ML061790707

OI Interview Transcript of Witness

ML061790707
Person / Time
Site:	Salem, Hope Creek
Issue date:	12/02/2003
From:	NRC/OI
To:
References
1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1235
Download: ML061790707 (111)

Text

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Interview IL I~-.r:-'~~

~.

Docket Number: 1-2003-051 F m"~*.*.

(i, ~j 7 Location: Salem Hope Creek NPS 1j)

Date:,, Tuesday, December 2, 2003 Work Order No.: NRC-1 235 Pages 1-110 I

NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers

.1323 Rhode Island Avenue,"N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 informatio*i in this record was.deleted in accordance with the, Freedom of Information

/A Act, exemptions ,21

1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

+ + + + +

3 4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 - --------------------------x 7 IN THE MATTER OF: Docket No.

8 INTERVIEW OF 1-2003-051F 9 .&

10 (CLOSED) 11 ------------------- x 12 Tuesday, December 2, 2003 13 14 Salem Hope Creek NPS 15 16 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 17 .3:35 paim.

18 19 BEFORE:

20 SPECIAL AGENT EILEEN NEFF 21 ALSO PRESENT:

22 SCOTT BARBER, Senior Project engineer 23 24 25

... COURTii, REPORTNEAL R. AGROSSCIE

2 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (3:35 p.m.)

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 December 2, 2003. The time is approximately 3:35 p.m.

5 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, U.S. NRC Region 6 One, Office of Investigations. Also present is Senior 7 Project Engineer Scott Barber from DRP in Region One.

8 Today' s interview is wit 9 who is currently employed by theb an 10 m andb y PSEG at Salem and 11 Hope Creek as a That 12 .. fii)* ... **.Today the topic of this 13 interview is goihg to be the safety conscious work 14 environment at Salem and Hope Creek from*

15 perspective in his experience there.

16 What I'd like you to do at this point is 17 give a brief background for your experience in the 18 nuclear industry, when you first started working 19 there.

Okay. I'm aCL 20 21 OWN..I also was -in the Like 22 many

• I was a got out after one 23 and I went to I spent 24 approximately five years atu became a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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3 1 and served in the 3 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what year would 3 that be?

4 Well, I worked at

... ...... and I in,

• at 5

6 7 I also left -in the end of 8 (40 to go t6 Salem and 'as as 9 at '*alem.ffidway through I was onfshift*

10 until and went-out.to thet' 11 because I had some'4 and started out

.12 as a assigned . and then 13 worked through . then site 14 15 I became a me."---'**'Osometime in 16 and was the up until 17 - when I left.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and ' the 19 difference between the position of 20 ndcan you distinguish 21 between the two?

,r * *~~Sure. ***. ,

22 23 is just under the operations training program. The 24 is not only operations training 25 but maintenance and engineering training. So, it's NEAL R. GROSS .. , .

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4 1 one step up the reporting chain.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, including ops 3 maintenance and engineering then?

4 Correct. I was a direct 5 report to when I left, it changed throughout the time 6 I was there, but I was the direct report to the 8

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And through 2002, did 10 that change, or was that one individual?

11 . It was one individual 12 throughout 2002.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And who was that?

14 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and as I 16 explained to you before we went on the record, that 17 we'll conduct interviews, we conduct all the 18 interviews under oath, and you had no objection to 19 swearing to the information, right?

20 Correct.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. If you would 22 raise your right hand. Do you swear that the 23 information you provide at this interview is the 24 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 25 help you God? -

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2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. What I 3 think we should address is this. We're coming to you 4 for information regarding Salem Hope Creek regarding 5 this inquiry into the status of their safety conscious 6 work environment. The reason that we're coming to you 7 is because in off the record conversations with Scott

• 8 Barber, Scott has indicated that you had some 9 concerns.

10 Correct.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And to capture that 12 .and incorporate it into this particular probe, what 13 we'd like to do is get from you, where do your.

1.4 concerns, where did they start, when did they start, 15 and-what caused it?

16 I would say there was a 17 change of management basically the entire senior 18 leadership.team of the site changed out in 1997, 1998 19 time frame. I don't have the exact dates, but 20 previous to that time, just looking upward as .a 21 management employee, the type questions that were 22 being asked qbout safety and how to run a power 23 station were consistent with the way I was trained in 24 the and 25 After this management change-out, the NEAL R. GROSS f~l'~1i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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6 1 questions were more along the lines of production 2 pretty much at all costs, and the questions that, when 3 a situation arose, the questions that would typically 4 be asked, or I had been asked in my previous life at 5 and the(* those typically weren't 6 being asked, and the questions were, you know, how can 7 you stay online. What can we do? Is there a way 8 around this requirement?

9 That was pretty consistent, and it was 10 kind of shocking because I wasn't used to having a 11 senior management team respond like that while

.12 operating a power station.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you're tagging it 14 to the change in the personnel in these management 15 positions. Does anything else contribute to that?

16 It may have been the 17 environment, the fact that things were becoming more 18 competitive in the industry, but it seemed like there 19 was, I mean, there was competfUi-n before this 20' management team changed out. Now, maybe the 21 competition was more. I don't know-what was happening 22 at the sale of the power level, but I just, from being 23 a site manager and site leader, there was a stark 24 difference between the way the power station was being 25 run previous to 1998 in that ballpark and after 1998.

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7 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about some of 2 the people? Who went out and who came in to fill 3 these positions that you talked about?

4 -. The

.5 changed, and it was -- I can't remember --

6 MR. BARBER:

7  :/ No, no, one level higher.

8 It was --

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Prior bthen?

10 ,It.was priort1 11 can't remember the name right now off the top of my 12 head, but then..came in.

13 MR. BARBER: That was a number?

i4 No. I'll probably remember 1*S while I'm talking.

16 MR. BARBER: All right.

17 r left at some 18 point in time during that -- who t 19 left during. that time, and 20 came in. left, and he wasn't a 21 ~yet. -He was aMOan 22 W took over for site, 23 I forget what happened with engineering.

24 There was also a change in engineering. I can't 25 remember the names, but WCame in NEAL R. GROSS ,.

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8 1 MR. BARBER: Was 2 Yes, there was a change in 3 terms -- literally the entire senior leadership 4 changed out over maybe six month to a year period, and 5 just the conversations around safety and how decisions 6 were made changed totally during, that time period. It 7 went from developing a culture around safety to where 8 individuals and shift managers were trained to make 9 safe decisions to minuscule decisions being made at 10 the highest level, minuscule operational decisions 11 being made at the highest level of the company.

12 Generally those decisions were questioned 13 all the way down the chain as to whether there were 14 requirements or not to be able to do that. So, it was 15 a very stark change in leadership style in that 1998 16 time frame.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And from what you 18 were observing, were, I mean, was this observed by 19 other people? In general, was it questioned? Was 20 there any reason given for hey, this is the way we did 21 business before. This is the way we're going to be 22 doing it now? Was it addressed at all?

23 No, it was I would say 24 that the outward talk or the outward conversation, 25 like at meetings of senior leadership speaking to I%

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9 1 management, all the right words are being said. You 2 know, we're all about safety and quality, but when it 3 came down to actual decisions being made at the point 4 of contact, it wasn't consistent with what was being 5 touted as here's who we are. You know, we're about 6 being a safe organization, but the individual 7 decisions being made were not consistent with that.

8 Some of those I had second hand, third 9 hand information, but two or three I was directly 10 involved in as a part of what's called a TARP team, 11 which was an immediate response management team that 12 would come in to take care of problems.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's talk about the i4 situations that you had immediate involvement with.

15 What in the handling of that do you question? Some of 16 the decision making, or where do you have concerns?

17 !Not so much. The decision 18 making ended up getting to-where it needed to be. It 19 was the atmosphere surrounding how the decisions were 20 made. I'll give you an example. The one that sticks 21- out in my mind the most, we had a situation on Salem.

22 Salem relies very heavily on compressed 23 air to operate the power plant, both from a nuclear 24 safety side and probably more reliant on the power 25 generation side, valves open and shut with compressed NEAL R. GROSS .

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10 1 air. The plant basically won't run if it doesn't have 2 compressed air.

3 Well, they were doing some maintenance on 4 three air -- there's three station air compressors 5 that supply air to both Salem unit one and unit two, 6 and they were going to do some maintenance. They 7 followed the operations, thought ahead of time, hey, 8 let's have some back-up air compressors hooked up just 9 in case something happens to the stationary, the 10 installed stationary compressors.

11 They practiced it and made sure that the 12 temporary air compressors worked. Sure enough, when 13 they went to do the maintenance, they lost all station 14 air and ran out.very quickly-and put-these temporary 15 air compressors in service.

16 Well, they had two temporary air 17 compressors hooked up, little diesel powered air 18 compressors supplying both power stations with air.

19 The air pressure normally runs about 100 pounds. It 20 was degraded. It was down I think 89, 90 pounds, just 21 above where you would have to manually trip the 22 reactor.

23 The three station air compressors, the 24 installed ones, were not very close to coming back 25 into service with the problems that they had with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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11 1 them.

2 MR. BARBER: Can I ask a question at this 3 point?

4 *!iSure.

5 MR. BARBER: You said they were sitting at 6 89. Was there actually a specific pressure in a 7 procedure than an abnormal procedure that's set at 8 some pressure?

9 Yes. I can't remember the -

10 - it's either 85 of 87 pounds, and they were flirting 11 with that pressure.

12 MR. BARBER: To your knowledge, did they 13 ever go below that during the event?

'14. Don't know the answer to 15 that.

16 MR. BARBER: Okay.

17 14.'1 I don't know the answer to 18 that.

19 MR. BARBER: Right.

20 -. But I know when -- there are 21 two signs on these diesel air compressors that say do 22 not refuel while operating, just like your lawn mower.

23 You don't normally put fuel into something that's 24 running because it's creating heat, could spark, and 25 cause a problem.

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12 1 So, they tried to shut one down to put 2 fuel in it, and pressure started to degrade down to 3 that set point that would cause them to have to 4 manually trip the reactor. So, they immediately 5 started it back up, and that's where the decision 6 making process that I'm used to, that I have a 7 training for, would be okay, here's where we're at.

8 This is not a good place to be.

9 We have to potentially put people in 10 harm's way to refuel the thing. Let's do a controlled 11 shutdown of the units so we don't need so much air,

'12 and then we-can refuel the compressors.

13 Well, I don't know if there was pressure 14 put on or what, but the fire protection people decided 15 okay, we can stand by with hoses and somebody can go 16 put fuel in that thing while it's running. That's how 17 the plant maintained operation. This is even before 18 the management team got in there to start taking a 19 look at. what needed to be done..

20 So, that was the first kind of a weird 21 decision that was made that may have been a little bit 22 inconsistent with my training.

23 The way a TARP team works, and that's a 24 transient response team that if something happens, you 25 can supply some support for the operating group.

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13 1 Typically the way it works is you come in. There's a 2 lead, and I happened to be the lead for the TARP team 3 that was called out on this day. We would get 4 together a group of people such as maintenance 5 engineering, operations, supply, basically a 6 management level individual from every branch of the 7 organization to supply immediate support to the areas 8 that are needed.

9 It was really not a whole lot of guidance 10 on how to run. As a matter of fact, they took the way 11 I ran mine as being the example and proceduralized it.

12 So, the way I ran every one was pretty much 13 boilerplate.

14. The first thing we talked -about was 15 safety. Is the unit in a condition that it should 16 still'be operating, okay? The TARP team was borne out 17 of the fact that Hope Creek had an incident where they 18i had a power problem and came down in power, and then 19 went back up in power when they shouldn't have without 20 looking at everything.

21 So, part-of the reason for the TARP team 22 was to make sure that the plant was in a known 23 condition before changing it.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don't mean to 25 interrupt, but what period of time are we looking at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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14 1 here? What month and year?

2 1(It had to have been around 3 2000. I mean, I'm sure that there's a TARP report 4 that you can get with my name on it with a date, but 5 in or around the 2000 time frame.

6 So anyway, the TARP team assembled after 7 this incident occurred, and you know, first thing I

.8 wrote on the board was safety, and I assigned the 9 operations person to go take a look at are there any 10 other abnormal conditions in the control room or in 11 the plant that shouldn't be there.

12 The engineering person, you know, are 13 there. any -reasons, why we shouldn't have these 14 temporary compressors hooked up? Are we doing any 15 damage to anything right now.?

16 Maintenance person, I said hey, go out and 17 start trying to figure out how we're going to get the 18 stationary compressors back. to make the situation 19 better.

20 At the end of this one hour period of 21 initial looking at the problem, I want to make a 22 recommendation to management as to whether we should 23 shut down the units, the plant should shut down the 24 units, or can we stay operating in this condition 25 right now until we get the air situation straightened NEAL R. GROSS ,

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15 1 out?

2 At that point in time, both t 3 -an ' were in the room. They had 4 come in to respond to the event, and were listening to 5 my handling of the TARP team.

6 When I said the words, when I said the 7 string of words, "We need to make the recommendation 8 whether we should continue to operate or not continue 9 to operate in the current condition,on=_

i0 stood up and started berating me like I'd never been -

- and I've got pretty tough skin. I'd never been 12 berated like that in my life, and it was in front of 13 a group of people that I was supposed to be in charge 14 of, and they were supposed to have respect for me.

15 I was running this TARP team no different 16 than any other TARP team I had ever run, and I ran a 17 bunch of them because Salem typically has a lot of 18 problems. He lit off on me like a Roman candle, and 19 basically I left the room. Very emotional, left the 20 room.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What did he say?

22 OW . At the point in time, I 23 can't believe you're even thinking about shutting down 24 the unit. You just need to be getting some goddamn 25 air compressors in here, and keep the units on line, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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16 1 and all this kind of stuff.

2 Now, it didn't change my course of action.

3 I basically, when he came out in the hallway, I said, 4 you know, here's the deal. I'm going to run this the 5 way, as a nuclear professional I've been trained to 6 run this thing, or you can get somebody else to do it, 7 but until you get somebody to relieve me, we're going 8 to be looking at safety first, and I'm going to make 9 a recommendation after an hour whether we're going to 10 keep the units up or not.

11 -Apparently t who is 12 *pulled him aside afterwards and said 13 he's doing exactly what I would want him to do in this i4 situation. So, not only did I go away pretty rattled 15 and my understanding. of what .I was supposed to be 16 doing there was now a little changed, but the people 17 in the room that were supposed to be working for me 18 and that I was supposed to be leading were also 19 affected fairly significantly by that event.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, were the people, 21 just to cover a few issues, the people that were 22 present for that exchange, would they be documented on 23 the records?

24 They would be on that TARP 25 team report.

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17 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you name some 2 people that were present?

3 Sthink who was 4 one of the .}operations was there for that one.

5 That's one I think I remember off the top of my head, 6 but that should be a document that's fairly -- I did 7 so many of them, I don't know, and the players were 8 interchangeable. I probably couldn't name another 9 one.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It could be something that we already have.

12 MR.-BARBER:. Yes, we may. have that one.

i3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But at the shift 14 manager level, then or now, can you think of anybody 15 else?

16 The' wasn't 17 there at the time, but I think thelM that 18 was on for that I think was--- is another --

19 I think he'sthe! here now, but I think he was 20 he may not have been in the room when that occurred, 21 but it was quite a -- I had not been treated like that 22 as a professional in my entire nuclear career.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that the extent 24 of it, the out in the open confrontation, his 25 questioning what you were going to do? When you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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18 I talked to him later, what happened then?

2 No, because -- well, the 3 next day he apologized for that outburst, but later 4 that afternoon or evening, I forget what it was, they 5 went ahead and had somebody else come in and do the 6 TARP team lead for me. So, I think I -- again, I had 7 a lot of experience in doing these things. It wasn't 8 like I was bad at doing it, and my understanding is 9 they created the procedure around the way I did 10 things.

11 I was not being aggressive enough in a 12 certain area, namely, keeping the units up, as I think 13 they wanted me to be. So, they got somebody else in

.14 there to bring in air compressors.

15 MR. BARBER: So would you characterize his 16 behavior as harassing under those circumstances?

17 It was beyond that.

18 MR. BARBER: Or intimidating?

19 It was intimidating.

20 MR. BARBER: Okay.

21

• There was a point -in time 22 when I walked out of the room, and I wasn't sure if I 23 wasn't going to hand my badge in and walk out the 24 door. I was that distraught with what had happened.

25 MR. BARBER: So you thought he was going NEAL R. GROSS I A* ."*

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19 1 to take some action to possibly have your employment 2 terminated?

3 ,Not for that one particular 4 event, but I think that -- did I think that I took a 5 chink in my armor after that event? Absolutely. I 6 mean, I had words with the vice president.

7 I didn't do it in front of the room. I 8 didn't take him on right in front of those other 9 people. I pulled him to the next office, and I said, 10 you know, this is garbage. I'm not going to be 11 treated like this.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, whose decision 13 was it that you be replaced on the TARP as the leader?

14 I think it waslo I mean, 15 I don't know. Just somebody-came in and said hey, you 16 know, we're going to take it from here, and that's it.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think he 18 appointed somebody to take over?

19 'Right.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And were you out of 21 it at that point?

22- At that point, I was out of 23 it and went home.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And now that 25 afternoon, so on that day, you had two exchanges with NEAL R. GROSS '

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20 1 him, where you're not seeing eye to eye on what needed 2 to be done, and the next day he apologizes for it?

3 - The next day, after I went 4 to my boss, who wa and basically said 5 I refuse to be treated like this in the nuclear 6 industry and, you know, apparently that had an effect 7 where I was asked to come in, and he apologized for 8 screaming at me in front of a group of people, 9 especially about that topic. I mean, I'm talking 10 safety, and he's screaming at me about production.

11 MR. BARBER: What was the sequence 12 specifically? Was it that you had the interaction.

13 The next day you talked to' 60 M first, and 14 then - -

15 No, I talked to. not 16 15 minutes after that occurrence.

17 MR. BARBER: Okay, so you called him at 18 home or whatever and talked to him?

19 He was either in on site or 20 at home. I can't remember.

21 MR. BARBER: Okay, but you talked to him, 22 in other words?.

23 Correct.

24 MR. BARBER: At the time.. So,:,

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21 1 interacted with 2 I believe that's the -- all 3 I know, I was asked to go talk to' !to work it out.

4 MR. BARBER: But that was the next day?

5 Correct. Or I don't know if 6 it was the next day. It was very soon after. It was 7 within a week.

8 MR. BARBER: Okay.

9 Things kind of run together, 10 but it was very soon thereafter.

il. MR. BARBER: So do you think that you were 12 in fact replaced because of that run-in that you had?

13 I don't know. I mean, I

14. really don't know. I know I was tired. I had put in 15 an awful lot of hours .on that thing, so that may have 16 been a part of it, but I kind of felt like they wanted 17 some people that were going to be more aggressive at 18 not talking about safety but talking about how many 19 air compressors they were going to get in and hook up 20 to keep the unit online. In think that's the 21 impression I got when I walked away from it.

22 MR. BARBER: In any of those discussions 23 and interactions, even where you trying to work out 24 the way he treated you, did he have any mentions'about 25 any pressures on him from, either from his bosses or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBrERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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22 1 from other sources that would have cost him to behave 2 that way?

3 No.

4 MR. BARBER: Was he coming in and saying, 5 you know,1 4 expects, you know, the station 6 to run at a certain capacity factor orL..

7 expects this or that or the other thing?

8

• I-got no inkling.

9 MR. BARBER: Okay, so you just got --

10 Well, see, part of the 11 conversation, I can't remember how much of this I did 12 in the room with the TARP team, but I know I had the 13 conversation with him afterwards, is that I was .a 14 senior reactor operator on the power station. So, 15 there's pieces parts of information that he may not 16 have that I had such that' to woo station air on a 17 Westinghouse plant, especially a four-loop 18 Westinghouse plant, means you have, to-- first of all, 19 the end's going to trip.

20 second of all, you have to put manual 21 operator, people operators on radios at each one of 22 the atmospheric relief valves to manually control 23 steam generator pressure,. all within 100 pounds of 24 each other to prevent a safety injection from 25 occurring. So, it's a very precarious place to have NEAL R. GROSS -

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23 1 the plant in unless you've done maybe a controlled 2 shutdown ahead of time.

3 So, .I made sure after the yelling and 4 screaming occurred, that I had a discussion with him 5 about, you know, here's part of the reason why I think 6 it's a big deal to not have station air. You may be 7 able to, while you're still limping along, get a long 8 way toward being a lot safer than if it just cut off 9 with both units at 100 percent power.

10 It's, you-know, the rooms are very noisy, Ii and to put four -- actually, it would be eight people 12 on the radio trying to control parameter they can't, 13 see to prevent a'safety injection from occurring, it's 14 a very difficult thing to do, a loss of station air on

15 those stations and to have two at the same time. I 16 don't know if he had that flavor.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he indicate that 18 he had an understanding that that's what your concern 19 was?

20 No, I didn't get a feeling

.21 that was the understanding, even after talking to him.

22 MR. BARBER: You mean hedidn't know about 23 the safety injection signals, what the --

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24 1 after I had the conversation, either. It just -- the 2 thought was we don't have enough air, so get more air, 3 not you know, we don't have enough air, so maybe we 4 should put the plant in a different condition while we 5 try to get more air.

6 MR. BARBER: Okay.

7 Which was -- that was the 8 question I was trying to answer in that first hour, 9 not making -- I didn't even make the recommendation to 10 shut down. I was sending the people out to come back 11 with information to try to put together a good case 12 one way or the other.

13 MR. BARBER: Okay.

14 So, that was probably the 15 starkest one I could think 6f.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And just two issues 17 on that. Were you a party to the conversation he had 18 with 1.9 " No . -, came in 20 afterwards and basically said he was completely out of 21 line because he knew -- I mean, I was rattled. I 22 mean, I was emotionally, physically rattled after 23 that. I mean, you know, to tangle openly or have a 24 disagreement of that level with a evel 25 individual, and you start thinking about can I pay my NEAL R. -GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS If .

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25 1 mortgage and where's my next job going to be.

2 So, he saw that I was kind of rattled and 3 red in the face, and he said hey, you're doing exactly 4 what I want you to do. Continue doing exactly what 5 you were doing before we came in the room.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

7

• You know, and he had had a 8 conversation with .. that I was doing 9 exactly what he wanted me to do, and that that needed 10 to continue.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he give you 12 anything about the response that had to him?

13 No, not in specifics.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. When you were 15 replaced, how was it handled? Was it handled any 16 differently than you'd recommended?

17 *By the time that, you know, 18 we're talking hours down the road now. It wasn't like 19 I was replaced 15 minutes later. We're talking 20 several hours later.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It Was different 22 circumstances.

23 I Right. There was nothing 24 more that anybody could do. We were already doing.

25 I mean, we had ordered air compressors from several NEAL R. GROSS ,I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 'i 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

26 1 different states to be trucked in, figuring out a 2 different place to hook them in rather than the one 3 place that these two temporary ones were hooked in so 4 we could have more capacity. I mean, that stuff had 5 already occurred, and it was being implemented by the 6 group that came in.

7 MR. BARBER: How was the issue eventually 8 resolved? What happened with that?

9 Well, they maintained the 10 unit. They set some parameters to trip the reactor, 11 obviously, and briefed over the procedures for having 12 to do it if they lost air totally, which was our

.13 recommendation out of the thing.

14 Brought in more air compressor capacity, 15 and I believe they installed it, if I remember 16 correctly. I think there was a total of six 17 compressors or something quicked up at the end of this 18 thing.

19. Then they went ahead and fixed the 20 compressors that were broken and put the station ones 21 back in service and then took off the temporary ones 22 over that weekend.

23 MR. BARBER: To your knowledge, is that 24 reliability issue, which is sort of what you're 25 describing, is that still a problem at the station?

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

27 1 Do you know?

2 I'm really not aware at this 3 point whether it would be or not.

4 MR. BARBER: Okay.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when 6 apologized to you, what was he apologizing for 7 specifically?

8 MR. BARBER: For the outburst and, you 9 know, the fact that he yelled at me in front of a 10 group of people. You know, not so much the ideology 11 but the fact, the way he handled it, he wanted to make 12 sure that he felt apologetic and that I knew that.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:. Okay, for the way he 14 presehted the way he wanted to go?

15 Correct.

16 MR. BARBER: Could we maybe talk about 17 some other incidents that you possibly are aware of?

18 Maybe the start-up with the secondary plant open?

19 Sure.

20 MR. BARBER: And maybe you could give us 21 a little details on that., as we've discussed before.

22 Sure. This is in 2002, I 23 believe. In the spring of 2002, there was an outage 24 on Salem unit -- Salem unit, the one closest to the 25 building, energy unit two, and it was -- I think there NEAL R. GROSS x /

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28 1 was going to be like a 30 or 28-day outage. Part of 2 the outage, you go and you test the generator to make 3 sure that the stator is in good shape and it will run 4 for the cycle.

5 Well, a test came back that there were 6 some grounds in that. There were some short outs in 7 that big bundle of copper. What they had to do is 8 pull the center part of it out, which is called the 9 rotor, the spinning piece, which is a big evolution to 10 pull that big chunk of metal out and set it down.

11 Then they did some repairs to the stator, 12 and as they were putting the rotor back in, it made 13 contact with the stator and bent something. So, they 14 had7to pull it back out and do about a week's worth of 15 testing on the secondary, on the generator. That 16 caused the schedules for the outage' to get a little 17 bit out of whack.

18 The primary plant refueling change-out, 19 the.change-out of the fuel, the fixing, the equipment, 20 came together rapidly, and the secondary plant, which 21 was where the steam goes,-wasn't coming together as 22 quickly because of this problem with the generator.

23 To exacerbate things, the problem with the 24 generator had some limits to it. Because of what they 25 were doing at the generator and the fact it was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.WA 1ýIt nn AAA11 %A1AMJIk1PP~k1 r% t' VlrAn '27Al4 ..

29 1 uncoupled from the turbine, you couldn't put on the 2 normal systems to allow vacuum to be drawn in the main 3 condenser in a normal fashion because the oil would 4 heat up and cause an elongation of the turbine such 5 that it couldn't be recoupled to the generator.

6 So, the question was how far can we go 7 with the plant start-up and really be aggressive about 8 getting the unit up to as far as it can possibly get 9 without hooking up the main generator. The original 10 thought was, well, let's go ahead and heat up the 11 plant.

12 So, did some search of the industry, and 13 for this I was considered the start-up manager, They 14 brought me in as a separate manager, ESR relationship 15 manager qualified, to be the go-between to get the 16 plant started up.

17 So, you know, a lot of obstacles and 18 hurdles for the outage we got across, and now this one 19 was how do we get as far as we can get. So, did some 20 scouring in the industry, found out that you could 21 put., you know, physically put stuff in each of the 22 glands of the turbine to allow vacuum to be drawn.

23 Normally you put steam in the gland seals 24 which keeps air from coming in so you can draw vacuum 25 in the main condenser. You have to draw a vacuum in

. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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30 1 the main condenser because it.has to have a place for 2 the steam to go once you start making heat.

3 Well, we figured out another way to do 4 that procedurally, allow stuffing to be put in the 5 glands. We were able to mechanically draw vacuum, and 6 heated up the plant. So, we got the plant to normal 7 operating temperature, drew a vacuum on the plant.

8 The only one restriction was, normally 9 you'd allow the automatic systems to control the steam 10 going into the main condenser. In this case, they 11 didn't want anymore than 100 pounds in the main steam 12 header. Normally it's like 900 pounds.

13 They only wanted 100 pounds to prevent any 14 possibility of rolling the turbinewith no oil on it.

15 So, they didn't want any steam going to the turbine.

16 So, they kept the steam header at a lower pressure.

17 Well, that caused the operators to have to 18 manually operate a couple different systems in tandem 19' to keep the appropriate amount of heat going out of 20 the plant to the right place and maintaining this 100 21 pounds. So, they had to control the condenser steam 22 dumps and manual and the main turbine, or the MSIV 23 bypass valves and manual. Not a normal situation, but 24 it was going okay.

25 Next question came up because the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

31 1 generator was still lagging. Can we start up the 2 reactor and do what's called low power physics testing 3 on the reactor. As a person that had been trained in 4 the M to be reverent to the neutron, and my 5 training at" and even may training after 6 that point at Salem, there was not a whole lot of 7 procedural information to negate it.

8 The answer is no. I mean, if you've got 9 to have it for very good, solid heat sync to allow the 10 heat to go to in case something doesn't go right with 11 that start-up, and you do go into the power range. It 12 would be nice to have normal systems in service to 13 allow that steam to be dissipated or to give it 14 someplace to go.

15 I felt that way, and I went and pulsed the 16 shift managers that were going to be actually 17 implementing this. Their thought was, you know, we 18 really can't do this. I mean, there's nothing in the

'19 procedures that prevents it from what we can see, but 20 this doesn't make good safety operational sense as 21 licensed senior reactor operators.

22 So, basically they told me we're not going 23 to do it, but in the position I was in, I needed to go 24 convince senior management that this wouldn't be the 25 right thing to do.

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32 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The shift managers 2 are saying we're not going to do that?

3.. . Right. The licensed 4 operators --

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you didn't go tell 6 senior management?

7 And I agreed with them, but 8 even if I came back and said hey, look, you need to do 9 this, they weren't going to do it.

10 MR. BARBER: But who specifically wanted 11 to start?

12- Who specifically-wanted? It 13 was my boss, that was pushing forward 14 with doing all of the power physics testing, and I 15 think that was coming from I don't know 16 that for sure, but I think he was getting a lot of 17 pressure fro to go ahead and start up the 18 reactor.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What makes you say 20 that?

21  : Just I had worked with 22 long enough to know that I don't think that was an 23 original idea. I think that was something that was 24 being -- he was being asked to do that. I don't have 25 any physical evidence of that. It's just a feeling NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS /

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. i "

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33 1 that I had from working with him, and some of the 2 references he made that he was kind of a go-between in 3 this conversation.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had-you seen him push 5 in that sort of a direction before?

6 Maybe that was it. No, not 7 normal. So, it was a very kind of a surreal 8 conversation that I had with -- it was actually my 9 direct boss at the time, but he was also th 10 11 I went and said the procedures, there's

'12 really nothing in the procedures that don't allow it, 13 but the plant's not in its normal configuration right 14 now,, and the plant's supposed to be in its normal 15 configuration before you start making nuclear heat.

16 You know, the comeback was well, you're not going to 17 make nuclear heat.

18 Well, my comeback was well, you could make 19 nuclear heat. I mean, you're making neutrons is a 20 possibility that you could have an excursion into the 21 power range and need those systems to be- able to 22 operate.

23 What I did was I eventually got to the 24 point in the conversation where I erased his 25 whiteboard and worked from -- I actually used the term NEAL R. GROSS . '

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34 1 let me work from the augment inspection team 2 backwards. Okay, so I said you have an event, and let 3 me work backwards from that.

4 You've done a reactor start-up where you 5 need the heat removal systems of the plant. You've 6 told the operators not to use the atmospheric relief 7 valves because that's not a good thing to do on a 8 pressurized water reactor. That's an entirely 9 separate subject. Most plants wouldn't have a 10 problem. They would shut the main steam line 11 isolation valves and use their atmospherics.

12 I had no problem with that, and neither 13 did the shift, but the way they were going to remove 14 decay heat from tue plant was witri two manual -- ' two 15 systems not in the normal configuration. They were 16 going to be in manual.

17 So you've had this event, and you've asked 18 your operators to operate not in the normal 19 configuration. You have systems in manual, and you 20 made the decision to start up the reactor, and I could

21. see that.

22 Because the systems were manual, you had 23 a reactivity excursion that because the guy didn't 24 control the system right, you cooled down a little 25 bit, caused the reactor to go more critical than what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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35 1 it was, or super critical. You go up into the power 2 range and have a reactivity event.

3 So, I kind of worked the logic backwards, 4 and the pressure was just phenomenal to go ahead and 5 do this. The outage manager --

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who were you working 7 that for? Who were you presenting this to?

8 Both who is the site -- was thean thew S0 /lwhich was- name was 1.1 several.of the maintenance folks also, but the people 12 that I was surrounded by were not nor have they ever 13 been senior reactor operators. So, it was like I was 14 trying to explain something to people that should'have 15 already known how the systems worked, and I guess I 16 just wasn't effective at getting the point across.

17 So, it did eventually, I think, between my

• 18 conversation and the shift manager's conversations, 19 the-idea died, and they didn't start up the reactor, 20 but it took actually in my -- I can't remember if it 21 was physically written into my appraisal, but it was 22 certainly talked about verbally to me at my appraisal, 23 that that stand and that stand for safety cost me in 24 my career at PSEG.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And who talked to you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

36 1 about that?

2 3 I can't remember if the words were physically written 4 in my appraisal or not, but I know as my appraisal was 5 presented to me that year, and actually, I don't think 6 it was that bad of an appraisal. It was you need to 7 be doing better at supporting senior leadership 8 decisions.

9 I was like, you know, if they were in the 10 general realm of nuclear safety, then I might support 11 them a little better, but in this case, I couldn't., as 12 a nuclear professional, support it.

13 MR. BARBER- What was his response to 14 that?

15 It was not any kind of a 16 response. He was right. I was wrong. There was no 17 conversation in the middle, and it was very 18 frustrating to have worked for -- when I worked at.

19 the people that were constantly 20 talking about safe production of nuclear power were 21 the people that were above me.

22 In this case, everywhere I turned during 23 this last year that I was at PSEG, I was technically 24 superior to the people that I was talked to, because 25 of the fact that I ran the power station, but I NEAL R. GROSS Vv, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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37 1 couldn't get them to -- I couldn't get them to see 2 where nuclear safety was being eroded away.

3 It's not a black and white kind of thing.

4 It's kind of gray. I mean, the procedures have a 5 black line, and there's this gray area that I wasn't 6 used to chipping into. At least during my latter 7 portion of time I was at PSEG, that gray area was 8 getting chipped at routinely in the decisions that 9 were being made that I was involved in.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Between the incident, 11 the spring 2002 and your evaluation that this

.1-2. affected, how many -- what time period was that?

13 I don't believe it was long 14 after that. I think' it may have been.a mid-year 15 appraisal, a June, July time frame. So, it was a 16 couple of months afterwards.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A couple of months 18 after?

19 Yes.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was it this incident 21 that contributed to that in that you don't support 22 senior management's decisions or was there more to it?

23 Was this this one incident or more?

24 M M I think it was the one. I 25 really truly believe it was the one incident. I guess NEAL R. GROSS ,'1\

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38 1 my feeling, and I got back and look at my appraisals.

2 My appraisals were reasonably good in the time period 3 that I was there, and I was getting rapidly promoted.

4 I was interviewed to be the, 5 rt Salem around that time frame because during 6 that same outage,1. :eft, so they needed

7. another and I was interviewed for 8 that. So, it wasn't like I was a negative performer 9 there. It just seemed like there seemed to be more 10 and more incidents that occurred that I was on the 11 other side of the senior leadership team as far as 12 decision making goes.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just to go back on 14 that incident,-the -who said no, we're iS not going there, who were they? Who was involved in 16 that?

17 al. a. akas involved in is that. I thin.-- .Y* an *

• I'm not 19 positive, and I knoww.4 in on that 20 decision also.

21 MR. BARBER: Okay, could we go back to the 22 event for a minute?

23 24 MR. BARBER: If there would have been 25 something in tech specs, I think, aren't there some NEAL R. GROSS .

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39 1 requirements spelled out in tech specs about physics 2 testing like applicable modes? Would it require you 3 to be in a certain mode, and those modes in fact have 4 ECCS requirements associated with that?

5 Z

• Well, they might have ECCS 6 requirements, but we had enough -- the atmospheric 7 dumps were available to be able to be used, but that 8 was not the way that we were allowed to control the 9 KE. There was say, there's a mindset that you do not 10 use the atmospheric relief valves unless it's 11 absolutely necessary.

12 So, it would have been preferable to the 13 senior leadership team to control two valves and 14 manual and have continuous adjustments of steam header 15 pressure rather than just to shut the MISV's and go 16 on. Automatic control system of the atmospheric 17 relief valves, which again, plenty of heat source or 18 decay heat removal capability. It's like up to ten 19 .percent power to allow low power physics testing to 20 occur.

21 Again, systems and automatic, well 22 controlled. Go ahead and do a power physics testing.

23 In this case, you've got operators tweaking valves and 24 controlling the systems, and nobody felt comfortable 25 with doing that start-up.

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40 1 MR. BARBER: All right.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's to be gained 3 by doing that, going into low power physics?

4 I think it was like 18 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br />, something like that. There was a chunk of time 6 that would have been gained that you could have done 7 the lower power physics testing..

8 MR. BARBER: So it was a scheduled 9 pressure issue?

10 ( Yes, oh, it was absolutely 11 a scheduled pressure issue. Absolutely.

12 MR. BARBER: So, PWanted to 13 save 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br /> in the schedule?

14 Well, I mean, I think 15 everybody -- I think --

16 SPECIAL .AGENT NEFF: And the outage 17 management was involved in that?

18 Absolutely. Well, I think 19 everybody did. I mean, it's not like I didn't want to 20 save 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br />, but I just have this -- there is a line 21 for -me, and that line for me was not the same as other 22 people that were in charge of my future. Their line 23 was somewhere else.

24 My line was based off of ten years as 25 . throw another five on top of NEAL R. GROSS e,` I'l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. ,

41 1 that as a You know, I have like real bad 2 things that have occurred to me that have tempered my 3 ability to take risk, and the people that were making 4 these decisions really had no operational experience 5 at all that wanted to do this.

6 So, I've had enough things, when I tried 7 to take risks that got the legs knocked out from under 8 me, which tempers my -- I mean, I still take risks, 9 but it tempers that willingness to take risk.-

10 MR. BARBER: One of the things you've 11i indicated, you have about years of operational 12 experience. Do you have any idea how much experience 13 has in operational experience?

14 I don't know for sure I 15 know.he was a f " " f for a short 16 period of time out at .1Other than that, he 17 had none. The . had none.

18 was never licensed..

19 MR. BARBER: Was.he licensed a 20 to your knowledge?

21 I. don't believe he was.

22 MR. BARBER: -Okay.

23 I don't believe he was.

24 MR. BARBER: So, from a comparison 25 standpoint, your experience and knowledge is very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

42 1 significant compared to his own?

2 Correct.

3 MR. BARBER: Okay, thanks. Did that weigh 4 into his willingness to listen to you? Wasn't he 5 willing to acknowledge that your --

6 That was a difficulty, and 7 this I think goes beyond just me. F ,was very 8 confident in what he knew, and most senior people that 9 I've dealt with really like to listen to people that 10 are the technicians-.underneath.

11 'always thought he knew the answer 12 before you came in to talk to him. So, it was very 13 difficult to sway him one direction or the other once 14 he's made his mind up about something. So, it didn't 15 matter. I could have had 20 years or 30 years of 16 experience. It~would have been very difficult for me 17 to sway him once that -- the thing is, they didn't 18 take the action to start up the reactor.

19 Enough people with operational background 20 said no, that I think he eventually listened, but it 21 definitely affected me because I think he saw me as 22 being -- there is an opportunity with my operational 23 knowledge to turn around the other way and talk to the 24 shift managers and talk them into doing it.

25 Again, it was a gray area. I mean, is NEAL R. GROSS ,-f COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS. .

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43 1 there anything in tech specs that said you couldn't do 2 it, no. Anything procedurally that said you couldn't 3 do it, no. There may have been a couple of minor 4 procedure changes you would have to make for the 5 procedures, but again it was a big gray area, and it 6 was one of those gut checks of nuclear safety, you 7 know, and it just didn't seem right to make neutrons 8 in a plant that was still torn apart.

9 MR. BARBER: Okay.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did anybody else 11 factor in? You said that enough people objected to 12 it, so they didn't go in that direction. Who else 13 other than you weighed in there?

14 I don't know wh. talked 15 to. All I know is I weighed in, and then I waited to 16 see the outcome, and we didn't do the start-up. I 17 know he didn't do it just on -- he was so disgusted, 18 visibly disgusted with my conversation that I was 19 having with him, I know that didn't sway-him.

20 So, I'm reasonably sure he checked with 21 some of the other shift managers and talked to some 22 other operational people at the plant, and eventually 23 just dropped it because it wasn't worth the 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br /> 24 that was going to be saved.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you'd indicated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS ANO TRANSCRIBERS i" 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

44 1 that there are other incidents where they move into 2 this gray area, and. this one seems like a pretty 3 significant issue for you, that you were directly 4 involved in. Were there others where you had to --

5 *Well, there was a number, I 6 mean, I was involved in a number of the TARPs that had 7 to do with the partial losses of off-site power at the 8 station. I mean, we had three partial losses of off 9 site power in one year, which if normally a plant had 10 one partial loss off site power in one year, that's a 11 huge deal. We had three on Salem. One of them led to 12 a reactor trip.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In 2002?

14 In 2001, 2002 time frame.

15 Actually, it was more 2000, 2001, I think. It was 16 sometime in that time frame.

17 And the response was not to go find out 18 what happened. The response was to get the unit back 19 up, and the unit would get. back up, and sure enough a 20 couple months later, the unit would trip again, or 21 you'd have to dona rapid downpower as a result of the 22 loss of the electrical system.

23 I know one of the times we did do a manual 24 reactor trip, and again, this is second-hand 25 information, but it's direct second-hand information.

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45 1 I think it involvec/- ., He decided to manually 2 trip the reactor based off what happened with the 3 circulating water system, and he was second guessed 4 afterwards by management as to why he didn't go out 5 and take a heroic action to cross tie some busses to 6 allow a unit to stay at power.

7 I don't know to what degree he received 8 second guessing and from who, but I know he was very 9 unhappy and had conversations with me around the fact 10 that he got second guessed, and there's no procedural 11 guidance to go tie these busses. It was just you 12 needed to go but and tie the busses.

13 I think actually in writing, the root 14 cause analysis from that had some words in it to the 15 effect of, you know, if the operating shift had just 16 gone out and cross tied the busses, you wouldn't have 17 to trip. Well, there's no procedural guidance, and 18 the general training for an electrical fault is to 19 really understand where you're at before you start 20 bringing back the switch yard so you don't make the 21 problem worse.

22 Typically, electrical transient, you end 23 up where you're at, and if the unit can support power, 24 you support power. If not, you turn it off or it 25 turns itself off automatically, but before you start NEAL R. GROSS ""

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46 1 re-energizing pieces of equipment, you have 2 technicians go out with meters to make sure that the 3 busses can support being energized one by one as you 4 bring them back.

5 The general flavor for this particular 6 reactor trip was why didn't you just go out and cross 7 tie the electrical busses. Then you could.have kept 8 circulating water and service, and we wouldn't have to 9 trip.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From your 1.1 conversation with him, where was the second guessing 12 coming from?

13 Above. His boss, 14 and.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anybody between him 16 andi 17 (Whereupon, the foregoing 18 matter went off the record 19 briefly and went back on the 20 record at 4:25 p.m.)

21 SPECIALAGENTNEFF: It's almost 4:25 p.m.

22 Okay. So again, I don't 23 -know who was the OPS manager at that particular time, 24 but I know there's three TARP reports in fairly short 25 succession of partial losses of off-site power. We NEAL R. GROSS -

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47 1 would say loss of 11 station power transformer or loss 2 of 21 station power transformer, that kind of a thing.

3 Eventually after the third time, it was 4 determined that their lightning arresters in the 5 switch yard needed to be replaced, and they were 6 replaced.

7 It put the operators in a difficult 8 situation because the training that they had received 9 was as an off-shoot of the April 7 event that occurred 10 *in 1994, was to take conservative actions with the 11 plant. So, they go out and take conservative actions 12 with the plant, and then the whiplash from that is why 13 didn't you, you know, cross tie busses to maintain the 14 unit at power?

15 Well, I don't have any procedural guidance 16 to do that. Then it wouldn't be smart to do it. So, 17 that's the kind-of an atmosphere that you had to live 18 under.

19 MR. BARBER: What kind of environment did 20 that create for the shift managers? I mean, did they 21 discuss -- it sounds like at least on a couple of 22 occasions, someone would come to you and discuss other 23 concerns with you.

24 . 1 Yes, I was, both 25 and worked atme.

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48 1 So, we had similar -- was on the 2 with me, so I've worked with 3 professionally since 1986. So, we had a very close 4 relationship.

5 Those conversations were constant, that 6 he, especially wit thad never been in a situation 7 where he felt like he was going to have to go against 8 his management. Now, I don't have specific details, 9 but his general feeling was that at any moment at any 10 time, he might have to put his job on the line and go 11 against his management team because of the way he was 12 trained and the fact that he had the license for the 13 plant to be able to operate.

14 So, I can't, I don't really want to speak 15 for him, but those conversations were constant, and I 16 was an outlet for that.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And clearly where 18 would be something we'd get directly from him, too.

19 1 *ARight, and one that I was --

20 I was not directly involved with this one, but I was 21 very close to being directly involved in it. I was 22 the TARP team lead when a steam leak occurred in the 23 turbine building on a feed pump, steam generator feed 24 pump inlet, a valve off the main steam --

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this September, NEAL R. GROSS .

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49 1 2002?

2 I think so. I think that 3 was the time frame that occurred in.

4 I got called. Big steam leak. Going to 5 have to shut the unit down. You need to come in.

6 So, I got out of bed and started to come

7. in. Got into the plant and was told no, everything's 8 fine. We got the valve shut. You can go home. Well, 9 you know, I was already -- I started looking around, 10 and the steam leak was very large. There was lagging 11 blown all the way across the turbine building, and 12 I've seen steam leaks that scared me that threw a lot 13 less stuff around than this one did. So I know the 14 steam leak wasn't there when I got there, but from 15 everybody I talked to and what I saw, it was a scary 16 steam leak. You know, 20, 30 steam plume was what 17 most of the operators told me 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who told you that it 19 was going to be shut down and to come in?

20 . Whoever -- I think it was 21 the shift manager that called me out, either that or 22 Typically was the one that 23 called me and said hey, you need to come in.

24 My recollection is that I was the TARP 25 team lead for that particular event, but there was NEAL R. GROSS .

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50 1

II never a TARP report written or anything because the 2 TARP didn't exist. You know, as th 3 anything that occurs, I tend to try to gather 4 information to see if there's any training need in it.

5 In this case, I came in and found out from 6 the operators -- it was that morning I think, as I got 7 in there, that the operators had said that the 8 decision was made to shut the unit down. The shift 9 manager was making preparations to shut the unit down.

10 assistant oPs manageA-went to talk to 11 the vice president, came out of that meeting with the 12 vice president, climbed the ladder, and shut the 13 valve, when no other plant operators that would be the 14 normal, you know, the union folks that would normally 15 touch the valve and shut things. They said they would 16 not go up a ladder in that situation and hazard their 17 lives to do that.

18 So, my conversation the next day with --

19. this was a couple of months before I left the company, 20 was I went and I talked to the site vice president, 21 and my angle with him was what are you doing. I mean, 22 you're asking me as the.( to 23 c6nstantly reinforce safety and both nuclear 24 radiological and personal safety in the training 25 center. Then in one fell swoop, you train all the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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51 1 operators that all that stuff's not required, we're 2 just going to send a manager up to shut a valve with 3 a steam leak to keep the unit online, okay?

4 What am I doing professionally as th 5 hen you know, everything I say after 6 that point is going to be mute because if I pound a 7 fist on the table at the training center and you know, 8 grade people down because they're not doing things 9 safely, they can just point back and said but, you 10 know, you have the climb the 11 ladder on a huge steam leak and keep the unit online.

12 I didn't actually -_n 13 -were in the room when I had that conversation.

14 I just didn't get any kind of a satisfactory response 15 out of them. It was just not that big of a deal and, 16 you know, we did it.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No concern for future 18 effect that might have on what you were saying?

.19 - ,No, absolutely no, from what 20 I could tell, absolutely no concern. I mean, I call 21 that a training event, when you train by your actions, 22 just like how you act around your kids is how your 23 kids act. It's the same way in training.

24 You spend so many times repeating how you 25 operate the power station, and then you watch a NEAL R. GROSS .

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52 1 manager level person climb a ladder and do something 2 that was admittedly unsafe and shut the valve.

3 MR. BARBER: Do you happen to know if he 4 had authorization from the control room to do that?

5 I do not know the answer to 6 that.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the -

8 who was preparing to shut the unit down?

9 I don't know which one. I 10 thought it was but it may have been 11 It was one of the two guys I know from 12 I remember that.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the is 14 AndI

• It was* n I 15 16 do not know what transpired in conversations with 17 senior management. I just know that there was a cause 18 and effect. There was a plan to shut down the unit, 19 and a TARP team was being called in, and then frankly, 20 I don't even remember if Iwas the TARP team lead from 21 that. Everything kind of runs together. I may have 22 just come in the next morning and been exposed to that 23 as I saw the stuff run through. I can't remember, 24 because it was never written down as a TARP report.

25 I just remember gathering information NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTEFRS AND TRANSCRIBERS "

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53 1 about what happened and being pretty disgusted with 2 the fact that, you know, I was getting compensation to 3 to operate safely, and then this would 4 occur. The response I got from my boss and 5 .was just totally unsatisfactory. It was, you 6 know, so what.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And who was it that 8 was supposed to have interacted with?

9 .* My understanding it's 10 but again, I was not privy to any 11 conversationsthat would go along with that.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did I cut you off, 13 Scott? Did you have something on that?

14 MR. BARBER: Actually, I do. I want to 15 explore just an area of questioning with 16 responsibility for operating equipment.

17 Sure.

18 MR. BARBER: SIM has a conduct of 19 operations procedure, I would piezume?

20 Yes.

21 MR. BARBER: And what kind of things,. what 22 kind of restrictions might that have, or 23 authorizations might it have relative to operating 24 equipment?

25 W.The only time the equipment NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

54 1 is operated, the control room is supposed to provide 2 the guidance to actually operate the equipment, and 3 because of the union contract, in general, the union 4 would be the people that would operate the equipment.

5 There's a specific provision in the union contract 6 that, you know, the management individuals are not 7 supposed to operate equipment.

8 Now, in an emergency, it's allowable, but 9 the way this unfolded, it really wasn't like an 10 emergency. There was a bunch of union people standing 11 around the valve that was leaking. They were not 12 willing to perform that activity.

13 MR. BARBER: so if I understood you 14 correctly, then there was a discussion for the shift 15 with regard to they're there or not there about the.

16 course of action or some decision made that yes, this 17 is really bad. We ought to probably take the unit off 18 line. We ought to start heading in that direction, is 19 that right?,

20 I know they were heading in 21 that direction pre-briefing, a shutdown.

22 MR. BARBER: And then'!16ft the 23 control room, presumable?

24 I don't know where 25 physically people were. I mean, at the valve. I know NEAL R. GROSS -

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55 1 a conversation occurred and then a different response 2 occurred from that.

3 MR. BARBER: All right.

4 Now My details are a little bit 5 off on that.

6 MR. BARBER: Okay. Well, that's one thing 7 we'll have to explore. We'll have to explore whether 8 they had authorization from the control room because 9 we have some of the conduct of operations procedure 10 elements, and they've talked about no operation of 11 equipment without specific guidance from the control 12 room authorization.

13 Rgt 14 MR. BARBER: So, he may have, in fact, 15 overstepped his bounds. The thing that makes this 16 more difficult, though, it because he's in the 17 operations chain. He just happens to be above the 18 control room, but he. did not relieve the shift 19 manager, presumably. He would have found it very 20 unusual that he would have relieved him and went out 21 and done that. -I don't think anyone believes that's 22 the case.

23 Right. I just again, it's 24 just starkly different from the way I was trained at 25 another nuclear facility which was,ý We NEAL R. GROSS "

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56 1 had big steam leaks a I saw the big 2 steam leaks. I learned to be "afraid of big steam 3 leaks by the things I saw a The 4 decision making from the top on down was okay.

5 This is too big to do some thing with. We 6 are going to do a controlled shutdown i .n the unit. We 7 may keep the reactor running, but we'r e going to take 8 the turbine off, shut the MSIV's, fiY the leak, and 9 then come back up. I'm just not usied to seeing a 10 situation that you put a person in har I's way to keep 11 the unit at 100 percent power.

12 It was totally inconsisterit with the way 13 I hadbeen trained, both at Salem and at& .

14 1 wasn't trained that way ini :ially at Salem 15 in 1996, 1995. I was trained to ke ep my personal 16 safety and personal safety of others in the forefront.

17 MR. BARBER: Okay.

18 And this wa.s inconsistent 19 with that. -..

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We'l 1 take a quick 21 break, okay? It's about 4:35.

22 (Whereupon, t he foregoing 23 matter went off the record at 24 4:35 p.m. and we nt back on the 25 record at 4:36 p NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

57 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on 2 the record. It's about 4:36.

3 The issue that you were talking about, 4 Scott, was there was some sort of --

5 MR. BARBER: Well, let's do the next 6 technical issue, which is one that you and I had 7 talked about informally about a problem with the 8 meteorological tower.

9 .1 was definitely the TARP 10 team lead for this one. It actually started out as a 11 cut wire that arced and sparked, and they were digging 12 in a certain place and cut a wire. Obviously it's a 13 safety issue. Call a TARP team and go figure out what 14 happened.

15 The bottom line is we were running some 16 security power, I. think, out to the new -- this was 17 after 9-11. because you need to put power out to the 18 new 9-11 security building, and they were doing some 19 stuff with the Met tower, and othey.were doing some 20 trenching activities and dug into a wire that supplied 21 power to the Met tower, meteorological tower, on the 22 site.

23 It's like off the access road to the right 24 as you're coming into the power station there. So, it 25 lost power as a result of this digging that occurred.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

58 1 That put us -- it was a reportable event. I think it 2 was an eight-hour reportable event, that if it 3 remained without power. under 5072, you'd have to do a 4 report to the NRC.

5 There's a scramble by the ( '

6 o put a temporary power supply or diesel in 7 place to that Met tower prior to a temporary 8 modification being completed. My understanding is

'9 that they actually did apply power to the Met tower 10 with a temporary diesel generator and hooked Up power 11 to it to meet the elght-hour requirement before any 12 paperwork had been completed for a temporary 13 modification and follow it up afterwards.

14 I think there was a notification, or CR, 15 written on the fact that they, you know, kind of' 16 purposely didn't -- I mean, it's very clear what the 17 temporary, where the modification procedure has you do 18 to put power to something like that, but they went 19 ahead and put power on the Met tower to not have to 20 make an eight hour report.

21 Again, that's kind of the mindset of the 22 station, and it wasn't that way in '98, and it was 23 that way when I left in 2002. It was worse at the end 24 than it was at the beginning. The mindset was throw 25 a generator out there to make sure that you didn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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59 1 have to make the report, and we'll follow up with the 2 paperwork later on.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who made the 4 decisions on that?

5 _4 I don't know because the 6 TARP was covering the thing from the standpoint of 7 personnel safety. You know, how did the wire get --

8 how was a wire out where they were digging and should 9 not have hit.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

11 It was kind of an after

12. thing the next day when I found out that -- we did say 13 hey, look, you got an eight hour reportable thing, and 14 I know you're not going to get power out to, it in 15 eight hours, so that's kind of a side thing that was 16 going on.

17 But lo and behold, they did get power out 18 to it and didn't have to make the eight hour report.

19 Again, my understanding of that event was that the 20 paperwork followed well after the generator had been 21 hooked up.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And there was a CR 23 initiated on the handling of it?

24 I believe there was a CR 25 initiated on the fact that the temporary modification NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

{

60 1 procedure wasn't followed in that instance.

2 MR. BARBER: Do you think that was done 3 intentionally? I mean, do you think that the whole 4 push to get the diesel out there to get to provide 5 temporary power, it was really to avoid that eight 6 hour report and that the writing notification was sort 7 of an afterthought to sort of cover your bases? I 8 mean, kind of acknowledge that yes, we know we didn't 9 have paperwork, but we can write this up and make it 10 look like it was a mistake.

11 jS Engineering maintenance and 12 operations were all involved. There's not a person in 13 that chain that doesn't know the temporary 14' modification procedure. It's a license requirement 15 for an SRO to-understand it. So, I can't come to any 16 other conclusion that it was intentional.

17 MR. BARBER: Okay.

18 I just can't. I mean, you 19 just don't operate a power station by hooking wires up 20 to stuff just to keep going.

21. MR. BARBER: So, just to clarify this for 22 the record, the normal process would be through the 23 temporary modification, process the paperwork. Do 24 whatever safety reviews have to take place, get the 25 required approvals, and then implement whatever it is.

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61 1 And you could have the 2 generator out there.- You could have the leads one 3 inch away from where they need to get landed to supply 4 power to it, but you don't land it until you've done 5 the analysis that it's okay to do it.

6 MR. BARBER: Safe to do it?

7 8 MR. BARBER: Okay.

9 You know, from a -- were you 10 hooking wires up to the nuclear instrumentation 11 system? No. Was it completely divorced from power 12 after the wire got hit? Yes, it was a stand-alone 13 meteorological station, but it did have feedbacks back 14 to the power plant. So, you were hooking something 15 up.

16 MR. BARBER: Isn't it tech spec equipment?

17 18 MR. BARBER: And isn't it used to gauge an 19 accident response?

k 20 V a,ý1-Wý - R Absolutely.

21 MR. BARBER: I mean, to make 22 recommendations to local counties regarding, you know, 23 which sectors to evacuate because it's got wind speed, 24 wind direction.

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE,, N.W.

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62 1 MR. BARBER: Temperatures at various 2 elevations. Things are important for that.

3 4orrect. It clearly met the 4 requirements to do well, either a permanent

.5 modification or a temporary modification, but it had 6 to go through this proper screening to do that.

7 Again, my understanding, you know, wasn't -- I wasn't 8 the guy hooking the wires up, and my understanding is 9 that that whole thing occurred without the paperwork 10 being there.

II MR. BARBER: Do you remember when that 12 was?

13 .I think it was the summer of 14 2002 sometime. It had to be. it was after 9-.11 15 because they had the shack out there. I think it was 16 summertime.

17 MR. BARBER:. Okay.

18 So, maybe it was summer, 19 2002.

20 MR. BARBER: Okay. Is there any other 21 technical issues or any other things that you can 22 think of that you'd like to say?

23 That's really all I can 24 think of at this point.

25 MR. BARBER: Okay. How about -- one last NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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63 1 thing that you and I talked about was something you 2 had heard second-hand regarding shift managers and 3 problems they had had with senior management and the 4 way they dealt with that. Could you --

5 Again, it was all about the 6 same time frame again. It was -- I think it was right 7 after the decision was made to do, you know, the 8 conversation around starting up the power station with 9 the generator'still apart. So, it was in the june, 10 July, August of 2002 time frame.

11 It seemed like the shift managers were 12 being second guessed on every tech spec call or every 13 operational decision that *they were making on the 14 power station by the senior management, and it was 15 made, and-it was eithersecond or third-hand knowledge 16 that it was made aware to me that the shift managers 17 were going to meet off-site to make sure they were in 18 alignment on what they would do under certain 19 circumstances when demanded to do things by senior 20 management.

21 I don't know if that meeting ever 22 occurred. I don't know the outcomes of the meeting, 23 but I do know that that meeting was being talked about 24 or scheduled by the shift managers, and this is 25 specific to Salem. I don't know if Hope did it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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64 1 or not, but it was the Salem shift managers around 2 that time frame.

3 MR. BARBER: Do you remember any of the 4 ones that might have been a part, you know, that --

5 I think I talked about it 6 wit It may have been -- like I 7 said, I had two guys I was very close with from 8 previous working experience. I think it was one of 9 those two guys that had mentioned to me that that was 10 going to occur.

11 MR. BARBER: Do you think there was 12 something very specific that they were.-- wanted to 13 have a discussion about, or was it just in general?

14 1 think it was a combination 15 of-both. I think at the time, there was something 16 going on that was very specific, but it was also we 17 need to make sure that we are in alignment in any 18 event being asked to do something that's not 19 appropriate.

20 MR..BARBER: Now, have you ever seen or 21 heard of this before?

22 / Never. In my experience in 23 the industry, never, because typically again, senior 24 leadership are the ones that' are typically the 25 conversation of safe versus unsafe. Typically, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

65 1 SRO's are aggressive at how they're trying to do 2 things, and the senior management are the ones that go 3 did you think about this, or did you think about that, 4 or what would be the outcome if, and that typically 5 slows everybody else down.

6 This was -- the roles were reversed at 7 Salem during this time frame. It was J 8 - .- , *operating the power 9 station from their offices, and the shift happened to 10 try to put every ounce of their being to posing the 11 questions of, you know, what if, what if, what if. We

.12 really can't do that.

13 Some-of them were just as clear as like 14 the thing with the valve and the control room. The 15 head vent was -- you have a surveillance requirement 16 that says you got to see the valve go open and shut.

17 It didn't go open and shut by the indications. So, we 18 can't continue. You can't NA that stuff and act like 19 it didn't happen. It's a surveillance requirement.

20 MR. BARBER: That was the thing regarding 21 the NH stuff that' was allegedly involved?

22 Correct.

23 MR. BARBER: And told him to NA this 24 stuff?

25

• Right, and they said they' re NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS:.-,

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66 1 just not going to do that today. They're licensed by 2 the federal government to follow tech specs and follow 3 the surveillance requirements. Therefore, today we're 4 not going to NA the surveillance requirement. We're 5 going to do that and, you know, those are the kind of 6 things that at that time frame -- again, I was on the 7 periphery of this. I was the TARP team lead that 8 would come in a deal with these things once problems 9 would happen.

10 I was the that was 11 supposed to explain these things to the operating 12 crews as they were occurring. I was not in the middle 13 of the conversations in the control room at that time.

14 The time that I was in the control room at Salem, none 15 of this was occurring. -It was the way I was used to 16 seeing it, where you'd go to do something, and the 17 senior leadership was asking you those probing 18 questions to slow you down and to make you think about 19 nuclear safety.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: About mid-2002, this 21 changed?.

22 Absolutely.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

24.I mean, on my own small 25 world at the training center, I mean, I was being NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

67 1 affected, but non-operationally. I was being asked to 2 do things with licensed classes. Like, well license 3 class would run 14 to 16 months. It has a definite 4 end date with and having an exam on a 5 certain date. It's a well defined training program 6 that's laid out for the systematic approach to 7 training and approved by INPO.

8 I was being asked to take a two-month 9 chunk out of the middle of it to send these guys back 10 to be on shift for the outage to make the outage go 11 quicker. That happened numerous times.

12 So, from an operational standpoint, that 13 was my operational problem that was similar to the way 14 the shift managers had to act, with real operational 15 problems. I had to try to figure out how to cull out 16 two months out of a defined program that had a defined 17 end date because we needed to hurry up and make the 18 outage go quicker. We couldn't plant that.

19 MR. BARBER: How did. they meet the 20 operator requalification requirements? Didn't the 21 operator requalification program have -

22 There was a notification 23 written in 200.0 or 2001 that the operators didn't get 24 their 60 hours of requal and simulator one year 25 because they cut short requal training.

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68 1 MR. BARBER: Isn't there --

2 No, there's no specific 3 hours requirement, and it's per the systematic 4 approach to training. The program had defined 60 5 hours per year, and had to wear a notification against 6 the program.

7. MR. BARBER: Well, why do you say there's 8 no -- I mean, isn't the procedure requirement a 9 requirement?

10 Absolutely, and it came out 11 to be like 59 hours6.828704e-4 days <br />0.0164 hours <br />9.755291e-5 weeks <br />2.24495e-5 months <br /> or 58-1/2, depending on which 12 operator you were looking at in the year.

13 MR. BARBER: What would it normally have 14 been? It wouldn't have been the outage. Would it 15 have been-way over?

16 Yes, 80 to 100, in that ball 17 park.

18 MR. BARBER: All right, so I mean normally 19 it would be, the 60 is a minimum, and normally you 20 would have, you know, significant -- what would that 21 be, 30 percent, 30 to 60 percent more?

22 Correct.

23 MR. BARBER: And you were actually coming 24 out falling short, by a small amount given the hour, 25 hour and a-half, two hour delta, but still, you fell NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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69 1 short.

2 Correct.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that the only area 4 that the training fell short, was in the simulator 5 requals? When they're asking you to take out two 6 months, where do they expect that time to be applied?

7 */That was like in the initial 8 license program. The only requirement is that they 9 finished the program before signing the Form 398's to 10 go to the license exam.

11 In general, we would tell them that we 12 would rearrange the schedule, have them come in on

-13 weekends or whatever, but their total hours would be 14 met or would not allow them to do it. My 15 conversations would be I'm not, you know, we can't do 16 this because the end date is firm, and I'm not going 17- to sign the 398's if they haven't finished the 18 program.

19 So, you know, and then typically it's 20 okay, well, that was a bad idea. We won't take the 21 license class guys now. Then they go somewhere else, 22 and this is from the senior, the most senior people in 23 the company, and that was my having to deal with this 24 push for production, were these king of things with 25 the training center.

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70 1 MR. BARBER: YoU mentioned initial 2 training. Was it also requal, or was it one or the 3 other or both?

4 No, it was a combination of 5 initial and requal, depending on what the need was at 6 the given time. Generally we'd work around it, but I 7 remember one specific instance where we wrote a 8 notification at the end of the year mathematically.

9 I mean, we cut it right. down to where we were going to 10 be right down to 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br /> and something occurred that 11 couldn't be counted for training, that we were below 12 the 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br /> for the year. We put ourselves on report 13 for it and did an analysis and made sure that it 14 wasn't going to happen in the future.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 16 of the initial training programs? Was that an issue 17 that came :up once and you had said I can't sign off on 18 these if they don't make it through, and then they 19 realized it was work? .

20 - think every license class 21 that came through, we were asked on a dime to pull the 22 license class in the middle of the outage. Got to go 23 back to the plan. I mean, some of them were reactor 24 operators. Some understood. where, you know, they 25 could help with tagging and stuff, but I mean, NEAL R. GROSS _ .* i

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71 1 literally, I happened, I would say -- I'm going to say 2 every single class. That way I don't give absolutes.

3 I don't think there was a single class when I was in 4 charge that didn't go through with some kind of a 5 perturbation that we had -- and then we finally got 6 smart and we adjusted the beginning of the class to 7 have enough slop in it so that when they got called 8 out, we could re-shuffle the training.

9 There were some fairly acute points where 10 people had to put in a lot of extra hours to get their 12 qualifications because there are a set number of hours 12 that they have to stand on watch in the plant, and 13 they don't get their book signed unless they do this 14 set number of hours. The program has a set number of 15 hours in it.

16 But that's the kind of again, the big 17 picture was kind of missing. I mean, the big picture 18 of you don't want to take away from these guys' time 19 because you're going to put out more qualified 20 operators. If you give them their time to bake rather 21 than keep taking the souffle out of the oven, and that 22 big picture was missing.

23 Again, the same kinds of things were 24 occurring on shift with decisions being made at the 25 highest level.

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72 1 MR. BARBER: Were they taken at like a 2 classroom period? I mean, I don't know specifically 3 how you schedule your initial training. Do you have 4 like a 12-week or a 16-week block of classroom 5 training or something like that?

6 Yes, it varied. I mean, 7 they came out--

8 MR. BARBER: So when they would come out, 9 when the station would go out and say we need these 10 people back, would you physically take them out of the 11 classroom?

12 - Oh, absolutely.

13 MR. BARBER: So, would they get another 14 classroom session as a make-up, or did they have to 15 sit and read the material on their own or something?

16 No, we'd have to make up the 17 classroom session somehow.

18 MR. BARBER: All right, so it kind of put 19 you behind the eight ball as far as resources.

20 There were a number of times 21 I'd calljand get an extension on the exam, or 22 he'd move me out two months or whatever because that 23 perturbation occurred.

24 MR. BARBER: Did he ever ask you, I mean, 25 you know, about that? Did that ever come up?

1 4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W. r

73 1 Yes, routinely. I mean, we 2 had conversations about why was I the only one in the 3 region that would keep having to go to the -well and 4 move the license class around.

5 MR. BARBER: That's interesting. So, he's 6 also kind of intimating that it's just PSE&G that's 7 doing this and others are not?

8 I wouldn't say just. I 9 mean, I think he has other requests to do it, but I 10 would come to the well. He might have another request, and I'd come to the well again. He'd get 12 another request, and I'd come to the well again. So, 13 I was getting more than my fair share of attention.

14 MR. BARBER: Okay.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you say it was 16 every license class you ran had some sort of 17 perturbation in it?

18 Every license class I ran 19 had some perturbation in it that had to do with, you 20 know, all of a sudden the outages and you know, the 21 outage is ten hours behind. We're going to stop the 22 license class and pull everybody out to the plant.

23 Now, is there any outfall from nuclear 24 safety? No. We do the make-up that we have to do, 25 and the individuals that pass the exam pass the exam NEAL R. GROSSL COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

74 1 and get licenses.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So they get the 3 required training?

4 W Correct. They get their 5 required training. Now, did the individuals feel more 6 valuable with the fact that they're getting yanked, 7 you know, they get one shot at license class or two 8 shots at license class, and it's getting perturbed by 9 the company.

10 MR. BARBER: Did you ever feel like 11 because of the way the schedule was perturbated that 12 people, although they may have passed the exam, didn't 13 get the quality of training you would like to have 14 given them in that maybe you -- let's say just take a 15 simple example. You teach systems training on a 16 system, but let's say you teach basic system 17 functions, things like that, something to do with 18 systems training.

19 Then maybe down the road you teach 20 procedures on say that's how that system works for 21 tech specs, but under let's say this circumstance of 22 duress or what have you, maybe they missed systems 23 here but get the procedures training and they have to 24 come back and learn the basic system functions later 25 so that -- I NEAL R.GROSS ~1 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 411q OWnnf IRI ANf AVF N W.

75 1 q 03I hey got all the things they 2 needed to get, and again, there's a filter at the end 3 to insure that nothing gets out that's unsafe. Do I 4 think the individuals got fair? I think there are 5 people that didn't make it through because of the 6 perturbations that occurred with the process.

7 MR. BARBER: Did anybody say anything to 8 you about that, or did you ever get that feedback?

9 Oh, it was constant. I 10 mean, everybody complained about having, you know, to 11 stop the class and start the class and stop the class 12 and start the class. Again, that was more of a 13 business decision of this is how we're going to choose 14 to run things.

15 Again, that was my production pressure.

16 So, as a. that was my direction 17 production pressure that that was occurring on a 18 routine basis, that training was getting shut down or 19 you know, if there was a dual -- if you looked at 20 years that were dual unit outages, like Salem One had 21 an outage in the spring and Salem Two had one in the 22 fall, training was thin for that year at Salem.

23 MR. BARBER: The way the recall program 24 was set up, was there any mandatory either hours or 25 frequency or anything of that nature that related to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

76 1 the program that requalifying operators and senior 2 operators had to go? And that say for example the 3 years when there was a dual unit outage?

4 WM3 There's nothing that says in 5 the program that to get your requalification of your 6 license or your re-up of your license, they had to do 7 a certain amount of hours. There was a program 8 required amount, and one was 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br />. One year it 9 was 59 or 58.

10 It was made up for the next year and then 11 again because the license is a six-year period, the 12 procedure was rewritten to say in any two-year period, 13 make sure you get 120. In the one year, we missed the 14 60 hour6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br /> requirement. There was a notification written 15 on it.

16 MR. BARBER: Okay.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where was that 18 pressure coming to you from to rearrange these 19 classes? Was this from an outage manager, or was it 20 from somewhere else?

21 No, it was directly from the 22 vice president of operations again. The decisions 23 were made -- decisions that were normally made at a 24 lower level were made at the top, with very little 25 discussion. So, it was like, you know, I'm trying to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

77 1 run a license class here that has a definite outcome 2 and a definite end point.

3 The response would be go as for more 4 time. There's really no thought about what it did to 5 the candidates or what it did to the schedule at the 6 training center or whatever. Again, those are kind of 7 small potatoes, but that was my manifestation of the 8 pressure of production.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And that was 4 10* W t that time?

In general, yes 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you have 13 anything further on the training issues? Okay, and 14 everything else that you've --

15 MR. BARBER: I think we've *covered 16 everything, unless you have any other either technical 17 issues or situations you want to discuss that stand 18 out in your mind, interactions with management?

19 There's only one other 20 technical issue I remember. I know the plant --

21 again, I was not involved in this TARP, but there was 22 right over the Holidays, I think 2001 into 2002, there 23 was a reactor trip to the pressurizer spray valve 24 failure, and the spray valve failed open, couldn't get 25 it shut, and couldn't get the right combination of COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE IRI ANn AVF NW

78 1 reactor cooling pumps turned off, and ended up with a 2 reactor trip and almost an SI. They had to basically

• 3 turn off all the reactor coolant pumps before the 4 pressurizer spray stopped.

5 Sol the procedure, once you do the manual 6 reactor trip, has you turn off the number one and 7 number three pumps, depending on which pressurizer 8 spray valve is failed open. In this case, pressure 9 kept 'going down in the plant, so eventually they had 10 to knock off all four reactor coolant pumps, which was 11 kind of an anomaly with the piocedure.

12 Typically, the understanding of that whole 13 thing would have occurred before the plant would start 14 up, but again, I kno 'was applying significant 15 pressure to get the unit started back up, and later 16 admittedto the fact that he started the -reactor up 17 with really no understanding of what occurred at the 18 event. They went ahead and did a reactor start-up 19 pretty much the next day, dnd then a whole bunch of 20 new learnings came out the next week after the root

-21 cause was doneas to why this anomaly occurred.

22 I mean, on the positive side for (he 23 admitted the fact he was going too quick, and admitted 24 that he started up the reactor with not having full 25 knowledge of what happened. But it was another NEAL R. GROSS :J COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1393 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

79 1 manifestation of pressure. You just don't normally 2 start a nuclear reactor back up without understanding 3 what took it out.

4 MR. BARBER: What was it determined to be?

5 Do you recall?

6 It was a phenomena with 7 pressurizer level. The higher pressurized the level, 8 I guess they pressurized the level really high so that 9 the difference, it didn't require much driving head to 10 drive spray flow.

11 MR. BARBER: Is that what it was?

12 Mew Yes, and so even at the

13. other pumps, even once you got the one and three pumps 14 turned off, there was enough DP across the quarter 15 drive spray flow, and if the pressurized level was 16 normal post-trip, then you would not have had the 17 spray flow that they saw.

18 MR. BARBER: Okay.

19 I think

1. they had to make 20 changed to the procedures to insure that you know, any 21 subsequent problem with pressurizer spray would have 22 been understood by the operators and of course you can 23 train on it. to make sure the operators understand 24 what's going on. That didn't occur until after the 25 unit was back up for days.

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80 1 MR. BARBER: Was that aspect, not the 2 technical issue but the fact that there was a decision 3 made to start up without knowing that, was that ever 4 documented in a notification to your knowledge?

5 -* I don't think it was. I 6 think, you know, I verbally heard say you know, 7 we jumped the gun on this, and you know, there was a 8 pressure to get started up, and he went ahead and made

9. the decision to start up without knowing everything.

10 I don't think there was ever a notification 11 specifically about the decision to start up.

12 MR. BARBER: Okay.

13 There may have been. I'm 14 just not aware of one.

15 MR. BARBER: All right. Would that be 16 something that could have been covered in a TARP, too?

17 I mean, would a TARP team have --

18 Well, a TARP definitely has 19 been called out for a reactor trip.

20 MR. BARBER: Would they have ever made a 21 comment about that start-up decision?

22 No, because TARP's a short 23 term type thing, and it rolls over into a start-up 24 type mode.

25 MR. BARBER: All right.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1111 PWOnh,-I= lq QAKIn l M NI 1A1

81 1 I know there are some 2 changes made to the TARP procedure as a result of 3 that, if I remember correctly, to make sure there's 4 continuity. I forget what changes were made, but I 5 know they made some. I was getting out of TARP by 6 just about that time. I wasn't a TARP committee 7 anymore.

8 MR. BARBER: Normally, though, isn't there 9 after a scream or a trip, isn't our post-trip review, 10 which is similar to what a normal safety committee 11 would be?

12 Right, and then they have 13 all -- they did the post-trip review and they had a 14 SORC.

15 MR. BARBER: Isn't one of the questions 16 asked is was there any indications that are not well 17 known or well understood?

18 *Probably there was some 19 discussion about that and they went ahead and started 20 up.

21 MR. BARBER: Okay, so there would have 22 been another opportunity to challenge that decision at 23 that time?

24 Right. Again, I was not in 25 on that SORC, but somehow they didn't have all the NEAL R. GROSS U i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4l2) Dow lc I1 A1n All= KIW

82 1 information going in. They didn't have all the 2 information coming out, and the unit started up. Then 3 it was determined about a week later, you know, hey, 4 it would have been nice to know all the information 5 before we started the unit up.

6 MR. BARBER: Normally you would have 7 expected it, right?

8Right.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know who else 10 had involvement in that incident?

11 mNo.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anybody else that we 13 would be able to talk to?

14 MR. BARBER: Do you have a time frame on is this one?

16 ' I think it was 2001 into 17 2002.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said holiday 19 season, right?

20 .\ Yes. So, that was probably 21 -til1.

22 MR. BARBER: Let's just try just a little 23 bit of a different approach. What I'd like to do is 24 maybe just get you to think a moment about different 25 people that you've interacted with and tell me what 11'.. 1, -- n '

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

83 1 your thoughts are as far as any other additional 2 situations you might recall. Let's just do it by 3 specific manager.

4 If I were to say think of your interaction 5 wit., is there anything else in your 6 interactions wit that you'd like to recall. I 7 think you did mention the one item with the site air 8 compressors. Was there anything else that you had any 9 dealings with him on that we should be aware of?

10 You know, I would say in 11 general, any event that occurred at the plant, it was 12 always one of those 20/20 hindsight kind of things.

13 I mean, you do what you do, and you take your best 14 shot at doing the right thing, but if it wasn't 15 exactly what anted, his management style was to 16 be very abrupt and scream and yell and individually 17 berate individuals during these conversations in front 18 of the management team.

19 I've been exposed to other managers that 20 did that, or other senior leaders that have done that 21 before. His was particularly harsh. Again, I mean, 22 would that have affected me in raising a concern? No, 23 but could it have affected somebody else? Yes, I'd 24 say potentially.

25 MR. BARBER: Did you ever see him berate NEAL R-GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS . I 1.17 RHODF ISI AND AVE.. N.W.

84 1 someone when you were in a meeting or something and 2 just through that intimidation or the harassment of 3 berating, if you will, that you felt like they weren't 4 always willing to bring things forward, and did they 5 come to you and say you know, I wanted to tell him 6 this, but he didn't give me a chance to open my mouth?

7 Well, yes. Again, probably 8 name-wise, you-could pass that around the management 9 team at that time. I think everybody at one time or 10 another got chewed on pretty hard.

11 MR. BARBER: Okay.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you see it happen 13 in fact from where he comes into play and his style is 14 this negative way. Did you see that have an effect 15 where people would raise issues before and then not so 16 much later? Were you able to --

17 From a general sense, yes, 18 I could say that, you know, the entire management team i9 was dulled down, and you recognize that if you stayed 20 in your fox hole and kept your head down, you got less 21 of a chance of getting your head knocked off. It was 22 just really unhealthy during that.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In taking a different 24 viewpoint 25 - In taking any viewpoint that NEAL R. GROSS .

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85 1 stuck your head above the table. I mean, and a 2 different viewpoint especially. Yes, it was pretty 3 astonishing. Again, I mean particulars, it happened 4 so often I cannot just say oh, I remember this one 5 time.

6 Other than the one that laser beamed on 7 me, I remember that one real good, okay, but of all of 8 the management meetings that I was at that this 9 occurred, I can't remember any one specific example 10 that really --. I just remember -- one person I think 11 that might have some insight was a guy named 12 te I don't know if you've heard of him. He was the here.

13 14 During the outage of the 2002 spring 15 outage, on a couple of occasions, he just got up and 16 left. I mean, just got up and left the site, and 17 nobody knew if he was ever coming back or not. It had 18 to do with decisions that were being made and how he 19 was-interfacing. Now, W had the same kind of a 20 mindset I did, where he was raised from a safety 21 standpoint. 4 h'was initially licensed with the 22 So, this 23 guy's got a lot of years as 24 and he just flat out wasn't listened to.

25 So, I mean, he was a NEAL R. GROSS , .-- ,

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86 1 when I was a kid, and he just was not 2 listened to by this management team. I know it 3 frustrated him enough times that I mean, looking 4 around at the outage control center, he's supposed to Where's 1 5 be' the guy running the outage. He 6 left.

7 I think that happened on a couple of those 8 management type meetings also where he was getting 9 berated b I think there was at least once or

"'10 twice where that occurred. So, he may have some --

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What time frame was 12 that? When did he leave?

13 J He left about right after 14 the outage, that particular outage. It was the summer 15 of 2002.

16 MR. BARBER: Okay; How about let's skip 17 over to' You've already given a number 18 of instances where you've had interactions with him.

19 Is there any other interactions that either stand out 20 in your mind either that affected you personally or

21. you saw him interact with others that stood out in 22 your mind?

23 w not like a berating 24 type person. So, he was never one of the ones that 25 would just fly off and start screaming. So, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

87 1 wasn't how he handled things. In general, as a 2 supervisor, I liked him as a supervisor. The one 3 thing that I wasn't smart enough to realize is that he 4 made decisions based off how other people, 5 particularly 0 how he thought* *,thought it 6 should go. I don't know if that makes any sense.

7 He would do things based off of his 8 understanding of howi 'would want it to occur.

9 So, that, if you were really smart, you'd be down here

10. thinking okay, how would' want this to go? I'm 11 going to do it like this already so that -- and it 12 didn't matter whether it made any operational or 13 management sense at all. It's just -- so a lot of the 14 times the rubs with W and some of his direct 15 reports were around not conforming to what -- that 16 doesn't sound right.

17 4 was very unpredictable as a 18 super-visor. I mean, his supervisory skills, he would 19 sit down and talk to you, but the hard part was you 20 would be doing what you thought was the right thing 21 based off of experience, and there was a lot of 22 experienced people there. Then it would come around 23 the blind side you that, you know, that wasn't what I 24 wanted and I didn't tell you. But it's not what I 25 wanted and I didn't tell you kind of a thing.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

88 1 So, it had its own subtle effect of I 2 guess in my mind you wouldn't -- again, you wouldn't 3 want to cause yourself to be seen at all because the 4 laser beam would go right on you.

5 MR. BARBER: Okay.

6 - So, I don't know if that 7 answers the question.

8 MR. BARBER: I think a little bit. I 9 mean, you sort of describe him as my way of saying 10 it would be kind of like a chameleon where he changes 11 his colors based on what the situation was.

12 *, Right, I think that's the 13 right term, but I mean that's either good or bad. I 14 mean, that doesn't directly go at this issue. The'way 15 it could manifest. itself and did manifest itself was 16 typically a boss, one of the rules of a boss is to 17 train you and teach you, right? There was none of 18 that going on at all. You were just trying to guess 19 what the next, you know, if it's a yes or no answer, 20 what, you know, is it supposed to be no, and there 21 would be no feedback to you whether it was right or 22 wrong. It would just be, if it made look bad, 23 you just got negative response.

24 It was just, there were just some 25 astonishing -- I'll bring this one anecdote up because NEAL R. GROSS . ,

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89 1 it's just amazing. It will paint a picture to you of 2 what goes on.

3 There was a tornado warning down in 4 southern Maryland. You know, there's actions you take 5 at a nuclear power station for a tornado. I was in 6ffice, and I was actually talking 7 specifically about wanting to set up the interview to 8 become th .to interview for 9 there.

10 says I got to go because and I 11 have to go tie stuff down for the tornado. I had just 12 gotten off the internet looking at, you know, 13 weather.com. There were no possibility of storms 14 hitting anywhere within 100 miles of Salem.

15 (Whereupon, the foregoing 16 matter went off the record 17 briefly and went back on the 18 record at 5:12 p.m.)

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 20 5:12 p.m.

21 *- Okay,

o. and continuing, there 22 was this anecdote. It kind of paints a picture of how 23 crazy life was during that time. Again, I think this 24 was summer of 2002. It was definitely summer of 2002.

25 This was actually during that outage. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

90 1 remember that now because they needed to go make sure 2 stuff was tied down for the outage was getting 3 ready to-go out with. to go, you know, physically 4 do something. I mean, they'd already given out the 5 order to tie stuff down, and there's a procedure with 6 making sure that there's no missile hazards.

7 But they needed to go out and run around 8 and make sure stuff was tied down as the site vice 9 president. That's a whole other story.

10 I askedr I said hey, did you look at 11 the Weather, and he says well no, how do you do that.

12 I turned on his computer, and his internet thing had 13 never been enabled; So, we went through the whole 14 sequence of starting up the internet on a brand new 15 computer, and it popped up and I went on weather.com, 16 and there's a chunk of storms in New York and there's 17 a chunk of storms down in Virginia, and they're all 18 m6ving like this and there's nothing but sunny skies 19 over the area near us.

20 Now, we weren't even under a tornado 21 warning. There was a tornado warning for like 22 southern Maryland, and they started these actions. So, 23 I was hoping like the outcome of this would be hey 24 why don't you come here and look at this, and 25 you know, maybe we don't need to cycle the site and do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

91 1 all this stuff and stop the outage and no cranes 2 moving because there's not outcome.

3 But would not, andWsaw it.

4 would not approach with it, ahd him anA took 5 off to go tie stuff around the site. I just sat there 6 and just shook my head.

7 Sure enough, you know, for the rest of the 8 afternoon, it was beautifully sunny outside, no wind, 9 and we took tornado preparations for absolutely 10 nothing. Nobody was willing to question anybody about 11 that, even when shown that it just wasn't a physical 12 possibility to have a tornado in Salem. It wasn't 13 being called for, and there was no weather around.

14 MR. BARBER: Was there anything that said 15 that if you're within the proximity of a certain area 16--

17 Ithinx said there's 18 a tornado somewhere, so let's do something about it.

19 That's what I really think happened.

20 MR. BARBER: Okay.

21 , And the insanity of it was 22 just, I mean, and then it's not lost upon people that, 23 you know, there are other computers on site and there 24 are other people that are you know, I'm not a genius.

25 You know, other people looked up weather.com, and they

-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

92 1 realized they stopped the outage and were taking all 2 these actions for nothing. Then we're fighting over 3 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br /> starting up a nuclear reactor in what I would 4 consider an unsafe condition.

5 So, that was my level on insanity toward 6 the end of this thing, that kind of paints a picture.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Typically is your 8 director of operations and your VP the people who go.

9 out and tie things down?

10 Absolutely not. Not any 11 sane organization. In any sane organization, that 12 does not occur. You know, the water had gone out.

13 There's a procedure that people follow to do that.

14 The outage was stopped, but because it was the vogue 15 thing to do to run around in scrubs and yell orders 16 and tie stuff, batten down the hatches and throw ropes 17 over stuff, and that's what they were going to do, 18 even when I showed him it was not a physical 19 possibility.

20 That was part of the -- I was just looking 21 at this from up close and afar going this is just a 22 really unhealthy environment. '\was unwilling to 23 show the fact what the issue was with the 24 weather.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS (-- \ "'

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

93 1 attributing that to the fact that' .ould wO 2 do things based on what 'to Ortld him, and if 3 -'aid there's a tornado and you must 4 prepare, there was no arguing.with that?

• -_ -,* '*"~'

,*C o r r e c t .

5 6 MR. BARBER: How abou' imself.? Do 7 you have any take on him? I mean, you probably were 8 in meetings when he's-9

- ould be the sanest 10 guy I ever met. I mean, like you'd go in and you'd 11 walk away thinking he had the wisdom of Solomon of 12 what he had just said. Then I-'d say 70 or 80 percent 13 .of the time,. you'd walk and have absolutely no idea 14 what was just communicated to you.

15. I mean, speak English, but what was coming 16 out meant nothing. Another example of that was 17 came out to the simulator withw" 18 the at the time, and observed 19 the crew. The crew got finished, and during the 20 grading of it, looked at and said -- and I 21 was not -- "I came in five minutes after this.

22 So, "had just left. I walked in to 23 find out, becausem .stopped by my office and said 24 how terrible the training was. I walked in to talk to 25 the.' and he says I don't even NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. "

94 1 know how to respond to this. "brought up a 2 question about why the operators were parroting each 3 other. Why do those operators sound like they're 4 parroting each other?

5 'pulled out the OPS standards and go 6 we have this thing called three-way communications.

7 It's not really new in the industry but, you know, in 8 case you haven't been exposed to it, here are our 9 standards.' 'Kust flat out didn't want to hear 10 it. Today was operators were parroting each other, 11 and it was ignored. I mean, nobody ever did anything 12 about it, but. was upset because the operators 13 were using three-way communications in his control 14 room per the operations standards and per the industry 15 standards.

16 MR. BARBER: So he was kind of that far 17 behind the curve that he didn't even know that that

18. was the standard?

19 ' Behind, ahead, sideways, 20 coherent, incoherent. I don't know how to describe 21" it.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there some other 23 way he expected them to communicate? I mean, I 24 understand what you're saying. It's industry 25 standard. It's more than just at Salem. It's done NEAL R. GROSS .f COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

95 1 elsewhere, but --

2

• I don't know the answer to 3 that question. I mean, and I never found that 4 particular answer out.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He just questioned 6 why are they parroting?

7 i7 It was just kind of ignored 8 and everybody continued doing what was in the 9 standards.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Tornado prep.

11 77. It was kind of like the 12 tornado prep.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay' 14 Like I said, there were some 15 days I went in, and I had a lot of interface with 16 i a lot of direct interface with him, and there 17 were times that him and I communicated, 20 or 30 18 percent of the time I walked out feeling wow, you 19 know, I'm on pretty. firm ground wit There 20 were 70 or 80 percent of the time where I have no idea 21 whether I communicated or not.

22 I know he didn't communicate with me, and 23 that's unusual for me as a person, and it was 24 frustrating for me because in general I communicate 25 well with people I work for or peers with or friends NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS .

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

96 1 with. I communicate reasonably well, and I don't 2 think, if you talk to some of the other people that 3 worked there, I would not be an outlier in that.

4 It was very frustrating because there were 5 times that you think you were heard and you understood 6 what the communication was, and then there were other 7 times where you just have no idea whether your 8 communication hit base, whether he communicated with 9 you. It was pretty frustrating.

10 MR. BARBER: Did you ever get the 11 impression he was under a lot of pressure from --

12 o, no. was a pretty 13 cool cat. I mean, if-he was under pressure, I didn't 14 know it.

15 MR. BARBER: Okay. Did he ever do 16 anything unusual, out of the norm as far as the way 17 he'd interact with other managers?

18 = Another one that's kind of 19 interesting is that there were times, and this never 20 happened with me, but there were other people that 21 said, you know, he'd be in the middle of a sentence 22 with you and he'd just turn around and walk away. It 23 was like, you know, another idea hit his head, and he 24 needed to go deal with it right then.

25 That never happened with me for some NEAL R. GROSS .""

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97 1 reason. I did witness it. I did see it happen.

2 MR. BARBER: Okay.

3 The guy was in the middle of 4 a sentence, *and he just turned around and walked away.

5 MR. BARBER: How about just did he ever 6 have meetings off site?

7 .: No, I was never really 8 involved in any meetings off site with him. I mean 9 sporting events and stuff like that.

10 MR. BARBER: I mean like did he ever have 11 people over to his house to discuss plant issues?

12 Yes. I mean, I was aware of

• 7f*2*..*:.-.*

13 a - I was pretty good friends with the' 14 there, a guy name and I know that when 15 first came there, he was trying to follow the 16 site's policy for writing QA reports and you know, the 17 QA kind of. reports directly up to the!,chief nuclear 18 officer The QA reports were coming out were 19 negative' and they had grades applied to them, like 20 different colors of organizations getting certain 21 color grades, 22 I know on numerous occasionsgot an 23 invite directly to to explain how he was 24 going to change the report because he didn't like how 25 the grading was. Eventually what happened was they NEAL R. GROSS " -* '

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98 1 just got rid of the grading and just had comments.

2 Then the Nuclear Review Board came in and said you 3 know, what kind of garbage is this? How can you go 4 from having grading where we actually have something 5 to put our teeth into to just comments. The grading 6 kind of came back.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Like they weren't 8 doing enough self assessment there 9 Right. I know got 10 invited out to to specifically talk 11 about that.- I know that he had specific meetings with 12 the vice presidents to get colors changed because they 13 didn't like how their organizations were being 14 assessed. So, again, that's second hand, just talking 15 to the QA manager under some significant frustration, 16 but I know that occurred.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Time frame for that?

18 They're all kind of about 19 the same time. That may have been 2001 into 2002.

20 MR. BARBER: Do you know, was anybody else 21 ever invited to hi house that you're aware of to 22 discuss any other issues? It just seems very unusual.

23 Nam I think was.

24 He was my[ former boss jback in the 2000 time frame, but 25 I don't know the nature of those meetings.

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99 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the end 2 result? Was this recommendation that they drop the 3 colors and when they were dropped, then the NRB came 4 in and said you can't do that.

5 It kind of was a moving 6 target for awhile. Every time a QA report came out, 7 it was in a different format.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Different color?

9 'Generally really didn't get 10 dumbed down. I think the attempt was to kind of dumb 11 it down a little bit so it didn't say the biting 12 things that it --

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Not as harsh?

14 Ws Yes, but it really still got 15 through to the point. I mean, they may have taken 16 away the colors, but if you read the paragraph, the 17 paragraph still said that maintenance didn't know how 18 to fix anything. You know, you put a red bullet and 19 say maintenance doesn't know how to fix anything or 20 you can just leave the red bullet off and say 21 maintenance doesn't know how to fix anything, and 22 here's the 20 examples.

23 It doesn't matter. I mean, it was still 24 getting -- it wasn't like the information was getting 25 squelched. I think that was because the people, NEAL R. GROSS '

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100 1 including the QA manager, wouldn't allow that to 2 occur, but there was a lot of frustration with that 3 organization communicating to the senior leadership.

4 I mean, normally what I was used to seeing 5 was the senior leadership committee would just take 6 that information at face value and go do something 7 with it, and there wouldn't be a lot of angling around 8 what the words said and how they were being said.

9 This organization was very much into how it's said, 10 why it's said, what color it is, and you know, how 11 much can we push over in this pile and how much can we 12 push over into-this pile so I don't look bad kind of 13 a thing. That was kind of frustrating.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what you're 15 saying, from what you've seen, it didn't affect the 16 findings. The findings were still there. They just 17 might have been color coded differently.

18 G--I Again, I just saw the 19 outcome, so I don't know what was originally said in 20 it before it got through the filter. I saw what came 21 out afterwards, and I just saw a bunch of -- you know, 22 I talked to .said you know, I got invited 23 over to and the VP's a're mad at me 24 because we're saying this stuff, and all I saw was the 25 outcome of this report that would change every time it NEAL R. GROSS ,.

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101 1 came out to some new format.

2 So, if you collected all the QA reports 3 for that time frame, they'd all look different, and 4 some would have colors, some wouldn't, and there was 5 this whole wrangling in the middle of that how to make

6. them look.

7 So, I mean I did hear that out of 8 mouth, is the whole -- he called it the cycle of doom.

9 You know, the cycle of doom was you'd start out with 10 an NRB meeting and the NRB would tell you how bad 11 you're doing. Then it would purvey around to QA

12. telling you how bad you're doing, and QA would read, 13 or NRB would read all the QA reports and the.

14 corrective actions, and then the NRB would again tell 15 you how bad you're doing.

• sed to describe that 16 as the cycle of doom.

17 I think he would try to change that with 18 the QA report so that the next time it fed around, it 19 wouldn't be. so bad. It was kind of tough to, you 20 know, when you have three partial losses of off site 21 power in a year and injure a whole bunch of people, 22 it's kind of tough to make that thing look right 23 because these guys go out and look at other power 24 stations that don't have three partial losses of off 25 site power, seven or eight reactor trips in a year, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1VAT RH0nF IRIAND AVE.. N.W. \%1'A

102 1 and hurt 20 people.

2 They don't see that at other stations, so 3 it's kind of tough, no matter how you slice it and 4 dice it and you know, move the indicators out and take 5 the colors off. It doesn't matter. You still see, 6 you know, X number of people getting hurt. You still 7 see pieces of equipment not operating. You still see 8 the outcome of the performance. So, that was 9 interesting.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There's been a number 11 of things said about, or at least there's some 12 information that the INPO rating in 2002 was a big 13 issue for Does something like this feed 14 into NRB's evaluations of what goes on on site and 15 INPO's review of that? The fact that they were 16 getting a three and did get a three again, I think it 17 was twice in a row?

18 .* I don't know. I think, you 19 know, INPO comes in and does an assessment.. They do 20 a two-week assessment, and they see what they see.

21 Like within an hour of INPO being on the site during 22 that particular review, we had a tagging error that 23 resulted in either cardox dumping or somebody gets 24 shocked or something, like within an hour of them 25 being there. So, it would just, it wasn't like the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I.,

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103 1 place would clean up and put on pretty clothing for 2 the two weeks that INPO was there. It's just the same 3 stuff continued to happen.

4 INPO looks very heavily. They have a PI 5 system, not unlike the NRC's PI system, that looks at 6 things like capacity factor and unplanned trips and 7 unplanned capability loss factor and this kind of a thing. Salem was like an industry outlier in the 9 majority of those categories, and so was Hope Creek.

10 I mean, if you just looked *at that, that 11 paints a picture, but they ask you to send down like 12 your last coupleyears of corrective actions, and they

13. cull through the corrective actions and look for, you 14 know, big hitting type items. Then they come ask you 15 questions about all that. You know, why can't you 16 keep the units up? Why did you have three partial 17 losses of off site power? Why are you hurting people, 18 and why can't you fix the corrective actions? You've 19 written corrective actionsi but you're not fixing 20 anything.

21 All that paints a picture, and then they 22 see people actually get shocked while they're out 23 there observing the site. It paints a three or a four 24 because, you know, INPO two or one plants don't 25 operate like that.

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104 1 So, I'm sure the pressure was enormous on 2 - nd the senior leadership team. The one thing 3 I would tell you is that no matter how many times the 4 puck got shot on goal, it would appear that the 5 operators at both stations still listened to the way 6 they were trained in '95, '96 coming out of the big 7 event that occurred in '94.

8 Because in '94, I think some of these 9 pucks would have gotten through the goal with the

10. operators they had. In '95, '96, '97, they were 11 trained by the former management team to not allow 12 pucks to go through the goal, ard no matter how many -

13 - it didn't matter who were shooting the pucks. I 14 mean, sometimes it was the maintenance department.

15 Sometimes it was the plant playing tricks on you, and 16 sometimes it was the senior leadership team asking you 17 to do stuff you're not allowed to do. They wouldn't 18 let the pucks get through the goal.

19 So, if you look at the actual how many 20 errors and events and significance level, you know, 21 from what the NRC sees, it hasn't been that high at 22 the power station. I think the goalie is supposed to 23 be back here as the senior leadership team and 24 managers keeping those shots away from the control 25 room. The way it has been, I don't know the way it is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

105 1 now, but the way it was up until the end of 2002 was 2 the shots on goal were right at the point of attack 3 with the goalie.

4 I hate to use a hockey analogy, but it's 5 kind of like that. The thing I wasn't used to seeing 6 was the senior leadership team out there shooting 7 pucks, too, at the control room.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that's the

.9 reversal you talked about?

10 7 ;ight, ala the-11 coming in and asking you to NA a surveillance 12 requirement. That's just unconscionable. So, it was 13 just another-puck that the shift manager or the CRS 14 had to say, you know, we're just not going to do this.

15 That's the picture I left with at the end 16 of last year, and it was pretty unhealthy. Now, you 17 know, ability to raise a safety concern, I don't know 18 if that's part of this or not, but I didn't feel like 19 I couldn't raise one, and people would listen to you, 20 but would they actually fix it or would they do 21 something with it once you did it? It's questionable.

22 I think it's an individual issue with all 23 that environment around you' of seeing people get 24 yelled at, seeing people either -- actually, not too 25 many people got fired, but a lot of people quit. Just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS '

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106 1 with that aura and environment, I think it's up to the 2 individual whether they would feel, you know, 3 depending on you know, how severe the safety concern 4 is versus how secure do you feel in your job and how 5 bad you need a job as to whether you're going to raise 6 it or not.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it definitely 8 played a factor in whether somebody -- this is a 9 factor for them.

10 M Right.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How comfortable am I 12 and what response am I going to get.

13 Now, do I feel as a nuclear 14 professional, I mean, this is. not, if you read my 1s ifesumereismm 16 17 19 . Do I feel that I was heard by my 20 management team at the end? Absolutely not. They 21 could care~less what opinion I had on nuclear power 22 and nuclear safety, and it didn't matter.

23 So, that was the stark difference between 24 '95, '96, '97, the beginning of '98, I felt vital and 25 heard, and my nuclear experience was being used to NEAL R. GROSS., "-

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107 1 better the plant. When I left at the end of- it 2 just didn't -- you know, if you look at resumes, I was 3 probably one of the heavier people there as far as 4 experience and education, and it just didn't matter.

5 Even if they did seek out my opinion, which didn't 6 happen very often, if I gave them my opinion on a 7 technical issue, it didn't matter.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that because of 9 part of what you said before, was that largely in your 10 experience when you've tested, things haven't always -

11. - you've had bad experiences where you've pushed, so

12. now you've learned not to push in those areas, and one 13 was the example that we talked about in 2002.

14 Right.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So, I think you're 16 portraying that your actions are very conservative 17 because you don't want to push in certain systems and 18 certain areas. Is it. that they don't.seek your --

19 they didn't seek your opinion because you were going 20 to be conservative and give conservative guidance?

21 I think that was a part of 22 it, but I also think it was -- I think that was 23 probably half of it. I think the other half, and this 24 is again, this is opinion. I don't have any fact to 25 back this up at all. I think 50 percent of it was the NEAL R. GROSS - .

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108 1 fact that they knew I would give a conservative 2 response, and the other 50 percent was they already 3 had the correct answer anyway, and that it really 4 didn't serve them at all to get anybody else's 5 professional opinion on how to operate a power 6 station. That's truthfully what I think.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Correct answer coming 8 from that level of management?

9 From the chief nuclear 10 officer on down.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else to add?

12 MR. BARBER: No.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is there anything 14 that you would like to add toE that we haven't 15 asked or touched on? Anything that would be 16 significant?

17 MR. BARBER: How about any other examples 18 can you think of where you felt like people were 19 harassed or intimidated by anybody at the station 20 regarding, you know, just raising safety issues or 21 issues to be addressed or things of that nature? It 22 could from some other than we've talked. We focused 23 primarily onW 24 but what about others? I mean, were there 25 interactions you were a party to, or maybe there was NEAL R. GROSS '

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109 1 indirect pressure that we haven't already discussed?

2 NO I'm trying to remember 3 specifics and names. They're out there, but I can't 4 remember for the life of me. I know there was a 5 documented harassment type thing with the-  !

0the-hich came down 7 to the same berating type thing, and that was around 8 the same time frame, mid-2002.

9 MR. BARBER: Okay.

10 I don't remember the 11 specifics. I know the name was 12 -That was through employee concerns and 13 filed, the whole nine yards. I don't even know the 14 outcome of that,. but I know there was a lot of heavy 15 handed type things occurring there throughout., and it 16 got progressively worse. I don't know if it was out 17 outfall of the environment and the INPO and the rating 18 and the needing to do better or what, but it got 19 progressively worse as time went on.

20 MR. BARBER: Is there any other situations 21 that you could think of that might involve either 22 intentional violations of NRC requirements or tech 23 specs or license issues or things of that nature?

24 No, I can' t think of any 25 specifics.

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110 1 MR. BARBER: Okay, thank you.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. If there's 3 nothing else to add, all right, then we'll close.

4 It's approximately 5:35 p.m., and I thank you for your 5 time.

6 k No problem.

7 (Whereupon, the above-referred to 8 interview was concluded at 5:35 p.m.)

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS