ML061790690
| ML061790690 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 10/21/2003 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194 | |
| Download: ML061790690 (109) | |
Text
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 igUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 --- - - - - ----7---------x 7 IN THE MATTER OF:
8 INTERVIEW OF Docket N0.
10 9.
(CLOSED)
L7~-
?jJ-~7c.~1-2003-0 51F 11 - -- - - - - ------------X 12 Tuesday, October 21 , 2003 13 14 NRC Resident's Offi ce 15 Salem Hope Creek 16 17 The above-entitled interview wa Ls conducted 18 at 2:17 p.m.
19 20 BEFORE:
21 Special Agent EILEEN NEFF, 01,/RI 22 23 ALSO PRESENT:
24 SCOTT BARBER, Division of Reac:tor
,' 25 Projects, NRC Region I Information inthis rec was deleted NEAL R. GROSS inaccordance with the edom of information COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOUD ISLANU AVE., N.V.
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D- I-N-G- S 2 (2:17 p.m.)
.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 October 21, 2003. The time is approximately 2:17 p.m.
5 Speaking is Special Agent ,Eileen Neff, 6 U.S. NRC Region I, Office of Investigations. Also 7 present from the Division of Reactor Projects is Scott 8 Barber. And this interview is wit*!
9 from Salem at PSEG 10 Nuclear.
11 The topic of today'..s discussion is going 12 to be an assessment of the safety conscious work 13 environment. As explained to you,'.. you 14 had indicated I can cal3 ..
- is That's correct.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There is no subject 17 of investigation. We have no specific potential 18 violation involved here, and what we're interested in 19 is your assessment of the safety conscious work 20 environment onsite.
21 And the way this interview came about was 22 that you had heard we were doing this assessment, and 23 you contacted the Office of Investigations. You 24 called me this morning.
25 That's correct.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that accurate?
2 7That's correct.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And you 4 indicated that you're here voluntarily.
5 j* That's correct.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And can you 7 tell me this morning why you wanted to participate in 8 the assessment?
9 I was informed by.a couple co-10 workers that there was an assessment of the safety 11 culture, and they didn't really have much more to 12 elaborate other than that, and that if I wanted to be--
involved they gave me your name and number.
13 14 And as 15 . you know, I hear a lot of issues,,both 16 safety, nuclear safety, within the RADPRO Ops 17 Chemistry Groups. So, you know, I thought -- or I 18 felt that it was in that position that I should come "19 and give you, you know, what I see and what I hear, 20 and, you know, just basically thL.facts, to help them 21 either support whatever you eventually hear from other 22 folks that come.forward and give issues.
23.. SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Thank you.
. 24" And what I would like you to do is state your full 25 name, spell your last name, and then provide your date NEAL R. GROSS * .
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" :. A i~i':: ., *i: ,** iii:: ,
1 of birth and Social Security Number.
2 3
4 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you had indicated 6 before you were working on the Salem side in"
- w~since 7
8 ]That is correct.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And as 10 -- it 11 incorporates Operations, Radiation Protection 12 Chemistry, the Fire or Loss Prevention Group, and as 13 well as Security is represented.
14 That's correct.
15 SPECIALAGENT NEFF: So these are multiple 16 concerns that get aired, I imagine, tracked, aired, 17 and reviewed --
18 % 9 True. Everything from the 19 parking lot to; you know, tagging issues or, you know, 20 -slippery floors or, you know, lights out in a room, 21 insufficient lighting.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
23 2 It can run the gamut.
24 Anything that's an industrial safety issue. And we 25 consider tagging in there, because, you know, the NEAL R. GROSSA! 6 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS .N {_.'
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1 tagging is basically what's keeping people safe from 2 energized sources of equipment. So --
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
4*-- look at it that way.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right.
6 MR. BARBER: Do you look at nuclear 7 safety, too, as a matter of course or --
8 I mean, it's there in 9 discussions. I mean, it's not like we exclude it, 10 because there may be reasons why certain things can't 11 move forward as far as resolving an industrial safety 12 concern, because we also have reactor safety that we 13 have to balance-out.
14 So we may need to do some interim steps.
15 Maybe we. don't go into the room. Maybe we -- you 16 know, we plan everything up and wait for the right 17 opportunity, window of opportunity to repair whatever 18 it is that needs fixed.
19 SPECIAL AGENT'NEFF: Okay.
20 ] So that's kind of balanced out 21 with the nuclear safety stuff. But instead of us 22 trying to be, I'll say, the experts, we're kind of 23 relying on some of the support people within 24 Operations to work out the details, you know, as far.
25 as how what we're doing would impact nuclear safety, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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I or how could we work, you know, within it.
2 MR. BARBER: Go ahead.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And these 4 interviews we conduct under oath. Do you have any 5 objection to swearing or affirming to information 6 under oath?
7 No. I have no problem with 8 swearing to --
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
10 -- tell the truth.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Then, if you could 12 raise your right hand. Do you swear that the 13 information you are about to provide is the truth, the 14 whle truth, and nothing but the truth,. so help you
.15 God?
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Thanks. Okay.
18 Overall -- and this would be from your experience 19 onsite, going back toi might be difficult for you, 20 .',but what we're looking for ais.n assessment of --
21 -- let's hear from your assessment of where the safety 22 culture is onsite right now. I mean, do you see it as 23 having any strengths? Do you see it as having any 24 particular weaknesses?
25 3'Isee it having strengths in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A-41 7 O..
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1 the fact that I think the knowledge of the individuals 2 -- you know, basically everybody that's doing their 3 job, I believe they all have the knowledge, the 4 training, to, you know, do things to keep the plant 5 safe.
6 And then I've got to preface this with, 7 you know, I'm going to bounce around a lot with 8 industrial safety. But to me they kind of go hand in 9 hand. I mean, industrial safety, OSHA has rules and 10 regulations, so, you know, you would follow those just 11 as similarly as you would a procedure for operating a 12 plant.
13 So, I mean, I kind of balance the two 14 together. So when I say we have people that have the i15 training, I really think we have people that have the 16 training for operating the plant. However, some of 17 what we're finding out is that we don't always have --
18 we don't have that much knowledge on our industrial 19 safety.
20 And the way that ties in is that as we 21 become more educated with the safety rules that are 22 out there, okay, and we've got a plant and people and 23 procedures and human behaviors that have been built 24 over 20 years, and now you start pulling out some 25 safety stuff that, hey, this stuff has been-out there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 a while and we're behind the curve. You know, we're 2 not really up to speed.
3 And it's how you bite that off. You can 4 either say, "Well, we've been doing fine for the last 5 20 years. I don't need that." Or, you know, you can 6 say, "Well, explain to me how that's going to impact 7 me." And then, when you explain it to them, they may 8 take that as, you know, "I don't have the people to 9 support that." Okay? Or they may say, "Give me some 10 alternative -- help me out. Give me some 11 alternatives. What can we do to work through this?."
12 So right now I would say, you know, our 13 demographics are kind of scattered right now. They 14 don't know how to.take some of those issues that --
15 like where is this coming from? Well, it's been here 16 all the time. We just never read it. We never really 17 took it to heart that, you know -- and I'm just giving 18 some examples.
19 I mean, not specific examples, but, you 20 know, to start wearing a body harness, where you've 21 never worn a body harness before. Okay? Well, that 22 may take a few more minutes to don. It may take more 23 -- limit the type of work. You know, it might need 24 two guys to,do the job versus one.
25 So it seems like they may be roadblocks NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that I'm throwing up in front of you when all they are 2 is -- that's what OSHA says, and we just haven't been 3 doing it. We need to figure out a way to do it.
4 We've got enough smart people here, you know, so 5 that's why in my conversation it's going to go back 6 and forth. But --
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: These were industrial 8 safety issues?
9 *Yes.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you raise issues 11 like that, what's your -- what's their typical 12 responses? Do you get responses that support the OSHA 13 regulati6ns?
- 14. It has gotten -- it has gotten 15 better. In the last year, it has gotten better. And 16 that may be just with the fact that, you know; it's 17 been presented'enOugh times. Maybe somebody actually 18 took the regulation, sat down., and read it, and then 19 it was confirmed. by another. I'm not sure what 20 actually'helped change the --
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know where to 22 attribute the change to it?
23 j j. No. I mean, I think -- we 24 have a And he's 25 only been to a couple meetings, but he hasn't been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 here all that long either. But he seems like he's got 2 a very definitive approach as to how we're going to go 3 about doing this stuff. And not to say that the 4 previous guys weren't, I just don't know that we had 5 the full support at times.
6 I mean, they were almost like, okay, you 7 guys go handle it, but I'm just a You 8 know" I'm not a -- I'm not a manager. I'm not a VP.
9 So although I can get some people to listen to me 10 because they know me and they understand my 11 reputation, and I'm trying to do what's right, you'll 12 get some people but you're not going to get them all.
13 And with what we're talking about, you 14 really need to get them all, because there's four 15 shifts that operate the plant. Okay? So I might get
- 16. one shift, but that doesn't help me if I don't get the 17 other three shifts' support. And then, eventually you 18 might get two, or you might lose the one you had, just 19 because the other three don't necessarily come along 20 with the game.
21 But I think it's gotten -- I can say it's 22 gotten better, because, I mean, we've had some 23 definitive times just throwing this out where we've 24 actually stopped jobs and held people up and went out 25 until we either corrected the condition or we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 documented an assessment that said, okay, to put four 2 scaffold builders at risk to build a scaffold when 3 this guy and his partner have two small entries into 4 an area and two small entries out.
5 We explained to the workers that it's 6 always three points of contact. No tools in hand.
7 It's not -- it is not, you know, risk-based it's not 8 worth me putting four guys at six hours to build a 9 scaffold for that job. So they understand what their 10 role is it, and, you know, we feel that -- and that's 11 something we didn't do before. You know, we would do 12 more for a hard hat waiver than we would for a fault 13 protection labor.
14 But, you know,.in this case here we held 15 those guys up for two hours until we went out in the 16 field, looked at what they were doing, assessed what i7 their risk was, and it probably took them less time to 18 do their job than it took us the two hours to get all 19 the right people together to go out and look at this 20 thing. And that was supported up to the OCC, which 21 is, you know, basically to me the manager that's 22 running the outage.
23 So we got that support, and, see, that's 24 where we wouldn't have gotten it before, because they 25 really didn't understand the six foot -- six foot from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 a leading edge, six foot up. You know, where the OSHA 2 standard comes from and where the fault protection 3 comes from, because five years ago we probably only 4 had maybe 10 body harnesses in the whole warehouse, 5 whereas now we've probably got 50 alone in 6 containment, most of them with bodies in them.
7 So, you know, it's just -- it's growing.
8 To me, it's a growing thing.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The understanding 10 about this -- the clearances, you're saying.
11 Yeah. The understanding of 12 that's why you have to have it, and, yes, people have 13 climbed those girders for years and nobody has ever 14 fallen. But that doesn't make it right to continue to
.15 do what you've done in the past.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had mentioned 17 before tha as a more definitive approach, 18 but you didn't go into that too much. How doesA 19 japproach differ with anybody who was before 20 him?
21 He basically said at this last 22 safety meeting that we had had that he felt that the 23' union guys, which I'll say the chairpersons, because 24 the chairpersons in our -- the way it's laid out 25 through the corporate -- that 19 components that I was NEAL R. GROSS ' \ J 1 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 talking about -- they recommend, unless you can't get 2 it, that the chairperson be a union representative, 3 and then you have an executive -- you have a 4 management sponsor.
5 So that you feel that the safety culture, 6 the safety -- industrial safety culture is being 7 promoted and enforced, okay, by the union, and then 8 management is just there to help, you know -- either 9 help, you know, get you the right materials, you know, 10 help get you time in the. schedule to get things 11 resolved. Okay. They're-just help -- you know, knock 12 *down or open doors versus break down walls. You know, 13 they should just be opening doors.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you have a sponsor 15 now, a management sponsor connected with your 16 position? 7 -.
17 Yes, which we had before but 18 they weren't real proactive. They were more like, 19 well, you guys have it. And as I alluded to earlier, 20 yes, I can have it. I can have all the information, 21 but I don't have the power to -- to go out and 22 actually enforce this change or to champion this 23 change.
24 I mean, we had some issues with confined 25 spaces. -Okay? And we looked into those, and what we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 came up with as an answer -- being self-taught, more 2 or less, going to the OSHA website, looking there, 3 they have a place for frequently-asked questions. So 4 they're kind of like -- I consider them like HP 5 position papers, except these are OSHA position papers 6 on how to more clearly define what it is they're 7 trying to have you do Out in the field.
8 And I said, well, that to me looks like a 9 confined space, and we didn't have a true safety 10 representative, safety advisor here, somebody that's 11 been to the schools and stuff.
12 ,.-% G SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
13 So I said I would recommend 14 that you fail conservative,: call confined space, get 15 the SNIF, get the permit filled out, and go from 16 there. So when we did get the safety advisor 17 involved, again, I don't think because he was sort of 18 a one-man army here the whole time, and this is a big 19 site, and there's a lot of things to put your hands 20 around, I don't think he was used to being asked 21 several layers in on this regulation. And he said, 22 "Yes, I think you're right. They should be confined 23 spaces."
24 And then, but that didn't go over well 25 within the Operations group, because it added more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 time to their surveillances, okay, because'some of 2 these areas where just like the diesel fuel storage 3 tanks -- they're in diked rooms, okay. I don't know 4 if you're familiar with -- just a big fuel storage 5 tank, but you go to the room, you climb up like a 6 five-foot ladder, and then you climb down a five-foot 7 ladder, and you're within this diked room.
8 And OSHA has these guidelines on dikes, 9 and they said anything with a vertical wall over four 10 foot, with limited means of egress, should be 11 considered confined space. So Operations wasn't real 12 keen on'-.- they accepted it, but they didn't embrace 13 it.
14 MR. BARBER: Was there fixed ventilation 15 in the area?
16 There is installed 17 ventilation, okay, but again, we weren't mature enough 18 as a group, as a safety environment, to sit here and 19 know that these are the things that we should be 20 looking at. I mean, they came up later on, okay, but 21 again, even if they came up five days later, you know, 22 people thought we were being wishy-washy as far as 23 Safety Council guys go.
24 And we're like no, we -- I looked at what 25 -- as much as I knew at the time. There was no one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 else here to ask, and I gave the guys the OSHA 2 printouts from the OSHA website, and I said, "This is 3 the criteria. Here's the position papers that 4 specifically states a dike." They even wanted to say 5 that I -- the top-loading dumpster, you know, the 6 dumpster you would see where people throw material 7 in --
8 \ SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is a confined --
9 -- is a confined space, unless 10 it's got the type where the front face will open up.
11 Okay? Unless you securely affix a stair -- I mean, 12 there's a bunch of criteria there that you don't 13 realize until you start r~eading these things.
14 And so then we started looking at trying
.15 to, I'll say, go through them one on one, like, okay, 16 does it have permanently installed ventilation, does 17 it have permanently installed lighting, and so onand 18 so forth.
19 But again, that would be just a good 20 example of how it just -- it wasn't well received. It 21 wasn't meant to be a shot at anybody. It's just, hey, 22 this is what we found, and this is what we think it 23 is, and --
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you're talking 25 about the confined spaces and that Operations didn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 embrace the concept that these are -- the diesels were 2 in the -- the diesel tanks were in the confined 3 spaces, because it would take longer to get certain 4 job surveillances done, who do you bring those 5 concerns to?
6 Let's see. At the time we 7 brought them -- well, we took -- the issue would have
.8 been to like' He's our 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
11 *He would have been the one 12 initially who said, "Yes, I think" -- he said, "I 13 guess, you know, you're right. ' Go ahead. Post them 14 confined space," which we told him, "Theyalready 15, are. You know, we already.posted them that."
16 And theh, later on, I guess -- well, t i7 who is in Operations, he works with us, okay, 18 and--
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The shift manager 20 position, is that --
21 He's not a shift -- I don't 22 think he's a shift manager. I mean, see, we've had 23 this reorg.lately. I know he holds a -- he could be 24 a I mean, he holds it--
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is he work NEAL R. GROSS -
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L*
1 managemlentrfl 7 2 es.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don't mean to keep 4 guessing, but it's -- I thought he's a shift manager 5 position, but he works under -- he controls work 6 management?
7 I think for work management.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
9 Ithink you're correct.
- 10. SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. Okay.
11 . Okay. So took that to him, 12 and by then we.,had already figured out that, hey, our 13 safety manual is kind of -- I don't want. to say .it's 14 wrong, but I don't know what's. exactly right* I'm not 15 an expert in it. You know what I mean? You're kind 16 of being self-taught throtigh this.
17 But-when you look at our safety manual, it 18 talks about confined spaces, and it calls them Cat. 1 19 and Cat. 2. Okay? And when you read the OSHA 20 regulationsk they call them-`a.prmitted space and a 21 non-permitted space. And we used to be, years ago 22 before we even had safety councils, I remember there 23 being a thing called a permitted space *and a non-24 permitted space. And, boy, it seemed awfully hard to 25 figure out, because I don't think we ever really COURT NEAL R. GROSS REPORTERS AND TRAN SCRIBERS 1323 RHODEISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 explained it real -- in easy terms. Okay?
2 So when you look at - - there was a change 3 during that shutdown where we went to Cat. 1 and 4 Cat. 2, and according to, I believe, it was 5 because we couldn't follow the Old program very well.
6 We actually made ours more stringent, okay, which 7 would keep people safer. That was the thought."
8 process.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what point in 10 time was this?
11 I'm going to say probably '97,
- 12. '98, somewhere around there, we went to these Cat. 1 13 and Cat. 2's. And when you look at it, once you call 14 something a confined space, like we were calling these 15 dikes, okay, now you come to our book and a Cat. 2, 16 which is the lesser of two evils, however, still 17 needed a safety man, and still. needed a SNIF prior to 18 entry 'Okay? Cat. 1 had more stringent things than 19 that, but that was a Cat. 2.
20 If you used OSHA's terminology, those 21 dikes would be a confined space, non-permitted. You 22 would post them. At least we even drew up a little 23 thing over there that said -- you know, this would be 24 the sign. It would say, "Caution: Confined Space, 25 Non-Permitted, Do Not Introduce Any Chemicals, No NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 Burning, Cutting Grinding. Do Not Alter the Egress 2 Points of the Space." Like don't build a scaffold 3 right in front of the thing.
4 So if that was down there hanging on the 5 wall, okay, and our safety manual used permitted and 6 non-permitted as the terminology, you would need a 7 SNIF once a year, and you would have that basically 8 assessment available for employees to look at if they 9 wanted to, which we're going to put them on our health 10 and safety website.
11 We were going to say diesel fuel storage 12 tank, confined space, non-permitted. These are the 13 reasons why. Ventilation, permanently-installed
- 14. lighting. Yes, limited means of egress. However, the 15 probability of engulfment is -- we're considering 16 catastrophic. The tank would have to actually 17 catastrophically fail. So that risk is very minimal 18 of that.
19 So it's a non-permitted space. This is 20 when the atmosphere was tested, and then -I believe to 21 comply with OSHA if an employee would like to actually 22 see that test performed, they have that opportunity.
23 They could request their own personal SNIF before they 24 went in.
25 But no safety man, no SNIF every time you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 go in. Okay? So we're like, this is -- this is the 2 out. We change our safety program to do what OSHA is 3 saying, right? We are being a little bit more safer 4 with our employees, because somebody could go into 5 that dike, and suppose they decide to re-epoxy the 6 floor or something. Well, if they're down there with, 7 you know, solvents and stuff, they could be overcome.
8 So that was our suggestion for, like, what 9 could solve the problem, and it gets Ops out of -- you 10 know, they don't need the safety man now. They don't 1i need the SNIFs every time they go in.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're still 13 complying with the OSHA regulations?
14 .Actually, we're probably doing 15 them verbatim.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
17 I mean, yes, the Cat. 2 way, 18 we were doing them, but we were overdoing them.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
20 You know? And we're just --
21 we didn't get -- we're still Cat. 1 and Cat. 2. And 22 I - kind of tried. And, you know, I am fuzzy as 23 far as who talked to who and at what times and stuff, 24 but I know --
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1 Yes, nd I and 2 we went and talked to Safety. And another 3 thing was was, well, we donit want to change the 4 safety program right before the outage. I mean, we 5 don't -- because if you make a big program change, 6 then you've got to document that you trained all of 7 these people.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this recently?
9 Yeah. This was probably I'm 10 going to say like six weeks ago.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this who?
12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:.
14 go 15 -SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And his title is 16 he's the safety --
17 He's a and he's -- he 18 works -- they actually created like a safety position 19 on Ops to kind of stay -- kind of like those -- what 20 I was saying my special job was which was to stay day 21 work, somebody stay grounded, see the different shifts 22 come through and try to get them all doing, you know 23 try to commonize things, get people doing things 24 the same way.
25 So we took that to Safety, and they were NEAL R. GROSS 11 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 like, "Well, I don't want to change the safety program 2 and everything." And !even offered up, he said, I
3 "Okay. We'll offer you the people." I mean, I think 4 that -- you know, like as an example, "I thinA 5 knows enough about it right now, with, in conjunction, 6 the safety manual, or you write up what you think the 7 material needs to be, and I'll roll it out, we'll have 8 one of these new signs."
9 I mean, it's not a drastic change. I 10 mean, it is. a change from Cat. 1 and Cat. 2. And, 11 yes, the forms are different. But, you know, we would 12 be going around posting a lot more places that right 13 now onsite aren't posted as confined spaces, because 14 I'll say we actually had a meeting where we sat down with some of the guys from.the firehouse, w5 and we were
- 16. debating this. Is it a confined space, or is it not?
17 And it all dealt with permanent ventilation, lighting, 18 so on and so forth.
19 And it seemed like we were trying so hard 20 to say that it wasn't a confined space, because we 21 didn't want to get stuck in the one or two choice, 22 right, that we created --
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To avoid a posting?
24 - Yeah. We created arguments to 25 say, "Well, it's not truly a confined space, then,"
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1 when in reality we should have been saying, "Yes, it's 2 a confined space, but it's a non-permitted space."
3 Okay?
4 There is no really present danger right 5 now, but employees -- you know, if the sign was there, 6 they would be, you know, afforded knowledge to say, 7 "Okay. We shouldn't do this or do that."
a MR. BARBER: The presumption is if it's 9 considered a confined space and you have to get a SNIF 10 test, you have to have safety, you may have to have 11 extra controls, extra ventilation, what have you --
12 jjBecause.we didn't -- an 13 and I talked about it. Because we didn't hold our 14 ground on saying, "This is what our program should be.
15 And if we call this room a confined space, what is the 16 impact?" To me, it's a sign on the wall, and the 17 assessment goes into the website.
18 MR. BARBER: Well, what's interesting 19 about this, you're actually espousing something that 20 would build. in flexibility that would be allowed by 21 OSHA, because your current program, the way you 22 describe it, if I understand correctly, is such that 23 right now it is -- or space that was labeled as such 24 would require a SNIF test --
25 JRight..
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1 MR. BARBER: -- prior to entry.
3 MR. BARBER: Whether it was Cat. 1 or 4 Cat. 2.
6 MR. BARBER: There's no differentiation as 7 far as--
8 Exactly.
9 MR. BARBER: -- the fact that there is 10 going tobe a built-in time delay, you have to do this 11 additional --
12 And you have to have safety --
13 MR. BARBER: -- atmospheric testing to 14 verify that the conditions are acceptable.
.15 . Right. So, then, there was 16 different conversations where people came back and 17 they said, "Well, you know what? We think you guys 18 are right. We think we should do it." And we 19 actually had somebody, I don't know who, but somebody 20 went and pulled the safety manual from Power, okay?
21 And I'm not real clear with all this 22 stuff, but like PSEG Power we're like a subdivision 23 of. The Power constitutes all our fossil plants.
24 Okay? And theirs is just kind of like what we're 25 talking about. It's a permitted/non-permitted -- and NEAL R. GROSS kk '1 r -'
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1 we were like just take the -- the Power's safety 2 thing, and just like copy, paste, and make that ours.
3 MR. BARBER: Right.
4 And, you know -- again, you 5 know, people didn't want to change, because they 6 thought, well, there's -- a) they didn't think they 7 wanted -- needed the change, and then b) when they 8 thought, "Ah, I think you guys are right, we should 9 change," then they were like, "Well, we shouldn't do 10 it before an outage. We should do it after an 11 outage." And that's a 50/50 call.
.12 But I can't even begin to express how much 13 energy-went into all of that. I mean, there was a lot 14 of e-mails, phone calls, prints, you know, going to i5 different things, websites, you know, and a lot of 16 energy.
17 MR. BARBER: Now, one of the things that, 18 you know, you mentioned earlier when you were talking 19 - - describing your job responsibilities is you said 20 you were a And 21 obviously there's different requirements for doing 22 surveys, and what have you, and establishing 23 contamination controls for various areas.
24 In your, say, recent year or so, maybe two 25 years, have you ever noticed the situations, or have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 situations come up that have caused you to question 2 whether something was being done properly from a 3 radiological safety standpoinit as far as, you know, 4 either contamination controls or airborne controls, 5 exposure controls? Anything of that nature? Is there 6 anything --
7 *MMI7jLet me think here. I mean--
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Take a minute, and 9 I'm going to go --
10 Okay.
ii SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- I want to change 12 the power on this. I see it flickering.
13 J0kay..
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It' s approximately
-15 2:46 p.m.
16 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 17 foregoing matter went off the record.)
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 19 record. It's 2:47. ,
20 Okay. In regards to 21 stuff, I mean, yeah, it seems 22 there are lots of times we questioned stuff. And, you 23 know, I would say -- and it's going to sound like 24 tooting a horn, because I'm (inaudible), but we have 25 a -- what I consider a real good relationship as far NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 as being able to bring up issues.
2 You know, you might not always get the 3 answer you want to hear, but at least it's explained 4 this is, you know, why we're doing what we're doing.
5 And you can say, "Well, okay. You know, at least I 6 understand where they're coming from."
7 But I'll give you a couple of examples.
8 We had an OE come out just a couple of days ago, but 9 the OE was from back almost a month ago. I think it 10 was Fort Calhoun where some workers entered a 11 platform, a steam generator platform from above.
12 And our -- you know, I tried to envision 13 what Fort Calhoun looks like, even though I've never 14 been there. But, you know, we have steam generator 15 platforms, and we have what we consider catwalks that 16 goabove them as well. It sounds to me that at Fort 17 Calhoun the ladder to get to the platform comes off 18 the catwalk and goes down. At our station, there's a 19 ladder that goes up to the platform.
20 But nonetheless, the changes of -- in this 21 case here the guy went down the ladder, but for us it 22 could be just somebody out looking for a valve, and 23 the next thing you know they-go down -- it's only like 24 10 feet. You know, you could easily climb down there, 25 you know, over some pipes. I mean, you're not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 supposed to be out there climbing around to begin 2 with, but nonetheless, you know, climbing is part of 3 the nature of a plant, and so people could wind up 4 down there.
5 So I went to --
6 MR. BARBER: What was the point of OE?
7 Was it overexposure or contamination?
8 No. They only picked up one 9 millirem, but they had entered --
10 MR. BARBER: Okay.
11 -- they had entered a posted 12 greater than 1R area when their RWP and their brief 13 only had allowed them up to an HRA. So they really 14 went --
15 MR. BARBER: Okay.
16 Q j 3 -- beyond where they were 17 briefed to go, and they weren't authorized to go.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 j.From our perspective, our RWPs 20 would allow you to go up to a greater than IR area.
21 However, just because what you've signed in allows you 22 to go there, to me you'd still be in problem land, 23 because the person went somewhere they weren't told or 24 authorized to go.
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1 that would allow them there, they didn't get 2 permission to go into the area. So I knew we had the 3 same problem, so I went t who is ou 4 - Qat Salem, and I said, "Hey, I read this OE.
5 And the thing that struck me was on their corrective 6 actions they were putting down there, and I didn't see 7 it." And, of course, this is a synopsis, so I don't 8 know that they said they were going to consider --
9 that was the word that I saw that was missing.
10 But it said they were looking at building 11 an enclosure to keep people out of this place, and I 12 thought, whew, that's like a big enclosure -- it's 13 like a big net or something. And I'm thinking, you 14 know, I wouldn't want to have to do that. I mean, I 15 would -- I think there are some other things you could 16 do up to that that you could do.
17 MR. BARBER: All right.
18 13 So I went to and I 19 said, "Hey, I just read this OE." And I said, "We've 20 got the same type platforms. We don't have the ladder 21 and all of that, but, you know, people could go down 22 there. And I think maybe in many, many years past 23 people have wandered down there, and they've kicked 24 them off." But same thing, they entered an area they 25 weren't authorized to go.
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1 So I said, "Why don't we have our 2 photographer go in and take some pictures from the
( 3 vantage if you were on the catwalk and you were 4 thinking of going through the rail and then venturing 5 out there. We'll get one from -- going down the 6 catwalk this way, and one coming back the other way."
7 And what we'll do is we'll laminate --
8 we'll print them out, laminate them, and put some 9 verbiage that says access to those platforms requires 10 RP permission, and access is down on the ground, not 11 from above.
12 MR. BARBER: Okay.
13 Access from above is strictly 14 prohibited.
15 MR. BARBER: Okay.
16 So on and so forth. So we'll 17 take them, laminate them, put them up on the rails 18 where these people could -- would maybe venture into 19 them, and then we'll also give them to the HPs down at 20 the briefing spot that they could say, "Okay. You're 21 going up on that catwalk. Here's your dose rates and 22 everything. Be mindful that this area you're not 23 allowed to go. You should also see pictures with 24 signs that say the same thing, that that's not an 25 authorized access point."
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1 And, you know, he was like, oh, great.
2 You know, that was a good thing.
3 MR. BARBER: Okay.
4 But some of the things -- Ill 5 give you, you know, I don't know if this really fits 6 the realm of -- but I'll say we struggled through it, 7 was ANI's assessment that said that we should not be 8 allowing people to wear scrubs to work ifi contaminated 9 areas and then exit the control point with the same 10 scrubs on.
11 The industry kind of worked themselves 12 that way in I'll call it -- it was a production thing.
13 I could allow people to go in -- if I had a relatively 14 clean containment building, I could set you up with 15 modesty clothing that were purchased by the company.
16 Okay? You wear these scrubs into the containment 17 building.
18 And if I don't think you have a very big 19 probability of getting contaminated, you know, I'd let 20 you go in there and do your work and come out -- in 21 essence, using the machines at the control point, the 22 personnel contamination monitors, as a like go/no-go 23 thing. And due to the events out at Davis-Besse where 24 they had particles get offsite, and then also down I
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1 contamination get offsite.
2 So ANI came back and said, "You know, you 3 can't -- this scrub thing, you can't be doing business 4 that way." What you need to do is that when people go 5 in to do work in a contaminated area, they need to 6 remove -- they need to remove something, whether it's 7 -- they remove the scrubs and they're standing there 8 in their underwear, or whether they've actually donned 9 PCs and removed the PCs.
10 But that clothing, that outer layer of 11 clothing, needs to go in the receptacles. That way 12 you're increasing your probability that the machine 13 won't see any activity to have to differentiate 14 between is there or isn't there.
15 MR. BARBER: Welli help me understand 16 this. Were you saying that in the cases that were 17 being cited by ANI, which weren't here --
18 U. Right.
19 MR. BARBER: -- right, they were 20 elsewhere, were they concerned that scrubs were being 21 used in place of protective clothing, in place of PCs?
22 And they were, because you 23 don't have to -- EPRI has a guide out there for heat 24 stress. And when you look at the latest EPRI guide, 25 it'll say that they use scrubs in parentheses, and NEAL R. GROSS )_..--1 '
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1 then they give you a four-ounce -- I think it's a 2 four-ounce fabric weight, that when that material is 3 worn basically with shorts and a T-shirt that it adds 4 no heat stress. That's considered baseline.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 00 Okay? If you were to take 7 that same person, take their scrubs off, shorts and a 8 T-shirt, and they put on the -- what's considered the 9, cotton PCs --
10 Ma. BARBER: Right.
11 -- okay, you had to add six 12 degrees to their, actual working environment 13 temperature --
14 MR. BARBER: Okay.
15 to develop a heat stress 16 factor. So, I mean, that was the thing, in my 17 opinion, even though I haven't been out on the circuit 18 doing different outages, but that was the thing, 19 because people would come here with the scrubs that 20 had the different logos from the different plants.
21 That was a production thing and a safety thing, 22 because I could put you in scrubs, a) add no heat 23 stress to you.
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1 didn't have to get dressed out, b) you could come out 2 bing-bong through the machine, you were clean, go have 3 a coffee, go to the bathroom, go right back in, go 4 back to work, and there's a lot of missed steps there.
5 But ANI, as a whole, said, you know, "Due 6 to these events," and I don't know exactly -- I'm not 7 -- I'm just a* I don't know how they'd 8 come out and say it, but they'd come out and say it'.s 9 a- discouraged practice. And I would imagine if you 10 want to do it, you can, but you'll pay for it with 11 your premium or something. I don't know how they work 12 that.
13 But, you knowi ANI is basically saying, 14 "We don't encourage that practice," that you should 15 put your people in protective clothing.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay. Now, was that ever 17 allowed here? Were you ever allowed --
18 With the scrubs? Yes. So
.19 then --
20 MR. BARBER: Sq you were, in fact, 21 allowing that? Where people could go into a 22 contaminated area, do whatever work they were doing, 23 and exit. They still would have to frisk, I presume, 24 right? "
25 Right.\
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1 MR. BARBER: There's still a whole body 2 frisk?
3 That is correct.
4 MR. BARBER: And then, they go to the exit 5 point for the RCA, or wherever they are, and have to 6 do some sort of --
7 iYeah, they get on a machine 8 there and --
9 MR. BARBER: Right, the --
10 -- an electronic machine that 11 measures you.
12 MR. BARBER: Okay.
13 But those machines -- and 14 that's what.gets ANI worried, and a lot of it is 15 public relations -- is those machines are set up -- I 16 mean, you can't take them down to zero, because you 17 couldn't get a body out through them. You know what 18 I mean?
19 MR. BARBER: Right.
20 So there is a level at which 21 they're set at, and, you know, if you allowed --
22 you're just increasing your probability.
23 MR. BARBER: Right.
24 9You know, the probability is 25 much less if I take, you know --
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You take that 2 layer --
3 0 -- if I take that whole layer 4 off and throw it out, I mean, there's a pretty good 5 chance that nothing'is on me to begin with.
6 MR. BARBER: So you would by that -- if 7 you followed that practice, you might allow scrubs, 8 but then you would require them to remove them, either 9 put on new scrubs on some other type clothing, street 10 clothing.
11 12 MR. BARBER: And then they would, in fact-,
13 become like your protective clothing.
14 j Correct. And they wouldn't 15 add any heat stress.
16 MR. BARBER: Okay.
17 And actually, that's what we 18 did. Before we jumped into the EPRI guide, well, I 19 knew it, but* I didn't real the whole thing -- and I 20 should have, because -- I just got to a block and I 21 was like, ah, that's what I was looking for, and I 22 didn't keep going.
23 But so what we did in the summertime, as 24 we were trying to make -- we were making the 25 transition, but .we didn't communicate it real well to NEAL R. GROSS t1.1- ý COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 the whole site --
2 MR. BARBER: Okay.
3 -- that that's why we were 4 doing what we were doing.
5 MR. BARBER: Okay.
6 And communications being the 7 key to everything, people just saw it as like HPs are 8 changing their minds. I mean, you know, what are you 9 doing? Are you telling us we can do this and we can't 10 do that?. It really wasn't globally communicated that, 11 you know, this is the reason why, and it all had to do 12 with ANI.
13 We have since redone that when we did a 14 rollout forthis outage, because in the summertime we 15 went out and bought scrubs with what you call bell-16 bottomed pants, because scrubs you can't pull off over 17 these work boots. That's the problem with scrubs.
18 MR. BARBER: Okay.
19 So some of the things we.were 20 doing creatively were we set up a pair of surgical 21 scissors, you know, the kinds with the rounded ends so 22 you can't cut your skin, like an EMT would use. We 23 put some of them down at the step-off pat, because in 24 the summertime our containments are like 125, 130 25 degrees inside. 1!
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1 So if we have work activities, which we 2 do, 15-minute stay times, scrubs are the way to go, 3 because they don't add any heat stress to you. But 4 you've got to lose them at the step-off pat. So we 5 were letting surgical scissors down there and telling 6 them just, you know, have shorts on and just cut the 7 scrubs off and throw them in the trash, because we're 8 kind of phasing them out anyhow, so it don't matter if 9 they go in the trash can or not.
10 Then, we got the idea that, you know, this 11 isn't going to go on forever like this. Eventually, 12 we're going to run out of scrubs. So then we bought 13 these bell-bottomed ones that you could pull off and
.14 not have to cut them off. And what we did there was 15 we bought them in a different color. We bought a 16 magenta, and we kind of put out to the workforce that 17 we were buying these magenta ones.
18 Again, shorts and T-shirt, if you wear 19 them, no additional heat stress. Take them off, and 20 they'll get laundered and they'll go back on the 21 shelves.
22 But that's like maintaining two types of 23 protective clothing. And we'ultimately came upon this 24 thing for the outage where we could buy these 25 polyester -- they're called -- some people call them NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 Tyvec -- Tyvec suits. They're made by Dupont.
2 They're protein -- they actually called them 3 Protein 2000 in the EPRI guide. And we have them.
4 They're more for when you're working around wet 5 environments. Not plastics where you'd actually be 6 immersed in water, but where water might splash on 7 you. They're kind of water repellant, not water-8 proof.
9 MR. BARBER: Okay.
10 9J So they're real lightweight.
11 Well, EPRI says, "Hey, they don't add anything 12 either." So we said, ah, so we already buy them, so 13 we kind of converted half of our inventory over to 14 getting these Protein 2000's. So --
15 MR. BARBER: And these will be laundered?
16 And they'll be laundered.
17 They're yellow. They've got the anti-C label, just 18 like everything else.
19 MR. BARBER: Okay.
20 S"And so they'll be right there 21 next to the cotton coveralls. So if we think a guy is 22 going to go down, and he's going to be on his hands 23 and knees, and-he's going to be like putting the pump 24 in his lap and stuff like that, that would be more 25 like cotton coveralls, because they offer a thicker, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 more-protective environment.
2 MR. BARBER: Okay.
3 .Mi. J The nylon ones, you know, 4 they're good for things that kind of blow up or brush 5 up against you, but not for down and dirty hard work.
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
7 But the moral of that whole 8 thing is that, you know, we were challenged all the 9 way, even within RADPRO, you know, because nobody --
10 we didn't do a good job communicating it. And, you 11 know, so there was even people within RADPRO --
12 supervision and workers -- that are like, this is 13 stupid. You know, why can't we use the scrubs?
- 14 And in hindsight, we just kept pressing and pressing.
15 You know, I don't know why we never communicated, 16 communicated, but we didn't --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you did, were 18 you able to make a point? Were you able to say, 19 "Look, this is the concern. This is why we're doing 20 what we're doing,".and was that accepted onsite?
21 Yes. Yes. And it was through 22 this last -- we did a big global thing right before 23 the outage where we put out a -- like a safety FYI, 24 basically telling people that, no, our safety manual 25 doesn't address some of this new stuff from EPRI.
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1 However, we can't continue -- that was an 2 example just like confined space, where we just did 3 the opposite. We actually said, "Hey, we know we 4 can't revise all 2,000 safety manuals overnight. But 5 this is the conservative, it's the better thing to do, 6 and we're doing it."
7 - , SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
8 So I don't know why the one 9 did and the other one didn't, but they are two classic 10 examples where it's -- you.know, if I had to give you Ii a flavor, it's just the consistency. You-know, it's 12 consistently, you know, holding the bar at a certain 13 level, you know.
14 And if and when you ever get to it, I 15 mean, the corrective action program, that's my -- near 16 and dear to me, because I just don't know that -- that 17 -- we use SAP, and it's a fine tool for doing a fair i8 amount of documentation. And it probably could be 19 ultimately tailored to do what we need it to do, but 20 I don't think it's the -- it's not real clean.
21 When you go to look up something that was 22 written up, and then you go to follow it through its 23 life' and how it got resolved, it can be done.. And 24 it's not that it's like solving E equals MC squared.
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1 MC squared, and that would go all the way up to 2 probably a fair amount of first-line supervisors.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To track a corrective 4 action all the way through its resolution?
5 00 Yes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in 7 corrective action in terms of raising concerns at any 8 level -- are you aware of any event that would 9 discourage anybody from raising a concern, in that 10 they -- they got a negative response if they took 11 something to the corrective action program, or they 12 took something to ECP, or even to the NRC? Are you 13 aware of any event that someone had some sort of a 14 negative adverse consequence to them for raising a 15 concern?
16 I wouldn't say that I'm aware 17 of anybody actually having a consequence. Okay? I 18 would say that, you know, I do believe that everybody 19 -- I mean, that's a big word -, everybody -- but I 20 think that everybody feels that they can get into SAP 21 and document an issue. Okay?
22 And even -- so, a) I think they can do 23 that. I think they can raise an issue, and I don't 24 think, you know, when you say repercussion of 25 something actually happening to them, I don't think NEAL R. GROSS t -
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1 that that's the concern as much as it is the -- it's 2 just this underlying tone of like -- well, kind of 3 like with the confined space stuff and everything, you 4 know.
5 It wasn't -- you know, it's not like 6 you're looking for a pat on the back. But at the same 7 time you're not looking for like one of those. You 8 know, just like --
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where do you --
10 Like a roll of the eyes.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Like where are you 12 coming from with this, or is this necessary kind of 13 thing, or -- you have to explain that better, because 14 it's not going to translate well.
15 1 know. The computer- I 16 mean, the tape recorder doesn't pick that up.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How are they --
18 what's the response that people might get?
19 Well, if it's -- like I said, 20 if it's something that goes against what's been done, 21 you know, because we're -- we are people that are 22 built on, you know, past practices and the way it has 23 worked before, and so if it kind of goes against that, 24 it's -- and I can't get into other people's minds.So 25 maybe when you get into your interview process, maybe NEAL R. GROSS r9 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 you'll come upon a few folks that are in that 2 position, because when it's -- like that sign, you 3 know, on the bioshield, that was like, ah great, man, 4 good idea. You know, go with it, you know?
5 Of course, that doesn't impact anybody.
6 I'm trying to think of one that would have impacted.
7 MR. BARBER: Well, how about the one that 8 -- on the confined space?
9 The confined space was one --
10 MR. BARBER: Was there a perception that 11 that would make it more restrictive? Even though, in 12 fact, it made it less, but there was a perception that 13 it would make it more restrictive, so --
i4 . j Well, it was more restrictive 15 in the fact that that's what our safety manual said.
16 So if we went out and threw a confined space tag up on 17 that dike, and we followed our program the way it was 18 written, yes, we were impacting the workforce, and, 19 you know, I mean --
20 MR. BARBER: But, in actuality, you 21 weren't.
22 Rgt 23 ýMR. BARBER: But they didn't know that.
24 ' Right. And, yeah, I mean, 25 that's a perfect example where, you know, there were NEAL R. GROSS .\ j _. It COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 people, including union guys. They're like, you know, 2 you've got to be kidding me. That thing has never 3 been a confined space. You know what I mean? And 4 it's like, well, it is.
5 And, I mean, I could go on like I kind of 6 explained to you, and I explained to some of my --
7 likeq I sat him down and I said, "This is driving 8 me nuts, *" I said -- I showed him the sign that we 9 made up, and I gave him the five-minute spiel. I 10 said, "If I change this tomorrow, could you follow I1 this?"
12 (End of Tape 1, Side A. Beginning of Tape 1, Side B.)
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 14 3:06'p.m. Okay.
15 So we ran it -- you know, I 16 ran it by -- and I even ran it by a couple of 17 supervisors and they were like, "Yes, you know, it's 18 not" -- again, I think because., why didn't it work 19 before? Because it was just one guy. Go back to '97 20 when it wasn't working. Same system, permitted/non-21 permitted. Didn't work.
22 He must have had -- at the time, I was 23 involved in safety, but let's suppose that the Safety 24 Department saw time and time and time again where 25 people were just either entering the space, is not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 getting the SNIFs. Who knows what they were doing, 2 but he saw problems, and that's the only way he could 3 see to do it.
4 Now he has literally 70 agents, union 5 people, supervisors -- we meet once a month -- from 6 all across that, you know, I understand, that 7 understands, this guy understands it. So we go out 8 there and we can help get the knowledge out there, and 9 the knowledge base is more willing to open their ears 10 and listen to it where they weren't -- you could have 11 asked me five or six years ago about a confined space, 12 I would have said, "Well, hopefully HPs don't go into 13 them very often." You know, and I don't know much 14 about them. But, I mean, I know a lot more about them 15 today, and I think that when we have a safety meeting 16 more people are not dozing off in the corner.
17 You know, they're actually like hearing 18 you, and so it's being received. The knowledge is 19 being received better. It's just that when it comes 20 down to impacting things -- or, like I said, and that 21 even goes with union guys, if it goes against what was 22 a past practice -- if all of a sudden I say, "Hey, 23 when you're out raking traveling screens you need to 24 be in a body harness, because there's a fall hazard 25 there," the guy is like, "Dude, I was raking traveling NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 screens when you were, you know, 10 years old. And 2 I've never had a problem up hbre. "
3 But I'm like, "Yes, but you're six foot 4 from a leading edge, and you're six foot up. And, you 5 know, either we need to get rails, which we can't do 6 right now because of whatever." You know, so it's 7 just the mind-set like, you know --
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Past practice --
92 -- past practice.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- mind-set.
11 "Yes. And he could tell you, 12 "Name me somebody that has been hurt," and I can't.
13 And that's what is the odd part about the safety 14 program, because, you know, somebody might bring up 50 15 -- I might have a list of 100 safety things. Now 16 which one do I go after first? Because I don't know.
17 I mean, no, nobody has been hurt on the 18 traveling screen. So I divert my attention over here, 19 and then tonight somebody falls off a traveling 20 screen. You just -- you can't predict, you know, when 21 that -- if it's a 1 in 10,000 odds of something 22 happening, we've been here 20 years, some of these 23 tasks have probably been done 20-, 30,000 times. If 24 there hasn't been a hit against it, you're coming up 25 on your probability or you already exceeded your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 probability of something happening.
2 S6, but I think Ill just go back to the 3 global thing. Where we were and where we are and 4 where we need to be, I mean, I hear about these plants 5 that go two years without an OSHA recordable, and, I 6 mean, I think -- I just left containment the other 7 day, and we did a walkdown, which I was going to --
8 that's something I was going to provide you with. I 9 just made one, but it was the result of our safety 10 stand-out.
11 And I saw a containment that was much 12 safer than it had ever been as far as people in their 13 body harnesses and, you know, cords correctly strong, 14 all gas bottles secured. You know, we Went in there 15 looking for just about anything we could find, and I 16 thought the place looked very good.
17 MR. BARBER: From an industry safety 18 standpoint.
19 From an industry safety 20 standpoint.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And just for the 22 record --
23 W have more industrial safety 24 or OSHA reportables than we -- you know, we've got 22 25 or something like that.
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1 This would have been -- well, 2 let's see, they just had thei£ outage in the spring.
3 So pre April of 2003, somewhere in that fuel cycle, 4 whether it was the last eight operating months of that 5 fuel cycle, due to the leaky fuel pins, you know, I 6 mean, it was just the thing that -- the right thing to 7 do was to limit the ascension in power.
8 Even though the plant was ready to run and 9 you could -- you would wish you could just ramp up 10 like you normally ramp up, but we had -- we were 11 really restricted on the part of -- it was like one 12 percent every four hours.
13 So if you came down to 25 percent due to 14 a loss of a piece of equipment, it literally took you 15 like two days, three days, to bring the unit back up 16 to 100 percent.
17 MR. BARBER: Did you say one percent every 18 four hours?
19 It was some really long 20 MR. BARBER: Okay.
21 You'd have to look into the 22 particulars.
23 MR. BARBER: Yes. I'm thinking one 24 percent an hour, but I get your point. It was very 25 slow and protracted.Q 7 NEAL R. GROSS ""
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1 JYes. And, you know, everybody 2 is like -- you'd come in and be like, "Man, I'm 3 (inaudible) at like 60 percent. It's going to be like 4 another day until they -- or two days" -- whatever it 5 was, you know.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
7 And, but, I mean, we knew that 8 that was the right thing to do. I mean, that was 9 communicated in e-mail so that the questions weren't 10 being -- well, questions were still being raised. You 11 know, it was like geez, this is, you know, hurting us, 12 but at the'same time it was clearly understood that i3 from a nuclear safety point of view that's what needed 14 to be done.
15 SPECIAL AGENTNEFF: That was the rate 16 that the power could ascend, so --
17 Right. And that's what the 18 engineers were recommending, and, you know, and 19 Operations was following engineering's 20 recommendations. So, I mean, that's an example. I 21 can't honestly say --
22 MR. BARBER: How about an example of 23 something where there might have been some production 24 pressures over, say, radiological safety? I mean, 25 let's just roll back. in time to before the outage.
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1 You're getting things set up for the outage. You're 2 maybe laying out -- you know, expanding contaminated 3 control boundaries, looking at the way things are 4 going to be done, and maybe even working on procedures 5 and processes.
6 And invariably in doing those kinds of 7 things, there's going to be differences of opinions 8 where people say, "Well, you know, we should do this, 9 or-we should do that." To your knowledge, in things 10 you were personally involved with, was there ever a 11 situation where you felt like you got pressed. to do 12 something as an expedient? In other words, to do it 13 just to get something done, so that some job or some 14 activity could take place? Whether it was in the 15 outage or maybe before that.ý 16 j Well, there was a mini outage 17 in August, I believe.
18 MR. BARBER: What unit?
19 I'm going to say Unit 1.
20 Unit 1.
21 MR. BARBER: Okay.
22 jl And I'm not sure what forced 23 the outage, but the -- they went into the bioshield 24 and found some SS661 valves leaking.
25 MR. BARBER: Well, now, what are those?
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1 T I think they were like 11 and 2 13 SS661's.
3 MR. BARBER: But which system are they 4 for?
5
- The SS is sampling.
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
K jJ And they had come right off 8 the hot legs, and they are literally sampled to -- I 9 mean, I forget the -- I think they call them block 10 valves.
11 MR. BARBER: Okay..
12 . And they were leaking, and 13 they had sprayed, you know, quite a bit of 14 contamination. It was just like a fine mist, but over 15 a large enough period of time it had managed to like 16 coat the wall and get in the cable tray -- or not the 17 cable tray but the sampling trays, and get on the 18 pipes and stuff.
19 And so we went in there to do that job, 20 and I know that -- well, the temp -- because it was 21 August, it was hot. I think it was like 109. So we 22 were working off 15-minute stay times. So, I mean, we 23 were doing a pretty good job at adhering to the 24 industrial safety, the stay times, and making sure 25 everybody was well-briefed, that they hydrated, and NEAL R. GROSS (
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1 all of those good things.
2 But I got a call out at one point that 3 these guys were in there building scaffold with a 4 flashlight. And so we said, "Okay. We'll" -- and 5 that routinely is a problem with our containment 6 buildings, because when you finally do get to a point 7 where you run for hundreds of days on end, the 8 lighting, you know, usually takes a beating. So --
9 MR. BARBER: You mean it just burns out 10 normally.
11 Yes.
12 MR. BARBER: The bulbs are burned out.
13 Just bulbs burned out.
- 14. MR. BARBER: Right.
15 So we sent in a bag of bulbs, 16 and the OCC was in the loop at this point. Okay?
17 Because they manned the 0cc, the outage control center 18 for this. And so we sent in bulbs, and when the 19 technician came out the next time -- this would have 20 been the RADPRO technician, they said that only one 21 bulb out of six fixtures - there were six fixtures in 22 the area -- proximity, and only one bulb, by replacing 23 it, fixed the problem. Evidently, they had defective 24 fixtures.
25 And don't you know Murphy's Law, the one NEAL R. GROSS Al COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 bulb that did light was actually pretty much the 2 furthest one away. So it did --
3 MR. BARBER: It didn't help.
4 *-- it did illuminate some, but 5 it did not really help the situation.
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
7 He said, "They really need to 8 have lighting in there." I said, "Okay." And then 9 there was some discussion -- and I can't even remember 10 like who they were. I mean, because there were so 11 many different people running around at the time, but 12 some people said, "Well, I got the guys here" -- the 13 scaffold was done at that point. The scaffolding was 14 done.
15 SPECIAL AGENT-NEFF: By flashlight.
16 By flashlight. And they.were 17 going to fix the -- fix the -- go in and fix --
18 tighten down on'this valve, and that would solve the 19 problem and we would be out of there. And actually, 20 I don't have the notification number, but, I mean, 21 maybe in my travels between now and tomorrow -- I know 22 the lighting thing was identified in the notification.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 . I know that was captured.
25 But, so anyhow there was talk that, hey, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS V 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 I've got the workgroup right here that's going to go 2 in and tighten down on this valve. Okay? When there 3 was discussion about getting more lighting.
4 And somebody said, "I think we should stop 5 the job until we get lighting." Now --
6 MR. BARBER: How long of an evolution is 7 it to tighten down the valve? Are we talking about 8 like packing or just taking --
9 _- Well, I think my point at the 10 time was, you know, the only people that had really 11 seen this thing was the guy that walked by it with a 12 flashlight and saw it during the initial walkdown and 13 said, "Hey, we've got a leaky valve." But the valve 14 is like 12 foot in the overhead. So you can't really 15 tell where it's leaking; you just know it's leaking.
16 And the only other people that close to it 17 were scaffold guys that were working off a flashlight.
18 So, I mean, does anybody really know what's wrong with 19 the valve? We don't know 'that yet. But there is 20 discussions that, hey, we're going to go in there and 21 tighten down on it, and we're done, we're out of 22 there. So let's not prolong this with lighting, okay?
23 We'll do that -- and I'm sitting there 24 thinking, yeah, but they still have to take down the 25 scaffold. And we have this new boron -- I won't call NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 it new -- enhanced boron -- you know, looking for 2 boron. And if it's there, you've got clean it up, 3 okay?
4 And that's been around now for almost a 5 year, where I'll say, you know, it's really super-6 focused. If there's boron on something, you know, 7 they actually have an engineer or an ISI. I'm not 8 sure what department they come from, but we have 9 people that are designated as boron -- that's their 10 job is to determine whether it's cleaned up 11 sufficiently, is what's left behind -- is it on any 12 type of metal that's going tocause problems later. on.
13 So we have people for that.
14 So We know we've got cleanup, and we know 15 we still have scaffold removal. And even though the 16 scaffold was just a kind of it was built in two 17 jumps -- two 15-minute jumps, it wasn't the biggest 18 scaffold in the world. But nonetheless, it wasn't 19 like we were just going to be out of there.
20 So I -- one person said about -- well, a 21 couple of people'said about stopping the job. Some 22 more people said, "No, I've got the team right here.
23 We can just go in and tighten down the thing, and 24 we'll be out of there."
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1 going to go." I just left the room. I went up to 2 where we store our TP. I got a stringer of lights, a 3 GFI, and an extension cord, and brought them down, and 4 met the group as they were going, and I said, "Humor 5 me. Put the lighting up, would you?" And they did, 6 and we did not take the lighting down for I think 7 another whole 30-some hours, 40-some hours, because we 8 had numerous entries in. to clean up, probably like 9 four more before 4:00.
10 Probably 10 jumps, 10, you know, crews of 11 two or three 15-minute jumps to go in and clean boron, 12 you know, off of things. So, you know, it was not 13 the job was not over by any means. And although 14 nobody uttered' the words, you know, that we're 15 starting the plant up right this second, and we've got 16 to get out of there, you know, to me it was perceived 17 that, you -know, why do we need lighting? We're not 18 going to be there.
19 You know, just - it was just the fact 20 that they took it as that's one evolution that doesn't 21 need to take place. The next evolution is to go up, 22 tighten the valve, and get out. And so, I mean, 23 that's one where I don't really know that radiological 24 safety was compromised.
25 But, I mean, any time you're working in a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 poor-lit area, I mean, you could say there's a 2 probability for something to be increased, you know, 3 whether it's a personal injury or whether it's 4 somebody getting contaminated or being able to read 5 your meter correctly.
6 MR. BARBER: How about the actual physical 7 work to do the tightening up on the valve, was that 8 performed in an adequate manner from a radiological 9 standpoint?
10 Yeah.. And I'm trying.to think 11 if this was -- see, and our problem was with these 12 661's is they are repeat offenders, and I thought at 13 one point we -- we cut them out and rewelded new ones 14 in, and that's where I think this one here all we did 15 was tighten'down and clean.
16 But at some point, I think -- and somebody
- 17. can probably dig you up the records out here on these 18 SS661's, because it seems to me that we cut them out 19 and replaced them. And to go back in and tighten-down 20 this one was one of the ones that we cut out and 21 replaced, and that was kind of the aggravating part 22 was we just cut these things out like either -- just 23 the last outage. And what did we put back in them?
24 The exact same -- you know, people are asking, is this 25 the same valve? Because it's leaking again.
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1 And when we came in this time, they are 2 leaking again. So supposedly I think they're getting 3 replaced. But,, you know, like I said, somebody could 4 give you more details on that.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who would that be?
6 Who are the crews that are involved in this incident?
7 Scaffold builders and 8 maintenance for the repair of the valve.
.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is there a 10 maintenance supervisor in particular or --
11 Whew. Maintenance 12 supervisor 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A crew or--
14 *jNo, I can't think of -- I 15 can't remember who was the maintenance supervisor.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Scaffold builders?
17 Maintenance? And you indicated there was a 18 notification written regarding the lighting issue.
19 EYes.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there also one on 21 this -- the 661 valve?
22 Yes. There was numerous 23 notifications on the SS661's.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
25 O lYeah. And when I get you the NEAL R. GROSS C,/
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1 notification, I'm pretty sure I think -- whoever put 2 it in the box had -- would have more knowledge as to 3 the scaffold end of it, because that's who -- they put 4 it in. I just remember -- because we do another 5 thing, and I'll present you with this.
6 This is -- it's a list of notifications 7 that we can sort through SAP. And this happens to be 8 a list of notifications, 54 of them, that were closed 9 during the month of September. And what we do as part 10 of our -- we have a component from those 19 components I1 from the *corporate level that talk about issue 12 resolutions. Kind of like a corrective action 13 program.
14- But because the rest of the utility 15 doesn't work to the NRC type conditions, they created 16 a chapter called Issue Resolution. And they use a 17 paper process. If they have a problem, you know, with 18 something in the field, they -- and they don't get the 19 response they're looking for, if they write it up and 20 they give it to their safety folks, the safety folks 21 are supposed to .resolve the issue and then feed back 22 to them how the issue was handled.
23 So to complete the part where you or I 24 might write up a concern and it gets addressed, we 25 don't really have any way to feed back to you that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 your problem got resolved.
2 So what we do is We run an edit through k
3 SAP, and these are all ones that closed during the 4 month of September. So what we do is import them into 5 an Excel spreadsheet, and then I send this out to all 6 of these folks.
7 And the cover letter says, you know, 8 basically, "Thanks for bringing up a safety concern.
9 As you can see, one of yours that you wrote up was 10 closed during the month of September. Please take a 11 look at the results and see if it adequately meets 12 your -- what your desire was. And if not, then get 13 back to either your supervisor -- or somebody on the 14 Safety Council or myself, and we'll look at either 15 reopening it up or writing another notification."
16 MR. BARBER: Now all of these are 17 industrial safety again? Or are they --
18 71 And they all include tagging 19 as well.
20 MR. BARBER: Okay.
21 So you'll have industrial 22 safety up to and including tagging.
23 MR. BARBER: Okay.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. This is dated 25 -- it's an e-mail from you to a number of individuals Ii NEAL R. GROSS/
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1 dated October 13th this year regarding the outcomes.
2 This list of 54 notificatiois' was recently closed 3 during the month of September 2003.
4 The incident that you were talking about 5 with this poor lighting and the maintenance crew 6 wanting to repair the valve, had you not come back 7 with this string of lights for them to use, were they 8 going to go in and fix this valve in those conditions 9 anyway? What was the decision at that point?
10 Yes. Yes. Well, I had left 11 them, so I assumed that they were. I mean, they had
- 12. flashlights in their handi and that's what they were 13 going to go do. And like I said, I know the lighting 14 got installed because they had to go with an RP tech, 15 so it was one of my co-workers that I said, you know, 16 humor me and use the lighting. And he came out and 17 said, "Big difference," you know, the lighting.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, when they added 19 it.
20 *Yes.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But the
.22 decisionmaking at that point was that anybody from 23 outside -- or was it the crew that was onsite that was 24 -- where is the pressure coming from to fix something 25 under those type of lighting conditions? 1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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1 *I honestly don't know where it 2 was coming from. You know, I mean, it may have been, 3 and maybe the paperwork -- the place I would say to
.4 look would be, you know, the forced outage daily 5 report, okay, that would basically state the status of 6 the unit, because we were -- I know we were 7 maintaining mode 3. okay?
8 So you had -- that keeps the unit at an 9 availability to come back up faster.. I mean, if 10 you're in mode 5, there is quite a few processes to 11 get yourself all the way back up to mode 1. But when 12 you maintain mode 3, it's not that it's not a safe 13 condition, but, I mean, it is a safe condition to be 14 in, and you do your walkdowns -- I'm trying to think 15 of why we even came offline at the time.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said you weren't 17 sure whether it was-a forced. outage.
18 :It was a -- well, it was a 19 forced outage. Something happened, and --
20 MR. BARBER: It was probably -- it was 21 probably there was an electrical transient that caused
- 22 a plant SCRAM. It had to do with shifting around of 23 -- it had to do with a fault I think that occurred 24 offsite, and there were some problems with the circ 25 water, the way the circ water buses got loaded.
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1 Yes.
2 MR. BARBER: And it caused a plant 3 shutdown.
4 Correct.
5 MR. BARBER: And it --
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this was August?
7 It was right -- it was --
8 July 29th is actually when it occurred. It was on a 9 Tuesday.
10 MR. BARBER: We lost offsite power, right?
11 jj( But it ran right into -- it 12 was like 2:: in the afternoon. I happen to know 13 because I happened to be here that day, and it was my 14 birthday.
15 (Laughter.)
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
17 MR. BARBER: There you go.
18 S.o there you go. So how is that for a -
19 20 MR. BARBER: That's a real good --
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I was wondering where 22 the recollection was --
- 11_.Yes. Yes.
23 24 (Laughter.)
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were right on it.
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1 Well, I was here until --
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So this is 3 '03.
4 -- 6:00 or 7:00 that night, so 5 I do remember that.
6 MR. BARBER: Happy birthday.-
7 I assume -- yeah,. thank you.
8 Yeah, it was my -- my birthday present. So if it 9 was--
10 MR. BARBER: That was the incident.
11 If it was the first of August
- 12. -- part of August, unless it was later in the --
13 MR. BARBER: Nope. It was that --
- 14. Okay.
15 MR. BARBER: That was that incident.
16 - All right. So there's where 17 you could grab some records from. like, you know,
- 18. whatever they called them at the time, you know, 19 outage -- forced outage update or whatever..
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
21 So as I recall -- and, again, 22 I'm not -- I guess part of this is me being able to 23 say, you know, as best as I recall -- as best as I 24 recall, all they were looking to do was they really 25 felt they knew what the issue was with the -- why it NEAL R. GROSS \,
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1 happened and what happened, right?
2 So everybody went -- you know, you 3 assemble your teams, you go out and you inspect the 4 containment building. If you had not been in there, 5 I don't know -- we were having some slight elevated 6 numbers I believe with our RMS. But the leak that 7 we're talking about was so small, and in a ventilated 8 area like that it wasn't -- and the bioshield being a 9 lot greater than 1OR per hour area, it's not someplace 10 you're just going to go walk in, have power, and go 1i check out.
12 So had the unit not come off line, 13 essentially that leak was really not, you know, being 14 picked up in any manner. But once it was identified, 15 right, the unit came down, so this valve is leaking.
16 We needed to repair it before we come back up. We 17 believe that we've solved the problem with why we lost 18 power to whatever buses it was. That's being worked 19 and being reviewed. That issue should be gone by 20 11:00 tonight. What else really prevents you from 21 starting up?
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
23 -You can allude that it's the 24 valve, so --
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1 II valve that has to be fixed, and now you've got poor 2 lighting over it.
3 Right. And that's what I'm 4 saying. It's not that anybody comes out and tells you 5 that that valve is what's keeping you from starting 6 up, okay, but you can read right there in the schedule 7 that they're getting ready to sore up the issue with 8 the bus or the transformer. So that issue goes away, 9 or at least it's thought that that issue is going to 10 go away very soon.
11 And the only thing left on the list is a 12 valve that's leaking in the bioshield. So there is a 13 perceived, you know, issue that, you know, the valve 14 needs fixed. But in the grand scheme of things, some 15 lighting, I mean, not that -- not that big a deal, 16 but 17 MR. BARBER: I mean, nobody came to you 18 and said, "Hey, don't put the lighting in, take the 19 extra half hour and put the lighting in."
20 Yeah. Nobody came and said, 21 ".Don't do it," but nobody was championing the cause to 22 go do it, and --
23 MR. BARBER: Well, you did.
24 Well, yeah, I did. But --
25 MR. BARBER: So, and it got done, and COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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1 * *I It got done and --
2 MR. BARBER:.' -- the work got done.
3 - - and it ended up being --
4 you know, in hindsight, maybe after we had gone in to 5 go do the cleanup somebody would have said -- or maybe 6 you before we did the cleanup, before the guy did his 7 inspection to say what needed cleaned up, he might 8 have said, "I can't do an inspection with just a 9 flashlight. I need some real lighting in here."
10 So there may have been other opportunities 11 along the line for somebody else to raise the issue of 12 lighting, but, you know, it just -- it didn't happen, 13 and -o or, I mean, it didn't happen, then it did 14 happen. But, you know -- so I think we were started 15 out with radiological, but, you know --
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was an example, 17 you're saying, potentially where there's pressure on 18 startup. Why, otherwise would they handle this without 19 the adequate lighting? If you hadn't been able to go 20 here --
21 Yes.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- you need the 23 lighting 24 Yes.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- and they were NEAL R. GROSS ,
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1 going to fix that valve anyway.
2 JLQI J Like I said, it was never like 3 there was really direction, but -- or actual words 4 spoken that said, "Hey, we've got to get this done, 5 and we don't have time for lighting." Those 6 conversations didn't take place.
7 However, on the contrast side, nobody 8 said, hey, to go in there and do this job and do it 9 right, it needs to be lit. We're getting feedback 10 that we've got one bulb in the vicinity that's giving 11 off 200 -- you know, it's a 200-watt bulb, and it's 20 12 feet away.
13 So, a) to do it safely, which that really 14 was my -- that was my major thrust, but, you know, for 15 the guys that are trying to fix it, how do they know 16 what's really wrong with it? They can't -- you know, 17 by increasing the light, you increase their 18 visibility. You reduce the chance of them missing 19 something, going back and reworking it, you know.
20 And the clean up, same thing. You know, 21' it gives the guy that's got to do the inspection, you 22 know, a whole lot more to look at than just what he's 23 going to see with a flashlight.- So --
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did anybody come to 25 you with a specific concern about that incident, about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that they were going to go ahead and fix that with the 2 inappropriate level of light?
3 - j Other than the HP that was in 4 cover and the one they were building the scaffolding, 5 you know, because he saw it, too. I mean, he saw it 6 in the perspective that, you know, a) you're in there, 7 it's 109 degrees, plus you had six for the PCs. We're 8 talking 115. And the majority of our workforce is 45 9 plus. So, you know, we don't hold up real well like 10 we used to at 110 degrees.
11 So in a sense of, I'll say again, 12 expediency -- I mean, he's thinking of it as 13 expediency -- not necessarily the reactor, but for 14 people to be able to do their jobs in a more timely 15 manner. And at 115 degrees, if they have lighting 16 they can work a little quicker versus a flashlight.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
18 So that was -- that's a good 19 example, you know, where we didn't perform too well.
20 But, you know -- but then, again, I don't know. I 21 went and got the lights, so --
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was resolved.
23 j--it was resolved. You know 24 what I mean?
25 SPECIAL.AGENT NEFF: How about anything NEAL R. GROSS K.'
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1 else where you see a production over a safety type of 2 a pressure, if it exists? Do you see that at all, I 3 mean, apart from this incident that we're talking 4 about? Where you're kind of saying that it was sort 5 of inherent in the whole situation, let's get it 6 done --
7 ... Right.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- with whatever 9 we've got for lighting.
10 No. I would say that, you 11 know, by and large, what things I can think of, you 12 know, like in the spring, you know, everybody onsite 13 is sensitive. Everybody onsite is sensitive to the 14 grassing in the river and the fact that it takes out 15 our circulators and stuff.
16 And I thought that, you know, the last 17 many years, you know, we've done a lot of down powers, 18 we've done, you know, a lot of extra manning out 19 there, you know, to address those issues. And, I 20 mean, they are twofold. I mean, when we come down in 21 power, that's less production. Okay? But at the same 22 time, you know, I know that everybody senses, you 23 know, we don't need a repeat of April 7th. You know 24 what I mean?
25 So if it means coming down in power and NEAL R. GROSS '
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1 throwing more bodies at it, you know, that's what 2 we're going to do.
3 MR. BARBER: You're referring to the 4 April 7, 1994, grassing event..
5 0j] Yeah, that's correct.
6 MR. BARBER: Okay.
7 .' So, I mean, like in that 8 respect there, I think that, you know, we -- you know, 9 that's erring on the conservative side. That's -- you 10 know, that's keeping the reactor, you know, paramount.
11 I think we do a good job with reduced water. inventory 12 during these shutdowns.
13 It's clearly communicated to the shops 14 that I'm more familiar with -- RADPRO and out around 15 the control point -- that: when we're on reduced 16 inventory, and we have fuel in the pot, and so on and 17 so forth, that, you know, everything is being done to, 18 you know, keep that water there. And, you know, any 19 leaks -- and so on and so forth.
20 So, you know, in those respects I don't 21 see production pushing nuclear safety, you know. I'd 22 say it's probably these more subtle ones, you know.
23 MR. BARBER: How about in the --
24 The ones that are like right 25 there-in your face. You know, you can see it. It's NEALR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ..
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1 pretty --
2 MR. BARBER: How about in the current
(.
3 Unit 2 outage? I mean, you gave us a little listing 4 of some things from walkdown. But in general, have 5 you seen anything that from a radiological safety 6 standpoint, or operational safety, that maybe just 7 didn't'seem quite right or that there was something 8 that, you know, just seemed out of place, anything of 9 that nature? -
10 No, not that I'm aware of.
21 We've had some issues With, you know, fault 12 protection, and I had mentioned that one earlier about 13 where scaffold is needed. And it was ironic, because 14 I didn't follow that all up.
15 But after we had walked that all down and 16 made that decision, and I apologized to the work 17 supervisor -- I said, "You know, I'm only apologizing 18 for the last half hour, because if somebody would have 19 told me right off the get-go that you're talking two 20 guys, two trips, 10 minutes of exposure hazardous 21 versus six builders of scaffold, four hours of 22 hazardous exposure, I would have still come in and 23 looked at it to see exactly what the hazards were.
24 But I probably would have allowed you to continue on."
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1 versus two and a half. But we were in there looking 2 around and looking around and looking around, and I'm 3 trying everything in the world to think of things to 4 do to make this place safe. And finally I go up where 5 we're going with this guy and I said, "Why don't they 6 just keep going with this rail? They already started 7 one." And that's when he told me the minimal amount 8 of work he had left to do.
9 I said, "I apologize for the last half 10 hour." But we still would have gone through the whole 11 other rigmarole.
12 So I go in that next day with that list 13 that we generated there, and I went to sho 14 where that issue was, and why we couldn't find a
.15 ladder thatwould fit in there to incorporate what we 16 did. And I looked' up there and I saw a scaffold 17 walkway the whole way acrops. And I said, You've got 18 to be kidding me," you know, because that's what I 19 wanted. And I didn't have it three days before, but 20 all of a sudden it's there.N.xd here insulators had 21 quite a bit of work up there 22 So because there was going to be more 23 workers up there than what the hazard was to the 24 scaffold builders, they built one. So I went around 25 to the other side and I got scaffold guys over -- I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 mean, insulators over there working where they should 2 have had the same walkway; however, they didn't.
3 And I asked the guy -- now this is a 4 contractor, and I recognized him from numerous 5 outages. I said, "Hey, why don't you guys have a 6 platform, you know, to be working off of up here?
7 Plus, you need to come down because you're not in a 8 body -- you don't have a body harness on, and you're 9 not tied off to anything."
10 And he said, "Well, we've been telling 11 them that we want a platform, but they told us that, 12 you know, they never build platforms up here. They've
- 13. never done it before, and they're not doing it." Now, 14 I didn't know.who he was referring to. I said, "Okay.
15 Well, we'll take care of that." I said, "You come 16 down." And that went on our list, and I went up to 17 the OCC and I said, "You need to make the other side 18 look just like the other side."
19 And, you know --
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the response 21 to that? .
22 They were right on it. They 23 said, you know, "We'll get them in there tonight, and 24 we'll have a scaffold built." So, like I said, we've 25 really -- it's been turned up a notch. But you're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 talking a place that employs 1,500 people or 1,600 2 people. So that same vigor and that same regimen to 3 go that path is going to -- in my opinion, it's going 4 to take a while, you know.
5 I mean, some of those people that I see up 6 in the oCC were also in the room where 7 was laying out his expectations on safety, and he was 8 basically saying that, you know, ,I think -- you know, 9 I appreciate the union guys helping out and everything 10 here, but there's only so much they can do."
12 And it's quite clear that my line 12 management isn't pulling up their end of it, because 13 these guys are running around doing a whole lot of 14 stuff that they shouldn't have to be doing.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: "These guys" meaning 16 your crew?
17 jj Yeah. There was -- me and 18 wee in on where he's the M 20 is on back shift, so 21 he wasn't at this -- we were kind of having like an 22 emergency Safety Council meeting.
23 We had had it last week, and .wasn't 24 in attendance. I don't think he was on the site. It 25 was called byLI ,,
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1 because we had had five OSHA reportables in six days.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
( 3 So he wanted to do something.
4 You know, we had to do something, and he wanted to 5 know what it was. So there was a whole bunch of 6 people in attendance -- you know, line management, 7 whatever -- he called them line managers. I just call 8 them managers.
9 But at the management level, there were 10 managers in the room, people from the 11 12 nd -, - so we came up with this package to do a 13 rollout, a safety rollout. And then, some people 14 brought up the question of like, well, how are we 15 going to measure our effectiveness?
16 Can we do this rollout? But what are we 17 looking -- are we just looking for us to not have any 18 issues? Or like what -- how are we going to actually 19 tell if we had any impact? Maybe we were just unlucky 20 the first five days or six days. I mean, what are we 21 going to measure?
22 So we agreed to meet back on Monday. The 23 rollout happened on Thursday. That would allow 24 Friday, Saturday, Sunday for it to either go in and 25 stick or go in one ear and out the other. And on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS - .
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1 Monday we would reconvene and see if, you know, we 2 thought there was any impact.
3 So at that Monday meeting, li 4 was in attendance. And he didn't say anything until 5 the end. And in the end, that was one of the things 6 he said was that, you know, he thought that the -- you 7 know, from the union perspective, he appreciated 8 everything that we were trying to get done and do.
9 But, you know -- you know, he felt that, 10 you know, that management in general was responsible 11 for, you know, leading. Even though that's not 12 necessarily how the corporate thing has it, you know, 13 that you're supposed to be chaired by a union guy and 14 supported by a management person, he's saying that 15 management needs to -- to set the expectations, to get 16 out there and make safety happen.
17 And, you know, he wasn't pleased with what 18 he was seeing --
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On these reportables?
20 j -- and there was more to come, 21 and then he left.
22 So when I went up to the OCC with that 23 list of -- I handed it to them just like that, and two 24 of the people that I was handing that to were in that 25 meeting downstairs earlier that day, or whatever it NEAL R. GROSS C COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 was. And so, I mean, maybe it's because they just had 2 some fresh fire under them, but they -- you know, they 3 said they'd be resolved by that next shift. So --
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the list you're 5 referring to were some of these --
6 jjj No. The list is -- where it 7 says open down there at the bottom --
8 MR. BARBER: There's probably about 10 or 9 12 items on it.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, I see. Under 11 Improvements?
12 Yes.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Some corrected and 14 some open?
15 ' * *:Yes.
15 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So this is 17 what got the attention. And, again, these are the 18 industrial safety issues.
19 Right.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We'll take a break 21 quickly, okay? It's approximately 3:44.
22 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 23 foregoing matter went off the record.)
24 As long as we continue to have 25 somebody up there that is going to, I'll say, help NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS "
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1 unmuddy the waters for those that think the water is 2 muddy, you know, that's all there is to it. And we're
( 3 3 working on some processes to try to make the SAP 4 process work a little better. But --
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're talking 6 about being able to follow a corrective action all the 7 way through its resolution from --
3.Yes.
8 9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- when it gets into 10 to the system.
11 1I mean, the diesels is a good 12 -- going back to that diesel thing. That's a good 13 example. I mean, if something at that level can go 14 through there, I mean, and--
15 MR. BARBER: You're talking about the 16 turbocharger failure.
17 Yes. And I get e-mails -- I 18 didn't bring any. I could provide you with a couple.
19 But if I send out that list of 54, I'll get two or 20 three responses that their issue was closed and the --
21 or, I mean, the notification was closed, and their 22 issue wasn't resolved.
23 MR. BARBER: -Okay.
24
~~So that -
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1 don't hear from 50 people, and the presumption is they 2 didn't have any concerns or they're not --
( 3 *Exactly.
4 MR. BARBER: -- identifying them to you.
5 Correct. That is --
6 MR. BARBER: So --
7 - - an assumption.
8 MR. BARBER: Okay.
9 And for the easy ones like, 10 did they fix the hole in the floor, well, if the guy 11 saw it, probably he walks back and forth there quite 12 a bit. He would be real quick to say, .111 just walked 13 by that hole in the floor'and it's still there, and 14 nobody did nothing."
15 But one where somebody writes up and says, 16 you know -- let's say it was a tagging event or 17 something, and the person writes it up. Maybe they 18 weren't even fully involved with it, but they had been 19 tasked with capturing the event and putting it into 20 the system.
21 So we put that all in, that there was a 22 tagging event over at the Salem generator enclosure, 23 where the enclosure was removed with two red tags 24 hanging inside another little cubicle that nobody 25 thought to look inside of or something like that.
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1 Okay. So that gets written up as a CR.
2 It probably has several steps -- we call 3 them operations -- to get that issue evaluated, maybe 4 the procedure needs changed, maybe they need to create 5 some special lamicoits (phonetic) to go on things that 6 when you stick tags inside of something and close the 7 door, and nobody will ever see them, you put -- so 8 there's a whole bunch of little things there that go 9 into solving that problem.
10 So when I send back to that 11 this issue closed, when he may have been the guy that 12 wrote it up, he might not be all that inherent that 13 like, do I really want to go in there and see what 14 they all did? Okay? Because if it wasn't truly his 15 passion, he's not really going to go.
16 And that could be a perfect example of one 17 that it doesn't. seem real tight, and I don't know what 18 the answer is on how to tighten them up. Okay?
19 Because think about it. You're a big place like this, 20 but you're looking for a procedure change. Okay.
21 That might happen.
22 Then you're looking for somebody to order 23 or make up labels, right? Then that new procedure and 24 the labels has to go out to training to ensure that 25 the operators all get trained, that when this tag-out NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 goes and there's tags that go into a cubicle that you 2 can't see in, you've got to attach one of these 3 things, you know, blah, blah.
4 If -- I don't want to say it. It's almost 5 like, you know, there's a part of you -- there's a 6 part that feels that unless that tagging incident was 7 really bad, would every one of those things get the 8 I's dotted and the T's crossed, and full closure would 9 be full closure.
10 But if it was an event that was -- you 11 know, nobody got hurt, you know, and there was no 12 impact to the plant, okay, no perceived impact to the 13 plant, then all of those things get written up just 14 like that to happen, but the rigor, the regimen to 15 ensure that each one of those takes place, so that 16 you're not back in that boat again of -- you know, I 17 just -- I don't know if it's the way that it's 18 electronically captured that it does not reproduce 19 itself in a manner that's really recognizable, that 20 I'd be able to say, "Oh, nobody ordered the tags. You 21 know, we got the procedure, but we didn't -- we never 22 ordered any tags," you know, versus the diesel, you 23" know?
24 We went through all of that time and all 25 of that energy to come up with what was a very good NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 solution to those turbocharger problems. But then we 2 failed to put the PM in. Got the procedure -- I'm 3 sure the procedure took quite a bit of time to develop 4 and get all signed off on and everything, and we 5 forgot to schedule the PM, you know?
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, where's the 7 breakdown there?
8 If I had the answer, I would 9 gladly help --
10 MR. BARBER: That's not really your area, 11 though, right?
12 I No. No.
13 MR. BARBER: So you may or may not really
- 14. have --
15 But I feel that with the 16 reason I carry that so much is because I -- and I 17 shared that wthat there is a letter 18 from a conference - I think American Nuclear Society 19 Conference from a couple of years ago --
20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
22 He spoke at it.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
24 0 And I had a copy of it, and he 25 did a thing on safety culture. And when you get to NEAL R. GROSS ' .
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1 the back he talks about an effective corrective action 2 program, you know, and that's what I told A 3 Because, see, I see so many of them, you know, I mean, 4 it almost hurts my head.
5 They go into so many of them, and I read 6 them, and things get closed to other orders, and, I 7 mean, it's -- sometimes it's a real magical trip to 8 try to follow one of these things which could have 9 been something as simple as need ladder installed in 10 service water bay. And then you go and it's like, 11 well, that was closed because there was already one 12 open. And you go to the one that was open -- and when 13 you finally get done with it, hopefully, the ladder 14 got installed. But just on the converse, you know, 15 you might find where the ladder didn't get installed, 16 and it wasn't his fault or her fault or --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're trying to 18 follow this, again, through SAP.
19 *Yes.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Through the tracking.
21 When you took that to what was the 22 response there?
23 He said that-- he said that 24 when I came upon ones that weren't adequately closed 25 out, that I need to send them to him, and he would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 personally call these folks. He said he -- for his 2 ease, could I manage to make it so that, like, he 3 doesn't have to do all the research. Give him what 4 the issue was, give him what the supposed closure was, 5 and why that wasn't adequate. And then, who is he 6 supposed to call, and he would --
7 MR. BARBER-: Have you ever come across 8 anything sort of like that?
9 ]-
I I have. And to tell you the 10 truth, I just haven't -- you know, even though I've 1i got like a million things going on, I do have a couple 12 that I wanted to share with them. I just have not --
13 I can honestly say I just haven't gotten there to get 14 him one yet, to let him go --
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, is that --
16 -- do that.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you hesitate to do 18 that, or 19 No, no.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- will you feel 21 comfortable doing it?
22 No, I feel comfortable doing 23 it. I mean, that's why Ifelt comfortable going out 24 and seeing him.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right. Or is it a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS .AY 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 timing?
2 It's more -- it's just a 3 timing issue. And I didn't want to give him one that 4 -- I wanted to give him one that had some real 5 MR. BARBER: Substance?
6 -- substance to it. You know, 7 I didn't want it to be one that -- because sometimes 8 you will see where a guy will say, "I didn't the 9 answer I was looking for." And I look at it, and the 10 guy was complaining about the air conditioning had 11 totally broken down in a facility. And in the 12 summertime, these buildings, if they lose their air 13 conditioning, you can't open any windows, so it gets 14 hot.
15 Well, the repair took like four weeks or 16 five weeks, and everything -- his response back was --
17 the way he worded his notification was he was saying 18 that the unit wasn't -- it was kind of outdated, and 19 it wasn't reliable, you know, and so on.
20 The response to the notification was that 21 the ventilation was repaired by so and so, and all 22 three compressors are up and running at 100 percent, 23 blah, blah, blah. So you see what I'm saying? It's 24 kind of like the guy is saying that the units aren't 25 up to speed.
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1 The guy answering it is saying oh -- I'm 2 thinking he -- because like, let's say, on his short 3 text, because in this the way the screens are set up 4 you have a short text, and the guy might have wrote, 5 "B Building air conditioning out of service for 6 extended period of time." All right?
7 Then you read his long text, which is like 8 on a back page but it's another page of the computer 9 screen, is where he goes into his detail about, hey, 10 these compressors were built in 1956, and so on and so 11 forth, and they've had four repeat failures, and blah, 12 blah, blah. When the guy gets his answer, it's, "Hey, 13 the units were all repaired."
14 When you go back to what you think of, 15 what would be the way you look at these, this is 16 essentially the title that's seen on the cover page of 17 the notification. Andthat's about all the more words 18 you get.
.19 (End of Tape 1, Side B. Beginning of Tape 2, Side A.)
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The time is 21 approximately 3:55 p.m.
22 ] And we were talking about the 23 notification and the short text. :So, you know, again, 24 I just think it's the rigor of -- we were real good, 25 in my opinion, with notifications back in '94, '95, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 '96 -- well, when we were shutdown and trying to come 2 back out of that.
3 We had a different system at the time. We 4 had what we called MMIS versus SAP. And the way it 5 worked was when you wrote your response to, you know, 6 an evaluation or whatever, right at the bottom you had 7 to put your badge number, which autoloaded your name.
8 And then you had to have your first-line supervisor 9 put his badge number. That autoloaded his name.
10 And if it was of significance, like say a 11 Level II or. a Level 1, then you had to have your 12 manager put his badge number in there, and it 13 autoloaded his name and number. All of those names 14 and badge numbers were directly within eyesight of 15 what the answer was. It was quite clear what the 16 answer was. It was right above your name and initials 17 or badge number.
18 In this system here, it's not their 19 separate pages, the separate screens -- and I'm not 20 saying I know what the answer is to fix it, but I just 21 think that overall you're not answering this question.
22 The heat is out in A Building for an extended period 23 of time. You're opening the long text, and you're 24 answering the statement one, which is, his statement 25 was that the units repeatedly do this.
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1 And it's not that they're just out, 2 because they'll be out again next year. So that's the 3 answer he's looking for. He's looking for somebody to 4 say, "Yeah, right. We did an evaluation, and we found 5 we spent $420,000 over 'the last eight years 6 maintaining these units, which are not very" -- you 7 know what I mean?
8 But, again, you know, at some point that's 9 going to have to get up to a business decision as to, i0 are you going to replace the compressors or not? And 11 -- but I think you could do that legwork as well. You 12 could say, you know, "Hey, you're absolutely right.
13 It did look at it, and I'm going to write a sub-order 14 to" or whoever, somebody in financial, to do a 15 cost-benefit analysis of, do we maintain them, or do 16 we get rid of them?
17 So you did your part. It's not like you 18 have to go up and replace the compressor personally.
19 Right? You did the evaluation. The guy seems like 20 he's on board. It's off your desk, and now it's going 21 to the financial people. And then them come back and 22 say either it is or isn't cost-benefit.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is -- and your 24 presentation -- the problem with this is that it's 25 difficult to follow, for somebody to raise an issue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 and somebody to answer that issue and see it all on --
2 you know, from the evolution of it, to see how that 3 was addressed. Is that --
4 -"7 .I 1-.would say that it's not --
5 I don't want to say it's human performance based, that 6 it's got errors in it. But it's human performance --
7 it's not built for human performance in that it lends 8 itself to ease. And if it doesn't lend itself to 9 ease, either, a) you need to pull everybody out over 10 a period of time and train them on how to go see 11 exactly what it is they' re seeing, and actually how to 12 take a couple -- you could even make them up yourself 13 and create them where, okay, the short text says kind 14 of just what I said it said.
15 Now, see how many people are going to say, 16 "Yeah, the answer was to fix the compressors," and how 17 many people say, "No, I read it, and what I should 18 have been doing was this. It was clearly told to me 19 that I should have looked at it."
20 And I don't know. I can't give you any 21 examples where that may or may not be a problem. But 22 if that's your mind-set when you're working on an air 23 conditioner for a building, then what's your mind-set 24 whenyou're digging into one that has to do with turbo 25 chargers and diesel? Are you looking at the short NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 text, because it says something is broke and you're 2 going to go fix it? Or are you actually reading the 3 long text?
4 Because sometimes in the long text the guy 5 asks for two things, and I've seen them on the 6 industrial safety point where a guy says, "This was a 7 problem, and I think you should do this, and I think 8 you should paint these cones, and I think you should 9 put out a publication."
10 And somebody will pick -- put out a 11 publication. They won't paint the cones, and they 12 won't -- even though in the long text of the 13 notification the guy was laying out three corrective 14 actions that he thought would solve the problem. The 15 person closing just choseto grab one or grab two.
16 MR. BARBER: Well, isn't that an 17 acceptable alternative, though? I mean --
18 It is, if you have evaluated 19 -- in my opinion, if you said, hey, I looked at the --
20 what you're talking about, and I think a. global 21 communication will do. that with a picture. And I 22 don't think we need to paint, and I don't think we 23 need to--
24 MR. BARBER: Okay.
25 But you address them.
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1 MR. BARBER: Okay.
2 M-0" 9 You know what I mean? You 3 didn't just leave it vague that you never even looked 4 at --
5 MR. BARBER: Or you could come up with a 6 totally different solution that may be even better 7 than the three that are being provided.
8 r Correct. Correct.
.9 MR; BARBER: Or a series of actions.
.* Right.
10 11 MR. BARBER: So it's not that the system 12 would bind someone to follow what the suggestions are 13 for corrective action. It's just that -- which I 14 think what you're pointing out is it's not user-15 friendly.
16 17 MR. BARBER: Because it may mislead 18 someone who has tried to decide what the corrective 19 action is to only look at the short text as opposed to 20 the very extended description of what the issue is.
21 Yes. And so, you know, and 22 that's why-- that's where I can pull back in from 23 safety, because, you know, we're trying to use the 24 exact same process, you know, so that it all goes into 25 the same bins, and, you know -- and we're actually NEALR.GROSS-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 looking at ways in the future to be able to code 2 things as to whether they were a confined space issue 3 or a fault protection issue.
4 So when we go back to do data analysis, I 5 can just the computer, "Give me everything that was a 6 confined space issue in the last six months." Boom.
7 Now I've got 10 issues. I can go open them up, and I 8 can see if there's any kind of underlying common theme 9 to those 10. You know? Maybe it's the procedure.
10 Maybe it's the sign ain't big enough. You know?
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just want to take 12 a quick break.
13 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 14 foregoing matter went off the record.)
15 MR. BARBER: -- or send it to us directly, 16 or something. -- whatever.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just to cover that 18 issue, we were looking at whether or not you were 19 aware of any configuration control issues regarding 20 this SAP and this --
21 No.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But that's not your 23 area.
24 That's not my area of 25 expertise.
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. do you 2 have anything else that you want to add to the record 3 at this point?
4 1 No. That's--
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Scott, do you have 6 anything?
7 MR. BARBER: I do not.
8 ** it.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else? Okay.
1.0 think we've covered 11 everything.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And your overall 13 assessment at this point in time at the -- of the work 14 environment is -- from what you're telling us is that 15 you've seen an improvement lately. I think you put it 16 in the past year or so.
17 Yes.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It doesn't seem that 19 you hesitate to raise concerns when you need to raise
- 20. concerns.
21 . No. I have no problem raising 22 concerns.
23 SPECIAL AGENT. NEFF: And that goes from 24 supervisors union level, supervisors all the way up to 25 T NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 167 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 t That's correct.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
3 0 I mean, that's just it. I 4 felt the doors were open. And although they've been 5 only here a little bit of time, I figured they 6 communicated that their door was open, so I figured I 7 would take them up on it. And from their responses, 8 you know, they seemed like they're right on the mark.
9 And I know where we were, I know where we are, and 10 where we want to be is not -- we're not there yet.
11 But I definitely see an improvement from where we 12 were. So, I mean, big place, big ship. Takes a long 13 time to turn around.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you specifically 15 aware of anyone who would say that they wouldn't raise 16 a concern, a specific concern about safety, nuclear 17 safety or safety in any way, because of fear of the 18 response they may get?
19 Not -- I wouldn't say -- no.
20 I mean, if it is, it's second- and third-hand 21 conversations. So, you know, really, if I wasn't 22 there or had the conversation with the person, then I 23 wouldn't.want to say that I did.
24 But, you know, I am aware of some just 25 general discussions about some things in Operations NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that -- and I believe even $ _ ut out a 2 letter on one, which I'm sure maybe these guys had, 3 because it wasn't like it just went out to three 4 people. It went to like List NBU Ops, or something 5 like -- so it went to a lot of people.
6 But it had to do with I think it was MOVs, 7 motor-operated valves, and something to do with 8 tagging them. But I don't -- again, that's what kind 9 of makes me the oddball out being the Ops chairperson, 10 is I don't really understand tagging that well. But sometimes they say that's good because I have like a 12 fresh perspective, because I don't -- I'm not already
.13 entrapped into what they've been taught and 14 everything.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But a timeframe for 16 that?
17 I'm going to say within the 18 last two or three weeks that the issue came up, and I 19 know that it was talked about at a tagging meeting.
20 And then subsequently this e-mail came out, because at 21 the tagging -- there's what they call a tagging 22 committee, and that's where people that know tags 23 (inaudible) the tagging program, and they basically 24 own the tagging procedure.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
C/
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1 2 iSit and discuss, you know, OE, 2 things from other plants, things that we're seeing 3 here.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
S And so at that tagging 6 committee meeting they walked away with this action 7 would be taken to, I don't know, implement something, 8 implement X whenever doing MOVs. It might have been 9 just a select bunch of MOVs, but I know it had 10 something to do with MOVs.
11 Anyhow, the action didn't take place that 12 was supposed to take place. And subsequently the 13 person that raised the concern -- and I think he had 14 raised it twice -- he raised it once, didn't get any 15 real response. Then, took it to the tagging committee 16 figuring, hey, we're in a room full of people, and now 17 that, you know, we get total buy-in, then we'll get 18 the resolution we're looking for.
19 So they did get -- he did get the 20 resolution he was looking for in the meeting.
21 However, the next day or the next day he -- and, 22 again, this is second- or third-hand. He supposedly 23 watched a brief take place down at the control point 24 to go down and do an RHR, four or five P, with the MOV 25 work tagged -- untagged -- I don't know, something NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1
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1 with the MOVs, basically in the same manner pre-2 tagging committee discussions -- that, you know, (b 3 basically nothing had taken place. They were still 4 going to do business as usual.
5 So he stopped them. And I'm not sure if 6 he managed to stop them entirely. I think he did, 7 because he went over and talked to -- I don't know if 8 it was*] or somebody over at -- one of the acting 9 AOMs, or whatever, and they said, "Oh, okay. You're 10 right. Stop."
11 And then I believe the person went to 12 .and -- this is all kind of in 13 this letter. stated that, you know, when it was 14 brought to his'attention that the issue was clearly 15 laid out, and there was actions agreed to be taken, 16 and those actions had been neglected, that he was 17 holding them -- they held an emergency SORK, and they 18 got the procedure changed to do whatever this -- I 19 don't know all of the particulars, but this e-mail 20 came out from - from-- or. not from*
21 22 And he basically said that, you know, we 23 need to -- you know, when people bring up a concern, 24 we need to -- to not only listen to it with open ears, 25 but then if we agree that there's an issue to be NEAL R. GROSS Aý z COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 taken, we take action and we don't -- we don't, you 2 know, just drag our feet.
3 And in this case, he used the words in 4 parentheses "get hit over the head." We don't need --
5 we shouldn't get to the point where we need to be 6 clubbed over the head to --
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: With somebody having 8 to bring a concern forward?
NO ,- Right.
9 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And in this case, did 11 they take the appropriate action aftewas 12 reapproached and got involved?
.. *yes..
13 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, but what 15 prompted that was when I asked you, are you aware of 16 individuals who wouldn't raise concerns because of 17 their fear of the response to them doing that? Is 18 this somebody who would -- you know, are you saying 19 this is somebody who no longer would?
20 Well, no, because, you know, 21 as far as I know, he still comes to me with things, or 22 I still go to him with things. So, I mean, as far as 23 I know, the people that were involved there are 24 continuing to persevere, if you will.
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1 concerns.
2 Correct.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: An 4 note went to -- and if somebody has it, don't make 5 them have to come to you twice?
6 . Right.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this is just 8 within recent weeks is what you're saying.
9 fj Correct. Correct. So, and --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And just so we 11 don't --
12Yes.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I mean, do you know 14 anything more -- any more particulars about it, like 15 who was involved? It could be -- and I'm asking you 16 this because we could be talking to this individual.
17 It's not like we're going to go to them and say, you know, 18 . said this is where it comes from." We're 19 talking to a lot of people.
20 Okay.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But just so we 22 understand, maybe this --
23 7! Well, okay, I'm pretty -- you 24 know, I'm pretty sure it was that went 25 and talked to -- that brought the issue up, took it to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS C' 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 the tagging committee, and then took it to Jand 2 the whole -- I don't understand the whole trail of it, 3 but I know that all of those things took place 4 because, you know, he had even e-mailed me and said, 5 "Hey, you know, did you happen to seee-mail, 6 you know, that" --
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
8 -- "went out?" and I said yes.
9 You know, and he said, you know, "Well, at least we --
10 you.know, we managed to get that one," you know.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
12 And, I mean, that's -- that'.s 13 what I'm getting at.- I think -- I mean, there's a--
14 I don't know the particulars. But when you talk to 15 I mean, that's the type of thing that may have 16 read something and said, "Whoa, we've been doing it 17 this way for however long." And it -- you know, it --
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: AndllJýI]
19 may know more about -- as you said, he said, "We 20 managed M6 get this one," but t~here may be other 21 issues that didn't go that way? Is that what --
22 Well, I know he documents them 23 all, so --
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
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1 SAP.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's more a 3 question for him.
4 *I mean, that's one thing that, 5 you know, you'll find with him is he's very, very, 6 very thorough, I mean, as far as writing up what the 7 issues are. And, you know, in that case there, had 8 somebody been hurt or something, I think, you know, he 9 would have slept with a clean conscience, because he 10 knew that he had done everything that he could, you 11 know - -
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
13 ..3 -- to feel that the problem 14 got the right type of exposure that it could get, you 15 know, and that ...
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
17 - you know, if there was an 18 issue or, you know -- at least he felt the ball was 19 squarely in their court, you know, that, you know, he 20 had done all he could do. He can't change the 21 procedure by himself. He can't sign it. He can't do 22 all those things. That's the only things that the 23 next level -- layers up can do.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
25 And--
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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And 2 is somebody to talk to, are you aware of anything else 3 that -- as part of this assessment that we're going 4 through, anybody else who may offer information to 5 explain maybe why we're hearing that there could be a 6 problem with the environment, and that either people 7 are tired of: raising issues, or people won't raise 8 issues for fear of some possible repercussion.
9 We're trying to understand, if that's 10 true - -
11 . Right.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- where is it coming 13 from?
14 Yes. No, I would generally 15 say that, you know, the people that I most familiarly 16 work with understand that, you know, if we can kind of 17 do it, we're going to do it. You know, we'll fix what 18 we can right there on the spot.,
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
- 20. We' Ill get-the people we can do 21 to do it. If it's something more than that, then we 22 put it into here. And we're really trying -- we're 23 actually, you know, getting a lot of .support behind --
24 we call it the list. But that's all it is is,.you 25 know, you dump them out.
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1 And we're getting a lot of support from 2 management to tell them, you know -- and we're all in 3 agreement. It's got -- if I printed all of the things 4 out that are coded safe, okay -- and they can be 5 tagging things, or they can be needs a ladder 6 somewhere, there is close to probably 300 and some.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
8 You can't eat that all in one 9 bite. They've got to be eaten in small bites.
10 SPECIALAGENT NEFF: Okay.
11 . But the problem is is they 12 need us, and that's what we're working on -- and 13 they're supporting us -- is they need it broken down, 14 compartmentalized, so that they can understand which 15 ones can we go after, which ones are definite 16 problems. And even though they may need an engineer, 17 and they may need some resources, and it's not going 18 to get fixed tonight. But even if we fix it up by the 19 end of next month, that's a huge, you know, benefit.
20 SPECIAL-AGENT NEFF: Okay.
21 - They just need, you know -- so 22 I would say no, I don't know, in general, of any other 23 prevalence that they can't bring the issue up, or that 24 they would be chastised or anything like that. I 25 think they -- they understand that the things that can NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 get done will get done. The things that are a little 2 bit harder, I don't know that they fully bought into 3 that we'll get it resolved in what we call a timely 4 manner.
5 They still see us -- and we even admit it 6 -- that, you know, we don't have our hands around it 7 all just yet, but when we do we're going to try to 8 make it so that the things that are timely get done 9 timely.
10 The things that are a little bit more long 11 term, it's communicated, this is what we've done in 12 the interim, that's the best we can do for now, until 13 we get the materials, until we get engineering 14 drawings, and all that stuff, or maybe some relief for 15 whatever it is -- the tech spec or something. That's 16 what we've got to live with-for today, *so that's an 17 ongoing thing.
18 But overall, I would say people feel that 19 they -- you know, they could put them in. If they 20 don't know how to type them, they come tell me and I 21 put them in for them, so --
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. If you have 23 nothing further to add, I have closing questions.
24 Have I or any other NRC representative offered you any 25 promises of reward or threatened you in any manner in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 exchange for your information today?
2 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you provided 4 this information freely and voluntarily?
5 *itYes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. At this point, 7 it is approximately 4:15 p.m., and I'd like to close 8 the interview.
9 (Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the interview 10 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: Salem Hope Creek Nuclear Power Station 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.
Lisa'Scriber Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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