ML061790636
| ML061790636 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 11/07/2003 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1217 | |
| Download: ML061790636 (47) | |
Text
- Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Interview o10000 74f"-
L w.... ~4 Docket Number: 1-2003-051 F Location: Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey Date: Friday, November 7, 2003 Work Order No.: NRC-1217 Pages 1-45 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 Informationi in this record was deleted inaccordance with the. Freedom of Information A
-Act, exemptions 7C..
FO.A-- - -
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 OFFICE OF THE INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 ------------------------------ x 7 IN THE MATTER OF:
8 INTERVIEW OF Docket No.
9 1-2003-051F 10 (CLOSED) 11 ---------------- x 12 Friday, November 7, 2003 13 14 PSEG 15 NRC Resident's Office T'6 Hancock's Bridge, NJ 17 18 The above-entitled interview was conducted 19 at 6:05 a.m.
20 21 BEFORE:
22 SPECIAL AGENT EILEEN NEFF, OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 23 ALSO PRESENT:
24 SENIOR RESIDENT INSPECTOR DAN ORR 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 PROCEEDINGS 2 6:05 A.M.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 November 7, 2003 and the time is approximately 6:03 5 a.m. Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, U.S. NRC, 6 Region 1, Office of Investigations; Also present is 7 Senior Resident Inspector Dan Orr.
The interview is taking place at the Salem 8
9 Hope Creek Facility at the NRC Resident's Office and 7cJ 10 the interview is withh* ,fo 11 here at Salem.
12 The subject of this interview an 13 assessment of the safety conscious work environment in 14 that concerns have been raised indicating that there's 15 potential damage to the work environment here and 16 we' re asking for your. assessment of that and any 17 concerns you may have regarding the work environment.
18 I explained to you before going on the 19 record, there's no subject of investigation. You're
.20 being interviewed more or less as a witness. regarding 21 the situation. There is no specific potential 22 violation associated with the safety conscious work 23 environment potential problems that we're looking at.
24 I placed you under oath regarding another 25 matter before going on the record here. I'll just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 remind you that you're still under oath in terms of 2 your answers for this interview.
3 At this point, what we have been 4 discussing were concerns that were raised in September 5 of 2002 and brought to the attention, as a group, as 6 a shift you explained. They were handled at PSEG.
7 Your expectation was tha -had heard about 8 problems that were caused by, manipulating 9 a steam leak.
10 An became involved,'
11
- became involved trying to determine what the 12 problems were so that she more or less would be able 13 to.report on where all the concerns were specifically 14 on the Salem side with the NEOs. And that was for all 15 the shifts.
16 Is that accurate?
17 Mainly the Bravo shift, 18 but the problems spread out from there to other 19 shifts. I mean there's overtime and there's talk 20 amongst people and then there was other things that a 21 lot of people thought were actions not exactly best 22 suited to safety going on. But that was the catalyst 23 that caused a big ruckus at that time.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and we had 25 discussed under this other matter an e-mail that was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 written by you to on September 24, 2002.
2 And it basically is outlining going forward with the 3 concerns, how to handle them, who to poll and the 4 kinds of questions to ask to basically what you're 5 calling issues that would affect the safe operation of 6 a nuclear generating station.
7 There were concerns at that time that you 8 had and you thought others might have had something to 9 add to.
10 That's correct.
ii SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: As a result of that 12 interview, that particular e-mail, it looks like this 13 is September 24, 2002, the one is dated 11:30 p.m.,
14 about 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br /> later. Five and a half hours later 15 there's another e-mail and I just wanted to show you 16 this and it's dated the 25th at 4:59 a.m. And it goes 17 fromou toand essentially you're having 18 second thoughts on the effectiveness of what i was 19 planning to do.
20 Let's take a moment to review this e-mail 21 and then we can discuss it, okay?
22 *111W nokay. Before you actually 23 go off the record; you had said "due to problems 24 because of this incident" thatMgs it as 25 problems. I don't believe that, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS k t')
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1 saw it as a problem. They can sit down and 2 they can rationalize their actions and I can see their 3 point of view and again a lot of people, myself 4 included thought there was problems with 5 and his supervisors, but some didn't see themas 6 problems which itself is a problem. And that's 7 got word of it that we're not happy and he was trying 8 to look into it.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, he may not have 10 agreed that there was a problem. He was responding to 11 theconcerns.
12 /1 That's correct.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
14 I don't want it to go on 15 record thinking that he said there was a problem. I 16 believe that he never said there was a problem.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
18 But there might have been 19 and he was looking into it.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thanks for the 21 explanation on that.
22 It's about 6:09 a.m.
23 (Off the record.)
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on. It's 25 about 6:10 a.m.
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1 This e-mail is expressing -- it's 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br /> 2 behind the other e-mail to ,and itIs 3 basically you're saying you're having second thoughts.
4 I don't think that this is going to be effective and 5 it goes on to itemize how things have been in the past 6 and why you're thinking this isn't going to be very 7 effective at this point in time, but at the bottom of 8 it you make the statement, a couple of statements of 9 interest in terms of the work environment. One is you 10 had no plans on leaving the company, even if 11 management openly gives a little in the area of safety 12 to gain monetarily.
13 What are you talking about here?
14 I'm trying to find out 15 where you are here.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm sorry, middle of 17 that last paragraph there.*
18 I also understand that 19 openly I will not -- does this start with "but I"?
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess if we don't 21 take the whole thing out of context -- basically 22 you're saying that you're going to be available for 23 any information that's needed. You attach some 24 letters that you sent in the past regarding some of 25 the issues that were below standards and if you still NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 have these, could we get that?
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: "I have no plans on 4 leaving the company, even if management openly gives 5 a little in the area of safety to gain monetarily."
6 What are you talking about there?
7 A lot of these letters I 8 write when I'm upset about something and I believe 9 what I'm trying to say here is I have no plans of 10 leaving the company. I mean I'm here for the long 11 run. I honestly believe that overall, we're not 12 posing any safety issues to the environment or to 13 people. Mostly what I talk about is we try to see how 14 close we can come to that though, but I believe the 15 place is constructed and engineered in a way that you 16 pretty much have to do something to go in that 17 direction. But in the second part of that, even if 18' management openly gives a little on the area of safety 19 to gain monetarily, I've said something like this 20 before. What I say is management picks low hanging 21 fruit. They'll pick the cheapest-- we'll take care 22 of this to make it look like they're doing something.
23 So it gives a little in the area of safety 24 meaning that they're going to chip away at the low 25 hanging fruit to make it look like there's an effort NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1
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, to gain safety, but it says monetarily meaning a
- 2.. little in the area of safety meaning little in the 3 area of monetary funds from them. Big issues, it 4 costs a lot of money are hard to get corrected, but 5 they -- when I say I have no plans of leaving the 6 company and above that I said something -- I will be 7 available for any information that is solicited.
8 I mean this letter I wrote to&* after I 9 wrote this. This says I'm going to take an active 10 part in this. I'm going to start -- I'm going to do 11 a lot of stuff. I'm worked up. I see wand O 12 comes across'and," "going to try to help us and I 13 honestly believe that, so when I write this first 14 letter, I'm going to jump into the mixhere. I'm 15 going -to be helper.
16 After four hours or five hours of thinking 17 about it, thinking that this is just another impotent 18 activity that's going to happen here, I decide~that I 19 usually only get myself in trouble at these times, 20 that I'll be here if 4 wants "iThfQrmation,- if*
21 comes to me, but I'm not going to put a lot of effort 22 into it if I don't think it's going to go anywhere.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Prior to that :when 24 you say you get into trouble, down -- again, in the 25 last. paragraph you're saying "I understand that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 'openly' I will not, cannot be asked to disregard 2 safety" -- openly in quotes -- "asked to disregard 3 safety no matter what the company's real desire is, 4 but I can for my own feeling of safe employment tone 5 down my concerns for the time being and give you and 6 time to show your desires."
7 I can be a pain in 8 people's asses. I mean I can -- I'll try to get these 9 other letters for you, but what I'm saying is at this 10 particular time, there was a lot of stuff going on.
11 There's a lot of animosity between me and my 12 management an We're not talking and when we 13 are talking, we're arguing. But becauseS 4 comes
.14 across as such a proponent of wha doing, I'll 15 tone down for a while and see what goes on.
16 -SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let y pe the lead 17 --
18 Let be the lead and 19 see whatd~ican do.*
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you a fear, on-21 site, on raising *a concern and being retaliated 22 against?
23 Ido.
24 SPECIAL AGENTNEFF: Is there a basis for 25 something like that happening to you?
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1 M I've had an OS stand up at 2 a meeting and say "you fucker". I called him on a 3 bluff, on a lie about actions, something similar to 4 something like this and yeah, when you think about 5 your manager getting upset, the guy who writes your 6 appraisal, yeah.
7 I've never been threatened to be fired, 8 never been written up, but when the people you work 9 for don't like you, yeah, I have a fear of that.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is the OS still here?
ii *Yes.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you still working 13 with this individual?
14 . Not as directly as I was 15 at that time.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have problems 17 working with him?
18 No, not at all.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Having challenged him 20 on an issue?
21 No, in a group atmosphere, 22 I did it in a group atmosphere for impact and it had 23 the right impact.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, for purposes of 25 what we're trying to accomplish here, what kind of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 issue were you raising? What did you catch him in and 2 challenge? -/
3 MM&--4, We bring up concerns. He 4 comes in and he goes "we're going to be safe. Does 5 anybody have any safety concerns?" We say yeah, we 6 have a concern. He gets his little piece of paper out 7 and you tell him. You write your signature and I'll 8 look into it.
9 Two months later I'm in a meeting. A 10 safety concern is brought up and he says how are we 11 going to fix that if you guys don't tell us about it?
12 Maybe.three or four times it happened again and I was 13 fed up at the time. I said I had notes. Sometimes I 14 take notes. I said on this day we told you, and as a 15 matter of fact, you call a guy into your office and 16 you reprimanded him because he didn't bring up the 17 concern and now it's a concern and you knew about it 18 and today you're telling me we don't tell you about 19 these things.
20 And I called him on a bluff and everybody 21 in the room knew it and he got up, meeting over, "you 22 fucking guys are pissing me off", he's out of the 23 room.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who is the 25 (Inaudible)?
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1 0 "] (Inaudible) 2 sPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To get an idea of 3 where the problems are, would you say that there are 4 some OSs that are more of the proponents of safety 5 than others or do you have particular problems --
6 Until they're beaten down, 7 I believe so.
8 I work for *. now who is not 9 that gentleman and he comes across and in the 10 beginning he tried to do things and it was pushed 11 back, pushed back and he tries and I believe he 12 actually got in trouble for some of these letters I 13 wrote. He's not keeping me busy enough so that I can 14 do stuff like this.
15 I don't know exactly how it went down, but 16 he got in trouble for that to the point where he 17 doesn't want to hear a lot of it either. He's doing 18 his job. When they give him a safety message to read 19 up, that's his job.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about this other 21 individual? Is there -- do you see there being some 22 sort of pressure on him in order to -- why would he 23 not respond to something he's documented and talked to 24 someone else about? Where does that come from?
25 I honestly believe he NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 would have tried to fix those issues, bring them up.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
3 4 " " hThen tell them we're not 4 going to do it to the point where it led to that.
5 Eventually -- he got caught, that's all.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: (Inaudible) this 7 bluff, showing that he's going to fix (Inaudible).
8 Who's involved?
9 Bravo shift again. I 10 don't want to make it sound like he's a bad guy, that 11 he's the catalyst that starts things.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But what you have to 13 understand is we're gathering a lot of information and 14 for me to know what incident we're talking about as I 15 go across the board, I need to know who was involved 16 in certain things.
17 It may be an issue that we never have to 18 bring up again, but I'm trying to get an understanding 19 of okay, on this shift, this is what contributes these 20 concerns. It's just by way of helping us make this 21 assessment and keep it all straight.
22 The at the time was 23 (Phonetic). He lost his temper. But I 24 believe --
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1 because - - why did he lose his temper? Was it because 2 you called him out on it?
3 No, because management 4 puts him in front of the guys, and tells him to come 5 down here and give these messages of safety. Tell us 6 that he's working on these things, that he knows 7 they're not working on it, to the point that the union 8 guys want them to be worked on. And he's stuck like 9 this. We're pushing up, they're pushing down and he's 10 right in the middle and he does what he can. I 11 believe he does what he can with the limited power 12 that they give these guys.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
14 And I think he blew up 15 like I blow up. He's like "fuck" you.know.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's pressure from 17 both --
18 Pressure from both sides.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Th&t just helps me to 20 .get an understanding of what's going on here.
21 Do you have any more questions regarding 22 that particular issue, anything specifically?
23 MR. ORR: You didn't say what the issue 24 was about though, right? Was it personal safety?
25 Personal safety? It was NEAL R. GROSS 1. &
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1 a barring of the diesels.
2 MR. ORR: Okay.
3 4 .We're using these wrenches 4 that weren't designed for the task and they push. For 5 some reason they design this thing so when you engage 6 it it kicks up and we brought it up before as an issue 7 and *Phonetic) got hurt. He had his 8 watch up and it hit him. He's a big guy. And he 9 brought it up and he got hurt and he didn't say 10 anything about it.
11 Someone else brought up the fact that it 12 happened to him. 3 called him into his 13 office and said you got to - -and it was almost like 14 a reprimand. When something happens, you've got tell 15 me about it, blah, blah, blah and then later on he 16 said how can I fix these problems if you guys don't 17 bring them up and that pisses me off.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I see.
19 MR. ORR: Does that turn people away from 20 bringing up future issues?
21 VeW&Yes, but not me.
22 MR. ORR: Any examples of that?
23 Steam leak --
24 MR. ORR: Operators say hey, you know, I'm 25 not going to tell management about that. I'm putting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 words in your mouth, but --
2 Why should I bring it up 3 if they're not going to do anything about it, that 4 kind of attitude?
5 MR. ORR: Yes.
6 RZIt happens.
7 MR. ORR: Can you think of any specific 8 examples where somebody has said something to you that 9 said--
10 It's hard. I hate
.1 examples. I could have better prepared for this 12 actually.
13 MR. ORR: You can always come back, right, 14 Eileen?
15 (Off the record.)
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 17 record. It's about 6:25 a.m.
18 In regard to raising concerns, you kind of 19 indicated other people may have hesitated. It doesn't 20 seem that it affected you. From what you've been 21 telling us this morning, it doesn't affect you in 22 terms of raising concerns.
23 Have you experienced adverse actions, any 24 negative response as a person who has raised a 25 concern? 4/ i- *"
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1 In other words, what makes you hesitant 2 and what makes you say for my own feeling of safe 3 employment, I want to bow out of this one?
4 I will never do anything 5 I feel is unsafe.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
7 There are things I can do 8 safer, but I'll do them the way they are. I wrote up 9 a notification two nights ago, an operator had 10 performed an unsafe actions.
11 MR. ORR: I saw it.
12 That was me. And we had 13 discussed that issue before. I had thought I had 14 written a notification up and I didn't and that job 15 has to be done. It's a four hour tech spec. You've 16 got to do things that don't meet their criteria of 17 safe. But I do them.
18 If -- I will not do something I feel poses 19 me in any immediate danger, nobody here will. I don't 20 know of anybody here that will do anything that has a 21 positive/negative outcome to it.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. You got to my 23 next question in terms of people raising concerns.
24 Are you aware of anyone who would hesitate to raise a 25 nuclear safety concern?
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1 Yes, but not if it's a 2 major concern. It might be something that's 3 procedure. It's kind of foggy. What are they looking 4 for here? It's a concern, but it's not going to be a 5 bad thing.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where would you see 7 the hesitancy?
8 .*Here'-s one for you, diesel 9 generator, 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> run. We proved that this thing 10 will hold a load for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> for tech specs. We 11 wrote our tech spec which is the bible and it says 12 you'll do this every year, but we do it before we take 13 the diesel apart. What does that prove? That's 14 ridiculous to run it for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> to prove it will 15 hold a load before you do your major maintenance on 16 it. That's a safety concern that involves tech specs.
17 I think it's a dead issue.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A dead issue, why?
19 Has somebody addressed it or questioned it?
20 Yes. Numerous people 21 have.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And it goes?
23 That's the way the 24 industry is going now. We've got'to make our outages 25 shorter.. We have to stay competitive in the market.
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1 We're going to take those actions.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that part of what 3 you were referring to before about deregulation?
4 Yes.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Remaining competitive 6 in the market?
7 Yes.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You also made a 9 comment about deregulation limiting the actions of 10 some people and you were talking I think at the OS 11 level, that people feel their limits.
12.... When OS first comes in, he 13 has his mind on how he's going to run things. He's 14 hired, he believes he's hired because they've 15 researched himi they want his kind'of person here. He 16 comes in, tries to do some things that cost too much 17 money or would take too much time. They shut him 18 down. He tries. They shut him down. Eventually, he 19 finds out what they really want and now that's where 20 he's at. He's operating between the lines that they 21 now give him.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're saying 23 this would be at the OS level we hear more about that, 24 the between the lines that they're --
25 No, it's all levels, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 it's easier to see there because these guys are.
2 Service water 405P,1 might have brought this up, 3 but a notification up. The procedure was 4 trying to unconservatively take account of a flow that 5 was leaking by a valve. This valve leaked so bad it 6 pressurized the whole header. The lines had already 7 filled and vented before they were supposed to be 8 filled and vented. They're shooting out at system 9 pressure now toward the actual vented lines that were 10 restricting flow. There's no way to measure that 11 flow, how much leak by there is now. And so they --
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this incident was 13 when?
14 4 All last year. All last 15 year. That's Wl7s. One of them was leaking by.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All last year, 17 everything that we're talking about?
18 *No, the service water 19 405Ps. The test we prove these pumps operable with.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Go ahead.
21 MR. ORR: Was there anything done 22 nonconservative on those calculations?
23 The calculation assumed 24 the flow was leading -- you were leaking into the 25 ot her he ad er . NRO NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 MR. ORR: Right.
2 4 M w. But you never compared the 3 two headers' pressures together. That flow could have 4 been leaking in.
5 MR. ORR: Okay.
6 And then you assumed the 7 flow was X amount.
8 MR. ORR: Yes.
9 There was no way for them 10 to determine the flow because what you're seeing as a 11 leak now isn't the actual leak because it's limited by 1-2 the -- where that water could escape that pipe. That
.13 pipe was up to the other header's pressure.
14 MR. ORR: Right, right.
.15 I-I've got to find that 16 letter too.
17 MR. ORR: Okay.
18 I explained it better at 19 the time.
20 MR. ORR: Okay. All right. I'm sorry to 21 interrupt you.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No, no.
23 MR. ORR: One other thing. On buying the 24 diesel generators, you talked about! amethod where you 25 used to use a wrench.
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e.. S.
1 Correct.
2 MR. ORR: Now you guys use the (Inaudible) 3 and depress the tops of them?
4 j. Correct.
5 MR. ORR: Was there any hesitancy in going 6 to that method?
7 It took years to go to 8 that method. As much as it was unsafe, it took years 9 to do that because they felt it dabbled in 10 preconditioning.
11 MR. ORR: Okay.
12 And the valve --
13 MR. ORR: Okay, that was their concern and 14 maybe this is preconditioning and we need to use the 15 other method.
16 Right.
17 MR. ORR: Okay.
18 - .13Sowe knew we had a safety 19 issue, but we're going to ignore that because we can't 20 think of a better thing to do now.
21 Now they know it's a safety issue. This 22 thing is kicking up with a force enough to break your 23 ribs. Small guys can't do it. You can only put big 24 guys on and a big guy almost did get hurt, but it 25 still took years for them to do anything about it.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We had -- let 2 me just check this. Before you made a comment you 3 were talking about how you see it as the plant and the 4 people at the plant operate safely. And your comment 5 was along the lines of you think you remain safe, but
" 6 it's pushed.
7 ] You accept risks.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You try to see how 9 close you can come to remaining safe. And this is in 10 terms of public safety. Are there incidents that come 11 to your mind that would indicate to you that you 12 either, you learned about it, saw or felt or heard 13 pressure or directives in which it was an issue of 14 production over safety or if you don't -- it's been 15 referred to as megawatt mentality or pushing the edges 16 of conservative decision making to nonconservative 17 decision making.
18 jj Every incident we've 19 talked about.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All of these go --
21 All of these go --
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it's more than 23 just it takes too long to fix things and they 24 recognize --
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1 leak. Hours and hours they spent trying to figure out 2 how they're going to keep the unit alive, how they're 3 going to stop this leak instead of the obvious safe --
4 and this leak was so bad the OS said we're going to 5 shut the unit down. He makes a few phone calls, gets 6 a hold of th the and now it's not 7 we're going to shut the unit down. Now it's what can 8 we do? We've got a leak --
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: , was thato 10 (Phonetic)?
1i *Yes.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
13 Yes, it was. was 14 the who was immediately taken out of the control 15 position, I believe. This is, my opinion, by. a 16 0whoshowed up. Now ning 17 the show. I'm sure he's talking to his boss.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was emoved 19 mid-shift or something?
20 Not removed. He's not 21 removed. He's the He runs the department.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just the fact that 23shows up.
24 shows up, his 25 boss.
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1 . SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
2 j So now the plan is no 3 longer to shut the unit down as soon as we can in a 4 safe manner, it's we can live with this. We'll look 5 for a way. We're talking money here and we shut the 6 place down, but can we fix it? We have to have 7 maintenance go out and look at it.
8 I never actually saw people. looking at it.
9 They said people looked at it and I'm sure they did, 10 but it wasn't an everybody on board type of thing. It 11 was the middle of the night. There's not many people 12 here. They did everything they could to stall to the 13 point where the group bus has started experiencing 14 shorts from water getting in there. Now we can't shut 15 down because we can't trust that equipment to do what 16 it's got to do during the shut down.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had.been 18 here on shift or did he arrive after this event 19 occurred? Was he here scheduled?
20 That's a toughy.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just don't --
22 I think maybe he arrived, 23 but maybe he was here. But they-waited long enough to 24 where they couldn't shut the place down safely, 25 whereas they could have if they acted immediately.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
2 7 That's an example.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
4 il The BFl9s, how long --
5 we're talking they had sledge hammers out there 6 wailing on this thing. They tried air, everything.
7 How long does it take to figure out if a valve is 8 stuck? The mentality is don't shut down, stall, do 9 whatever you can to fix it without shutting down.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The BF19s is fairly 11 well documented? You don't need anything further on 12 that, right?
13 MR. ORR: Yes, -it's in this inspection 14 period. Yes.
15 SPECIAL AGENT.NEFF: Okay. Anything else 16 then,*
17 Well, the circ. water.
18 Circ. water grass.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The grassing.
20 - Yes, grassing. We lose 21 one circulator one day. The next day it's two 22 circulators. It's three circulators. There's four.
23 The NCO -- I'm not an NCO, but I understand it's real 24 tough to keep this place going with no heat sink.
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1 guys came out of a bad grass hit and everybody is 2 starting to breathe now, the power is coming back up, 3 the grass is letting up because the tide changed, 4 these guys are heroes. Good job, pat on the back.
5 Fantastic, great.
6 Next shift comes in. Now we went down to 7 one circulator for 15 minutes. Bam, pat on the back.
8 You did a good job. It got so bad. We all know what 9 happened. But management mentality pushed them right 10 there. They were driven there.
11 What would you have thought in the middle 12 of all this, one of us comes and goes grass shutdown, 13 bam. Taking it off line. The grass -- he'd be 14 looking for a job.
15 Yet there's a big plaque outside the 16 control room that says "we, the licensed operators, 17 will take conservation actions." It speaks for 18 itself.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
20 And I say if the wrong 21 people get this information --
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think it was in 23 your first one on the 24th.
- 24. I thought it was the 25 second one.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's in the middle of 2 that first one.
3 " W_ "Should adding outside 4 influence get word of it"? The Sunbeam wrote a story 5 up, get one of their creative writers in there, write 6 this story up about how this place, a situation like 7 grassing, the BF19. Salem, bam, front line newspaper.
8 One of the four generators was uncontrolled, was in an 9 uncontrolled operation for 7 hours8.101852e-5 days <br />0.00194 hours <br />1.157407e-5 weeks <br />2.6635e-6 months <br />. We're using blow 10 down, the control level. You don't do that. The 11 procedure is not for that. But they could write it up 12 to where the Society Against Nuclear Power gets a hold 13 of it. They change the words a little bit. That 14 could be my job.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Those are the kind of 16 incidents that are contributing to what you're 17 documenting here.
18 When was that last grassing, the date on 19 that?
20 MR. ORR: Well, it reoccurs every spring.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it May?
22 That was a bad year.
23 We're talking five or six years ago.
24 MR. ORR: That was the worst they've had.
25 What happened was --
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1 MR. ORR: You're talking about the 1994 2 incident, right?
3 Right. That's coming 4 back. You just said last year was bad. It gets so 5 bad, they lose so much cooling the power level comes 6 down and in 1994 they dipped below levels of 7 7 percent.
8 MR. ORR: I just don't remember.
9 It dipped below P7. They 10 saved the place. I mean getting ready for the old pat 11 on the back, the power starts coming up. They forgot.
12 They have intermediate range or something. I'm not a 13 licensed operator, but they came up above a certain 14 power level without resetting the trip and bam, took 15 the unit out. One of the relief valves sticks on 16 this, on the pressurizer, pops the --
17 MR. ORR: Yes, it was a bad transient.
18 It happened twice a day 19 for two months until -- every high tide, every low 20 tide.
21 MR. ORR: Yes.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Any other incidents 23 that go into that kind of pressure, those types of 24 issues? Anything we haven't, discussed yet?
25 *I'm certain there are.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I know you indicated, 2 you said you could have been better prepared for this.
3 Do you think you want some more time or do you think 4 we're getting there?
5 We're getting there. I 6 mean I'll have to print out these memos that I have 7 written in the past.
8 Understand I'm a pretty sarcastic guy at 9 times. It would be comical, everybody reads it.
10 Calculus was a funny one. State of the station was 11 another funny one. In state of the station I wrote up 12 not major issues like the BFl9, but issues that have 13 been around for years and. they still exist. And I 14 have like a 3-page article, a 3-page thing that makes 15 like a Saturday Night Live thing out of the whole 16 thing, like the boiler. Just paint it. -We'll get to 17 that 10 years from now or something like that.
18 SPECIAL AGENTNEFF: What's the difference 19 here with the safety concerns doc and the, plant safety 20 issues doc?u 21 Plant-safety issues are 22 more serious. When I outline my top five safety 23 issues, personnel safety I believe that one is. Plant 24 safety is -- I have to look at them again.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you have SAP NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 safety issues.
2 SAP is just crap.
3 sPECIAL AGENT NEFFi Tagging?
4 7! SAP is a tool that's not 5 used. I don't like it. It's too complicated.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What we're 7 understanding is it's not user friendly. It's hard to 8 find notifications when they're in there and track 9 them all the way through resolution.
10 I log on. I bring up a 11 safety concern that I brought up maybe a year ago.
12 It's an active thing, but.you don't know what they're 13 doing. I can't find, I can't look in there and find 14 out what's being done. I went to the 15 ]about one and he's on the I 16 said what are they doing? At that time he couldn't 17 figure it out.
18 There are subscreens. You go to another 19 subscreen. I asked for a simple Excel file out there 20 that people can go into and find out what the top 20.
21 concerns are and the actual, what they're doing, the 22 time tables and they will not provide it.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had you ever seen one 24 of your own or heard of an issue or notification that 25 gets input and disappears, somehow is removed from the NEAL R. GROSS / I 7 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 process?
2 That's a toughy. Like 3 this ventilation one. The CAV, I could have sworn 4 before. It's not there. I don't know.
5 Yes. A supervisor was fired, because he 6 cleaned the system out. The system got so bad with 7 this leaks, that leaks, this needs painting, 8 insulation missing. It got so bad that he did a dump 9 and I believe he was told to do that. A lot of people 10 complained about it and he ended up losing his job.
11 I believe because of it.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He just dumped the 13 issues. They weren't resolved, they were just 14 removed?
15 Not so much safety issues, 16 but plant deficiencies. Safety issues I'm sure were 17 in that dumpage, but they just went in there and --
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When did that happen?
19 Three years ago maybe, 20 four years ago, I don't know.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was 22 W4 And he had been an# at 23 one time.
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1 of maintenance doing something.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else like 3 that?
4 I know the one 5 about challenging the -- yeah. Happy wake up thing --
6 SPECIAL AGENT-NEFF: The error traps?
7 the error 8 traps. That was closed out because we're not going to 9 try to avoid error traps. The only thing we might do 10 is train you on them. That's closed out and I don't 11 know why they closed it out.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Tell me a little bit 13 more about that. You said that your example was that 14 15 I came into work 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They did something, 17 they were" testihg something. They were testing 18 errors.
19 Minor maintenance was 20 performed on a diesel which puts them into like a 21 72-hour -tech spec. And at 6 o'clock there's a 22 mentality that each shift wants to get as many beans 23 in. The more stuff they get done, the better they 24 look.
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2 MR. ORR: Can you give us the notification 3 number?
4 A year or two years ago.
5 I could probably find that for you. A year or two 6 years ago. And if I find the notification, you'll 7 have the date, but I came into work right away --
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said something 9 that you get credit for beans on a shift. So testing I0 on a shift?
1If the supervisor signs 12 of f, he started this procedure, it looks good for him.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
14 His shift is getting work 15 done. Anyway, I come into work,--
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you see a problem 17 with starting a procedure that you don't finish on 18 shift?
19 Yes. A complicated 20 procedure such as running a di.s .- , synchronizing, 21 blah, blah.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It depends on the 23 procedure?
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1 that's not a big deal, but I don't believe you should 2 do it anyway because people's minds aren't on the job.
3 It pisses them off which is more (Inaudible) on the 4 job.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Does it happen a lot?
6 The testing is started in order to get this credit, 7 this point?
8 Yes, I believe it happens 9 a lot. A lot of times we'll be finished up and it 10 doesn't actually go through turnover. They push it.
11 That one there was specifically, they knew it was 12 going through turnover.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had you seen it 14 cause, practicing like this, any kind of safety-15 related problem?
16 I know you questioned this diesel 17 incident, the fact that they even tested.
18 That was close. I'll 19 stick to that one because I know that one.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
21 I came in working 7 at 22 night until 7 in the morning. I show up to work. I'm 23 always an early guy. I come here quarter after 6, 45 24 minutes-early. I walk in the door and expect to sit 25 down have you coffee, whatever. And we need you to go NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 down and relieve the diesel. What happened? Nothing 2 happened. Maintenance gave it back to us and there 3 was a hold up a little bit on tagging or something, 4 but we start -- we sent two guys down there to run it.
5 It takes two guys to do this. I'm thinking is it 6 running already? No, it's not running. They're down 7 there now starting it. I'm like why would you want to 8 do that? They're gaining 45 minutes. They're nowhere 9 near their 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> tech spec yet, but they say, they 10 try to limit that time. I can understand that, but 11 now I have to explain some safety.
12 I go down, he's down there 13 going through all the pre-start checks. He's going to 14 start it. I take relief, from him. I'm way early.
15 Normally, he would have been halfway through starting 16 it, loading it when his relief showed up. They 17 couldn't get me a relief upstairs. The supervisor is 18 down there. It's a noisy area, not conducive to 19 proper turnover briefing. And I challenged that in a 20 notification saying we know better, we should stop 21 this. And they blew me off.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who is they?
23 Probabl ~ ~ t 24 level, but it turned out to be_ who talked to 25 me about it saying we're not going to try to avoid NEAL R. GROSS r COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I*-"
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3, 1 error traps, if we can train us to handle error traps.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
3 a Which is detrimental to 4 nuclear safety. We should do everything we can to 5 prevent -- they gave us a book with the Titanic 6 (Phonetic) and all this other stuff to read. You see 7 that stuff. It's monetary. It's going to cost money 8 to fix it. Let's not fix it. Let's go to the next 9 outage.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about from --
11 Forty-five more minutes to 12 a 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> tech spec.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How valid is that
.14 statement in terms of we won't train to avoid them if 15 we can train you to handle them. Is that the case?
16 Do you get training in this area?
17 HW They train us that they 18 exist as far as it really goes. Not what to do. What
- 19. can you do? It's half hour to eat. It's digesting 20 food. You're not really -- what do you do? You can't 21 do anything. But you'll sit up there and you'll -- so 22 it's bam, go up and see him, I've got a job for you.
23 Filling in containment, hanging up the pressurizer, it 24 doesn't matter to them. It's a job. You're a machine 25 to do a job and they'll use you as long as you're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 able. As long as you're not broken.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
3 It cost money to change 4 oil. Maybe I can get away with it for never change 5 oil and if the thing breaks at 80,000 miles instead of 6 150,000, I'll deal with it then. It's not productive 7 to give the guy a half hour to sit and wait. It's not 8 productive to eat 45 minutes on a tech spec. That's 9 -
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Anything else?
11 Do you have anything else you'd like to add to it?
12 No. Iill print this stuff 13 out. And a lot of this stuff I write up, you might 14 have a lot more than this. You've talked to me for 15 the last two hours. I get hot headed and I get 16 excited. I like my job. I try to do the right thing.
17 It's frustrating to be told that that wall is yellow, 18 but as soon as I'm done being told that, they treated 19 it as blue. I believe there's a lot of stuff toward 20 safety is just a show that we're here for the money.
21 This is all about money.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this what goes 23 back to where you say the problem isn't here on the 24 island, the people on the island-are trying to --
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1 respect I respect . I've 2 worked with them. I've knownw since he was 3 He's not the same guy he was. I meaisnIt 4 the same guy he was two years ago. I saw a lot of 5 effort from all these guys. If Kim Harvin was still 6 working here, if she had made the transformation into 7 knowing what her real limits are as opposed to what 8 her published or written limits were, she'd be the 9 same way.
10 I have a lot of respect that she tried to 11 do the right thing and they said I sent you down there 12 to :do your job. You're supposed to give me 13 information, now go away. I'll do what I want to do.
14 She's like no, these are guys looking for information.
15 I've got to tell them something. I may be even, came 16 right out and said they're not going to do anything.
17 I mean you're supposed to go down there 18 and placate these guys. Make them think there's this 19 big project that's going to make it safer, but there 20 really isn't.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's take a quick 22 break.
23 okay.
24 (Off the record.)
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1 record. It's approximately 6:50 a.m. What you were 2 just saying you were talking about Kim Harvin and 3 where she actually became aware of the way you were 4 putting it was what she was going to be able to do as 5 opposed to what --
6 " .I assume, I assumed that.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know anything, 8 do you have any --
9 *I honestly believe she 10 thought she'was here for the purpose of getting us and 11 upper management was going to take these actions based 12 on her interviews with us.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay..
14 And having been here for 15 I can say that our concerns aren't all going 16 to be addressed. There's going to be -- these guys 17 aire whining, it's their job and valid point. But I 18 believe she got a little upset, the fact that they 19 might have lied to her saying that they were going to 20 act on all of them. They didn't. I don't think they 21 acted on any.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Did you have 23 any conversations with anyone in management regarding 24 the decisions made on that? We covered particularly 25 regarding the concerns that she fronted or that were NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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1 given to her. But in terms of her employment here, 2 did you have any conversations with anyone in 3 management as to why she was no longer here?
"N N This was probably 5 months after she was -- I guess what you're saying is 6 fired. I assume that's what happened. I didn't know 7 about it. We didn't have any connections with --
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
9 assume she still worked 10 here until someone said -- this was all --
11 interesting.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You didn't know that 13 until today?
14 Not today, when all this
- 15. started happening, I guess you had tried to contact me 16 like a couple of weeks ago, trying to --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFFi Right.
18 *Until the first interview 19 happened, I didn't know she was even fired.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right, we're 21 looking at -- you're kind of indicating that maybe you 22 could do a little more prep on some document and it 23 might be valuable to have some more time. We'll make 24 another appointment then and just do a.follow-up?
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1 say, I'll just give you some stuff that I have written 2 down and maybe you'll have some more questions. What 3 I'll do is I'll try to get this information together.
4 I'll drop it off at this office. I'll give you a 5 chance to look at it and maybe next Friday --
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right, we can set up 7 something tentatively for me to look at it and then 8 after I look at it I can talk to you about it.
9 W I'll drop it off to you in 10 this office on Monday and we'll -- I'll see you on 11 Thursday, before the next days off because I'm back on 12 (Inaudible) and I know you don't like waking up early.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it that obvious?
14 (Laughter.)
15 Dan, do you have any questions right now?
16 MR. ORR: Is there any names that can help 17 us with 14BF19? I don't know if you had any first 18 hand experience with 14BF19.
19 I was here that night.
20 That spanned to a couple of shifts. Licensed 21 operators in the control room I heard were complaining 22 about the way they had to control the plant.
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1 down. It was tough.
2 MR. ORR: Yes, yes, it was.
3 Again, he never thought 4 that there was any major danger to the people.
5 MR. ORR: Okay.
6 *He said some-thing that I 7 actually came back and said well, you're the license 8 operator, you can always ask to be relieved and leave 9 the control room.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you remember when 11 you saw him?
12 No 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
14 (Phonetic)?
157 ? Yes.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, anybody else?
17 .'No, I didn't talk to many 18 other COs about it. But I was in the field. There 19 was a lot of grumbling about it. Here we are, pretty 20 major piece of equipment is not working and they got 21 dead weight blow hammers slamming on this thing as 22 hard as they can. To me that is not safe. It brings 23 you right back to doing main steam testing on the 24 roof, the valve testing, the bypass valves around -the 25 MS28s, vinyl ones I believe they are. They stick a NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 lot. They go up there with big dead blow hammers and 2 hit them as hard as they can. I don't even like being 3 in the area.
4 We're talking about main steam line valve 5 hitting it with the heaviest hammer you can hit it 6 with and it breaks, if you're in that enclosure, 7 you're dead. We shouldn't operate. with valves that 8 operate like that.. That's every day -- for a long 9 time that was -- you'd expected that. They go into 10 that test knowing that they got -- they already have 11 the hammer at pre-stage, the guys who are going to hit 12 it. Is that nuclear safety? Is that personnel 13 safety? All of it goes back to nuclear safety.
14 MR. ORR: These are main steam reheat 15 valves, right?
16 MS28s, the stop valve 17 going into the high pressure turbine. The-valve slams 18 shut. The bypass is suppose to open up so that you 19 can open the main valve'up. The bypass sticks.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This was been going 21 -- you say it goes on for a while?
22 That's been going on for
- 23. a while.
24 Actually, I believe theyjust now got that 25 fixed. We'll see it when we come out of the outage.
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1 This is Unit 2.
2 MR. ORR: Yes.-
3I m That's a scary thing. I 4 mean there's a lot -- how many pounds of steam at what 5 temperature and you've got a guy sitting there, bam.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Why don't we do this, 7 we'll talk further when we meet next week.
8 okay.
o 9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Continue it. I want 10 to visit time pressure.
ii That's fine. It's my 12 quitting time now.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I thank you for your 14 time.
15 (Whereupon, at 6:50 a.m., the interview 16 was concluded.)
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Interview of Docket Number: 1-2003-051F Location: Hancock's Bridge, NJ were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings as recorded on tape(s) provided by the NRC.
Francesca Zook Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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