ML100630404
| ML100630404 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee File:NorthStar Vermont Yankee icon.png |
| Issue date: | 02/23/2010 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 2.206, NRC-088 | |
| Download: ML100630404 (38) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
2.206 Petition RE Vermont Yankee Docket Number:
50-271 Location:
(telephone conference)
Date:
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 Work Order No.:
NRC-088 Pages 1-36
~ALl NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION
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10 CFR 2.206 PETITION
x In the Matter of:
MICHAEL MULLIGAN'S Docket No.
50-271 Petition with Respect to VERMONT YANKEE x
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 The teleconference convened, pursuant to notice, at 9:00 a.m.,
Eastern Standard Time.
BEFORE:
THOMAS BLOUNT, Chairman, Petition Review Board NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NRC STAFF PRESENT:
MOLLY BARKMAN, OGC STEVEN GARRY, NRR ROBERT HARDIES, NRR JAMES KIM, Vermont Yankee Project Manager, NRR TANYA MENSAH, 2.206 Coordinator, NRR STACEY ROSENBERG, NRR NANCY SALGADO, NRR THOMAS SETZER, Region 1 ALSO PRESENT:
MICHAEL MULLIGAN, Petitioner NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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- 2.
(9:04 a.m.)
3 MR.
KIM:
Good morning.
4 MR.
MULLIGAN:
Good morning.
5 MR.
MULLIGAN:
I'd like to thank everyone 6
for attending this meeting.
My name is James Kim.
7 And I am the Vermont Yankee Project Manager.
8 And we are here today to allow the 9
Petitioner, Mr.
Michael
- Mulligan, to address the 10 Petition Review Board since the initial recommendation 11 was made regarding the 2.206 petition dated January 12 12th, 2010.
13 I
am the Petition Manager for the 14 petition.
The Petition Review Board Chairman is Tom 15 Blount.
The power of the Petition Review Board is to 16 review of this petition.
Mr.
Michael Mulligan has 17 requested this opportunity to address the PRB.
18 This meeting is scheduled from 9:00 to 19 10:00 a.m.
The meeting is being recorded by the NRC 20 Operations Center and will be transcribed by a Court 21 Reporter.
The transcript will become a supplement to 22 the petition.
The transcript will also be made 23 publicly available.
24 I'd like to open this meeting with 25 introductions.
As you go around the room, please be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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sure to clearly state your name, your position, and 2
all the office that you work for within the NRC for 3
the record.
4 I'll start off.
This is James Kim, the 5
Vermont Yankee Project Manager, in the Division of 6
Operator Reactor Licensing in NRR.
7 MS.
SALGADO:
- Hello, I'm Nancy Salgado.
8 I'm the Branch Chief for DORL, Division of Operator 9
Reactor Licensing.
10 MR.
HARDIES:
I'm Bob Hardies, Senior 11 Level Advisor in the Division of Component Integrity 12 in NRR.
13 MS.
BARKMAN:
Molly
- Barkman, I'm an 14 attorney in the Office of General Counsel.
15 MR.
GARRY:
I'm Steve Garry, a Senior 16 Health Physicist in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 17 Regulation.
18 MS.
MENSAH:
I'm Tanya Mensah..
I'm the 19 2.206 Coordinator in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 20 Regulation.
21 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
I'm Tom Blount, PRB 22 Chair, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
23 MS.
ROSENBERG:
I'm Stacey Rosenberg.
I'm 24 the Branch Chief for the Licensing Processes Branch in 25 the Division of Policy and Rulemaking in NRR.
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MR.
KIM:
Okay.
We are finished with 2
introductions at the NRR Headquarters.
3 At this
- time, are there any NRC 4
participants from the Regional Office on the phone?
5 MR.
SETZER:
Yes, hi, this is Tom Setzer.
6 I'm a Senior Reactor Inspector in the Region I Office 7
of the Division of Reactor Projects.
8 MR.
KIM:
Are there any representatives 9
for the licensee on the phone?
10 (No response.)
11 MR.
KIM:
Are there any others such as 12 members of the public on the phone?
13 (No response.)
14 MR.
KIM:
Mr. Mulligan, will you please 15 introduce yourself for the record?
16 MR.
MULLIGAN:
Hi, I'm Mike Mulligan from 17 Hinsdale, New Hampshire.
I have quite a long record 18 of whistle-blowing.
They started off actually in 19 Vermont Yankee with numerous whistle-blower suits.
20 There's been numerous other whistle-blowing events 21 that have taken place I've taken part in.
22 There was the third largest paper mill in 23 the United States that got into trouble over 24 pollution.
It was started by me and ended up being a 25 350-million dollar fraud investigation.
And a lot of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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executives are in jail.
So, you know, I just have 2
some experience anyways.
3 I'm just a citizen of
- Hinsdale, New 4
Hampshire.
That's who I represent.
5 MR.
KIM:
Okay.
Thank you.
6 I would like to emphasize that we each 7
need to speak clearly and loudly to make sure that the 8
Court Reporter can accurately transcribe this meeting.
9 If you have something that you would like to say, 10 please state your name for the record.
11 At this time, I'll turn it over to the PRB 12
- Chairman, Tom Blount.
13 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Good morning, this is 14 Tom Blount.
And welcome to the meeting regarding the 15 2.206 petition submitted by Mr. Mulligan.
16 I'd first like to share some background on 17 our process.
Section 2.206 of Title 10 of the Code of 18 Federal Regulations describes the petition process, 19 the primary mechanism for the public to request 20 enforcement action by the NRC in a public process.
21 This process permits anyone to petition NRC to take 22 enforcement-type action related to NRC licensees or 23 license activities.
24 Depending upon the results of this 25 evaluation, NRC could modify, suspend, or revoke the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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NRC-issued license or take any other appropriate 2
enforcement action to resolve a problem.
The NRC 3
Staff Guidance for the disposition of 2.206 petition 4
request is in Management Directive 8.11, which is 5
publicly available.
6 The purpose of today's meeting is to give 7
the Petitioner an opportunity to provide any 8
additional explanation or support for the petition 9
after the Petition Review Board's initial 10 consideration and recommendation.
11 MR.
MULLIGAN:
Excuse me.
Additional 12 information as far as Directive 8.11, basically it 13 doesn't ask for any additional information.
It asks 14 for my explanation of what I think is going on.
So, 15 I mean, I had an issue with it last time with that 16 being said, and, you know, what the directive really 17 asks for.
It doesn't ask for additional information.
18 It gives me an opportunity to express my thoughts and 19 feelings of what I think is going on -- to enhance you 20 guys' understanding of what I think is going on.
21 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
This is Tom Blount.
22 From my perspective our perspective your 23 clarifying comments are what we would consider 24 additional information.
25 MR.
MULLIGAN:
Okay.
I just had --
we had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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some issues with the last 2.206.
And so I just wanted 2
to make sure that I was doing the right thing and 3
everybody was on board.
4 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
I understand your point.
5 So as I regress, the purpose of today's 6
meeting is to give the Petitioner an opportunity to 7
provide any additional explanation or support for the 8
petition after the Petition Review Board's initial 9
consideration and recommendation.
10 This meeting is not a hearing nor is it an 11 opportunity for the Petitioner to question or examine 12 the PRB on the merits or the issues presented in the 13 petition request.
No decisions regarding the merits 14 of this petition will be made at this meeting.
15 Following this
- meeting, the Petition 16 Review Board will conduct its internal deliberations.
17 The outcome of this internal meeting will be discussed 18 with the Petitioner.
19 The Petition Review Board typically 20 consists of a
- Chairman, usually a Manager at the 21 Senior Executive Service level at the NRC.
It has a 22 Petition Manager and a PRB Coordinator.
Other members 23 of the Board are determined by the NRC's staff based 24 on the content of the information in the petition 25 request.
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At this time, I would like to introduce 2
the Board.
I am Tom Blount, the PRB Chairman.
James 3
Kim is the Petition Manager for the petition under 4
discussion today.
Tanya Mensah is the Office's PRB 5
Coordinator.
And our technical staff includes Steve 6
Garry from the NRC's Health Physics and Human 7
Performance
- Branch, Robert Hardies, from the NRC 8
Division of Component Integrity, Thomas Setzer from 9
NRC Region I's Division of Reactor Projects.
We also 10 obtain advice from our Office of General Counsel, 11 represented by Molly Barkman.
12 As described in our process, the NRC staff 13 may ask clarifying questions in order to better 14 understand the Petitioner's presentation and to reach 15 a reasoned decision whether to accept or reject the 16 Petitioner's request for review under the 2.206 17 process.
18 I would like to summarize the scope of the 19 petition under consideration and the NRC's activity to 20 date.
On January 12th, 2010, Mr. Mulligan submitted 21 to the NRC a petition under 2.206 regarding a tritium 22 leak at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.
In this 23 petition request, Mr.
Mulligan requested that the 24 radioactive leak into the environment of Vermont 25 Yankee be immediately stopped and Vermont Yankee be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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immediately shut down and all leaking paths be 2
isolated.
3 Vermont Yankee disclosed their preliminary 4
root cause analysis and the NRC releases their 5
preliminary investigative report on this before plant 6
start up.
7 Allow me to discuss the NRC activities to 8
date.
On January 20th, the Petitioner requested to 9
address the PRB prior to its initial meeting to 10 provide supplemental information for the Board's 11 consideration.
By teleconference on January 25th, you 12 provided information to the PRB as further explanation 13 in support for your petition and a
copy of the 14 transcript was forwarded to you.
15 The PRB met on February 1st and denied 16 your request for immediate action to shut down Vermont 17 Yankee because the PRB did not identify any immediate 18 safety concerns that would warrant an immediate 19 shutdown.
The PRB also met on February 4th, 2010, and 20 made an initial recommendation to reject the petition 21 because the issue has already been the subject of an 22 NRC staff review and resolution has been achieved.
23 This issue has been extensively reviewed 24 by NRC staff and the results of the review are 25 documented in the Lessons Learned Task Force report NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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that can be retrieved in ADAMS at Accession Number 2
3 Previously Mr. David Lochbaum, on behalf 4
of the Union of Concerned Scientists, submitted a 5
2.206 petition concerning the nuclear reactors 6
releasing water potentially contaminated with 7
radioactive material.
The Director's decision, which 8
can be found at ADAMS Accession Number ML062370205 9
stated that even though there have been a number of 10 events where significant quantities of radioactive 11 liquids were released to the ground in an unmonitored, 12 unplanned manner, none of the events resulted in 13 public radiation dose limits being exceeded because of 14 the negligible health effects of the isotopes at the 15 quantities and concentrations released.
Nonetheless, 16 the NRC chartered a Lessons Learned Task Force on 17 March 10th, 2006, and published a report containing 26 18 recommendations.
19 Nuclear Energy Institute initiated an 20 industry initiative to improve management of 21 inadvertent liquid radiological releases that includes 22 the participation by licensees for all commercial 23 nuclear power reactors.
Vermont Yankee implemented 24 the Nuclear Industry's Groundwater Protection 25 Voluntary Initiate that resulted in the discovery of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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small amounts of tritium in one of the monitoring 2
wells on January 6th, 2010.
3 The Nuclear Industry's Groundwater 4
Initiative covers site hydrology and
- geology, 5
identification of possible leaking plant structures, 6
and methods to monitor their condition, procedures for 7
onsite groundwater monitoring, and remediation 8
decision processes, and communication requirements to 9
notify the NRC, state, and local officials of any 10 onsite leaks.
11 Subsequently, you were informed of the 12 PRB's decision on the immediate action and initial 13 recommendation.
On February
- 18th, you requested 14 another opportunity to address the PRB to provide any 15 relevant additional information to support your 16 petition.
17 As a reminder for the phone participants, 18 please identify yourself if you make any remarks as 19 this will help us in the preparation of the meeting 20 transcript that will be made publicly available.
21 Thank you.
22 Mr. Mulligan, I'll turn it over to-you to 23 allow you to provide any information you believe the 24 PRB should consider as part of this petition.
You'll 25 have approximately 30 minutes to provide additional NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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information to the PRB.
2 MR.
MULLIGAN:
Thank you very much for 3
this opportunity.
4 This is essentially keyed on the 5
communication I
got from the NRC calling this an 6
inadvertent release.
I mean all of the past 7
incidences have been based on inadvertent release.
8 What this has transitioned to is a, as I've explained 9
to my last
- letter, that it transitioned into a cold-10 blooded release.
If they would have done the 11 reasonable thing as far as admitted in testimony with 12 their --
in May of 2009, if he would have disclosed 13 that they had underground
- pipes, it would have 14 initiated people looking into it and it is my opinion 15 that this would have all been prevented.
16 Did you get my the link to the 17 anonymous letter?
Or the anonymous --
and everybody 18 has got a copy of that?
19 MR.
SETZER:
Yes, we have it here in the 20 region, yes.
21 MR.
MULLIGAN:
And it has now been 22 verified that --
and you guys verified it is true?
23 (No response.)
24 MR.
MULLIGAN:
All of this, I mean it is 25 an insane bureaucracy.
I mean all these different NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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players and the state, they're asking for a federal 2
investigation --
I mean a congressional swearing-in 3
and state Attorney General indictment and stuff like 4
that.
I mean this thing is
-- there is so much stuff 5
going on, it's pretty amazing.
6 I can hear all the politicians in the last 7
week or so in the media.
I can hear Governor 8
Douglas's talking about Vermont Yankee and how 9
disappointed he is with Vermont Yankee.
I. can hear 10 all of the Massachusetts Governor.
I can hear all of 11 the politicians in New Hampshire.
I can hear all of 12 the politicians -- most of the politicians in Vermont.
13 I mean I can hear all of this essentially mistrust of 14 the. Agency from everybody around here.
15 I'm astonished that everybody has a
16 different opinion of this in the NRC.
I'm astonished.
17 This is an embarrassment to this area.
This is an 18 embarrassment with the operation of a federal agency, 19 the NRC.
It's bewildering how we keep going along 20 with the same noise.
21 I consider this, a lot of this with all 22 these investigations pending, I consider it, you know, 23 I'm in my car and I'm on a 55-mile an hour highway or 24 a two-lane road and there is a light approaching me.
25 It turns red and so, you know, I've got to put my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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brakes on.
2 With the way this thing is turning out, I 3
feel like, you know, you are going to have all these 4
investigations and studies and we're going to find out 5
about what went wrong, you know, many months and years 6
after it occurs.
I mean if you depended upon me to 7
figure out I've got to put my foot on the brake to 8
stop for that light, with all this kind of delay, 9
systemic delay, I mean who knows how many accidents 10 I'd cause.
And I think that's what is going on here.
11 By the way, I went and seen the movie 12 Shutter Island last night.
It was probably a bad 13 movie to see considering today.
But
- anyways, I
14 thought I would say that.
15 I consider this --
I consider Entergy a 16 criminal enterprise.
I think they are acting in a way 17 that is damaging to the nuclear industry.
And I think 18 it is damaging the credibility of the Agency.
It is 19 a rogue.
And I've been talking about it for years 20 now, there has to be some way of getting these guys 21 under control.
22 I've read a lot of the inspection reports 23 of these guys and they seem to be disrespectful to the 24 inspectors that I've talked about a lot.
There is no 25 hammer to make these guys fearful of the Agency.
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seem to disrespect a lot of the inspectors and they 2
rope-a-dope a lot of the inspectors.
And they throw 3
up all sorts of superfluous engineering evaluations.
4 And I've seen the NRC having to go back again and 5
again to try and get these guys to see the right way.
6 And I think they think the Agency is a
7 joke.
On some of the things that I've got here, they 8
are from the Vermont Public Service Board.
They have 9
sanctioned Entergy twice for not following the law or 10 Enexus.
It has delayed and they were sanctioned --
11 Entergy was sanctioned for not telling the truth --
12 this Enexus business is they don't trust Entergy.
13 Indian Point Nuclear
- Plant, everybody 14 considers that relicensing delayed until the fallout 15 of all of this occurs to see what is going on and how 16 deep this corruption is going on.
Pilgrim Plant 17 recently, the Mass. governor requested the relicensing 18 delay because he doesn't trust Entergy and their 19 disclosure of tritium groundwater.
20 We all know about the issues with Vermont 21 Yankee over this -- whistle-blowers -- the mistrust of 22 Entergy is astonishing in the last couple of months.
23 I read a lot about the Palisades confirmatory order --
24 I can't even pronounce it anyways failure to 25 provide it is the security-related violations, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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pretty serious, and failure to provide NRC with 2
complete and accurate information concerning a
3 security problem.
4 We talked about Pilgrim and Entergy just 5
got dinged with falsifying the licensed operator 6
medical forms for a number of years.
I just got done 7
with a 2.206 with Palisades on relicensing.
It's 8
baffling how they can get relicensed on January 18th, 9
2007, and then they could find troubles with the stuck 10 bundles in September.
It's amazing how that wasn't 11 picked up in the relicensing.
12 As I said, I just think this has gotten to 13 a point now where it is a big issue with the integrity 14 of Entergy.
And I don't think that they deserve to be 15 operating any nuclear plant.
16 I'm going to spend the rest of the day 17 talking about past 2.206.
And that will be the one 18 that I wrote about HPCI this last June 9th, 2009.
19 To set this up a little
- bit, I'm going to 20 read the testimony of Jay Thayer.
A public relations 21 executive, Jay Thayer testified in the hearing in May 22 2009 that he didn't think Vermont Yankee had any 23 pipes.
That's May 2009.
So here I am a month later 24 in this HPCI 2.206, which was rejected by the NRC, a
25 month later after he testified, I mean this is what I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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essentially wrote and what was denied.
2 I
and this is a quote --
I request a 3
2.206 on Vermont Yankee' Vermont Yankee operated 4
their reactor illegally and unsafely coming out of 5
their start-up from their outage from June 6th, 2007 6
until June 12th, 2007 with the cost of a shut-down 7
being 750,000 dollars a day times seven days.
I 8
request Vermont Yankee pay a fine of 5,250,000 dollars 9
for operating the reactor illegally and falsifying 10 paperwork submitted to the NRC.
11 If you would have granted me
- that, 12 probably this wouldn't be happening today.
You know 13 it is basically a catch-22.
I talked about catch-22 14 over with Palisades.
That is the idea that you say 15 this is a public --
you brag --
you stick your chest 16 out and you brag that this is a public process.
17 But in the background, you have to be 18 extraordinarily technically and legally competent to 19 get anywhere.
And then you're not given any -- there 20 is a
huge barrier in front of you, an impossible 21 barrier you guys know it as far as having the 22 information there.
So you say we give you a public 23 process.
But catch-22, there's no way you can do it 24 because you don't have the information or the 25 technical capability to support the community.
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So I'll continue on.
Revised Procedure OP 2
52.10, MCC inspection, to provide criteria for 3
determining contact wear and replacement.
See --
and 4
this is a quote --
see from my letter from what I was 5
explaining --
see everything is about --
everything 6
about this is perspective.
This is fabricated or 7
designed perspective point of view then there is the 8
real story.
9 These guys are so deep into lying they 10 can't keep track where they -- can't keep track where 11 they lied in the past.
Everything is written in 12 procedures -- everything is written in procedures and, 13 therefore, are purpose -- or what is legally required 14 to be in there and is missing is absolutely 15 intentional.
16 These things are unbelievably scrutinized.
17 The primary function of these procedures is to provide 18 operational flexibility and conserve corporate cash.
19 There never is a mistake of incompetence in these 20 procedures because a common misplacement could cost 21 millions of dollars.
Incompletely written-out 22 procedures or an invaluable federal regulatory 23 criteria missing them are a sure sign these procedures 24 are designed to improperly enhance the operational 25 flexibility.
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God knows how risky that is.
So the 2
procedure, MCC inspection, is a
generic procedure 3
defining how all circuit breaker inspections are to 4
occur throughout the plant.
They got many hundreds of 5
motor-operated valves and they've got breakers for 6
each one.
They've probably got thousands of relays.
7 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Mr.
Mulligan, this is 8
Tom Blount.
9 Could you help me understand the 10 relationship between the discussion on the MCC and the 11 HPCI issue with the tritium release?
Just for 12 clarification for my benefit.
13 MR.
MULLIGAN:
I mean there was 14 essentially --
I had a model in my head what was going 15 on at Vermont Yankee.
How I acquired it besides 16 working there in the past, I'm not going to say.
But 17
- anyways, maybe the HPCI and the relays, you know, 18 aren't really the problem I'm trying to get across 19 here.
20 I'm just saying, you look at what I wrote 21 back in those days -- back in 2009 --
that's what I'm 22 trying to get at.
You look at what I wrote and how I 23 tried to explain a model I had in my head from what my 24 experience tells me.
And you start looking --
and you 25 start rereading this stuff and I was dead-on right.
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I was accurate.
2 I tried to give you guys a warning.
I 3
tried to explain it in the best way I could and stuff.
4 And what I wrote about in June 2009 was the message 5
that the NRC didn't receive.
Do you see what I'm 6
trying to get at?
I mean it is self evident.
7 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Sir? Mr. Mulligan, this 8
is Tom Blount again.
And that's part of what I need 9
help with is I'm not sure that I am making the same 10 connection that you are.
So if you could help me 11 understand
- that, it would be beneficial to my 12 understanding.
13 MR. MULLIGAN:
Well, you know, here we are 14 with the same thing.
We've got a plant that should be 15 shut down in my opinion and most everybody in the 16 surrounding area here.
It should be shut down.
And 17 here I am basically saying the same thing with this 18 HPCI business.
And saying how nobody made the right 19 call.
The inspection process itself wasn't complete, 20 you know.
You didn't get the right stuff in the 21 inspection reports.
22 And, you know, we really have a hard time 23 understanding whether what Entergy and the NRC was 24 doing was ethical.
- Nobody, you know everybody 25 played around with well, these are what the rules say.
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3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 22 And you don't have to understand anything.
But the rules say that this is not a concern and so just ignore it.
You know, it's another non-issue and stuff like that.
I'm saying it was an issue, you know?
MR.
GARRY:
Mr.
Mulligan, this is Steve Garry with the NRC.
I'm the Senior Health Physicist here.
MR.
MULLIGAN:
Yes?
MR.
GARRY:
Do you have any information or do you think there has been an exceedance of effluent limits on the amount of radioactivity that can be discharged from the site into the offsite environment?
Do you have any basis or knowledge of an exceedance of regulatory limits?
MR.
MULLIGAN:
Well, is there exceedance?
I mean that's a
flimsy barrier right there regulatory -- exceeding regulatory limits.
I mean for the operation of a plant?
That's a flimsy barrier.
If you wait until, you know, wait until a criteria is exceeded and stuff like that, you could be deep into problems.
You know so deep you can't get out of it and stuff if you depend upon regulatory barriers.
And that's a lot of the thoughts of a reactor operator, somebody operating up there.
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if you wait around until you become aware when you 2
enter a procedure or you are exceeding some limit or 3
something like that and start acting after you exceed 4
the limit, you are behind the eight curve and stuff 5
like that.
6 MR.
GARRY:
So I understand that you think 7
that there have -- you are not aware of any exceedance 8
of any limits.
Rather --
9 MR. MULLIGAN:
Well, that should have been 10 that should have been this discharge was I
11 mean don't they have to have permission by the NRC to 12 discharge these kinds of radioactivity before they do 13 it?
Even it it's you
- know, if it is any 14 radioactivity, they have to --
I'm pretty well much 15 imagine according to procedure they have to inform the 16 NRC.
So not carrying out their own procedure is a
17 violation of an NRC requirement.
18 So evidently, you
- know, I
mean we're 19 sitting
- here, I think, and they've violated internal 20 procedures or not.
And I think they've violated NRC 21 procedures.
Is that correct?
22 MR.
GARRY:
No, I am not aware of where 23 they have exceeded any limits or violated any NRC 24 regulatory standard.
And that's where I was asking if 25 you had any additional information on that.
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MR.
MULLIGAN:
Not that it hasn't been in 2
the media already.
I mean other than in the past I've 3
been down in that pit and stuff like that and I know 4
what a disgusting place that is.
5 MR.
GARRY:
Okay.
6 MR. MULLIGAN:
Did I make sense of why I'm 7
sitting here talking about HPCI?
Does it make sense?
8 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Relative to the tritium 9
issue, I'm still not fully clear.
But at least I'll 10 be able to go back and look at the transcript to have 11 a better understanding once we have that information.
12 MR.
GARRY:
This is Steve Garry again.
13 When you say HPCI, you mean the high pressure safety 14 injection system?
15 MR. MULLIGAN:
High pressure core coolant?
16 High pressure core injection system?
HPCI.
17 MR.
GARRY:
Safety injection system.
18 MR.
MULLIGAN:
- Yes, 4,250 gallon per 19 minute guy.
See this isn't a tritium issue.
This 20 isn't a
tritium issue at all.
It's a much more 21 serious issue.
This is a cultural issue with the NRC.
22 This is how organizations interact.
23 This is terribly dysfunctional.
This is, 24 you know, as you say with TMI and Davis-Besse, you see 25 these things -- this kind of dysfunction.
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and on forever.
It's disgusting.
And everybody knows 2
about it and they make believe it's not there.
And it 3
is a warning that big problems are ahead.
4 And it's not the tritium.
It's not the 5
health concern that's the big problem and stuff like 6
that although that's what the public understands.
I 7
mean they're close to understanding the magnitude of 8
the problem, you know, when you get them scared about 9
tritium or radiation and stuff like that.
10 But what they should be scared about is 11 how these organizations interact.
And how they are 12 truthful.
I mean that's the foundation of all of this 13 is how we all honestly talk to each other.
And how do 14 we honestly allow people to watch our behaviors.
And 15 how everybody gets in there and says okay, why did you 16 do that?
Why did you go that?
How come you are 17 making this assumption?
18 That's how we assure safety on the big 19 picture.
That's how we continually have this long 20 conversation about my interpretation, your 21 interpretation.
It's a
conversation.
It's not 22 sitting there throw procedures at each other and 23 saying this is where this procedure is wrong.
24 It's this conversation that goes on --
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everybody getting --
this is the picture, you know, 2
this is
-- maybe I'll explain it better this way.
But 3
everybody gets the big picture, you know, an accurate 4
picture of what's going on there, that's how we assure 5
that these plants run safely.
6 That is more important than you having 7
redundant safety systems or even having safety 8
systems.
It's this idea that we're all on the same 9
page.
We know what the systems are capable of doing.
10 And we keep everything accurate in our heads.
That's 11 what assures safety.
12 And it makes sure that we have 23 percent 13 of the electric capacity on the grid.
And it's safe.
14 And it is acceptable to the public.
I mean that's the 15 important thing here.
16 The tritium is not the important thing.
17 It is the idea that what do we do --
what is our 18 function for society?
And that is to have an 19 efficient NRC and to have the community on Board with 20 us and they can understand how everything is going on.
21 Everybody is not playing word games and procedure 22 games.
And going behind closed doors.
23 Everything is open.
Everybody accepts 24 what we're doing.
And that's how I think the nuclear 25 industry ought to run.
And it isn't running that way.
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Everybody plays let's see what they can hide.
Let's 2
see how we create legislation so that it allows us to 3
hide things.
4 You know when you are hiding things from 5
the
- public, you are really hiding things from 6
yourself.
More than you are hiding things from the 7
- public, you are setting up this idea that of 8
barriers and you are kind of slowing down 9
communication between yourself.
And this is where we 10 end up.
And that's what I'm trying to get at.
11 Does it make sense?
It probably doesn't.
12 Maybe if I
you can let me complete, a
few more 13 paragraphs, and you'll see where I'm getting at.
14 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
This is Tom Blount, 15 please continue.
16 MR. MULLIGAN:
The absence of the criteria 17 was an intentional strategy -- did I say that already, 18 that paragraph?
The absence of a criteria was an 19 intentional strategy to give the operational wiggle 20 room that allowed them to set up their reactor.
I bet 21 you the operational testing of B23-19 on 6/01 was 22 because they were nervous with the reliability of the 23 relay.
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upon start-up like it did.
The managers could say 2
pitting and wear was normal so we called it, knowing 3
the reactor start-up was right around the corner, then 4
illegally start the reactor up on 06/06/07.
5 If Vermont Yankee ran into trouble upon 6
start-up, they knew the relay would be cycled over and 7
over again, the chances of the failure was high.
They 8
wanted a phony rationale.
We certainly tested it 9
enough on 5/31 and the start-up.
They wanted to draw 10 the NRC away from the cover-up on 5/31 and give the 11 NRC the flimsiest excuse to overlook the product 12 cover-up.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
13 I think this is industry-wide problems.
14 If you give the NRC the flimsiest excuse or rationale, 15 they will ignore blatant rulemaking.
What kind of 16 parent is this if the NRC accepts any stupid excuse 17 from their children?
18 I broadly question if the NRC are meeting 19 their community needs of maintaining a safe Vermont 20 Yankee organization.
The NRC inspectors on the very 21 next inspection associated with the June 6th, 2007 22 start-up should have fully captured in writing the 23 events in detail with the HPCI in their next 24 inspection report.
Both violations should have been 25 covered because all the information was there.
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The first mention of a violation was on 2
December 7th.
Then the next one occurred in an 3
upcoming report.
This is completely unsatisfactory.
4 It is like a cop giving you a speeding ticket and 5
failure to inspect your vehicle a year after the date 6
when it occurred.
7 I get it if you got the safety inspection 8
violation and entered it into a no corrective action 9
- program, then the year-old safety violation never 10 happened.
And this new information makes it 11 inconsequential.
You can charge or accuse anybody 12 with anything if it is not written down.
13 The whole idea here is that Entergy 14 doesn't capture Vermont Yankee's operational events 15 that interest the community in their inspection 16 reports.
I have in mind the steam tunnel clean-up 17 leak and the clean up problems where they injected air 18 or resin into the primary system, causing evacuation 19 of the reactor building.
20 The NRC is not meeting the needs of the 21 community through the ROP and the in-depth of the 22 inspection reports.
I believe the NRC meets the --
I 23 believe if the NRC meets the needs of the community, 24 this would make the nuclear plants a lot more safer 25 and stronger.
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If you played a
profitable roulette 2
vending game of intentionally not having the expensive 3
repair parts on
- site, in this situation the 4
radioactive pipes, then you should be punished with a 5
very expensive reactor shutdown.
If you are not 6
competent with maintaining a nuclear plant's repair 7
parts, radioactive pipes in this case, warehouse and 8
inventory, then you need to be severely punished for 9
the good of everyone.
10 That is the only way you are going to 11 enforce the integrity of the repair parts 12 requirements.
That is how you limit the number of 13 lying employees and cover ups.
14 If you call one plant on it, it would 15 never happen again.
If you let Vermont Yankee get 16 away with it, then everybody else will do the exact 17 same thing.
And they will keep taking chances until 18 there is a huge accident.
19 They will compete to the death.
Imagine 20 you were a --
I wrote this in June of 2009 --
imagine 21 if you were a young, fresh-licensed operator up in the 22 control room.
Nobody admits these things straight 23 out.
You've seen the NRC inspectors come in and out 24 and they have thoroughly questioned everybody, 25 including the shift supervisor.
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You know everybody is aware of what 2
occurred.
They started up the plant and management, 3
with NRC's knowledge, fiddled with tech specs and the 4
rules.
They pulled their punches in publicly 5
reporting this.
Management and the NRC colluded to 6
falsify the.whole thing.
The young licensed operator 7
would say really what kind of risk was this to the 8
public for the short-term event, especially thinking 9
about it after it was all fixed on 6/13.
10 He would say there is absolutely no risk 11 to the public.
But the astonishing, chilling thought 12 in the back of his mind, he knows management and the 13 NRC were colluding together, potentially saving the 14 company millions of dollars.
15 If I catch a defect that is going to cost 16 Entergy millions of dollars, what chances does my 17 career have to prevail if the NRC and management are 18 in cahoots for the big bucks?
They could both lie and 19 say I am an incompetent operator with a mental illness 20 and I would lose my job over reporting safety defects 21 that crosses the NRC and my company.
22 So this is about this isn't about 23 isolated risk-of core damage associated with the 24 offending relay could get you to a core damage through 25 risk studies with a welded relay and HPCI inoperable.
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This is about a completely different accident and 2
their simple assumptions.
What if the site and the 3
licensed operators lived with the idea that the 4
nuclear industry was brutally unjust?
They thought 5
they faced a
fear of being fired for raising 6
legitimate safety concerns.
There was not one way --
7 there was only one way to talk about conditions in the 8
industry and everybody. talked with the nuclear 9
industry single voice.
10 The NRC and the NRC held absolute and 11 infinite brutal power over these employees with 12 absolutely no human rights.
How much money is human 13 rights worth?
How much salary would you need if they 14 told you your U.S. constitutional rights did not apply 15 while working on Entergy's corporate property?
Would 16 you sell your constitutional rights for a hundred 17 thousand dollars a year in benefits?
18 I mean the NRC --
the utility and the NRC 19 are saying our story is the absolute facts.
Our story 20 can't be contradicted.
Truth is this is connected 21 from reality.
Your story or evidence will, never have 22 any standing under our system.
If that ain't brutal 23 dehumanization, nothing is.
24 See, see what I'm saying? I'm saying, you 25 know, this --
it's not the tritium.
It's not the risk NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 33 1
of what would happen if
- AOG, something happened over
- 2.
there.
You
- know, that's the worst that you can 3
imagine and stuff like that.
It's what would happen 4
if the whole system is dysfunctional.
If everybody is 5
not, you know, knows what the really true model is.
6 If there was dysfunction within the Agency and Entergy 7
and, you know, this stuff is a lot more important than 8
the pumps and the safety systems and the circuits.
9 I mean those are secondary safety systems 10 when you really get down to it.
Really the most 11 important system is, you
- know, our ability to 12 communicate, our ability to freely communicate, the 13 freedom to communicate as we
- wish, trying to 14 understand what's going around us, maybe taking the 15 first couple of shots at it, you know?
You might be 16 inaccurate or whatever it is.
17 And that's what is important.
And that's 18 what is missing here.
And what is missing here is 19 what was missing in TMI and it was missing in Davis-'
20 Besse and it is missing in and all of these actions 21 swirl around economics and budgets and priorities.
22 And we screw budgets and priorities up.
It is the 23 easiest thing in the world to do.
24 There is a
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34 1
and all that sort of stuff.
And I mean these things 2
are all right up there with the --
you know, in our 3
big accidents and stuff.
And we keep having these 4
problems over and over again.
5 And, you know, like I talked in Palisades 6
with it, we keep having the same problems over and 7
over again.
I've watched this over a decade, you 8
know, basically the same issues over and over again.
9 You spend all this time writing reports 10 and then a year or two later, the same thing happens 11 or the next plant does the same thing.
This is just 12 not really a learning organization either at Entergy 13 or the NRC.
You really --
it just --
you are running 14 an isolated comments and phrases and public-relation 15 phrases.
It's disconnected.
It's crazy talk.
16 And I thank you for listening to me.
I 17 probably took more time than was necessary.
And I 18 would be glad to try and explain myself better if 19 anybody has any questions.
20 CHAIRMANBLOUNT:
Thank you, Mr. Mulligan.
21 At this time, does the staff here at 22 headquarters have any questions for Mr. Mulligan?
23 (No response.)
24 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
No questions here at 25 headquarters.
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How about the region?
Tom Setzer?
2 MR.
SETZER:
No, thanks, Mr. Blount.
3 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Thank you very much.
4 Mr. Mulligan, I'd like to thank you again 5
for taking the time to provide the staff with 6
clarifying information on your petition that you 7
submitted.
Before we close, does the Court Reporter 8
need any additional information for completing the 9
transcript?
10 COURT REPORTER:
I do have a couple of 11 questions.
We can go off the record first though.
12 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Okay.
If that's all 13 right 14 MR.
MULLIGAN:
If I didn't make too much 15 sense talking, and probably maybe somebody might have 16 a hard time understanding me, I could send you a copy 17 of what I, you know, what I wrote on this, you know, 18 from my last from the HPCI 2.206 if that will help 19 the Court Reporter, you know, he might have gotten it.
20 But I don't know.
21 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
We have your submittal 22 of your 2.206 petition in ADAMS so I know we can 23 retrieve it.
24 MR.
MULLIGAN:
Okay.
25 CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Okay.
With that then, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 1i 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 36 the meeting is concluded.
And we'd like to terminate the phone connection if the Court Reporter will get back with Jim Kim, he'll make sure that you get-whatever information --
additional information you need.
MR.
MULLIGAN:
Thank you very much for listening to me.
I really appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN BLOUNT:
Thank you very much as
- well, Mr.
Mulligan.
We appreciate having your insights.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled teleconference was concluded at 9:53 a.m.)
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Vermont Yankee Name of Proceeding:
Docket Number:
Location:
10 CFR 2.206 Petition of Michael Mulligan 50-271 (teleconference) 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.
Charles MorrIson Official Reporter Neal R.
Gross & Co.,
Inc.
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