ML061800213
| ML061800213 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 01/07/2004 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1295 | |
| Download: ML061800213 (146) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION C-
Title:
Iriterview of DocketiNumber:n. *2003-051F
-7c--
(~) Location:
r Date:. Wednesday, January 7, 2004 Work Order No.: NRC-1 295 Pages 1-144 NEAL . GRSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
- (202) 234-4433 information in this record was d*,
inaccordance vwith the freedom 0 :nhormatior Act, exemption$ C-- %
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 ----------------------- x 7 IN THE MATTER OF:
8 INTERVIEW OF Case No.
9 -i 1-2003-051F 10 (CLOSED.)-
11 ------------------------- x 12 Wednesday, January 7, 2004 13 14 15 I' TTI. *~* !JVL I, &T :77Oý 16 17 The above-entitled interview was conducted 18 at 4:00 p.m.
19 20 BEFORE:
21 Special Agent EILEEN NEFF 22 23 ALSO PRESENT:
24 SCOTT BARBER, Senior Project Engineer 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (4:00 p.m.)
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 January 7, 2004, and the time is approximately 5 4:00 p.m.
6 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, NRC 7 Region I, Office of Investigations. Also present is 8 Senior Project Engineer Scott Barber from Region I.
9 This interview is taking place at 10 It is- an 11 interview 0 12 j at the Hope Creek Station.
13 As explained to you before going on the 14 record, the subject of this interview is the safety 15 conscious work environment or safety culture onsite 16 and your experience at Hope Creek. You're not being 17 interviewed as the subject of any investigation, and 18 there is no specific potential violation associated 19 with this inquiry.
20 At this point, if you could, for the 21 record, state your full name, anid spell your last 22 name, please-23 NOW 24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And some identifying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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.2 1 information -- that would be your date of birth and S
2 Social Security Number.
3 4 We 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. And your 6 -- a summary of your education, please.
7 J"I have -- I'm about 8 - "L,~.A 9
10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And your work 12 history?
13 14 15 S. __
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What year was that?
17 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How long in thelO )
19 * -Now, QI wasj WN I
20 just shy ' 1'A a -7, 21 SPE CIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So f romý
,\WNW 22 oughy--
-IF
/
23 Roughly.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
25 At Hope Creek?
,~
it i'1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 WINDOW I At Hope Creek allot the 2 time.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And your position 4 there at first?
5 6 n -oh, my 7 goodness -- iatel roughly.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What did you 10 do before that, between Were you an 11 12 Yes.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
14 Sorry, I missed that.
15 look That's okay.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So that would 17 be, then, 18 Well, that's when I went 19 into school. So it took a little while to get the 20 W "Asince 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. About a year 22 later.
23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Year and a half or 25 so.
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5 1 Roughly. Roughly, yes.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. Okay. For your 3 -- your supervisory chain, have you been on the same 4 shift or different shifts or --
5 I've been on multiple 6 shifts, and I've been off shift. This is myi 5 ,cond 7 time off shift on an off-shift rotatior 7 so I've had 8 quite a few supervisors.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Oh, okay. Most 10 recently, who are you working for?
1i 77 Well, right now I'm working 12 -- my immediate supervisor would be 13 He's the ' Been there since 14 November.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How long is your 16 rotation?
17 I'm there 'til, I believe, 18 January of ( It's a six-month rotation, but 19 nobody wanted the next six months. And they just 20 asked it, so I should be getting it again for 21 another --
22 (Whereupon, a phone began ringing.)
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you want to take 24 a quick break?
25 'Yes NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 2 foregoing matter went off the record 3 briefly.)
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're back on 5 the record. It is approximately 4:06 p.m., after a 6 brief interruption.
7 And we were talking about your assignment 8 right now. So in November you left the/ýhifv--
9 es.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- and you're now 11 under' 12 Yes 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. On the 14 ,and that's going to go for approximately another 15 year or so.
16 Right.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, when you were on 18 1shift`ý,who did you work with?
19 I worked o iharlie 1: shift./
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:' Okay.
21 C shift. And that was 22 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. For how long 24 were you under 25 -.. ,At least a year. I'm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 thinking longer, but I can't remember right now. At 2 least a year.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At least a year? You 4 had indicated since - since you were a*
5 you've had sdme assignments, off-shift assignments.
6 Right. Just before I came 7 to shift[ was the I wrote the tagouts 8 basically, and the work orders, and stuff like that 9 for outages. I did that before I came toc shift.',
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
11 And that was about a year 12 on--
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that would be, 14 going back, November of'; --
15 . 7:Yes, don't hold me to those 16 timeframes real close. It's --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.
18 Yes 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm just looking to 20 see where you were --
21 .Rough timeframes.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- in different 23 timeframes and --
24 Right. Rough timeframes.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- your positions and NEAL R. GROSS f COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 I,
1 everything.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Rough timeframe, 4 to -wo be s that right?
5jYes, it was __
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: End to end 7 would be;On s-hift71,,t
`
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
10 <11,ýw gt 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. It doesn't 12 have to be precise.
13 j Oay, good.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And, you know, when 15 you don't have it specific, just say that.
16 Okay, because I don't.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. Understood 18 and --
19 RFO 11 is the outage that I 20 was working towards. So up to a few months before the 21 outage itself, somebody else. took my spot, so the 22 timeframes are a little off. And then before that I 23 was 4ý shif4all the time, so --
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Prior to the outage 25 assignment.
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9 19 ~Right.
SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, 43n shifty Were 3-, you under at that time?
4 M 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who were you under 6 then?
7 MMO I was -- I wasfB shifit at 8 that time.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Shift B)'
10 And that would be ii I mean, no That would be .. ... HI 12 -- I mean, m at the time.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay. It just
(
14 helps me to understand --
15 - )That's fine.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- what your 17 experiences are. Okay.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What' 19 )position now?
20 20 ** Now he's -- hes ..
21 but I believe we have somebody 22 coming in this week or next week to take that 23 position. And I think he's going back t the --
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Thank 25 you.
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.0 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He'll be the 3 Right.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Somebody is coming in 5 to replace 6 .*.*p* Right.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What I have to 8 do is place you under oath. If you could raise your 9 right hand, please. Do you swear that the testimony 10 you are about to provide is the truth, the whole 11 truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
12 1 do.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. All right.
(
14 And we talked about the subject matter for the 15 interview being a safety conscious work environment.
16 And I can't point to any one factor and say, "Does 17 this or doesn't this work or exist or anything." It's 18 -- a number of factors go into the safety culture and 19 the work environment there.
20 I guess what would be good overall would 21 be, from your perspective and from your understanding 22 of the safety conscious work environment, in the time 23 that you've been onsite at Hope Creek, have you 24 noticed any changes in anything that you believe (7 25 factors into that?
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11 1 .iYes, gone through a gambit 2 here basically. When I came in .safety was up to 3 the individual. You know, I'm sure you had OSHA and 4 you had some, you know, regulations you had to follow.
5 But I remember going through -- I mean, just for 6 simple things -- say, walking up a ladder -- we go 7 through people, and some people wouldn't -- didn't 8 feel comfortable walking on a, you know, 30-foot 9 ladder up high and shaky, and whatever.
10 Managers would -- you know, "Get up there.
11 I'd do it," you know, and so there's -- that was one 12 end of the bargain. You know, it's, like I said, 13 1990-ish, that timeframe. And it got much better 14 after that. You know, it progressively got better.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know why?
16 Safety tagging program got 17 a little better. People got a little bit more, you 18 know, willing to say, "Hey, no, that's not safe.
19 We're really not going to be doing that." To me, it 20 looks like not just Hope Creek, but it looks like 21 industry-wide it's done that. I don't know really 22 what spurred all of that.
23 I mean, I know we've gone through some 24 training and stuff like that that says, you know, this 25 industry or this -- you know, Exxon Valdez, all of NEAL R. GROSS '\ .
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12 1 this type of stuff -- I can't think of the name of the 2 book they gave us that was pretty decent, had probably 3 10 episodes of things throughout industry-wide. Exxon 4 Valdez was one of them, what caused it and, you know, Eso I hink just overall safety consciousness has gone 6 up. I would say that.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And that -- it 8 seems like in -- in your examples, what you're talking 9 about would be industrial safety --
- Right.
10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- issues.
12 7 Right. Industrial Safety 13 Handbook I think is what the --
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Oh, okay.
15 -- that thing was.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There you go.
17 I think that's what it was.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The focus here is 19 going to be that the - - the concern and the mission of 20 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the focus on 21 health and safety of the public. And what we're 22 looking at is issues that would be more tied in to 23 nuclear safety.
_* Right.
24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And concerns in that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 realm. And from your perspective, in terms of the 2 kinds of issues that are dealt with onsite, concerns 3 that an individual might have, do people have concerns 4 or --
5 Do you mean --
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let me put it this 7 way. In terms of nuclear safety, if they have a 8 concern, is the issue raised? And this could be 9 anything from operability decisions to any other kind 10 of decision-making, any production concerns, things 11 along that line.
12 There were definitely some 13 issues and concerns, yes. It just -- I wish I could 14 tell you right off the bat that when we -- when me, as 15 an bring up an issue it gets -- it gets worked on 16 and looked at and thought about, and whatever, you 17 know, 100 percent of the time.
18 But I -- I swear I can't figure out --
19 once it leaves my -- me, the the , once it 20 goes above that level, I have no idea who makes the 21 decisions on what -- on what is important, what isn't, 22 and what safety or-- I mean, I know we have an SAP 23 program now where you can -- you write a notification 24 on something, and you can )ode it safety, and then it 25 gets looked at at whatev, level it gets looked at.
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1 Safety has more of an is. ie now.
2 SR. PROJECT IGINEER BARBER: Isn't that 3 code, though, more -- isn't it unique to like 4 industrial safety? If y, i put safety on it -- or is 5 it more generic?
6 I honestly don't know if 7 it's used any more than idustrial safety.
8 SR. PROJECT I IGINEER BARBER: I mean, if 9 you had a -- sometimes w( struggle with terminology.
10 But it could be somethii that just comes up. You 11 know, you're operating the plant on shift, and 12 something happens, and yo start thinking about it and 13 -- and then the path tha you end up taking just --
14 something doesn't seem :ight, you know, or that 15 happens a lot, you know and you say, "Why are we 16 doing that?" Or you go I ýlk to somebody about it.
17 Right.
18 SR. PROJECT E GINEER BARBER: And you may 19 not get much of an answez 20 Right. I'm trying to be --
21 you kind of asked about a philosophy. So the 22 philosophy --
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
24 - - has definitely changed, 25 and I believe the entire philosophy of safety has NEAL R. GROSS [/
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15 1 gotten better. But it's kind of sort of taken a -- I 2 don't know if it's a downturn or a twist or a tangent.
3 I'm not really sure how you want to -- how would be a 4 good way to say it.
5 I know I get very frustrated as a 6 *sometimes, because, I mean, I've had a 7 few issues, and I've written some things about nuclear 8 safety that I feel is nuclear safety.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So in order to 10 categorize it correctly, you're seeing improvements in 11 terms of industrial safety and --
12 'Yes.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- handling of those 14 issues onsite, but a departure from that in terms of 15 nuclear safety issues. That you don't really --
16 you're kind of indicating that you can't really 17 explain, because you don't know where the decisions 18 are or --
19 Right. I --
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- what's --
21 I absolutely do not know 22 where those decisions are being made sometimes.
23 < SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it seems this is 24 -- there's a negative handling aspect to it. And is 25 that --
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1 M. Absolutely.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that that they're 3 not taken in a -- as a priority, or they're decoded 4 from a -- a nuclear safety basis, or -- what is it 5 specifically that you don't agree with with the 6 handling?
7 Well, to me as -- since I am 8 the and I am controlling the 9 reactivity, the balance of the plant, the whole nine 10 yards, if I bring up an issue, I would expect that 11 that issue is -- is looked at very seriously, very 12 closely, and acted upon in a relatively quick fashion.
13 Want me to close that door?
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, it's 15 okay. I just moved my head around.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But let's -- how 17 about an example. How about something that you've had 18 a concern with that you've raised and --
- 19. j Well, one example is we had 20 an off-gas problem. That's a pretty big issue to us.
21 I mean, not only for vacuum, or whatever, but we 22 normally run at -- you know, I'm going to give you a 23 rough estimate, but 40 SCFM in off-gas.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And when is 25 this? When does -- you don't have to be date-NEAL R. GROSS / 7 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 specific, but year and month?
2 jLet me see. I was on-- it 3 was last year sometime, but I can't give you a -- I 4 can't give you a specific date. But it was --
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Season? Was it 6 wintertime or --
7 I can't even give you that 8 right now.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It might come to you.
10 I'm sorry.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's all right. It 12 might come to you. When you talk about it, it 13 might --
14 'But it was about a year ago.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
16 The reason why is because I 17 was standing -- I -- another4 that I don't stand 18 watch with -- I used to stand watch with, so I'm 19 getting kind of confused on whether it was -- but it 20 wasn't that long ago, so -- but it was -- it was at 21 least a year ago.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was the other 23 24 It wa. *,.,
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
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18 He brought up the issue 2 also. And basically what happened is off-gas started 3 rising, and it -- it was elevated for a while, and we 4 -- you know, we brought the issue up, and the issue 5 got looked at. Okay. You know, let's take a look at 6 it, and that was good, and --
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What's the 8 concern with elevated off-gas flow?
9 Well, one is you have 10 release rates going out. And, two, is that you have 11 a certain amount of in-leakage into the condenser, and 12 if -- it could be a very good indicator of something 13 going wrong.
14 And we have -- the FSAR calls out certain 15 specifics -- you know, certain limits on it, and our 16 procedures tell us that we can only -- now don't hold 17 me to the numbers, but I'll give you a rough -- I 18 believe the procedure at the time said 75 SCFM was the 19 maximum that we can hold.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said that 21 normally you operated around 40?
22 40.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where were you when 24 you had your concern?
25 Well, it was -- I can't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 remember exactly, but roughly it was going from 50.
2 It was rising up pretty quickly. So it wasn't like, 3 you know, two or three we're talking about. I mean, 4 you can see changes in that.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was it close 6 to 75 at some point?
7 It went up higher than that.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
9 97 And basically, they came 10 back and said, well, that the off-gas train can hold
- 1. -- I believe the numbers are 150. But the FSAR -- I 12 mean, it was -- and here's the point that got to us is 13 you have NCOs saying, "Hey, the procedure says this.
14 Now, you can go ahead and change the procedure if you 15 want."
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you 17 remember what the procedure said?
18 j I think the procedure-- I 19 think the procedure said 75.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So it said 21 75, okay.
22 1Isaid, "You can change the 23 procedure if you want. But if the procedure says 75 24 and we're not at 75, and we're higher than that,"
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20 1 be taking some sort of action to put the plant in 2 where we believe it should be."
3 And this is -- this is the issues that I 4 -- I get confused on, because I don't understand the 5 decision-making process anymore. On the way up to 6 that, when it was the NCO and the CRSs looking at them 7 and saying, "Hey, this ain't right," you know, "so 8 let's take a look."
9 And, you know, we're pulling out prints, 10 and we're -- we're having people walk around, and 11 that's what we should be doing. You know, let's find 12 out what we've got going here, and we get people 13 starting to look at it. We get the organization 14 knowing about it.
15 But then when it comes to an action where 16 we need to be doing something, nothing happened and it 17 got -- you know, it went to Engineering, it went here, 18 it went there, and it was a very long time that we 19 were running at that, in my opinion.
20 I don't remember the timeframe, I'm sorry.
21 But it was a very long time that we were operating at 22 that, and they went ahead and changed the pro'cedure, 23 and they told us -- said, "Well, the ESAR says this, 24 but it does this, that, and the other thing."
25 Well, me as an , iyou know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 July 4th -- I'm just picking this as a -- as an 2 example, right?
- 7 Jmidnight shift, 3 you know, skeleton crew, if I reach something, I've 4 got procedures that tell me what to do, and I should 5 do that. And I shouldn't have to be challenged days 6 or weeks later that I was wrong if we're bringing up 7 an issue.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Well, let's 9 talk about that.
10 And that's my issue.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who is your 12 I can't remember who theI 13 was at that time either. God, I'm so sorry on this.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you would have 15 been on\-C shift* right?
16 Yes, I believe I was on 17 $C hift at the time.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Under 19 Yes, it was 20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you 21 bring your sheet?
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don't think so.
23 Iwant to sa 24 was -- that was -- I mean, the. that I had were 25 OEM Mi But it was -- see, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
22 1 the problem with me bringing up timeframes, it would 2 be so easy if I was on the same shift all the time.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.
4 P1 But in the last three years, 5 I -- you know, off shift, on shift, off shift, and 6 standing a lot of watches and stuff like that, and it 7 kind of --
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, it confuses you.
9 (Right. The timeframes --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But something like 12 that would be documented.
12 NOW " Oh, it's documented.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We would know who 14 the --
is C _*........ Right.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- was.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: We could 18 probably dig some of that up.
19 MINNOW" Right. I don't --
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How about 21 the -- it sounds like you did a lot at the time 22 specifically to investigate what the cause of the 23 leakage -- in-leakage was, right?
24 I guess the presumption is you had some 25 small amount of in-leakage, and then either it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
23 1 degraded and you started getting more at that 2 location, or you had another location, you start --
3 you're starting to get more in-leakage.
4 So there's a concern that, you know, 5 you're maybe jeopardizing condenser vacuum. Maybe you 6 have too high a release rate, or too high a flow rate 7 through the off-gas system. So it's not performing 8 properly. Maybe you're releasing, you know, more out-9 fluence than you normally would. You know, there's a 10 number of different concerns.
11 Right.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: When you sat 13 down and went through all of that, was there ever an 14 attempt to like keep track of everything you did and 15 document that in the notification? So that if 16 somebody picks it up, they can say, "Oh, well, the 17 shift did this. They identified it."
18 And I'm not looking for dates or times, 19 but more sequence -- that they identified at this date 20 and time that this happened, and then they went out 21 and investigated and found this, or they didn't find 22 this. And then they looked at the FSAR, and the FSAR 23 said this. And then they looked at this, and so that 24 -- so that if an engineer comes in and says, "Well, I 25 don't really know much," well, he pulls the -- the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 notification out and says, "Oh, well, they did this, 2 they did this, this is -- and then, this is really the 3 concern."
- Right.
4 5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: The concern 6 -- was --
7 7 I am-- I know there's a 8 notification written, but the documentation of all the 9 facts -- I mean, I know we wrote a lot of stuff in the 10 logs.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. In 12 the control room logs?
13 Control room logs.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
15 M.,
.M But as far as those 16 specifics, I don't know. I do not know. I mean, I 17 know all of those things were looked at. I may be 18 whole in our operating practices, and I'm just 19 thinking about that. We're trying to get better with 20 the logs, too.
21 But a lot of time, like me, as an! NJ 22 I'll pass this information to a CRS, and, you know, 23 we'll discuss it and whatever. And I'm not sure if 24 that really gets logged anywhere. Like I say, we are 25 getting better, but our logging system isn't so good NEAL R. GROSS -
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25 1 either. So --
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You indicated that 3 you, the and the CRS were more or 4 less in agreement that this was wrong, this was out of 5 balance, and that you were going to have to do 6 something. Was a --
. **..."' *" Right.
7 8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- decision made?
9 Was there -- what was the action --
10 lNo decision --
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- that was going to 12 be taken?
13 I- - to do-- I mean, the only 14 decision that we can -- we can make is, you know -- is 15 to check everything out, make sure everything is 16 working properly, which we did. And after that 17 decision, the only other thing is to look at condenser 18 vacuum and lower power. We have abnormals for that.
19 The other option is to lower power due to 20 high off-gas rates, or take the unit offline.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was there 22 ever a procedure that was -- that was -- had a 23 threshold like that that was exceeded, where there was 24 some action that was either mandated or even suggested 25 that -- that it --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPOFRTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
26 SIt was suggested that we do 2 not operate above 75 SCUM. And then I don't remember 3 exactly what thO procedure said, but it says maximum 4 flow rate out of the off-gas was 75 SCFM. And we 5 exceeded that.
6 Now, when we exceed that, we really should 7 be taking some sort of action to do something, and 8 that's where I start to lose my -- my ability to learn 9 where the decisions come from. I mean, I don't -- if 10 I have an abnormal, and I have an immediate operator 11 action and abnormal, I am authorized to take that 12 action to protect the health and safety of the public.
13 But when you leave the immediate operator 14 actions, J have to get concurrence and/or direction 15 from the CRS. That's how we're trained. We need 16 operator actions'small, very'small, right? And if I 17 go above five inches of vacuum, I've got to -- I've 18 got to start lowering power.
19 And plenty of threshold, plenty of -- you 20 know, I can do whatever I need to do to do that. I 21 have a Ummediate operator actio hich tells me to do 22 that. I can't be faulted for that, theoretically.
23 But on something like this, there's 24 nothing in the procedure that says you will lower 25 recirc flow when you reach 67 SCFM. And I'm just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRJSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 making that up. All right? There's no procedure that 2 said that to us. It was just, hey, we're doing 3 something that ain't right.
4 It's completely -- we don't -- we had 5 never seen it before, not that anybody knew at the 6 time. And it was voiced very strongly -- I know I 7 voiced it very strongly -- that we need to be doing 8 something, and we need to do it now.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To who?
10 To CRS, and the OSs at the 11 time. I just don't know who that was.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't remember 13 who was involved in that?
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, it 15 sounds likei1 Mi""'rould have been one, if you were 16 onC shif because you said he was your supervisor --
17 he was the :at the time.
18 1 I can't swear to that. I 19 honestly can't. I'm sorry, I just can't --
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
21 -- tell you that. I'd have 22 to look back. I mean, a lot of stuff gets jumbled in 23 my head.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So in the handling of 25 it, if you and the CRS are on -- are in agreement, is NEAL R. GROSS ii COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
28 1 it the OS that changes this, or is this where it --
2 where do you see the difference?
3 -A lot of times it stops at 4 the OS level, and the CRS talks to the OS and says, 5 "Hey, you know, this is what we've got, and maybe we 6 should be doing this."
7 If I can regress a little bit, I'll tell 8 you another instance that I had. Now, this one I know 9 very -- very strongly about. I wrote the 10 notification, and it happened quickly, so now I -- I 11 even condensed things. So now I remember a lot more.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
13 VIMIM/1 This was when I was 14 and I was standing my 15 proficiency watches.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now how long 17 ago was this roughly?
18 This was early 2002 roughly.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
~Early.
20 21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So January, 22 February, March, something like that?
23 " Don't hold me to the month.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
25 - I ' had the paperwork --
ft NEAL R. GROSS / /
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29 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
2 -- but I don't -- I don't 3 keep --
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
5 Actually, I just keep that 6 to remind me of some things. But anyway, we had just 7 gotten -- no, it was even earlier than that. It must 8 have been closer to late 2001 probably.
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: 2001?
10 Yes.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
12 . Somewhere in that timeframe 13 anyway.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
15 2 Yes. I was standingS, 16 and there was .-.. and 17 the frwas -- hold on a second. I swear I have two 18 brain cells anymore. And --
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 20 a shift schedule here at home somewhere?
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I can think --
22 No.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- of some of the 24 names. Some of them are -- is 25 ; UjW A W. yes. No.
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30 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: W.
S i NoG 2
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was it 4
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:>
6 NMMw as 7 the*" And like I said, this is the problem with 8 this is because I don't stand watch with these people 9 all the time, so it's --
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It's okay.
11 / -- hard to keep track of.
- 12. SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now, you 13 said late 2001. Did you mean 2001 or 2002? Because 14 you said -- we were talking about January, February 15 I thought we were talking about 2003, and you said no, 16 it was --
17 , No, no, no, no, no. It's 18 2002. It was somewhere --
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Late 2002.
20 early 2002.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Oh, okay.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You think ýou wrotej 23 a notification. Do you think you documented it in 24 early 2002 or late 2002?
25 4Yes. I can get you an exact NEAL R. GROSS ;
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31 1 number. I just --
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
3 I just don't have it on me 4 right now.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But this is the 6 timeframe. We're somewhere at late 2001, early 2002.
7 9 Right.. It was before --
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
9 -- RFO 11.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
11 0We had just gotten the CMS 12 computer.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
- 14. .. And it was -- we got it all 15 working right, and we were pretty comfortable with it, 16 we thought. And basically what happened is I lost --
17 I lost the CMS inputs.
18 Now, we operate at --
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: CMS stands 20 for--
21 . Core Monitoring System.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
23 iI'm sorry. Core Monitoring 24 System.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
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32 2-- We used to be 3293 was our 2 power output. Now we go to 3339. And the only way we 3 can be at 3339 is because of the fancy instrumentation 4 that we have, basically, and the CMS computer that we 5 have. It does things with cross-flow factor and feed 6 flow, basically, and gives us a more accurate 7 representation, so it allows us to raise power. And 8 that's what our uprate came from.
9 Well, basically, we lost that information, 10 and also lost CRIDS (phonetic) information at the same 11 time. So we had basically computer malfunctions, 12 which at the time, you know, we did some looking 13 around, and we verified what we had. And we were just 14 changing power at the time, and was very uncomfortable 15 where we were. And when we lost it all -- I just 16 can't remember the --
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: When you say 18 you were changing, which way were you --
19 3 We were coming up in power.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
21 We were coming up in power.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
23 So Z-NON (phonetic) was 24 building in also.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
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33 1 It was about that timeframe, 2 me as an. since I was doing the power 3 raising at the time,. too, I was very uncomfortable 4 where we were at. We were very close to 3339, so I --
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How were you 6 bringing power up?
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 9 you already established 100 percent rod line?
10 Yes, that was established.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Like 60 --
12 60 percent or --
13 Yes.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- somewhere 15 in that range? 60 to 65. And then you're slowing 16 tweaking up --
17 *: Well, we were tweaking. We 18 were tweaking. And I don't remember if we were doing 19 any more rod manipulations.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
21 If we were, it was just to 22 -- you know, to tweak it in.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
24 ft.o But we were coming -- like 25 I said, we were coming up in power. We were there, NEAL R,. GROSS f\i/ t COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
34 1 and -we lost the information that I needed. And I 2 turned around and was talking to the CRS. And 3 ; *was the 0 ) as a matter of fact.
4 We had talked about it, and we got the STA 5 involved. And we said, "Hey, we're not happy where 6 we're at." I says, "I don't think we're exceeding 7 anything." I says, "But if I have to say I don't 8 think, I think we're in a bad spot. I know we're in 9 a bad spot." I says, "I recommend that we tap down 10 recirc, put us back down below, so I know we're not 11 exceeding 3339," I said, "because I can only tell 12 those numbers by the instrumentations. I can't tell 13 those numbers by APRMs or generator megawatts or any 14 of that. I can just tell you roughly where we're at."
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. The 16 flow instrumentation you're talking about, was this in 17 addition to the previously installed like feedwater 18 flow instrumentation?
19 Yes. This is all brand --
20 this is all brand-new stuff for us.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was the 22 other stuff still in service --
23 7Oh, yes.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- in 25 parallel. So-you could have used -- you could have
[i - //
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35 1 used the previously existing information and lowered 2 your output down to 3293, right?
3 Absolutely.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Is 5 that what your point was?
6 0 DThat's what my point was.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
8 that it can
-aW3 My point was is 9 operate at 3293 on just my APRMs alone. Okay? I can 10 do that and feel comfortable with it.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
12 I Okay? I can say, "Hey, I 13 want to be at like" -- it would have been 98 point 14 something percent.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Could you 16 have done it with the computer? Could you have gotten 17 to 3293 on the computer or was --
lNo, it wouldn't tell me --
18 it wouldn't tell me that.
19 20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 21 you say you lost your CMS input and CRIDS.
22 Right.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And you 24 would have -- would you have needed at least CRIDS to 25 -be able to get to 3293? ,
slY (.1 "~~) K. -~
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36 1No, I could do that on my 2 hardwires.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
4 And refe-rtoo operate on-5 my hardwires.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You mean, 7 you're talking the APRMs.
8 The APRMs, right. The APRMs 9 and stuff like that.
.0 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
ii .. But now, my point with that 12 is we didn't -- we were in uncharted territory at that 13 point. And if we're in uncharted territory, and I'm 14 the operator, and I'm telling my boss that we-!-rein a 15 bad spot and we really shouldn't be here, and, you 16 know, if he comes back to me, you know, and I look at 17 him and I said, "No, I don't believe we're hurting the 18 general public." And I remember talking about this.
19 I says, "I don't believe we are."
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Those were your 21 words?
22 /1Yes. I said -- and I was 23 concerned about that honestly. I said, "But we are in 24 a -- we're not where we need to be right now." I said 25 -- and this is all happening within 10 minutes, five
.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AD TRANSCRIBERS .
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37 1 to 10 minutes.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're saying 3 this to 4 Right. And he says, "All 5 right. So" -- and then at that time the OS came in, 6 and he found out what's going on. And I said, "Hey, 7 I" -- and I got vocal at this point. I --
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was your 9 response from the hen? What did Isay?
10 He was agreeing with me.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
12 As a matter of fact, the 13 entire control room was agreeing with me at that 14 point.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
16 j7 And I was having --
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So you've 18 got twoý who were agreeing with you?
19 ( No. At that time we only 20 had two ROs on a shift.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 22 one other RO and the control- room supervisor agreeing 23 that you needed to do something.
24 Right.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Were you in NEAL R. GROSS (I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
38 1 agreement as far as --
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anybody else?
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: - what you 4 needed to do?
5 ý- -" -- * .... At that time, what we were 6 going to do is take a hefty tapdown on recirc, and 7 then we were going to get people involved, you know --
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
9 It's kind of like -- well, 10 there's no really immediate operator action involved 11 with this, because we don't really -- we're in 12 uncharted territory. So let's get us to where we --
13 we're comfortable with.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
15 Before we lost the CMS --
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
17 all right, before we lost 18 the coal monitoring system and everything. So if we 19 took a good tapdown, then I know we're not exceeding 20 3339. And, you know, about 99 percent power is what 21 we were kind of figuring on going to, something in 22 that area, and that would have been a good starting 23 point for us to figure out what's going on and then 24 make a decision on where we're at.
25 We wouldn't have been exceeding any NEAL R. GROSS /
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39 1 license requirements or anything else, and we weren't 2 going to hurt anybody.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that was yourself, 4 *-.that 7010-* was in 5 agreement.
6 i 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF.was in 8 agreement with you.
9* ... Right.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anybody else in the 11 control room?
12 There was, I believe, at 13 least one other CRS involvement. I thought that was 14 the -- or an STA, but I don't remember who that was.
15 That might be in the -- in the information package.
16 But my point was is I wanted to bring it 17 down. We all agreed. ame in, and that was 18
- jand he said, "Well, hold on a second.' And 19 that's when I got angry.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Why did he want to 21 hold on?
22 I don't know.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he say why?
24 IO o 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He just wanted to NEAL R. GROSS i-i ft COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 hold on?
2 He said, "Well, we have 3 instrumentation." And then I tried to explain. And 4 I -- I took that, and I said, "Well, he's right. We 5 have instrumentation." But, you know, he just came 6 in. That's fine. So I explained to him again, I 7 says, "I'm telling you right now that we have 8 instrumentation to give us a rough estimate. But the 9 only way that we can operate at 3339 is with this 10 fancy equipment that we have that's not working right 11 now. So we need to come back down."
12 It just made sense to me, and it made 13 sense to everybody else. The OS said, "Well, hold on 14 a second. Don't do nothing yet." And then I pushed 15 it again, and I was very angry at that point. I says, 16 "This is not right. This is -- we keep talking about 17 safety -- you know, safety, conservative decision-18 making. Then let's do the right conservative thing, 19 lower power, get us to where we're at, and then we'll 20 figure it out."
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And these are the 22 words that you're using with the OS --
23 j Oh, yes.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- at this point?
25 M - Oh yes.
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41 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what's his 2 response now?
32 "Hold on." So then he got 4 another OS that was off shift that came on, and them 5 guys talked, and we didn't do that. We didn't --
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you know I'm going 7 to ask, who was the other 8fI 9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
10 He came --
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did they say 12 why? I mean, did they explain their rationale why 13 they didn't want to --
14 They felt that I could tell 15 where reactor power was using APRMs, core megawatts --
16 not core megawatts -- megawatts electric, and I told 17 them that I cannot.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there any 20 accuracy to what they believed?
21 1 Sure. Gross accuracy, 22 absolutely. Can I tell a half a percent power using 23 megawatts electric and APRes? No, I cannot. I'll 24 tell you that right now. I can't tell you that. So 25 if I can't tell you that, and I can only operate at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
42 1 that number with the instrumentation, that's -- I 2 didn't have at the time.
3 Now we got the instrumentation back within 4 45 minutes, and I don't believe we exceeded anything 5 while we were there. So in hindsight, yes, they were 6 right. But I told them that I -- you ever put me in 7 another position where I can't do my license duties, 8 then you can basically have me relieved, because I 9 won't do it again.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you say that you 11 didn't exceed anything in that timeframe?
12 I --
17( I can. Engineering 13 people looked at stuff and --
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They did an 15 evaluation?
16 I think they did some sort 17 of evaluation. And I don't remember the outcome of 18 that, but to me that wasn't the issue. The issue --
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I understand --
20.... ight 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- you have two 22 issues here.
23 Right.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's the position 25 that you felt that you were in. C NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 Right.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But -- and another 3 question that we would have, then, would be, you know, 4 was anything exceeded, in violation?
5 I do not believe so.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. But you think 7 that somebody examined that-?
8Yes.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Engineering examined 10 that. At the time?
11 Not at the time. I think 12 they received data later. And wherever they got it 13 from -- I don't even know what they used to get it 14 from. I don't even remember what the -- the computer 15 malfunction was anymore. But a notification 16 about it. And as a matter of fact, I even talked to 17 the resident about it, because I was --
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was the 19 resident at the time, do you remember?
20 I think that was Joe Schappe 21 that I talked to.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Okay.
23 And he read otification, 24 and he says he know - - he thought they were bringing 25 it up and making an issue of it, and whatever, and NEAL R. GROSS )
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44 1 then things got -- that was the first time that I ever 2 got real nervous. And I not only got nervous because 3 of being where we -- in uncharted territory, where I 4 didn't want to be. We don't have to be there. Sorry, 5 that's not where we need to be.
6 The other issue was that I got told not to 7 do something that was -- and I am being bred in and 8 out every day, conservative decision-making, 9 conservative decision-making.
10 So basically, *a notification up, 11 and I compiled all of the information that I had --
12 narrative logs and everything. And also, all of our 13 -- all of our procedures that tell us how we're 14 supposed to operate -- NAPs, whatever. There was like 15 three or four procedures that specifically called out 16 that type of instance, which we completely blew off.
17 And I was angry, so I tried to push it.
18 And I had -. .. came up to me at least 19 twice, tried to tell me to change my whole process, 20 and I refused.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you mean 22 after the fact, or do you mean while -- while it 23 was --
24 After the fact.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: After. the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ,
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45 1 notification?
2 Yes 3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What did he 4 -- he wanted you to retract the notification?
5 He says, "Well, don't you 6 think you were wrong"? "No, I don't. I absolutely do 7 not think I was wrong." I says, "You're wrong." And 8 that was between him and I, because he came over to my 9 cubicle, it was either that next day or -- it was 10 very, very quick. And he wanted me to change my 11 support, and I said, "No, I can't do it."
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did he offer 13 any -- any additional justification as to why he felt 14 that he was right and that you -- you know, that you 15 were -- I don't know. I don't even know what his 16 words were, but --
17 I can't remember his exact 18 words either.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But it 20 sounded like that -- you know, that there was a 21 difference of opinion.
22 Absolutely was a difference 23 of opinion.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And a lot of 25 times what happens in those circumstances is people NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 will try to convince the opposite party of, you know, 2 what -- why they think the, way they do.
3 : *Right.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And why they 5 think they're right, and vice versa.
6 And that's --
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did he offer 8 anything like that, like why --
9 .* He gave me some -- you know, 10 some things. Well, you know, I can't remember. Like 11 I said, I can't -- he offered me reasons why he felt 12 the way he felt.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
14 ( And my argument to him was 15 that you felt the way you felt, I felt the way I felt.
16 I had the control room behind me; you did not. You 17 came in later; you should have shut up. That's my 18 opinion. You should have let me do what we're 19 supposed to have done, and then figured it out.
20 If we came back up in power a half hour 21 later, I'm all for it. I want -- you know, we could 22 have made money, yes. And if we can do it safely, 23 well, then, let's do it. I'm great with that. But 24 don't ever do that to me again. I told them that.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you feel NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. K
47 1 that there was -- in that instance, do you feel that 2 there was a production push over safety? I mean, do 3 you feel that there was -- even though it was only a 4 few megawatts --
S - Right. I have no --
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- did you 7 feel that he was pushing production over safety in 8 that instance?
9 Absolutely. And that's the 10 other issue I told him. I says, "You know what? If 11 I came down in power," I said, "like I wanted to come 12 down," I says, "you maybe saw one megawatt electric 13 difference." I says, "That is absolutely no reason to 14 do what you did."
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think that was 16 his only reason for holding it?
17 - Oh, I have no idea. That's 18 where that decision-making stuff -- I lose track of 19 how they -- I have no idea how some of the decisions 20 are made.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
22 ,% Once it leaves that desk 23 that sits behind me with the CRS, I have no idea what 24 happens. I swear I don't know, I don't understand.
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46 1 happen to know if -- and, again, I'll ask you to kind 2 of recall the specifics and kind of like --
3 4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, no. No.
5 But just -- just kind of try and kind of move yourself 6 back in time to the time when it was occurring. Was 7 there any consult -- did he consult with someone else 8 -- I mean, other than the off-shift OS -- was there 9 anybody else in there? Was there AOMs? Was there ops 10 management? Was there any phone calls to your ii knowledge? Do you recollect any of that?
12 I do not remember, no. I 13 can't remember.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How about 15 timeframes? Was there -- I mean, when you had the 16 original discussion with him where you were explaining 17 what you thought and what you thought you should do 18 with the unit, I mean, basically what you're doing is 19 saying you want a lower recirc flow, reactor 20 recirculation flow a little bit to bring power down.
21 And then he's giving you some comment back 22 and saying, "Well, we think we're" -- he's saying, "I 23 think you're okay, because we knew where we were."
24 Right.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: "And we were NEAL R. GROSS /
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49 1 okay, and we're at this point now." And you're 2 arguing saying, "Well, we don't have any input, so we 3 don't really know," and, you know, you could make a 4 Z-NON unit one way or the other.
5 Sure.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You could -
7 Z-NON goes into play here.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. You 9 could say other things, you know, because you're --
10 you're basically at your maximum radial thermal power.
11 Right.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So the 13 dialogue was ongoing at that time. I guess what I'm 14 trying to get at, was there -- like did he -- was he 15 gone for a while and then came back and said, "No, we 16 really want to stay where we are -- were?" I mean, 17 did he go away for like 15 or 20 minutes or two 18 minutes or -- I'm trying to get a -- what I'm trying 19 to find out is if there was -- if he consulted with 20 anyone, maybe in the management chain, actively at the 21 time, other --
22 That I cannot answer. I 23 honestly --
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
25 -- cannot answer that.
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50 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
2 - J At that point, I was pretty 3 much seeing red, so I figured, well, they're not going 4 to let me do what I think we need to do. I'd better 5 at least monitor my instruments as close as I can to 6 verify we're not going anymore where we don't want to 7 go. And like I said, I just can't see that.
8 And the issue that got me, again, was I 9 thin. was the at the time, because he 10 came in and talked to me shortly after that, and --
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: After you 12 got the instrumentation back?
13 No, no, no, no, no. We're 14 talking at least days.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Oh, okay.
16 At least days.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
18 _And he was asking me, he 19 says, "Well, you know, what happened here?" It was 20 him and I, just him and I, up by the rod matrix. And 21 then he says, "You know, what happened? You know, 22 what did you have a problem with?" And I told him, I 23 says, "I was in an area, and I couldn't see." I says, 24 "If I can't see, and I' for you 25 guys, you need to take me seriously."
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51 1 And he says, "Well, you can see." And I 2 said, "I couldn't see that." And he -- you know, and 3 he's trying to -- is -- I don't know what he is 4 now, but I -- when I first got my. I served 5 under served under the He was myl on 6 SB shiftjbefo re.. took shif over.
7 And I think is one of the sharpest 8 guys that we have, at least at the time. I didn't 9 like what he brought up to me, though, because he told 10 me that I could see -- I can see a half a percent 11 power change on APRMs, and I stood there and I looked 12 at him and I says, "I want you to stop, and I want you 13 to look at those APRMs 30 seconds, and you tell me 14 what you see."
15 And you can have anywhere -- a two -- two 16 percent change on APRM noise. And I says, "You're 17 telling me I can see a half a percent change on that 18 when I'm" -- I says, "You're wrong." And the 19 conversation pretty much ended shortly thereafter, and 20 he walked away.
21 And we have a new procedure in there -- in 22 -- to cover this basis from now on, and basically it's 23 exactly what I wanted to do, although they still have 24 that I can see a half a percent APR -- a half a 25 percent power, and I can't. And I don't know any NCO NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 that can.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what way does it 3 say what you want it to do, then?
4 7 )If we lose CMS, it's -- it's 5 not like a one-line procedure. It's --
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
7 .* There's lots of things 8 you've got to look at, but basically it's -- now 9 they're telling us that if we have that situation 10 again we're going to lower power. I don't remember 11 how much now.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you think 13 that's a reflection maybe of the discussion you had 14 w ith ON 15 J* Oh, absolutely.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Maybe they 17 -- in reflection, after the fact, maybe they took some 18 time after hearing your side of things and said, "You 19 know, maybe he's right. Maybe we need to" --
20 Absolutely. I wasn't -- you 21 know, I mean, yes, absolutely they did.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How close to the 23 incident did the procedure change?
24 1 can't quite remember.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall if it NEAL R. GROSS (41-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 was a resuit of your notification?
2 I don't know if it's written 3 anywhere that due to this notification we're changing 4 this procedure, if that's what you're asking. But I'm 5 sure --
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So it's not 7 like somethihg that you've had feedback on that said, 8 "Hey, we got notification, and this is what we're 9 going to do" --
10 No.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- "in response to 12 that."
13 9 No, I did not get any of 14 that back.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 16 gone back since this, has occurred and looked at the 17 notification, looked at what the corrective actions 18 were that were -- that were signed and implemented?
19Y 20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And what 21 does -- did --
22 The notification was raised 23 to I think a significance level 2, or something like 24 that. I looked -- that was the next thing I saw, and 25 then it went to corrective actions program, and then NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 a long period of time came.
2 It was just before I got off shift, or 3 before I came back onto shift from the Outage Group as 4 a matter of fact, that I had the whole package 5 together, and it went to the Corrective Actions Group.
6 Aný6.
- was the leader of the 7 .-- I had talked to him 8 because -- boy, I've got to -- Salem -- some upper 9 management guy in Salem was running it.
10 So I guess -- I believe the way it works 11 is that if they get to a certain level, then Salem 12 takes a look at this to get an independent view, and 13 we look at theirs to get an independent view. I think 14 that's how that works.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
16 They were supposed to look 17 at it, and** M'-9 18 he had talked to whoever the Salem guy was 19 and had told him that, well, you know, he'd be 20 absolutely willing to talk to anybody about it, to, 21 you know, *make sure we get this corrected and fixed.
22 And nobody ever interviewed me, nobody 23 ever asked me any questions, nobody ever did anything 24 about this notification. And I raised the concern 25 again, like I said with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 I was doing his thing in, 2
3 And he says, "Well, we'll get together, 4 we'll get together, we'll get together," and we never 5 got together. I got pretty much disgusted, and I 6 said, "You know what? I'm" -- my thought process was 7 that I have two children, and I have a house, and I a says, "I guess it's not going to go anywhere anyway.
9 What's the use of me pushing it any further?" So I 10 stopped. I was done.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When did the 12 procedure change, then, after this went on all that 13 year?
14 j Oh, yes. No, no. It was 15 between -
16 (End of Tape 1, Side A. Beginning of Tape 1, Side B.)
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're on 18 side B. It's approximately 4:49 p.m.
19 You were talking about when the procedure 20 change came into effect, and you raised this --
21 a notification, and you raised a concern, at 22 least one -- the same concern at least one more time 23 to this 24 Right.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In the Corrective NEAL R. GROSS. 7f [
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b6 1 Actions Program. And you essentially never really got 2 to meet with him and discuss it.
3 No.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you dropped it at 5 that point.
6 At that point, I dropped it, 7 yes.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And then, we 9 were talking about when the procedure change came into 10 effect.
11 The procedure change came in 12 sometime -- we could easily look that up, and it'll 13 tell you. But it was sometime after the incident and 14 before the closeout of where I -- I dropped it, I 15 wasn't pushing it any further.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The procedure was 17 changed by that time, then.
18 Rgt 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF;, So what would your 20 outstanding concerns be, then, at that point for --
21for ,*---**
22 QMy outstanding concerns were 23 conservative decision-making.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
25 t And that's what my NEAL R. GROSS ,tjft COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 notification up on. under conservative 2 decision-making. I says, "We keep preaching it. We 3 keep telling you. We write it down in our procedures, 4 and I was blown off."
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So it all goes 6 back to the -- to the incident. You wanted --
° .... . Right.
7 8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You wanted them to 9 address that incident and the way it was handled in 10 the control room that day.
ii That incident, yes. And 12 there are other instances that -- you know, that 13 seemed to occur. If it's in black and white, we're 14 usually pretty good at it. I mean, it has to be 15 really black and white. If-it isn't and we've got to 16 start thinking, then it just seems that we don't do --
17 a lot of times we just don't do what we need to do.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about examples i9 of that? Anything else come toind?
20 Well, black and white -- an 21 instance where we had the solar flares a couple of 22 months ago, we had that big solar flare problems. If 23 we have our main generator -- our main transformer 24 currents go up above certain limits, we have to reduce 25 power above -- greater than five minutes. I/
0*
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b8 1 We were all over that, and nobody in the 2 control room was even flinching an eye at coming down 3 to 80 percent power on that. It's right there, black 4 and white, let's do it.
5 So, I mean, that's a good, conservative 6 decision-making that -- I mean, I don't know how that 7 -- they came up with the currents. But I don't really 8 need to know how they come up with the currents. I 9 understand what's happening, and I understand that 10 it's not good for the plant. So, and I don't want to 11 do anything to, you know, jeopardize the plant, so we 12 do that.
13 But when it -- like I said, we have an 14 abnormal procedure that tells us to do that. But when 15 it comes to anything that's gray, we -- we don't 16 always do the right thing. I'm not saying we don't --
17 we don't do it sometimes. It's just that I've got a 18 couple of instances under my belt that we just didn't 19 do what we needed to do.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, let's get into 21 that a little bit. When you say there's a couple 22 instances, and we've talked about two of them, you 23 know, so far that come to mind, one of them you could 24 -- I think you kind of describe it as a black and 25 white instance. You had a procedure that says you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 don't exceed, you know, SCFM at this rate, yet you 2 did. But the decision-making --
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was that in 4 -- but was that actually in the procedure, though?
5 And did they give an action to take?
6 No, no action to take on it.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: See, that's 8 the -- that was the problem, right?
9 That's where it goes a 10 little gray.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Because it 12 says don't do it, but it --
13 It don't tell you what to 14 do.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It doesn't 16 tell you what to do if you do do it.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So then it's 18 not black and white. It's -- they leave that up to 19 discretion.
20 P}Yes.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So I have a 22 couple questions in this area, though. But when you 23 said that this one in early 2002, the issue that you 24 have with the conservative decision-making regarding 25 the indicators that you didn't have available to NEAL R. GROSS ! I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 you--
2 *:Right.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- that was the first 4 time that you got -- I think the word you used was --
5 I think it was "nervous," but I'm not sure. You were 6 -- you were concerned --
7 Ys 8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- about the position 9 that you were in, and this was the first time. Is 10 that accurate?
11 7) Yes, that was the first time 12 that I was ever really concerned about nuclear safety.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now, since 14 that time -- I mean, how -- what are you seeing? Are 15 you seeing --
16 Well, the SCFM issue was a 17 -- was a nuclear safety thing to me. And the main 18 issue that we had on that is we've got horror stories 19 in the industry about off-gas blowing up, and --
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
21 j9,-none of us wanted an off-22 gas explosion. So that was our main concern, at least 23 my main concern, because I brought that up. I says, 24 "Hey, you've got -- we've got industry events about 25 this." I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So these are about a 2 year apart from each other, roughly early 2002 and 3 early 2003?
4 Yes. Like I said, you can't 5 hold me to these timeframes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No, no, no. And 7 understood that it's -- you know, if we needed 8 anything further, it's all documented.
9 Oh, yes. Yes.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. But what about 11 in between? If one is the first incident, what had 12 you noted in between there?
13 Well --
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Because you're saying 15 that you kind of went t toward the end of 16 2002, based on evidence of non-conservative decision-17 making. So something else must have --
18 .. And I didn't see any change.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What was 20 contributing to your concern, then?
21 (Well, my concern is is that 22 we have a man on shift that absolutely blew me off on 23 a very serious issue. And it seemed like the rest of 24 the organization, in my eyes, since nobody is high up 25 as the -- I guess it's the plant manager, or whatever NEAL R. GROSS >
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62 1 it was over in Salem that was supposed to be looking 2 at this, you know, I think he left.
3 He actually left the company, and then 4 just -- I just would think that if somebody brings up 5 a concern and an investigation is going on, you would 6 talk to the guy that brought up the concern. It just 7 -- maybe I'm wrong on this.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who is the person who 9 left the company?
10 -ý- i The guy over in Salem that 11 was looking at this.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you said they 13 flipped 00 14 1 He's like an/
15 FVJV I'm trying to remember his 16 name. I can't --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was it 18 at that time?
19 The name sounds familiar, 20 but I can't --
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think he was an t 22 p until the earlier part of 2002 on the Salem 23 site. They've been through a couple, though, so it's 24 hard for me to pin that down.
25 - 'iRight. I-- I didn't --
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63 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But he was one in 2 that timeframe.
3 Right.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it's not ringing 5 a bell for you?
6
- The name is ringing a bell, 7 but I can't -- even if -- I -- if you gave me five 8 names, and I was to pick, I don't know if I could do 9 it.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
11 I don't know.
1' 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Maybe I'm not 13 -- I'm not asking my question the right way. And I'm 14 not trying to -- to minimize what you experienced in 15 this timeframe regarding the power level that you were 16 or weren't at. But what I'm looking for is, was there 17 more? Did you experience more with either that OS or 18 another OS that added to your concerns about the 19 decision-making onsite?
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Are there 21 other examples of non-conservative decision-making 22 that you've been personally involved with?
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I can see where --
24 what you're saying is you were following through this 25 one issue that occurred in the earlier part of the NEAL R. GROSS / / &
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64 1 year.
2 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there more to it 4 after that? Were there other incidents?
5 4 Well, it's a philosophy 6 thing here. I mean, I don't have any more -- I can't 7 think of any more specific instances that I would be 8 concerned about. There were other styles of people 9 that managed. That to me is another issue, and I 10 think it all kind of goes along with some -- the same 11 way sometimes.
12 We have some arrogant people. Arrogance 13 was a major play on this one I think.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the part ofi 15
..... lI Ji* Yes.
16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The --
18 Go ahead.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess in --
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Could I --
21 well, let me follow up on that. Why do you feel that 22 he was arrogant?
23 MI Because he totally blew off 24 the entire control room staff. And for a guy that's 25 out in meetings all day, he has no right to do that.
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65 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Let me ask 2 you something else that I -- that I wanted to ask 3 earlier, but --
4 ýi ...... -- okay 5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Could you --
6 do you feel like you could have taken the action on 7 your own, or certainly with the CRS's endorsement, 8 just to lower power without involving him? Could you 9 have, in fact --
10 That's exactly what we were 11 going to do before he came in, so I -- yes. Up until 12 that point, I thought I could, yes.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, how 14 long were the actual evolutions taken to lower power?
15 I mean, are we talking --
16 V. Thirty seconds.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How long?
18 W Thirty seconds.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. All 20 right. Okay. Is there some reason why you didn't do 21 it up to that point? I mean, was there some, either 22 through the discussion or through your own personal 23 interactions, either at the time or previously, that 24 said, "Well, we've got to get the OS to buy into what 25 we're doing"?
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66 1
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, is 3 there some --
4 M"M1 Nowhere in my mind did I 5 ever think that we needed to get the OS to buy into 6 anything.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
8 - 7) That was not even in the --
9 in the concern.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
11 The only thought process 12 that was in my head is that, let's figure out where 13 we're at, make sure we're okay, and let's decide on a 14 course of action. Since we don't have an immediate 15 operation action, and there really shouldn't be any --
16 any immediately, I wasn't concerned about hurting 17 anybody, killing anybody, hurting the plant, or 18 anything like that at that particular instant in life.
19 Okay?
20 It's just that we're not supposed to do 21 things, we're not supposed to exceed limits, or 22 whatever. And if I can't tell you where they're at, 23 then we need to -- we need to know -- I guess what I'm 24 trying to say is that if we have a problem, we need to 25 validate it, we need to verify where we're at, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRMNSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 1 then we need to take the actions.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
3 Because we're being trained 4 like that. Now, immediate operator actions are not 5 necessarily immediate. We're supposed to look at them 6 and use our heads.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I guess part 8 of it is I'm trying to get a sense of, on your part, 9 if you feel you needed permission to take conservative 10 action.
- ---.-- ,* Yes, I did.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You felt 13 like you did.
14 Absolutely.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
16 7) Yes. I needed -- I needed 17 permission, because that's the way we're being trained 18 now. We are absolutely being trained on that.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGIiBXR BARBER: Is that 20 different than your previous --
21 Oh, absolutely different.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And when did 23 that change take place?
24 _When I took -- when I gotI 25 . Actually, I think the change started when I NEAL R. GROSS , V .
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68 1 got my license. When I was being trained to get 2 it was pulling out. of -- the thought 3 philosophy was to see something goes wrong, take the 4 action to put the plant in a safe condition, take the 5 procedure out, verify you did it right.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
7 That's how I trained to get We do not do that anymore.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What' s the procedure 10 now?
11 We barely touch anything 12 without pulling a procedure out.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And then taking the 14 action.
15 *And then taking the action 16 after being directed by the CRS. Command and control, 17 however -- command and control needs to be perceived 18 all the time by the CRS. He is in command and 19 control. So that needs to be loo-ke&iat. I mean, we 20 are -- that is a big issue now.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now, you 22 were talking about how you felt at the time and 23 whether you felt like you needed the OS's permission, 24 and you felt like you didn't need it. Do you think',
25 the CRS believed he needed the OS's permission to-NEAL R. GROSS il ,I .- 7.
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69 1 I absolutely believe he did.
2 And when the OS came in --
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You believe 4 he did think he needed the permission?
5 7No, I think he did. I think 6 the --
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
8 -- CRSs had been drilled 9 into that, even though they keep saying -- just by 10 and this isn't anything that's bad, but I see it all 11 the time. Certain OSs that have had CRSs underneath 12 them, they have definitely made them gun shy.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Gun shy in what 14 respect, specifically?
15 If they're going to take a 16 major action, they're going to get the OS involved.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So it goes in 18 line with -- what you were saying you were trained on 19 was safe, conservative action-taking took precedent 20 over command and control. Now you've got command and 21 control first, and then you take the action that --
22 .Absolutely.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- that you've agreed 24 upon.
25 W/ Absolutely. And I don't NEAL R. GROSS 7]!:
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70 1 think that's necessarily a bad thing.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it's a change of 3 something, right?
4 i It is absolutely a change, 5 and we're still not -- we're not preaching what we 6 practice very well.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That change -- you 8 said you could go back to training, and then by the 9 time you got on shift it had been flipped a little 10 bit, this -- the way you were going to be actually 11 performing your duties.
12 Right. And it's been 13 flipping ever -- I mean, it just keeps going. We're 14 going, you know, from one pendulum side to the other.
15 You know, so it's --
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where are you now?
17 j We have hard cards for 18 almost everything that we do. We used to -- I mean, 19 we even have a hard card for operating feedwater on a 20 scram.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What's a 22 hard card?
23 Hard card is basically just 24 a sheet of paper laminated that has instructions on 25 what to do.
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-Ii 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Immediate 2 action steps?
"R Kind of.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, is 5 it like a subset of the procedure?
6 Right 7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Or an 8 excerpt or something?
9 Right. It's part of our 10 abnormals, and it's swapping air compressors for 11 scramming the reactor.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is this a 13 lesson learned from something?
14 I don't know. I don't 15 remember where the action came from. I guess some --
16 some plant had them I think. It's not that they're a 17 bad thing. They're not. I mean, just I think if we 18 have the philosophy to use the hard cards that they'll 19 work.
20 There again, there is very few times we --
21 and this is the philosophy of change. I thought the 22 whole industry was doing it. I hope it's not just us.
23 That immediate operator actions -- there's very few 24 things that you really need to do within a heartbeat's 25 timeframe to protect the plant or the public or NEAL R. GROSS -
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72 1 anything else. And that's what I -- I think that's 2 what I'm trying to explain to you.
3 When I actually it was -- it was 4 -- you know, it was go, go, go. You didn't have 5 enough time to do what is expected of us now. And now 6 the standards have changed, our operating procedures 7 have changed to where we -- we don't fly by the seat 8 of our pants.
9 Am I losing you? We don' t fly by the seat 10 of our pants anymore. We're following some sort of 11 procedure, and we should have enough time to do that.
12 And our abnormals for immediate operator actions have 13 gotten very short, and that leaves you here.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I know 15 exactly what you're talking about. But the thing is, 16 it's more of a -- it's probably more of a critical 17 factor if you're talking about a real significant 18 change in the way you're operating the plant.
19 Rgt 20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And, 21 obviously, a lesser change should require less 22 scrutiny, less debate. And to lower power by one 23 percent, I mean, I would think you could almost do 24 that on your own, I mean, without consulting anybody.
25 7We should be allowed to. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
73 1 believe that.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You know?
3 I mean, especially under those circumstances. And it 4 sounded like you may have went out of your way to 5 consult with the CRS, but you could have just informed 6 him. You could have just said, "Hey, I lost these 7 inputs. I'm going to take power down to 99 percent."
8 And I expect him to acknowledge it. Okay, fine, go 9 ahead.
10 But, I mean, I don't know what the dynamic 11 was. It obviously wasn't that, because you didn't get 12 the opportunity to do that. So, but I also understand 13 that if you're going to make a more significant 14 change, and it's not, you know, well defined in a 15 procedure, then you do need to get more people 16 involved.
17 Absolutely.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And I do 19 understand that and understand the need for that. But 20 I'm still -- you know, I'm puzzled by that. But 21 that's something, you know, we'll have to explore and 22 go back and look through the issue.
23- If the procedures -- if the 24 abnormals say certain things, if I start seeing power 25 oscillations, for instance -- I'll give you that for NEAL R. GROSS /
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74 1 instance -- that could happen fairly quickly. I've 2 never seen a real one, so I don't know. Hopefully, I 3 never will.
4 But I have permission to see that, call it 5 out, and take my immediate operator actions or take 6 the involve line.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right.
8 Well, you actually have that all the time, right? I 9 mean, your two percent is really a power oscillation.
10 Is that what you were talking about? I mean, in a way, it really is, right?
12 Right. Except that we don't 13 -- we don't --
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You don't 15 call it that.
16 -- we don't call it that.
17 We have 10 percent. So we're looking at --
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right.
19 10 percents.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right. I 21 mean, but in fact it's not like -- it's not like when 22 you're in the Navy when you used to look at reactor 23 power and it was rock steady.
24 Rih.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, it NEAL R. GROSS A.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005-37nl1 -wwnPlIrnrnrn rnm
75 1 didn't move like that. It didn't sit there and go 2 like this.
3 t*.
- v_ I No.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It wasn't 5 like that.
-6 No. No. Different cores, 7 different instruments.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Different 9 operating philosophies.
10 Different operating 11 philosophies, right.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right.
13 :-You know, if you ask me, the 14 CRSs, the NCOs, the EOs,. if you ask us as a group if 15 you would have -- if you ask me -- what am I trying to 16 say here? Most of us work as a very close-knit type 17 thing. I don't know what the word is.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Cohesive?
19 *es. And if the 20 organization would allow that to work, I do not 21 believe you would have -- I wouldn't -- I would feel 22 much more comfortable. I wouldn't have half the 23 issues that -- I don't think that would have ever 24 happened. I would have neve otification.
25 I would have never had to. *- /7 ..
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
76 1 But, you know, PS as a whole has taken the 2 OS and made him go to meeting after meeting after 3 meeting, or whatever, and he is -- if it's not 4 midnights, he's probably not in the control room very 5 much. So, yes, he wanted to take the unit offline, 6 because, you know, "It's -- it's -- well, you need to 7 look at that. That's -- no, that's purple. It should 8 be blue, you know? What do you think?" "I don't 9 know." "What do you think?" "I don't know." "Well, 10 let's ask the OS." "Okay, fine."
11 Do you see where I'm going with this?
12 There's no -- there's no urgency. There's no 13 anything. You know, well, then, what's -- then, what 14 do we have to do? You know, what do we need to do?
15 I don't know. Let's get everybody involved. But --
16 I lost my train of thought on that. Sorry.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Before you mentioned 18 the -- that there's -- under some of the OSs, the CRSs 19 have become gun shy. Do you know of any incidents 20 that -- that made them that way? I mean, this is one 21 probably you're talking about witj-wmf....., right?
22 Well, they split them all 23 up, and they just did it again. They just swapped a 24 lot of OSs and CRSs around. I've had discussions with 25 CRSs, so it's -- you know, hey, you've got to do this.
NEAL R. GROSS fW I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
v(nq)9 )iA.AAT, q iAAL11 fl-n r%
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77 1 You've got to do something here. You've got to make 2 a decision one way or the other. You know, and so --
3 whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
4 When I first got depending on 5 what shift you stood, the CRSs would be timid or they
- 6 would be a strong CRS. That's changing now. And I 7 have to tell you that is changing, because they split 8 them all up, and I think the CRSs are becoming more 9 senior, more seasoned. And I know a long time it was 10 -- you know, we had a lot of junior CRSs, too, 11 which --
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So these are the same 13 individuals, but you're seeing --
14 )Same individuals.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- a change in their 16 behavior.
17 Absolutely.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it's -- you think 19 it might be experience. So iat euld have been --
20 *Experience.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- timidity, may have 22 been personality and experience.
23 .. 7There was definitely some 24 personality OSs out there that are very intimidating 25 and --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
78 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:
3 Intentionally or do you mean just -- just the way they 4 are? I mean, is it -- do they -- is it your 5 perception that they do that just so they don't have 6 to deal with, you know, the human dynamic and the 7 interaction? Or are the --
8 They're CRSs or they're--
9 I mean, they're OSs. That doesn't necessarily make 10 them a manager or a leader. All right? And that's 11 PSs problem right now I believe, and I brought this up 12 to my OSs, the ones that -- that would listen to me.
13 That's -- I don't know if that's -- that's 14 a different issue other than what you're talking about 15 here, but it kind of correlates sometimes.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You talked a little 17 bit about management style and that you didn't always 18 agree with --
19 Well, no, that's not -- I 20 don't have to always agree with it.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- where they went.
22 I mean, but they're my 23 managers.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it has an effect 25 on the work environment.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
79 12 Oh, it absolutely does.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how do you see 3 that?
4 talked to me a 5 little while ago, maybe two months, a month and a half 6 ago. I don't know exactly what spurred it. I think 7 somebody wrote a notification, and it spurred some 8 investigation, and got the ball to run with it.
9 So he was talking --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's his position?
11 He is an but he's off 12 shift right now I think. They just swapped him, and 13 I'm not sure if he went back to shift or not.
15 But he asked me, he says, "Well, what do 16 you think we should do?" And I told him, I says, "I 17 personally think you should keep the plant manager 18 here, and you should take everybody from the OS on up 19 and send them off to school or someplace for six 20 months to a year, leave the CRSs and the workforce, 21 leave the plant manager to make decisions." I says, 22 "You'll come back and the plant will run a lot 23 better." He didn't like that.
24 Well, I mean, it's to the point where it's 25 almost -- it's a shame sometimes. And I can't give NEAL R. GROSS /
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80 1 you --
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What would you train 3 them for? What are you looking for?
4' . . Oh, I don't care. They can 5 send them away on vacation, send them down to a 6 Caribbean island for a year. That's fine. Just get 7 them offsite.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You see them as a 9 level that's not necessary, then.
10 I see a lot of levels that 11 are not necessary, and that's a management style that 12 PS has chosen to take.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, that's 14 not -- I mean, that's not really allowed by the tech 15 specs. But you're obviously making a point here --
16 Rgt 17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- about 18 what -- the value they're adding to the operation on 19 shift.
20 Right.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And you're 22 making a -- kind of saying they're not adding much 23 value or they're being counterproductive or they're 24 having some sort of negative impact on safety. At 25 least that's my perception. And I don't want to put NEAL R. GROSS A /J COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I-1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
81 1 words in your mouth. I mean, is that -- is that the 2 message you're sending?
3 Sometimes. I can't say all 4 the time.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
6 Because there are some CRSs 7 out there that are -- I mean, OSs, rather, that are 8 very knowledgeable and can be very helpful. And they 9 can jump in after they've been out of the office for 10 an hour or two and get right in there and help.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
12 2And they -
13 one of them. I mean, he -- he is -- he can be that 14 way. He can be -- he can come in, and he can -- he 15 can assess the situation, and he can stand back and 16 take an upper management type role and let the CRS run 17 with it. And he's gotten very good at that, so I have 18 to give him that. And that's the way I think it 19 should be. And if he needs to be -- and if they need 20 to ask him a question, or he needs to have an input, 21 he does. And he's -- I've got to give him that, he 22 has worked well with that.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is that 24 something he has developed as like a management style 25 that has taken time, or is that something he has NEAL R. GROSS .
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82 1 always been like that?
2 I don't know if he has 3 always been like that.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, or 5 have you -- have you known him a different way? Let 6 me put it that way.
7 -" -7Well, when I first got 8 there, he was kind of new, too, at the OS position.
9 So --
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
11 ljjJ -- I don't really know if I 12 could --
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
14 1IIdon't know if I could tell 15 you that.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, why do you see 17 the other ones as not effective like _ is? Is 18 it -- is it something the way -- in their own 19 personalities, or is it something that the -- the 20 company expects them to do? Or is it where they put 21 their time?
22 - Now we're getting back to 23 what I told you before. I don't understand what the 24 company wants anymore, or what anybody from the OS up 25 is expected to do and what I am expected to have of
/A NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
83 1 them. I don't know what that is.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 3 ever heard of -- I don't know -- any external 4 performance goals, or even internal performance goals, 5 influencing your decision? Like have you ever come 6 across a situation where someone said, "Hey, we need 7 to keep this capacity. We're trying to shoot for this 8 capacity factor. We're trying to -- to have -- you 9 know, meet this goal. We're trying to meet that 10 goal." Has that ever come up in any of these 12 interactions where you felt like, you know, that's 12 kind of maybe driving the decision-making one way or 13 another?
14 . I don't know about the word 15 "goal." When I first got the first two 16 years that I got( the only person that we 17 ever had contact with was the system operator. "Hey, 18 they need a line out. Hey, we've got to come 19 offline." "Okay. Standing by." That was the extent 20 of the conversations outside the protected area.
21 We very rarely do anything with power 22 until the trading floor now tells us what to do. And 23 I don't know if I like that, but --
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What do you 25 mean by that? What is -- : :
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84 1 ..,Thetrading floor?
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. I 3 mean --
4 . Those are the people that 5 sell our electricity. I mean, I don't know who they 6 are. I don't even know where it is. Never been 7 there, probably never will.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But don't 9 the -- doesn't the plant run as a base-loaded plant 10 where you're running at full power all the time? I 11 mean, other than when you have to do downpowers for 12 maintenance or for testing or --
13 Right. Or we've got to do 14 -- we've got to do downpower for maintenance and, 15 "Well, let's call the trading floor. Okay. The 16 trading floor knows we're coming down at 2:00." You 17 know, it's 12:00, and we're getting ready to come 18 down, and trading floor calls, "Don't come down."
19 "Okay." And then we don't come down.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Not at all 21 or -- or don't come down until 6:00?
22 6:00, or whatever. You 23 know, so there was definitely non-regulated industry 24 I guess anymore. You know, it has definitely had an 25 effect.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
85 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Has there 2 ever been an instance, to your knowledge, where that 3 kind of influence has caused you to like miss a 4 surveillance or be late on surveillance or -- I mean, 5 I guess what I'm trying to get a sense of is how big 6 of a -- of a delay are they asking for. I mean, if 7 it's a matter of a couple of hours, or if it's days or 8 -- I mean, do you have a --
9 RFAB:* I don't know of any 10 instances where that has caused us anything. I just 11 know that any time we talk about power now we're 12 always -- there's always a -- okay, I've got to call 13 the trading floor.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 15 of affecting operability calls? Does it become a 16 factor in timing on that?
17 We have -- we have not done 18 -- well, like downpowers for maintenance and stuff 19 like that. I know that we have postponed that if 20 that's what you're asking. I don't know if anybody 21 has ever said, "No, you can't fix this because you 22 can't come off of 100 percent power, because -- you 23 know, for the next three days because of a heatwave."
24 I don't know of anything like that.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you NEAL R. GROSS I -
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86 1 ever heard that come up in a conversation? Maybe not 2 -- not -- you know, it may have been something subtle.
3 You know, it may not have been something as black and 4 white as, you know, we're dealing with this 5 operability issue, and, you know, it looks like it may 6 be inoperable.
7 Do you mean like we've got 8 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> to fix something, and we ain't coming down 9 because the trading floor doesn't know. I do not know 10 of anything like that.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Or -- or, 12 you know, we want to wait a couple hours, or 13 something. I mean, it doesn't have to be -- you know, 14 I'm really just asking what you've been exposed to.
15 If you --
16 I have been -- like I said, 17 I --
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Or if you've 19 heard that from -- from some of your peers.
20 . The only thing I can tell 21 you is that every. time we come down we're always 22 talking to the trading floor, or somebody has talked 23 to the trading floor, or --
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 25 ever done that personally? Have you ever talked to NEAL R. GROSS I-/!I (,
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87 1 "the trading floor"?
2 No.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Like picked 4 up the phone, or whatever?
5 I've talked to nobody else 6 but the system operator, no.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At what level does 8 that occur, then?
9 I think that's at least OS 10 and above. At least. It's above me, way above me.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm not sure if we --
12 if there were more instances of this, where issues 13 aren't black and white, where they're gray. And 14 conservatively speaking, you're over here, but 15 somebody higher than you is in a less conservative 16 position. Do you have any more instances that you 17 questioned or anything that caused you concern like 18 the ones that you've already discussed?
19 j7No. Just combine those with 20 the way we're preaching and practicing, and it just 21 makes me sometimes leery.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Nothing -- no 23 other instances to add that --
24 SI can't think of any.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- stand out in your NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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88 1 mind?
2 1Ican't think of any.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about -- if not 4 for you personally, what about for other people that 5 you work with? Did you learn of -- you know, from 6 your peers that they -- they had to deal with 7 something like this? You know, with either ýM 8 in challenging where they 9 clearly felt they needed to go, and an OS came at them 10 from another angle that they thought was wrong?
11 Well, I mean, I don't know 12 if it's under the same issue or not, but we had a guy 13 who walked offsite, an NCO who walked offsite, because 14 he didn't -- he was monitoring his -- the plant. And 15 the CRS and the OS wanted him to look under Plant 16 Historian, and he said, "No, I'm not looking at the 17 computer."
18 I said, "I'm not even going to" -- I don't 19 know the whole issue. But from what I understand is 20 he felt that that was not the appropriate thing to be 21 doing -- for him to be doing. He was supposed to be 22 monitoring the plant, and he wanted him to look at a 23 historical thing.
24 And we had this thing called Plant 25 Historian. I don't know if you guys want to know NEAL R. GROSS > ... L COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
89 1 about it, but basically it's a -- it takes -- it's a 2 computer system that monitors an assortment of points 3 from CRIDS and makes plots of them. And it's a great 4 tool to look back for -- you know, engineers to look 5 back and say, "Hey, you know, what happened?" Or --
6 and there are some NCOs that have a -- have their own 7 little graph things plotted. I don't find it very 8 useful for me personally.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who are the people on 10 the timeframe involved in this?
11 I believe that was 12 as the as thej& and --
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was the*"
14 OGod.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
16 : That's the one I should have 17 remembered. Sorry. But --
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, what 19 started this discussion? Did something happen?
20 . I don't have -- I don't 21 know --
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
23 I don't know the answer to 1.
24 that. All I know is that --
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But NEAL R. GROSS xi I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS / ......
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90 1 presumption would be something would have happened to 2 say, "Hey, go look at this," right?
3 4 Right. But there's another 4 NCO that is the plant operator who doesn't necessarily 5 have to monitor plant --
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So he's at 7 the controls.
8 Right.
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
10 The NCO is at the -- the RO, 11 he was the RO, he was at control. And they wanted him 12 to look at that, and he basically refused. And they 13 took him offsite, and he finally got his job back, you 14 know, after months. So that was very, very 15 intimidating. So if you want something intimidating 16 -- and that definitely had a play -- and that was 17 about the same timeframe as --
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was --
19 well, I'll get them (inaudible).
20 (Laughter.)
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the 22 timeframe?
23 2-I believe that was the same 24 timeframe as the reactivity -- conservative reactivity 25 thing. It was in that timeframe. I don't remember NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
91 1 exact years. I can't (inaudible). Sorry.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
3 4 A lot of stuff happened in 4 the 2001/2002 timeframe.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So this could be 6 earlier 2002 timeframe.
7 Yes, sure. I'll give you 8 that number.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't want to 10 commit to those times, do you?
II I can't. I mean, I --
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I understand.
13 2 Yes. I mean --
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you know what?
15 You're not unique with that. A lot of people we talk 16 to have gone --
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, they 18 don't remember all --
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- "The best I can do 20 is, you know" --
21 Yes. I'm sorry.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Usually we 23 can get something like a season, like winter or 24 whatever. Some people remember months and years, 25 but - -
7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
92 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the way it 2 goes. I mean --
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But it's all 4 right.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- these events start 6 to run together.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It's okay.
8 They do. They do.
9 The training blurs together, 10 so you've got -- you know, it all -
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The cycles are --
12 Right.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- and assignments.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So I want to 15 ask a little bit more on that. So there was -- so the 16 operator is at the controls, he's the designated RO.
17 To the best of your knowledge, either the CRS or OS 18 asks him or directs him to something -- presumably, 19 there is some -- some need to have him look at 20 Historian. He didn't feel comfortable doing that when 21 he was at the controls?
22 7Right.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So he said, 24 "No, I'm not going to do that." And there's another 25 operator that's there that could have done it.
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93 1Ye 2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Or he could 3 have switched with him, or whatever. They could have 4 done--
5 R"'. Or the CRS could do it.
6 It's on every computer.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
8 It's not like it's --
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And they --
10 so for whatever reason, he -- they decided that that 11 was insubordination or something, and said, "Okay.
12 Well, you're" -- was that something where he's 13 actually relieved when he was on shift, or --
14 I don't remember if it 15 was 16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- did it 17 happen after the fact, or was there -- was there a lot 18 of discussion and debate about that? Like you're 19 refusing a direct order or -- you know, I mean, 20 what --
21 1 don't know how --
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you know?
23 Okay.
24 *. You've exceeded my limit on 25 that. I don't know.
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94 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But you do 2 know he got -- he got taken off site.
3 He didn't stand watch the 4 next night, I know that.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was this a one-time 7 incident?
8 9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It hadn't happened 10 before? It was one refusal and you're done?
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you talk 12 to him after it happened at all? I mean --
13 14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So 15 everything you heard --
16 I mean, I've talked to him 17 since then, but it was months after that.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just have to ask my 20 question again, because it won't pick up --
21 I'm sorry.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think you were 23 nodding your head. It was just one incident, and he 24 was -- and he was walked offsite for that one-time 25 refusal --
[Wi NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
95 i 2 Uh-huh.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- refusal on this 3 not looking at Historian?
4 7) Uh-huh.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes?
6 Yes. I'm sorry. I'm 7 nodding my head again.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. It won't pick 9 that up.
10 (Laughter.)
11 So later on when I'm flipping through the 12 pages, I'll go, "Well, I never got an answer."
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, we'll 14 get a silent answer.
15 What did he say when you talked to him 16 after -- you know, months after? Did he -- I mean, he 17 obviously recounted some of what happened. Did he say 18 -- because, you know, you know some details. Did he 19 say like this was the first time that this -- I guess 20 what I'm trying to get a sense of is, did he relate to 21 you that -- that like management was out to get him?
22 Like he'd have a problem with that? Or this was just 23 like --
24No 25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(2021 23 433 WAqHIJNTrTh n r. qRnnn.-ý7M wwm nýmlrnrnc rnm
1 isolated occurrence?
2 No. I did not get that from 3 -- no, is a good operator-p He's very 4 meticulous, and he tries to follow to the best of his 5 ability. Anytime I have ever worked with him, I have 6 -- I have had no issues. So --
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, when you say 8 this incident was intimidating to you as anI --
9 oh, absolutely.
O He lost his 10 job 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
12 .: -- doing something that was 13 not necessary. You know, so that played heavily.
14 That still plays heavily. I mean, I said I've got two 15 kids. I mean, I -- is that going to prevent me from 16 shutting a unit down if I see power oscillations? No.
17 But would it -~
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How would it affect 19 you?
20 2 Well, when it comes to the 21 black and whites, or the gray areas, "Hey, we're 22 exceeding 75 SCFM. I think we need to do something."
23 "Well, I don't want to do nothing." "Well, I really 24 think we do." "Well, I'm not going to, and I'm your 25 boss." "Okay." How far do you push? I don't know NEAL R. GROSS i / &-
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97 1 anymore. I don't know the answer to that. I know 2 there are --
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But you're 4 relating that you feel uncomfortable pushing if 5 there's not clear direction.
6 . Absolutely.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You feel 8 like, if you have something where you -- you have 9 exceeded a limit or you -- you have a problem and 10 there's clear direction on what you do, you can do 11 that. You don't need to --
12 13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But if 14 there's not clear direction, you need the -- you need 15 the buy-in or the endorsement or the okay of someone 16 in the management chain, whether it's the control room 17 supervisor or the OS, you know, because -- or have 18 some discussion, is that correct?
19 -s 20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Because --
21 and that has been a change since the way the plant was 22 previously operated.
23 Oh, absolutely.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: The way you 25 described how you were taught in training.
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98 1 7 Right. Yes, that's 2 absolutely correct.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, that would apply 5 -- from the instances that we've talked about so far, 6 that would apply to your applying conservative 7 decision-making so far, have you seen examples where 8 NCOs or CRSs may be a little more maybe on the other 9 side of that gray area in terms of being more 10 aggressive, and the OSs are -- are applying the 11 pressure coming from the more conservative side?
12 I can't think of any.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You can take a 14 minute. I mean, we're covering a couple years here, 15 and we're --
16 Right.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It doesn't have to 18 come to you off the top of your head. Do you want to 19 take a quick break off the record?
20 Sure.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right.
22 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 23 foregoing matter went off the record 24 briefly.)
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're on the record.
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99 1 It's approximately 5:30 p.m.
2 And what I was going to ask you next about 3 is something that goes -- it ties back to a comment 4 that you made earlier when you were talking about the 5 off-gas issue. And what I recall you saying was that 6 you went through this, you had a difference of opinion 7 on where you should be and how you should handle the 8 situation. It was not a black and white situation at 9 the time, other than you were exceeding a certain 10 limit in the SCFM that you were at.
11 But you said that weeks later you had 12 heard you made the wrong decision. What kind of 13 feedback were you getting on that decision?
14 What do you mean we made --
15 I don't remember saying that, so I'm --
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had said 17 something about after this issue where you were on the 18 same page as your ( who you couldn'.t name at the 19 time, it was either Ca 20 that weeks later you had heard that -- that the 21 decisions that you were looking at in downpowering 22 were questioned. And what do you mean by "weeks 23 later"? Where were you getting that feedback from?
24 Do you recall what -- do you know what this goes to?
25 No. I mean, the only thing NEAL R. GROSS -4 --
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100 1 I remember is that Engineering, whoever did the 2 analysis, came back and said that the off-gas could 3 actually take more than what our procedure has said in 4 the FSAR. And it's -- and I don't remember the 5 numbers right now, what they came up with.
6 But we never exceeded anything. We never 7 jeopardized off-gas with the off-gas flow we had.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was the engineering 9 evaluation.
10 Yes. Yes.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Well, let me 12 ask you this way. In terms of the concern that you 13 raised at that time, and how you wanted --
14 Ye 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- to see it handled, 16 did you get any feedback -- you personally -- that was 17 negative or any criticism for having had that concern?
18 I don't believe I got any 19 negative. I just -- just my point was not taken.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you think 21 that you suffered any consequences, any -- in the 22 terms and conditions of your employment, in regard to 23 this incident and in regard to the one that was 24 brought up earlier in 2002 on the -- where you wrote 25 the notification. When you've raised these concerns, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRA1SCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
101 1 are you getting any -- either subtly or obviously, any 2 kind of negative actions toward you for having raised 3 those concerns?
4 Maybe subtly, but not 5 anymore. Not lately anyway. As a matter of fact, 6 lately everybody that I work with has -- we've had a 7 very good working relationship. So I don't think 8 anything negative has -- at least long-term 9 negatively, no.
10 During that timeframe, when I was bringing 11 it up -- and I was talking to the, you know, resident 12 NRC inspectors and stuff -- I didn't hear anything 13 directly.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What makes you think 15 that there was something subtle there?
16 Just the way people would 17 talk to me, management people. I'm not talking about, 18 you know, my -- the union guy that I work with. Or 19 even the CRSs for that matter.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: CRSs included in 21 this?
22 7 No. No, they did not talk 23 to me negatively about it.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So at what 25 level, OS level?
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102
- 1. OS and above. I was never 2 -- I was never told that I did the right thing.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So this --
4 Best I can remember.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This would include 6 1conversation with you as a followup --
7 Right.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- to that?
9 Right. And him walking away 10 from me.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
12 That -- that --
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That kind of 14 treatment.
15 .1 That type, right.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
17 1 Nothing'specific, nothing, 18 you know -- and over the course of the months, I did 19 get a little nervous at times, but, I mean, I -- I 20 didn't -- I didn't bring up anything else. I'm over 21 that now, so I'm not doing that anymore. But --
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there anything 23 that -- that should have been brought up that you 24 were, you know, chilled from --
25 1:1 No.
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103 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- doing so?
2 *JNo. It was just -- I mean, 3 if it was a difference of opinion, I kept my opinion 4 to myself, if it wasn't a big issue, you know, and it 5 was just -- I didn't push too hard, and I didn't try 6 to do much. That's what I mean. It's just -- I kept 7 a low-key profile. I guess that's what you call it.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For a while, and then 9 you had the off-gas issue, so you're -- you're back at 10 what you would consider -- you have the ability to 11 speak up if you want to, if you need to.
12 - Right. Right. I'm a fairly 13 vocal kind of person. Actually, honestly, I came to 14 a decision about it -- I don't know -- maybe a year 15 ago to say that if the company wants to fire me, and 16 they fire me, and that's what happens, then, okay, I 17 sell everything and I move on, and I start again.
18 That's my outlook on life since a lot of this has 19 started. I'm not --
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What made you come to 21 that conclusion in-early 2003?
22 2 Well, like -- things leading 23 up to it. That instance with the conservative 24 decision-making, and- was one of the final 25 straws that one of my friends gave up his license NEAL R. GROSS I:'
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104 1 over. He felt he wasn't, you know -- there was other 2 issues involved, and I don't know them all. But --
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Which --
4 what's this relating to, where you said your friend 5 gave up his license?
6 He was the 7 with me that day.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And he gave 9 up his license based on that -- that --
10 Well, that was --
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- that 12 power issue that you talked about?
13 Right. That whole issue, 14 right.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. The 16 way things took place.
17 1 I Right. There was other 18 issues, too, so that wasn't the only issue that he 19 had. I don't know what the other ones were.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So this factored into 21 decision.
22 jThat factored into his, the 23 thing with getting walked offsite for not 24 looking at Plant Historian. There were other issues.
25 I no longer feel secure in my job. I don't. I don't.
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105 1 I do not feel secure in my job.
2 Public -- excuse me, the door is opening.
3 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 4 foregoing matter went off the record 5 briefly.)
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're back on 7 after a very brief interruption. It's about 5:37 p.m.
8 I don't remember --
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had said that you 10 no longer felt secure in your job.
11 No, I don't. I think PS as 12 a whole thinks of me no more than they think of a 13 stapler. And when a stapler breaks, they'll throw it 14 away in a heartbeat and not think anything of it. And 15 that's how I feel public service has -- and a lot oQf 16 that comes from local management. So that's --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had some changes 18 there in this timeframe, in the -- going 2002 into 19 2003, where you're saying local management. At what 20 level is your discomfort?
21 Well, the OSs and above, 22 basically.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Everything from OSs?
24 )Yes. I'm not saying every 25 OS either. I' not.
I'm I--< -
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106 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 2 -- do you have certain ones that you feel would be 3 very difficult to work with? I mean, you mentioned 4 flY.. But are there others that -- I mean, it 5 sounds like you have, you know, a couple that you'd be 6 -- you know, that you want to work with, and maybe a 7 couple that you don't. What are the -- are there 8 other ones that you feel like are difficult to work 9 with?
10 MN Yes.
11i SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And who 12 would they be?
NOW" Well 41lS one,'
13 14 s is the other, is the other one 15 that's kind of hard to work with.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So is it 17 those three, or is there more?
18 Well --
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You 20 mentioned a somebody you think is good. I 21 mean, at least that's my -- that was my interpretation 22 of the -- of what you described earlier. Is that --
23 I had a conversation with 24 a couple of months ago when I was leaving 25 shift. He sent me an e-mail about -- saying, you A
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
107 1 know, "I'm sorry to see you leave, but know you could 2 have -- know you wanted to work on, you know" -- he --
3 I can't remember exactly how it was written, but he 4 was saying something about working on C shift hasn't 5 been, you know, what he really wanted, or whatever it 6 was. And that threw me, and I didn't ' understand why. /
7 And I went up and talked to him about it, 8 and we started talking about issues that have 9 occurred, and some of the conversations I've had with 10 some of the CRSs, you know, learning experiences and 11 everybody is growing and trying to work as a team.
12 And I told him, I said, "I am very team-oriented, and 13 I very much want to work -- continue to work here."
14 And I says, "And working on shif. has 15 not been a bad thing to me." I says, "I mean, you 16 personally as a CRS," I says, "you are the kind of" --
17 OS, rather -- "you are the kind of OS that I would 18 like to -- I would want to work with and I would like 19 to work with."
20 I says, "But the OSs are starting -- not 21 starting, they have been" -- I says, "There are 22 issues, and you guys have got to -- you've got to work 23 through." I says -- I'm trying to -- I'm losing my 24 train of thought here. But I -- I basically told him 25 that there was one really good OS, and maybe you guys NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
108 1 need to take some lessons from him.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was 3 that?
5 extremely good He's very knowledgeable.
6 (End of Tape 1, Side B. Beginning of Tape 2, Side A.)
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 8 record, and it's approximately 5:41 p.m.
9 And what you had just said was you were 10 making some comments about3 7) and I think 1i two of the attributes that you gave him was that he 12 knows -- it must be technical knowledge and management 13 style.
14 Right.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what is it that 16 the other ones aren't doing? Is it that they are 17 lacking in those two areas? It's both technical 18 knowledge and their style, or the other four aren't 19 getting something right?
20 Well, I'm not saying that 21 they all don't have the technical knowledge. I think 22 2 is a very -- he's got a lot of experience.
23 But I think 'has experience in certain things.
24 Everyone has a little bit different experience.
25 I think overall, though, I think W' NEAL R. GROSS .
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109 1 *has a lot of very good technical knowledge, 2 and he's a nice guy. Just -- he can be difficult to 3 work with because of some of the -- like I talked 4 about the arrogance. Arrogance is a major factor 5 involved in management around here.
6 And I guess you've got to be somewhat 7 arrogant to be an to a certain extent.
8 You've got to deal with everybody, and you've got to 9 make some hard calls sometimes. So it's -- but to be 10 arrogant amongst yourselves is -- is difficult. And 11 I think those people -- PS has a habit of taking 12 people, making them CRSs or OSs, and not making them 13 managers and/or leaders.
14 And lately some of the CRSs -- a small 15 handful of CRSs -- and a lot of the OSs use that trump 16 card as an, "I'm your boss, and you'll do what I tell 17 you."1 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the management 19 style.
20 1 Right.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, as it regards to 22 what we're looking at --
23 /Okay.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- do you see the 25 deficiencies in the management style -- do you see NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
110 1 there -- you know, from what you've been dealing with 2 at the OS level, having any kind of an adverse effect 3 on nuclear safety?
4 I don't believe that it has 5 an effect on nuclear safety.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It would seem that 7 from what you're indicating it has more of an effect 8 on your work environment.
9 ) Right. Which that can 10 effectively have an effect on nuclear safety I guess, Ii on anything.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If it gets to the 13 point where you're --
14 Nw.' Peopl don't want to go to 15 work.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, if you don't 17 want to go to work, or if w]hile you're at work 18 you're --
19 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- you're hesitating 21 to raise an issue because of the way something might 22 be received.
23 . Right. So indirectly I 24 guess I can, yes.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
j'flflfl 'V2A AA - - -1 -
Iil 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, and 2 you've also described it, at least in this overpower 3 -- potential overpower condition, a situation where 4 you -- you portrayed it as non-conservative decision-5 making.
6 100960- Right.
6C 7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, the 8 conservative thing would have been to lower power some 9 amount, and you could debate what that amount was.
10 Sure.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But the 12 lower power is some amount, and then recover your 13 inputs that you needed to go back to your -- your 14 power uprate condition.
15 Right. That was a black and 16 white issue for me and everybody else except the OSs.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now, you 18 talked about one of your peers giving up his license.
19 SPECIAL AGENT 20 Right.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What were --
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that it?
25 1 think so.
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112 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And since 2 you guys were on shift together, did he talk about 3 some of the other -- other issues he had withl 4 LT h 5 jActually, I wasn't on shift 6 with him. I only stood watch with him on overtime 7 and/or proficiency watches.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 9 the fact that you guys happened to be on shift the day 10 of this power event --
1i )Is just coincidence.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 13 you -- all right. But did you -- have you talked to 14 him since about some of the interactions with and some of the other instances where you said 16' issues -- you said he gave up his license. What's he 17 doing now?
18 O NHe'Is an 19 I.) He went back toeInpIMi" i \'
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
21 * <dI 22 . So if you give up your license, that's 23 where you go I guess. Don't know. Haven't had that 24 happen that often. I don't know if that was a special 25 case or not, but -- LA"f NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(9901 2.344413 M/AIqfINIflTf)TN n r' Onnng '27n4 .-
113 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Unusual?
2 JIIt was very unusual. But I 3 think there were other issues. So I'm just -- you 4 know, the only reason why I'm bringing this whole 5 thing up is that sitting in the back of my mind it's 6 all -- you know, it's all sitting back there.
7 And when, like you say, you try to bring 8 an issue up, I'm really not concerned about bringing 9 issues up anymore because of what I said before. If 10 they want to fire me, then so be it. Then they made 11 my own decision, and I don't have to worry about it 12 anymore.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you made a 14 conscious decision that you'll raise whatever concerns 15 you have to raise.
16 Right.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And since that time, 18 it looks like you've done so.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It does --
20 it does sound like you've changed your threshold, 21 though.
22 Well, my threshold is way up 23 there.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You know, so 25 it's going to have -- it's going to have -- take NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS -
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
114 1 something to be a big deal before you --
2 Oh, that threshold, you 3 mean.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. I 5 mean, because it sounds --
6 No.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- the way 8 you described it --
9 No.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- was if 11 something is minor, you're going to let it go. If a 12 guy comes back and says, "I'm your boss. I want you 13 to do it." And if it's just a difference of opinion, 14 I think you said you let it go. I guess I'm --
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think he was 16 talking about black and white versus gray area 17 confidences.
18 Yes.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where you're 20 confident when it's black and white and you have a 21 procedure, but if you're pushing and then it's -- it's 22 a gray area undefined, and your supervisor is saying, 23 "I disagree," at that point you would back off. We 24 don't want to misunderstand you, but is that what 25 you're saying?
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M91~ V7UA AA2 IAIA CUIKV-f-ýKf n f' nf 1
115 1 Yes. That's probably 2 different levels, depending on who I'm actually 3 working with and how far I'll push during that 4 particular instance. But will I do again what I did 5 last time? Probably not. I'm not going to keep a 6 record of everything. I'm not going to -- okay, if 7 this is what you guys want to do, then this is what 8 you guys want to do.
9 I don't know what else to do. I mean, I'm 10 not going to get an ulcer and a heart attack over all 11 this. I'm not. And that's -- that's what it turns 12 into. I'm not going to do that.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about others --
14 your peers in your position, do you see them having 15 any hesitation to raise concerns?
16 I think there 1L are people 17 that just -- nah, I can't -- I can't tell you that.
18 i --
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just looking and --
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, are 21 there people that you think might hesitate? Whereas 22 maybe you wouldn't hesitate as much, is there someone 23 out there that --
24 Or_. Some of the junior guys 25 probably will hesitate a little bit more.
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fn') ')A AA1)- mAcAuI#nIJT/nP flP r, on I =-7fl4 ,,
116 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have they 2 ever like talked to you about it? Has anybody ever 3 come to you as like -- you know, maybe somebody more 4 -- a little bit more experienced and said, "Hey," and, 5 you know, maybe knowing you were in you 6 know, did you ever come across a situation like this 7 and describe something and -- or what kind of --
8 *Just general conversations 9 that I've had with people. You know, there's really 10 nothing specific that I could give you. You know, and 11 I think it has to do with -- it's just experience 12 levels.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think there's 14 a number of instances like what you described out 15 there that other people have experienced? I mean, 16 have you heard about anything indirectly that we
- 17. should be hearing about?
18 i I know there are 19ý notifications out there that I've looked through and 20 said, "Wow, hey, look at that." Just as I scroll 21:, through them every once in a while; I don't look at 22 them every day. So -- sometimes hundreds of them that 23 are written.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is there any 25 of them that have -- like recently or -- or even --
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117 1 even in the past couple of years that have stood out 2 in your mind that you said, "Geez, we were -- this 3 looks really bad. It looks like we didn't really 4 handle that very well."
5 . I can't remember specifics.
6 I can just remember one of the guys that I work with, 7 one of the ') he has written up some things. He 8 has taken a pretty good stance on trying to make 9 things more right.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And who is 11 that?
12 Zdia"~h~l 13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER.
14 14 Right.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
16 _.... j.He's got a lot -- he's got 17 a lot of -- a lot of knowledge. He's a good' 18 and--
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Your 20 perception, he's trying to improve the place --
21 . Oh, absolutely.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- by using 23 the notification system --
24 MIN \ boutely.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- to do it?
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118 1 *Yes, absolutely.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. And 3 what kind of -- what kind of feedback has he gotten?
4 I mean, is management receptive? Are they kind of 5 like pushing him away? What -- what do you hear from 6 him?
7.. I don't know. I can't say.
8 Now, that issue with. that I was telling you 9 about before came out of one o notifications I 10 think. I think! is the one that wrote the 11 notification.
12 So somebody looked at it and said, "Hey, 13 we've got to look at something." So, I mean, that was 14 -- that was the good thing. I told her that. I says, 15 "I'm actually glad that somebody is looking at 16 something." You know, and told me, he said, "I 17 don't know what I'm going to do with all of this."
18 But talking to people anyway.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's comfort 20 level with that? Has it stayed the same? Does he --
21 I mean, is he generating the same amount of 22 notifications? When he sees something, he writes it 23 up or--
24 I don't know the answer to 25 that.
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119 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't know.
2 Okay.
3 Scott, do you have anything further on 4 that? I know you have other issues.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, not on 6 that, no.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you want to go?
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had the other 10 issues you --
- 1. SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- wanted to bring 13 up.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: There's been 15 a couple things that have happened over the last 16 couple of years I just want to ask you about. You may 17 or may not have any knowledge of the issues, but I 18 just feel like I want to go through them a little bit.
19 Back in the middle of March of 2003, there 20 were -- there were a number of things that happened 21 over a week's time, a week, maybe a week and a half.
22 And they related to a forced outage. Let me give it 23 to you the way you I understand it.
okay.
24 25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And if you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
120 1 -- maybe you have some better knowledge of it. Maybe 2 you -- maybe you could set me straight if I don't 3 understand it right. But there was -- there was a 4 forced outage to repair like three things. The one 5 related to an exhaust leak on one of the diesels. And 6 I think there was some other valve repair activities 7 that were -- it was a short duration forced outage.
8 And then there were a couple of things 9 that happened during the outage. One was there was a 10 hold-down bolt from one of the turbine bypass valves 11 had come out.
12 Oh, yes. Yes, I remember 13 that.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It was like 15 for the number 5, and it -- it rolled around in like 16 a steam chest area, and it kind of wedged --
17 !s.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- between 19 the number 2 -- between the disk and the seat. And it 20 was kind of -- at the time -- you know, when it 21 happened, no one really knew what -- what happened.
22 Right.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: This is 24 stuff that was found out after the fact. But it's 25 just that the valve wasn't responding properly. It NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ( " I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
121 1 was like trying to cycle it, and it wouldn't go below 2 48 percent open, something like that.
3 Right.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And then 5 there was -- there was a lot of discussion about what 6 to do about that, whether -- you know, whether to take 7 the unit off, put it on and keep it going, because I 8 think there was some -- some other§ indications where 9 there is testing done where the -- the hold-down bolt 10 may have shifted. In fact, the valve may have shut.
11 And my -- our details are kind of sketchy 12 on that. And then -- but eventually I guess there was 13 a decision they'd take the unit offline, and then at 14 a low power level, somewhere six to 10 percent power, 15 there was some reactivity excursion because of some 16 problem with the turbine bypass valve system.
17 Yes.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And then 19 there was -- then there was a subsequent repair of the 20 turbine bypass valve and maybe it took longer than 21 expected, or what have you. Do you remember -- were 22 you involved with any of that?
23 I was not involved with any 24 of that. And I'll tell you, I'm very happy that I 25 wasn't involved with any of that.
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122 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I see relief.
2 jj Well, and that's -- and 3 that's what you asked about the little subtleties that 4 come out. All right. You make a mistake, you learn 5 from it, you fix it. You make everybody learn from 6 it, whatever. But to treat the people the way they 7 treat them makes you really, really, really wonder if 8 -- you know, you can't. trust them. How can you trust 9 them? I can't trust them.
10 So I don't put myself in a position where 12 I need to trust anybody anymore. That's not a good 12 way to live. Anyway, that's a little side thought.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where did you see the 14 mistreatment there?
15 fspecifically?
S.
16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
9 Was the Yes.
He wasn't even 18 involved in any of this. He came in on overtime, and 19 they put him on rods, you know, and he didn't have any 20 of the information that the company pretty much 21 slammed him for not having. And took him off shift, 22 put him through special training, and all of this 23 other stuff, because of nothing that really --
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was 25 that?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
I99fl 9 U&A..aA 1AIA0UIJdIt-rr'%K r~t 1- -
123 1 ~~That was -
2 think that was --
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: L 1who?
4 5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:
6 Okay.
7 And I don't -- that's --
8 much more than that I don't know. I mean, I know I've 9 -- we've talked about it, but we never really ýot into 10 any specifics. He just -- you know, he laughs at it 11 now. You know, it's -- you know, well, what am I 12 supposed to do? I mean, you know, I came in on 13 overtime.
14 If it's -- I think he was thinking he was 15 taking more control over something like that, or 16 whatever, and then he -- no, take rods, and whatever 17 he did, and he wasn't involved in any of the pre-GR 18 briefs or any of the training that they had on it, or 19 anything like that.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he the only one 21 disciplined?
22 No. I don't believe he was 23 the only one, but I know they took a couple of the 24 guys off shift and -- well, if the company feels that 25 they need to take people off shift and train them a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
124 1 little more because of something that happened, or 2 whatever, okay, if that's what you need to do that's 3 fine. But there's a limit.
4 Another subtle one is one of the guys that 5 I was working with -- he -- I don't remember -- I 6 wasn't there when he actually had the initial problem, 7 but it was something about reactivity -- you know, 8 something about a rod mispositioned or something. I 9 don't remember exactly how, but he was off shift for 10 months and months. And the way they treated him, you 11 know, basically, it looked to me as if the company 12 wanted to break him before they brought him back in.
13 And that's not what you want to do.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What do you 15 mean "break him"?
16 ,j They wanted to make -- you 17 know, they wanted him to do what he is told, and 18 that's it -- an autonomotone (phonetic), you know, a 19 robot. That's the impression that I got. Now, that's 20 just my impression.
21 (Whereupon, a phone began ringing.)
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you want to take 23 a quick break?
24 . Yes, I guess I'd better do 25 that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
A A n. .. -* . --...... . . .. .- ..
125 1 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 2 foregoing matter went off the record 3 briefly.)
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're back on 5 after a break of about a minute.
6 What you were talking about there that 7 involved the individual who was taken off shift. The 8 name again?
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:
iiNo. No.
- 12. ! actually, but his -- he goes by 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: taken 14 off shift. But what I was wondering was you said that 15 they were trying to break him, and that the idea was 16 that they were trying to make him do what they wanted 17 him to do. What was the issue that got him removed 18 from shift? Do you know anything about that?
19 Some sort of reactivity 20 manipulation. But no, I do not know any more than 21 that. No,-I don't.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you don't know if 23 it was that he made a mistake, or if he just had a 24 difference of opinion with somebody, or --
25 I think a mistake was made.
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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
126 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
2 I'm pretty sure a mistake 3 was made, and that's the issue that I'm saying. You 4 know, if you make a mistake, all right, fine, let's go 5 figure out how to fix it, and let's make sure nobody 6 else makes it. Let's fix any -- you know, that's 7 okay. But for months and months, I mean, and -- to 8 put him through testing after testing after testing 9 after testing, that was not --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To make that point 11 was --
12
- It wasn't appropriate.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- seemed 14 inappropriate.
15 It was not appropriate.
16 So --
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was he 18 involved with the off-gas issue? Could that have been 19 it?
20 No. No, no. don't know 21 how -- no. It was -- I think it was --
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Reactivity 23 manager?
24 - !I'm pretty sure it was a 25 reactivity 5I; NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
127 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
2 %-.--
I-.---
-- I'm like 80 percent sure it l
3 was a reactivity issue.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Okay.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
6 I don't know anything more 7 about the instance.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
9 I just saw the after 10 effects. Because he's a good and heIs 11 smart. I mean, he took -- they gave him an NRC test.
12 What am I thinking of?
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: SRO?
14 Not SRO, an test, a 15 license test -- cold -- and he got like an 16 80-something on it. And I'm sorry, but there's a lot 17 of stuff that we take on those tests that we very 18 rarely ever look at again. And to be able to pass it, 19 I don't know if I could, honestly. I don't know if I 20 should say that.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he's a sharp guy.
22 IYes. I mean, a lot of 23 fundamental stuff that, you know, it's -- it's all 24 great to know. But if you don't use it every day, you 25 kind of forget it. jj I
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
19mi\ ')4A-AAq1'
128 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right.
2 And 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 4 else on that incident?
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Wait a 6 minute. No. No, I don't think so.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But I did 9 want to ask a little bit about 1 You say he 10 came in on overtime? This is on the turbine bypass 11 valve issue, kind of the whole global thing, and was 12 just doing -- he was told to manipulate the control 13 rods, really wasn't involved with the briefs very 14 much.
15 From what I'm told. This is 16 all secondhand information.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, that's 18 okay. I mean, I just want to know what you know about 19 it.
20 Rgt 21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So --
22 That pretty much tells you.
23 I mean --
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And he was 25 given remedial training?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 P 1 14 * . Yes.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. And 3 were there other people above his level, either the 4 CRS or OS or AOM, anybody else involved that you heard 5 that there was -- I don't know -- any kind of remedial 6 action for those folks?
7 Oh, yes, a couple of the 8 other guys, too. A couple of the other Wjwound up 9 off shift.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: . What 11 about the CRS, the OS, or AOM, any --
12 I don't remember.
13 Management does not make it a point to tell union guys 14 what they're doing to correct issues with other 15 management people.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
17 So I don't know.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But do you 19 ever hear about those kinds of things?
20 Yes. Didn't hear anything 21 about that.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 23 ever heard of -- like somebody like (
24 getting counseled or --
25 .No.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
130 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: --
2 getting -
3 No.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- for any 5 of the stuff he's been involved with?
6 No. No.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But at the same time, 8 you might not be privy to that.
9 am* ;O Right. Right.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
11 : That's their management 12 style, so that's fine.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Have 14 you ever used the employee concerns program?
15 16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Would you be 17 willing to use it?
18 M* g Probably not.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And why is 20 that?
21 I thought ahout going to the 22 employee concerns with my *eactivit nd.
23 and I was not happy with the way things were going.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
25 Initially on. And I thought NEAL R. GROSS,\ .
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
131 1 about going to them, and I talked to -- I don't 2 remember who I talked to. I talked to a couple of 3 different people. You know, hey, did you ever -- you 4 know, some of my buddies type of thing, did you ever 5 do anything with this? And I heard a lot of different 6 information.
7 And then I talked to as a 8 matter of fact, and I think he was doing something 9 with that organization at that time. And I asked him, 10 I says, "You know, how does this work?" And he says, 11 "Well, we do the best we can to keep your names out of 12 it." But he says, "You know, it's not hard to put two 13 and two together." You know, the issue happened here.
14 Well, anybody can look up the manning chart and find 15 out immediately who it was. So it's kind of a moot 16 point.
17 And I know I talked to, also 18 about it, too, about going to the employee concerns.
19 And I didn't --
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, you had already 21 raised the issue at that point.
22 No " Right.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In a couple ways.
24 Right.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And directly to your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
132 1 OS, so your concern, then, wasn't that they'd identify 2 the concern to you. It was that they'd identify that 3 you went to ECP?
4 SRight.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where would the 6 negative --
7 I don't know.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- the -- where do 9 you hesitate there?
10 Perceived, I guess.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Perceived? Yes. Do 12 you have reason for that? I mean, what's the basis 13 for that? Did they react negatively to somebody who 14 had done that, who had been through the process?
Don't have any firsthand 16 information on it.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But you made 18 the decision --
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the perception 20 that's out there.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You made a 22 decision not to use it.
~Right.
23 24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But it 25 sounds like you did at least think about it. r~ fI NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(2021 234-443 .1 lAIAQw-IN IfI'T l r"%C r- 'nnnfc -' .
1 .v1 1 -- I thought about it.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.
3 I thought about it.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Asked 5 around, found out what people's experience was.
S6 'IYes. And I just didn't find 7 anything that made me very super-comfortable here.
8 SoS--
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you feel 10 like you were -- your job was in jeopardy?
.... I Well, like we talked about 12 before, I --
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But that's 14 a revelation that you came to, it sounds like, after 15 -- afterwards. I mean, at the time --
16I was -- I was nervous. I 17~ was nervous initially, yes, I was. I kind of got over 18 that, and then kind of fell back into it again when 19 all of this other stuff started happening, you know, 20 with the -- you know, more informýation that I got --
21 the whole nine yards, the way people 22 were being treated just in general.
23 Nothing concrete, nothing to tell -- you 24 know, nothing, this is the reason why I felt this way, 25
- I can't tell you that. It's just a perceived notion NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
i*,.%
f,%* % #'% *
- 134 1 that I found that I was somewhat concerning in going 2 to employee concerns. It probably wasn't going to 3 help my situation any, and I didn't think it was going 4 to help anybody resolve the issues, but the management 5 of that, which is basically what that was.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So based on your 7 research, you shied away from it because you didn't 8 think --
9 Ys 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- it would be 11 effective? You didn't think that they'd be able to 12 protect your identity --
.13 .Yes.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- was part of it?
15 Ys 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you didn't think 17 that you would be perceived well for going there.
18 1 Correct. So I didn't. I 19 don't know if that was right or wrong. I don't know.
20 Would I use them again now? I don't know. I don't 21 know.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Has anything changed 23 that would -- that would --
24 My outlook on life.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- send you there?
NEAL R. GRO~SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
135 1 (Laughter.)
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Has 3 =*,%*,*A*, __
4 .... .. That would send you 5 there if you-had to go there.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Has anybody 7 come back and told you that they did go to employee 8 concerns and had a good experience? I mean, as far 9 as --
10 "f No. Actually, no.
11 R. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No? Has 12 anybody ever said, I mean, that they were satisfied 13 -'with what came out of that or --
14 77I --
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No?
16 No. I don't know of anybody 17 that had good and/or bad.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
19 2Just general feeling was, 20 you know, whistleblower sticking your neck out on the 21 line kind of thing.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: To your 23 knowledge, has management ever taken an action to --
24 against someone who raised a concern, maybe went to 25 employee concerns? Maybe like after the fact come NEAL R. GROSS i),0 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
136 1 back and somehow --
2 Like how?
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, like 4 this thing with -- who was the again, who --
5 who was supposed to look at Plant Historian and didn't 6 do that?
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:
9 Did -- was there -- do you think there had 10 been like any prior -- did you ever hear him say, 11 "Hey, I went to employee concerns" or --
12 No.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- "I raised 14 issues, and as a result of this, you know, this was --
15 you know, this was an excuse to" --
16 OiNo. I really have no basis 17 for my feelings on that.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
19 I don't.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're sort of 22 chuckling about it, and you're saying that your 23 outlook has changed on it. But, I mean, in a way, 24 it's an avenue that should have been there for you 25 that you didn't think you could use for a variety of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l, 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
137 reasons.
2 Right.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about -- what 4 about the NRC - -
lz`
5 4 m ýp -*ýJW .
6 .A 01 .on hill 7
8 9 No, I do not think that did.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you make 11 -- do you think you made an allegation, or were you 12 just discussing -- was this -- a lot of interactions 13 with the residents, because I was a resident, I was 14 also a senior resident, but a lot of the interactions 15 are -- sometimes it's context-oriented. Like if I'm 16 in the control room and I'm just talking to you as an 17 operator about how things are going, and you just talk 18 about something and there's free discussion, it's just 19 discussion.
20 21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Btit if you 22 -- but -- and some of it's environmental. Bi it if I'm 23 sitting in my office, and you come in and se /y, "Hey, 24 I have an issue I want to discuss" --
25 A - `ýP*1I did not do that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
138 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
2 j* I1 didn't know I needed to do 3 that.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, a lot 5 of it depends on how -- it's how we perceive the 6 interaction, you know? "We", the NRC --
7 R ght.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- perceive 9 the interaction.
10 Yes, right. I talked to 11 about it, and he read my notification, and he said, 12 "You know, what we try to do i~s let the management 13 resolve the issues." And I don't remember. I mean, 14 I remember that. And we talked at length on it a 15 couple of times in general I guess.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
17 So, and I don't know if.
18 went any further with it or what he did. I guess not.
19 But --
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did he ever 21 sit down and say, "Well, you know, this is"'--
22 He didn't take any 23 information from me.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Okay.
25 ... Okay.
INEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. A 5-27..
139 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think it 2 became known that you went to the resident at that 3 time?
4 I don't know.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I mean, did you tell 6 anybody?
8 9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he's *a*a
.11 MM1-aMkI 12 Right. I kept him informed 13 of what I was doing. That way --
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: When you say 15 you went to him, do you mean you -- you went over to 16 the office and -- or was this something --
17 18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. Yes.
19 How--
20 - In the control room 21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. All 22 right. So the interaction you had with him was in the 23 'control room.
24 Right.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you ever NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
140
.1 make like a trip over to the office to --
2 No.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So it 4 was strictly in the ntrol room) 5 Strictly in the control room.Jr 6
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
8 I thought about that, and 9 the same issue came up, that it's not hard to figure 10 out who did this. All right? Who put this together.
11 So--
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
13 W M Because I had asked him 14 about that, I says, "You now" -- he said, well, if 15 I'm concerned about my job, if I do -- you know, if I 16 bring up a concern anywhere -- and he asked me, you 17 know, it was a very -- it was a short conversation, 18 but he did tell me that.
19 You know, he says, "You can absolutely 20 bring it up anytime you want. And I'll be willing to 21 listen to you anytime you want. " He says -- you know, 22 and that he did readd and we talked 23 about that a little bit.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
25 _.And he says, "But, you know, NEAL R. GROSS6 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
I *l]*Ji J4A ....
141 1 .the notification is already in. So it doesn't take 2 much to figure this out. They're going to know you 3 know, realize that." We didn't really get into it 4 much more than that. I just --
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
6 J--didn't do it.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have the other 8 instances?
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. The 10 other -- the other instance was there was a diesel 11 problem. It was in June of -- it was the intercooler 12 pump. Were you involved with that at all? Do you 13 know about that at all?
14 No.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you know 16 about the incident? Did you ever hear about that, 17 where there was -- there was a leak from the 18 intercooler pump, there was operability evaluation, 19 the leak got worse --
20 YEs, I know a little bit 21 about it.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- it ran 23 down to the 72-hour timeframe, actually got into the 24 -, beyond the 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> and got into the 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> to --
25 I think it's 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> to hot shutdown or -- or hot NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
fOfVA 0'3A.AAT .... ..
142 1 standby maybe. Maybe it's the hot standby, I forget.
2 But it got into that. You weren't 3 involved with that at all?
4 No. I mean, I just -- I 5 heard about it.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
7 But other than that, I 8 don't --
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Let me just 10 make sure there's no other -- I mean, there are some 11 things that -- that we have to go over. Okay. You 12 weren't involved with the bypass valve at all, right?
13 WHj. Not the bypass valve, no.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Or 15 the reactivity management enough to follow it.
16" No.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And we 18 already talked a little bit about the off-gas problem.
19 I guess that's it. Those were the --
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's what you had?
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. Those 22 were the specific technical things.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Did any of 24 that prompt anything else in your mind, 25 Instances that, if not you, your peers might have had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
11)n1)% -1'3A AAýý
143 issues with in the handling or the decision-making?
2 Can you think of anything else at this point?
3 No, not really. I think I'm 4 pretty much burned out here.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Maybe 8 we'll --
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I will. I have to 10 thank you for your time. Before I do that, I'm going 11 to ask just a few closing questions. Okay?
12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have I or any other 14 NRC representative offered you any promises of reward 15 or threatened you in any manner in exchange for your 16 information today?
17 No.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you appeared 19 here freely and voluntarily?
20 Yes.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 22 you'd like to add at this time?
23 No.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Scott, I don't think 25 I gave you a chance. Do you have anything?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
144 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I guess not.
2 (Laughter.)
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. At this point, 4 we'll close the interview. It's 6:10 p.m. I thank 5 you very much for all your time.
6 We're off the record.
7 (Whereupon, at 6:10 p.m., the interview 8 was concluded.)
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16, 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Interview of Docket Number: 1-2003-051F Location:
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings as recorded on tape (s) provided by the NRC.
Lisa Scriber Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I'2')2AMUf~rjC tC'I APkIM A-