ML061770571
| ML061770571 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 10/09/2003 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1193 | |
| Download: ML061770571 (123) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Interview r I,.-...
Docket Number: (not provided)
C bi .~3
- ~- -u
(~. ~ Location: '. Exton, Pennsylvania Date: Thursday, October 9, 2003 Work Order No.: NRC-1193 Pages 1-121 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 information in this record was deleted in accordance with the Freedom of !nformation Act, exemptions FOIA-.,
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 X 7 IN THE MATTI7ER OF :
8 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No.
9 10 (CLOSED) 11 ---------------- X
-T-hursday,--October-9--2003 13 14 7Bob Evans Restaurant 15 Route I00" 16 Exton, Pennsylvania 19406 17 18 19 20 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 21 9:05 a.m.
22 BEFORE:
23 Special Agent Eileen Neff 24 ALSO PRESENT:
25 Scott Barber, Division of Reactor Projects NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (9:05 a.m.)
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 October 9, 2003. The time is approximately 9:05 a.m.
5 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, U.S. NRC Region 6 One Office of Investigations. What follows will be an 7 interview involvin In 8
9 Also present at this interview is Scott 10 Barber from the Division of Reactor Projects, also at 11 Region One.
1 The-concerns-be ing-di-scussed-today-have 13 been explained to ' in that we're 14 gathering information regarding the safety conscious 15 work environment, in terms of concerns that have been 16 raised to the Region and that we're looking for his 17 assessment regarding those issues.
18 can you please raise your 19 right hand? Do you swear that the testimony you are 20 about to provide is the truth, the',whole truth, and 21 nothing but the truth, so help you God?
22
- I do.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. This 24 interview is taking place at ob Evans Restaurant in 25 Exton, Pennsylvania on Route 100. I will go off the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 record if need be if we're interrupted, and I'll 2 explain it. So, we may not have to keep this running 3 the whole time when we may not be able to.
4 Could you please spell your name, please, 5 and provide some identifying information, date of 6 birth and Social Security number?
7 You know what else I will explain is you 8 indicated to us that you have al light disability 9 hearing day?
10 That's correct. I've got 11 some, I don't know, me bug or what have you, and my e--little.-bit-right...now..
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so it may be 14 that I'll have to'epeat a question for yol and I'm 15 trying not -to shout out because we're in a public 16 location, but at the same time-L~m just trying to set 17 ... fo-r--the- 3eco-o-d-the c--ircumstances--that--we'-re-meeting -
18 under.
19 If you could state your name, spell your 20 last name, please, and provide your date of birth and 21 Social Security number.
22 *..My name i 23 First name isL Last name is 24 ]I- .......... J\ Date of birth is " Social 25 Security number isM NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
4 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could you give us a 2 brief summary of your work experience, please?
3 4
5 6 I spent around 7 j in various t 1'~
2, VA 8 capacities, the last being the.
9 I was the 10 11 *J I 12 13
~xtwiL~DMaflat 14 I did some 15 and recently th -,ýh ý .
16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how long have you 18 been there?
~It will be*
19 20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The concerns 22 that we wanted to talk to you about regarding the work 23 environment at Salem and Hope Creek, I'd like to ask 24 overall, what was your assessment of the safety 25 culture at Salem and Hope Creek, and I guess you could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 consider did it have particular strengths? Did it 2 have any particular weaknesses?
3 iMy assessment was that the 4 organization wasn't real proactive for what I would 5 say in bringing issues forward, either minor issues or 6 major issues. I tried to assess the basis for that, 7 if there was a trust issue with the management or what 8 have you.
9 What I found was after a period of time, 10 the organization individuals, whether it be employees, 11 workers, supervisors, were more amenable to bringing 12 issues to the table to the forefront, and that's the 13 environment that I like to work under and encourage.
14 My view was that the management style, I. don't know 15 exactly what it was prior to my arrival; but that it
___wasfairl top down, autocratic, and directive.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you talking about 18 at the point in time that you arrived there?
- I correct.
19 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So this is around 21 December of 2000?
22 Yes, and I would say at 23 the point in time of December of 2000, it was very 24 disorganized, and you know, disorganization,
- 25 dysfunctional. The site, a lot of things were very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 short term, very reactionary, and that's the category 2 that I would place things, at least initially when I 3 arrived.
4 There wasn't what I would call any long 5 term timing and thinking. For an example, I came in.
6 December, and the budget was released for the spring 7 outage in January. You know, there is just no way 8 that you're going to do adequate and/or appropriate 9 design change packages, there's procedures to be able 10 to effectively execute an outage in that kind of time frame without the up front planning and preparation.
12 So, there was a lot of discussiona~i 13 the short term reactionary mode that the organization 14 was in.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What do you attribute that to, this top down autocratic? I mean, was there 17 a particular position? Was there something more to 18 it? Where do you attribute what you were seeing?
- 19 You mean to the management 20 style?
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it any one 22 individual, or is there more than one?
23 I'd say, let's see. It's 24 the existing current senior leadership, predominantly 25 the e nd theet that NEAL R.GROSS&
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7 1 point in time.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could you put a name 3 with those positions, please?
4 I'd say it was 5 Their style was pretty 6 much directive, top down, task oriented versus looking 7 at the infrastructure programs, the processes, what's 8 working, what's not working and why isn't it working, 9 trying to gain understanding of the organization. ýIf 10 you looked at the organization, there was a lot of what I would call key players from other utilities 12 that came to Salem and Hope Creek, and for whatever 13 reason, weren't successful. Yet then they would leave 14 the island anp would be key managers at other 15 facilities. /
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who were these 17 people?
18 Some were individuals in 19 operations.)**wasd . i M4-
. was 20 another one. I he came from another 21 organization and was I believe was successful there.
22 Their senior reactor operators, I can't remember their 23 names at Salem. There was kind of a mass exodus what 24 I would call of seven SRO's about that point in time as well.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are we talking about 2 the late 2002, early 2001?
3 L 7 Early 2001.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
5 Spring time frame. There 6 was a -- I'd have to look at the numbers, but there 7 was probably five or six, or maybe even more key 8 senior reactor operators that left Salem, to the point 9 where --
10 MR. BARBER: Were these people on shift or 11 were they in staff positions?
12 There were on shift. A 13 number of those folks were on shift to the point where 14 it was even difficult looking at covered vacations 15 during the summer of 2001. So, that raised questions,
.. -16 -- you know, why would individuals of that caliber and, 17 you know, it takes at least two or three years to get 18 somebody into that kind of a position. It's not 19 something they can go out and trade what I would call 20 a senior reactor operator to run the facility in a 21 short time frame. It was predominantly at the Salem 22 operations.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you ask them?
24 id you have conversations with these key individuals 25 and the SRO's who left? Did you get their input as to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 why they weren't happy there?
2 I dd not'ith the 3 individuals that left. They left befor .
4 MW .That position 5 previously didn't exist in the organization.)
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
7 - *.they had left the company 8 bef6re I had assumed the position of 9
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
11 I did talk to each and 12 every other one of the Salem senior reactor operators 13 that were on shift and so forth. Something was, if 14 you had come into operations at Salem/Hope Creek; you 15 had no career opportunities because you weren't going
-.... 16. -to.- get out-.of-operations....... You know,- my assessment, 17 what I learned from that is that, you know, I needed 18 to go ahead and not only retain the individuals that 19 we currently had at least in the Salem bperation 20 because that's where I was short of staff, but take a 21 look at maybe getting the pipeline started because it 22 was impacting morale. .,
23 It impacted the behavior of some of the 24 operations staff whereby they couldn't take vacations.
25 They had planned on going to the shore and spending
/
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10 week with their family. They were unable to get 2 away, so there was a lot of personnel issues that 3 preoccupied my time trying to understand how we got in 4 that position under a situation when you're short of 5 staff doesn't work.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you see the 7 situation in this exodus of these individuals, did 8 that have an impact on the safe operations of the 9 plant? Did you have concerns along those lines?
.0 I don't believe it had ii what I would call immediate impact on the safe 12 operations of the plant, but it certainly necessitated 13 some prompt action by management in alleviating the 14 problem and understanding the issues were in the 15 operations staff and retaining the current employees
......16 that we had.
17 You know, there were some pay policies 18 that helped because of all of the overtime that the 19 individuals working were compensated for, you know, 20 with the increased bonus program. Then we weighed out 21 the staff and communicated that with the employees on 22 what we intended to do as far as filling up the 23 pipeline so that in fact they could see that there was 24 light at the end of the tunnel, that management was 25 taking some prompt action.
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11 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did that help with 2 the morale issues?
3 It did. You know, there 4 were still what I would call naysayers and some 5 individuals who assumed, they said well, we've seen it 6 before, we've heard it before, but it's never come to 7 fruition and we never had the staffing that we needed 8 to be able to appropriate staff the facility without 9 an inordinate amount of overtime.
10 MR. BARBER: When you were in the position 11 of * *was there any residual 12 departures? I 'mean, it sounds like there was some 13 sort of environment there or some reason why these 14 five or six SRO's left in the spring of 2001, and the 15 way you describe it is you were coming into the so you did 17 not have an exit interview with these folks. .Were 18 there other people that may have left sometime after 19 that that were in some way affected by whatever the 20 earlier environment was that you did in fact talk to, 21 and what kind of feedback did you get from them, if I
22 you did? ,
23 There were two individuals 24 that come to mind that left after. One was -- his 25 first name wa* . I could find out.
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12 1 MR. BARBER: Okay.
2 That individual left the 3 company and went into the:training operation. I did 4 talk to him and asked him about leaving and he said 5 well, he was going to get out of operations and go 6 into -- that's when we were trying to get the 7 management process up and running. I think he went to 8 work for Connecticut, and they said well, you know, 9 why don't we just save the PSET. They knew there was 10 a training operation up in Newark.
11 He made some phone calls and talked to 12 some folks and you know, if it's possible to get a 13 transfer up there. You know, you're a good employee.
14 You've got a lot of background knowledge. You know, 15 you've got an SRO-at Salem. You know, I would think 16 the company -would want to retain an employee like 17 that.
18 It was commented back to me was that in 19 the past, it's always, when you've indicated to 20 anybody that you're leaving, it's don't let the door 21 hit you on the back side on the way out. So, it has 22 never been kind of hey, wait a minute. You know, the 23 open dialogue and discussion. If you want to change 24 and do something different with the company, change 25 careers or what have you. I sense the support has not NEAL R. GROSS --
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13 1 been there to help those individuals move into other 2 positions in the corporation.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he tell you that 4 was why he was leaving? Did you have any discussion 5 about that.
6 !0-041"s- / There was obviously some 7 dissatisfaction with his involvement with the 8 management process in trying to get that to work. A 9 lot of frustration trying to get that work management 10 processing working.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could you be more 12 specific? What process wasn't working for him?
13 He was one of the Salem 14 senior reactor operator liaisons to operations and the 15 work management process, and my sense is that there 16 was a level of dissatisfaction and frustration that he 17 had encountered trying to get. that process really to 18 work the way it should. My assessment is that I'm not 19 sure we're beyond a two-week process yet. It's 20 supposed to be a 12-week process. At that point in 21 time, there's a lot of consternation between major 22 organization and operations and how that all should be 23 integrated to work together to have an effective run.
24 MR. BARBER: So what you're really talking 25 about is that the:12-week online maintenance program NEAL R. GROSS >1 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 where you have discreet activities that take place so 2 each week, they all relate to preparation and making 3 sure that when you do your maintenance during the 4 week, that it's done effectively, efficiently, safely?
5 Correct.
6 MR. BARBER: All the risks have been 7 assessed. There's been walkdowns, preparation work 8 packages, et cetera?
9 Yes.
10 MR. BARBER: And that's what you're 11 referring to?
SCorrect.
12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can we just take a 14 moment?
15 (Whereupon, the foregoing 16 matter went off the record 17 briefly and went back on the 18 record at 9:27 a.m.)
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on 20 the record. It's approximately 9:27 a.m.
21 You were talking about some of the 22 individuals who left the site due to their concerns on 23 I get the sense overall with the way things are 24 managed, the opportunities there. In terms of the 25 you relate any of the safety culture, do NEAL R. GROSS (h\K COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 dissatisfaction to the safety culture at the site at 2 this time, and I think you're still talking about, 3 when we went off the record there with this particular 4 SRO, the 2001 time frame?
5 Correct.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
7 Well, there's the safety
- 8. aspect of not being able to adequately and/or 9 appropriately do the risk assessment for the effect of 10 work weeks, that you're going to be executing those 11 work weeks. I think that was also a level of 12 frustration thatIM ihad experienced in not being 13 able to do the job that he wanted to do. So, that was 14 one.
15 left in the spring of 2002..
16 In fact, during the Salem outage. The exit that I had 17 with him was that he had indicated to*'me that he 18 wasn't going to work fo >anymore 19 He was going to get his'life back, and he was just not 20 going to live under that kind of an environment.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What kind of an 22 environment?
23 Well, there was a lot of 24 meticulous task orientation and exportation that the 25 plant facility, you know, this is some speculation on NEAL R. GROSS tx-I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 my part because he and., interacted directly on a 2 lot of occasions around the -- which I told' that 3 I didn't appreciate the need to go through these. I 4 knew what he had, y u know, asked, to do or not 5 do, and in fact,, o I could act as not a buffer so to 6 speak but at least be aligne'ith the work activities 7 that would be requested.
8 MR. BARBER: What was 9 position at the time?
- " " ' He was 10 12 MR. BARBER: Okay, so he was in the q
13 management chain, but he was in effect bypassing you 14 with these communications and these interactions?
- i; Correct.
15 16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 Correct.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
...-- '-. ........-* A n d t h e n*." --* *-*
19 20 who was the he went to 21 I you know right around the same time frame. So 22 basically we lost the senior management at Salem all 23 at once. J.left in thei outage., I stepped over 24 and functioned as the so and 25 I, and we had to4mplete the outage That was in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 2002, plus take a look at the INPO was coming in. The 2 evaluation was going to be happening in August.
3 Then left, who was the 4 " T..left a month or two 5 after that.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have the 7 opportunity to exit interview with him, withy 8
9 1: did- talk t You 10 know, he wanted to be the',operations manager, and 11 -- because that opportunity wasn't provided to him, he 12 decided in order to move on with his career, I think 13 he believed he had to leave the company. reassured 14 him that that wasn't the cas/, I had worked with him.
15 You know, part of it was he was not~gree4 and they 16 were looking for a (greeq4 dividual to fill the 17 :operations manager position.
18 We got to the outage and got to beI 19 worked with him and that he ought to go acquire his 20 egree.\e was kind of set on it. I think he at that 21 point in time, he had been here for a period of time 22 before I ever got here, and I think he had just had 23 some frustration with the operation.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did either of these 25 two gentleman, * .express to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 you any concerns that they might have had regarding 2 safe operations at the plant? Was that any part of 3 their considerations?
4 - . No, no, they didn't 5 express any issues or concerns, as I recollect, 6 directly with the safe operation of the facility.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It seems they're 8 expressing issues to you regarding the management 9 style of and the positions and 10 availability of those positions to them. In,*.
11 _case, that was more the reasons for their 12 wanting to move on.
13 My sense is that there is 14 an organization element there. You know, if you look, 15 the management, looking at very short term, myopic, 16 looking at the broader, you know, organizationally, 17 what you call successor plan, whatever, I'm going to 18 grow the organization to provide opportunities for 19 folks who aren't reaching their talents, their 20 knowledge or experience, and provide them an 21 opportunity to bring that to the table and help the 22 organization grow because if you talk to a lot of the 23 individuals, I've always asserted that you don't have 24 any better people than you've got over at Salem and 25 Hope Creek. There's something holding that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 organization back and keeping the potential that it's 2 clearly capable of. My sense is that it's the 3 management, the management style.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In your experience 5 there, in terms of assessing the safety culture, has 6 it been your experience that people are willing to 7 raise concerns of a nuclear safety nature? Are they 8 willing to? Do they do that?
9 I believe they will. I 10 don't appoint the need to take it. You can flush 11 them, but I believe that they will bring the nuclear 12 safety issue to the table. I don't know what Ij 13 threshold that they would -- thereis a lot of lower 14 level threshold issues that, say that the stars all 15 line up and set you up to that fall.
16 There's one that's I'd say somewhat 17 bothersome, and that was the4Q-plant reactivity even 18 that we had at Hope Creek.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's the time frame 20 for that?
21 2That was spring of 2003.
22 That event had taken place on early Monday morninc,.i 23 I forget the exact date, and it either went 24 unrecognized, which is the way it was, as I say, 25 proposed to myself, or individuals were reluctant to NEAL R. GROSS ,
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20 1 acknowledge it for what it was. It wasn't until we 2 were sitting in SORC, the Safety Operations *eview 3 Committee, which I chair, and we were doing thLost-4 tripfeport, that it became evident to me that looking 5 at the graphs and in the discussion, that I had had an 6 on-plant reactivity even which no one in senior 7 management was knowledgeable about or cognizant of 8 previously.
9 MR. BARBER: When was SORC relative to 10 when this event occurred?
- ,. ... it was lik"Wednesday.-
12 MR. BARBER: Okay. So, you' re talking i -4 13 about at least two days after?
14 Yes, yes, at least two 15 days, and it -- well, I'll be honest with you. I was 16 the one that said you know; that we had a on-plant 17 reactivity event ou know, and basically recessed the 18 Safety Operations Review Committee and,sat down with 19
- W 2who was you know, what was going 20 on here.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is thiS.
-jig qo wasthe 22 23 He had been off site during that 24 ~hutdow but was cognizant of it, but I'm not sure 25 that -- I don't know if it was a lack of recognition NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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21 1 of what had transpired or an unwillingness to 2 acknowledge because of the repercussions.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On whose part would 4 that be? Where would you have expected it to be 5 recognized and raised, if there was unwillingness 6 there?
7 Mr . .It should have been 8 recognized and raised with the shift manager, or there 9 was an IPTE and frequently performed test and 10 evolution. He had a iest manager.- He had a couple of Ii senior reactor operators.that were --
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you put names 13 with those positions, please?
i4 - _-_v _was th 15 I can't remember his name right now. I can 16 see him, though. There was a itest manager associated 17 with it who was also ýsenior reactor operator.
18 There was an investigation, and we got all 19 the issues out on the table, but I would say that one 20 raises some questions on why that wasn't acknowledged 21 or recognized. I can remember back when) .'...
22 back in the early 90's I believe it was, put a letter 23 out about all the'kf-.plant reactivity events t bhat had 24 taken place in the industry, and it was a significant 25 issue. I mean, there was just no ifs, ands, or buts NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 about it.
2 I acknowledged and seen what had 3 transpired. It was a serious event that we had -- it 4 didn't result in anything serious happening, but it 5 was a significant, serious event. It's and SER with 6 INPO right now.
7 MR. BARBER: What was your assessment of 8
- knowledge of the issue and o 9 knowledge of the issue and their discussions 10 with you? I mean, was this -- we need to try and understand who knew what and, you know, the way you 12 describe is it occurred. You became aware of it on
-I 13 Wednesday. What I'm trying to understand is what did 14 they know? Did, have full knowledge in 15 the event? Did have full knowledge of 16 the event? Were they given partial information? What 17 was their knowledge level?
18 To my knowledge,
.. as involved with it, so he had full knowledge 19 20 of the event. He had the 21 manned. I'm not sure who was all in there, but they 22 certainly were cognizant of it.
23 You had the second who was the Ltest 24 manager,' who was cognizant of it. jwas the 25 who was probably NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS.
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23 1 cognizant of it, and he had had conversations with 2 rs o was cognizant and had knowledge of it.
3 So you know, the question you have is did 4 they really recognize it for what it was, or is there 5 some inhibition to go ahead and bring it to the 6 forefront or the table. I don't know.
7 If you step back in time a little bit, 8 there were some other issues that I would say that we 9 did encounter. Some of it, my sense is it's a 10 knowledge issue with the operations department, the ii ASB Code week issues sometimes that we had encountered. A case in point is they were taking the
-I 13 safety system*j-.out on a platform and cooling it, 14 because of rainwater. 7-* We had a leak, and it was 15 classified as ASB Code class leaki 16 If you look at, you know, it's already 17 performed its intended function, but the operations 18 department ended up calling the equipment inoperable, 19 and they had some additional dialogue and discussion.
20 You know, I think we've brought their knowledge up on 21 what the real intent of that is, but there are a 22 number of occasions there that I believe there were 23 knowledge shortfalls with the operations department.
24 So, I'm not convinced that that isn't part 25 of what I was experiencing'over at Hope Creekas well.
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24 1 If you remember, I don't know if you were involved 2 with the SG 12 and LF13 issues with'the lea We were,;
3 going to go and get NOED, who actually ended up taking{
4 a look at it. Engineering was reluctant [inaudible]
5 was tested and further every month half power, which .
6 is really not a good place to be. Those/check valves*A 7 were never intended.
8 It had to do with the fit tanks. They 9 didn't have ief valveson them, and they had the' 10 potential for\'rowing the bindings 11 MR. BARBER: Okay.
12 It was part -of your 13 L njection path?- It was somewhat incomprehensible to 14 me that we were doing that'Leak test half powe They 15 probably had done it for an extended period of time, 16 and they got a sense of start-up. It's like nobody 17 was challenging and questioning, you know, does this 18 really makes sense, and why are we doing.. this.
19 Subsequently, we're not anymore. We ended up putting theeadin valvesin, and we don't do thos ceck J 21 valve leaks1t power. To me, that had some safety 22 significance.
23 In fact, I. at one point in time, we had the 24 )eak valves checked out. So, you actually had 25 yourself potentially for a small loca for an accid nt, NEAL R. GROSS ".
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25 1 with the situation that you're putting the facility 2 in.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When did that stop 4 the testing?
5 J JThat was in'20 2that that F~ 4.
6 ;,testinglwas taken place.
7 (Whereupon, the foregoing 8 matter went off the record 9 briefly and went back on the 10 record.)
II SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on.
12 You talked before about the reactivity management 13 eventý,, and that there may have been unwillingness to 14 recognize what had occurred there on the part of shift 15 managers and test managers. The investigation, you 16 said there was an investigation into the event.
17 3. Correct.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the result 19 of that?
20 ;..DThat it was a significant
/
21 event. There were a number of fig matrix done so you 22 think you had your process. There was one that wasn't 23 followed, engineering wasn't involved to the extent 24 that they should have been involved. There were some 25 program issues associated with the extent there are a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS '--
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26 1 number of checks and balances that should have 2 precluded it from happening. My concern was that, you 3 know, once it happened, you know, there wasn't any 4 issue from it happening. It went down either 5 unacknowledged or it wasn't seen as a significant 6 issue.
7 Additionally, during that event, we were 8 Ishutting the unit down* emember we wereý4+hutting it 9 dowýkecause to bypass us, not close, and that's why -
10 11 MR. BARBER: Wasn' t there actually a 12 planned aspect to the outage? Didn't you have other -
13 - wasn't there certain things that you were repairing 14 and that this was actually something that happened 15 coming out of that?
16 That went into the 17 [inaudible.]
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 And I'm trying to 20 remember, wasn't there also a elie i-- I think there 21 was aelief valve, 22 MR. BARBER: And maybe a iesel generator 23 exhautgle?
exhaust leak?,is that part of this same outage?
23 24 Ys 25 MR. BARBER: There was a repair to that?
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27 1 ---- enerator exhaust lea s 2 well.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
4 There were some issues 5 surrounding doing th4\hydro' oming out.
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
7 Of that outage. There was b some discussion about doing thelhydro with critical 9 heat 4K 10 MR. BARBER: Okay.
AL Absolutely senior 12 management can't do 4 eactor hydro with critical hea 13 The reason you do the tydro0ýright, is to insure that 14 you've got to take it to the primary pressure 15 boundary, the reactor pressure boundary, that you 16 cannot take the reactor critical to heat up to do that 17 "§hydroK There was a lot of discussion and dialogue 18 around that particular evolution.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And who was involved 20 in the discussion?
21 22 Pon [inaudible],
23 specifically that he had any direction to go ahead and 24 do that V ro with critical hea that he was 25 absolutely forbidden to go ahead and do that, and who NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 needs to get a hold of me because my sense was there 2 was a real push to be able to go ahead and do that 3 with "Critical heat'-1 4 I remember specifically having a one on 5 one conversation withjBill Be'ec** gion Thr here 6 Auad Citi ad in fact done the same thing. It was 7 with the, you know, after a refueling outage they went 8 ahead and had done a>.dro with critical hea( which 9 I think the Code allows you to do, but I don't think 10 anybody ever fathomed that any utility would go ahead 11 and actually do al eactor hydro with critical heat4 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where was the push 13 coming from?
14 There was a lot of 15 challenging and questioning I would say from senior 16 management of why we couldn't do it wiIcritical 17 hegv 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Senior management 19 being who? Is this one individual or more than one 20 individual?
21 1 know i know 22 mentioned it, and I think did as well.
23 -1 told he couldn't do it, and I wouldn't 24 do it.,
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the respbnse NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 to that?
2 ___ We didn't do it.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you get any more 4 challenging or any more push?
5 Well, I would say there 6 was some probably a little pushing and questioning and 7 challenging, but they ultimately followed up with and got everybody on the right page and 9 showed them why they couldn't do it, and they finally 10 agreed.
11 MR. BARBER: Did you feel that you 12 suffered any kind of adverse consequence because you 13 stood up to management and said no, we're not going to 14 do this?
15 _ That's probably why I 16 don't have a .b ght -- I mean, that's one of them, 17 but you know, --*.. have a job out there.<
I-fon't 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you feel this 19 contributed?
20 Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure 21 that, possibly th [eactivity ev hat I brought to 22 light. There was another issue associated with 23 *starting the un ember th tart-up of the 24 bypass where it stuck ope-n There was a lot of 25 questions -- it went beyond questioning ard NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 15.
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30 1 challenging. It was more like interrogation, right?
2 The fact that (inaudible] couldn't be certain, and if 3 after we came out of that, you know, replaced the 4 haust leakVdid th dro lift at the cagi it 5 took a little longer at the critical path, but you 6 know, we got up the pressure rate, did it fine.
7 Then the number fJwo bypass valve stuck 8 open, about 40, 50 percentj That was on I think a 9 Friday or Saturday. We had a conference call Saturday 10 night. That's when we went through and did the --
11 that was all associated with the reactivity at the 12 IPTE and crew was supposed to be trained. They ii -
13 weren't trained effectively. There were a number of 14 things that broke down.
15 When they shut the unit down and tripped 16 the reactor, ne valve actually went shu So then 17 the question was why can't I just start the unit back 18 up.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where was the 20 question, from whom?
- 7He
-- says why 21 22 can't I just start the unit back up? I said, you're 23 kidding me. Anyhow, I was there when we were trying 24 close that valv-, nd they went out and listened to 25 it, and it was coming up against a hard mechanical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 stop, and they knew there was a problem with that 2 m.-(rber two bypass valve/ Even though thi*ralve)n and 3 of itself is not safety related, it impacts activity 4 management, reactivity changesJand he knew it was a 5 definite problem and issue with thate 4alv6 at the 6 Ibybpass valve system somewhere. Whether it was a 7 mechanical blockage\or something with th alve.r!TWe 8 did considerable testing.
9 Anyhow, I believe it was that Monday 10 morning after they shut thatF1ve did go closes and 11 I was asked why we couldn't just restart the unit.
12 There was a problem with it.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was this after the 14 fact or -- I'm sorry.
-=15 J It was during.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: During it?
17 During, right.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're being asked 19 why can't you just --
20 Coming in Monday morning, 21 right after we had shut the unit down, went in, and 22 thŽ'pass valve had gone clos It was why can't I 23 just restart the unit.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this is withI
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32 1 Right. b- said you can't 2 restart that unit. You're going to have a problem 3 with the bypass valve.'\
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the response 5 to that?
6 , It's not safety, so what.
7 The v'ilve is closeF It's working fine right now.
8 Why can't they just start up?
9 _said you can't restart 10 the unit 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: His position was it 12 wasn't safety related, and it's closed, is that what 13 you said?
14 -. ) Correct. t's closeW and 15 it seems like it's working fine now. I believe they 16 might have evei troked it I'm not sure. There was 17 a problem with that. There was a problem and a 18 problem/with'2ihat valv*.kYou cak?'t restart this unit, 19 and wouldn't restart the unit 20 So then there was a lot of discussion, 21 challenging, and consternation.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But challenging to 23 what specifically? *tseems like you're saying it's 24 pretty cut and dry. You can't restart the un%, and 25 they're describing that it's not -- is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 saying it's not safety related, and your response to 2 that is you can't restart the unit. So, what do you 3 get in response to that? Where is the challenge?
4 I , . Well, the challenge was to 5 restart the unit. There was another conference that 6 we had over iný office.
7 SPECIAL GENT NEFF: Who was involved in 8 that?
as involved 10 because he was th Q lw*.*at that 11 point in time. was in there, and there 12 was what I would call -- it was really kind of an 13 intimidating manner I think that4 jiIas challenging
. EY* **,,,=.., ,:,I ...
14 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was J
16 involved with that?
17 JI believe he might have 18 been in there as well.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anybody else?
20 "n*ý ... ImI trying to remember who 21 was all in the -- I don't know if' -as in there or 22 not, I don't know if he was in there.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
24 .M."O-Trl He might have 'been in 25 there. I don't recall. -
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34 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're talking 2 about --
'3 -know was in 4 there. I was in there.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you say 6 intimidating, why do you describe it that way?
7 . Because it wasn't in an 8 inquisitive type of a manner. It wasn't what do you 9 think is going oh, you know, what do you think the 10 problem is? It was more why can' t ýPestart the uni*
11 you know, what's the, you know, it's not safety 12 related. It's working fine now. Why can't 13 -- so it was more in an intimidating, directive 14 manner, and I had come from safety at a conservative 15 decision making. You just can't even contemplate. To 16 me the questioning was out of line.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where do you think 18 that was coming from?
19 MR. BARBER: I mean, although he was doing 20 the talking, is your perception it was from him, or 21 was there anyone else that --
22 He was the singular 23 individual that was in the room, and he was the one 24 that was directing the questions and the challenge.
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35 1 become aware that anybody above was 2 involved in this discussion?
3 I had heard some rumors 4 that there was some other individuals that were 5 potentially above/ that had asked those 6 questions, but I don't have any knowledge to that.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the rumors would 8 be from where and involving who?
9 I'd rather not even say 10 because I really don't, you know. One individual made 11 the comment to me that the questioning came from above 12 U ibut I really don't have any insight or any 13 knowledge or anything to that effect. I'm not trying 14 to protect him. I just don't, you know, just some 15 comments whatever -
16 [End of Side A, Tape 1]
17 [Beginning of Side B, Tape 1]
18 L You can't eve tart the 19 unit.$"That's the end of discussion.
20 MR. BARBER: Well, that also would help us 21 maybe understand why he acted the way he did. I mean, 22 you're describing that his behavior probably should 23 have been different if he understood what you 24 understood, but maybe he had pressure from above to 25 forge ahead and to, you know, to challenge the plan to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 1 shut the unit down and investigate the cause of the 2 ,bYPass valve.
3 It's his accountability 4 and responsibility, just as it is mine, to make sure 5 that we safely run and operate that facility, no 6 matter where it comes from or who it comes from.
7 There was no question in my mind whatsoever that if 8 I'd have been given, if I'd let them go ahead and get 9 it all out on the table, if they didn't come to the 10 yight answer and omebody gave them direction to 12 etart that un you and I would be having a 12 conversation because I would have taken it up through 13 the chain of command at PS&G. If I didn't get to 14 where I needed to be there, then I have been having 15 the discussion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 16 because I would not.hav restarted that unit 17 .I-A.
/.,* .. . there' s no doubt in 18 my mind w.'would not have restarted that unit.
19 MR. BARBER: Okay.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you think there 21 was -- was it clear to ý what the concerns 22 were in that that did affect the safe operation?
23 a -10 MIMI: Absolutely. He was as 24 cognizant of thatJ'. ve not functioni i~4 the way it 2"5 should have as anyone else was because we sat NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 reduced power, I think 20 percent power, all of 2 Sunday. He was on the conference call Saturday night 3 when we had the discussion about the"valve and the 4 valve not closingy 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you think he was 6 well versed with what the issues were?
7 Absolutely.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How long was the time 9 frame on this discussion?
10 SIM Monday morning?
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.
12 Thie Monday morni ng 13 discussion, I would say it probably started, you know, 14 right away in the morning, 8:00, 7:30, 8:00, and we 15 had meetings over at Hope Creek, and took a look at 16 what, you know, the issues were and what had been 17 going on. Then we were all summoned to*a 18 conference room in his office to have additional 19 discussion and dialogue on it. That's where a lot of 20 the questioning and the style. It was more of what I 21 would say an intimidating type of dialogue and 22 discussion.
23 MR. BARBER: Was it directed strictly at 24 you or was it directed at any others in the group?
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38 1 predominantly at 2 MR. BARBER: Okay.
3 You knowimnd I talked 4 before we went over there. I said, you can' testart 5 this unit. So, I mean --
6 MR. BARBER: What was his reaction to that 7 comment, the one you just made?
8 1 He was aligned with that.
9 I think he kind of sensed he was going to be coming up 10 on a precarious situation, which I think it totally 11 inappropriate. You know, if you're looking at 12 promoting conservative decision making and make the 13 right decisions for the right reasons, operating these 14 places safely, I would have expected that senior 15 management would have been embracing we aren't going 16 tdjestart this uniiuntil we completely understand 17 what the problems and the issues are, instead of 18 coming from why can't theb start the unI and it's 19 not safety related. They should be able *start the 20 unit back up 21 The line of questioning was totally 22 inappropriate.
23 MR. BARBER: Was there anything that had 24 occurred recently within the last weeks prior to that 25 that you could have conceived of as providing the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 insight as to whwas reacting the way he 2 was? I mean, one of the things you indicated just a 3 few minutes ago was that),'#should have known better 4 than to want t grrestartwithout 5 investigating the 5 problem, and you kind of intimated that there may have 6 been some pressure from above, but you really didn't 7 have a source. Were there any other factors? Were 8 there like budgetary discussions or anything else 9 that, capacity factor discussions, any other 10 influences that you were aware of that had come out in 12 the previous weeks that may have affected his decision 12 making or his style of questioning during that 11 13 discussion?
14 -- d I'm trying to remember the 15 specifics. I mean, I'm sure there were, you know,'
16 budgetary discussions, the fact that Hope Creek is 100 17 percent PSET share. I kept hearing that all the time, 18 and I understand that, you know, there's a significant 19 impact to the operation with this Hope Creek versus 20 Salem because it's a 50 percent share or 57/43, or 21 whatever it is over at Salem.
22 Yes, I mean, it would be speculative on my 23 part to understand why and/or where he was coming 24 from. If you take a look at the combined capacity 25 factor at the facility, at the island up through th.
- 9r -
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40 1 middle of September here when I gave up the reins, we 2 were up over 93 percent capacity factor.
3 I believe part of that was because they 4 quit churning the organization. You know, we started 5 getting out ahead with some readiness reviews, with 6 making sure we were working the right 7 equipment, which is really kind of a work management 8 work-around because that wasn't working, but it helped 9 us at least make sure that we were getting all of the 10 critical equipment taken care of.
11 That site has never seen a 93 combined 12 capacity factor before in its entire operating 13 history. But what I'll also tell you that, well, I 14 know you don't because you were in the control room.
15 If anything happened in those control roomsI was in 16 there for a number of reasons right? I wanted to 17 make suregclearly understood what the operators are 18 going to do, and also clearly understand and make sure 19 that somebody gives some other direction, as long as 20 21 So, part of it was to make sure that the 22 appropriate decisions were being made in those control 23 rooms as long as I was still the 24 I think we're fairly aggressive on some 25 things, but we make prudent decisions on the issu s NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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41 1 that we encountered during the summer.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The event around the 3<."March 17 the turbine bypass valve incident, and the 4 reactions or direction, I'll categorize it the way you 5 did. The intimidation that you saw on 6 part, was that a first for you?
7 No, it wasn't. And that 8 gets back to the management style. I'd say the 9 management style was one particular of intimidation, 10 bullying, berating. It wasn't conducive to bringing 11 issues to the table or forefront, right? Individuals' 12 opinions in some cases in meetings were discounted, 13 and they were chastised. You know, my opinion, you 14 know, the public forum, you did that once or twice, 15 and those individuals aren't going to speak up again.
16 Instead of encouraging. people to bring the 17 issues to the table and endorsing and encouraging them.
18 so that you're sure there's nothing going on out there 19 that you're not aware of or cognizant of *and then 20 making a decision on that, there were a number of 21 instances where a number of individuals were, well, 22 basically clammed up.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you give us an 24 example?
25 -Yes. I can give you an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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42 1 example that I was personally involved with on the 2 Safety Operations Review Committee. When we had the 3 first fueling here at Hope Creek, an 4 . ,.--eeting, I had 5 gone through a lot of the discussion, you know, the 6 dialogue on what we need to do as far as the 7 suppression testing and their discussions with General 8 Electric.
9 ,-,came in late, and we were --
10 I had some senior folks around that table, including
+ **i" :
- I believe I'm 11 12 trying to remember who was all in there, but senior 13 individuals, I mean)`managers "t the facility. We had 14 had all the dialogue and discussion, and there were a 15 few follow-up things.
16 (Whereupon, the foregoing 17 matter went off the record 18 briefly and went back on the 19 record.)
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on 21 the record.
22 U ; We were getting ready to
- 23 go ahead and recommend a certain unit with the 24 following issues. When we started says oh, wait 25 a minute, before you make a recommendation, because he
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43 1 had made a recommendation t [~r 2
3 He said before you do that, you know, let 4 me -- I forget exactly what his words were, but he got 5 into the discussion, the dialogue, and to be quite 6 honest with you, I literally saw every senior manager.
7 on that SORC committee shut down. What I mean by shut 8 down, because we were having good dialogue, good 9 exchange, good interaction beforehand. They clasped 10 their hands, and their heads went right on down, each 11 and every one of them. The whole SORC stalled out.
12 I mean, it just stopped.
ii 13 I had to literally what I would call go in 14 and say hey, what do you think, back in gauge 15 and go around to each individual person, get them back 16 engaged in the discussion around the table, toldW 17 that, you know, taken care of, and then we ended up 18 voting and it went forward.
19 It was just unconscionable I guess, for me 20 to see the entire senior managementiteam;represented 21 on SORC to shut down. It seems like a conditioned 22 behavior.
23 MR. BARBER: What exactly did he say to 24 cause that reaction?
lI can't remember the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. n
44 1 specifics, but the incident, you know, is vivid in my 2 mind, that was questioning or querying as far as the 3 -Lkafe restart of the uni but it wasn't -- I can't 4 remember the specifics, but we had had a lot of the 5 dialogue and discussion on thcsuppression testing,'-
6 what we were going to do. To me, it was typical of 7 the style that was prevalent at the station.
8 When those individuals would come into a 9 room or in a meeting, the management team was not very 10 interactive if they bring issues. [Inaudible] and I'm 11 not sure exactly, you know, why that was, I mean, 12 other than the environment that I guess was prevalent 13 at the station for that long time. I guess their 14 backgrounds or experiences, that that's something that 15 had continued on from back when we restarted the units 16 or whatever. A number of those individuals had been 17 there before I ever got there.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When was this 19 particular incident?
20 It had to be*/20 024t was 21 after we developed th [!uel leak at Hope Cre I'm 22 sure I could find out in the records, you know, when 23 we had thatJfuel leaký nd we got some pressure 24 testing, and there was *NORC meetin 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm having some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 trouble hearing at this point, and I know that you 2 indicated that there were other incidents where you 3 saw this type of behavior on senior management's part.
4 What I'd like to do is go off the record briefly.
5 Let's consider moving.
6 (Whereupon, the foregoing 7 matter went off the record 8 briefly and went back on the 9 record.)
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The time is 11 now approximately now 10:32 a.m. We have changed 12 locations. We're now at the\Chester County Library in 13 Exto /
14 In continuing the discussion involving the 15 $LSRC meetin and the effect that he had 16 on that meeting that you were talking about, can you -
17 - what's your assessment of the way that affects 18 safety and the decision making at the plant?
19 My assessment is that it 20 actually shut down the engagement and the interaction 21 of theN/ORC committee member -so that, you know, a 22 good exchange and interaction, to make sure that there 23 weren't any issues that weren't uncovered or whatever, 24 and from a safety standpoint, were all put out on the 25 table. That interaction, you know, was subdued based NEAL R. GROSS .
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46 onresence in engaging with the 2 committee members.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay :6ott> on that 4 incident, do you have anything further?
5 MR. BARBER: Well, I guess when I was 6 thinking about what you'd said, I was trying to 7 understand what the nature of his discussion was. I 8 mean, I know you said you don't remember the details, 9 but what was the nature? Was it to proceed? I mean, 10 what was the gist of his conversation? What was his 11 point, I guess, is the right way of putting it?
12 1I don't recall, again, the 13 specifics and the manner and how he had engagement.
14 I don't recall if it was like in an intimidating 15 manner or if it was before you go ahead and vote, you 16 know, you need to --
17 MR. BARBER: What was the status of the 18 unit at the time? Was the unit up and running? Was 19 it shut down? Where was it?
20 I'm trying to think now.
21 I believe we were operating.
22 MR. BARBER: At full power?
23 No, I believe we were at 24 reduced power, but I don't recall the specifics. I'd 25 have to look it up.
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47 1 MR. BARBER: Okay. i guess what I was 2 trying to understand in my own mind was his tone and 3 demeanor directed at getting the plant to a higher 4 power level, higher production, as soon as possible, 5 or was it more, you know, make sure you air out all 6 the issues? It sounds like whatever it was he said 7 turned off the bbRC committejtthe way you described 8 it, and I was trying to understand the background, the 9 back drop, the setting, what the effect of that was.
10 If you don't remember, that's fine. We'll just 11 proceed onward.
12 ...... _Itwas very--
I--I-II 13 MR. BARBER: And if you do recall, you can 14 just raise it.
15 L j It was very pronounced, 16 though, I mean, the thing that struck me was that 17 everybody just shut down. I mean, they literally just 18 shut down.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you seen that 20 happen before?
21 I have, in some of the 22 management meetings when a lot of times or 23 whatever -would engage the management. I would see 24 everybody pull back.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Over what type of.
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48 1 issues?
2 j I'd say a wide variety of 3 issues, some significant, some insignificant. I think 4 it was the mannerism and the demeanor. It was the 5 style and the environment that was created whereby 6 individuals were afraid of even having their heads 7 handed to them or else being publicly demeaned, right, 8 put in a situation where amongst their peers they 9 would -- I'm trying to find a word here to properly 10 capture that, but a very precarious, awkward 11 situation, you know, amongst their peers and what have 12 you. I would say they would be less apt to speak up 13 in the future.
14 MR. BARBER: Would you say that would be 15 a chill type of environment where people didn't feel 16 as, maybe didn't feel as inclined to raise safety 17 concerns. Is that what you're portraying? I'm not 18 trying to lead you, but is-that --
19 It could, in some 20 conditions or situations.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had you seen that 22 happen?
23 Have I seen that happen?
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're saying it 25 could indicate a chilled environment. Had you seen it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 happen where somebody raised a nuclear safety issue 2 and had their head handed to them?
3 I have not seen a specific 4 nuclear safety issue raised where someone had had 5 their head handed to them, and you know, as far as 6 operation of the facilities, you know, I was always 7 engaged as far as where we went with the units and 8 what we did with the units.
9 So, from a specific safety issue, I don't 10 recall ever seeing somebody having their head handed 11 to them.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did anyone ever 13 express to you that they would have a fear of raising 14 an issue if such a need -- if they had the need to, 15 would they have a fear of raising the issue for fear 16 of, you know, some personal, negative action against 17 them?
18 I don't recall anyone 19 indicating to me that they had a fear of raising an 20 issue. I'd say there was I believe a lack of trust in 21 some of the management and some of the managers, and 22 subsequently, they would probably be reluctant to 23 bring up some issues or get into the middle of some 24 dialogue in the discussion.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are there -- when you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5o 1 say with some of the managers, do you have concerns 2 that focus on certain individuals?
3 *If you could repeat the 4 question.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you say that 6 there might have been a fear or distress of raising 7 anything, is this across the board? Is this limited 8 to one area, or where are you speaking from?
9 Let me see if I can give 10 an example here. Take for instance.
11 Great guy, got a good program, does well. Sometimes, 12 you know, he'll bring up, and he challenges the 13 organization. I think he does a good job of it.
14 Sometimes his mannerism is you know, a little 15 abrasive, but that's all right. You know, when he 16 started reporting to me, we worked on that somewhat, 17 and I think he did well.
18 Instead of recognizing him for what he 19 brought to the table in his questioning and 20 challenging manner, it was I would say conversations 21 or discussions that I had either with and/o/ i 22 is that you ought to replace him because you know, 23 he's I would say poison to the organization, whatever.
24 You know, that's not the case, you know, 25 so I would support him and say, you know, that's not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND I RANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 the case. He is bringing a critical element to the 2 table. Well, he challenges the organization, and some 3 of the things that they're doing or not doing.
4 The same with who was the 5 A-bAW. M I know there was I believe an 6 allegation that was submitted on him here probably 7 towards the end of 2002. He stopped in and talked to 8 me on a number of occasions where you know, my sense, 9 he was under a lot of pressure, and that pressure was 10 coming directly fror_. as I understand it.
11 12 It was to change the performance in 13 chemistry, yet my sense is that once he tooki out 14 from under' he's done well in the year 2003. He 15 ,reported to me !as of the end of December, 2002, and 16 what he needed was he needed some help and support in 17 a couple of areas, which I believe is, you know, i8 management's responsibility not to again, drive the 19 individuals into some sort of submission.
20 You know, what he needed was he needed 21 help with maintenance, getting the material condition 22 issues over at Salem which he had been struggling with 23 and having difficulty in getting the requisites part 24 that he needed over there. There were some issues 25 with the chemistry technicians, which you knowl! 14" NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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52 1 by trade, is a very technical individual, and there 2 are some cultural interpersonal skills issues which, 3 you know, I engaged corporate management, the director 4 of organizational development, and we subsequently 5 brought in a consultant to ascertain what some of the 6 cultural issues were between the Salem and the Hope 7 Creek] hemistry technicianjand what we needed to do 8 to change that.
9 To me, those were the things that were 10 really needed to help turn thechemistry operation 11 around. I believe we made some good headway and some 12 g6o-d progress in the year 2003.
13 Now, if you sit down and have a 14 conversation with* he would tell you that he'll 15 talk to A right, have discussions with him, but 16 he'll never trust him because he either worked with 17 him or supported him in helping him accomplish the 18 goals and objectives that were necessary in his 19 department.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. When we were 21 talking before regarding -- I asked you before if the 22 incidents in March had been the first of intimidation 23 that you had witnessed. This was on the part of*
24 and you went into the*ORCý$volvin§ 25 Do you have any other incidents where you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 had concerns about their intimidating tactics and 2 their shutting down the exchange of information?
3 Anything, or anything in terms of people -- make it 4 more general, in terms of raising issues at the site?
5 I know you've indicated there were a couple that came 6 to mind at that time, and then we were interrupted 7 there.
8 *Yes, I don't know if but in, 6 PIG, the 9 they're really safety related, 10 Continuous Performance Improvement Grou§4here was a 11 non-instructor individual that raised some issues and 12 concerns in that group and was pretty abruptly shut 13 down by WW 14 Now, there's issues out there that still 15 haven't been reconciled. I believe they're being 16 worked on, but)intenance training You know, there 17 was more than one occasion where we end up with not 18 having individuals qualified to perform the requisite 19 tasks or not having the right skills and you know, 20 that program is not where it really needs to be in 21 order to support the workers and competently being 22 able to do their job, or even the supervisors being 23 able to have adequate resources, qualified resources, 24 to do the work.
25 You know, so we'll get into some of those NEAL R. GROSS _.
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54 1 type of discussions, and indiiuiduals will raise 2 opinions. One individual raised an issue concerning 3 in thEiLpPIG meetingthe shutdown.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what was the 5 concern there?-
6 Again, I don't remember 7 the specific, but I remember the incident because it 8 created let's say an environment where the individuals 9 I think were reluctant to speak up, and that would a 10 lot of times traditionally happen when those 11 individuals came into or sat in any management 12 meetings.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't recall the 14 specific concern here? In what way, the topic, 15 anything more specific, and time frame?
16 Well, the time frame was 17 2003 here. I mean, it wasn't that long ago. It was 18 probably the spring time frame.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And who was the 20 individual?
21 It was an instructor out 22 at the training center. I don't recall what his name 23 is. I know who he is, but I don't recall his name.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had he been there 25 long? Any kind of a description or anything? How NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS .
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55 1 many (nstructors-ikre out there?
2 There's quite a few. I 3 believe he was an instructional technologist;maybe or 4 an analyst.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was associated 6 with a particular department or anything?
7 MR. BARBER: Was this related to 8 2 **aintenance raining.*- Are they connected? You 9 indicated there wasmaintenance training-&
10 \1 I believe it was.
11 MR. BARBER: Okay.
12 It was again, the 13 environment that was created with the public 14 exhibition of, you know, I don't want to hear it.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What did he say}I "
17 I don't remember if 1, it was 18 in this case, but typically there is a lot of swearing 19 and vulgarity in his mannerism, and I think if you 20 look at the -- I suspect. I haven't seen them, but I 21 would suspect that if you looked at the employee 22 concerns area, that a lot of that is probably 23 documented in the employee concerns area.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Regardingt3 25 May of dealing with people?
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56 1 - Correct, conversations, 2 his way of dealing with people, the vulgarity and the 3 I'd say just in general that mannerism.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
5 _- - -_ And there's other 6 S4ecretaries 1/know that have heard it. There was an 7 occasion that an individual was on the phone, on the 8 speaker phone, and I have to believe tha{Jknew he 9 was on the speaker phone.- I think it waso-_1. N 10 was on the phone with him. I think the/secretarie~i 11 made a comment to him because I mean, you could hear.
12 I wasn't up there, but you know, they could hear the 13 conversation.
14 A lot of times, that's a conversation that 15 you'd get in your morning voicemails, on the way in in 16 the morning, on the telephone.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Oh, okay.
18 So you could probably look 19 at those records. I don't know if those are all 20 retrievable or not, but a lot of those records are I 21 sense a lot of cursing and swearing and a lot of 22 times, by the time I'd get into work in the morning, 23 based on some limited knowledge or information, what 24 I would say there was a lot of consternation that was 25 already being spun up.
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57 1 Typically what I would do is say all 2 right, you know, I hear you. I said let me get the 3 facts. Let me go find out what the rest of the story 4 is because what I would find out is that based on 5 limited information or knowledge, that those two 6 senior individuals would start really churning the 7 organization, and when you went and really found out 8 what the whole story 'was, you know, the appropriate 9 actions were taken and the individuals did exactly.
10 what you would have expected them to do.
11 So, you know, a lot of it was -- a lot of 12 time was spent in damage control.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We talked 14 before about the incident in March where Wou had made 15 it clear that start-up would be a proble scause it 16 was a safety' concern, and we talked about your 17 involvement in that. Do you have any other instances, 18 or did you feel that you were able to raise concerns 19 at the site that were of *a safety nature, you 20 personally?
21 jjW.* Absolutely. I have no 22 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You could?
24 Correct. I have no qualms 25 about raising safety issues and concerns because I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 would have no issues in taking it above, you know, to 2 whatever level I needed to to make sure that the 3 facility was operated in a safe manner.
4 MR. BARBER: How much of what you say, 5 though, is a matter of your own will and determination 6 and how much of it is representative of the 7 environment? I mean, you could have an environment 8 that is autocratic, dictatorial, and you could still, 9 because of your own will and personality, you could 10 still challenge that, or you could counter challenge 11 it, but others may not have that same demeanor, the 12 same will and determination. I think that was one of 13 the things Eileen was asking about, you know, whether 14 other things were maybe, if you didn't feel that way, 15 that you felt that maybe others had.
16 I mean, the one example you provided was 17 aOORC7;J Was there any other example of that that fit 18 that profile?
19 Where the individuals --
20 MR. BARBER: Where in your perception you 21 thought they may have been actually chilled at a given 22 time for a given set of circumstances, you know, that 23 there were either involved with an event or a 24 discussion with something that was relevant and 25 germane to operations or to safety and that because NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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59 1 they weren't as strong willed or have such a strong 2 character that they would not have raised the issues?
3 WF...o It's pretty hard to answer 4 that.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, it's asking you 6 to get into the minds of people that you worked with.
7 We could say have you become aware, and I think we 8 touched on this of an instance where somebody feared 9 raising an issue that they should not have been. You 10 know, it should have been no doubt that they could 11 raise a concern. Was it an environment where people 12 brought concerns? If they had the concern, did they 13 raise that to the appropriate level, and how was that 14 handled?
15 Let's go off the record.
16 (Whereupon, the foregoing 17 matter went off the record 18 briefly and went back on the 19 record.)
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on 21 the record. We were 30 seconds off.
22 Just before we were one the record, you 23 said that your sense was that people would be guarded.
24 f Be guarded, hesitant, or 25 reluctant in some situations.
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60 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, are you basing 2 that on what we've discussed so far, or are there more 3 reasons that go into your assessment there?
4 MR. BARBER: Or examples, or events, 5 issues, what have you?
6 lit, Well, there were a couple 7 of other examples that go farther down in the 8 organization. One had to do with th6,0dification of 9 the component cooling pump, the drain line.-
10 MR. BARBER: Okay.
12 We were in a 72-hour seal, 12 and I was there late. It was about 10, 10:30. I was 13 getting read to leave, an called, paged 14 me. So, I got on the car phone in the parking lot, 15 and said what's going on.
16 He said well, we're better than halfway 17 through the LCO and considering whether or not I 18 should call out a TARP. A TARP is an action response 19 team.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the time frame 21 for this is?
22 Pardon?
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The time frame for 24 this incident?
25 I can't remember if it's; NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
61 1 the end of 2002, 2003 time frame.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Late 2002, early 3 2003?
4 Or early 2003.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
6 I don't remember 7 specifically. So I said well, let me go down and find 8 out what's going on. So, they were having some 9 difficulty getting oPlation on a valveybut the thing 10 that really stuck in my mind is that there is anvil 11 reservoir right underneath the pump casing'and this 12 ain line comes right out of the bottom of the pump 13 casing It's a screwed-in fitting \and then it's 14 \1elded out to the drain line or whatever gauge~ou're 15 going to put it on.
16 Well, when I went down there and looked at 17 it, the last ld was right unde between that~umm 18 casing and that oil reservoir So, you had about that 19 much room to do the-ocket weld) and operations was 20 looking at trying to make sure they had, you know, 21 good isolation on it.
22 So, I went down and I talked to th~welder 23 and the maintenance individualss, nd asked them, you 24 know, about the eldinjand how they were doing, and 25 they said they were having difficulty in makin the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
62 1 -4 weld.1 ' I said well, why would you do the final eld 2 when you've only got that much room to work in? Why 3 didn't you just move it out, you know, another foot?
4 Then you'd have plenty of room to put thatsocket wel-v A 5 in.
6 I talked to thee It was 7 and he said well, we brought that up. I said well, 8 who did you bring that up to? I said, you know, we 9 could have gotten engineering to put in a change 10 request and just change where that last weld was going II to be made. He said we brought it up to our 12 supervisor, and he said just go get the job done. I 13 said, you're kidding me.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was the 15 supervisor?
16 was0 IIIt 17 believe. I said you're kidding me. I said, you know, 18 his job is to get engineering involved and make sure 19 that we've got you guys set up for success. I had a 20 conversation withre -* about that, told him 21 that that wasn't, you know, appropriate behavior 22 because you know, ultimately what we ended up doing 23 was putting a littlejup piec jIn there and putting a 24 cap on there, which I told I said, cut me a 25 ece of pi hread it on one end, and get al or-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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63 1 the other end because I'm going to exit that LCO 2 tomorrow morning. If you can't make that las/t"\welrdl, 3 then I'm going to put that'-up piece there, and 4 we'll exit the LCO and go after it later on. I'm not 5 sure if that piece, of ipe still on there or not, 6 but to me, that behavior was unacceptable.
7 You've got a supervisor who, again, was 8 supposed to be out there working with the employees, I-9 setting them up for success. It was like the'.chief 10 and the kelderýhad noted when they got the package to 11 the supervisor, that it was going to be difficult 12 making that lastjweld the situation was, and the 13 feedback they said they got was well, it's 14 configuration control. Can't change it. Go do it.
15 I said, well that's absurd. So, anyway, 16 that was one incident that I personally got involved 17 in. Now, I don't know how many more of those types of 18 things go on out there.
19 Case in point is when we dealt with all of 20 t14 diesel issueover at Hope Creek with th aft 21 sealsL You know, again, we were into a 72-hour LCO, 22 and called audit TARP over there. You're going 23 through the systematic approach. You know, we laid 24 out th eal and they weren't the same dimension.
25 It's almost unfathomable that you can get two days NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERC.
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64 1 into a 72-hour LCO before you recognize that the 2 length of theieals aren't the same dimension and that 3 they actually have to be cut 4 So, that raises some other questions, 5 programmatically. You know, how did -- who changed 6 t4e seal?91 Who went away from the original vendor?
7 Why wasn't it picked up in receipt inspection? What 8 is the receipt inspection program? Why doesn't the 9 m".,aintenance procedur 4 -clearly delineate the fact that 10 that Ial has to be cut to dimensio \and where is the ii oversight and the supervision that ought to be engaged 12- __hw Ippor 9 that effort? As it was, you're well 13 aware, we ended up in the action statement before we 14 6 ýrecovered that dieselý 15 MR. BARBER: Yes.
16 We should never got there 17 to begin with.
18 MR. BARBER: Yes.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This incident was 20 when, which one was that?
21 MR. BARBER: June, 2003.
22 correct.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The actions and 24 discussions on the LCO and the timing on that, can you 25 go into that a little bit, in terms of the decision /
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65 1 making on the hot shutdown?
2 On the one I just 3 mentioned?
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the June incident, 5 yes.
6 I believe it was we were 7 going into -- I don't remember the specifics. We were 8 going to go into jormal maintenanc6n th ieselYnd 9 eplacing the shaft seal, and the leakage$was 10 unacceptable when they looked at the return, the
~ieselý-iack to operation.
12 Subsequently went in and replaced thq- ea1,
-I - ____________
13 again. I forget what the duration was. By the time 14 we were into the third)!eap1/we were already the 15 better way through the 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> LCO. I'm not sure what 16 the hour time frame was, but it was either Thursday.
17 It was late to me because it was well after midnight.
18 When I got involved, it was four, 5:00 in the evening.
19 The 72-hour LCO ran out at early the next morning.
20 It was at that point in time, 21 was a TARP fleet. We laid out th& sealsJ d said 22 they're not even -- here's the olasea 4d here's the 23 new one. They're not even the right size, the same 24 dimension. I think we had two left.
25 MR. BARBER: Are you talking about seal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPCRTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
66 1 or are you talking about the actual shaft?
2 The shaft seals.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
4 They've got like screwed 5 fittings where they go together, and for whatever 6 reason, nobody ever bothered to lay the two side by 7 side, the one that they took out and the new one that 8 they were putting in.
9 MR. BARBER: Okay.
10 One was notably longer 11 than the other one. So when you pugt-he seal on, it 12 never conformed to the shaft,/_
13 MR. BARBER: Oh, I see.
14 '1 And it should have been 15 \ u,7cut:ASo, I don't know how we had been doing it in the 16 past, but those ealsphould have been ut to the 17 requisite dimension,/
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 And it was worth it for 20 the 'als if we .ever replaceb.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay.
22 So, you say well, how can 23 we get to this point with an operation that's been 24 running for as long as it has? The procedures don't 25 recognize it T,h en't 25TrcognzeWoesntt recognize it, or the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
67 1 supervision isn't cognizant of the fact that th6ysealsS 2 are a different! dimensioi I mean, now everybody 3 knows, but it seems like we're into discovery on some, 4 you know, \maintenance 1i0 ssues that continue to 5 challenge, as you well know, the operation of the 6 units.
7 With the issues we've run into with the 8 diesels, with the dangle bolts, with the seals ver at 9 Hope Creek.
10 MR. BARBER: What happened with that 11 issue, when you and the TARP fleet discovered that?
12 Where did things progress from that point on, or how 13 did they progress?
14 VWell, we got aintenance 15 management involved and showed them what the issue 16 .......
-was .thn got him in the loop and 17 18 [End of Side B, Tape 1]
19 [Beginning of Side A, Tape 2]
20 You're talking about the 21 a'cket water pumps?\
22 MR. BARBER: Right. Were you talking 23 about something different?
24 25 MR. BARBER: Oh, all right. I thought we.
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68 1 were talking about the same issue.
2 Yes. Well, it's not a 3 whole lot different. In a way, there's a lot of 4 similarities to what you encountered.
5 MR. BARBER: Are we back on the record 6 now?
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, we're on.
There's a lot of 8
9 similarities in what you encounter with the acket 10 water pump. 4 11 MR. BARBER: Okay, so you were talking 12 about a different --
13 And the aft seal 14 MR. BARBER: Okay. I'm sorry. I was 15 thinking you were talking about that initially, and 16 then when you got into it, I knew you were talking 17 about something different.
18 Yes.
19 MR. BARBER: All right, so you got one of 20 th intenance ads involved, and got the issue 21 addressed. What would you attribute the nature of 22 that deficiency to, the lack of understanding of the 23 need to ut the seal4.
24 W A I attribute it to a number 25 of items that broke down. One is the procedure. We.
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69
/
1 reflect and recognize the fact that those seals had to 2 be cut to dimension. The seals had been changed like 3 the turbochargers had.
4 MR. BARBER: Okay.
5 Whereas at the receipt 6 inspection of the procurement process, what broke down 7 there.
8 MR. BARBER: Okay.
9 There's just a lot of 10 programmatic issues that broke down. The skill of the 1i. craft, a lot of times if you read in the documents, it 12 talks about, you know, it's a skill of the craft where 13 in training is covered and from a management, the 14 supervisory oversight, I mean, I should think that 15 that would just be one of the common things that you 16 would check.would be thaimensionslo make sure that 17 they're similar.
18 Any one of those barriers could have 19 precluded that incident from happening so that when 20 you get into the work management process like that we 21 talked about before and you do all the planning and 22 the scheduling, that you really have the workers set 23 up for success when they get engaged in that activity.
24 Those are a number of the issues that as 25 you well know, we encountered in 2003.
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70 1 SPEC.ICAL AGENT NEFF: The focus of our 2 inquiry is on safety related issues for people -- I 3 mean, at this point what we're talking to you is 4 safety related concerns that people bring forward, or 5 how comfortable are they in raising these, and what's 6 the response that they get. Overall, in your 7 experience, have people been able to raise concerns 8 without a fear of retaliation for having done so 9 there, and do you have anything --
10 MR. BARBER: Yes, let me add a little bit to it. I know you were trying to recall some other 12 instances, but maybe we could go back over some of the 13 things, and maybe it will help jog your memory.-mne 14 of the things you talked about was that you had this 15 discussion in office after there was a 16 discovery there was a problem number p bypass valve]
17 that wouldn'tT4lose nd you said he had kind of 18 intimidating manner, and he directed it mainly at-.
19 JI%19but you and he had had a discussion prior to 20 going over there and said hey, you know, we definitely 21 have to tak .nit off line34 nd we've got to..t d 22 We've got to go after thaNalv e've got to fix it, 23 ....... and--that's-what--we're--going -to--do-*_-------------....--..
24 SYou had made a decision, and you said he 25 had directed that at Now, when you left the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
71 1 meeting and you were done, presumably maybe you had 2 some discussions after the fact. Could you 3 characterize, if you did have discussions withf*or 4 anybody else what their reaction was to what they just 5 experienced?
6 I don't know that there 7 are any specifics other than what I would say is that 8 I believe there was probably a relief that the 9 conclusion that one had that he had arrived at. I 10 mean, he was the prudent oneg1nd not to restart the ii unit 12 MR. BARBER: How about -- I mean, did.you II 13 talk with anybody after the meeting? Was there any 14 discussions, I mean, after you -- I don't know if you 15 walked with back to the plant or where everybody
""or I
16 was and where they were going, or 17 not sure who else you mentioned were thereL 18 Was there any discussion with anybody else 19 other than or even withj las far as other than the 20 relief- aspect about the environment of the meeting, 21 what the reaction was to that?
22 J* I don't recall.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you- say 25 ultimately you got to the right decision t to NEAL R. GROSS I
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72 1 restar ,- In your opinion, that was the way to go, and 2 it had been from the start. Was there something, was 3 there some pivotal input that changed, you know, what 4 won over* At what point did he stop 5 pushing not to restart it?
6 *IN2i Well, somewhere I would 7 say in the meeting and in the discussion and the 8 dialogue. I believe he recognized he wasn't going to 9 change our position as far as ot restarting the unit-10 You know, his only recourse at that point in time 11 would have been to give me a direct order.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
13 / If he would have done that 14 at that point in time, you know, I'd have escalated it 15 up through the management chain.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: As you said before.
17 Right.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when it was in 19 that meeting, it was Mr. opinion. Who else 20 was differing with him besides yourself and&
21 I don't recollect who else 22 was in the meeting, you know. The focus was onir*
23 you know, and the operation, and I was in there.
24 was in there. Obviously_ ,
25 might have been in there. I don' t recall specifically NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
73 1 but, you know, because was involved with 2 that. !.was the one that we had sent down 3 to, eck the valve{,,and came in and said it's up 4 against a hard mechanical stop of some sort and it's 5 not closing.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
7 There was something 8 yhkinding that valve!and he works withll So,'i' 9 might have been in that meeting. I don't recall 10 specifically.
11 MR. BARBER: Was there anybody that felt 12 it was -- I mean, was the only one that was 13 pushing the position that let's go ahead and restart 14 because the valve had -- or did everybody besides him 15 believe that there should have been some action taken 16 to shut the unit down and fix the valve, or was it all 17 one-sided?
18 I think it was 19 predominantly coming from him.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you think of 22 anything else, any other incident where you would 23 question the appropriateness of the push-back or the 24 questioning that you were getting on any other 25 incidents?
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74 1 I don't -- I'm trying to 2 remember any other specifics. I mean, it was a pretty 3 busy year.
4 MR. BARBER: How about anything related to 5 maybe a start-up? There was something that someone 6 mentioned about the containment walk-downs after 7 start-up in 2002. Do you recall anything about that, 8 about doing containment walk-downs or not doing them 9 and who was doing them and what the circumstances 10 were?
11 Well I ended up going on
-1i2-- containment walk-downs and the drywell close-out. The 13 last number of times that we've done those, and 14 I and went and did the Hope Creek drywell close-
'15 out and actually went in -- Salem came in withU on 16 I believe on one or two occasions, on a Salem 17 containment walk-down. Actually, I think, if I 18 remember right, 5and I had gone in and done a 19 walk-down and then came later and wanted to go 20 back in again. So, he and I went back in.
21 MR. BARBER: Was that unusual that he 22 would want to go back in, if you and had already 23 done a walk-down?
24 A M j I think the purpose of 25 that was that he wanted to show or demonstrate that he ,
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75 1 had participated in the containment walk-down. I 2 don't think there was any question or issues with 3 respect to where we were at, what we found, and what 4 was going on is my sense. Probably a little bit more 5 political than that, to at least say that, you know, 6 senior management had been in -- I mean, I'm a senior 7 manager too, but that I had participated in .the 8 containment walk-down.
9 Some of that was around the Davis Besse 10 incident and time frame. Management hadn't been 11 involved to the extent they needed to be.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had he originally had 13 been planned to be a part of that walk-down? How did 14 that come about?
15 I'm trying to remember if 16 he was and then he didn't show up. We had actually 17 gone in and completed it. I think he was planning, 18 and I believe the time that I recollect, he was 19 planning on going in and then the time came and he 20 wasn't there, so we went ahead and, you know, 21 completed the walk-down, made sure that we had all the 22 issues identified, anything in the CO, was identified, 23 was closed up in containment.
24 Then it was a later point in time that 25 -- I don't remember what kind of time frame that he NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
76 1 had arrived, and went back in again.
2 MR. BARBER: You said it was from Davis 3 Besse. Was there any procedural requirement that 4 would have mandated that he go in there, or was this 5 something he did on his own?
6 /.I*don't believe that there 7 was any procedural requirement that mandated he went 8 in there.
9 MR. BARBER: Okay.
10 There was a sign-off that 11 containment had to be closed down to some of the 12.2_ _ OP's.
13 MR. BARBER: Okay.
14 ........ And one of the issues that 15 had come up from Davis Besse was that management 16 hadn't been involved with some of the problems that 17 Davis Besse had experienced.;
18 MR. BARBER: Right.
19 So I think that 20 promulgated some of him wanting to be more involved 21 with those issues, or not issues, but with the walk-22 down.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was this walk-down 25 was built into some sort of a checklist then? /
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77 1 " OW Correct.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when he wasn't 3 there originally, could you get around that in some 4 way?
5 . .... .. ...
- Yes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And it was --
7 Yes, we could, you know, 8 there's a checklist and a walk-down, and we could go 9 ahead and sign that off without him being part of that 10 walk-down.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If he was there, he 12 just sort of, would N/A, just make the step?
13 It wasn't specific to his 14 position.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you recall 16 any questions surrounding that incident where anybody 17 questioned whether or not he participated in that 18 walk-down? Did that cause any problems for anyone?
19 vw:w .: I don't believe so. I 20 can't think of any, to my knowledge.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: it your decision 22 Was that the level the decision was made to go ahead 23 without his walk-down?
24 Yes, I would say he wasn't 25 available, and you know, sometimes" would, you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
a
78 1 know, want to participate in things and then something 2 else would come up. So, we proceeded with the 3 containment walk-down, you know,/ and I did.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did --
5 But that wasn't abnormal, 6 I mean, because he didn't participate in all of the 7 walk-downs prior to that.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right.
9 MR. BARBER: Was this one data point? I 10 mean, is this like the only one he did and then he 11 didn't do it anymore, or did he continue to do 12 containment walk-downs after this?
13 .1He didn't do the drywell 14 close-out over at Hope Creek.
15 MR. BARBER: Okay.
16 And he hadn't done them 17 prior to that. I think there was like one or two that 18 he might have participated in.
19 MR. BARBER: Okay. Would you say that you 20 participated in most, if not all, of the ones that 21 were mandated when you were in the position?
22 Yes.
23 MR. BARBER: Was it required at your 24 level, or could you have delegated it to somebody like 25 l.it rsomething. "
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79 1 I could have delegated it 2 I think to In fact, on one occasion, I do 3 believe that I think, -did the 4 close-out at Hope Creek.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 SBecause if I remember 7 right, I thinol"0ias. ill or whatever, after he came 8 out of there. I don't know, claustrophobia or what.
9 MR. BARBER: Okay.
10 There was another 11 incident.. I don't know how this plays in, but we were 12 II in the outage, and I remember it gets back to this <V 11 13 ME code class leaksA' 14 MR. BARBER: All right.
15 Driving in in the morning, 16 they had indicated that we were in a condition red 17 because aleak on a service water valveo'*
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 Do you remember that? I 20 don't know if you recall that or not. They were 21 actually getting ready. Here's where I guess I got, 22 you know, concerns to me because the entire operations 23 control center was getting ready to take out the 24 entire service water bay to go fix that"[valveb ecause 25 it can1solate it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
80 I I remember getting on the phone wit" 2 my way in in the morning and said you know, V 3 what's going on. He said oh, I've got an\ASME code 4 class leak on this valv .and we need to take theU bay outin order to get the sulation and go ahead and 5
6 replace it.
7 I said don't you dare take that bay out.
8 I mean, from a safety standpoint, it just didn't add 9 up. I said let me get in there. I want to take a 10 look at it and see what we really have going on.
11 I came in, I swung up through the 12 operations, through the outage control center, and 13 they already had the plans. They were getting ready 14 to take the bay out. They were going to go*-eplace 15 this valve They had plans all in place, and I said, 16 you know, in fact, O W as I think the 17 engineer up in the outage control involved with that.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 I said you're not doing 20 anything. I'm going to take a look at thatý4valve 1 21 There's nothing wrong with the(alvek What we had was J $
22 a knick, right, it was a little weepage that you could 23 barely see it, and it would weep out of theývalv.
24 So, we ended up x-raying it which was to me an 25 acceptable alternative. The integrity of the'lyveý NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
81 1 was not in question whatsoever, but I mean, there was 2 a condition or a situation where the entire 3 organization was getting ready to take that whole 4 service water bay out, which to me had broader safety 5 significance that living with that little knick hole 6 in there, right?
7 MR. BARBER: Okay.
8 And you know, the 9 integrity of that ?valive ',was not jeopardized, 10 compromised one bit. So, you get into where's the 11 -- I mean I don't know if that what your -- you know, 12 what's the thinking of the organization that would 13 allow them to get to that point. I'm convinced if I 14 wouldn't have intervened or if I wouldn't have been 15 there, that service water bay would have come out.
16 MR. BARBER: Do you remember the time 17 frame of that?
18 It was during -- it might 19 have been during the spring of 2003, the Salem outage.
20 No, that wasn't. That was Hope Creek. I got to stop 21 and get my dates straight here. Probably the fall of 22 2002, I'm thinking, the Salem outage.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay. Did you get any kind 24 of negative repercussions because of that? Did 25 anybody say that you didn't address the issue NEAL R. GROSS th, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
82 1 properly? I mean, you're portraying that you had a 2 holistic view of the plant in saying hey, look, you 3 know, if you weighed the balance, the effect of the 4 risk of taking the bay out of service and what that 5 meant from kind of an overall standpoint to living
,6 with a smalleakJ)and yo ade a judgmen Did 7 anybody say hey, you know, we had set up to do this.
8 ,. Well, you know, some of 9 the others members of the organizations, I believe 10 - ias involved with that decision.
11 MR. BARBER: Okay.
12 involved was01 13 with that decision. I asked 11 said, what are 14 you thinking? He said well, you know, the OCC said, 15 you know, was there, and I go time out. You 16 guys can't take that bay out. You know, what are you 17 thinking about?
18 You know, in that situation, you know, 19 from r.r ' r whatever, they were aligned with 20 where I ended up taking the plant. The rest of the 21 organization down below was, they were ready to go, 22 you know, proceed forward. That was when I guess 23 probably provided me some interesting insight into 24 where the organization's thinking was.
25 MR. BARBER: One thing that that sort of'.
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83 1 highlights, but I don't want to jump too far ahead 2 with this conclusions, but it seems like that people 3 were making decisions without having complete 4 information. I mean, if they didn't really understand 5 what the nature of the problem was, and they all kind 6 of just marched forward, maybe one person or two 7 people saw what the nature of the problem was, and 8 made some judgments that, you know, okay, this is what 9 we want to do and when --
10 /W.............., well, I think that's one 11 of the cultural elements that you've got out at the 12 stations. They don't think big picture. What they 13 did is they went to tech specs and getLASME code class 14 leak rate.- jjs inoperablý-- and they got into a very
-. ery 15 narrow myopic view of what actions they had to take.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 - And that was the way they 18 were proceeding.
19 MR. BARBER: Okay.
20 -" And they had all come to 21 the conclusion that that was the right answer.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had you see that 23 happen in other instances where people aren't thinking 24 big picture to this extent?
25 There are, but I have/to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
84 1 think about --
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's probably going 3 to have you thinking for a minute. Let me just go 4 back on another question that I had. In terms of the 5 checklist on the start-up at Salem where there was a 6 question of whether Mwould perform the 7 walk-down and you would be able to do that, in 8 conversations with 9iwý,how did he feel when 9 you proceeded with -- you were indicating you were 10 going to start up without, he didn't have to 11 participate. Did you get a reaction from him on that?
12 Yes, he didn't have any 13 problem or issue with it. You know, he said basically 14 I believe he said that was, you know, the 15 responsibility anyhow, but he wanted to go in. I 16 said, you know, if you want to go, I said, you know, 17 we've already done the walk-down. We've got our list, 18 and you know, have given to the control center. He 19 was already suited up, if I remember, and I think he 20 already had his scrubs on. So, I said, you know, if 21 you want to go back in, I said, I'll go back in with 22 you. He said, yes, I'd like to go ahead and do that.
23 So, you know, I went back in.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: His reaction to you, 25 was it at all critical?
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85 1 **I No, no.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the result 3 of the walk-down after he performed it? Were there 4 any issues out of that?
5 Ij I don't believe so. I 6 believe there might have been a couple of questions on 7 a maybe a piece of scaffold or something, just to 8 validate the fact that it was on the list and you 9 know, because I didn't have -- you know, the list that 10 we had generated somebody else already had.
11 probably had to go and clear out. So, there were a 1 -couple---of---other__questions., you__knpw_*_ so just to 13 validate the fact that they were in fact already on 14 the list. I don't believe there were any other 15 significant problems and/or issues associated with the 16 walk-down.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
18 MR. BARBER: Do you perceive there was any 19 added value in him going on, I mean, other than you'd 20 stated that it was kind of a political motivation 21 behind it. Was there any other, I don't know, 22 outcomes from that, in that walk-down?
23 I don't believe there were 24 any other outcomes other than maybe demonstrating to 25 the organization that it's important, you know, which )
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86 1 it is, and that you know, senior management is going 2 to be involved in making sure that we do things and do 3 them right.
4 MR. BARBER: Okay.
5 £ Some ethic, you know, from 6 that standpoint, it was positive.
7 MR. BARBER: Okay.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you were going to 9 take a moment and think about --
10 MW- Big picture thinking 11 versus -- SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The big _picture 13 thinking and where that may have caused some problems.
14 I'll go off the record briefly.
15 (Whereupon, the foregoing 16 matter went off the record 17 briefly and went back on the 18 record at 11:36 a.m.)
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on 20 the record after a brief break. It's approximately 21 11:36 a.m. ,jin your experience at the 22 site, was there a mindset that contributed to a 23 production over safety type of a mindset? Was there 24 directives or actions or behaviors that gave you the 25 impression that there was a production over safety NEAL R. GROSS C&
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87 1 atmosphere here?
2 U I]You know, there was 3 definitely I think a production, if you want to call 4 it drive, but I don't recollect where I would say 5 safety or production actually took precedence over 6 safety, or where it was at least acknowledged and/or 7 recognized. You can use the incident with the service 8 water valve. You know, that was clearly you're 9 driving, you know, the production side and why weren't 10 you thinking about the safety implications of that 11 operation.
There was an incident that -- I probably I I' - ----I---
13 shouldn't speak because I can't remember the 14 specifics, but there was something coming out of one 15 of the outage at Hope Creek that I think I wasn't 16 cognizant of. I remember bits and pieces of it. I 17 probably can't even comment on it, but --
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's the time 19 frame?
20 I believe it's 2003 where 21 -- I think it had to do with the diesels. There was 22 an issue with the diesel, and instead of going after 23 it and resolving it during the outage, because of the 24 schedule impact, it was put off and we went into it 25 after the outage. It might have been the water jacket.
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88 1 issue. I don't recall specifically, but there was an 2 issue with the schedule and a safety related piece of 3 equipment. I don't have the specifics. I'd have to 4 go and --
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the issue being?
6 , That the schedule took 7 precedent over actually resolving the equipment issue.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, but you don't 9 have any more?
10 -No, I can't remember the 11 specifics, other than the fact that I didn't become
- - --..... ...... 12 - .... cognizantofit until after the outage. You know, a 13 lot of the decisions being made, you know, up in the 14 OCC, the outage control center.
15 MR. BARBER: Right. Was that a problem?
16 I mean, did you feel that you didn't -- there was, 17 whether it was intentional or not, or maybe it wasn't, 18 but there was a --
19 O Conscious decision?
20 MR. BARBER: Yes, to not inform you or to 21 delay it?
22 IIdon't know if there was 23 a conscious decision, but I believe there was a.
24 conscious decision to go ahead and not do the work, 25 though.
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89 1 MR. BARBER: Okay. Because it would cause 2 you to exceed the LCO and you would get into a 3 shutdown? Is that the idea?
4 No, you were in the 5 outage. You were actually in the outage but because 6 of the schedule.
7 MR. BARBER: Oh, because it would delay 8 the restart?
9 (9 Correct, it would delay 10 this. It would impact the schedule.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Whose decision would 12 that have been?
13 It would have been the 14 outage, the manager, or whoever the shift outage 15 manager, whoever was in charge of the outage at that 16 point in time. Now hould have been cognizant.
17 I don't know that he was, but I know I wasn't.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know why this 19 decision was made that way?
20 - - Schedule impact.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was it?
22 Correct. I believe that's 23 the reason.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And why do you say 25 that? Who was in on the considerations for that?/Was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
90 1 there some sort of pressure on 2 I don't know if' was 3 intimately involved with that decision, or if it came 4 to the outage organization. If it came to the outage 5 organization, you know, N Jmight not have found out 6 until after, either.
7 There was another incident that comes to 8 mind that might give you some insight into the 9 organization piece here. It had to do with the issue 10 with the pins that we had on the circulator, the water 11 boxes, on the discharge on the water boxes, where we 12 had the continued issue with 13 off and 13 bravo. As 13 I recollect, the DP was going up on the -- it was 14 either 13 off or 13 bravo. That's when they had the 15 valve problem.
16 But the DP head was continuing to 17 increase, and when I went out again, encountered the 18 workers, were there looking at trying to drill that 19 pin out, a couple of things. One is they were there 20 by themselves. There wasn't any supervision.
21 They weren't cognizant of the critical 22 nature of the work that they were doing. In fact, if 23 that valve didn't get repaired and/or replaced, may 24 have to de-rate the unit, might actually move the unit 4
25 around because of having two water boxes out.
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91 1 It wasn't until I had gotten intimately 2 involved. I know I had got a hold o 6 3 and got a hold of said you know, you 4 don't have the supervision out there. They guys don't 5 know what the critical nature of this work is that's 6 going on. You know, what's the problem here? And it 7 continued to, you know, linger on, and* said, 8 well, I'll get out there and I'll help, and I'll take 9 care of it.
10 What we came to find out is I actually had 11 to get engineering involved, and there were other 12 folks. We ultimately got the valve back, right, and 13 got it repaired in time, but it was almost like you 14 know, if I didn't get intimately involved with pulling 15 the rest of the reservices together, the organization 16 doesn't -- it's like they don't come together. They 17 don't self-actualize like a high performing 18 organization.
19 You got a problem, everybody's on it until 20 they get a clear success path, right, they're working 21 through the issues and the resolution. It doesn't 22 seem like that happens out there. It's more of a 23 siloed approach. Maintenance has got it, and I don't 24 know if it's prior or whatever, but a lot of times you 25 don't see the maintenance supervision intimately.
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92 1 engaged in the activities and the work out there.
2 MR. BARBER: That sounds like a personal 3 accountability issue.
4 Well, it is.
5 MR. BARBER: Is there something more to 6 that than that?
7 Well, I'm not sure that, 8 you know, if you get back to >houldn't have 9 been driving maintenance to be more in support of him, 10 but management to get on top of those things. I mean, 11 getting on me on the operations side, but you know, I 12 didn't have maintenance working for me, and I didn't 13 have work management working for me, so it was hard to 14 get my arms wrapped around those guys.
15 MR. BARBER: So you had like to go up at 16 his level and go over to likeeI and then down or go 17 up to -- or something, right?
18 *Right, I could interface 19 with br with* but it just seemed like we 20 weren't getting out of the organization, out of the 21 work management and out of the maintenance. I mean, 22 it shouldn't take theeo go up 23 and say, you know, where's your supervision.
24 There were a couple of other occasions.
25 MR. BARBER: How did you know to that.
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93 1 I mean, was this just an instinct you had, or --
2 Yes, because I knew the 3 plant was, you know, going to be challenged if I 4 didn't get that equipment back. So, what I would do 5 is go out in the field and actually check on some of 6 that myself to find out what was going on. You know, 7 a lot of times, you know, more often than not what I'd 8 find is that maintenance supervision wasn't engaged.
9 The workers didn't have clear direction, right? They 10 knew what they were supposed to do. You weren't 11 getting out of hand also out at the work site. So, 12 all that was, you know, eating up time.
13 You know, unless I went out there and at 14 least give myself confidence that things are coming 15 together, on a lot of occasions, they weren't. I 16 started getting the shift managers more involved 17 because, and was vacuum breaker on the 18 surf water system, that thinking we were going to have 19 to de-rate the unit and challenge the unit if we 20 didn't get it replaced in short order.
21 When I went out there, there wasn't 22 anybody out at the work site, so I grabbed 23 land said, you know. He says well, theyre out 24 there. I said I was just there, and nobody's there.
25 Well, the drawing wasn't right, s heiwent NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS we 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
94 1 up, and if you just follow this whole thing through, 2 it's like nobody is coordinating and driving a lot of 3 these, you know, these critical work activities which 4 had a real opportunity to challenge the unit.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the time frame 6 for this is at what point?
7 2003.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this through the 9 time that you left there in early September?
10 -J Correct.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You saw that there 1 -was-no-change-int1hewaythat it was coordinated?
13 Yes, there were a number 14 of occasions that I had to intimately get involved 15 with with that activities. I couldn't obviously get 16 involved with everything that went on'-but if it was 17 something that it in my opinion looked like it was 18 going to challenge the units, then,4I 1and went and 19 intimately got involved until I had confidence that 20 things were on the right track.'4 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you had to get 22 involved to stay on top of this, did you have to bring 23 that concern to anybody to get it coordinated more 24 effectively? I mean, who were you dealing with to *et 25 it resolved? I ,/-
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95 1 Well, it's being dealt 2 with operations, leadership, you know, the assistant 3 operations managers and operations managers in some 4 cases. In some cases, I got a hold of maintenance 5 supervision and got them involved. I would talk to 7 MR. BARBER: What was the reaction? If 8 you can talk about operations leadership. I mean, 9 you're their boss, and you're portraying an issue 10 where maybe their coverage or potential coverage is 11 something that's important to operations, is somewhat 12 lacking. Did you ever get any feedback that, you 13 know, that you were impeding them in some way or did 14 they take it as oh, no, this is good feedback. Yes, 15 you're right, we should have been out there?
16 I think there was a level 17 of frustration with the operations managers, shift 18 managers, shift superintendents, that they weren't 19 getting the support they needed in the maintenance 20 area.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you were on the 22 same page as these individuals?
23 l !Yes.
24 MR. BARBER: Did they feel any 25 culpability, though, because like for example, like NEAL R. GROSS :7o:.
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96 1 the surf water example you mentioned. Although it's 2 not safety related per se, it relates to plant 3 availability and something that, you know, could 4 impact to cause a transient or make a transient more 5 likely. Did they take away anything that would say 6 hey, you know, maybe I should have been out there 7 looking at this and pushing the issue? I mean, does 8 the shift manager feel free to go out in the plant on 9 something like that?
10 .. Yes, they do. What I 11 would say is they've gotten out there a whole lot more 12 recently here than they had in the past.
13 MR. BARBER: Okay.
14 But they ran into some of 15 the same frustrations I do when they go into the plant 16 and getting the response that they're looking for from 17 within the departments and organizations.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 On one occasion, I was 20 looking at, you know, resolving this vacuum breaker 21 issue, and I said well, you know, who's in charge?
22 Where's the maintenance? Well, the maintenance 23 supervisor is in charge. Well, he's headed over to a 24 meeting at Hope Creek. I said you got to be kidding 25 me. You go into a meeting at Hope Creek, an/" I g NEAL R. GROSS ' .
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97 1 one of the ceiling units right, that if I don't get 2 this issue resolved on the vacuum breaker and don't 3 get that circulator back in, I may have to de-rate the 4 unit.
5 The workers don't appear to have clear 6 direction on what the urgency and what they needed to 7 get after. So, those are just some of the things.
8 MR. BARBER: Those aren't so much safety 9 conscious work environment issues as more like 10 performance issues. Those are more how the 11 organization is performing, how it's interacting, 12 whether there are people filling accountability.
13 Right, organizational 14 dynamic issues.
15 MR. BARBER: Right, right, 16 L3-... And organizational 17 effectiveness issues, but when you talk to senior 18 management, right, to me, those are some of the 19 shortfalls of why Salem/Hope Creek had to change the 20 level of performance that they can and they should 21 have. It's an organizational thing, and the personal 22 dealings with the personnel and the effectiveness and 23 the alignment integration with the organization. It's 24 independent of some program or process issues. We 25 talked about procedures and things that aren't up t' NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
98 1 par.
2 If senior management doesn't, you know, if 3 they don't focus on that and drive that to get the 4 organization to coalesce and come together to resolve 5 these issues, and they're more individually driven and 6 oriented, to me, you're just, you're dealing with all 7 the individual symptoms. You're not fixing the 8 problem.
9 To be frank with you, I don't know that 10 the senior managers, I'm talking about the VP's, have 11 got the organizational perspective or savvy on how to 12 go after that. I believe that it's very technically 13 oriented, and the issue that this is more of an 14 organizational interface, effectiveness, and a 15 dynamics issue that you're dealing with out at 16 Salem/Hope Creek.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For what time frame 18 are you considering that? Is that most recent with 19 the changes that have been made?
20 Well, this may alleviate 21 some of that now with the unitization because now 22 you've got maintenance, and they're going right in 23 line with the food chain, right, with the station 24 manager, when before it was more aloof. It was har 25 to get a hold of the requisite manager. ( .
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99 1 When you look at the control room 2 indicators, I mean, as hard as we pushed and tried and 3 put things in the work schedule to get those control 4 room indicators down and get to a black board, until 5 it ultimately became an accountability that 6 maintenance is going to be measured against, it wasn't 7 an issue for them, and I couldn't get them off the 8 dime on it.
9 You know, clearly if they'd have reported 10 directly to me, you know, I would have had a lot more 11 influence in making that a higher priority for them.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything further on 13 that, because I'll take a quick break on here. Before 14 I do, I want to ask you the situation from your 15 perspective. We talked about whether there was a 16 production over safety mindset, and you had said that 17 no, you didn't see it take effect. It was production 18 over safety, and it had never actualized, but you 19 threw out two incidents where that came to mind.
20 The March 17 incident was one with the 21 debate. Did you ever become aware of the concerns on 22 the part of others that there was production over 23 safety mindset? Even if maybe that perception was 24 incorrect in your mind, did you become aware of a 25 situation where that was what was being said, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
100 1 this was a production over safety environment?
2 I had heard, you know, 3 some discussion and dialogue, and heard people comment 4 on that. Now, as far as a specific incident, other 5 than the one that, you know, we talked about clearly, 6 the bypass valve issue was a production thought 7 process versus a safety process.
8 Similarly, not to fix any equipment 9 because of schedule impacts or taking out service 10 water bays without taking a look at the big picture 11 and the broader perspective of the safety implications 12 or alternatives. In fact, as far as determining the 13 integrity of the equipment and the intent of the 14 statements and the technical specifications versus 15 just kind of getting into what I would say was like a 16 blank compliance. This is what it is, so what it says 17 is what I have to do.
18 So, what I would say in some of the 19 actions, sit back and you look at them, would exhibit 20 more of a production over the safety mindset or 21 mentality. I'm not aware of any specific incident 22 where safety took precedent over production.
23 MR. BARBER: You mean production took 24 precedent over safety, don't you?
25 I'm sorry, yes, you're
- 4 I~
k
~-'
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101 1 exactly right. My mistake, yes, the production took 2 precedent.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're not aware of 4 any specific incidents?
5 Not on my watch.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
7 oawroNot that I was cognizant 8 or aware of.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We'll go off 10 the record. It's 11:57 a.m.
11 (Whereupon, the foregoing 12 matter went off the record 13 briefly at 11:57 a.m. and went 14 back on the record.)
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Back on the record.
16 You know, I've challenged 17 senior management on a number of occasions. The one 18 specifically, you know, we were talking about is the 19 Jrecert of Hope Creek after the shutdown in the 20 incident with the bypass valve;s'%,
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The March incident, 22 and when you say challenged them, had that been 23 ongoing since you were on site i1 7K, 24 .lcI-- -
I woiild say that 25 management style was in conflict where you know, there; NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
102 1 have been comments if I go down, I'm taking you with 2 me, and you know, those types of, probably were with 3 the type of environment that was prevalent there. I 4 believe bothL and oth 5 indicated, you know, if I go down, I'm taking you guys 6 with me.
7 If you take a look at some of the --
8 MR. BARBER: Who said that? You say 9 W said that La 10 said that you can, ii and)9had said that as well.
12 MR. BARBER: Meaning you personally?
13 *Senior managers.
14 MR. BARBER: Other people?
15 Yesjf will 16 attest to that.
17 MR. BARBER: Okay.
18 You know, if you take a 19 look at the senior managers underL'ýk just to take 20 a snapshot --
21 [End of Side A, Tape 2]
22 [Beginning of Side B, Tape 2]
23 .. . -- done a good in 24 operations training and what have you. He was let go.
25 If you look at right, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
103 1 ihe was under a lot of pressure. To 2 be honest with you, I thought the individual was quite 3 close to having a heart attack here in December of 4 2002. Since not having the reporting relationship 5 with, has done a great job. I think even if you 6 asked him, he'd say that things have come around in 7 chemistry., To me, it was really suppressing, I 8 believe, you know, the organization and now allowing 9 the organization to grow and supporting the 10 organization and the management team, and he was, you 11 know, they were considering letting him go.
12 If you look at he wasn't 13 awarded a position in this last organization. All of 14 a sudden they found him one, but I mean, he was the 15 only department that didn't have a finding from the 16 last evaluation and is recognized in the industry for 17 probably having one of the better rate protection 18 programs in the industry. So, the question you'd have 19 to ask is well, why wasn't he afforded a comparable 20 job in the new organization.
21 We've got J right, who was 22 the* and basically said he 23 wasn't going to work under *S .*nymore and left.
24 He's working af as a I believe 25 at You know, subsequently, you know, ""
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104 1 T4 " he left, and, I think he took 2 another position because his days were probably 3 numbered as well.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the common thread 5 for these individuals is what, are you saying?
6 It'sj , and I'm out as 7 well. So, if you take a look -- you can't tell me 8 that all of these managers that report to this one 9 individual are non-performers. I was told probably 10 more than once that. Hey, not getting it. Get 11 rid of him. You know, it's not true. To me,(was 12 very conscientious. He also challenged senior 13 management on more than one occasion, bothL and 14 Lw, , I'm sure that's why he's left the company, 15 because his future here is probably limited or short 16 lived, or would have been.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're saying that 18 this also applies to yourself'in terms of not only 19 what happened in March but that you would challenge 20 your management?
21 Correct, routinely 22 challenge them on the issues that they brought up. On 23 a number of cases, they were based on limited 24 information, limited knowledge, supposition, innuendo, 25 and weren't factual. You know, my management style is . .
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105 1 not to go in to beat the organization into submission.
2 It's to more of a bottoms up approach and get the 3 organization to bring the issues to the table so that 4 you can actually resolve and fix the problems that are 5 out there in the plant.
6 If you try running the operation from only 7 the top half dozen folks, you can put in a lot of 8 time, and there's no way that you're going to be 9 cognizant of everything that's going on out at that 10 station, but if you can get the organization to all be Ii participatative and supportive and to bring issues to 121 the forefront so they can be resolved, the operation -L _________________________
13 is going to get better, and it's going to continue to 14 improve the performance.
15 I think, you know, that's probably why you 16 see some of the work-arounds. If you take a look at 17 the safety tagging issues, the question you ask is 18 well, how come people don't follow the safety tagging 19 process? They've been doing business that way for a 20 long period of time where they don't tag out the fan 21 when they change the belts.
22 Well, why isn't the maintenance 23 supervision folks know that that's a common practice?
24 Why aren't they helping change that behavior, and why 25 aren't they getting involved in changing that, and by NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
106 1 not raising it up, they're condoning it. Operations 2 is the tagging authority, but if you've got a long of 3 these long-time embedded problems or issues in the 4 station and these legacy issues, they're not going to 5 surface unless people bring them to the forefront, 6 unless you encourage them and endorse bringing them to 7 the forefront so they can be address and dealt with 8 and so they can be successful.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Under Title 10 C.F.R. 10 50.7 prohibits retaliating against individuals for 11 having raised concerns of a nuclear safety or 12 regulatory nature. Had you considered that that 13 applied to your situation? Is that what you're 14 saying? 5 1 -What I'm saying is I don't 16 know that it has or has not at this point. I mean, I 17 don't have any knowledge or information to determine 18 that it has or has not, but I will take it under 19 consideration.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were going to say 21 something else? I'm just going to go off the record.
22 I'd like to talk to Scott briefly, and I think we can 23 wrap it up soon.
24 (Whereupon, the foregoing 25 matter went off the record NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBE 'RS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
107 1 briefly and went back on the 2 record at 12:10 p.m.)
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right, we're back 4 on the record. It's approximately 12:10 p.m.
5 Going back to the incident intJune of 2003.>i regarding the desel jacket wets the mp leakagev 7 and the unplanned LCO, in terms of. the delay when the 8 LCO was exceeded and the delay in going into the 9 shutdown, can you explain the decisions that were made 10 around that, and your observations of what was going 11 on at that point?
.12 ___Well, prior to entering 13 into the action statement, it was believed that there 14 was ample time to go ahead and to replace, it was a 5 sh seal. This wasn't the jacket water. This was 16 t haf e What they had, in fact, done in 17 replacing thatseal, hey had pulled it all the way 18 through, and they screwed it on. They must have 19 screwed it on too -tight, and had to subsequently 20 replace onemo mor lseal>The decision was to proceed to 21 replacing that ea1'-enter into the action statement.
22 I don't recall a specific time, but there 23 was a time from there that we would have commenced 24 shutting the unit down if we hadn't achieved 25 operability on that diesel. I don't recall the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
108 1 specifics.
2 MR. BARBER: Let me see if I can refresh 3 your memory on it. What we had, our information was 4 is that you had established 4_eakage wheq initially 5 a leakage rate of like 50 drops per minute,\, It was rd~10,I0and then on a weekend, like on a 7 Saturday or Sunday when the operation went out, and 8 saw like a prompt increase.
9 5 That was the facket
/ . ~ ~
11 MR. BARBER: Right, right.
12 1 So, it was a different 13 14 MR. BARBER: That was actually the inner 15 cooler pump.
16 Correct, that was the 17 inner cooler pump. That wasn't the(\shaft seal 7 18 MR. BARBER: Right, so we're talking about 19 a different incident.
20 Correct.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay, so that was the issue, 22 and then I think the LCO was on a Sunday, and it was 23 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, so you had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So, 24 Wednesday at 4:30 in the morning, you would have went 25 over, you have exceeded the LCO.
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109 1 Well, there were a lot of maintenance 2 activities, and there were a lot of back and forths.
3 Okay, well, we had these three shims are 40 4 thousandths of an inch. You know, let's see what we 5 have. Do we have two? Do we go with three? Do we go 6 with one, and there was back and forth, back and 7 forth.
8 versu J
-2,000.-*, Yes, it was like 0,000Q; versus"J1i2 0,0 00.i 9
10 MR. BARBER: Right, there was a lot of 11 back and forth there, but at some point, engineering 1 2- -was engaged,_and-they werze workinq in parallel. They__ _
13 were working in parallel to look at the design basis 14 of the leakage to say what's an acceptable amount of 15 leakage. They had come up with 150 because it was 16 related to how long it took to drain the backwater 17 expansion tank, and it was actually like seven days at 18 that rate.
19 Well, they ended up working to a solution 20 to quote, change the design basis and provide comp 21 measures in parallel with what maintenance was doing, 22 but at some point, and in effect, it was the 4:30 23 point, 4:30 a.m. or 4:35 or whatever it was on that 24 Wednesday, the LCO was exceeded. Then you went into 25 the 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> to hot shutdown time frame. So, you're/
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110 1 in that window.
2 Then from our view, we're looking at 3 saying, okay, when are they going to start, when 4 should they start, how much time do you think they 5 need to shutdown, and I don't think that the shutdown 6 started until fairly late in the window. I think what 7 we're asking you to comment on is what was behind 8 that? Why so long? What kind of decisions were made?
9 What kind of discussion was involved with that, and 10 the timing of that?
11 You-know, the extra time 12 line, you know, would be difficult for me to, you 13 know, but I recall the discussion on the 100 and 150 14 drops per minute. It came in on Sunday. I think in fact as in again. It was like I get 16 this seal replaced or whatever, and we'll be out of it 17 to make, and it went into Monday.
18 Then at Some point in time there that we 19 were having a conversation witl - He said 20 hey, you know, there was 120,000 shims in there, and 21 we only put 80 back in. So, we really didn't put back 22 in all that was in before. Again, to me that gets 23 into the narrow focus, myopic. He was saying hey, 24 what's going on? Why is this30j1 What are all the 25 other pumps at? Is it,,80 or 40*~whatever it is, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
iii 1 some different figure there.
2 So, it was -- it sounded like, you know, 3 listen to maintenance. What they were telling me was 4 that they had made a mistake when they replaced the 5 shims. Somebody had made a decision to go ahead and 6 put in 00,000 ersus" 8,000,* and it caused the seal 7 to leak again.
8 Went through that iteration, and it was 9 nd 4111and11asked me, 10 where does the design basis come from for the', 150 11 drops per minute?! .I think it was predicated on once 12 you get the alarm or whatever, you' re able to take to 13 either drain the tank or the tank's full from the 14 alarm set point, I think. That's all they had come up 15 with, 150 drops per minutes without any additional 16 action or whatever, that that would insure you that 17 you need to prop up to these. You know, why can't I -
18 - he asked the question why can't he stick a fire hose 19 in there. You know, why can't I do something 20 different to keep that jacket water expansion tank 21 full?
22 Well, I guess you can. We never thought 23 about it before. So, what we were really down to was 24 what they had always done in the past, the assumption 25 see how easy it is to pass -- it was not predicated on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
112 1 any design basis. It was predicated on engineer.
2 Assume that, you know, once you hit that alarm level, 3 like there's how much water you have left in there 4 based on the ~eakage to insure that you won't 5 compromise the operation of the diesel. So they took 6 a couple of parallel pass, and on the back of the 7 envelope, right, they had put a bunch already, you 8 know, figured out what we could do to support 9 operation of the unit.
10 Now, recognize that we had aqw leaks.
11 As soon as you move that unit down, it's going to take 12 a long time to get it back up, and it's not a 13 -- you don't want to be, you know minor fuel leak*
14 you don't want to be moving the unit around anymore 15 than what you have to.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 18 MR. BARBER: Was it a fuel leak, or was it 19 something with the recirc system, the reactor recirc?
20 Was there a pump seal?
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sealj.
22 9* Yes, uel leak. Yes, fue4 "
23 leaks.
24 MR. BARBER: Okay.
25 *1 And engineering was giving NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
113 1 us a document, and they did, and it passed muster, and 2 they gave us another one.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when you're 4 saying us, who was involved here?
5 - -- m It wa -and I.
6 I thinkt was involved as well, and(- '7 I 7 think, was the I knew they had 8 resolution to the issue. Didn't want to, you know, 9 start moving the unit around unnecessarily. We got to 10 the point where in good judgment, we weren't sure that 11 we were going to get a final document from engineering 12 that would support the operation because they kept 13 making promises to us that they were going to give us 14 the final product, and it wasn't acceptable from our 15 point that as far as what they had written up in the 16 operability document to support continued operation 17 wouldn't pass our scrutiny and certainly wouldn't pass 18 anyone else's scrutiny.
19 It was at that point in time decided to 20 commence the reactor shutdown. I think we got down to 21 probably 40 percent before we had an acceptable 22 document secured for the shutdown.
23 MR. BARBER: Did you lay out the rough 24 schedule ahead of time so that you knew that if you 25 didn't have an answer by a certain time, you had to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AE.i"N.W.
114 1 start moving? I mean, was that part of the pre-2 planning discussion?
3 ,That was part of the 4 discussion that' Jand I had, andUfwas actually 5 pushing me and saying,. in good judgment, I'm not 6 convinced I'm going to have a viable document by the 7 right time frame, and we're not going to put the 8 operators in a situation where they have to, you know, 9 hurry to shut the unit down. I don't want to 10 compromise that and aren't going to have them making 11 any mistakes.
12 We were sitting office, and 13 he said I concur. jStart shutting the engines, 14 commence reactor shutdownz 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Throughout the 16 situation, was the control of the situation and the 17 call on when to go into hot shutdown, was that within 18 your control?
19 Yes.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Did you have 21 any influence on you from management, any pressure on 22 you not to go into the hot shutdown mode?
23 3 I'm sure there was
- i. 24 discussion and dialogue that .was taking place, but you 25 know, I certainly had expected at least initially to NEAL R. GROSS 4 7- COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRiBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
115 1 have an acceptable engineering document, and prior to 2 having to commence the reactor shutdown, but we got to 3 a point where there was no recourse because in order 4 for us to do an acceptable shutdown without placing 5 the operators in a rushed scenario or circumstance, we 6 had to start it at that time.
7 Basically it was a conversation which 8 everybody wasn't appreciative of by the conversation 9 betweenl and I.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when you say 11 everybody wasn't appreciative, what do you mean by 12 that?
13 i-=hI - )Well, you know, it's just 14 a statement. I mean, any time you take a look at 15 taking one of the units off line or shutting it down, 16 I'm sure it's, you know, the financial impacts are to 17 consider which I take into consideration as well, but 18 clearly there was no alternative. I mean, we had to 19 commence the reactor shutdown at that point in time.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and in terms of 21 any action or criticism of you after the fact when you 22 went into hot shutdown, did you have any feedback on 23 anything like that?
24 I don't recollect any.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Were you comfortable NEAL R. GROSS .
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116 1 with the reactions by your management to what you had 2 to do?
3 .II1 Yes, I believe so. I 4 don't remember any of the specifics, but I don't 5 particularly recall anything unique or specific to 6 challenging me in that regard.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I just wanted 8 to get your perspective on that.
9 Scott, anything further?
10 MR. BARBER: Maybe one last question, or 11 maybe a couple of questions, but just on kind of a
_ 12ge~neral_ topic You know, you talked _about you had 13 worked out one of the last things that you did with 14 your folks prior to leaving in August was you worked 15 out their partnership agreements and kind of finished 16 them up.
17 In thinking of it the other way, thinking 18 of your partnership with, just thinking 19 of, you know, the dialogue, discussion, or whatever, 20 was there anything that was involved with that, 21 whatever discussion you had in that regard that made 22 you say, you know, I really felt like I was doing the 23 right thing here, and you're being critical of me 24 because you know, I had a safety approach to whatever 25 the issue was and I -- did you get any feedback in that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
117 1 regard?
2 No. In fact, he and I 3 never, I don't know that we ever sat down and really 4 finalized our partnership. I wrote mine up, and 5 submitted it. That was pretty much it.
6 MR. BARBER: So you didn't get any 7 feedback on it, okay.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Would you like to add 9 anything else? Anything we either haven't asked you 10 or you would like to have on the record?
1i ".I Other than, you know, the 12 one point that you brought up, right? I mean, that 13 seems a little bit -- see how to choose my words here, 14 are difficult to understand, right, based on the fact 15 that I've operated all three units, in a broad spanse 16 of operation on a dialogue that I've had with the two 17 Salem units and the Hope Creek unit, including th RP 18 program and chemistry p~rogram{,which just came under 19 my responsibility as oJj I have 20 clearly 25 to 30 years experience in the industry in 21 a number of caPacitiessenior managementfs~enior, you 22 know, Executive level positionsthat just split up 23 the units into, you know, the Salem units and the Hope 24 Creek unit, that is something that doesn't ring true 25 that I would not have been provided an opportunity to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
118 1 run one of those, either the Salem units or the Hope 2 Creek unit.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and at this 4 point, what I'm making you aware of are the provisions 5 of the point of law that prohibits being discriminated 6 against for having raised concerns. It's got to come 7 from your consideration of events, your knowledge of 8 your interactions. You're working there, and the 9 reasons given to you for the actions taken recently, 10 in considering that, if the allegation, if that's the 11 allegation you want to make and the NRC has an office 12 set up to handle that. I can give you theinformation 13 on who to call. Then what would happen is if you 14 articulate what appears to be a prima facie case, and 15 then my office, the Office of Investigations, gets 16 involved and investigates.
17 So, what I'm hearing from you is you're 18 considering it. You're not firmly alleging this. I 19 just want you to know that --
20 MR. BARBER: You always have the option of 21 calling. We're not trying to force you to make a 22 decision today on whether you think there was anything 23 of that nature going on or not. That option is always 24 there.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The only other point NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
119 1 that I would make is, and the NRC allegations also 2 would tell you that in terms of Department of Labor 3 involvement, allegations to them need to be made 4 within 180 days from the adverse action, and that's 5 something you need to consider, too.
6 The difference being that if DOL got 7 involved in allegation and discrimination, they look 8 for personal remedy to the situation, if it applies.
9 The NRC Office of Investigation gets involved to 10 address the wrongdoing, and that's -- we would be 11 looking at potential wrongdoing on the part of the
.12- .-lice-ns-ee. That's the difference-.-
13 i see. If you have some 14 information, I'm currently entertaining some 15 discussion with an attorney, and that's why I haven't 16 made any decisions yet because I was going to have the 17 discussion and dialogue with an attorney to find out 18 what their position and thoughts are before I proceed, 19 but I'd be interested in at least obtaining the 20 information.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and I'll give 22 you that today, too.
23 I- *Okay.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else? I'm 25 about to close.
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120 1 ell) I guess one closing 2 comment, again, I think there's a lot of great people 3 out there. I don't think the issues that are in Hope 4 Creek are union issues. I don't think any of the 5 issues out there are individual people issues. I 6 think there are some program process and structural 7 issues, and I think there are some organizational 8 dynamic type issues, and I also believe it's not one 9 shoe fits all. It's the right management and 10 management style that will take that operation really 11 to the level of performance that I know it's capable 12-. .of__achiyev*ng.,
13 I've got a high regard and respect for the 14 people that are out there. A lot of people want to do 15 the right thing for the right reasons.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
17 have I or any other NRC representative offered you any 18 promises or threatened you in any manner in exchange 19 for today's infrmation?
20 L ---No, you have not.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you offered this 22 information freely and voluntarily?
23 -,Yes, I have.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. At this point, 25 I'm going to close. It's approximately 12:30 p.m.,.
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44
121 1 and I'd like to thank you very much for your time 2 today.
3 You're welcome.
4 (Whereupon, the above-referenced matter 5 was concluded at 12:30 p.m.)
6 7
8 9
10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 I
25 / I. V .1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORlTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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 I'
Docket Number: n/a Location: Exton, PA 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.
Karen &C, n Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.