 Operators who were actually giving the training?
13 Yes.
14 MR. BARBER: And they were also the 15 Proctors for the examinations?
16 Yes.
17 MR. BARBER: And were they also Union 18 members?
19 : Yes 20 MR. BARBER: Would there have been any 21 positive or negative repercussions if they would have, 22 in fact, identified someone cheating?
23 Yes.
24 MR. BARBER: To them?
25 Yes.
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43 1 MR. BARBER: What would they do?
2 Like I said earlier, I 3 didn't really finish the statement. When I was doing 4 my Journeyman thing, they had a statement that you 5 would do nothing that would put your co-workers or 6 brothers in a bad light.
7 The idea being that don't do anything 8 stupid, right? They don't follow that code of rules, 9 they follow a code of rules that says that you're not 10 allowed to tell on them to management because it might 11 cause them harm.
12 Either punishment, you know, pay, loss of 13 pay or whatever. So they always hang to that clause, 14 but they never mention the one about don't do anything 15 that puts anyone else in a bad light.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, I want to 18 talk about another training issue and then we' re going 19 to move on to some equipment-type issues.
20 21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You toldIel 22 *aabout something about1 having signing parties 23 24- Yes.
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44 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- for the 2 popular guys, where they would verbally ask a 3 qualifying individual to describe a job and sign off.
4 But for unpopular people, like yourself, you had to go 5 out and do the OJT class in the Plant. Tell me what 6 you meant about signing parties?
7 There was a lot of pressure, 8 both from management and from your co-workers, to 9 hurry up and get your qualification done as soon as 10 possible.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Pressure from 12 your management, who? And what kind of pressure?
13 It would be mentioned that 14 your quals weren't coming along fast enough. If they 15 felt that you weren't getting enough, they would sit 16 down with you and set goals for how many you were 17 going to get done this week.
18 How'you were going to go about that. You 19 would get back with them later. At the time is 20 (inaudible), and later on, (inaudible). And you 21 would have to go report to him once you had done and 22 give them some kind of feedback as to why you hadn't 23 either made your goal or if you succeeded, a great 24 job.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did that happen 2 to you?
3 Yes.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who did you 5 have to meet with to go over that kind of stuff?
6 Usually with inaudible) 7 and later on it was ' (inaudible).
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was there 9 something inappropriate in that? I'm just asking.
10 No, in itself, no. The 11 thing, though, that I mentioned to IFI1i6 1f 12 was that the culture was, there's like a (inaudible).
13 The management and the (inaudible) was don't ask, 14 don't tell.
15 The idea being, okay, I need you guys 16 qualified. And if they can do the work, I won't ask 17 the question, so you don't have to tell me. And in my 18 situation,.I talked about the signing parties.
19 For the people that were popular, they 20 would sit down and they would go through this process 21 of, they would get the book out and they would read 22 them off, line-by-line. Well, have you done this, yes 23 or no.
24 Can you tell me about it? Okay. Next, 25 you know. Go ahead and sign them off. -C NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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46 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who was doing 2 that and who were the NEOs in training who were a part 3 of that?
4 I would say, I know on my 5 shifts it happened for the guys I work with, and they 6 wanted to do it for me. If I left my book out, they 7 would sign my book, when I wasn't there.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
9 I would say anybody that 10 signed my book, has at least signed once, previous.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Meaning what?
12 . That I did not perform that 13 according to our procedures.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you give us 15 a couple of specific instances, of which ones and who 16 would have signed them?
17 If you got my book and went 18 over it with me, I could definitely point out the 19 ones.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Give me one 21 that you can think of right now, though?
22 . Anything that we couldn't 23 operate a tower, which would be inside the 24 containment, like because it's (inaudible). Anything 25 in there. 7*
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47 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were some of 2 them not able to be performed (inaudible) simulated?
3 I know some of the Plants have --
4 (inaudible) 5 MR. BARBER: Let me ask a question. I 6 need to understand the answer to be able to understand 7 what this means. In some qualification processes a 8 signature does not necessarily mean you performed 9 something.
10 There are certain things that I have to 11 perform, simulate, observe or discuss, PSAD.
12 Yes.
13 MR. BARBER: And they may be discreetly 14 listed and there may be a thing where you circle what 15 you actually do. Whether you performed or simulated 16 something, and there's difference level of 17 performance.
18 And they are all acceptable.
19 ...--.
--_j
-. That's correct.
20 MR. BARBER: To get a signature.
21 Yes.
22 MR. BARBER: In your estimation, was, 23 could that have been, was that routinely done? And 24 was there an acknowledgement of the fact that you 25 can't get inside containments, containment is NEAL R. GROSS '
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48 1 (inaudible) so let's discuss, PSAD, let's discuss what 2 you would do and step through it.
3 And that's sufficient for a signature.
4 I agree, yes, some of that 5 did happen.
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
7 But I will say, I'll give 8 you an example where this person got qualified and 9 didn't have the amount of knowledge that he needed.
10 It wasHe went up and read the 11 (inaudible) for the storage tank on our (inaudible) 12 for the Control Room, and wrote that down as the level 13 for the actual condenser.
14 Well, the thing is, is that is a two-hour 15 hot shut down tech spec, okay? Maybe one hour, if you 16 lose your condenser chiller or your Control Room 17 chiller.
18 And he read it incorrectly, wrote a 19 notification against it and then they found out, upon 20 investigation, that he had read the wrong (inaudible).
21 I mean, the guy, there's a qualification, several 22 check off s for that piece of equipment that you would 23 have to see the (inaudible) and read it, and be able 24 to answer questions on it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
49 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, your, do 2 you know who did something wrong there?
3 K Whoever signed him off for 4 that?
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, you don' t 6 know who that was, do you?
7 ' .. '. , i) No .
.. W 8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I can go to his 9 qual book and I can see who signed him off there?
10 Yes 11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
12 MR. BARBER: Do you know of any 13 circumstances where, in the (inaudible) of training or 14 OJT or OJE, led to a situation where there was a 15 requirement that was, should have been implemented and 16 was not?
17 What you're describing is something where 18 a shut down may occur for inappropriate reasons, which 19 is, could be viewed as somewhat conservative. Not 20 desirable, but somewhat conservative.
21 How about something that would be 22 unconservative where, there would have been either a 23 reading or some other parameter would be monitored 24 that was not well understood by someone.
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50 1 They wrote down the wrong thing as a 2 result and the Plant continued to operate when that 3 should have been checked out?
4 I've not seen that. I mean, 5 in my examples I gave to him about the readings that 6 we took that were questionable, the average was pretty 7 close to (inaudible).
8 And if you would have shown it to an 9 Engineer, he would have thrown out like a ten percent 10 rule and everyone would have been happy. So, I don't 11 think we ever ran unsafely because of it.
12 But there, accidents don't happen because 13 of one error. Accidents happen because several errors 14 line up. And the thing is, if we've got a bunch of 15 people making singular errors, and they happen to line 16 up, that's when you're going to have a problem.
17 MR. BARBER: Okay.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: These signing 19 parties, who would they generally be for? These 20 parties, these were the popular guys. Who are we 21 talking about?
22 23
. **. ::. * .*. , Everybody,--'-
~~~~~~~~,"W 24 25 at one time or another, got free things.
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51 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Including 2 yourself?
3 oi .,Ilcluding myself. And they 4 used to get aggravated with me, because whenever they 5 would sign something, I would go get those procedures 6 and then we'd go walking all down and go through the 7 whole thing, where there would be no question if I 8 ever got called on it, that I could do that.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So if someone 10 signed a freebie for you, are you saying you would 11 always make sure you knew --
12 Yes.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- even after 14 it had already been signed, you would go and make sure 15 that you knew what they had signed and you knew the 16 material?
17 Lam" Right. And they would be 18 aggravated with me, because they would want to move 19 on.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
21 " IJL *jV1 "....... " (inaudible), those 22 guys did most of the good and bad signature thing.
23 The other guys, phonetic), would always 24 say, you know, you pissed me off, I'm not going to 25 sign anything for you.
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52 1 So, that's okay. The other guy on my 2 shift, *(phonetic) was always real busy.
3 So, when he did sign something for me, I was lucky.
4 As a rule, he made me do it.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's good.
6 And that's the way it should 7 be.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. Who 9 were the guys that would do the signing for these 10 popular guys?
11 Well, on my shift, I mean, 12 I knew it was (inaudible) and I knew 13 that I got some from 0 L 14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You talk about 15 yourself, now what about some of these other guys, 16 though, the popular guys?
17 I wasn't there to see it, 18 but I would hear them discuss it.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What would you 20 hear discussed?
21 l I would hear, you know, like 22 I need 20 more signatures to get done. And then, the 23 next day, it would miraculously in their book. And 24 we'd be, oh, great, you know, I'm out of here. I 25 don't have to do this anymore.
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53 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who, who was 2 that about? Who got 20 in one night?
3 I want to say I recall 4 W'--was first to complete and he was talking that 5 he had a whole lot more to do. And then I heard the 6 next night on, because we work days and nights.
7 And the next night on, they go, hey, I'm 8 all done, I'm going to do my walk through. You hear 9 him talking about setting up for his walk through so 10 he can get done with building. And, yeah, okay, and 11 you know what's going on.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's take a 13 short break.
14 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 15 briefly went off the record.)
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we've 17 turned over to Side B, now. Any other specific 18 instances of cheating on training, either in a 19 classroom setting or in OJT?
20 ;I think we've got the gist 21 of it.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, I' d like 23 to go to what's listed as Item Number 4, on what you 24 I reported to ~Mel Gray and how he documented it. It NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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54 1 talks about you being a second Verifier for an 2 Equipment Tag Out.
3 When you found a problem as a second 4 Verifier you made notification. This got a Union 5 member in trouble. After this occurred, a fellow 6 worker, told me in a hallway, I thought 7 I trained you better than that?
8 Tell me what that, what you're talking 9 about there? Second Verifier on an Equipment Tag Out?
10 What piece of equipment, when and who was the first 11 Verifier?
12 ...... Okay, his information is 13 incomplete. I was given a Shop 103 Form. And a Shop 14 103 Form, is a form that is designed to allow you to 15 operate equipment, outside of the procedure and 16 outside of the expected alignment temporarily for a 17 list of reasons.
18 I was given a list, a sheet, telling me to 19 verify that it was in the procedural correct position.
20 When I.got there, I found it in the incorrect position 21 because it had a red tag on it.
22 The Shop 103 Form, was a result of several 23 surveillances they had done over the weekend, to 24 verify that the equipment worked.
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55 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What piece of 2 equipment are we talking about?
3 It was, I want to say 4 (inaudible).
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. When?
6 . February of this year.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: February, 03.
8 And they, I found it, and 9 the expectation amongst my peers was to call and get 10 support on the way to cover it up. Because a person 11 is going to get a significant riff.
12 MR. BARBER: Could you develop that a 13 little bit more. I'm having trouble understanding 14 what you're, what you're saying the problem was?
15 There was a danger tag on the equipment?
16 There was a red tag saying 17 that this equipment is locked down.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 - So it should have been in 20 the off position.
21 MR. BARBER: And it wasn't?
22 it was not.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 And I had a Shop 103 Form--
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56 1 MR. BARBER: But was it, was it in fact 2 running or was it just --
3:*
3 ~It was off.
4 MR. BARBER: It was off, but so, was this 5 in like an auto position instead of off, so it could 6 have started or what was the nature of the 7 misalignment?
8 : As I understand, the breaker 9 was still tagged down below, so it wouldn't have 10 operated anyway.
11 MR. BARBER: Okay.
12 But the switch had been 13 operated, and it had been operated several times over 14 the weekend, because they were trying to change, that 15 flow meter wasn't working of them, it was causing the 16 dam to trip.
17 MR. BARBER: Okay.
18 .] So they changed it out and 19 they had to do calibration and testing on it. Over 20 the weekend, I guess, they had run this, other 21 surveillances, to verify the equipment was okay, so 22 that they could do a refit.
23 A whole bunch of people operated the 24 equipment it didn't, or supposedly operated the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
57 1 equipment, and didn't realize it was red tagged during 2 that time.
3 MR. BARBER: How were they able to operate 4 it with the breaker red tagged?
5 I don't, 1: I don't know the 6 specifics. I don't know if they were trying to see if 7 the damper opened so they could get flow rates or 8 what.
9 MR. BARBER: I mean is this, the latest 10 tag was hung and it's intended purpose was, I want to 11 make sure I understand this very clearly. It was a do 12 not operate tag?
13 That is correct.
14 MR. BARBER: It wasn't operating under 15 test conditions, and don't operate under any other 16 conditions. Is that correct?
17 It's a do not operate tag.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay. So; it.should have 19 been in one position, as long as the tag is on. It 20 stays in that position until the tag is cleared, is 21 that correct?
22I Correct.
22 --
23 MR. BARBER: Okay, and your belief was 24 that it was in fact operated to do testing or 25 functioning or what have you?
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58 1 Correct. Because with the 2 Shop 103 Form, you're saying you're operating it 3 outside of procedures and they have operated it.
4 MR. BARBER: Okay.
5 So they either, I don't know 6 what they did, specifically, but I do know that they 7 operated the switch outside of both the procedure and 8 outside of the tag, 9 MR. BARBER: So when you went and found 10 the switch, you already knew it was an incorrect 31 location?
12 Incorrect position.
13 MR. BARBER: Incorrect position, I'm 14 sorry. Okay, all right. Why don't you continue.
15 And the thing was is the 16 expectation is that you cover this up.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Cover it up?
18 Yes. The expectation is if 19 you find something like that, you call the guys in the 20 Ready Room or somebody and you find out a way to make 21 it go away.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you do that 23 in this case?
24 No.
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59 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What did you 2 do?
3 I decided, because there was 4 so much evidence, there was no way to cover it up. So 5 I called the supervisor.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who did you 7 call?
8 S I called 9 4M phonetic) .
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
11 The reason I called him is 12 he's a pretty sharp character and he would do the 13 right thing, and that was why (inaudible). And he 14 started the process of getting (inaudible), because 15 the switch had been operated out of the position while 16 it was tagged.
17 So (inaudible) who hung the tag, who moved 18 the switch, so the guy who got in trouble was/
(~~phonetic) .
19 20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
21 Yes.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that person 23 24 still working there?
,Yes.
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60 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, what 2 happened to him because --
3 He got severe discipline.
4 He's on some kind of probation. If he gets in any 5 more trouble, he's probably gone.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you catch 7 any heat for bringing that issue to 8 attention?
9 Oh, yes. When I got back 10 from filling out the Fact Finder, I was confronted in 11 the Ready Room by the person I was supposed to go --
12 -- *I* the person I was supposed to work 13 with that evening, in the switch yard.
14 And he was told that he was not going to 15 work with me, he did not feel comfortable with me 16 because he thought that if he messed up, I would rat 17 him out.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:o 19 you that?
20 Yes.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you also 22 hear something from 1 about that?
23 A Yes. The next shift I 24 worked with him, which was within the next day or two, 25 he came up to the Ready Room, or on the stairs in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
61 1 Ready Room, he yelled at me because he said he trained 2 me better than that and I should be able to call 3 somebody in the Ready Room and get help to fix it.
4 I also, one of my favorite quotes is he 5 said, if it's done well for you, that you're not 6 willing to share the same grace with your co-workers 7 that they offer you.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What did he 9 mean by that? What did you take him to mean?
10 1I took that as basically, 11 I'm supposed to look the other way because I'm 12 expecting my co-workers to look the other way for 13 myself.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you make a 15 mistake there?
16 MR. BARBER: Did you ever make any 17 mistakes where there was an attempt to cover, up a 18 mistake?
19 The closest I remember 20 getting to that, was I had, it was like 5:00 in the 21 morning, I was very tired. I was really tired and I 22 had hung the tag, but I hadn't signed it.
23 And when I flipped it over, I was thinking 24 about the next switch, because they were the same 25 nomenclature and everything, only one is a switch and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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62 1 one is a breaker. And I was looking at it, and the 2 guy who was with me, I was really getting ready to 3 sign it and walk away.
4 He looked over my shoulder and he said, 5 that's not right. And I looked at it again, and I 6 realized it. Technically, that was a breakthrough.
7 Technically, that should have been written up, and 8 that was covered up.
9 The one that --
10 MR. BARBER: Well, had you left the tag, 11 yet?
12 No, but, spirit of the law 13 versus letter of. the law, I (inaudible).
14 MR. BARBER: Oh, so you think that if he 15 wouldn't have said something, you would have probably 16 forgotten?
17 I would have messed up.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 On the other occasion it's 20 documented and it happened about two weeks ago, 21 actually, four weeks ago. I did mess up a tag out.
22 And I had left the EPS switch in the wrong position, 23 but it because the tag out hadn't been done on that 24 switch, I didn t get in as much trouble as I could 25 have.
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63 1 But, still, I mean, I got first level 2 written. But I found out later that I had not moved 3 -- on one of our breakers we have five fuses instead 4 of three. And it's not in the procedure to take out 5 the second set of fuses.
6 And I was distracted because I was working with that.guy, and I really don' t care of him.
7 8 And I was really tired, it was 4:00 in the morning.
9 I had been working all day here at the house and I 10 went and took a night shift because the Plant went 11 down and I was thinking I'd be doing them a favor.
12 And I was really tired and I remember 13 thinking about when I pulled the fuses, the three. I 14 was going to call the Control Room and say, hey guys, 15 what about these other fuses, and then he showed up 16 and I allowed myself to become distracted.
17 So I got written up. I got a first level 18 written, which is a (inaudible), and I brought the 19 procedures to their attention.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay, so --
21 IfMBut the (inaudible) had 22 covered up the fuses. They weren't going to tell them 23 that that happened. And that was another thing that 24 really got me upset. I mean there's nothing to be 25 learned by (inaudible).
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64 1 MR. BARBER: Is there some, is there some 2 process involved with tagging that, I mean the way you 3 describe it, maybe this is because we're just asking 4 you specifically about that.
5 Is there something about the tagging 6 process at Hope Creek to make some challenge that 7 (inaudible) do the right thing?
8 Yes.
9 MR. BARBER: What's that?
10 You're always in a hurry.
11 No matter, I mean they all said that thing, no time 12 pressure. But then they're paging, are you done yet?
13 You know, one hand is doing this and they're doing 14 something else.
15 MR. BARBER: So they're kind of pushing 16 you along, giving you some production pressure to get 17 this (inaudible)? I see.
18 And one- thing is, for 19 instance, the nomenclature on the tags don't always, 20 100 percent, match the nomenclature in the field.
21 Whereas, there may be abbreviations that could be 22 interpreted two ways to use on the tag.
23 Whereas, what's said on the panel in field 24 is not exactly the same. So every time you leave NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4-3i3 DUr~nrCIQI AKJnlAX1 UI
65 1 something up to someone's interpretation, there's an 2 opportunity for variance.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
4 And, of course, in the 5 process of which, nobody's really worried about 6 getting in trouble because they know that if someone 7 catches it, everything will turn out okay.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You, Item 9 N.Number7 on what 4 Mel Graytrote up, talks about the 10 Shop 103 Verification Switch and Turbine Building 11 Supply or Exhaust Fan. We just talked about that, 12 right?
13-: Yeah, I thought that's what 14 we were talking about.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. But he 16 continues to write here that the exhaust fan was in 17 the correct position. You found the switch was out of 18 position with a red blocking tag applied.
19 This would not allow repositioning the 20 switch. stated that co-worker, 21 repositioned the switch with a red button-type 22 appliance.
23 24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
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66 1 ,That' s why, I guess that ' s 2 why he got in-trouble.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: He's the guy 4 that got in trouble.
5 .Yes. Because on the 103 6 Form it states who moved it from the procedure 7 position and then who puts it back and who verifies 8 it.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And that's the 10 same issue which caused -7to say the things 11 that you just said and what how he 12 responded to you?
13 MI M Yes.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
15 What wasn't captured in all 16 that was the fact that for at least six more weeks, 17 every time I would have to work with someone, what 18 they would do was, like one time they-were going to do 19 surveillance in a turbine building.
20 The (inaudible) Operator had gotten 21 someone else to do the surveillance with them. Went 22 to the supervisor, got briefed for the job, and then 23 came back and told me that I was being changed from 24 the (inaudible) so I didn't have work with them.
25 This happened -- -
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67 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So he didn't 2 have to work with you?
3 SYesN 4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: He actually 5 said that?
6 Initially, and then later on 7 they just did it. They did it without (inaudible).
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who would be 9 those guys that would say that to you?
10 People on my shift.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
A ~ .'."*r 12 I
13 /
-w 14 is SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
16 But these guys, they 17 wouldn't, they would support each other doing -this, 18 not necessarily, I mean they would support each other 19 doing this and I'd find out, they would call me up, 20 ah, you need to go get the keys, trade your keys, 21 you're going to this building, I decided to work with 22 him.
23 MR. BARBER: In these different instances 24 you mentioned, don't (inaudible), well regarding 25 tagging and the other ones regarding training, is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 there any discussion or any mention here specifically 2 about (inaudible)?
3 I mean other than in a general way? I 4 mean I think you indicated earlier that there was a 5 perception of a part of Union membership and Union 6 leadership, that you want to, you know, lay low, you 7 want to stay out of management's cross hairs.
8 Yes.
9 MR. BARBER: You just, you don't want to 10 get our fellow Union members in trouble.
11 Correct.
12 MR. BARBER: Did you ever hear something 13 that would add credence to that accusation in the form 14 of, you know, a Shift Manager, Operations, Supervisor, 15 anybody at a management level doing --
13 -- I don't think necessarily 17 they don't want to put somebody in the cross hairs.
18 There's much more to it. There's a -sense of, at the 19 manager's level, they do have a lot of work.
20 They don't want more work. If someone 21 goes and gets in trouble, they have more work. So 22 there's this sense of, you know, don't ask, don't tell 23 me and we'll all be okay. That's what I mentioned 24 earlier.
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69 1 MR. BARBER: You mean they would say that 2 overtly or is this just something you just assimilated 3 from just being there?
4 I wouldn't say overtly, but 5 I would say just my observation of the way things 6 happened there. Where I usually get that if a guy 7 there does a job in an hour and it normally takes 8 three hours, nobody asks him, hey, how did you do 9 that?
10 What did you different? You know, to 11 teach everybody else, so we can all do that.
12 MR. BARBER: Why is that?
13 If a job takes three hours, 14 it's probably because you have to follow through the 15 procedures and do all these steps in a certain order.
16 Now, there's a lot of procedures out 17 there, that if you took them out of step and out of 18 order, you could still probably get done in time, or 19 much faster, but the thing is you're not following 20 procedure.
21 MR. BARBER: So if you have to like 22 operate a valve in one location and go to another 23 location to operate a valve and then come back to the 24 first location, and maybe ping pong back between 25 locations, or you could just go to one location and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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70 1 operate all these valves, go to the next location and 2 operate all these valves.
3 Right.
4 MR. BARBER: When you get done, they're in 5 the same physical alignment, but it's how you got 6 there?
7 -W" Yes.
8 MR. BARBER: That type of thing?
9 Yes.
10 MR. BARBER: Okay.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that going 12 on?
13 Yes.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you ever do 15 it?
16 17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who would do 18 that? Who would be some of the guys-that would --
19 I 1 won't say that I 20 physically saw that happen.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
22 But I'll give you an example 23 of a time when I was involved and there was pressure 24 on me to do that. We were taking fuel on to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4'%ý flUP%= 10# A III^ A%1F &I 1AI
71 1 diesel. The procedure reads, the guy goes outside and 2 lines everything up.
3 He calls the inside guy, who's in the 4 (inaudible) building, and calls him just, okay, now 5 you can line up your valves and get done, so we can 6 start filling the different tanks from the diesel.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
8 Well, a guy calls me on the 9 radio and says, okay, I'm done, you can start 10 (inaudible), I'm going to go up there to go line up 11 the valves, I'll call you when I'm done.
12 So, he goes, what do you mean? I said, 13 I'm going to have to do that. And then when I down 14 there doing it, he's calling me back and telling me 15 that I have no flow, I should have flow.
16 I'm like, no, I'm not done lining up the 17 valves, I haven't called you back. He called me three 18 more times in about ten minutes.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
20 ',Thatwas 'And 21 there was a supervisor with him (inaudible), I don't 22 remember his name, but the guy with me was 23 (inaudible), and he remarked at how much the guy 24 (inaudible).
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72 1 And it was really annoying. But the thing 2 was, was the expectation, his expectation and 3 (inaudible) other guy, was that I should have already 4 been lined up, and all I had to do was turn a switch.
5 And in the procedure, it doesn't have that 6 little clause in there. Some of the procedures have 7 a clause in it that says these steps may be done out 8 of order to facilitate a common manner or something, 9 it has a clause.
10 This procedure doesn't have that clause.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
12 MR. BARBER: So, you were doing them in 13 order?
14 I was doing them in order.
15 MR. BARBER: Per the procedure?
16 17 MR. BARBER: I mean you might not like it, 18 but that's not why they pay you (inaudible).
19 And I even suggested, we can 20 change the procedure, because you can do that and it 21 would make it faster.
22 MR. BARBER: So you're saying there's no 23 safety impact, per se?
24 .. In. that situation, no. But 25 the idea being is that's the train of thought. I.,
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73 1 MR. BARBER: Yeah, I understand, I just, 2 the culture is to not necessarily follow procedures, 3 just do (inaudible) equipment.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's take a 5 short break.
6 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 7 briefly went off the record.)
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we're 9 back on the record after a very short break. I 10 want to talk about Number 5 on /Mr. Gray'slist.
ii Number 5 deals with start up from forced outage in 12 spring, your turbine bypass valve stuck open. What 13 year are we talking about?
14 Lr This spring, 2003.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And one 16 of the two mechanical vacuum pumps tripped, second 17 pump running, (inaudible) and another co-worker --
18 ~ ~honetic).
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I 20 found level site glass for water seal low.
21 Yes 22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What does that 23 mean? Can you explain that to us?
24 Sure.
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74 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: /'Scott,/unless 2 you already know what that means?
3 MR. BARBER: No, go ahead, let him 4 explain.
5 We have two gas pumps and 6 they are a kind of trash pump really. They are 7 designed to use water to seal and it also them to take 8 trucks through them, where you can build bits of wood 9 in or something and they would continue to work fine.
10 The water is actually (inaudible) cooling 11 water. And what had happened was the Operator who 12 started the pumps, did not open the make up water to 13 that because as it turns, the water gets warm and some 14 of it goes out of the tank.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
16 And what was happening was 17 they did not open the valve allowing water to come 18 into that tank to maintain level. So as it ran, the 19 water goes out the stack slowly, evaporation or 20 whatever, and that one tripped on low water level and 21 the other one was real close to tripping when we got 22 there.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You wanted to 24 report the problem. You were told by co-worker 25 a to record that, quote, it kicked the tank.
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75 1 i , Yeah, (inaudible) it's a 2 mechanical float valve that makes up to that tank.
3 And if you kick it and it stuck, it would dislodge it.
4 The fact of the matter was is there was no kicking, 5 the valves were closed. We opened it up.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, so 7 what's wrong with what you guys didn't do there?
8 He insisted that I say it 9 that way or I was not going to get anymore help 10 (inaudible), because I was not qualified yet.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You weren't 12 completely qualified?
13 I still had to finish my Ops 14 Building.
15 MR. BARBER: Did you talk to him at all 16 about that, about why he wanted you to say that and --
17 0 I think the idea being that 18 whoever forgot to turn those valves was going to get 19 in trouble. And we weren't sure who it was. And 20 there are several people at work who were in different 21 levels of trouble.
22 But if it had been then, it would have 23 ended up in possible termination.
24 MR. BARBER: Is this a situation where the 25 (inaudible) Nuclear Equipment Operator is doing the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 right thing, or they think they're doing the right 2 thing, but any mistakes that they feel that they make 3 one or two minor mistakes they feel like management is 4 going to fire them.
5 There's going to be no discussion, no 6 appeal, just you're out the door? I mean is this a 7 situation where there's some sense that there's no 8 fairness at the facility? If you make a mistake, 9 you're out?
10 No. Not at all. I think 11 they're, in one of my many discussions, one person 12 makes you look good, don't look bad. And they were 13 very specific in the description of the culture, 14 wherein nobody wants to look bad.
15 Because once you look bad, everybody is 16 watching you. So any real mess up you might have 17 later, is going.to look really big.
18 See, there's this whole thing about nobody 19 wants to get in trouble. Nobody wants to seem, I've 20 not seen that culture anywhere else, and I was told 21 that's from the Navy.
22 MR. BARBER: Okay.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It wasn't any 24 other nuclear power plants but Hope Creek?
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77 1 * . No, my only exposure was the 2 carriers and submarines and I never (inaudible).
3 MR. BARBER: What's, what would the impact 4 if the (inaudible), if the make up water was not 5 restored? In other words, if you hadn't come upon the 6 vacuum pump when you did -- were you dispatched there 7 or was this something that --
8 The Control Room dispatched 9 me for (inaudible).
10 MR. BARBER: Okay, if you had not come 11 upon that, what would have happened to the second 12 pump?
13 We were probably at five 14 percent power or less. The second pump would have 15 tripped and we would have had loss of (inaudible),
16 because I hadn't put the (inaudible) in yet.
17 If they weren't able to do it fast enough, 18 it would (inaudible).
19 MR. BARBER: Okay, based on what?
20 Based on the idea that we' re 21 making enough steam, at five percent power, we're 22 critical. And it has no place for the steam to go.
23 MR. BARBER: What about the atmospheric 24 (inaudible), the atmosphere (inaudible).
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78 1 MR. BARBER: (inaudible), what about the 2 SRVs?
3 ..
- As a rule, you don't use 4 SRVs to control anything of power.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 iThe idea being there is a 7 very restrictive set of rules about them. Because 8 they are known to fail, we don't like them, we don't 9 like using them.
10 MR. BARBER: Okay, so you had nowhere to ii put the power?
12 Right.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you report 14 that problem?
15 Which one?
16 SR; SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, the 17 reason that you wanted to report, but were told by 18 UJ&-to report that you kicked the tank?
19 No, that he kicked the tank.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That he kicked 21 the tank.
22 Because he didn't want 23 whoever didn't do it right, didn't want them to get in 24 trouble. And it was made very clear if I didn't 25 cooperate, they weren't going to cooperate with me.
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79 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you 2 cooperate with Won the issue?
3 4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You did?
5 I mean I turned it in later, 6 but at the time I cooperated.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Turned it in in 8 what way?
9 MMMISRWell, I took it to 10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Not much later 11 then, right? Really?
12 It was weeks, a month. Also 13 I took it to my supervisor before I took it toj 14 which was, I took it to inaudible) 15 See, there's a problem.there. If you take 16 something to a supervisor, they talk. I mean they 17 talk, there's a lot of people that are friends. And 18 when friends talk, everybody knows. -
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So what 20 happened when you took it to (inaudible)?
21 Well, (inaudible) and I had 22 talked in advance about some of the stuff that you and 23 I have talked about and I know I was going to talk to 24 And he was working with in getting 25 it talked about and whatever.
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80 1 And so he, basically said thanks for 2 telling me, you are going to tell this. He 3 said you are going to pursue it through , yes.
4 He said, well then, I won't do anything because I'll 5 let .kinvestigate this formally.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And what did 7 find regarding this particular incident?
8 To my knowledge, he didn't 9 investigate it.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was there a 11 violation of a particular procedure on what was done?
12 Ys 13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And what would 14 that be?
15 They didn't open the make up 16 valve, which was definitely procedure.
17 MR. BARBER: So other than equipment 18 alignment (inaudible).
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you think it 20 was an accident, oversight?
21 If they were following 22 procedures, there isn't an oversight incident.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, and who 24 was the individual who --
25 I don't know that.
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81 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- caused it to 2 happen?
3 .* I don't know that. Another 4 thing that the didn't mention in there was they had 5 mentioned that we should write a notification on it.
6 Normally, when you get back upstairs they say, hey, 7 got write that notification.
8 Nobody said anything about writing a 9 notification. And, for course, later on that 10 notification never got written.
11 MR. BARBER: Could you have written the 12 notification?
13 Yes, I could have, but if I 14 had written it, I would have had to deal with even 15 more peer pressure.
16 MR. BARBER: As a rule, do 17 .. write notifications?
18 Yes.
19 MR. BARBER: They do?
20 Yes.
21 MR. BARBER: For what kind of things?
22 *Anything. Anything out of, 23 I wrote up a notification for (inaudible). You can 24 write a notification for anything.
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82 1 MR. BARBER: Okay, but it seems like what, 2 you're describing that the process allows it, but what 3 I'm asking you is, as a matter of fact, because it 4 sounds like it's, there's a number of instances where 5 it's discouraged.
6 Yes. By your peers.
7 MR. BARBER: By your peers.
8 MR. BARBER: So is there a difference in 9 the criteria for th I 10 you can write it for things that won't get someone in 31 trouble, but --
12 Right. That's exactly 13 right.
14 MR. BARBER: -- you shouldn't it for 15 those. Anything else you can write it for?
16 1 Yes.
17 MR. BARBER: Was that ever stated to you 18 or, that way?
19 What was basically, you 20 can't do anything that might get someone in trouble.
21 MR. BARBER: Is that a contributor to you 22 leaving the station?
23Y 24 MR. BARBER: Is that the main reason why 25 you're leaving? -
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
83 1 4 The main reason I'm leaving 2 is because I have a real problem, I, for 3 was an I've worked in steel mills, 4 lumber mills, I've got all kinds of war stories of 5 people who didn't talk, didn't tell, people died.
6 Our industry is a pretty safe industry.
7 The way the systems are made, we're really lucky. If 8 we were a steel mill, there would be people dead.
9 It's not a matter of, and I have a real hard time with 10 that.
ii I wasn't always popular, but I always did 12 it right and everybody got to go at night. I was very 13 happy with that. And I fear, I don't do that. And 14 that really bothers me.
15 MR. BARBER: Okay.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to 17 talk a little bit more about why you left at the end.
- '* Okay.
18 19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Item Number 6 20 on 4Ul Gray's4Iist is, it describes that when taking 21 emergency diesel generator readings for surveillance 22 test, was coached by fellow co-worker, 23 to make sure that, quote, readings 24 come out right, end quote.
i*:*--d-** iYes.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1V. RH-lFlF IRI.AND AVE.. N.W.
84 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When was that?
2 I was almost qualified in 3 the Ops Building. I was doing an under-instruction 4 watch, (inaudible) and we were doing a diesel run.
5 And I looked at the numbers and it looked like 4480, 6 because it fluctuates.
7 And I wrote down 4480. But I always write 8 in pencil. Everybody writes in pen. I always wanted 9 to write in pencil because if you read a gauge 10 incorrectly, it's you that's wrong not the reading, so 11 you fix it.
12 Well, they don't like to fix the readings.
13 So, I was reading it and it said 4480 and I wrote it 14 in pencil, but he made me take it and erase it with 15 pencil, put my pencil away, use my pen, and, to write 16 down 4430, because it was the average of the swing, as 17 he saw it.
18 But the way I saw it was-that the average 19 as 4430 or above, at least, and that we had a high 20 reading that wasn't acceptable. Because I think there 21 is a ten percent rule, and if we get into that, it 22 requires extra maintenance.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was that 24 reading then, did you believe the reading was, show 25 the piece of equipment being unacceptable? .....
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
85 1 1 don't believe the 2 equipment was unacceptable. I believe that we have a 3 bad gauge. And I believe that we need to address, we 4 have a lot of problems like that, where the gauge 5 waivers a lot.
6 MR. BARBER: What was this for, again?
7 . It was for a diesel run.
8 MR. BARBER: And what was the reading on 9 it?
10 (inaudible) on the 11 generator, the diesel generator.
12 MR. BARBER: All right, so you read it as 13 being 50 kilowatts higher --
14 Yes.
15 MR. BARBER: -- then he wanted you to 16 record it as?
17 Yes.
18 MR. BARBER: And what's the adverse 19 consequence of that, of having too much output?
20 It changes our maintenance.
21 There's criteria there if we go above 100 percent, 22 you're only allowed -- I'm supposed to have this 23 memorized and I don't have it memorized.
24 But if you run 4430, you can run the 25 generator all the time, no question. If you go with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS cnwA RHmoF ISI AND AVE.. N.W.
86 1 more than, up more than ten percent, you go into, 2 you're allowed to do this for so many hours and then 3 they have to inspect the motor.
4 And if you go over to 20 percent, you're 5 allowed 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> to (inaudible).
6 MR. BARBER: All right, so, okay. So it's 7 different ratings?
8 *Yes.
9 MR. BARBER: (inaudible) and things like 10 that?
1i -Yes.
12 MR. BARBER: Okay.
13 4:. Did you write down the 14 number that- ave you?
15Yes.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why?
17 r As I said before, I was not 18 going to get completed so I could -work on my own, 19 until I decided to do that.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: He told you 21 that?
22 . It was implied.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It was implied 24 to you by him and others or just him?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS DU1U" 0& CUl lei~ Al I&/1J% iVJ
87 1 Him and others. As 2 approved, doing everything as approved, nothing 3 (inaudible).
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The implication 5 was if you didn't play along with them, they weren't 6 sign you off to finish your training --
- Correct.
7 8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- you had to 9 finish to become fully qualified?
- " Correct.
10 11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who's going to 12 be able to corroborate that? Of that group, who would 13 you be on your side who's going to be honest about 14 that kind of thing? Your opinion, of course, but --
15 I would say the only person 16 that might talk to you would be, M 17 But he left !he went to 18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR-: Okay.
19 Because he didn't like the 20 way they were doing things.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Spell his last 22 name?
23 S*But I will say 24 he's kept his mouth quiet for seven years. So I don't 25 know if he'll talk to you or (inaudible).
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
88 1 MR. BARBER: Wait a minute, I don' t follow 2 that. He's kept his moutli quiet for seven years?
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 , _He received huge 13 amounts of negative feedback over that.
14 As a matter of fact, if you go out in the 15 switch yard, he's still in the switch yard from where 16 they were writing stuff about him out there, over 17 that. He told me a story where he went to the, or he 18 didn't go, but the Steward that was giving him grief, 19 the guy who is now Steward.
20 His name 21 was giving him a lot of negative feedback about it and 22 finally, I guess somebody up at the main office got a 23 hold of him and asked him to stop, actually told him 24 to stop.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS "t wnQ.4
- n £fl
- -M iVAV;:MW
.89 1 He had a really bad time. But he'll never 2 talk. And the reason he won't talk is these, I mean 3 I've heard this from everybody. When I ask him, why 4 don't we just tell them what's going on and fix this 5 problem?
6 And they're like, hey, I'm an.
1 -7 lift -J.IC 8
.9 And if I do this, you know, what's going to 10 happen?
11 I could get fired. My peers could force 12 me out.
13 MR. BARBER: But you said he's still in 14-. retribution?
15 .1 Oh yeah, huge.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Other than 17 (inaudible)?
18 I would say no one I've 19 talked to there has considered quitting because they 20 don't want to lose the paycheck. And they can in no 21 other way make that much money.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, so 23 just let's say these guys won't go and tell management 24 what's going on because they fear they're going to 25 lose their jobs. Who said that?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
90
- Well,*aid that 1
2 if he went and told what had happened and one of his, 3 the person who is key would have gotten in trouble, 4 they would file charges against him at the Union.
5 If the Union puts you in bad standing, the 6 company can't keep you working there.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who else?
8 9 MR. BARBER: Let's go back to some names 10 you mentioned earlier. I think you mentioned the 11 corroboration on the test, you said we could talk to 12 is that right?
13 14 MR. BARBER: M 4 15 16 NOW_- Yes.
17 MR. BARBER: Now, it sounded like they 18 were, they also saw what you saw and would support 19 you. Would they also support you in these other 20 instances, where --
21 I said they saw, I didn't 22 say they would support me.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay. Okay, but they did see 24 it?
25 :":"°* NOV'-]4Yes.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I "iVtDLWfl* I~l Ab A*I*JF NW
91 1 MR. BARBER: For some reason you believe 2 they were not part of it, is that correct?
3 I don't believe that they 4 were a part of it.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay. So would they be 6 likely people to talk to, or, I'm not trying to lead 7 you. But, I mean, would they --
8 No one there is interested 9 in talking.
10 MR. BARBER: Okay.
11 There's one other person who 12 might, he's name isp* He's a new 13 hire, but he's under his own set of pressure.
14 MR. BARBER: What's his name, ;what?
15÷ 16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Spell it?
17 T I' I 11 18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Anything more 20 on that issue?
21 MR. BARBER: Which issue are we talking 22 about?
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We were talking 24 about the emergency use of generator readings. But NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
92 1 then we kind of started talking the environment type 2 --
3 MR. BARBER: (inaudible).
4 The problem is, is we need, 5 and I firmly believe this. My job is not to interpret 6 the gauge, my job is to read what the gauge says.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
8 And then if I have to make 9 an action based on that, that becomes the 10 interpretation. Okay? Not interpreting the gauge.
11 There's a lot of, they feel that their job is to 12 interpret the gauge.
13 Ah, no. You just take the readings.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is it pretty 15 easy to read? I mean --
16 Well, they waiver, the older 17 design are analog.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
19 So what you've got is, 20 that's going to be that, and that's okay. It can be 21 tuned out, but I don't know the procedure on how to 22 calibrate anything.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Let's 24 talk about Item Number 8, here. It's the hydrogen 25 tanks that make up to the generator located in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS dft run se1 A &or% Atic LI %A)
93 1 yard. NEOs isolate the tanks from the generator by 2 closing only one of three in a series of valves 3 between the tanks and generator.
4 We talked a little bit about this, I 5 think. The closed valve is in the Turbine Building.
6 More than one valve, so you maintain (inaudible).
7 This is done to avoid having to go out in the yard 8 when make up is required.
9 Yeah, memory,* believed you open valves 10 with V019 and V013.
Ii That's correct.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We talked about 13 this, right?
14 MR. BARBER: There's a condition 15 (inaudible).
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Anything more 17 on that particular issue that we haven't --
18 The only thing is they came 19 to training and they came to us and said, look guys, 20 this is happening. There's a crease point that's 21 going to be found. You guys need to put (inaudible).
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who came to 23 training and said that?
24 There was a guy, he's a 25 there, his name is e's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
94 1 like a W", W ,,N- or whatever, really 2 knowledgeable.
3 And he came in and said, look guys, I just 4 got this. It says there's a crease point --
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What's that 6 mean, crease point?
7 MR. BARBER: (inaudible) 8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
9 MR. BARBER: I know what it means.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
11 . And he said that it's 12 showing that we're leaving that valve open, and we 13 need to close that valve. So if you guys want to keep 14 leaving that valve open, you've got to know that 15 you're going to get in trouble with it.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When did he 17 come to training and say that?
18 . It was summer, 2002.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And 20 after he said that, what did, was it still going on?
21 22 MR. BARBER: What's his name again?
24 MR. BARBER:
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Spell it?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
95 He came out and, 1
2 of course, the thing that all these guys say is, I 3 didn't say it, you didn't hear this. If ever asked, 4 I will deny it.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's what
~said?
6 7 Basically.
8 MR. BARBER: What's his, his motive in 9 telling you about the crease point, or telling the 10 group about the crease point, is it that --
11 I believe --
12 MR. BARBER: -- is he trying to prove 13 performance? Or is he trying to just tell them that, 14 hey, if they do this, it's your cut. I think you're 15 going to get caught.
16 Both. Well, really 17 (inaudible) improved performance.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 And that would have been a 20 situation where, hey, look guys, if you keep this up 21 you're going to get caught and, see, you shouldn't be 22 doing it. That's my impression. I could be wrong.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay. You know, it's 24 interesting because, I mean the kind of work NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
96 1 environment you're describing is, it seems, it appears 2 to be really not healthy.
3 Right.
4 MR. BARBER: But why are you the only one 5 coming forward?
6 U Because I'm, you keep asking 7 and I'm an idealistic asshole.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's what 9 they're going to say about you?
10 That's one of the nicer 11 things they say.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Plus, you're no 13 longer working there?
14 I don't know what they'll 15 say now. I mean --
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Of this group 17 of guys who you work with, who do you think is the go 18 to, as in the most honest of the bunch?
19 None of them.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: None of them?
21 They don't want to talk.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Any of the 23 first level supervisors we can go to?
24 They have the don't ask, 25 don't tell. So I really don't know. j NEAL.R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
--- -. I^- 8E1 A Lill A%1C M~1.1
97 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Come on, give 2 me somebody who you think or you talked to and maybe 3 not in this type of informal setting, but if we go in 4 and speak with him or her, they'll open up a little 5 bit?
6 The retaliation is so 7 pervasive, no one will talk.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Wow.
9 I can give you an idea of 10 how pervasive it was.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Go ahead.
12 Well, my interpretation of 13 how pervasive it is, is that when they wanted to talk 14 to me about the cheating on the test, to be able to 15 have a corrective path,q - (phonetic) chose 16 to, okay, I'm going to do amnesty if you guys talk.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You know that 18 that happened?
19 I know that he told, he gave 20 them a letter to, you know, said you guys 21 get amnesty if you're willing to talk about it.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
23 I mean, that's what they 24 have to do to get people to talk.
25 MR. BARBER: Did they talk?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
98 1 - Some did, yes.
2 MR. BARBER: Who?
3 1, they interviewed --
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: If you know.
5 -- Charlie's shift and 6 (inaudible) shift. And I know I went in there and 7 lied on it and we agreed with the lawyer in advance 8 that when they ask you the questions I would lie 9 because I was the person who brought it up.
10 And I would just go through the motions.
11 MR. BARBER: I'm not following that. What 12 did you mean by you lied? The attorney told you to 13 lie?
14 *1.06 __ft No, let me explain.
15 MR. BARBER: Okay, I'm listening.
16 I went, I told them how this 17 stuff is happening, the red tagging too, and I'm very 18 uncomfortable with it. And I need anonymity, I've got 19 enough grief already.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay.
21 ,_. Okay.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who did you go 23 to, 24 MR. BATTLES:
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
99 1 We went to a hotel in 2 (inaudible) and did an interview. He got all the 3 information. He called me back later, he said I'm 4 going to pursue this.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who, did?
6 said I have to pursue 7 it. He pursued, but in order to get cooperation, 8 you've got to have anonymity. And as part of my 9 cover, I went and interviewed just like everybody else 10 with the Union Steward, the whole nine yards.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So you would be 12 picked out if you didn't talk to him?
13 W Well, at least it would be 14 suggested that I didn't.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right, I 16 understand.
17 And I answered exactly like 18 they expected me to answer.
19 MR. BARBER: So you covered for them, but 20 under the guise of --
21 Under the guise of --
22 MR. BARBER: -- you wanted to continue to 23 be anonymous to them.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who did that 25 interview? You said that lawyer, who?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
100 1 He works for the company.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: (inaudible) 3
- I don't know.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.
5 " And (inaudible) was part of 6 that and sc was And the reason I told Mel",
7 when I came to talk to him, was that it looked like --
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Told who?
10 Mel Gray?
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, I'm 12 sorry.
13 That's okay. No, no, I 14 understand. I told Mel Gray the reason I wanted to 15 talk to the NRC wasn't so much that I wanted to talk 16 to the NRC, per se, it was that I wanted to make sure I7 that A was allowed to follow through.
18 I got the impression that ,was trying 19 hard, but there's a lot of pressure and weight in the 20 company. Nobody wants this to happen. Nobody wants 21 (inaudible).
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Nobody wants 23 what?
24 Nobody will want to see this 25 happen. Nobody wants to hear it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4n 5 2 unr%lICl AKin A%1= 1J W
101 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, we do.
2 . You do. But I talked to, 3 like when I talked about the tag I would talk to 4 (inaudible) and (inaudible), and we both would just, 5 couldn't believe it. They were just totally taken 6 aback.
7 And the (inaudible), because they wanted 8 to know if I was quitting, and I gave them 9 (inaudible).
10 MR. BARBER: Did you give them any of 11 these things that you gave to Mel?
12 (inaudible) 13 MR. BARBER: What was their, what was 14 their (inaudible)? I mean did they touch the 15 (inaudible) or just acknowledge receiving (inaudible).
16 . They said that you had 17 already talked to tand everything was 18 happening with or without them.
19 MR. BARBER: Okay.
20 I asked them not to discuss 21 it because, like I said, I really don't want anymore 22 garbage (inaudible) my peers.
23 MR. BARBER: Do you still have any 24 concerns in that regard now, that you're leaving?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
102 1
- Yes. I have a concern that, 2 have an/ whiforimyhifo f or my 3
4 MR. BARBER: Okay.
5 4 And I'm concerned that if 6 any of these people start crying, that they'll file 7 charges with the Union and I could lose my member in 8 good standing and nd everything that 9 goes with that.
10 MR. BARBER: Even if you're out in --
11 - .- Even if I'm out there.
12 MR. BARBER: -- in 13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that a 14 condition of employment out in for you to have 15 that card?
16 - . No, I have several other 17 too. But, it's not a condition of employment, 18 but it sure doesn't look good on your resume to lose 19 it.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The next issue.
21 We've got a couple more and then we're going to talk 22 about the work environment.
23 Okay.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The next issue 25 listed here is v indicated he was aware that pump NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
103 1 lubricati ng bubblers were found seven times with no 2 visible o il in them?
3 Yes.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When was that?
5 When did you find that?
6 . . Over a period of time in 7 2002. I would have a watch and I'd find bubblers 8 empty.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What piece of 10 equipment is that?
For heat pumps, service 12 water. (inaudible) booster pump. I found rack water 13 clean up. I found (inaudible) cooling. All of them 14 out of sight. And I'm just --
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All of them out 16 of what?
17 All of them had no oil in 18 the bubbler, I found them.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, and 20 that's, that's not good?
21 That's very unfair.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
23 JThe thing is that there's a 24 rule, if you're lazy you wait until the third in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS b4f*fl~
ID Ir I r1 A MC I W
104 1 bubbler (inaudible) before you refill it. And that's 2 the lazy guy, normally they fill it at half.
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is there a 4 surveillance thing at the side that you, you can check 5 if it's okay?
6 No.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: There' s nothing 8 like that?
9 No.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Your local site 11 glass still showed an oil level.
12 Yeah, okay, if you look at 13 a pump or any gear case, you have a bubbler and you 14 have a site glass to tell you the level and size.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
16 So there was level in the 17 site glass, but there was no oil in the bubbler, so if 18 it continued to leak, you weren't going to make it up 19 to the bubbler anymore. The site glass was just going 20 to go down.
21 MR. BARBER: So you're jeopardizing your, 22 it's using the pump because the bearing has no oil.
23 Correct.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we're 25 going to take a break, because I have to put a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
105 1 different tape in. We're going to go to Tape 2 in a 2 minute.
3 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 4 briefly went off record.)
5 P-- and the first thing I did 6 was read what the NRC says and they tell you 7 (inaudible) expected, you know, you're supposed to 8 have (inaudible).
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we've 10 gone on to Tape 2. And I want to finish up with this 11 lubricating bubblers issue. And you gave a list of 12 pieces of equipment where you found that.
13 And you talked about the local site glass 14 still showing an oil level and you explained that.
15 But you do remember one pump was located in the 16 Reactor Building on Elevation 132, and that being an 17 RWCU Pump?
18 ....... Reactor water clean up.
.19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right, is that 20 correct?
21-*JWA .... Yes.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Who, can 23 you give us names of people who were ignoring this, 24 this, what you found? Do you know?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
~I OLU~ JA MI JW
106 1 *I'm not, I mean I took 2 relief from someone. But the thing is, is you can't 3 know. A lot of these things you'll fill up oil once 4 a year, okay? But the thing was that they let it go 5 so far as to, if it's only once a year, it's several 6 months people put it off.
7 So you've got 30 or 40 watches that knew 8 or should have known that that oil level was low.
9 MR. BARBER: What about you? I mean, you 10 know, you also knew it was low.
11 M.. If I had taken the watch, I 12 would have argued, I would have known that I should 13 have done it. And if it was me, I should be in 14 trouble too.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, when you 16 took the watch, and you found these things to be low, 17 did you go get the oil and fill them up?
18 es.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And how can we 20 know that that happened?
21 MR. BARBER: Did you put a note in the log 22 that you filled the reactor water clean up bubbler or 23 something like that?
24 There might be a note in my 25 building watch log. There might be. I don't always NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
107 1 write it down, because a lot of times during my 2 turnover, the kind of turnovers you had at the 3 (inaudible) plant, was you owned the plant, you were 4 the guy keeping the watch.
5 You kept all the information. So you 6 would give laborious details to the next guy so that 7 he would pick up and know exactly what's going on.
8 Here, they're not interested in that, they want a 9 quick turnover.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So how can we, 11 at this point, go back and prove that the oil was low, 12 like you explained, in these particular pieces of 13 equipment? How can we go back and verify that?.
14 Well, because I probably 15 never wrote down that it was out of site glass low.
16 Because if I write that down, someone is going to get 17 in trouble.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, how can 19 we go back at this point and verify that that was 20 going on? You think it still might be going on?
21 Yes.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, so 23 we can--
24 MR. BARBER: Keep an eye out.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4~15- iuIMCAMM~tm 1 AUI AI
108 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That can be 2 looked at. Okay, any other way, besides --
3 Well, we're supposed to now, 4 with our new (inaudible) program, they're supposed to 5 write down every time they add oil and how much.
6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When did that 7 begin?
8 Well, it was supposed to 9 start six months ago, but, as everything there, 10 anything that might get somebody in trouble is very 11 slow to get started. So I don't know that you will be 12 able to prove that.
13 I did bitch at my co-workers about it and 14 they didn't want to hear it.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
16 Well, anybody that was in 17 the room that would listen.
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Names?
19 (inaudible) shift, Charlie 20 shift, what would be turnovers, (inaudible).
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It starts 22 spinning into the safety conscious work environment, 23 okay. But the tenth issue that Mel Gray has written 24 down here is that you indicated that PSE&G culture 25 doesn't encourage finding the real cause of problems.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
109 1 1Qj-jj .... : Correct.
2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Now, when asked 3 for examples, you stated that in regard to a March, 4 2003, forced shut down to replace recert pump seals --
I*" Yes.
5 6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- you found 7 that the reason for low cooling water flow to seals 8 was an RACS, a rack found downstream of the flow "9 (inaudible) as significant packing leak passes 10 (inaudible), so there's not a low seal flow problem.
11 Take a quick break off the record.
12 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 13 briefly went off the record.)
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're back on 15 after that brief interruption. I explained this issue 16 here. Can you give us some specifics on this 17 particular issue?
18 We had a high rack in the, 19 we had a containment sump* and it was doing like five 20 (inaudible) a minute or something and we had a shut 21 down spec for that.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Plant shut 23 down?
24 Yes.
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
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110 1 And the idea is that the 2 fuel (inaudible) is going to be the cause and we have 3 a history in the industry with BWRs, where the seal is 4 going to fail and have a little bit of leakage 5 (inaudible). So this isn't big.
6 So, we shut down. And what we found was 7 during the inspection that the (inaudible) water, it's 8 a cooling water for the seal, was going past the stem.
9 And there was all kinds of water coming out of there.
10 I reported it to them, when I found it, 11 and said, hey guys, you know, I don't think we need to 12 the seal, it's just rack water, let's just (inaudible) 13 the valve.
14 And they said that we've already shut down 15 for it and declared that it's that. We're going to 16 change the seal anyway and we'll note your 17 (inaudible). Well, nobody wrote a notification or 18 anything.
19 And it came down as fixed (inaudible), and 20 I, while I was there. Because we were in the 21 containment all dressed out and everything. And they 22 came down and fixed it. And nothing else was said 23 about it, heard about it.
24 I may have written a notification, I don't 25 remember anything being done with it.
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i1 1 MR. BARBER: How do you know there wasn't 2 a problem with the seal, also? I mean how do you know 3 it wasn't two problems?
4 Well, you have a five gallon 5 per minute, and if you've got a rack style giving you 6 three or four gallons a minute, good grief, you've got 7 to say, okay, let's say the seal was regularly giving 8 us a gallon a minute.
9 But there's an expected minimum leakage 10 anyway.
11 MR. BARBER: What was the (inaudible)?
12 The Control Room.
13 MR. BARBER: I know. Well, was it normal?
14 They expressed that it 15 didn't seem (inaudible).
16 MR. BARBER: The only reason I'm asking is 17 you may not know, and I really don't know, I doubt 18 (inaudible). But what I don't know, is if there 19 wasn't, in addition, a recert pump seal problem that 20 you may have been unaware of because you didn't have 21 any indication.
- ] That's true.
22 23 MR. BARBER: Because normally there's a 24 differential pressure --
25 -' That's correct.
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112 1 MR. BARBER: -- that's supposed to be 2 about 500 pounds across each of the seals.
3 That's correct.
4 MR. BARBER: And, so you should see that 5 500 DP. But they may have had (inaudible) --
6 It was coming down.
7 MR. BARBER: So there may in fact have 8 been two problems. There may have been the problem 9 you identified, and this problem.
10 W Fair enough.
11 MR. BARBER: So, I'm not trying to put 12 words in your mouth, but --
13 No, you're right, that's 14 true. y 15 MR. BARBER: -- there could be an 16 additional issue there.
17 W. I remember that there was 18 low pressure on the second. Like the first page and 19 the second page (inaudible) 20 MR. BARBER: Okay. So that could have 21 been a problem here with this?
22 Yes.
23 MR. BARBER: Now, was there any attempt to 24 fix the rack problem?
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113 1 Oh, we did, but it wasn't 2 captured.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay, okay.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It wasn't 5 documented.
6 I don't believe it was 7 captured. Because nobody would talk about it.
8 Normally when we come out of something like that, 9 where we shut down, if it's something that you take 10 pictures of, we're got pictures.
11 You know, if there's anything like that 12 going on, we'll have information about it.
13 .MR. BARBER: Did you say you tried to 14 Write a notification and someone told you not to?
I-- , . i No. I think I`
is 16 notification for this.
17 MR. BARBER: Oh, you did 18 notification?
19 I may have, but nothing 20 happened of it.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You, in any 23 case, you told Mel Gray that you were encouraged not 24 to say that was the problem because it would get 25 somebody in trouble for a needless shut down. Can you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
114 1 tell me why you felt that and what made you say that 2 to Mel?
3 I forget, I was talking to 4 a management person.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
6 *
- 4I don't know his name. I 7 know he's like head of the outages. And I said, you 8 know, there's this racks problem down there. I think 9 this is your problem.
10 We can probably (inaudible) until the 1i outage with the research (inaudible). And the 12 feeling, the pressure I got was, oh, we can't do that.
13 You know, we're already shut down for research, we've 14 got to do that.
15 You know, we'll fix the racks problem, 16 we've got to do that. And that's the feeling I got 17 was, you know, if he had a needless shut down, it was 18 going to get someone- in trouble. That's my 19 impression.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You, I think 21 that's all the technical issues that we have on the 22 list here. You indicated to Mel Gray, though, that 23 the culture within Hope Creek Union --
24 MR. BARBER: Before we go on, is there any 25 other technical issues or any other technical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
115 1 (inaudible), that since you've got a chance, since 2 Friday, to think about, just puzzle over, that you 3 would also like to mention?
4 Is there anything else that, you know --
5 Yeah, I mean I mentioned to 6 that they would do similar things with the 7 service water that they do with the diesels. Where if 8 the numbers don't look like they're going to come out 9 right, they'll take point one off here or point two 10 off there.
11 And move them around and they it will be 12 okay, because we know we have a problem with the 13 gauges out there. And instead of --
14 MR. BARBER: Which specifically --
15 NO1 Discharge pressure on the 16 service water pump.
17 MR. BARBER: All right.. So, okay, so when 18 you say you make an adjustment to the reading, is it 19 such that, in your view, you're reading it as it's 20 laying. And you're trying to pick the middle of where 21 it's laying, but your peers pick low or high depending 22 on what will be a more desired outcome or better 23 outcome?
24 Yes, yes. Because they 25 don't want to run it again. And everybody knows that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
116 1 we have a problem with that gauge. And you know that 2 when the Engineer comes out to do his evaluation, to 3 pass the surveillance, he's going to make them run it 4 again.
5 And they don't want to run it again.
6 MR. BARBER: Is there some reason why 7 you're just, if the problem is actually with the 8 gauge, why, there's not a notification written on 9 that?
10 There is. And then ECP 11 testing getting done and in the nuclear world that 12 could be five years. I mean they take their time with 13 everything.
14 MR. BARBER: Okay.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know if 16 there was a notification written on that, what Scott 17 was saying?
18 Yes, there is.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
20 And there's supposed to be 21 an ECP, but I don't know when they're going to go out 22 there.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 WON` Sorry about that.
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117 1 MR. BARBER: No, it's fine. Any other, 2 anything else? How about any other, you know, one 3 thing that would be really helpful is if there's 4 something in your knowledge where there's been a 5 circumstance where there is a requirement, a very 6 specific requirement.
7 Now, you've given us some of that. We'll 8 have to delve into that, and understand those 9 requirements. But was either very specific or a tech 10 spec or a license or any other requirement that you
- 13. know that was truly established and had to be met, and 12 that during whatever activity it wasn't met but there 13 was, you know, there was some adjustment made, 14 inappropriate documentation?
15 You know, in all fairness, 16 I know the Union might be (inaudible) this stuff goes 17 on, but they do do the licensed right thing. So, in 18 all fairness to the Electric Control Room guys, and 19 the supervision, they do their very best to pursue 20 that.
21 I mean there is a lot of people that can 22 finagle, try to (inaudible) over interpretation, but 23 there's, there's normally sincere effort to stay at 24 least within the guidelines (inaudible).
25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The FSAR?
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118 1 Yes, the FSAR. They will 2 try to meet it. I mean if they can't meet the spirit, 3 they will meet the letter. And if they, you know, 4 they'll call you guys and ask for like extensions or 5 whatever they might need.
6 And if they don't get it, they don't and 7 do what they have to do. As a rule, I get the feeling 8 they try to do that. And that's why I'talk about that 9 symbiotic relationship where they don't really go in 10 the field, we go in the field.
11 And what they do is they expect us to do 12 the right thing, so that they can say that they're 13 doing the right thing.
14 MR. BARBER: Okay.
15 But, the problem is, is they 16 don't ask the questions. Because nobody is going to 17 tell them.
18 MR. BARBER: Is there a reason for that?
19 I mean is it that they don't have the experience?
20 Maybe they didn't come out of the field? Maybe they 21 came through a different path?
22 . True. Most of them are not 23 Field Operators. Most of them are Engineers or 24 something else and they got over there and went to the 25 NRC for the license training, and did their thing.
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119 1 And most of time like they don't know that 2 we use hoses on certain jobs. We have to go get 3 hoses. And the question is, what do you need hoses 4 for? Well, of course, we need hoses.
5 You know, a lot of people just don't have 6 the experience.
7 MR. BARBER: Okay.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Any other 9 technical, regulatory, safety type issues?
10 Well, I mentioned the 11 hydrogen and heating and putting of the nitrogen.
12 They do the same thing with the nitrogen, which is 13 (inaudible).
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know 15 what he's talking about, Scott?
16 MR. BARBER: I think so, yes. It's --
17 And the containment 18 (inaudible), right?
19 MR. BARBER: Okay. There's multiple 20 valves and series and some are outside., There's only 21 one or two inside. You're only manipulating the one 22 inside because it's convenient.
23 That's right.
24 MR. BARBER: The ones outside are harder 25 to get to or take time, so you don't use those.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1.3. RZHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
II 120 1 Right.
2 MR. BARBER: Okay. Anything else on 3 technical?
4 I wish they'd quit using 5 pipe wrenches on nuts. That's the only thing. I have 6 a real complaint with that.
7 MR. BARBER: A pipe wrench on a nut.
8 Yeah, any time there's like 9 a nut, that has to be turned, and they don't want to 10 go get a regular wrench, they just use a pipe wrench.
11 You walk down the plant, there's heat marks on 12 everything. (inaudible), it has nothing to do with 13 right or wrong (inaudible).
14 MR. BARBER: Okay, anything else?
. f15 Not that I've got on my 16 mind. I would encourage you guys to --
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're not done 18 yet here.
19 .- -- visiti and get all his 20 notes.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: WN 22 mom He seems to me sincerely 23 trying to do this right.
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- a .... ****fl.8.-i *.li & ^ l .,lal '1f4 ff'f ¶A
121 1 MR. BARBER: Just out of curiosity, and I 2 don't know if you'll answer this, but do you have any 3 documentation for any of the things that you --
4 There was a time when I 5 mentioned that I was having a disagreement with one of 6 my peers. I told them I felt like I had to have a 7 real black book to keep track of all the garbage that 8 they're feeding me.
9 Because I could say the sky was blue and 10 by the time they came back, if they'd yell at me, the 11 story was that the sky was orange. And I wanted to 12 make sure I have tracked --
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you have 14 that book?
15 !No, there was no book. It 16 was a feeling. So, I don't keep, I didn't keep 17 records because they would break into my locker, break 18 into my desk and stuff to make sure I didn't have 19 anything like that.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Wait a minute, 21 who would do that?
22 I don't know who, I just 23 know I found my locker open and I found my drawers 24 broken into several times.
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122 1 MR. BARBER: Your locker, with a lock on 2 it, was broken into?
3 Well, I used to, at first, 4 everybody just put little clips. They little, we-have 5 these, they call them locks. It's like what they put 6 on the meter. I put those on there and left it loose.
7 But I found that it was undone a couple of 8 times, so I started flicking them. And then I found 9 them ripped off. So then I put my lock on it, and 10 that was just as bad. But that was after the comment 11 about the little black book.
12 Which was not supposed to have any kind of 13 secondary result, but that's what happened. I found 14 my desk, when I'm out at work. They would use a 15 screwdriver to force the lock, open the drawer and use 16 a screwdriver to force it back, so it would be locked 17 and then pushed in so it would be like I would know 18 that they'd been there.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So you would 20 know?
21 Yeah, so that you'd know 22 that they'd been there.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know who 24 did that?
25 No.
I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
123 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's talk 2 about the calls (inaudible). I think you talked about 3 it a lot in the last, almost two hours now since we've 4 started this.
5 Now you informed Mel Gray that the culture 6 within the Hope Creek Union, especially the 7 (inaudible) group. You said the (inaudible) exclude 8 individuals for bringing problems to management.
9 That's correct.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And you gave Ii some examples of yourself. Has that happened to 12 anybody else?
- * *.:Oh, yes.
13 14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?
15 There was a time when, and 16 this was just a disagreement, not like an issue. One 17 guy wrote up that a valve needed scaffolding to work 18 a job, and because he wasn't there to ask somebody 19 else for their opinion, his opinion was, well, I can 20 do that with a ladder.
21 Well, something, it turned into a pissing 22 contest amongst the management guys, and, so they 23 asked'-'in an e-mail and what he thought and 24 why he though that. So he blind copied somebody else 25 in management.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 133 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
124 1 The party that was offended, 2 (inaudible), wanted to file charges on him for going 3 to management with his complaint. And it turned into, 4 it was a pretty bitter situation for about six weeks 5 because of that between those two people just over 6 that.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: He went to OSHA 8 for this scaffolding versus a ladder?
9 Well, it's an opinion, 10 right? One guy looked at it one way, another guy 11 looked at it another.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.
13 Both of them were probably 14 somewhere close to right, but they just had a 15 disagreement. And somebody was going to lose face 16 (inaudible).
17 MR. BARBER: Okay, how would you 18 characterize, and honestly you went through a lot of 19 this. But if you had to characterize the safety 20 culture at Hope Creek, would you feel that, if there 21 was a true safety concern, that a review or your peers 22 would feel free to raise it?
23 :T Well, you can feel free to 24 raise it, but what happens with it you never know. We 25 were working on the (inaudible), and they were trying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1.19 RHnFl ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
125 1 to, they had an oil leak problem and we were trying to 2 resolve it.
3 So they put an exhauster, (inaudible) on 4 it to handle the oil that was, to create negative 5 pressure on the (inaudible).
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
7 .. And the (inaudible) was 8 blowing vapor into the air.
9 MR. BARBER: Okay.
10 Well, (inaudible), but if 11 you can taste it, it's probably way outside the limits i2 (inaudible) . So if you go in there and you taste oil, 13 (inaudible).
14 I was discussing it a day later with one 15 of the SROs, and he saw it clearly as a problem. And 16 he insisted that notification and I 17 did. And it still, we got a training that basically 18 *went, well, you should use (inaudible), you should be 19 reading the (inaudible), but it's actually a 20 (inaudible) form.
21 MR. BARBER: Yes.
22 But nobody got it, nobody.
23 We had diesels run where people were passing out from 24 a diesel run because of the exhaust reaching the 25 limit.
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126 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Manifold leaks?
2 Yeah, I've heard about that.
3 MR. BARBER: Yeah, we've heard that.
4 NO And people, and they're 5 just, they're not interested. There's no, I mean, 6 like we have a pretty good (inaudible) program. And 7 the thing is, is if we would run our industrial 8 safety, like we do our radiological safety, well, none 9 of this would happen.
10 MR. BARBER: Let me go back to your 11 comment about the focus was the coupling?
12 13 MR. BARBER: What was your point in that?
14 Was it that other people had been in there working and 15 they were in there under this environment where you 16 could taste the oil.
17 Yes.
18 MR. BARBER: And you felt like it was an 19 unsafe work environment, I mean, I mean, from an 20 industrial safety standpoint --
21 - Right 22 MR. BARBER: -- and you said, well, let's 23 leave. And you went to a Shift Manager or an SRO, 24 somebody in the admin level and they agreed with you, 25 and notification?
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In .% -3 AiiV WACALJIM/kIMMA~ nfl I- ~ l
127 2 MR. BARBER: And is your point that the 3 others should not have been in there?
4 -: . My point is, is nobody asked 5 the question. Because they had been told that there 6 was an oil mist in the room before we went. They were 7 to go in, do our thing, be careful and get out.
8 I was in there with an SRO. I was in 9 there with, I think, 7 (phonetic). I was 10 in there with Nobody asked the 11 question. Nobody, it was like, oh, there's nothing 12 wrong here.
13 And I said, guys, we need to hurry up and 14 get out. Ah, no, we'll do this and then we'll get 15 out. Okay, well, you can.
16 MR. BARBER: Was this something that was 17 a, was this a 30 second activity, that you were doing, 18 or was it like ten, 15 minutes, an hour?
19 It was a minute, a couple of 20 minutes.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay.
22 The point is that they 23 didn't even know to ask the question.
24 MR. BARBER: Okay.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
128 1 I mean we can debate that or 2 we can argue what was it, you know, I don't know --
3 MR. BARBER: Well, I'm just trying to get 4 a framework. I'm trying to understand why there might 5 have been a difference of opinion. Whether it was 6 they understood, but they felt it was an acceptable 7 risk or they didn't understand or --
8 W Like an example. In our, I 9 *notification and I based on procedure.
10 I19't know if we have a (inaudible), I think it's 38 11 or (inaudible). Both of them specifically say, before 12 you go into a room-you should have covered every MSDS 13 in the room.
14 This is discussed, what, if you 15 encountered something, what. your plan is and how 16 you're going to deal with it. Back out numbers, 17 monitoring, all this stuff was supposed to be dealt 18 with before you go.
19 That's never done, expect for EHP. And 20 the only the reason they do it for that is because 21 it's a nerve agent. Everything else is pretty much 22 left alone. They started doing the diesel runs, only 23 after the guy gets, the guys are getting sick on every 24 run.
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129 1 And they had to do this three or four 2 times until they stopped.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: A couple of 5 general questions and then we'll finish up with why 6 you're leaving.
4p IpR34"r Okay.
8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did Hope Creek 9 have safety conscious work environment policy or 10 procedures while you were there?
11 Oh, they have an excellent 12 procedure. They have an excellent policy, and they 13 don't enforce it.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: My next 15 question, was your management supportive of that 16 policy?
17 , We could break our heads in 18 and go, okay, but they're like, it's-okay, we do it a 19 thousand times, it's good work. Okay.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It's a yes or 21 no question.
22 Yes.
23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: They were 24 supportive of it?
25 - . -.
- Oh, no, not supportive.
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130 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It's okay. Did 2 your management encourage you to bring concerns to 3 their attention?
4 They encouraged you to bring 5 concerns, but a lot of times, like I said, I would 6 bring it to them -- they are so buried under paperwork 7 that a lot of times, if you'd bring it to them, like 8
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did they 10 discourage you from writing up those things?
1J Well, they would not tell 12 you not to, but then I had notifications they'd close 13 an hour later.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What was your 15 experience down there when you raised the safety or 16 regulatory issues?
17 They felt like I was a 18 crybaby.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Your management 20 or your peers, or both?
21 Both. Because, like with 22 the chemical thing, I would bring it up and I was 23 having a debate with these two SROs. And the one guy 24 was truly trying to understand where I was coming 25 from, because he did not have that experience.
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MA CeLur&J/t%,.J t-~oifnL-7Ml on7l 23.4-4433
131 1 And the other guy is sitting there going, 2 well, it just sounds like a case of glass half full 3 versus glass half empty, to me.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who was that?
5 That was 6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do we know 7 about, this chemical issue, what are you referring to?
8 . I was talking about at Hope 9 Creek --
10 MR. BARBER: You're talking about the 11 MSDS?
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, all 13 right.
14 MR. BARBER: It's MSDS and fuel safety, by 15 issue and there were certain precautions, and what he 16 was describing was this, there's one for every 17 chemical that's used in the plant.
18Right.
19 MR. BARBER: And you're supposed to review 20 it and then have specific prevention plans in place --
- 21. Right.
22 MR. BARBER: Prior to going to an area 23 where, you know, that's in use.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
132 1 Right. If you have a plan, 2 in case, of course it's never supposed to go wrong, 3 but it always seems to go wrong.
4 MR. BARBER: Okay.
5 And, yeah, they, the one guy 6 would say it's just half full or half empty. But like 7 I got the feeling I wasn't communicating my point well 8 with him. We don't review the procedures.
9 We don't look at the chemical sheets. I 10 think it's a result of the fact that most guys aren't 11 Operators for more than ten years, so they don't see 12 the long-term effects of chemical exposure.
13 If it's not a chronic immediate, they're 14 not going to notice it.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Have you 16 participated in formal or informal surveys regarding 17 the safety conscious work environment at Hope Creek?
18 --- Yes, I have.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you ever 20 get feedback, are there any results of that?
21 They always do that 22 anonymously. So, I could fill it out and they don't 23 know who that is.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you fill 25 them out?
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1-1 ... .... AIA#A0U1eLjnr^LI nl r V/AJ . 7f1A.n4 onn 2.u_",n
133 2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you report 3 some of these things that we talked about today, like 4 environment?
5 I reported things like we 6 have a very apathetic work environment. We don't want 7 to do it. I mean, they're in a hurry to get the job 8 done. Instead of saying, okay, after we do this 9 brief, we're going to review the safety equipment and 10 we're going to report to the job site.
11 They're going to say, here is the 12 procedure, go get to work. And there were numerous 13 times when I would head towards the safety gear to get 14 it (inaudible), and they would be like, oh, you're 15 just holding us up, come on.
16 And if I would go get it, they would 17 (inaudible).
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:- Your assessment 19 of this or your opinion?
20 That's wrong, 21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you think 22 that Hope Creek has a good safety conscious work 23 environment or an unhealthy safety conscious work 24 environment?
25 *'. Unhealthy.
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134 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that based 2 on the things you've talk to us about today and the 3 things you told to Mel Gray.
4 -That, and things I've talked 5 to , not everything is here. I' Ill give you an 6 example. They were doing the diesel run and, like I 7 said, other places, we were expected to do our own 8 safety.
9 So we had MSG sheets and we did our own 10 plan. Once we did our plan we gave it to the 11 supervisor. If he liked it, he let you go. If he 12 didn't, then you have to add, you have to add that or 13 take this down, depending what he knew.
14 There the supervisor is supposed to 15 provide everything and the guys, they don't like 16 wearing safety equipment. Another example, I was 17 starting with this, before the diesel run, there was 18 a (inaudible) problem with diesel bay for not 19 monitoring the air.
20 We don't know what it is. People are 21 getting sick. And I said, well, then according to our 22 training there, it had to be treated as an IDLH, 23 imminently death, imminent death diesel hazard, that's 24 the words.
25 And you have to --
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~11% -)-2A AA-2-3
135 S1 MR. BARBER: Immediate dangers to life and 2 health.
3 p Okay. You're not going to 4 make it. And I said we should treat it that way and 5 wear the SCVA. And it doesn't matter if the one hour 6 surveillance takes you all night to do because you are 7 encumbered with this gear, but you would go home 8 tonight.
9 Screw you. You don't know what the hell 10 you're talking about. You know, God damn it, why do 11 you have to bother me.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who did you get 13 that from?
14 15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
17 He's one of the guys --
18 MR. BARBER: Does he go in there and 19 didn't wear anything?
20 No, I didn't go in. I 21 wasn't the watch for that building that night.
22 MR. BARBER: Okay.
23 But we were, they were 24 talking about it, that we were going to be doing a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
136 1 diesel run. And we know that this particular bay has 2 that problem.
3 And I said, well guys, if you want the cut
.4 and dry of it, we need to be using SCVAs. And they're 5 like, oh, you know, whatever.
6 So, I took the (inaudible) that they were 7 going to take that to the brief before they went and 8 they would end up with SCVAs. And I went down later 9 that night, and (inaudible) and he had a filters for 10 particular and something else.
11 But they were filters, they weren't air.
12 And I said to (inaudible), hey, is that all you've 13 got, where are your SCVAs. Oh, shut the hell up, you 14 know, get out of here.
15 MR. BARBER: What happened to him? Did he 16 17 He ended up getting sick.
18 MR. BARBER: He did?
19 Yes.
20 MR. BARBER: And what was his reaction to 21 that? Did he ever come back to you saying, hey, you 22 were right, I made a mistake?
23 .* They think I'm a 24 know-it-all. That I'm just there to be a pain in the 25 butt..
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137 1 MR. BARBER: But this was a person you 2 were just trying to look out for their own safety, is 3 that right? You were just trying to give him some 4 advice to make sure he was safe in the work place?
5 - I agree. But, you know --
6 MR. BARBER: He didn't take it that way, 7 he took it as being offensive?
8 Yes.
9 MR. BARBER: Did they eventually come 10 around to where, the plant was using SCVAs to go in 11 there?
12 I believe, a run prior to 13 (inaudible) after our's they did some work and fixed 14 a lot of the leaks. Now we have sealed (inaudible) 15 that we wear when we do the runs.
16 MR. BARBER: Was there any evaluation from 17 a medical standpoint?
18 No.
19 MR. BARBER: Should that have been 20 appropriate under the circumstances? Afterwards 21 (inaudible)? How did the Plant know that they should 22 look for carbon monoxide?
23 Well, one of the problems 24 with the Plant is the fact that if it doesn't have 25 nuclear tied on to it, nobody reads it. An example NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS con Ri-4nF ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
138 1 would be, like (inaudible) is a problem in numerous 2 industries, other than nuclear, and they have a lot 3 more experience with it, the nuclear guys.
4 And I've worked at other (inaudible) and 5 I was giving them a list of, you know, there's the ash 6 in the air, there's the carbon monoxide, sulfur, 7 there's fuel in the air, there's oil in the air.
8 There's all this stuff.
9 They said, well, we're monitoring the CO.
10 And that's just one. And they said well that's a 1i lead. Like it will be the highest of the group and 12 that's the one that will be our, you know, our long 13 level, so we just monitor it.
14 I said, but nobody is monitoring 15 (inaudible)? Well, we don't need to. Okay. So they 16 really have a sense of this is how we do it and this 17 is how we will do it. They don't have a questioning 18 attitude, for lack of a better word.
19 MR. BARBER: Okay.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: As a result of 21 all these issues that you raised during the course of 22 your employment there, do you feel you were retaliated 23 against?
24 Oh, yes.
Mom.
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139 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Discriminated 2 against by your management?
3 Let's talk about management, first. You've talked 4 mostly about peers, I think.
5 So far it's been peers. But 6 the thing is, is that the management will act on what 7 the peers say. '.An example was, we were going to 8 training and, it was either requal training or 9 (inaudible) and they had a discussion with the OS that 10 said, is not qualified yet, so he can't go home 11 early.
12 And the Union guys agreed with it. So I 13 got to stay late every day until 5:30, and everybody 14 else got to go home at 3:30, 4:00, because I hadn't 15 got qualified yet.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And you think 17 you weren't qualified yet because you were raising 18 these issues?
19 Ys 20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Any other 21 particular instance where you felt that you were 22 singled out or retaliated against because you raised 23 these issues and continue to raise them?
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140
.. . Not by management, because 2 of the ruling it's that they don't want management to 3 know anymore than they want.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, but these 5 things that were happening to you from your peers, 6 there had to have been some level of supervision that 7 was aware of it. Yes or no?
8 I would make comments about 9 what was going on, I thought was unethical, immoral 10 and maybe even illegal.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you ever go 12 to EEO?
13 k,
.. Yes, and I said that I felt 14 that the supervisor could make a better presence. And 15 they would say things like, if you're not willing to 16 name names, I can't do anything about it.
17 And I'll give you an example of how 18 immediate the cycle is. One day I was assigned, 19 ýto help me with my-qualification. was 20 busy, he was given other work.
21 I was asked later that night, is 22 helping you with the things? I said, no, he's really 23 too busy, I said, you should-give me work, instead of 24 waiting all night to be qualified.
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~
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141 1 And five minutes later I run into 2 1in the hall and he's telling me, what did you 3 tell them? I said, I told them (inaudible). I asked 4 them to give me a job or something to do tonight.
5 And he said, that better be all you said, 6 and then off he goes. I mean it was immediate.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is a 8 peer?
9 10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So he's fully 11 qualified, is that correct?
12 Yes.
13 MR. BARBER: But he's the one that told 14 you to tell them to keep the (inaudible).
15 The thing I want you guys to 16 take away from this is individuals have to make 17 choices, but this is a group thing. These guys don't 18 do anything without talking to the group.
19 I mean the group really decides all kinds 20 of things.
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And the group 22 would be who again?
23 The peers. my fellow 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4 "DU-I II^ Akin £JAIC kI"
142 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Everybody, 2 except you, pretty much on the shift?
1T" On my shift, yes. I would 3
)
4 say that the exception to the rule is probably six 5 people and they are just basically outcasts which help 6 inside and they let them do whatever they do as long 7 as they don't interfere with anybody else.
8 MR. BARBER: Now, these other six people 9 that you referred to, would they, if we talked to them 10 would they be inclined to your opinion?
11 I'll give you an example.
12 This guy there name q (inaudible), always does it 13 right. People get annoyed and don't like to work with 14 15 him because he always does it right.
He's a senior guy, he's been there eight
)
16 years. Nobody likes to work with him, because like I 17 said, he does it just like it says. And latest 18 (inaudible), either they want to work with him, but 19 they'd rather work with someone else.
20 I mean, that's (inaudible).
21 is working Control now. People don't like working 22, with him because he insists on doing it right.
23 MR. BARBER: Who is that?
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:
25 NEAL R. GROSS
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143 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you get job 2 performance appraisals at the end of each year?
3 .--- J: Yes, I do.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And how were 5 they? How were you rated? Do you feel you were rated 6 fairly?
7 No. But what I did do was 8 I did give them feedback and finally they did give me 9 some fair evaluations. But initially, it was really 10 hard, because they would say things like, oh, you're 11 not going to get qualified.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, you say 13 you were being rated unfairly because you were raising 14 these issues that we talked about today?
15 As a result of, yes, but not 16 directly, no.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who did your 18 job performances appraisals?
a9 I know 20 (phonetic) gave me --
21 SR. SPECIAL.AGENT TEATOR: Who?
22 gave them to 23 me.
24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
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144 1 I don't know who wrote them.
2 Because they could be written by any management 3 person.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you receive 5 a, I know you're a Union guy, but did you receive the 6 same salary increase that your other fellow --
7 Everything is on a six month 8 progression, yeah.
9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So your answer 10 is yes, then. Were you singled out in any other way, 11 other than we've already talked about today, for, 12 things happened to you as a result of your raising 13 these issues and concerns?
14 Treated differently than everybody else?
15 We talked a little bit about that. But anything that 16 we, maybe something'that we haven't gotten to yet?
17 Let me think. I mean, we 18 could be here all day.
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Give me a, I 20 mean give me something real specific and that jumps 21 right out at you. You've given us a lot of examples, 22 but something that we haven't talked about that --
23 I refer to it lovingly as 24 the Spanish Inquisition. February of 2002, I had 25 three of my peers claim that I was abhorrent, based on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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145 1 the idea that the previous shift, the previous night 2 shift, there was a guy on our shift, and I don't 3 remember who it was.
4 He was on the computer, and they 5 commented, they had found plans or pictures or 6 something of (inaudible). And that they were 7 concerned that there was a bomb threat. And I said, 8 you know, Bin Laden and them were trained by our CIA 9 and they're not going to do it at the front door 10 (inaudible).
11 And they all looked at me funny. And I 12 said, no, they're probably going to try to find a way 13 to poison the tap water because our well water is 14 (inaudible) to drink. And I said, I gave some 15 examples of stuff that they could do, that they could 16 use.
17 And they felt that I had threatened them 18 and that, a day or two later I got -this (inaudible) 19 and they were going to (inaudible). And I, you know, 20 I think a few (inaudible) and one of the guys,.
21 ýgot real upset.
22 And so I'm just going to call Security and 23 get you fired. And we ended up going and talking to 24 (inaudible) and (phonetic), which is our
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146 1 corporate psychology (inaudible), while these guys 2 (inaudible) complex and (inaudible).
3 Finally, it got all resolved with the idea 4 that no, in fact, it wasn't abhorrent and it wasn't 5 hostile, it was just a misunderstanding. I wasn't 6 going to get fired today. I needed to watch 7 (inaudible).
8 I was going to have to take anger 9 management classes and all this garbage. What else 10 did they do.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But that was, 12 it came as a result of you having that discussion with 13 them about that.
WN No, no, it's the 14 I) 15 confrontational environment. While I was in training, 16 I would, we were talking about Okay, I 17 worked in theefor 18 And there was a guy who was at our tech 19 school and he's telling how, you know, silicon dioxide 20 (inaudible) at .7 volts. And I was saying, yeah, but 21 silicon itself does, but when you're in the field it 22 really doesn't happen that way.
23 It could be 1.5, it could be whatever, 24 depending on what your system does because of 25 corrosion and all the inherent problems you're going 5
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147 1 to deal with. So it's always kind of a fine science 2 of dealing with it.
3 Well, he's like, well, you know, screw 4 you, you don't know what the hell you're talking 5 about. I'm going to kick you ass. And, well, you 6 know, that's not going to be fun. That's not what you 7 want to do.
8 You know, we' 11 both probably going to end 9 up in the hospital (inaudible) stop beating on one 10 another, and we'll probably going to end up getting 11 fired and all these other things, even if we do it 12 after work.
13 You know, and they thought that I was 14 being (inaudible). Very confrontational and all of 15 that.
16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's talk 17 about why you left Hope Creek. Tell me why you left 18 employment there?
I* Even because I can't do the 19 20 right thing and do my job. I can't get through my 21 job.
22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And the 23 examples you gave, you've given us today. You 24 indicated to Mel Gray that you're leaving PSE&G to 25 take a job at NEAL R. GROSS
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148 1 You're leaving because you were intimated, 2 harassed and excluded for bringing up problems.
3 Yes.
4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Excluded, is 5 that when people didn't want to work with you or 6 assigned you?
7 Well, the thing is, it's not 8 my supervisor, not my Reactor Operatori, the guy, the 9 Control Rack Operator. But my peers can get together 10 and decide, well I'm going to go get so and so, so I ii don't have to work with you tonight.
12 Or I'm going to get down and we're going 13 to give you this building. And if you don't take it, 14 you're refusing work.
15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. You 16 mention a time, when I think we were off the record, 17 that (phonetic) said something to you about 18 maybe they shouldn't have hired you in the first 19 place. Go ahead and tell me what that was about and 20 when that occurred?
21 I was talking to* .... k-W 22 after the (inaudible). And (inaudible) like, I was 23 asking for feedback because I just did not get or 24 wasn't, you know, I wasn't able to really work with 25 these guys well.. . . . .-
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149 1 It was really going badly. And I was just 2 wanted feedback, you know, what's going on? And one 3 of the comments he made was like, you know, when I 4 hired you, you were real gung ho, trying to do the 5 right thing, very motivated.
6 And he said, you know, now, I just don't 7 know. And at that point, he trailed off, and walked 8 off to do something else. And that was a very 9 uncomfortable moment. My interaction with my peers 10 was affecting the perception of me at my job that 11 much.
12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It's about a 13 quarter to four. I'm going to take a very short break 14 off the record, and then we're going to finish up.
15 Okay.
16 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 17 briefly went off the record.)
18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, it's 19 about ten of four and we're going to finish up here.
20 You talked for a minute, off the record, and you said 21 in your resignation letter, what did you write in 22 there again?
23 I wrote that I was leaving 24 Hope Creek because of a hostile work environment.
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150 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And you 2 described for us today your reasons for why that 3 happened to you.
I) 4 *-- *-* Yes.
5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And you've 6 given examples of that. We may need to get back with 7 you at some point. Is that okay? We can call you on 8 your cell or at your address out there i 9 No problem.. I think you 10 have my e-mail too.
11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is there 12 anything more that you want to add today, Scott?
13 MR. BARBER: No.
14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is there I) 15 something that we didn't get to that (inaudible). An 16 important safety issue or something --
17 I didn't mention that I 18 witnessed a hazing at work. And that --
19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Hazing?
.. -* .. . Ye h 20 21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Go ahead.
22 A guy, I walked in and there 23 was five guys taping up A --
24 SR,. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Taping him up 25 with duct tape?
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151 With duct tape. And he was, 2 you know, trying to fight them off unsuccessfully. So 3 I opened the door, there were two supervisors in the 4 next room, like around the corner.
5 So I opened the door and I was like, guys, 6 you really shouldn't be doing this stuff.
7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What did they 8 do to him?
9 _. They taped him up.
10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.
11 'That's all that I saw.
12 MR. BARBER: You mean taped, you mean 13 covered his mouth with tape and did his hands and his 14 legs?
15 Yes.
16 MR. BARBER: What was the point of that?
17 What was --
18 *I don't know the point of 19 it. I just know what was going on.
20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Go ahead, he 21 interrupted you.
22 That's okay. No, and I 23 don't know, I mean I would assume he didn't do 24 something they wanted him to do or he wouldn't do CRTNEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS S. . " .- 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
152 j 1 something they asked him to do. I mean, why else 2 would you tape somebody up.
MR. BARBER: Do you think he would discuss 3
4 that with us, if we talked to him about it?
)
5 Well, I don't think so.
6 Because when I complained to the 7 he told me that he wouldn't have a case until 8 he brought charges.
9 And I told him that hazing doesn't work 10 that way. They're allowed to do it because they're 11 senior. If he wants to be successful, they have to 12 play along. And that's how hazing works.
13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When did this 14 happen?
It was at the end of our K) 15 16 first outage, so it was October, 2001.
17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did it ever 18 happen to you?
19 Oh, no, I would have 20 (inaudible).
21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did -they ever 22 try to do it to you?
23 24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, is 25 there anything else you want to bring up today?
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1 That's all I can think of 2 right- now. --
3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, it's 4 3:50, this interview is concluded. Thank you for your 5 time and patience.
KIPI"wwp Sure.
6 7 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 8 was concluded at 3:50 p.m.)
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