ML061770142
| ML061770142 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 12/17/2003 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194 | |
| Download: ML061770142 (123) | |
Text
I 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + ++ +
3 4 OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL 5 INTERVIEW 6 -- x 7 IN THE MATTER OF:
8 IN tRVIEW OF Docket No.
-7C(:-
9 1-2003-OSIF 10 (CLOSED) 1). -------- x 12 Wednesday, December 17, 2003 13
("
14 15 16 The above-entitled interview was conducted 17 at 1:05 p.m.
18 19 BEFORE:
20 EILEEN NEFF, Special Agent 21 ALSO PRESENT:
22 Scott Barber, NRC/DRP, Senior Project Engineer 23 24 iformation in this record was deleted Iaccordance with the Freedom of Information 25 ct, exemptions A-NIA-___ : ~IIl AlI D I'*-D t'% C* *'
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2 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 1:05 p.m.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 December 17, 2003. The time is approximately 1:05 5 p.m. Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, U.S. NRC, 6 Region 1, Office of Investigations.
7 Also present is Division of Reactor 8 Projects, Senior Project Engineer Scott Barber and 9 this interview is taking place with.
20 Can you spell your last name?
11 ! Sure.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you.
13 gma __A=urrently employed at
( 14 Salem IPS Nuclear.
15 The subject of this interview is concerns 16 raised regarding the safety conscious work environment 17 at Salem and Hope Creek and as explained to you prior 18 to going on the record, your understanding is that 19 you're not being approached as a subject of any 20 investigation.
21 You're being asked for your assessment as 22 a witness to the work environment on site at Salem.
23 I understand your work experience was at Salem.
24 J Right.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your appearance today NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 is voluntary?
2 Righig t.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I called and you 4 agreed to meet with me today?
5 Ys 6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point what 7 I'd like to do is place you under oath. If you would 8 raise your right hand.
9 Do you swear that the testimony that 10 you're about to provide is the truth, the whole truth 11 and nothing:but the truth so help you God?
12 I do.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: . Could we get some 14 brief background information from you, education?
15 Sure 16 17 18.
19 20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the year of your 22 employment with PSE&G?
23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what year did you 25 become an* j NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Andý now 3
4 I've been aN 5 for about two years and three months.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who have you been 7 working with, in terms of your immediate management, 8 assistant ops manager and ops management, who would 9 they be?
10 Currently or --
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Since you've been a 12 13 Since I've been aM
(:.°' 14 15 16 17 and we now have'*
18 * (Phonetic).
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, . .is 20 .still employed by PSE&G?
21 a SCorrect. He's now "f Salem.
22 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: ileft 24 employment there, but is still there?
25 *N Correct.
C--
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And 2 there.
3 And_
4 (Phonetic) left PSE&G and became the-5 So currently I work f or:i. I -,
6 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. It's 8 approximately 1:10. I'm going to go off the record 9 briefly for one minute.
10 (Off the record.)
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 12 1:11 p.m. To clarify for the record, the location for 13 this interview isj fr...... ... t'iI"'i....
.. t 14 That' s also 15 some identifying information from you.
16 Could you give your date of birth, please, 17 and your Social Security Number?
18 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. As a 2!1 :*for two years and three months, 22 approximately --
23 Correct.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What I'd like to do 25 is get your assessment for that time period, two, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 three years. While you're working on site, have you 2 noticed any changes, are you aware of any changes in
(
3 the work environment? And I'm going to go broadly 4 with the safety conscious work environment in terms of 5 individuals who raise concerns, the frequency of do 6 they raise concerns, what the concerns are about, 7 anything that affects the work environment, have you 8 observed any changes in that? And let's go with the 9 two years and three months you've been a 10 11 --7 C- I would probably relate 12 any changes that I've observed with a change in 13 management and not necessarily my immediate
(* 14 management, but upper management also. So I think 15 that on a broad view, we've always been able to bring 16 up concerns, individuals have always brought up 17 concerns. Nobody has ever been chastised or any 18 repercussions for bringing up concerns.
19 The frequency of the concerns I kind of 20 relate a little bit to other ihings going on, the 21 environment, relationships between lower management 22 and upper management or relationships between the 23 union and management, so you'll see sometimes more --
24 the time is more conducive to people bringing up 25 concerns if they think that somebody is going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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I 1 listen more than what they're listening let's say now.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now you said quite a 3 bit there. Let me just -- so we understand who you 4 term upper management and your management. Upper 5 management, is that VP level?
.1 6 MDirector level up.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So 8 the position formerly held by*
S9
.] Correct.
10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And up to the vice 12 presidents and CNO?
13 Correct.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Upper management.
15 And your management would be at the operations 16 management level, OAM and operations manager?
6,O .correct.
17 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what you're saying 19 is you've seen change in management that affects the 20 environment in terms of frequency of the concerns? Or 21 how the concerns --
Sometimes it's frequency.
22 23 I mean if there's individuals out there that either 24 have concerns or think they have concerns, they're 25 more apt to bring them up if they think someone is NEAL R. GROSS H COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS -
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8 1 going to listen to them and something is going to be 2 done with them. But that doesn't necessarily mean 3 that their concerns are valid.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
5 It just means they think 6 they have concerns, so they're going to bring it up 7 and then I think sometimes their confidence level as 8 to what's going to happen, determines whether or not 9 they bring the things up.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So where do you see 11 the change there? Are they more comfortable at this 12 point in time or are they less comfortable?
13 11 Right-now I think they're 14 more comfortable.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this is at what 16 level of management do you attribute that to?
17 Right now it's all levels 18 of management.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So your own 20 individual management, your own operations management 21 into senior management?
22 ICE Correct. We're talking 23 about like'right now, to distinguish between right now 24nti --- *(Phonetic) just came in.
25 Just came in. You have all those individuals NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that just came in.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: These are 2003 3 chances?
4 . Right. So my duration of 5 , when I first became a..
6 7
8 So for me, the change has been working 9 under those guys to who I'm working under right now.
10 I believe right now people are more of the belief that 11 their concerns will more listened to and more properly 12 dealt with with our current management.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:. Okay now, your 14 immediate management also changed in that. It's gone 15 16 Correct.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you see the same 18 effect there?
19 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you're saying the 21 change at the senior management level?
22 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From what people may 24 be more comfortable with.
f 25 Vj Correct.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There's a couple of 2 questions I have to follow up on that, but let's go 3 back and categorize. What are the kind of concerns 4 that people are raising now that they may have 5 hesitated to raise before? Can you give some 6 examples?
7 I guess it depends if 8 we're talking just nuclear safety or industrial 9 safety, that type of thing. Because to me, the 10 environment for bringing concerns up really is global 11 and then you categorize it whether it's a nuclear 12 concern or an industrial safety or whatever.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Agreed. You can 14 dissect it to where they fit, but overall they're 15 looking at their comfort level and being able to say 16 hey, that's unsafe. So whether it's industrial or 17 nuclear, we'll get into more specific questions on how 18 those issues are handled. But if you want to 19 categorize it, industrial, are you seeing the increase 20 there or are you seeing a decrease and a change in the 21 willingness to bring them forward?
22 J We're seeing an increase 23 in the industrial and examples of those are issues out 24 of circ. water with the traveling water screens, 25 issues surrounding electrical safety, issues NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 132S RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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II 1 surrounding heat stress.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you're seeing an 3 increase in industrial safety-related concerns?
4 " Correct.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you attribute it 6 more to -- is there something else that causing it, 7 other than a willingness to bring these concerns 8 forward? Are these always there, or are these just 9 problems that are happening recently?
10 A lot of these issues 11 probably have always been there. We just never looked 12 at them the way we're looking at them now and I think 13 what's caused the change is there's been a little 14 shift in the industrial safety aspect. In other 15 words, we have a safety committee now which is 16 actually much more engaged than they were a year or 17 two ago. So people see that there's attention being 18 paid to safety, so now they're bringing up more 19 concerns because they feel they're being addressed.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So there's an 21 emphasis there?
22 . Correct.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when did that 24 start?
25 would say it started in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the last six to eight months, during the 2003 time 2 frame.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Under the new senior 4 management?
5 Yes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Six to eight will put 7 you in April --
8 The transition from 9 to--
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: April 2003?
11 i a3R h t .
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now what about 13 in terms of nuclear safety. issues.?
14 I don't necessarily know 15 that I've seen a change in nuclear safety issues.
16 I've always seen when somebody feels pretty strongly 17 about a nuclear safety that they've brought it up.
18 I've never seen anybody hesitate to bring one up. And 19 I'm looking at it from my operators to people walking 20 into my office and say I have a concern.
21 I haven't seen a trend that there's been 22 more, there's been less.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's consistent?
24 J~~J I would say it's 25 consistent. When somebody has a nuclear concern, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 which isn't all that often, I haven't seen anybody say 2 hey, I'm not bringing that up because nobody is going 3 to listen to me or anything of the sort.
4 In fact, I kind of see the opposite which 5 is hey, I know if one thing is going to be listened to 6 it's going to be a nuclear safety, so I'm going to 7 bring it up.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that's --
9 .. _ When I say "bring it up" 10 I mean like bring it to me.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, right. Now 12 you're assessing the operators and the CRSs. What 13 about yourself and your peer level, do you get the 14 same feeling there?
15Ow Yes. I don' t have any 16 doubt that people at my level, if they have a nuclear 17 safety concern, they'll bringing it up to our 18 immediate management.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And now is that 20 consistent? Would that have been with senior 21 management that was formerly in place?
22 Um, I believe it's 23 consistent in that we would bring it up, but I'm not 24 sure that the level of confidence is there, that with 25 the previous management that it would have been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 properly or aggressively sought after as I think it 2 would be now.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Before I get 4 into questions along that line, what I would like to 5 ask you is going back on the industrial safety issues, 6 what was it that senior management did that made 7 people less willing to bring these issues forward?
8 And I'm asking you to consider on the industrial 9 safety side, that you saw the increase in after the 10 change in management. What was the response there 11 again? Did you witness any of that?
12 - I think the response 13 previously was, you could write notifications and code 14 them as safe and they just went off into a black hole 15 or maybe if it was something that was an immediate 16 danger to somebody it would be addressed, but for the 17 most part, I think the majority of the safety 18 notification just went into the process and then it 19 could be rather a longtime before those notifications 20 were processed and brought to closure, i.e., fixing 21 the issue.
22 Over the last time frame that I'm speaking 23 of, industrial safety, there's been more of an 24 emphasis where there would be people in our department 25 grabbing a hold of the safety notifications and we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 have our own list that we're tracking now, you know, 2 the top five issues in operations.
3 And there's an individual, 4 (Phonetic) who tracks those and it helps bring them to 5 closure and I think what we're seeing now is like, for 6 example, the circ. water, traveling water screen 7 modification, that was significantly expensive and 8 when the operator saw them put the money out to fix 9 that, to enhance it to make it more safe, at that 10 point it was -- gave them the confidence so that their 11 safety concerns were going to be addressed.
12 Now that modification is a little bit 13 older. It goes back before this time frame that we're 14 talking about.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was in place?
16
- We did it over the last--
17 actually, we did the modification over the last six or 18 sevdh months.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you want to get 20 that? We can take a break.
21 (Telephone interruption.)
22 (Off the record.)
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on 24 the record after a very brief break. It's about 1:20 25 p.m.
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Lb 1 Okay, so you were saying that the circ.
2 water modifications were in place or started to be in 3 place seven months ago?
4 They were conceived 5 probably a year, year and a half ago and then over the 6 last year we installed the DPC.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So they were changes 8 that were being started under senior management prior 9 to the change?
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What is it a 12 difference in senior management, it's dedicating the 13 resources 14 Correct.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That they were saying 16 issues weren't being addressed, maintenance wasn't 17 being performed and now there's a little more emphasis 18 in that direction?
19 ~Correct.
20 MR. BARBER: What is the nature of the 21 modifications?
22 On the traveling water 23 screens?
24, MR. BARBER: Yes.
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1 operators used to have to open the door of the screen 2 and stick a rake in there and rake the grass off of 3 the fish slips and the modification was we installed 4 the hinge, we put a handle with a -- basically, it's 5 like a lip, but we can dump it now without having to 6 go inside with the traveling water screen.
7 MR. BARBER: Okay.
8 C .So you can just walk up to 9 it, dump the grass off, put it back and move on versus 10 sticking a rake in there. The rake had a potential to 11 get caught in the screen.
12 MR. BARBER: So this was an area that had 13 been a previous area where folks questioned whether it 14 was safe to do that or not?
15 16 MR. BARBER: I take it this is an area the 17 screen wash system didn't cover?
18 3 Actually, the screen wash 19 system does blow the grass off. It's supposed to make 20 it into the trough, but --
21 MR. BARBER: Oh, this is like on a --
22 jBut the grass will either 23 go to the trough or it will wind up on this lip.
24 MR. BARBER: Oh, I see.
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18 1 the lip, it falls behind and it winds up going into 2 the water box which defeats the purpose of the screen.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
4 So we raked them for 20 5 years and it's only (Inaudible) that's really safe and 6 they started a research to see what the best way to 7 fix it was and it wound up giving us this dump.
8 MR. BARBER: Was there ever an instance to 9 your knowledge where a rake did, in fact, get caught?
10 0 ý]Ys 11 MR. BARBER: Was that a common occurrence 12 or infrequent?
13 I wouldn't say it was --
14 I would say it's between infrequent and common, 15 depending on how careful you were when you raked the 16 screens, but it wouldn't be --
17 MR. BARBER: You said it did happen to 18 you?
19 Yes.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay. And you felt you were 21 careful?
22 : ( I1 thought I was being 23 careful. But if you're raking it and the screen just 24 happens to catch the corner of it it will pull the 25 rake right now, so you let go and the rake is what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 gets damaged and suffers the repercussions.
2 MR. BARBER: Was there ever an instance 3 where someone had done this and they, in fact, got 4 injured?
6 MR. BARBER: Okay, so you just know to let 7 go if that happens?
8 Right.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you okay with 10 that?
11 MR. BARBER: Yes.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Going back to where 13 you were indicating there's a difference in the level 14 of confidence in terms of raising nuclear safety 15 issues, why do you say that? Where do you see the 16 change?
17 I see the change in the 18 environment. The environment now is -- it's more 19 comfortable. It's more comfortable in the respect 20 that what I believe now is I can bring up a nuclear 21 concern. And I can discuss them with ma f 22 M and I don't feel that they're going to be trying 23 to talk me out of it or minimize what I believe the 24 concern to be.
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1 individuals in my immediate chain that they're going 2 to think about it, they're going to address it and 3 we're going to have a conversation which is going to 4 be the right conversation. We're going to have a 5 conversation that's going to be conservative, whereas 6 before, I can't really say that because there were 7 times where I believe that if we brought up a concern, 8 that it was going to be -- the first thoughts are hey, 9 how can we work around this or how can we minimize 10 what the concern is.
11 I can't come up with the right word, I 12 guess, but more or less be talked into it's not really 13 a concern, reduce the risk or whatever.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now that's at their 15 level, level? Are you 16 including' mi (Phonetic) in this?
17 I am, but he's new.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So in your dealings 19 with 'WU"M'jbefore the first 20 reaction may have been to let's work around it or 21 minimize?
22..J No, actually, I am more 23 talking about above that.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Let's go one 25 level at a time then.
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21 1 *'. Okay.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are they giving you 3 a different response under senior management now, do 4 you get a different response from your AOM and your 5 ops manager than you experienced -- is their behavior 6 different now than it was before?
7 Yes. I believei 8 behavior is different now than it was before.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay because you're 10 not necessarily dealing with at that 11 level any more, right?
12 .J Right.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So we could look at 14 if you're looking -- what is he doing 15 differently, right?
16 -m~ Right.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what do you 18 attribute that to?
19 2* The environment.
20 SPECIAIý AGENT NEFF: Okay. Is there --
21 .... . What I've seen from my 22 experience is that people at the lower levels of 23 management will tend to start managing like people 24 above them. Okay, so if the person above them wants 25 to work around something, let's say, then the pressure NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 11 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 is going to be on the person below them to work around 2 it after a period of time, that's going to be their --
3 that's what they're going to gravitate to. They're 4 going to say I know when I go here this is the 5 response I'm going to get, so I might as well give the 6 response now or start working towards where they know 7 this person is going to drive them to. Does that make 8 sense?
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, and I understand 10 what you're saying. I guess what I look for would be 11 an example of something that was handled that way.
12 When a concern was raised under senior management and 13 let's put names on the people where this kind of 14 direction is coming from.
15 Can you think of an example where that was 16 the direction you were told to go?
17 -7r. Yes, we were doing a start 18 up. We had problems, we had issues with circ. water.
19 We were doing a start up and we had basically had 20 enough circulators back to technically do a start up, 21 but in the control room we weren't all that 22 comfortable with jumping right back into the start up 23 and coming up.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What time frame?
25 *_I'd <) say it's at least last NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 spring, but probably the spring before.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Spring 2002?
3 - Right.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A grassing type of an 5 incident?
6 j*Well, the grassing or the 7 conditions of circ. water led to us shutting down 8 because of circulators being out of service.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
10 So we were bringing the 11 unit back and in the process of bringing it back we 12 were bringing circulators back and I think we had 13 probably three circulators and .we were basically 14 expressing a concern hey, we don't want to start up 15 with three circulators or four, right? We want to 16 have at least five, six. We'd like to have them all 17 back because of the unpredictable conditions of circ.
18 water.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, when you say 20 "we" -- are you the 21 22 Myself and the people below me. So you're 23 asking about. how is different, when -- an 24 example, whe jame in and we would talk about it, 25 irst reaction is well, you know, we've got to NEAL R. GROSS " W /C.
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24 1 start up. What's the legality of it as far as 2 procedure, compliance? Do we have enough circulators 3 to start up? Yes, we do. Then okay, we should be 4 starting up. Okay, but hold on a minute. I'm not 5 feeling too comfortable here starting up. I 6 understand what the procedure says but can't we have 7 all the circulators back and have a higher degree of 8 confidence that if we do lose one or two circulators 9 we're going to be able to stay on line and not 10 pertubate the plant?
11 So I feel that in that instance, initially 12 **was more of the thought hey, let's start up.
13 Senior says we can. Let's do it, let's move forward.
14 And what I'm saying now is that i f* ýcomes in my 15 office 'now and I hit him with the same scenario that 16 he's going to think about it differently because the 17 environment has changed.
18 The environment is right now is more 19 conducive to hey, what's the conservative thing to do 20 without being crazy conservative, but what's the right 21 thing to do? What's going to make the operators feel 22 comfortable to put this unit back on line and not have 23 to do down powers or not have to take unnecessary 24 actions or go into ABs that we shouldn't be operating 25 unless it's extreme emergencies or extreme conditions.
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1 So that's how I se hanging over the 2 last year or so.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had you seen him 4 react to that kind of an incident, a circulator issue, 5 more recently than 2002? It sounds like you're 6 predicting that's the way he would be, but had you 7 seen him react in that kind of --
8 I don't necessarily know 9 that it was a circulator issue? I don't know if it's 10 a one for one, but I've seen
- _ recently where, for 11 example, during the last outage, coming out of the 12 outage we were talking about using the MS-10s and if 13 we had used the MS-10s we could have furthered the C. 14 plant along *in the start up or the heat up and it 15 would have enabled us to do a lot more surveillance or 16 would have enabled us to do some discovery as far as 17 outage work that was done and whether it was good or 18 not. Basically, we were doing retest. Had we used 19 the MS-10s, we could have moved forward while we were 20 waiting for the main generator to be done.
21 So we talked about it and and myself 7 and we 22 and at the time the we called 23 discussed it and between the decision 24 was basically made, hey, we don't want to use the MS-25 10s7. had a stronger feeling about it than"""'
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26 1 did, but in the past would have probably pursued 2 it more or put up a little bit more of like a 3 resistance in the name of hey trying to move forward, 4 but this time around, just more or less backed 5 off, if you will, immediately. When the decision was 6 made hey, we're not going to use them, okay, fine, if 7 that's the way we're going to go.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He went the more 9 conservative route.
plCorrect.
10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When was that?
12 That's the most recent outage?
13 That.was coming out *of
(.. 14 2R13 (Phonetic). Right, that was just a month ago.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now in the incident 16 17 MR. BARBER: Let me ask a follow-up on 18 that. You said that he backed off of that. Do you 19 think his going in approach would have been -- if 20 wasn't around or whoever wasn't around to have formed 21 this judgment either way, do you think you would have 22 pushed to use the MS-10s?
- 3 From -- yes.
23 24 MR. BARBER: Okay.
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1 it's kind of a strong word, but realized that 2 everything we were asking to do was well within our 3 procedures. It's just a philosophy thing right now, 4 using them or not.
5 MR. BARBER: What would be some of the 6 ramifications of using the MS-10s?
7 7? Using the MS-10s, there's 8 two issues out there right now. One is the potential 9 for a tube leak or a tube rupture.
10 MR. BARBER: We're talking about the 11 atmospheric dump outs?
12 SCorrect.
13 MR. BARBER: And they. come off inside of 14 the main steam isolation valves?
15 Correct.
16 MR. BARBER: And you contrast that in 17 comparing to using the steam dumps which are just 18 turbine bypass valves?
19 Correct. So that's the 20 one concern -- was any type of tube leak or tube 21 rupture.
22 MR. BARBER: Okay.
23 j* And the other concern 24 right now that we're having is with the wells that are 25 being drilled down there for the -- ., //
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1 MR. BARBER: Spent fuel pool leak?
2 . Right. There was a report 3 done not that long ago about somehow maybe the MS-10s 4 over the life of a plant being used, that what came 5 out of the MS-10 wound up on the ground and absorbed 6 into the ground, so until that all gets straightened 7 out, again, we're reluctant to use the MS-10s.
8 MR. BARBER: How big an inventory? Do you 9 have any concerns with inventory? Basically, you're 10 releasing the steam and it's not being recovered?
11 Right. No, I don't have 12 any concern with inventory.
13 MR. BARBER: So I mean that's not an 14 issue, not a steam release over the period of time you 15 have to use them?
16.3 From an inventory point of 17 view?
18 MR. BARBER: Yes.
19No 20 MR. BARBER: Okay.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The use of the MS-22 10s, had that been an issue before?
23 .. It's been an issue ever 24 since)' cm.iwouldn't let us 25 use the MS-10s.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall it 2 being an issue where there was some discussion over 3 whether you would -- just as you described coming out 4 of this recent outage, coming out of another outage, 5 there was an issue of whether or not it would be used?
6 -_.7 Yes. Pretty much every 7 outage that we've been in since* been here, at 8 some point in time somebody has asked to use the MS-9 10s.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When did he take his 11 stand and say he wouldn't use the MS-10s?
12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.
14 9 From the minute he got 15 there.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, but it had 17 become an issue every time anyway?
18 L.1IRight, every outage you're 19 being asked to do an outage shorter and shorter, using 20 these MS-10s could buy you two or three days and 21 shorten the duration of an outage. So the guys that 22 are developing the outage and trying to come up with 23 a short duration outage will usually ask to use the 24 MS-10s and we haven't been able to use the MS-10s in 25 that capacity since, 'got there.
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30 1 MR. BARBER: There's really a long history 2 of how these have been used, isn't there? I mean if 3 you go back to the 1980s and early 1990s, the MS-10s 4 were used routinely. Routinely. They were in every 5 day use.
6 Right.
7 MR. BARBER: Until the extended unit 8 outage that occurred in 1995.
9 - . Correct.
10 MR. BARBER: At which point you made 11 efforts to reestablish the steam dump system as a 12 viable alternative and coming out of those -- that 13 extended outage in 1997 and 1998,. you really got the
(..
14 steam dumps back to where they worked properly, the 15 way they were supposed to work and it became another 16 option. Is that correct?
17 -That's true. Coming out 18 of the big shutdown, the steam dumps came out and they 19 worked great.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay.
21 So they were a viable 22 option and they were the way you wanted it.
23 MR. BARBER: The preferred method.
24 f-The preferred method.
25 MR. BARBER: Okay. (
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Al 1 Coming out of those long 2 outages though we were shut down for a couple of 3 years, so we weren't being asked to do an outage in 22 4 days or 20 some days.
5 Also, recently, we've had a couple of 6 outages where they got extended because the main 7 generator on Unit 2, two outages go, the main 8 generator had to be --
9 MR. BARBER: Rewound?
10 '*Well,we rewound this one, 11 but the previous one we had to pull it out. We wound 12 up dropping it and we had to pull the whole thing out 13 again and what not. So the point -was that there was 14 work being done. The work was going along. We 15 dropped the rotor and then we had to pull it out and 16 do a big inspection on it which extended the outage 17 and using the MS-10s would have allowed us to bring 18 back a couple, three days versus waiting for the 19 vacuum so we could use the steam belts.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay, and when was that?
21 That was like two outages ago, so it's like 2001?
22 This past outage we would 23 have wanted to use them because of all the main 24 generator rewind work and that was a long path. And 25 the outage before that, there was also generator work NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 and using the MS-10s would have helped further the 2 outage along.
3 MR. BARBER: All right.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But they hadn't been 5 used since?
6 ., No, they have not in that 7 capacity, no.
8 MR. BARBER: Could we go back to that 9 previous outage you referred to when the rotor was 10 dropped? What kind of configuration did the plant get 11 in during that outage when you were starting back up?
12 Do you remember that outage at all?
(." 13 I'm not sure what you're 14 asking, associated with the generator?
15 MR. BARBER: The generator and the 16 secondary plant systems. Was there anything unusual 17 done?
18 (1 JYes.
19 MR. BARBER: To get the condenser to be 20 functional? I don't want to say operable. Let's say 21 functional, capable of drawing a vacuum?
22 We came up with a method 23 to seal the seals so we could pull back.
24 MR. BARBER: Brick land seals (Phonetic)?
25 Correct.
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1 MR. BARBER: What was that like?
2 .J We used like a -- more or 3 less a gasket material for lack of -- I don't know the 4 exact name of it, but it was gasket material that we 5 put into the space to seal the seals.
6 MR. BARBER: Had that ever been done to 7 your knowledge before that?
8 RW W Not at our plant.
9 MR. BARBER: Okay.
10 There was a plant 11 somewhere that did it. It was where we got the 12 information from, but I don't remember which plant it 13 was.
14 MR. BARBER: Did that strike you as odd 15 that you were doing it?
16 I'm not sure if odd is the 17 right word. My feeling towards running the plants is 18 I want everything to be normal. I want everything to 19 be fixed and running and okay. I don't like working 20 around stuff and I don't like coming up with creative 21 ways of doing things in order to just further our 22 progress. I would rather sit there and either --
23 whatever it is, fix the things or wait for the 24 generator to come, pull back into the way we're 25 supposed to and not put this gasket material in there.
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34 1 That's the way I want to operate the 2 plant. But again, if you put into the -- the pressure 3 at the time was everybody else was everything else in 4 the industry was doing these short duration outages.
5 Why isn't Salem doing it? There was no big push to 6 get us to do our outages as fast as we can or in as 7 few days as we could. So doing something like that, 8 it's kind of somewhere to using the MS-10s, right?
9 I'm sure there's gasket material in there, hey, we can 10 pull back and we can do a whole bunch of other things 11 in the secondary now and we can make more progress.
12 MR. BARBER: Was there any other 13 limitations on the secondary plant? Did you raise 14 steam generator pressure to high pressures or were 15 there any other limitations? Did you have to keep 16 steam header pressure below 100 pounds while you had 17 gasket material in there? Do you remember anything 18 like that?
19 I don't remember.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay. How about the gland 21 seal condenser, anything odd with that?
22 7i 1 don't remember that 23 either. I don't remember anything about the gland 24 seal condenser.
25 MR. BARBER: How about physics testing?
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35 1 Do you remember trying to do physics testing coming 2 out of that outage?
3 I don't remember that 4 either.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay. What was your role in 6 that? Were you a or were you a 7
8 My role in that outage, I 9 was up in the'I I wasn't in 10 control.
11 MR. BARBER: Okay, so you weren't --
12 QRight.
13 MR. BARBER: But you knew about the gasket 14 material?
15 Right.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay. Do you know who asked 17 for that or who suggested that?
28 C Originally? I don't know 19 who the original person was, but I know that the 20 outage group, the outage manager, the --
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who is the1 '
23 (Phonetic).
24 ... . . .PM 25 -1L 'and I know they were NEAL R. GROSS (%)L COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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0 U 1 driving to come up with some alternate method and I 2 know jwas also pushing to come up with an 3 alternate method to be able to pull vacuum.
4 MR. BARBER: Now that must have required 5 some procedure changes, right? I mean once it's said 6 establish gland seals and it must have made an 7 assumption that the turbo was intact, the casings 8 intact, right?
9 Right.
i0 MR. BARBER: And it was or some parts of 11 it were.
12 ME-WW- I don't remember changing 13 any procedures. We might have. I just don't 14 remember.
15 MR. BARBER: Do you think there was 16 anything entered in the operator worker analog?
17 Wasn't this work around in a way?
19 MR. BARBER: Because you were installing 20 something to take the place of the fact that the 21 secondary wasn't -- you hadn't fully established the 22 integrity of the secondary plants because you were 23 still doing work on the turbine and the generator?
24 1jIwould highly doubt that 25 it made it to the operator worker analog. Whether or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 not we changed procedures, I don't remember.
2 It might have been a maintenance 3 procedure.
4 MR. BARBER: Would that still be done 5 today,something like that, do you think?
6 Ys 7 MR. BARBER: You think so?
8 *u'- 3T-'-- Yes.
9 MR. BARBER: Would it have been documented 10 as a work around and procedure changes?
11 *ij Work around, probably 12 still documented as a work around.
13 MR. BARBER: Wouldn't it be a work around?
14 Wouldn't it fit the definition or burden?
15 J Burden, whether it meets 16 the actual definition for the operator work around.
17 MR. BARBER: Are you the familiar with the 18 April 7th event?
19 W Yes.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay, do you remember all the 21 weird configurations back then? I mean are you pretty 22 well versed --
23 What do you mean "weird" 24 configurations?
25 MR. BARBER: Just the way the plant was NEAL R. GROSS
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38 1 being run and like what the conditions of various 2 systems were and --
3 . You mean like rocket 4 control being a manual, the MS-10s having the wind up?
5 MR. BARBER: Yes.
6 es.
7 MR. BARBER: So you were familiar with all 8 of that?
9 " Uh-huh."
10 MR. BARBER: Do you know the definition of 11 operator work around that came out of Salem?
12 I didn't know that.
13 MR. BARBER: Yes, it did. It did. I mean 14 that's the situation -- it was intended to kind of 15 inform the industry that this a practice that's not 16 desirable. It's very similar to what your instincts 17 are. If you remember earlier, you were talking about 18 how you wanted the plant to be whole. You wanted to 19 start up with a full complement of equipment and have 20 everything running the way it's supposed to.
21 All these things kind of challenge that, 22 right?
23 f. Absolutely. But if you're 24 asking me if we would install that gasket material 25 again in order to pull vacuum during an outage, I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 believe that we would.
2 MR. BARBER: You think so?
3 *J Now whether or not we 4 changed procedures in the past or those changes are 5 still in existence, I'm not sure.
6 MR. BARBER: Well, now we're sitting here 7 talking about it and maybe I've brought something to 8 light or maybe you would have thought of this on your 9 own, but how would you feel today if that happened?
10 Would that be something that would be part of a 11 dialogue or a discussion you might have with 12 .10
............ .. OM
3 13 . IM 14 Yes, absolutely. There 15 would be a discussion about that. The -- like I said, 16 I don't necessarily know the outcome would be 17 different and the way I look at it going back to the 18 plant being whole is well, what's the status *of 19 everything else in the secondary? If I'm just pulling 20 vacuum to reach a milestone, then I could care less, 21 all right? But and that being if I have other 22 equipment that's tagged out and I have to go out and 23 add tags to feed pumps and just really jump through 24 hoops just to pull vacuum, then I don't want any part 25 of that. But if everything else, let's say was NEAL R. GROSS {
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qu 1 intact, and it was a matter of pulling vacuum to get 2 through a discovery phase while the outage work, then 4
3 I would probably entertain that more than if I just 4 knew the (Inaudible) was all taken apart.
5 MR. BARBER: This sounds like in that case 6 you were (Inaudible) the costs versus the benefits of 7 doing that?
8 SRight.
9 MR. BARBER: Because what you're 10 describing is a situation where you want to find out 11 what else is not working properly because of the 12 "discovery" so you're actually doing additional 13 testing to find out if there's other problems that you 14 can correct?
15 j Right, if I can't pull 16 vacuum because I've got a hole in something or 17 something is not proper out in the plant, I would know 18 that as soon as I can. So from a -- however you want 19 to phrase it, a schedule point of view or cost versus 20 outage duration whatever, there's some benefit to it, 21 but I'm not willing to do that just to hit a milestone 22 and say we pulled vacuum.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about any other
( 25 time that you found yourself where you're kind of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 describing your comfort levels over here, you want 2 things running normally, you want everything intact.
3 Do you recall being in a position where your 4 management or senior management pushed you in your 5 comfort level? Can you think of other ones?
6 Yes. We went through a 7 time frame where -- we try to keep things black and 8 white, right? But we always wind up in gray areas 9 because that's just the nature of the business. And 10 when somebody brings an issue to the table and it 11 could be an engineer walking in and say hey, we're 12 reviewing this calculation and it's not quite coming 13 out to the way we thought it was or it's different 14 than it was originally calculated, so hey, I think we 15 have an operability concern here.
16 We would, in the past we would pretty much 17 just kind of take whatever he gave us, make the 18 operability call and then move forward from there and 19 there was a time -frame under iiiii *I--
20 h..#.here we felt uncomfortable with 21 the amount of time that they wanted us to take to make 22 that call, so in other words it would look like this.
23 A guy walks in and says I've got an issue. Okay, got 24 an issue. What is it? I understand it. Okay, so can 25 you hold on to that now or hey, I'm going to call NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 another engineer or I'm going to go through a 2 discovery phase that we viewed as the shift managers 3 and the CRSs was too long.
4 So we were kind of being pushed to engage 5 a whole lot more people before we actually made that 6 determination of whether something was operable or 7 degraded or whatever and we actually had a meeting 8 where the shift managers were all there and<
9 (Phonetic), this was back when 10 and * . .. all those 11 guys, we had a meeting one night to discuss this and 12 we pushed back pretty hard on the way we wanted to do 13 business which was more black and-white.
14 Somebody brings you a concern, we evaluate 15 it, take whatever information you have at the time, 16 make the call, move forward and he pushed back pretty 17 hard -- thisis, _on take the facts, okay, 18 now what are they telling us and we're going to call 19 these other people and let's go through some time of 20 discovery before we actually make the operability 21 call. So we were very uncomfortable when that 22 happened. We didn't like that at all.
23 MR. BARBER: Was there something that 24 motivated that discussion? Was there something 25 specifically--
z % -/ ," -
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43 1 Im There were probably a few 2 -- and I don't have this exact example, but there were 3 a few cases where that happened where somebody came 4 in. You know what, there is an example. We had the 5 RWST had a little weep on it, number 1 RWST, a little 6 weep on it, there's a little telltale out back, so we 7 had a leak on the RWST and the shift manager that day 8 declared the RWST inoperable. Okay?
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What time frame are 10 you looking at here?
21 Probably like three years 12 ago.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know who the 14 was?
15 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
17 So declared the RWST 18 inoperable based on what he had.
19 MR. BARBER: Okay.
20 So it wound up being 21 operable, but degraded and we did an OD for it, but it 22 wasn't looked upon favorably that Wd/eclared the 23 RWST inoperable because it's a one hour tech spec.
24 So that would be an example of something 25 where they would say hey, don't make that decision at NEAL R. GROSS 4.,
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44 1 the time.
2 MR. BARBER: One hour is 303?
3 No_, it's actually a one 4 hour.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 97 It's a one hour if the 7 RWST is inoperable. You've got one hour to start 8 shutting it down.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how do you know 10 it wasn't received -- it wasn't looked at?
11 9 Because that was one of 12 the examples that was used like in that meeting --
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To build in the delay
" 14 for your analysis later?
15 Correct.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Reached by 17 ho was throwing this out as you were hasty in 18 making your decision here?
19 JFTRight, that's the one that 20 comes to mind. I know there were others, but that's 21 definitely one that-comes to mind.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In the end, did you 23 say that -- it was degraded? Was his call 24 accurate in what he did?
25 .For the information he had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
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4b 1 the time, his call was accurate. Okay? So you could 2 make an argument that waiting might be the right thing 3 to do in order to gather more facts and give us a 4 chance to do the research to come up with an 5 operability determination to say it's operable, but 6 degraded. But you're also obligated to operate the 7 plant and put the plant in a safe condition, if you 8 don't have everything -- if you don't have all the 9 equipment you're supposed to have which is the way 10 [* jviewed it.
SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the choice 12 between safety being first concern and hindsight?
13 L
- Absolutely.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Being added value 15 later.
16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he went with 18 safety first and you think he took criticism for that?
19 40M Correct.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How many other 21 instances fed into this conversation that prompted 22 a you said it was in a meeting with 23
- ~No -
24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was under this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 time frame when they were all --
2 It was under the time 3 frame when they were all in place. It was --
4 led the meeting. was there. And --
5 [END TAPE 1, SIDE A; BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE 6 B.]
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's 1:54 p.m. What 8 we were talking about was you were describing a 9 meeting where0 Med the 10 meeting that addressed some incidents where maybe 11 operability calls were made too quickly for them?
12 - Correct.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now the one incident 14 that you gave us that involved was three 15 years ago?
16 ) I'm estimating. I mean I 17 don't have the exact date in my head, but it was at 18 least three years ago.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, was the meeting 20 that they were responding to this? Was this all 21 coming at the same time? Was it coming six months 22 later? How many incidents and how far apart?
23 Mi From M '*example, it 24 was probably like a good six months later for the 25 example that I gave you.
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47 1 -Okay. So there were other 2 things -- there were other instances along the way,
(
3 I'm sure, where we made an operability call which 4 basically we took the conservative way, if you will, 5 hey, we're going to the tech speci either we're going 6 to start shutting down or whatever. And that prompted 7 the discussion about how quickly we declare something 8 inoperable and the discovery phase that we should go 9 to prior to reaching that, that determination.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that was -- you 11 indicated that the shift managers pushed back on that?
12 Absolutely,) i ot 13 so upset he actually walked out of it.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, what was the 15 end result?
16 The end result was, the 17 expectation was that we were to go through the 18 discovery phase that they wanted us to go through 19 prior to declaring ourselves inoperable.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You did extend it?
-wNThey wanted us to.
21 22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So tell me 23 what -- all right, they wanted you to extend the 24 discovery phase. What happened in practice?
25 --
'Ile W In practice, across the NEAL R. GROSS ,
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48 1 board, the shift managers made the call as they saw 2 fit and did not let that influence them declaring 3 something inoperable. In other words, we did not 4 declare something inoperable when we thought it should 5 be in operable, just because we were going to wait for 6 some more time to get some more information.
7 MR. BARBER: How did you make a decision 8 to do that across the board?
9 Because going into that 10 meeting, we were all on the same page.
11 MR. BARBER: How did you guys come to that 12 consensus? How did you reach that consensus?
13 As far as discussion or 14 something like that?
15 MR. BARBER: Yes. Did you have a 16 discussion? How did you get to all agree on --
17 ,, During that time frame you 18 would have the AOM come up in the control room. We 19 would be going through either turnovers and what not 20 and you would have a majority of the population of the 21 shift managers at the time. We would have those 22 discussions, okay, I don't agree with this or this is 23 not the way I want to do it. I want to do it like 24 this and this is the way I interpret making an 25 operability call, so there was enough discussions NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS (*1 I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 there with all the shift managers at one point in time 2 or another that we were all on the same page.
3 MR. BARBER: Was there ever any meetings 4 in which the shift managers and the AOMs were saying 5 hey, we feel like we're being pushed in the wrong 6 direction here. Are we all going to agree, especially 7 in a case like this where something is an operability 8 issue that we have to stand firm and resolute and not 9 cave into senior management pressure?
10 2 Yes. Did we have it at 7 11 o'clock on Thursday meeting, no, but prior to that 12 meeting, we all either via e-mail or discussions 13 through turnovers came to that conclusion.
14 After the meeting, then it was more or 15 less a follow-up, yes, hey, is this still what we want 16 to do? Make the call, do the right thing get the tech 17 specs, shut the plant down, whatever it is.
18 And the issue that I talked about later 19 on, earlier about the circ. water, making the decision 20 to start up and all, this is all in that same time 21 frame.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So we're 23 looking at 2002 then?
24 -took over as 25 last May-June time frame.
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50 1 MR. BARBER: Are you saying 2002 or 2003?
2 2002.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
44 So it would have been the 5 spring of 2002 that most of this occurred. It was 6 before --
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and a question 8 out of that is if across the board you made the 9 decision that you were going to do business just the 10 way you always had, what, if any response did you get 11 fo anybody else in senior management 12 to that? Was that the end of it?
13 It was the end of it as 14 .far as everybody getting in one room and talking about 15 it.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
17 Irobabl uld be 18 the guy to talk to more than anybody, but I know --
19 see, I don't have exact specific examples for you 20 which doesn't help. But I know after that meeting 21 there were occasions where we made the operability 22 call and started to either shut down or we went 23 through a short duration tech spec and we didn't go 24 through some of the discovery things.
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51 1 and saying hey, you guys are doing the wrong thing.
2 However, you can tell by the body language and what 3 not or you can see that was sent over 4 with some message like what are those guys doing? And 5 2would come in and say what's going on? And he 6 would start looking to get us out of whatever we got 7 ourselves into or start working around it.
8 Actually, we had -- coming out of a Unit 9 1 outage, we had an issue with the reactor head vents.
10 We didn't have the right indication when we were doing 11 the surveillance and we needed the indications from 12 the surveillance and )was actually the guy 13 on duty, was taking a firm stance as far as hey, I 14 want this fixed. We're not moving forward. So we sat 15 there for probably half a shift trying to get 16 maintenance to go out and take a look at this and then 17 s in the control room pushing to revise the 18 procedure and move on, saying do we really need the 19 indication or not.
20 So the legality of it might be no, we 21 don't need that indication, right? But what's the 22 right thing to do and what feels comfortable? The 23 comfortable thing is hey, fix the light, make sure 24 everything is working okay. Do the surveillance and 25 move on. /
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1 So there was a lot -- I won't say a lot --
2 there was some examples where the pressure was on to 3 keep moving and change procedures, whatever you had to 4 do stay within the rules, but work through them and 5 work around them. And again, it just goes back to a 6 philosophy of in my mind what's the right thing to do.
7 Fix everything and then move on. , 7 o 8 MR. BARBER: Was pushing to not do 9 whatever the post test activity was or not to do a 10 surveillance?
112 He wasn't pushing to not 12 do the surveillance, but he would have wanted the 13 procedure changed. If we didn't need that light for 14 -- if tech specs didn't say that we needed to have 15 that light, if tech specs just said hey, make sure the 16 valve is closed, and let's say you can do other -- use 17 some alternative indications to verify the valve was 18 closed, andL#-wanted us to change that procedure and 19 move on. Okay? So it's not really illegal, however, 20 what we're comfortable with is fix the equipment, get 21 the light on, the light is supposed to be on and it 22 stays on for the next 18 months. Fix it now and 23 especially if I miss a window for fixing something 24 like that because where that cellinoid (Phonetic) 25 valve is located you can't access during power.
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53 1 So basically we were trying to say hey, 2 we're not willing to move forward without fixing this 3 stuff and then the pressure was on, hey, just on the 4 spot change the procedure, delete the requirement to 5 have the light and move forward.
6 But there were situations that came up 7 like that and all of those things were starting to 8 feed into that uncomfortable feeling that we started 9 having which drove us to have a meeting with 10 and we-actually requested that meeting with' 11 the one about declaring something all (Inaudible) 12 because we didn't like what was coming down. We 13 actually asked for that meeting.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was coming down, 15 you indicated it was coming to you through*
17 Right.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: First hand, did you 19 see anybody else in -- Gin the senior 20 management address anybody in that way or push the way 21 he was?
22 Nobody else would come in 23 and push us the way~wl ould. It was like a chain of 24 command thing. Obviously, my opinion, it got pushed 25 down to and was the guy that came over to the NEAL R. GROSS Ii COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 control room. and started digging into what are you 2 guys doing?
3 So nobody else came into the control room 4 and said change the procedure.
- would do that. We 5 had several phone calls with 0where 6 basically he would be asking us like what were we 7 doing. We would obviously be in a delay somewhere, 8 whether it be the outage or something going on and you 9 found yourself defending what you're doing, defending 10 where you're heading instead of -- when I say 11 defending, I don't mean just the normal hey, this 12 broke, we're now in tech spec., hey, it was either 13 personnel or just an equipment failure. I don't mean 14 defending something like that. I mean defending like 15 your position and on several occasions we found 16 ourselves doing that and that's what started to lead 17 to be uncomfortable, the uncomfortableness of 18 operating the plant with all the shift managers.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were defending it 20 -- so I don't assume, you were taking a conservative 21 approach and having to defend a conservative approach?
22 Correct.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you ever find 24 yourself in a position where you were having to -- you t 25 were being maybe more aggressive and senior management NEAL R. GROSS ' 7 _
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1 was taking a more conservative approach and you were 2 having to defend where you stood there?
3 I think the only case that 4 I can think of with that is and it's not so much that 5 we were being aggressive, probably more that we 6 weren't quite sure what to do, being where we had to 7 change the steam generator --
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's take a break.
9 (Telephone interruption.)
10 (Off the record.)
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's 2:06 p.m. We're 12 back on.
13 You were thinking of an incident where you 14 were saying that you would describe the
.15 position as aggressive and are you talking about 16 yourself or somebody else?
17 In this case, I'm talking 18 about everybody else, myself included. This is when 19 we got the word from Palo Verde or somebody, something 20 to do with a baffle in the steam generator and it can 21 throw the calculation off at the low level set point, 22 so we took a down power on both units while they did 23 the investigation to figure out whether this was true 24 or not and the outcome was we had to change our set 25 points from 9 to 14 percent for low level trip. So we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 did that at a derated power level.
2 That was more or less all driven by-3 t the time. So it's probably a case where we 4 were definitely taking a conservative approach versus 5 staying at 100 percent power while we were trying to 6 figure it out.
7 MR. BARBER: How much of a down power did 8 you take?
9 We came down like 70.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And that was driven 11 by j ou say?
12 Right.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was one incident 14 where you sort of flipped in position?
15 ( Flipped probably because 16 the shift managers didn't have the information that he 17 had. to the details of what the issue was and so it was 18 kind of probably more or less he was driving, hey, we 19 need to come down in power while we're figuring this 20 whole thing out.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think that 22 that could have been a contributor to some of the
-23 other incidents where he was questioning your 24 operability decisions, that he didn't have a full 25 understanding of exactly what was going on? Could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that have contributed to it or do you think he knew 2 what the issue was?
( 3 41 For this one?
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Not this one, but in 5 the other ones where he took the other position and he 6 was pushing in a less conservative way? Could any of 7 that have been because he didn't understand the issue?
8 **-,*jI don't think so.
.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You think he had an 10 understanding of where you were. Was he asking 11 questions and getting his information?
12 I)He would call right in the 13 control room and we would feed him the information (V
14 that we had. He would actually come over.
15 MR. BARBER: Was he the,9)at that time?
16 17 MR. BARBER: What was 18 position?
19 20 21 MR. BARBER: Okay.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How about when'j 23 Did he do the same thing?
24 Did he conie over? I know you said he was on the 25 phone.
~1)
.. \
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1
[* didn't come over as 2 much asl I over more than he walked 3 over.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and you said 5 there was some conversations -- how frequently would 6 that happen that you felt like it wasn't that you were 7 explaining your position so much as you were defending 8 your position and what kind of issues come to mind?
9 I think for me personally 10 as a maybe once every couple of weeks.
11 I would say* probably a 12 couple times a week.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where he felt he was
'BD F .14 defending his position?
15 'Right.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he tell you that?
17 Did he -- part of what you said earlier in the 18 interview was you think thatL q*s getting -- the 19 difference in senior management affects him and how he 20 makes his decisions now.
21 Did he indicate to you that he had 22 problems with anybody in particular in making his 23 points at senior management?
\ ,and I had 24
( 25 conversations to do with' Jand basically NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 the conversation would go pretty much like hey, you're 2 trying to tell this guy something and he's just not 3 getting it or he doesn't see our point of view or has 4 he ever been in the control room as an SRO and faced 5 with what we're facing was he really understanding?
6 Our feeling was no, he really didn't understand it.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so that might 8 be a little different than from[
9 might not understand what he was asking for?
10 I think there were 11 occasions where/ might not have fully understood 12 what we were trying to tell him.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did it ever come to 14 the point -- you said you felt like you were defending 15 your position. Was there specific direction or was it 16 probing questions? What were you dealing with and how 17 long do your discussions go on? Do they take a long 18 period of time or short period of time?
19 It would depend, but like, 20 for example, the circ. water, the one I bring up, that 21 sticks in my mind the most. The way :did business 22 he would ask questions and then try to get you on the 23 defensive and once you were there, kind of kept you 24 there and the whole way through the conversation 25 though he's leading you to the direction he wants you NEAL R. GROSS " YI COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 to go, okay? So he wanted us to start up. There was 2 no doubt about it. He wanted us to start up and as we 3 brought up our concerns or hey, we're uncomfortable, 4 for me when an operator says I'm uncomfortable, it's 5 reason enough right there to stop. Okay?
6 Yes, there's probably some situations out 7 there where you're uncomfortable and maybe you're just 8 lacking the knowledge or lacking the experience to 9 move forward, but in cases where the circ. water, when 10 we were uncomfortable with moving forward until we had 11 more circulators back, basically the conversation 12 would go like hey, you know, we have to manage a 13 certain amount of risk. I understand that you don't 14 have as many circulators as you want to have, but if 15 the.procedure says we can move forward, then we're 16 going to move forward.
17 So it would start out questions and then 18 it would wind up this is where we need to go.
19 MR. BARBER: When you say it was asking 20 questions, do you think he was trying to find out if 21 there was something else that really he didn't 22 understand? Was he just probing the issue just to say 23 like you would say if we did this, the plant would 24 trip or we have to do this to meet an interlock 25 (Phonetic). Is that why he was asking questions?
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1 ?JYes, he would start out 2 asking questions and say hey, is there a hard, fast 3 requirement that prevents us from moving forward and 4 then he would find out that there wasn't, then he 5 would say okay, if there's not a valid, technical 6 reason not to move forward, then let's move forward.
7 And in this case it's like well, okay, we 8 can't predict the river, however, I know that if I 9 have five circulators, I'm better off than if I have 10 four. If I have six, then I'm better off than if I 11 have five. You're just lessening the margin to do a 12 down power or taking a unit off line.
13 So --
14 MR. BARBER: Did he ever offer some sort 15 of compromise position to say well, I understand your 16 position. We have three now. Why don't we start up 17 and get the plant up to 20 or 30 percent power? We'll 18 sit until we get one or two more back, just to kind of 19 like middle of the road type thing or that doesn't 20 even come up?
21 I don't remember it being 22 like that.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 A negotiation.
25 MR. BARBER: All right.
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1 .was more or less hey, 2 here's what we want to feel comfortable. We want five 3 circulators. Okay, well, we're not going to get two 4 of them back for another week so what are we doing?
5 We're going to sit here for a week and wait?
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This was 2002, spring 7 2002?
8 Uh-huh.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about anything 10 else?
11 For?
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Involving I 13 2 You kind of indicated there were a number 14 of phone calls where you were defending yourself.
15 One of them was a little 16 different in nature, but when we tripped -- the trip 17 that you were there for.
18 MR. BARBER: The one in July?
19 Yes, -1616 1 .
20 When we tripped, he called over to control room and 21 his whole thing was like why did we trip and at the 22 time when he called we weren't quite sure. We know we 23 had a fault switch on, but we didn't give him the 24 detail of what happened yet. And his words were like 25 how can that happen? What are you guys doing? More NEAL R. GROSS 'y " ;1 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1<
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1 of a "we must have done something" in order to 2 generate this trip, okay?
3 So here you are in scenario in the control 4 room where there's a lot of stress and a lot of things 5 going on and in my opinion the VP Ops you call over 6 and say -- first of all, he shouldn't be calling over.
7 If he's interested, he should walk over. And second 8 of all, he should be offering whatever help he can get 9 us, especially in that scenario and that's not the way 10 the thing unfolded and when I talked about 11 environment, like a long time ago, if I'm in the 12 control room and we're the only one that tripped, the 13 stress level is high enough. If I've got people in 14 there helping me *to alleviate that stress, the 15 environment becomes a better place, people operate 16 better and we have a much better chance of success 17 getting through a trip like that versus what are you 18 guys doing? What happened? Well, how could it 19 possibly be designed that way? I don't know. I 20 don't know how it could be designed that way. I don't 21 care right now . I'm trying to respond to the trip.
22 So--
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're indicating 24 he's adding to the stress level?
25 Absolutely, absolutely.
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1 A lot of phone calls. I used to do my best not to 2 talk to him. I would try to get somebody in between 3 he and I whether it be or someone because I just 4 didn't want to talk to him.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He regularly was that 6
7 You never knew.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don't know a good 9 word for it. You just needed to avoid him or you 10 never knew you said. It was a different --
11 jjOne time he might call you 12 and be really nice and the next time he would call you 13 and you just didn't want to .be part of that
" 14 conversation.
15 Most of the conversations you had with him 16 there was always some .sort of a coaching coming your 17 way, you know what I mean? So you -- I personally 18 just wanted to avoid talking to him and if I could get 19 r or whoever, 20 whatever, I would always try to do that.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What would the 22 coaching be about?
23 I It could be anything from 24 -- we do a morning tape, to how we're wording the 25 morning tape to getting out in the plant and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 supervising maintenance. It could be a variety of 2 things. Usually, lower profile things than something 3 like a nuclear safety issue or something like that, 4 but just -- it's just a conversation you don't want to 5 be in, especially when you're in the control room 6 trying to do stuff.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that -- do you 8 think that was something that was felt across the 9 board by your peers? Was it your opinion?
10 , No, it was across the 11 board. Nobody really wanted to talk to him unless 12 they had to.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:- How about in 14 comparison with You kind of indicated that 15 ... had his issues and his direction that the 16 shift managers didn't care for and then he's replaced 17 by By what you're describing does it seem 18 much better?
19 )No, actually, I don't view 20 it as being better. I view it as being worse.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So when you're 22 describing these changes in senior management, how 23 about - where did you see him falling in 24 that?
25 NN You want my opinions, NEAL R. GROSS ('4 ! '
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1 right?
2 MR. BARBER: Yes, absolutely.
3 .mwwwas just a messenger.
4 We didn't look to for any kind of expertise. We 5 didn't look to him for knowledge. We didn't look to 6 him for making decisions for us. We didn't really 7 utilize a quote unquot He 8 was just the guy between us an*or the guy 9 between us andL-10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So when he would come 11 into the control room and push for work arounds and 12 get out of this and work around it this way, you 13 thought -- did he tell you directly that that was 14 information that that was the feeling of the VPs or 15 did he tell you that was the.way he wanted to go?
16 - 6g He would never say "this 17 is the way I want to go." He was always saying "this 18 is the way we want to go." But you could tell by the 19 phone calls he received while he was in there, the 20 phone calls that he would makeafter our conversations 21 that the ideas weren't his. He didn't come up with 22 things. He was just a messenger..
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He was dealing with 24 senior management?
25 Right. f NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he in place at 2 the same time tha j was in place?
- 3. Yes. ut him in 4 place.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so he had both 6 VPs to work with as theh 7 Right.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just want to make 9 sure I have my time frames correct.
10 So what you're saying is you went from
.1 which was troublesome in terms of some of the 12 direction that you were getting. It went a little 13 worse fromJ- -Now :I how. does it work?
14 ' When I say worse, we're 15 talking definitely like environment and wanting to 16 work for that individual and not really respecting his 17 opinions or his operational knowledge of the plant.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, in that way 19 worse.
20 MR. BARBER: Did you ever feel like 21 because of your desire not to talk to him, if you had 22 an issue and he was the only one around that you 23 wouldn't raise it to him? If you had a potential 24 safety issue, did you ever feel like I'm just going to 25 handle this myself and I'm going to just do what I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 think is right? I'm not going to bother him if I can 2 avoid it.
3 Is that the kind of thinking?
4 ~10. It's not exactly that, 5 because first of all someone is always around, right?
6 But if it has to do with something of safety, then 7 I'll talk to whoever I have to talk to. That's okay.
8 If it has to do with safety and I think I 9 can handle it, then I will. I wouldn't not call 10 somebody who I don't want to work with but he's still 11 my boss because I'm uncomfortable and it was a safety 12 issue. I wouldn't not call, but if I could exhaust 13 every avenue that I possibly could before I had to 14 call him, I absolutely would.
15 Like I said, I would always grab an AOM or 16 somebody, absolutely brief him on whatever is going on 17 and make him deal with him.
18 MR. BARBER: So you were trying to use the 19 AOM as kind of a buffer?
20 ersonally would, yes.
21 MR.. BARBER: Do others, did others do that 22 too, to your knowledge? Did people ever say, hey 23 1I had this problem. I was going to try to talk 24 to but you know, I have had problems dealing 25 with him in the past so I went and talked to or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 r whatever and got them-2 I can't really speak for 3 everybody on what they were thinking. I'm sure they 4 would all love to have somebody between them and 5
- but whether I exactly knew that they felt 6 the same way I did.--
7 MR. BARBER: Well, you sort of -- I don't 8 know whether it was the case for jjbut you 9 sort of described the situation where you as a group 10 kind of came together prior to the meeting with 11 about how to handle operability calls, where 12 you kind of decided hey, we're going to continue to do 13 the right thing no matter what.
14 Did you know ahead *of time like meeting 15 with Garchow that -- what you're going to talk about?
16 Yes.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you guys all made 18 it a point of kind of getting with each other either 19 through e-mail or through face to face discussions and 20 .saying this is what we're going to do?
21 **Yes, basically. A lot of 22 it would happen at turnover, right? You would have 23 something happen during the course of your shift and 24 you'd be turning over to the other guy, hey, what do 25 you think? This is what I think, this is what I would NEAL R. GROSS -7 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 have done. Okay, here's the feedback I got fromi )
2 Or here's the feedback when ic alled over that I 3 got with him and we were all on the same page and 4 that's what drove us to that meeting.
5 MR. BARBER: I see. Was there ever a 6 group, whether it was everybody or three or four of 7 you, you sat down and either on-site or off-site said 8 you know what, like prior to this meeting, we have to 9 draw a line in the sand. We have to defend what's 10 right. They're really pushing us in the wrong 11 direction here.
12 Did we have like a set 13 meeting where we went nd did that? No.
14 When we went into that room, and again, 15 I'll bring up *a was adamant 16 about it. was adamant about it, as far as 17 being outspoken and emotional about it. And the rest 18 of us probably weren't as passionate as those guys 19 were, but certainly we were on the same page. There's 20 no doubt. That's what caused it. Especially if the 21 five shift managers aren't on the same page, it would 22 never get to that level. That would never happen.
23 It's when they're all on the same page, then we're 24 having a disagreement with a VP or whatever, where we 25 would call that meeting and they go in and talk to him NEAL R. GROSS .. .
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1 about it.
2 MR. BARBER: Was this time to your 3 knowledge that it had ever been done?
4 Yes.
5 MR. BARBER: How did you collectively 6 decide to have a meeting? Was this again through 7 turnover?
8 2 This was as things were 9 festering and we didn't -- as we got more and more 10 uncomfortable it came to light, hey, you know what, we 11 need to have a meeting and we were kind of looking to 12 at first. He we're not happy 13 with this. We're not comfortable with this. Gave him 14 a chance to do his thing and it turns out he was not 15 effective in helping us. So it's like hey, let's get 16 .- in a room and what not.
17 MR. BARBER: What was your opinion of 19 Zas -as useless. It's a 20 strong word, but the year as there --
21 MR. BARBER: Why do you think that was?
22 I think' was promised 23 things'when he came to the plant. Took over, started 24 trying to manage. I think W 1,ot micromanaged and 25
- gave up and left. My opinion.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: tUnder. Mo w 2 micromanaged?
I 3 Correct.
4 MR. BARBER: So it was -- and when he was 5 there it was (-~ ~UUflJKIT Z~ -
3
- Lfl6kflflS~fli..bZ 6 . . . . .... ' . . . ..." .* an d 7 then all the SMs under them, right?
8
- Correct.
9 MR. BARBER: So he was in the chain?
10 ,.7 Uh-huh.
12 MR. BARBER: But he wasn't effective is 12 what you're saying?
13 Correct. I view any time 14 where we have to get in a meeting and talk to the VP 15 directly that people between us are not effective. It 16 should never come to that.
17 MR. BARBER: What aboutf_ &I know 18 you said before he was more of a messenger. Was he at 19 the meeting?
20 B AUh-huh.
21 MR. B3ARBER: And he was sort of aligned 22 with 23 What I saw from .was, 24 When he would come into the control room and talk to 25 us and we would plead our case, if you will, he was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. w (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 vww.nealrgross.com
1 receptive to it. It seemed like he was on the same 2 page as us and then he would turn around, off he would 3 go and then he would come back with a whole different 4 approach and then it would kind of seem like you know 5 what, he's not on our side any more, so then friction 6 would develop between him and the shift managers. I 7 think heart was in the right place, but I'm not 8 so sure he was able to manage what he wanted to 9 either.
10 MR. BARBER: Okay.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about since that 12 meeting, if you didn't have a meeting or call a 13 meeting at the VP level with the shift managers, did 14 it get to the point where it was felt that that was 15 what was needed?
16 I'm sorry?
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Since that time you 18 had that original meeting with have you 19 been in the position where you've wanted to call 20 another meeting at the VP level?
21 I have now, but it's for 22 a totally different issue which is more related with 23 the union. But as far as the way we're operating the 24 plant, no.
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1 can't remember what you said, but what popped into my 2 head was we were talking about how eceived a trip
( 3 or something to that effect and I'll go back to when 4 (Phonetic) was here, people were 5 absolutely 100 percent willing to go to[,- and say 6 I've got an issue, hey, I've got a problem.
7 When we tripped, we knew, regardless of 8 whatever causes the trip, *is going to come in 9 that control room to give us help. Okay? And that 10 led to a great work environment. And we lost that 11 when he left and things, in my opinion, kind of went 12 downhill, but we struggled from that point up until 13 came with the environment. !It was an 14 absolute struggle.
15 I mean if I don't want to talk to the VP 16 of ops, that's a little bit of an issue, so the 17 environment was great, changed, kind of went backwards 18 and now right now the environment is quiet asr 19 and those guys are starting to exert their 20 influence. But it's more back where we need to be.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Go ahead.
22 MR. BARBER: Before we stop this line of 23 questioning, I just want to go back. We have 24 information from a number of different places and one 25 of the things that we have to do is just make sure we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 check over different things that have been presented 2 to us and see what your opinion is.
3 One of the things that has come up is, 4 it's one of the reasons I was asking about the 5 meetings. To your knowledge, was there ever a meeting 6 either on or off-site between a group of shift 7 managers other than what you've described where there 8 was an attempt to build consensus so that you would 9 stand up to senior management as a way of feeling like 10 you didn't have any other avenue but to do this?
11 Either where you were a party to it or if you just 12 knew it took place.
13 - Off-site, no. On-site, 14 not a special meeting that we called, but at the time 15 we were having either weekly or bi-weekly shift 16 management meetings and I know in one of those we had 17 that discussion.
18 MR. BARBER: Was ops management present at 19 the time?
20 )AOM, but not above.
21 MR. BARBER: And was there -- what was the 22 tone of the meeting? I mean at that particular 23 meeting was the tone of the meeting, was this just 24 like something that came up in discussion? Was it a 25 business item? How did it come about?
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1 *M 1 It came about because it 2 was bothering somebody and they wanted to talk about 3 it.
4 MR. BARBER: Okay. Did you normally have 5 an agenda?
6 ,. . .....
- Yes.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this was now on 8 the agenda?
9 10 MR. BARBER: Okay, so it was kind of a 11 impromptu discussion at the time?
12 Right.
13 MR. BARBER: Okay. And was there an
(..
14 attempt to reach some sort of alignment or agreement?
15 Or was it just a free flowing discussion?
16 j It was just a free flowing 17 discussion to see how everybody else felt about it.
18 As I said, through turnovers you get a feeling, at the 19 OS meeting you have probably all but maybe one guy 20 there, depending on the day and it was usually just 21 hey, am I off base here? Is this what we really want 22 to be doing? Do we want to do it this way? Do we 23 want to be making the call? Do we want to wait 72 24 hours before we make the call? Where are we at with 25 this? Ar -/
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1 And that's where the consensus came about, 2 hey, we don't really agree going into this discovery
(
3 phase whether it's allowed by procedures again or not, 4 whether it's the norm or not, it's what feels right.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay, is that whatk 6 was pushing, 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />?
7 j No, he would start -- he 8 would push it, the discovery phase should be 9 commensurate with the action statement, so if it's a 10 week action statement, you might wind up and you would 11 have a certain amount of time to do the discovery 12 phase. If it was 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, well now you've got less 13 time, right? So he would -- it was packaged like it's 14 commensurate with the significance of the action 15 statement.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay. All right. I want to 17 back up to another item. The item you mentioned, the 18 reactor vessel had (Inaudible). You said that 0 19 was in control for that?
20 SRight.
21 MR. BARBER: And that was an issue where 22 as pushing to not require an indication.
- '* ***Correct.
23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was I 25 involved with that at all?
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1 *I don't
(. 2 recall.
3 MR. BARBER: Was there a surveillance 4 requirement that was -- that was mandated that had to 5 be met and was there any desire, any attempt byJ 6 *to 4 require step in and aid in a surrounds 7 procedure?
8 ,: For the head vents?
9 MR. BARBER: Yes.
10 .1 don't think so. I don't 11 remember eing 3Wr there or being involved in it or 12 anything of the sort.
13 MR. BARBER: Okay, -because it sounds 14 similar to 15 as involved with some 16 of the service work.
17 MR. BARBER: Okay, what was that?
i 18 I think he did a 19 surveillance and he N/A'd a step and it affected the 20 outcome of the surveillance.
21 MR. BARBER: N/A'd a step. Was 22 pushing for that or was that something he did on his 23 own?
24 It was something he did on 25 his own.
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1 MR. BARBER: Do you have any other details 2 on that?
3No 4 MR. BARBER: So did that result in a --
5 what was the result of this surveillance?
6 Did it prove the system was operable or 7 should have been operable or was inoperable? What was 8 ---
9 It was for that pump and 10 1 believe that -- I can't remember the step that he 11 N/A'd.
12 MR. BARBER: We can come back to that.
13 I'm not sure. I don't 14 want to throw out facts if I don't have them.
15 But that was a -- I don't want to say a 16 big to do where ad to make a presentation to each 17 of the crews. He had to make a presentation to 18 management and what not about what he did and why he 19 did it and why he shouldn't have done it.
20 MR. BARBER: What was the time frame of 21 that?
22 7. . It was at least two years 23 ago.
24 MR. BARBER: Okay. But it sounds like it 25 was pretty much on him. Did he do that on his own?
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1 MWA" -L Yes 2 MR. BARBER: Okay.
(
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I didn't want to 4 interrupt your line of thinking there, it's just that 5 when Scott said earlier that we were responding to a 6 lot of information that came to our attention, a lot 7 of information has been gathered about the concerns on 8 site and maybe some possible causes for them, you kind 9 of reacted.
10 You looked like you were going to throw 11 something out there. I want to get back and capture 12 that.
13 , i i When he said that, what I 14 thought of was during this whole time frame that we 15 h n- what not, they 16 had a iPhonetic) , right, and the 17 reason I'm bringing this up is because there's rumors 18 floating around the plant associated with the 19 investigation and what not and the reason -- when you 20 said we're getting information from other places or 21 whatever, it just made me think of* and job was 22 to do nothing else but get in everybody's ear.
23 So got a significant amount 24 of coaching from okay and I absolutely believe 25 that it influenced the way he did business because now NEAL R. GROSS C COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 with gone and with gone and everybody -- _
2 has changed his management style, if you will. He's 3 probably what I would consider him more being himself 4 versus what he was when somebody was whispering in his 5 ear all the time and did it to all of us.
6 1 came around to all of us and pulled 7 you aside, did a little coaching, hey you should do 8 this, you should do that. You should talk like this.
9 This is the way you should approach things.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of 11 management style and the way you dealt with people you 12 mean?
13 Right.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're not talking 15 about operability decisions and plant management and 16 that type of thing?
17 No. Butj had nothing 18 to do with operability or walking in *and saying 19 something should (Inaudible), but the way -- well, 20 when I was talking earlier about or somebody in 21 that chain of command, pushing one way or another, a 22 lot of the words they would use at the time, they 23 would use, especially ifl was present to make sure 24 that when that meeting was over, )didn't pull them 25 aside and give them a coaching. That was typical of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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I every meeting( was in. Somebody got pulled aside 2 afterwards and was coached about your language in the 3 meeting or the way you were presenting yourself or the 4 way you should deal with people.
5 So as you're managing on a daily basis, 6 you're just not managing by what you know and what you 7 feel, you're managing by how you're perceived and 8 you're managing by hey, do I really want to deal with 9 this after the meeting, did I say the right things so 10 I don't get coached after the meeting? It was all 11 done in an effort to make us better. I realize that, 12 but it actually backfired.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm trying to figure 14 out in terms of saying the right thing you're 15 indicating that during this time frame you didn't care 16 for his management style. You thought he was reacting 17 to more what senior management would have him say. So 18 what kind of thing -- what was -- what did he stop 19 saying when Lnfluence was there?
20 ._Probably like the biggest 21 thing would be that coaching, rolling down through him 22 to us. Okay? Okay, )you shouldn't say that this 23 way. You shouldn't present yourself like that. You 24 should step up and be a leader here, step up and be a 25 leader there. So the influence would come through NEAL R. GROSS ;
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- J from
' to US.
2 So exact words, it was just in general 3 terms, it was was trying to mold us a certain way 4 and we weren't necessarily able to be molded that way.
5 And I think that's what happened with 6 tried to change. -Itried to be more like what he 7 thought he had to be to survive underneath that regime 8 and he started to fall in line with them.
9 When he came back to controlling the deal 10 with us, he was bringing their messages back to us i1 where we would sit there and say, come on, V it's 12 me. You can stop with the key words, tricky phrases 13 and the management philosophies, and you just be 14 yourself and I'll be myself and let's just manage the 15 plant the way we know how, the best way we know.
16 That's why I say he's changed now. When 17 he walks in the control room now, I know I'm dealing 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He's managing in his 20 own style, you're saying?
21 right 22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And" 23_.*_-*
- I don't want to put words in your 24 mouth, are they indicating that that's an improved 25 style for them too?
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1 Yes. We're happier now 2 dealing withwith all 3 these influences.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you have 5 anything on that, Scott, because I'm going to take a 6 quick break.
7 MR. BARBERi I don't think so.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 9 2:40.
10 (Off the record.)
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the record. It's 12 about 2:41 p.m.
13 Scott, you had a couple of incidents you 14 wanted to ask about his first hand knowledge.
15 MR. BARBER: Yes, I do have a couple of 16 them. Back in fall of 2002, there was a steam leak on 17 a feedwater pump and there was a discussion in control 18 room about what to do about it. It was pretty 19 significant, 20, 30 foot steam leak was coming off I 20 think the steam emission valve (Inaudible). And the 21 information we have, it appeared the shift wanted to 22 take the unit off-line to do some sort of repair type 23 activity. And"was 4.._*-- --o* j - involved with that and 24 he went and -- our information is he went and talked 25 to some senior manager, came back and isolated the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 steam leak on his own.
2 Do you have any knowledge of that?
(.
3 I have knowledge of the 4 event.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's your knowledge 6 of it?
7 My knowledge of it was 8 basically, we came in the next day and obviously there 9 was talk about the steam leak and then there was 10 basically a discussion about what they were going to 11 do and there was a discussion about where the leak was 12 and closing the valve and I think the crew thought 13 that it was unsafe to close the valve and I think the 14 crew was leaning towards shutting the plant down and 15 then I don't know if asked anybody to close the 16 valve or not. I don't remember, but I remember 4 17 going up and closing the valve and then that stopped 18 the steam leak.
19 I don't have any knowledge about him 20 calling anybody and then coming back and doing it. I 21 know -- I think*il-. M\crew was on. I know 22 had been out in the field witlkOt some point in 23 time. Whether or not he was out there when' 24 closed the valve off or not I don't know.
f MR. BARBER: What was your reaction to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that when you heard that? What was your thoughts?
2 [END TAPE 1, SIDE B; BEGIN TAPE 2, SIDE 3 A.]
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The time is now 5 approximately 2:44 p.m.
6 My thoughts on, 7 closing the valve. I wasn't there. I know things 8 happen at the plant where your adrenalin gets flowing 9 and it's kind of human nature to maybe sometimes take 10 an action that later on will be considered heroicism 11 or something.
12 As far as ctually going and closing 13 the valve, I wasn't there. I didn't see the steam 14 leak,. so I would kind of like leave it up to the 15 people who were there whether it was safe or not.
16 So I don't know if I was in the same 17 shoes, whether I would do it or not, but the one thing 18 that I've learned and this is my opinion, of course, 19 is that you can take a conservative action, you can 20 shut the plant down and fix the leak. You can bring 21 it back up and okay, so we're going.to pay financially 22 for a move like that, but it's a no brainer compared 23 to somebody getting hurt. I can't go replace 24 or I can't unburn That's my 25 first approach to operating the plant. ,
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1 Now if he was out there and he assessed it
( 2 and he felt comfortable enough to go out and close the 3 valve and then he successfully was able to do it, 4 maybe what they saw and they felt at the time was 5 appropriate, but I think -- I need to talk about this 6 only because I live down there, but the crew that was 7 on that night, there's some personalities on that crew 8 that they just flat out don't like '
9 So as soon as he took that action which is 10 not common for a management person to go up and close 11 a valve, as soon as he took that action, he was doomed 12 from that point forward, whether it was safe or unsafe 13 or anything of the sort.
14 That, of course, got the ball rolling.
15 Now we say down there safety is our number one 16 priority, so hindsight or stepping back, you shouldn't 17 go up there and close that valve because you never 18 know, but the publicity that it got afterwards --
19 MR. BARBER: Was it positive or negative?
20 -rtwas all negative. It 21 was all negative and it was all generated by the crew 22 that was on. Coming in the next day it was like oh my 23 God, you wouldn't believe what happened. fpqwent up 24 there and closed this valve and I wouldn't do it and 25 all that kind of stuff.
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1 Was it 1*ýplace to do that? We can 2 question that, but I guess what I'm saying is you 3 might have been able to put another guy up there that 4 everybody likes. He would have closed that valve and 5 it would have been a different outcome.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't think he 7 would have gotten the same reaction?
8 No.
9 MR. BARBER: Do you think he had the 10 shift's permission to do that, to do the valve --
11 LIRZ - . J No. What I recall, no, I 12 don't think he did. That's why I was saying I know 13 was out there, but I don't think he went to 14 and said hey I'm requesting permission to close 15 this valve. I think he did it -- it was the whole 16 adrenalin rush or trying to --
17 MR. BARBER: Doesn't conduct of operations 18 procedures say that the equipment in a nuclear power 19 plant you have to have permission of the operating 20 shift whether it's (Inaudible) control operators or 21 SROs or what have you?
22 Absolutely.
23 MR. BARBER: So what he did was, in fact, 24 a violation of procedure, if in fact, he didn't have 25 permission of the control. ...
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1 Technically, you would be 2 right.
( 3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
4 You also have to look at 5 it thoughl *iould consider himself probably some 6 sort of extension of the control room crew.
7 MR. BARBER: Well, if you were the' 8 would you want an t out operating the 9 equipment without your permission?
10 No.
11 MR. BARBER: Or without the permission of 12 a CRS or knowledge or some sort of approval, 13 understanding what the scope of the work was or what 14 he would propose to do?
No.
15 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you aware of any 17 other situation in which that's happened? An an p 0 . manipulated equipment in that way?
18 19 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't seem to 21 agree with the operator's stance on that. If it's 22 raised as an issue of hey, this is production over 23 safety and this is evidence of production over safety 24 mindset on the site --
25 0Wow-U~ What I just said, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 basically what I'm saying is if it. comes down to 2 production over safety and somebody is raising that
( 3 concern, wouldn't it be safer to shut the plant down 4 than to close the valve, I'm all for that. That's why 5 I said my first reaction is I can't replace a human 6 being but I can easily fix the valve. But what I'm 7 saying is if the individuals who are raising that 8 concern, their motivation is not genuine, okay?
9 If their motivation is more of a personal 10 vendetta or personal -- hey, here's a good opportunity 11 for us to slamU then I would have a problem 12 with that and I don't agree with that. That's what 13 I'm saying.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So based on what 15 you're seeing, you think they're responding to the 16 fact that it was him, not that it was a concern for 17 safety?
18 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At that point.
20 i/Therel's something about 21 the safety concern that would have been raised. Let's 22 say the most popular guy in the plant went out and 23 closed that valve. Next day the issue would have been 24 hey, was that really safe or not? Okay?
25 And then the question would be asked, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 you've got a steam leak, do you.go up and close the 2 valve or is there a PPE you could have used or should 3 we think of this in the future? Do we want guys 4 closing steam valves? Should we put them in a steam 5 suit? Okay?
6 But what I saw and felt was that wasn't 7 the thrust of all the publicity. The thrust of it was 8 here's , he's out of control. He's out it 9 he plant. He's He's a management guy. He 10 shouldn't be touching the valves. He's saying safety 11 is our number one priority and there he goes climbing 12 a scaffold and closing a valve on a 30-foot plume of 13 steam.
14 So -I believe a lot of the voices that came 15 out of that right away, their intent was not 16 production and safety. Their intent was to get R 17 3n the hot seat.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay. Any more on that? Do 19 you have any more on that?
20 J *. . .... . ... .J have 21 talked about that since it happened like what would 22 you do? I actually believe there's a lot of cases, a 23 lot of things that were put into where it's not 24 different than the football game on Sunday. Monday 25 morning, everybody is analyzing what was done.
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1 MR. BARBER: Oh yeah.
(2 3 talked about hey, would you go up and close a valve?
4 I don't know. If I had the option to shut the plant 5 down and was sure nobody was going to get hurt, I'm 6 going to take that one first.
7 I wouldn't shut that valve to keep from 8 shutting down the plant. I personally wouldn't go up 9 and close the valve to keep from shutting the plant 10 down.
11 MR. BARBER: Would you allow someone else 12 to do it if you were the shift manager and they wanted 13 to do it?
- .° 14 If I wouldn't do it, I 15 wouldn't let anybody do it. Again, I've learned over 16 the last -- since becomin I can repack 17 the valves. I can fix the valves, but I can't replace 18 an equipment operator and that's come to light for me 19 over the last couple of years more than anything else 20 as far as being a leader of men.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay. Very good, thanks.
22 Any thing more on that?
23 Okay, a couple of other issues that are a 24 little bit more general. Temporary logs that are in 25 use currently. All plants have temporary logs for NEAL R. GROSS/*"J; t --
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1 various reasons. How would you characterize the 2 number and the (Inaudible) of logs of both units and 3 what they represent as far as what kind of equipment 4 problems, too many, too few, are they good, bad?
5 What's your characterization of temporary logs?
6 Temporary logs are 7 excessive. Temporary logs typically means something 8 is not working correctly. Temporary logs stay in 9 existence for too long and eventually at some point in 10 time because some piece of equipment has not been 11 fixed, it puts the operator in a corner and gives him 12 the opportunity to make a mistake.
13 I dislike them.
14 MR. BARBER: Are there any of those that 15 particular stand out in your mind like either the 16 equipment that they're monitoring or is there 17 something that you really have a hard spot with you 18 say? I got your generalness -- is there any in 19 particular that you find bothersome?
20 .... .. .. .Yes,
,i' if I could have two 21 this morning, it was rad monitors. You had a rad 22 monitor that's inoperable. You have compensatory 23 actions. We put an additional reading sheet together 24 which is a temporary log for recording the need of the 25 compensatory actions. And because the rad monitors NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 aren't fixed in a timely manner, eventually you have 2 an opportunity to miss your sample and this morning we 3 missed a sample, so the rad monitors probably bother 4 me the most because now we're asking chemistry to take 5 compensatory actions.
6 Chemistry doesn't beef up their manpower, 7 so you have a tech going around trying to do all these 8 tech spec compensatory samples and he gets overwhelmed 9 and that's what happened this morning.
10 MR. BARBER: Okay, any other ones you find 11 particularly offensive?
12 S Specific examples, no, but 13 usually the ones where I know- it's a piece of 14 equipment that we can get fixed and we're just 15 dropping the ball and getting it fixed --
16 MR. BARBER: What's the nature of the 17 problem there? Why can't the equipment get fixed?
18 7 It's just the process.
19 Because of management.
20 MR. BARBER: Is it something that's 21 solvable or is it something that's been a problem for 22 a long time?
23 Those types of items, 24 typically, if the SRO on the wing (Phonetic) team or 25 the shift managers, if they don't push for a piece of NEAL R. GROSS ! '--
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1 equipment to get fixed, it will typically languish out 2 there in the process until eventually some day it gets 3 fixed, but most -- some of the temporary logs that 4 were taken I really think that if you just put a 5 little effort into it, dedicate the resources is a 6 better word, it would be fixed and the temporary log 7 would go away and we'd all be better off.
8 MR. BARBER: Okay. All right. Do you 9 know anything about a Salem Unit 2 ISI relief request 10 regarding a piping UT (Phonetic) and that's all the 11 information I have.
12 I don't know anything 13 about that.
14 MR. BARBER: Okay. Were you involved at 15 all with the 14 BF 19?
16No 17 MR. BARBER: Okay. How about this one 18 will pick your brain a little bit --
19j When you say "involved" 20 what do you mean?
21 MR. BARBER: Were you a decision maker in 22 the process?
23 24 MR. BARBER: Do you have an opinion on 25 what happened here?
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1 N I just know my shift 2 was -- we were on for one shift while the BF 19 was 3 having its difficulty.
4 MR. BARBER: Were you on in the morning?
5 M Ri I was on -- actually, I'm 6 sorry, no I wasn't. I was there, but it was at the 7 tail end of the outage, so I was an extra -- I was 8 still doing the outage stuff, but I was on -- I worked 9 that day and was the actual 10 MR. BARBER: During the day?
11 JRight.
12 MR. BARBER: Who was on at night?
13 (Inaudible).
14 MR. BARBER: So it was going from,,,
15 TI ---urn the day?
16 vright.
17 MR. BARBER: Okay, and that came up like 18 3 o'clock in the morning?
19 JI think so, right.
20 MR. BARBER: And it got addressed at 5 21 o'clock at night, something like that.
22 Uh --
23 MR. BARBER: It was almost through the 24 next shift. Okay..
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1 right away, but by the time they might have gathered 2 up the right people and what not, yeah, I believe it 3 might be 5 o'clock the next night.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you aware of any 5 pressure or in terms of what you talked about before, 6 the process for analyzing, was there any pressure on 7 delaying that on that shift manager, the BF 19 8 situation?
9 I don't think there was 10 pressure to delay it from the strict literal sense of 11 those words, but I think that sometimes it takes us 12 too long to get all of the right people in the room 13 and get down to the nitty gritty of what we have and 14 how to be accurate and make your decisions from there.
15 So I don't think there was pressure to 16 delay it. I think it was delayed probably more than 17 it should have been, but I think that was just the way 18 it played out as far as getting the right people in 19 there and having the right conversations with the 20 right people and then finally coming up with the 21 solutions, if you will, or the possible problems with 22 the valve when they started working through what is 23 wrong with the valve.
24 A lot of times you'll get information that 25 I think this happened in the BF 19 where it's the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 position or it's this or it's that and you're starting 2 to explore those items. Meanwhile, the clock is 3 ticking and lo and behold eventually you find out you 4 have a bolt or something in the internals of the 5 valve, but the process of ruling everything else out 6 and getting that information from all the smart people 7 takes time.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it might have 9 taken long, but it wasn't due to any conscious we'll 10 hold off making this operability call?
11 ,* I don't think so. I 12 wasn't in there, but I don't think so.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This was August?
14 MR. BARBER: No this was recent, within 15 the last couple of months.
16 ] This was the tail end of 17 the outage, only a month ago.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay. How about -- this is 19 going back a couple of years. We might actually have 20 talked about this and I don't know if we talked 21 directly, but maybe indirectly. In the spring 2001, 22 there was a Salem Unit 1 had a reactor trip that was 23 caused by a main generator current transformer failure 24 and then there was some push b9 to get the 25 plant started up by a particular date or a performance NEAL R. GROSS ( I 1 -.
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1 indicator or an NRC performance indicator was going to 2 go white.
3 And there were repeated calls to the 4 control room b.when are you going to get the 5 plant started up? And you know, there was other 6 pressures that supposed observed to try and 7 move the start up along, including looking at using 8 the mess pans (Phonetic) and other things.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We may have touched 10 on that.
11 MR. BARBER: Are you familiar at all with 12 that?
13 I'm not familiar with the I A A , 1 1- T A ,
7I
" .. 4. %-11 J. VV~ -J L ta l . V 4.ý1ý .j 15 those phone calls.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 It's not uncommon though 18 for us to get phone calls like that and we kind of 19 view our job as aN o keep that push from 20 influencing the actual control room CRS and the ROs, 21 right? We're the buffer between upper management, if 22 you will, aand the guys who are actually operating the 23 plant, pushing the buttons.
24 So it doesn't surprise me. I don't think 25 I was there when that happened. I can give you an NEAL R. GROSS : t IC COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 example. In September we shut both units down because 2 of the salt in the switch yard (Phonetic). I was on, 3 I was on that night.
4 MR. BARBER: Okay.
5 And we saw what was going 6 on out of the switch yard.
7 MR. BARBER: That was all visual right?
8 1 Hope Creek tripped.
9 MR. BARBER: Yeah, I know.
10 And we got information we 11 had arcing in the switch yard and we went out and 12 looked at it and what not.
13 MR. BARBER: You actually went out and 14 looked yourself?
15 L -z _ Absolutely.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 -w o And the only thing that 18 happened that wasn't -- besides the visual, we had one 19 of the 500 KV brick was open and it reclosed. It has 20 a reclosure on it.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay.
22 (,Anyway, that night, I mean 23 I'm in an uncomfortable spot. I'm shutting both --
24 I'm feeling like I need to shut both units down 25 because I don't like what I'm seeing out there. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 then you talk about where's the best place to go and 2 you still need power, so you're still relying on the 3 switch yards. So what is the best place to go? You 4 sit there and you come down in power and you come off 5 line. You go H and R. In any eventMhad come 6 in because of the Hope Creek trip.
7 MR. BARBER: Okay.
8 , I started calling my chain 9 of command. 9 2was on vacation so I got a 10 hold of and started a dialogue with 11 tried to get a hold ofA We had a hard 12 time getting a hold of Anywayended 13 up walking over and we had done a little bit of
"( 14 research and found the OE on Brunswick Plant which had 15 suffered the same thing about 10 years ago and it was 16 word for word what we were going through and when I 17 presented that to him because in my mind he's my upper 18 management type guy, right?
19 When I presented that to him, he was in 20 disbelief that that's what we had. I had to convince 21 him that the right thing to do was to shut the plant 22 down. I didn't know what was going to happen in the 23 switch yard. So in my mind, hey, I need to shut the 24 plant down, at least get the reactor shut down and sit 25 here. If I lose power from there, then we'll deal NEAL R. GROSS 1 \. ,
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1 with it, but in any event the reactors will be shut 2 down.
3 So it probably took me a couple of hours 4 to work through discussing this with everybody in 5 upper management as far as being (Inaudible).
6 gone._,as as there trying to get a 7 hold of J I. think, was. the 8 acting manager at the time because 0 wasn't there 9 yet.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What time frame is 11 this now?
12 September.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This year?
14 14110.9 N Yes. And the thing I 15 didn't care for was having to basically wal 16 up there and I'm thinking he's a pretty smart guy for 17 the position he holds and you see arcing in the switch 18 yard like that, once you see it, it's a no brainer at 19 that point, right? But he was more concerned that I 20 get a hold of experts up in Newark to assess our 21 situation and it was kind of like a -- to me, it was 22 like one obstacle after another being put in front of 23 me before I could shut down and when the 500 KV 24 breaker opened, that was it. I said okay, we're 25 shutting down.
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1 I gave direction to both units to start 2 shutting down. At that point, flipped. He was 3 all for the shutdown and then he was calling VPs in 4 Newark and all and he was kind of -- at that point in 5 my opinion, he was dealing with the financial side of 6 it.
7 Who was going to pay for the repairs for 8 the switch yard and who's going to make up for the 9 lost generation? Who's going to be accountable for 10 all of that?
11 When he first walked in there, in my mind, 12 it wasn't "what's the right thing to do with the 13 plants, what do you got, we make our decision and we 14 go." All those other influences, they don't come into 15 the control room. We don't care about any of those 16 things. It's hey I've got salt (Phonetic) in the 17 switch yard. I got arcing. The fabricating grate 18 (Phonetic) was opening and closing. We shut down.
19 To me, two hours was quick. To other 20 people it might be a long time, but --
21 MR. BARBER: You mean two hours to reach 22 a decision to shut down?
23 j Right. Just giving 24 everybody the opportunity to talk to my chain of 25 command and say hey, here's what I've got. Do you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 guys know anything?
2 So that was the case where I didn't think 3 that initially the upper management guy walked in and 4 said hey, you've got arcing in the switch yard, I saw 5 it walking over here, what do you want to do? I want 6 to shut the plants down. Do it. Didn't go down like 7 that. It went down with KD. Here's some OE. This 8 isn't what we've got. Yes, it is. Call Newark, 9 there's some expert up there you can talk to about 10 what we got in the switch yard.
11 MR. BARBER: This is before the 500 KD 12 breaker opened?
13 Ys 14 MR. .BARBER: So other than the visual 15 image of seeing the arcing and sparking and what have 16 you, he didn't anything else, no plant status change, 17 nothing, no other breaker changes or anything like 18 that.
19 So once he saw the 500 KV breaker cycle, 20 you made a decision to shut down. He flip flopped 21 over and said yeah, okay, is this the right thing to 22 do?
23 .The jN initial conversations, 24 in my mind, were like very similar to the ones that I 25 talked about earlier about wth in the past.
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1 It was just like that until I had the guts or whatever 2 to say hey, you know what, I'm shutting down because 3 that's what the right thing to do is shut down.
4 MR. BARBER: You made a comment about 5 who's going to pay for this, things like that. That's 6 what is worried about, right?
7 Do you think that that's -- what kind of 8 influence do you think the cost pressures have on 9 these VPs by pushing one line of operation over 10 another? Is there something different about the 11 environment today than in the past?
12 77 The past being?
13 MR. BARBER: Like being four or five years 14 ago. Is there some --
15 j There's obviously much 16 more focus on running the plants. There's much more 17 focus on being economical and cost effective and all 18 of that. So I do believe it influences our decisions 19 to a degree, but there's times like that where you 20 step back and you put that aside and it's what do you 21 what, here are the facts and here's where I'm going.
22 He's dealing with the rest of this stuff afterwards.
23 But you can't come into that, into the 24 control room or into that conversation with I really 25 don't want to shut down. I'm going to do everything NEAL R. GROSS ) / "
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1 I can to keep us from shutting down. If that's the 2 right thing to do and you have other alternatives, 3 then sure, but in this case it was pretty straight 4 forward.
5 MR. BARBER: Was there any concern about 6 the reliability of the on-site power supplies? I mean 7 like the diesels or anything like that? Was there any 8 other rational reason that was given for why you 9 wouldn"t shut down?
10 Y*7 No.
11 MR. BARBER: How about discussions about 12 going to 30 or 40 percent power, keeping the turbine 13 on line, was that even discussed?.
14 Yes, we had those 15 discussions.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 .I.had them with my-)
18 I didn't have that with I;k 19 MR. BARBER: How did you feel about that?
20 " About staying at 30?
21 MR. BARBER: Yes, 30 or 40 or whatever?
22 At the time, we were able 23 to make cases for staying at various places.
24 MR. BARBER: Okay.
(:25 But the bottom line was, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 what we resulted to was hey, the reactor is better 2 shut down because we don't know what's going to 3 happen. In the case of Brunswick, they (Inaudible) 4 power.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 - So I'm better off shutting 7 the reactor down and using the dumps and then if I 8 lose power from there, I know what to do. I don't 9 want to put myself in a situation where I have to 10 react to the plant and trip and shut the reactor down 11 and go through that. I'm better off just cooling 12 down.
13 MR. BARBER: Actually, .it would trip them, 14 right? If the turbine tripped and you get below a 15 certain power, you get a reactor trip, right?
16 If I lose off-site power, 17 I lose reactor coolant-pumps --
18 MR. BARBER: Okay, so you're thinking 19 total loss?
20 Right, which was -- which 21 I believe could have happened that night easily.
22 MR. BARBER: Okay.
23 T)You're sitting there with 24 OE in front of you saying hey, Brunswick lost power.
25 Thinking worse case, yes, especially with a reactor NEAL R. GROSS A /
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1 down.
2 In hindsight, you could have waited three 3 days and waited for it to rain, crossed your fingers 4 and waited until it rained and then it probably would 5 have gone away.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How much time did 7 .questioning add to the situation? You kind 8 of indicated you were having problems getting in touch 9 with your whole chain of command there?
10 I would say his 11 questioning cost me at least an hour. Because we had 12 a conference call at around 11. Let's have a 13 conference call at 1 and I think it was the second 14 conference call was where I said hey, I'm just 15 shutting down.
16 And too, it was like you guys are sitting 17 at home. You're not seeing what I'm seeing, so you 18 come in and look at it and give me your expert opinion 19 or -- no, I'm shutting down.
20 MR. BARBER: Would it ever be conceivable 21 that under the circumstances that someone in his 22 position or someone else would say no, I don't want 23 you to shut down or I really think we can ride this 24 out? Does that ever come up, things like that? Maybe 25 not for this, but in other instances, has it ever come NEAL R. GROSS "
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1 up where you've been like on the verge of making a 2 decision or said something and been contradicted?
(.
3 Me personally, I don't 4 think so.
5 MR. BARBER: Someone else?
6 Wall, I think went 7 through something a couple of years ago associated 8 with circ. water where -- I think he brought the unit 9 down and brought one of the units off-line and then 10 hindsight was do we really have to do that?
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Whose hindsight?
12 M. In a case like that we 13 wQuld have a TARP team and the TARP team would 14 evaluate the actions that were taken and then they 15 would come back and say hey, did you follow the 16 procedure? Was there guidance in the procedure? Did 17 the procedure allow you to not come down, to come off 18 line or whatever?
19 I Im pretty sure *went through something 20 associated with bringing Unit One down that had to do 21 with circ. water. You'd have to ask him.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How about\*
23 " position in this time frame, is this 24 September you say of this year? not
( 25 there any longer, right?
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- Plight.
1 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What is his position
( 3 -then?. Was he in an acting capacity or?
ý_u - k1-1( I believe -- it was the 4
5 weekend. I believe that weekend he was acting.
6 MR. BARBER: Like a management contact or 7
8 Um, he might have been the 9 guy that had the duty that weekend for EP.
10 MR..BARBER: Okay.
11 ; (Inaudible) kept coming in 12 for the Hope Creek trip, but that weekend, he was --
13 see, I don't remembe 110 -- I'm not sure where
( 14 o(Phonetic) were at that point in.
15 time.
16 ** "" '" '"*-*...*.*ii~i
"' t*"*"
the time.
17 18 MR. BARBER: !has been gone now, 19 right? I mean he's been gone since March-April time 20 frame or a little later than that?
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Later.
22 **
- --
- ijust came i Ln in 23 September-October time frame.
24 MR. BARBER: Okay. I guess it was last A
I 25 year.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It might have been 2 closer to August. July-August was 3 leaving?
4 1kogot here in 5 October. *-washere until left. Now.how much 6 influence he exerted was diminishing at least back to 7 August.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I might be off by a 9 month or something.
.0.. . . .. -..... ... , But that was an example of 11 where I thought we took the obviously conservative 12 approach to shut the plants down, but we were shutting 13 down regardless of any influences. I think upper 14 management -- and I'm' speaking in the past -- it 15 would always seem like there was resistance to shut 16 the plants down or whatever, especially in a scenario 17 like that.
18 I don't expect, if you're going to make me 19 the shift manager, and I tell you I need to shut down, 20 that should be the end of the story, right? I'm the 21 guy with the license, not you, so at that point you 22 need to back off, if you're the VP or the director or 23 whatever, and under, eand a lot of those guys, that 24 wasn't the environment we were in. It was I want to 25 shut down, well, I don't know if I want you to -- why NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS /
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1 do you want to shut down? I want to shut down because 2 of this. And then from there we go into technical or 3 something like that. That's an exaggerated example, 4 but --
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where you were on the 6 defense on your decision.
7-9 Correct.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But you're saying 9 that's in the past, but this is just three months ago 10 and (is still there?
11 Right.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he's a part of the 13 senior management team that didn't change out, who is 14 still giving that example, pushes in that direction.
15 Right.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Pushing against the 17 shift manager decision in the face of what you were 18 seeing.
19 ./Right. In my mind calling 20 somebody in Newark that's an expert on the switch 21 yard, in our view, at that point in time is not doing 22 me any good. It's not a suggestion he should have 23 made.
24 MR. BARBER: What's your perception of 25 that, why he wanted to do that?
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1 My first impression was he 2 thought we were blowing things out of proportion, 3 okay? And then when I took him up there and we stood 4 there and we watched the switch yard,f Ikind of 5 changed a little bit. And then when we came back 6 down, so at that point I think he was believing me or 7 believing the crew. And you say okay, Hope Creek 8 tripped. I got OE sitting in front of me. A few 9 minutes later the brake room opens and closes, what 10 more do you need? At that point is where everything 11 flipped.
12 MR. BARBER: Okay. Do you think he 13 actually kind of just made *- I don't know how to --
14 the decision he made at the time, was. it because of 15 the facts he actually saw? The fact that he actually 16 saw the switch yard, saw the arcing and sparking for 17 himself, saw the breaker cycle and then -- was it a 18 change of heart or was it because you made the 19 decision, he just decided "I'll go along with it"?
20 My opinion is okay, he saw 21 the arcing so he knew it was real, right? He's got me 22 saying hey, I want to shut down, I want to shut down, 23 I want to shut down. And once-the problem was out in 24 the switch yard, okay, that falls under Team D. That 25 falls under our corporate departments. It's not NEAL R. GROSS 47/!
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1 inside RD.
(. 2 So at that point in time I think his --
3 the whole financial thing was hey, it's not nuclear's 4 fault, it's probably out at the switch yard.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So his concern being 6 who's going to pay for this and who is going to make 7 up for this lost money here is now not on you?
8 pr Right. So now it's more 9 like hey, it's okay. Let's shut down. You know what 10 I mean? So again, it's my opinion we had our relay 11 guy in,, (Phonetic) and he actually put,"
12 Vi on the spot on the phone through conversations 13 more or less saying, more or less.gettin t 14 to get. to shoulder- the responsibility for what was 15 going on out in the switch yard. And then ,is a 16 low level guy, so he's just -- I felt, I don't know --
17 he deflected it, but that's what gives me the 18 impression on what I'm saying and why I'm saying what 19 I'm saying.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have any 21 follow up conversations with bout the 22 position he took on this versus your position on it?
23 MR. BARBER: How about your reaction about 24 his position?
25 : I talked to NEAL R. GROSS i) -/ ' -
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1 MR. BARBER: What did
- say?
2 jI think he just chalked it
(. 3 up to more or less not wanting to pursue anything 4 further as far as a conversation with him.
s SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That'A 6 ]Right.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have any 13 8 confidence that you're not going to be in the same 9 position again, you or won't be 10 up against the senior manager who is in the face of 21 what you're saying clearly has to be done in the face 12 of what you're looking at, are you going to be in that 13 position again?
14 R" I'm not going to say that 15 none of us will ever be in that position. My 16 confidence level right now is a lot higher that we 17 won't be in that position. From what I've seen from 18 o far and3 nd I knows .(Phonetic),**. so 19 I don't -- I believe as long as I'm dealing with one 20 of those guys, I'm not going to be in that position.
21 MR. BARBER: What did you think of it?
22 We're kind of towards the end of the interview, but 23 after all the discussion we've had here this 24 afternoon, what's your impression, thinking back about 25 the discussion we just had about the work environment NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that existed over the last two years under.
2 what -- how would you 3 describe that work environment?
4 It's a work environment 5 that people don't want to work in. You want to go to 6 work and you want to do your best and you want to walk 7 away feeling satisfied and you don't want to be 8 ridiculed or coached every bit along the way. So the 9 environment was not conducive to everybody putting 10 their best effort forward and in some cases it was 11 just you do what you have to do so you didn't get 12 coached or you didn't get a phone call or -- so to me, 13 the environment was not one that I wanted to work in 14 and now the environment has become more one that I 15 want to work in as far as dealing with the management 16 people that we have.
17 But any time you have an employee who is 18 reluctant to talk to somebody like I was, I don't 19 think that's a good environment. I don't think it's 20 in the best interest of the plant or however you want 21 to look at it.
22 Keep in mind, too, like I said, we went 23 from having there as ou 24 eventually or general manager who was very personable 25 and who was very involved in everything that went on.
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1 Then he left. So we saw a delta.
2 If he had never been there, then my 3 conversation with you about everything that happened 4 over the last few years, it might have just been 5 normal to me and I might be saying, hey, it was a 6 great environment or hey, it was just a normal 7 environment.
8 But to look at the delta, it was an 9 environment that we didn't want to be in. It was an 10 environment that we didn't like. Nobody wanted to 11 work for( Nobody wanted to work for #either.
12 And* as just a messenger or figure, whatever, that 13 we had to deal with.
14 MR. BARBER: Okay. I don't have any more.
is f0 Actually, this interview, 16 I thought you guys were more familiar with facts or 17 like you had the MS-42 and a couple of things. I 18 thought it was going to be a lot more than that-.
19 MR. BARBER: We have some things. The 20 other thing is in all the interviews we've done, 21 different people have different issues about different 22 things. Things come up and we're just trying to cover 23 as much ground as we can and it's very difficult 24 because it is like Eileen said, it's really not --
(
25 we're not looking at a specific incident or two or NEAL R. GROSS /2 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS /
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1 .three incidents.
2 We're looking at a series of events over
( 3 a long period of time. We're looking at different 4 people's involvement and trying to get a formal 5 picture of what the safety conscious work environment 6 was like at both Salem and Hope Creek.
7 JI know that*-ON 8 and I know they had -- if you look across 9 the shift managers who probably had dealings with( j 10 or or whatever, those guys either had the 11 misfortune of being on shift on the wrong day and 12 having something happen and getting lost in some 13 dealings with those guys more than I did.
C.- 14 And I think my effort to put somebody 15 between me andF made things better for me to where 16 I didn't have like a big controversial conversation 17 with him or whatever.
18 MR. BARBER: One of the things you 19 mentioned earlier, you talked about their -- I think 20 you made a comment about they were -- maybe was 21 never licensed or didn't appear that he could ever 22 have a license because he was asking questions that 23 somebody who had an SRO license would never -- would 24 understand better.
( 25 And I don't know if you made this same NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 7 1 ,
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'I 1 analogy with if you said anything to him like 2 that or not, but does not weigh into the rapport that
( 3 you have at all?
4 Absolutely, because I'm 5 okay with somebody in upper management not having the 6 technical knowledge of the plant, but they should 7 understand at least the situation that we're in in the 8 control room and when you don't see them understanding 9 that, then that affects the rapport, it affects it in 10 a negative way.
11 It's like hey, this person is passing 12 judgment on something that we did or he's making phone 13 calls at the inopportune time or it's just plain as
(.1 14 day they don't now or they don't understand what we're 15 up against in here. And yeah, if after the fact you 16 call up and say hey, how is the switch yard designed 17 that this happened to us, hey, we'll explain it to 18 you, but don't call up and ask us why is it designed 19 that way in the middle of the event. You know what I 20 mean?
21 Typically, I think what you find with 22 operators is once they realize the person they're 23 working for, the person making the decisions isn't 24 either qualified which is a strong word or the person
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1 respect for them pretty quickly and you have a very 2 difficult time working for them from that point
(.
3 forward.
I know that was some of the things that wanted us to do and what not, it was just obvious 6 that he really didn't understand what was going on in 7 control. And Salem can be a little different animal 8 too. I've done a few bench marking trips where we 9 seemed to have a little bit more emerging stuff than 10 most plants do and upper management really doesn't 11 want to hear that, right? So like they wanted the 12 shift manager out in the plant walking around 13 supervising everybody and at Salem, he needs to.be 14 around the control room because things are constantly 15 popping up where the CRS needs some sort of a back up 16 or CRS is looking for advice or experience or just a 17 conversation.
18 So to transform us into like a site 19 manager is what they wanted to do, doesn't really work 20 at Salem. And that was like an example of a situation 21 that we fought tooth and nail, more or less. Yes, to 22 answer your question, it influenced the rapport.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay, thanks. I don't have 24 anything else.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don't have anything NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 further other than some closing questions.
2 Is there anything that you would like to 3 add?
4 There is one question that comes to mind 5 though, sorry. You said you thought we were going to 6 have more facts, rather than just asking you some 7 general --
8 . .. Yes, I thought it would be 9 more like hey, this event happened and here was the 10 decision that was made, why do I think it was made 11 that way or did I think it was right or wrong, 12 something like that, more than my opinions on the work 13 environment, I guess is all.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are there incidents 15 that occurred that you think we should be aware of and 16 asking questions about that fall in line with decision 17 making, questionable decision making? Is there 18 something we're not covering?
19 No, I don't think so.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, do you have 21 anything else you'd like to add at this point?
22 1 don't think so.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have I or any other 24 NRC representative offered you any promises or reward 25 or threatened you in any manner in exchange for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 2 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 today' s information?
2 "1 No.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you stated 4 earlier that you appeared here freely and voluntarily?
5 Yes 6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point, we'll 7 go off the record. It's approximately 3:27, 3:28 p.m.
8 and I have to thank you for your time. It was a good 9 bit of your time and I thank you.
10 Thank you.
11 (Whereupon, at 3:28 p.m., the interview 12 was concluded.)
13
( 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
( 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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CERTIFICATE
(,
This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Interview of Docket Number: 1-2003-081F Location:
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings as recorded on tape (s) provided by the NRC.
Francesca Zo*k Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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