ML062160236
| ML062160236 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 08/02/2006 |
| From: | - No Known Affiliation |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| References | |
| FOIA/PA-2005-0194 | |
| Download: ML062160236 (6) | |
Text
Attachment Transcribed Interviews Alleger told him that there were a lot of problems at the site, relationship, not safety, but articulated none.
Alleger did not raise any safety concerns to him.
Alleger did not say she was terminated for raising safety concerns.
Fine line between production versus safety, but safety always came first; talked specificall about taking Salem critical with vacuum established in a non-routine fashion.
eHeard g
efer to a lack of defense in depth thinking allenged the nuclea team to be mindful of this philosophy for its importance.
Heard.fer to "taking the keys away ;reant the Team needed to wake up because performance isn't where it nee Cs to be.
Production over safety examples:
Restart following the grassing event at Salem; Cas perceived by operations people to be sending mixed messages because of his recent letter for conservative decision-making.
Hope Creek turbine bypass valvAIN as coming from safety aspect but people probably didn't perceive it that way.
General 50.7.stuff concerning the alleger's layoff.
ould not confirm or deny that alleger stated told her that ad the latitude to retain her."
- "states that the alleger's statement, that instructed HR to accelerate her departure was not true.
It was*
decision to move up alleger's departure date, mainly due to input from his boss W B concerning her submitted expenses.
.. Hope Creek turbine bypa testionedyhim for 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> as to why t e plant should shutdown, but he would have ques j
other side had he decided not to shutdown the plant; peoples' impression tha T
as trying to get him to do the wrong thing was inappropriate.
Alleger told him that she wasn't sure she h*asja..
fety concern, but it feels like other people do; told her she didn't need to go t he provided her comfort when he said there were no nuclearsafety concerns at the plants.
His impression was the site leadership was in trouble, and because it's at a nuclear
~or at, it must be a nuclear safety issue.
-reaches defense-in-depth and continually does so.
W01d people at a morning meeting that they don't come from safety, because of OSHA accident rate.
Information in this record was'delete.
in accordance with the Freedom of Act, exemptions 1` 1A
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Morale issue with the Salem EOs because of OT, shift rotation, and fired'op stewards Has heard managers get challenged by supervision over safety issues, but never sacrifice nuclear safety or personnel safety, and no one gets shouted down.
Production over safety; recalled a Salem 1 issue concerning condensate valve #47; decided not to work it; it was challenged by the operators, and after a meeting, the o erators understood why and left satisfied.,
ost aggressive manager an.is in the middle, but they are typical managers and are acceptable.
Heard people refer to other people's thinking as dangerous; but PSEG's state was not dangerous; people can be wrongheaded in their approach; i.e., give people dose to fish round looking for a problem that may not be in that location.
alks about a lack of defense-in-depth which we are constantly trying to build.
WANO report has a little bit about the site is not consistently coming from safety in decision making; i.e., don't consistently enforce standards and expectations; people slip up and make poor decisions.
There have been under-reactions to human performance events; mgt has taken some pretty significant actions to address it; reactivity event at Hope Creek was missed.
Morale at the management level is acceptable.
Had a rash of OSHA recordable events and had a maintenance stand-down; guy cut his hand on a valve because of inadequate pre-job workup prior to maintenance.
Salem chemistry dept is a problem because of poor equipment, but are working on the problem.
Salem EO lost part of a finger on a basket strainer because of poor work instructions, but it a.A5doresap rnf n yars.
t_ Salem; believes he had a significant hazard and he had the responsibility to ensure the plant is maintained in a safe condition because he had a license Alleger talked a lot about leadership issues but she never raised specific safety issues.
There are morale issues with Salem EOs but they are working on it.
Did not meet industrial safetyt goals last year - working on it.
He said he was the manager that said "we focus on appeasing employees' safety concerns rather than resolve them; working with his CR supervisors to change their mindset.
Reactivity event's seriousness at Hope Creek was not recognized by ops and middle management; took a couple days and senior management to recognize it.
The grassing event at Salem was handled fine in the end; no matter which side he took (production or safety) his management would question him on either issue; they are not asking him to violate safety requirements.
_- *AI~
talks about the company's lack of defense in depth as one of his operating ilsmohies.
talks11 abune-reaction to human performance issues; in context of trying to improve the philosophy at the site.
er@s rept~s hot spot as well as Salem EOs.
Md Ai here were some errors with it; it would have been better if he
=directeS to m e o n-et o do-i7.
Generally 50.7 issues - reasons for her layoff.
Alleger did not raise any safety concerns with him Alleger just raised soft issues with him, i.e., effectiveness of management; the only difference from day 1 and the day she wis let go is that at the end she considered the issues to be safety concerns.
-;7 wl'Me sS V'problems, but states it doesn't impact nuclear safety.
WANO evaluation did not conclude the site was being mismanaged.
Salem restart following an outage; wanted to use an alternate method to validate position of a rx head vent valve vice fixing it; some people saw the discussion as trying to work around the problem vice fixing it.
-ialks about lack of defense in depth, but to the extent of trying to educate eo I bout it.
ade an accusation th rouht the plant out of shutdown p'~re-aturely, he was pressured to
' so by it was investigated and unsubstantiated by the ECP dept.
Hope Creek wrt an oil pump that needed to be fixed; engineering determined a valve would work during a turbine trip even though it was degraded; more risky to work on it at power so would wait till a shutdown; operators were not comfortable with the decision.
she characterized me, labeled me"
' eak inside containment on fan coil unit; ops thought FCU was inoperable but did not and made comments to the crew that startup should continue; looks like maintenance found the F U to be operable People would vie iscussiP..oncerning the grassing event at Salem to be production over safet aidushed too hard, but both were doing their jobs andrr id not ignore safety; but they waited to get circulators back for reliability.
Meetings he's been to, management tends to place safety over production.
Ee y tend not to raise industrial safety issues cause those issues don't get fixed.
J says you need to come from safety in decision making and stresses that there has been under reaction to human erformance events.
Hope Creek leaky relief valve Ichallenged them to fix the valve rather than wait till a fu outI e.
Relief oleaking Hope Creekbpass valve; gave
- hug because he had suc a stressfu day dealing wimhallenging ops to continue up in power rather than fix the valve.
People tend to put themselves at risk to get the job done, i.e., therefore production over safety.
Generally explains all issues such that there are no problems at the site.
Page 58 missing.
Answers to the cause for her accelerated termination are not clear.
Lots of 50.7 discussions.
NO~nlng.
sks questions that would lead some people to believe he doesn't come from safety,but he is getting the full perspective.
Reactivity event significance was missed by low and mid level managers; plant should have been scrammed and that's why the crew is off shift.
Heard site is being mismanaged but he doesn't believe so.
Hears operating crews say we are focused on production and not safety; but it does not happen; they just don't have all the information.
Salem I primary relief valve (#2) that was assembled was missing a spacer ring; workers signed off that it was assembled properly; falsified document.
EDG linkage was found bound; declared the EDG inoperable; we're investigating the individual because he signed off stating it was She told him that she had raised concerns to qWIand was being let go sooner for doing this; he was shocked and told her to go to ECP
.%before going to the NRC.
Nothing.
Alleger was a problem creator, but were cultural issues, not nuclear safety issues because she had no subject matter expertise.
All 50.7 stuff.
(Organization Design/HR Strategic Planning)
All 50.7 stuff.
'I C,-I I
- fF Basically acknowledged all of the alleger's statements, but justified them all.
Mad he was challenged about a replacement transformer pump, but it was not nuclear safety related.
Could not recall any example where production was given precedence over safet Senior management is concerned about defense in depth, most notabl but it has never compromised nuclear safety.
Senior management says we're not coming from safety in decision making, but that was in the past; currently believe its not a problem; people make mistakes but its not a predominant problem.
Alleger told him she was being let go for raising safety concerns and he told her he found that hard to believe.
Nothing.
Ho e felt pressured by operations people to do a valve job (spring ejection), but it probably wasn't a safety concern, just that operations wanted the valve back; guys are afraid to stop a job because they are afraid of repercussions; old culture mind-set that is getting better but is still around.
-7.
Shift crew did not know that the termination action was to scram the reactor during the reactivity event because it was not covered in the pre-job brief, possibly because a comment was made to keep the brief short.
Feels his decisions are not always supported by his bosw, L especially if he believes he's coming from nuclear safety; but he believesi lis coming from nuclear safety as well, so it's a disagreement between 2 knowle-dgeable people.
Has felt at times that he is not totally free to raise concerns, but is not sure they were nuclear safety concerns and can't provide any examples; feels he will be labeled as not being a team player.
He wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to make a case that the Hope Creek reactivity event was not an event; work aggressively because our goal is to not have any events; but this is speculation on his part.
Feels QA may not be doing what it's intended to do; they should be one of his toughest critics; at times he sees it though but it's not consistent; 5-6 years ago they were very critical, but over the past 3-4 years they have been relaxed, but recently they have stepped up.
Thinks for the Hope Creek reactivity event it was an improper decision to sit there and figure out what to do; should have just scrammed and fixed the valve, which is what they did anyway.
Nothing.
Maintenance technician felt pressured to work on valve (ejected spring) but did it anyway; perception was that he thought management would not back him up; ingrained behavior with maintenance.
Alleger was bitter at the end and felt betrayed; smart enough to portray all this info in the manner she wanted to.
J nana gement style is to take the non-prevailing opinion and run with it; he will test your will and conviction of your decision to make sure. the group comes up with the right decision.
Alleger told him she had safety concerns but they were not immediate; he told her to go through proper channels; she said she need someone independent to validate whether there were safety concerns or not.
Alleger told him that her job was eliminated because she took safety concerns A"
U Alleger told him that there were leadership failings that jeopardized nuclear failings; however she gave no specifics and he didn't probe.
,,e management styles that are not conducive to getting issues on the table.
Hope Creek bypass va I senior management an uestioning to restart the unit was not-appro'prae'; he would have resigned be ore allowing a restart; questioning took 1 to 1.5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br /> and it was challenging; if there was a safety first mentality those questions would not have been asked.
Salem grassing even Was asking operatojs to go against his.defense in depth letter in a conf na manner; he and theoperations manage were working in a different management style with the operators explaining the mode change was OK with 4 circulators; they did do the mode change but it was-the management style that wasthe roblem.
can't be trusted; however no nuclear safety concerns.
may have a knowledge gap because he wanted to hydrb the vessel while it was critical this point has no merit according to Mike Modes/NRC).
who quit, said he could not work for in that environment a
un~de*
who worked Ifo was fired because he did not get proper support in his training jo was always starting brush fires that had little merit; this was counterproductive to what the company was trying to accomplish.
All 50.7 stuff.
He had a discussion wj3_h tV alleger that there were no guarantees ifAhe.vas to move toll payroll, and's hpas understanding and a.ce ed it.
Iflhe v'ould not have moved over, it's highly possible hejob in corporate would have been eliminated.
Sh*did not provide any information that suggested th he job was eliminated because yheq~aised safety concerns; althoughTjhesked i~ h'ad been blackballed.
Nothing of interest.