ML11243A025
| ML11243A025 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Robinson  |
| Issue date: | 07/28/2011 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| Orf T | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML11243A026 | List: |
| References | |
| 2.206, G20110367, NRC-1047, OEDO-2011-0359 | |
| Download: ML11243A025 (32) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board RE H.B. Robinson Plant Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
(telephone conference)
Date:
Thursday, July 28, 2011 Work Order No.:
NRC-1047 Pages 1-32 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 10 CFR 2.206 PETITION REVIEW BOARD (PRB) 4 CONFERENCE CALL 5
RESPONDENT 6
H.B. ROBINSON PLANT 7
+ + + + +
8 THURSDAY 9
JULY 28, 2011 10 The conference call was held, John Lubinski, 11 Chairperson of the Petition Review Board, presiding.
12 PETITIONER: THOMAS SAPORITO 13 PETITION REVIEW BOARD MEMBERS 14 JOHN LUBINSKI, Chair, Deputy Director 15 Division of Component Integrity, NRR 16 NRC HEADQUARTERS STAFF 17 TRACY ORF, Petition Manager 18 TANYA MENSAH, PRB Coordinator 19 SEAN CURRIE, Operator Licensing and Training 20 Branch, NRR 21 JIM DODSON, Division of Reactor Projects, 22 Region II 23 DOUG BROADDUS, NRR 24 BRENDA MOZAFARI, NRR 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 2
1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2
1:05 P.M.
3 MR. ORF: Okay. I'd like to thank 4
everyone for attending this meeting. Again, my name 5
is Tracy Orf, and I'm the St. Lucie Project Manager.
6 We're here today to allow the petitioner, 7
Mr. Thomas Saporito, to address the Petition Review 8
Board regarding his 10 CFR 2.206 petition that he had 9
submitted earlier and was received by the NRC on May 10 12th, 2011.
11 I am the Petition Manager for this 12 petition, and the Petition Review Board Chairman is 13 Mr. John Lubinski. As part of the Petition Review 14 Board, our PRB has reviewed the petition. Thomas 15 Saporito has requested this opportunity to address the 16 PRB.
17 This meeting is scheduled from 1:00 18 o'clock P.M., Eastern Time. The meeting is being 19 recorded by the NRC operations center, and will be 20 transcribed by a Court Reporter. The transcript will 21 become supplement to the petition, and the transcript 22 will also remain publically available.
23 I'd like to open this meeting with 24 introductions. As we go around the room, please be 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 3
sure to clearly state your name, your position, and 1
the office that you work for within the NRC, for the 2
record. I'll start it off.
3 My name is Tracy Orf. I am the Project 4
Manager for St. Lucie in the Office of Nuclear 5
Reactor Regulation.
6 MR. CURRIE: I'm Sean Currie, I'm from the 7
Operator Licensing and Training Branch, in the 8
Division of Inspection and Regional Support.
9 MS. MENSAH: I'm Tanya Mensah, I'm from 10 the Division of Policy and Rulemaking in the Office of 11 NRR and I'm the 2.206 Coordinator.
12 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: John Lubinski, I'm the 13 Deputy Director, Division of Component Integrity, NRR, 14 and I'm the Petition Review Board Chair.
15 MR. BROADDUS: Doug Broaddus, I'm the 16 Branch Chief in the Division of Operating Reactor 17 Licensing and NRR, with responsibility over HB 18 Robinson.
19 MS. MOZAFARI: I'm Brenda Mozafari, I'm 20 the Project Manager, Robinson, in the Office of 21 Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
22 MR.
ORF:
Okay.
We've completed 23 introductions at the NRC headquarters. At this time, 24 are there any NRC participants from headquarters, 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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other than those mentioned before? Are there any NRC 1
participants form the regional office on the phone?
2 MR. DODSON: Yes, this is Jim Dodson, the 3
Senior Project Engineer for Reactor Projects Branch 4 4
in Region II.
5 MR. ORF: Are there any representatives 6
for the licensee on the phone? Hearing none, Mr.
7 Saporito, would you please introduce yourself for the 8
record?
9 MR. SAPORITO: Yes, my name is Thomas 10 Saporito. I'm a senior consultant with Saprodani 11 Associates. I'm based in Jupiter, Florida.
12 MR. ORF: Okay. It is not required for 13 members of the public to introduce themselves for this 14 call. However, if there are any members of the public 15 on the phone who wish to do so at this time, please 16 state your name for the record.
17 I'd like to emphasize that we each need to 18 speak clearly and loudly to ensure that the Court 19 Reporter can accurately transcribe this meeting. If 20 you do have something that you would like to say, 21 please first state your name for the record.
22 For those dialing into the meeting, please 23 remember to mute your phones to minimize any 24 background noise or distractions. If you do not have 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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a mute button, this can be done by pressing the keys 1
star, six.
2 To unmute, press the star six keys again.
3 Thank you. At this time, I'll turn it over to the 4
PRB Chairman, John Lubinski.
5 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Good afternoon. I 6
appreciate everyone attending this meeting regarding 7
the 2.206 petition presented by Mr. Saporito. I'd 8
like to first share some background in our process.
9 Section 2.206 of 10 CFR describes the 10 petition process, the primary mechanism for the public 11 to request enforcement action by the NRC and a public 12 process.
13 This process permits anyone to petition 14 NRC to take enforcement-type action related to NRC 15 licensees or licensed activity. Depending on the 16 result of this evaluation, NRC could modify, suspend, 17 or revoke an NRC issued license, or take other 18 appropriate enforcement action to resolve the problem.
19 The NRC staff guidance for the disposition 20 of 2.206 petition request is in Management Directive 21 8.11, which is publically available.
22 The purpose of today's meeting is to give 23 the petitioner an opportunity to provide additional 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 6
explanation or support for the petition following the 1
Petition Review Board's initial recommendation.
2 This meeting is not a hearing, nor is it 3
an opportunity for the petitioner to question or 4
examine the PRB on merit or the issues presented in 5
the petition request. No decision regarding the 6
merits of the petition will be made at this meeting.
7 Following this
- meeting, the Petition 8
Review Board will conduct its internal deliberations, 9
and the outcome of this internal meeting will be 10 discussed with the petitioner. The Petition Review 11 Board specifically consists of a Chairman, usually a 12 manager at the senior executive service level at the 13 NRC.
14 It has a petition manager, and a PRB 15 coordinator.
Other members of the board are 16 determined by the NRC staff based on the content of 17 the information in the petition request. At this 18 time, I would like to introduce the board.
19 I am John Lubinski, the Petition Review 20 Board Chairman. Tracy Orf is petition manager for the 21 petition under discussion today. Tanya Mensah is the 22 Office PRB coordinator. Our technical staff includes 23 Sean Currie, from the Office of Nuclear Reactor 24 Regulation Operator Licensing and Training Branch, and 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Jim Dodson from our Region II Office Division of 1
Reactor Projects.
2 As described in our process, the NRC staff 3
may ask clarifying questions in order to better 4
understand the petitioner's presentation. I would 5
like to summarize the scope of the petition under 6
consideration and the NRC activities to date.
7 On May 12th, 2011, Mr. Saporito submitted 8
to the NRC a petition under 2.206 regarding the H. B.
9 Robinson plant. In this petition request, Mr.
10 Saporito's concern was that the risk of reactor core 11 damage during the event was high.
12 Mr. Saporito requested that the NRC 13 suspend or revoke the operating license for the H. B.
14 Robinson plant, issue a notice of violation and a 15 proposed civil penalty against the licensee for the H.
16 B. Robinson plant, and issue a notice of violation 17 with a proposed civil penalty against William Johnson, 18 Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer of Progress 19 Energy, Incorporated.
20 Allow me to discuss the NRC activities to 21 date. On May 25th, the petition manager contacted Mr.
22 Saporito to discuss the 2.206 petition process, and to 23 offer an opportunity to address the PRB by phone or in 24 person.
25
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On June 14th, you addressed the PRB to 1
present additional information regarding the petition.
2 On June 27th, the PRB met and determined that in 3
accordance with Management Directive 8.1, your 4
petition meets the criteria for rejection because the 5
petition raises issues that have already been the 6
subject of NRC review and evaluation, for which a 7
resolution has been achieved.
8 The issues have been resolved, and the 9
resolution is applicable to the facility in question.
10 Specifically, a special inspection team began their 11 inspection of the March 28th, 2010, event on March 12 30th, 2010, and the inspection was upgraded to an 13 augmented inspection team on April 19th, 2010.
14 The team developed a sequence of events, 15 reviewed related events, interviewed operators and 16 individuals involved with the fire and plant response, 17 and conducted a walkdown of affected areas.
18 On July 2nd, 2010, the AIT issued their 19 inspection report. All items identified in the 20 inspection were closed, including enforcement in 21 accordance with NRC's processes and policies. There 22 are no remaining open items from the AIT inspection, 23 and in accordance with Management Directive 8.11, the 24 petitioner has not provided any significant new 25
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information to justify the NRC varying from its 1
enforcement policies.
2 On July
- 8th, the petition manager 3
contacted you, Mr. Saporito, and provided you with 4
the PRB's initial recommendation. Subsequently, you 5
requested to address the PRB to provided additional 6
information to support your petition.
7 As a reminder for phone participants, 8
please identify yourself if you make any remarks, as 9
this will help us in preparation of the meeting 10 transcripts that will be made available to the public 11 after the call.
12 Mr. Saporito, I'd now like to turn to you 13 to allow you to provide additional information you 14 believe the PRB should consider as part of its 15 petition.
16 MR. SAPORITO: All right. Thank you, Mr.
17 Chairman. For the record, my name's Thomas Saporito.
18 I'm a senior consultant for Saprodani Associates.
19 We're located in Jupiter, Florida, and we maintain a 20 website at Saprodani-associates.com, S-A-P-R-O-D-A-N-21 I, hyphen, associates, dot, com.
22 First of all, let me correct the record 23 here, because someone from the NRC, they stated in 24 this proceeding that the petition was dated May of 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 10 this year. But, actually, the petition was filed on 1
April 17th, 2011.
2 I don't know why the NRC's documents have 3
a different date, but the petition that's subject to 4
this proceeding is dated April 17th, 2011. As was 5
previously discussed here was a subsequent--an initial 6
meeting between myself and the NRC Petition Review 7
Board on June 14th this year, which I provided 8
additional information and a background of license 9
activities at the HP Robinson plant, which were the 10 subject of the initiating events of the enforcement 11 petition filed here.
12 Since that time, since that meeting of 13 June 14th, I attended via teleconference call another 14 meeting between the NRC and the licensee for the H. B.
15 Robinson plant that took place on July 20th of this 16 year.
17 And, during that enforcement conference, 18 the licensee averred to the NRC that there had been 19 significant chances at the facility, establishment of 20 a leadership team. And, there was new maintenance 21 manager, and operations manager, recovery support 22 manager, and a leadership delegator.
23 There's a new team alignment, where they 24 meet, you know, team alignment meets every morning to 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 11 discuss issues. Tailgate meetings held on Tuesdays.
1 There's a--since the reactor trip of October 2010, the 2
licensee considered that a watershed event and, to the 3
extent that they were wanting to make these changes, 4
to bring the plant back into conformance with NRC 5
requirements and regulations.
6 There was a discussion about the safety 7
culture at the H. B. Robinson plant, and limited 8
discussion of what the licensee believes the causes 9
were and the completion of the corrective actions in 10 that area and discovery of corrective action.
11 They talked about hiring an outside entity 12 to do an evaluation. The culture at the plant, work 13 environment at the plant, and they talked about a 14 backlog of work orders and talked a little bit about 15 ALARA at the plant and what efforts they're making in 16 that area. Issues to drive the attitudes of the 17 nuclear workers, improvement of the plant, and in the 18 culture survey, I believe they termed it to be an 19 industrial culture surveyed and taken by an outside 20 entity.
21 Before I get into the specifics here, I 22 first want to make certain that this public record 23 documents as a fact the amazing fact that the licensee 24 is not represented at this important meeting. The NRC 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 12 should take that as an adverse inference from this 1
licensee that any statement or contentions made on the 2
part of the licensee take corrective action, may not 3
necessarily be true.
4 Because, you know, if the licensee were 5
sincere about protecting public health and safety by 6
taking corrective actions in addressing root cause 7
determinations involving this October 2010 event, then 8
someone would have been here at this meeting.
9 So, they can learn from this meeting about 10 what the public is concerned about, and be able to 11 respond to questions, if need be, from the public.
12 But, the fact that they're not even here, they haven't 13 even bothered to attend this meeting in person or by 14 simply by picking up a telephone and making a call, is 15 just incredible and the NRC should see that as a 16 reflection of the attitude that exists at the H. B.
17 Robinson plant at the executive management level.
18 And, I also want to note for the record, 19 during the enforcement conference held between the NRC 20 and the licensee on July 20th of this year, at the end 21 of that meeting the public was given an opportunity to 22 engage the NRC at that time.
23 There was myself and one or two other 24 individuals of the public that attended that meeting.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 13 Since I began to make comments and inquiry of the NRC 1
at that meeting, the licensee decided to get up and 2
leave.
3
- But, they didn't even have the 4
professional courtesy and decency to sit through an 5
enforcement conference to the extent that they could 6
learn from public inquires at that time, either, and I 7
just find their attitudes very disdainful towards the 8
public, and the representation to the NRC in these 9
circumstances to be disingenuous to the extent that 10 they were trying to make believe that they care about 11 public health and safety and want to improve plant 12 conditions.
13 We have an enforcement conference and you 14 fail to attend, 2.206 petition where your plant could 15 be ordered to shut down, there's something extremely 16 wrong with the executive level management. It's just 17 not common sense. There's something wrong there, the 18 NRC should look into it.
19 Alright, having said that, now, going back 20 again to the enforcement conference on July 20th, 21 2011, I made a specific inquiry about the backlog of 22 work orders. The licensee had contended at that time 23 that their efforts to reduce the backlog of work 24
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 14 orders, they qualified it as they having established 1
1/3, they completed, eliminated 1/3 of the backlog.
2 When I pressed the issue, the licensee 3
admitted that there were 615 open work orders, 4
corrective action work orders at that facility. 615, 5
and that's an unjustified number in my opinion, an 6
unjustified number of open maintenance corrective 7
actions at any nuclear plant.
8 This nuclear plant is a troubled nuclear 9
plant.
They repetitively violate NRC safety 10 requirements under 10 CFR 50. They violate station 11 procedures, they violate technical specifications, 12 they fail to follow procedures. It goes on and on and 13 on.
14 The nuclear safety concern centered around 15 having 615 open maintenance work orders is of 16 paramount importance to public health and safety, and 17 the NRC should be gravely concerned about that number 18 of open work orders. Because, when you have that many 19 work orders, what that means is, for the licensee to 20 maintain license activities in having a nuclear 21 reactor operation at 100% power, or at any level of 22 power, the licensee has to create what's known in the 23 industry as workarounds.
24
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 15 So, when a plant is licensed by the NRC to 1
bring these nuclear reactors to power, the NRC granted 2
that license with the understanding and review of the 3
licensee's final safety analysis report, reviewed the 4
licensee's technical specifications, which included 5
plant procedures, wiring diagrams, P & I diagrams, the 6
NSS system, et cetera.
7 Now, because of this extensive amount of 8
backlog work orders, there's numerous workarounds 9
implemented at that nuclear plant, the H. B. Robinson 10 nuclear plant. So, what you have going on, you have 11 one circuit after another circuit which have been 12 altered and modified in one way or another so that the 13 licensee can keep the reactor operating under power.
14 The trouble with that is, when you have 15 615 open corrective maintenance work orders, that's 16 such a huge number that these workarounds can become 17 an entity of their own, take on a life of their own, 18 and become a nuclear safety issue.
19 Because, you can have safety related 20 systems that are workaround in such a manner that they 21 misalign the proper configuration of the plant, so 22 that in event of an emergency, if the operator takes 23 certain corrective actions to mitigate consequences of 24
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 16 a nuclear accident, and when he takes those actions 1
per procedure, they may not happen.
2 Valves may not open, valves may not close, 3
pumps may not start, pumps that were intended to 4
start--other pumps may start. Because, it may be a 5
misconfiguration of the plant because of these 6
workarounds. And, that's a significant safety issue, 7
nuclear safety issue, which could cause core damage, 8
could result in a Fukushima event here in the United 9
States.
10 It's certainly something--you know, I hope 11 the NRC takes seriously and looks into. Another issue 12 that was brought to light during the enforcement 13 conference on July 20th when I listened to the 14 licensee speak, you know, this watershed event that 15 happened in October 2010, when you come right down to 16 it, the root cause of that event was a failure of the 17 licensee to follow station procedures, which is a 18 violation of NRC requirements under 10 CFR part 50.
19 And, to that extent, you know, the 20 licensee's corrective action can't even come close, 21 from my perspective, to resolving the issue because 22 their corrective actions did not, from what I 23 understood at that meeting, and can tell, retraining 24 of the plant staff, across the board. Operations, 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 17 health physics, electrical maintenance, instrument 1
control maintenance, security, et cetera.
2 Everybody needs to be trained to follow 3
procedure, step by step, verbatim compliance. And had 4
that attitude and culture been instilled in October 5
2010, you wouldn't have had the chain of events that 6
almost resulted in core damage at that time.
7 So, that's one area of concern, where the 8
licensee's proposed corrective action didn't even come 9
close to resolving the root cause in my view. Also, 10 there is no corrective actions taken by the licensee 11 to ensure that this type of violation will not be 12 repeated in the future.
13 Of course, this is already a repetitive 14 violation. We could go on and on about how many times 15 the licensee has failed to follow procedures at the H.
16 B. Robinson plant. But, to the extent that the root 17 cause of this problem can be traced directly back to, 18 again, failure of the licensee to follow station 19 procedures.
20 You would--the NRC, as the Government 21 regulator, would be wise to require the licensee to 22 make certain that their corrective actions include 23 intervention by the quality assurance and quality 24 control Department that's supposed to be operating at 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 18 that H. B. Robinson nuclear plant, under their 1
license.
2 Because, that's part of their license, is 3
having an operating and efficient and an effective 4
quality assurance quality control program. And the 5
way that that is supposed to be implemented, and it 6
certainly was implemented during my tenure in the 7
nuclear industry as an instrument control technician, 8
when you have a corrective maintenance action, 9
especially one that involves safety related or quality 10 related systems, the procedure itself that the actual 11 nuclear workers or technicians take with them in the 12 field to do the task at hand incorporates work stop 13 points, or work hold points for quality control 14 quality assurance inspection personnel who actually 15 have to come off of the job and inspect what the 16 maintenance technicians and maintenance personnel have 17 done to that point in the procedure and initial and 18 date acceptance of the work up to that point.
19 Before, the technicians could continue.
20 Now, because of the serious nature of this particular 21 watershed event that occurred in October 2010, it 22 would be incumbent upon the NRC to require the 23 licensee to upgrade its procedures to this extent 24 where quality control quality assurance hold points, 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 19 or check points, or sign up points, however you want 1
to term them, are incorporated into these procedures 2
as needed to make certain these types of events aren't 3
repeated.
4 I can't overstate how important that is.
5 I mean, the NRC may have one or two resident 6
inspectors, some 104 licensed nuclear reactors across 7
the United States, so the NRC can't be everywhere all 8
the time. And, the NRC should take advantage of the 9
quality control quality assurance programs and 10 personnel which are required under the NRC licenses 11 granted to the H. B. Robinson nuclear power plant.
12 And, you know, that's part of the NRC's 13 reactor oversight programs, and the NRC should be 14 using that as a tool, for their benefit, protecting 15 public health and safety so that all these areas the 16 NRC may or may not be able to get to, especially if 17 you're under refueling hours, the NRC can rely on the 18 station procedures holding the quality control quality 19 assurance personnel accountable for these work stop 20 points and inspection points in these critical 21 procedures.
22 You know--recently, I'd say it was in the 23 last 18 months, two years, there was a significant 24 event at the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant here in South 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 20 Miami, Florida, and it involved a senior licensed 1
nuclear reactor operator, an individual who had his 2
own license issued by the NRC, in addition to the 3
FPL's license to operate the Turkey Point nuclear 4
reactor.
5 This individual kept bringing safety 6
concerns to the licensee, and they kept initiating 7
these workarounds because of the incredible number of 8
backlogs active and open maintenance work orders down 9
at the station facility at that time.
10 Up to the point where the senior operator 11 just became frustrated. It was one workaround after 12 another workaround, then they had an initiating event 13 where substation mentioned nearby violated procedure, 14 and they caused a variance in the transmission lines, 15 which automatically scrammed both Turkey Point nuclear 16 reactors while this individual was on duty, and that 17 was kind of like the icing on the cake.
18 This individual, he resigned, he was 19 forced resignation because he couldn't get his safety 20 concerns resolved by executive management, and it was 21 all due to the extensive number of backlog maintenance 22 work orders and the extreme amount of workarounds that 23 this individual had to keep on top of.
24
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 21 You know, his license, his own, personal 1
NRC license was in jeopardy, a nuclear action had 2
occurred under his watch. That's how important it is 3
that the H. B. Robinson nuclear plant, that this 4
backlog get addressed in a meaningful and timely 5
fashion.
6 And, quite frankly, listening to the 7
licensee at that enforcement conference on the 20th of 8
July, left big questions in my mind. They appeared to 9
be overwhelmed in many areas. Just look at the 10 actions they're taking--changing out management, 11 they're bringing in outside contractors to do culture 12 surveys.
13 They're upgrading their procedures at 14 cost--this is a nuclear plant that's been operating 15 for the better part of 30, 35 years, and procedures 16 they've been using all this time, now, all of a sudden 17 they've got to correct them all? They've got to 18 enhance them all?
19 Well, how the hell they didn't--how have 20 they been operating this plant for all this time if 21 these procedures were so poor to begin with? It's 22 such a broad base, pervasive action on the part of the 23 NRC that it's not reasonably mindful that, or 24 conceivable that they can make all these corrections 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 22 and all these improvements and turn that plant around 1
and address the 615 outstanding maintenance work 2
orders--probably more, by now, because that was back 3
in July--and still operate the nuclear plant under 4
power.
5 And that brings me back to the enforcement 6
petition. It's being requested that the NRC order the 7
licensee to shut the plant down, and only by shutting 8
this plant down will the licensee have sufficient time 9
where they can step back and fully assess the problems 10 with that nuclear plant. These problems aren't new 11 problems, or special problems. These problems are 12 repetitive violations of NRC safety margins under 10 13 CFR part 50, over and over again.
14 It's now to the point where it's out of 15 control, it's beyond the control of the licensee.
16 And, you can see that by the responses at these 17 enforcement conferences. You can see that by their 18 refusal to even attend the 2.206 petition process for 19 their license to be suspended or revoked.
20 It's just a piss-poor attitude from the 21 executive level management all the way down, and these 22 so-called surveys, done by third party, outsourced 23 entities, are useless. The NRC needs to get in there 24 with their augmented inspection teams and conduct 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 23 independent employee interviews, one on one, where the 1
employee doesn't have to be afraid that someone's 2
going to over hear him and what he says to the NRC.
3 And, that's the only way you're going to 4
get a true picture of what the work environment is 5
like at the H. B. Robinson plant. And also, NRC 6
should be looking at the corrective action program and 7
how many of these corrective maintenance work orders 8
have been submitted.
9 When were they submitted, who submitted 10 them, and how long did it take for them to get 11 resolved, and did the root cause get identified and 12 corrected? And, did the employee who initiated the 13 condition report through the corrective action 14 program, did that employee get feedback from anybody 15 that their problem was acknowledged, that their 16 problem was taken seriously, and that their problem 17 was corrected?
18 And, did any of these employees who 19 submitted nuclear safety concerns or concerns on a 20 quality or safety related system, can be deemed to be 21 nuclear safety concerns, did they ever get recognized 22 in front of their peer group in a positive manner with 23 some kind of reward or some kind of point system where 24 they get credit towards their next performance review, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 24 could result in a pay increase, they get a letter of 1
commendation presented to them in a public manner in 2
front of their coworkers?
3 All these types of actions serve to 4
enhance a positive safety conscious work environment 5
at a nuclear power plant like the H. B. Robinson 6
plant. If you see your coworker getting rewarded in 7
front of other people that he works with or she works 8
- with, for raising nuclear safety
- issues, that 9
encourages that employee's coworkers to do the same.
10 It's only when the management fails to 11 recognize, acknowledge, and positively commend the 12 performance of an individual who raises these safety 13 concerns, does the environment grow in a positive 14 direction.
15 When you don't have that recognition--when 16 an employee puts a concern in and gets no feedback at 17 all that anybody even took them seriously or her 18 seriously, corrective action, they don't know the 19 problem was ever corrected.
20 And all they keep getting is more work 21 orders. Go fix this, go fix that, hurry up, we've got 22 to do this. Hurry up, we've got too many of these.
23 And, either work environment becomes more and more 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 25 negative, more and work hostile and the attitude goes 1
down the toilet very quickly.
2 And, I surmise that's what's going on at 3
the H. B. Robinson plant, where management is pushing 4
everybody. We've got to get this backlog done, you 5
know, we've got to keep running but we've got to get 6
the backlog done.
7 We got to keep the reactor operating, 8
we've got to keep making money but we've got to get 9
this backlog done, so with the overtime situation, 10 stressed out nuclear workers, operators biting their 11 nails because they've got, I don't know, numerous 12 workarounds that they got to remember how everything 13 is configured, and they throw this switch, they got to 14 know what's going to happen.
15 And, it just gets worse and worse. And 16 now, you're bringing in new management which no one 17 knows, you know, these new managers don't know the 18 crew, the crews don't know the new managers, there's 19 going to be an intermingling of attitudes and 20 performance issues.
21 It's just not a good situation, and it 22 brings me back right to the point for the enforcement 23 petition where the NRC should require the licensee to 24 confirm and shut the plant down for a specific amount 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 26 of time and NRC's a better judge of that than I am, 1
how long it could reasonably be expected to turn the 2
plant around keeping in mind the work environment, and 3
to have a safety conscious work environment you've got 4
to start by encouraging employees to raise safety 5
concerns.
6 You've got to have some kind of an 7
acknowledgment or a reward system, posting system.
8 Jobs are posted so people can track, Department by 9
Department, where the hell their concern is, what's 10 the status, et cetera.
11 So, to allow the plant to continue 12 operation while you have all these numerous areas up 13 in the air, being evaluated, re-evaluated, changed, 14 modified, the scope, the magnitude of the procedure, 15 upgrade program is huge. And that could cause 16 problems all by itself, you know? Boys could be out 17 there with the wrong procedure because there's an 18 upgrade to that procedure, they don't even know about 19 it.
20 The training, people need to be--we talked 21 about retraining these people to follow procedures.
22 But it goes beyond that, it goes into operator 23 training. You know, there's an operator involved in 24 this watershed event, October 2010. They re-energized 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 27 an electrical circuit without following procedures and 1
checking to see if it was even fixed.
2 Of course, it wasn't, it started a couple 3
fires. Could have had a meltdown. So, in summary, 4
it's not good enough with the licensee's presented to 5
the NRC to date is not good enough. Enforcement 6
action taken by the NRC to date is not satisfactory 7
and needs to be escalated enforcement action.
8 The NRC's actions over the years have been 9
evidenced through a
recent Associated Press 10 investigative report, which reviewed tens of thousands 11 of NRC documents, showed complacency on the part of 12 the NRC in regulating 104 nuclear power plants.
13 Now, you've got a situation where the 14 Government has a dysfunctional Congress and they can't 15 even raise the debt level of this country so the 16 Government can pay its bills on time, and the 17 constraints, the financial constraints on various 18 Departments, including the NRC, where the NRC budget 19 most likely being affected because of the fiscal 20 problems going on in Washington, you know, the public 21 is concerned about the NRC's ability to protect them.
22 And, certainly, when you've got a nuclear 23 power plant, the H. B. Robinson nuclear plant, which 24 is repetitively, time and time again, violated serious 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 28 safety margins the NRC has laid out under 10 CFR part 1
50, and the corrective actions over the years have 2
failed to correct these actions because they're doing 3
it again and again and again.
4 All the way through October 2010, where 5
they could have melted the nuclear reactor down, and, 6
you know, if we have a Fukushima event over here, its 7
going to be worse than it was in Japan because there's 8
so many more people now that are living near these 9
reactors.
10 Tens of thousands of people are now 11 clustered around these nuclear reactors, especially 12 the H. B. Robinson plant, there weren't that--the 13 population wasn't nearly as great when that plant was 14 initially licensed, 30, 40 years ago by the NRC.
15 So, there's going to be a lot more people 16 affected if we get a Fukushima event here at H. B.
17 Robinson plant, and, you know, that containment 18 building explodes from a release of hydrogen, fuel 19 damage event, then you know, those radionuclides come 20 over here to Florida and affect my family and my 21 friends and my property, and I sure as hell don't want 22 that to happen.
23 So, that's why I write these 2.206 24 petitions. This is the only way that the public can 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 29 engage the NRC to take escalated enforcement actions, 1
and why the public wants to make certain the NRC 2
understands the importance that licensees like the H.
3 B. Robinson nuclear power plant that everybody's on 4
board with a solid understanding and training that 5
they need to follow procedures.
6 And, that these people are trained and 7
qualified to do their jobs out there. They certainly 8
aren't, in this circumstance. We had a calamity of 9
events which led to the event on October 2010.
10 At that, I'll stay on the line to answer 11 any questions that the NRC or the public who may be 12 attending this meeting might have.
13 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Mr. Saporito, thank 14 you. We appreciate that additional information. As 15 you said, at this time, we would like to turn to NRC 16 staff to see if they have any questions or any 17 clarifications. I'm going to start with the folks 18 that are here in the room with me at headquarters.
19 If there's any clarifying questions--
20 MS. MOZAFARI: I just wanted to--
21 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI:
Could you please 22 identify yourself?
23 MS. MOZAFARI: This is Brenda Mozafari, 24 and I just wanted to know where you got the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 30 misinformation that the July 20th meeting was an 1
enforcement conference. Could you identify your 2
source of information? Because it was not.
3 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Mr. Saporito, could 4
you hear Ms. Mozafari?
5 MR. SAPORITO: I could hardly hear here.
6 Something about--
7 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Okay. Let me restate 8
the question. You had identified that there was a 9
July 20th, 2011, enforcement conference. It was not 10 an enforcement conference on that day; it was a 11 different type of meeting apparently.
12 MS. MOZAFARI: It was a voluntary meeting 13 where the licensee wanted to present their strategic 14 plan for the future, but I was wondering where you got 15 the impression it was an enforcement conference.
16 MR. SAPORITO: Okay. Yes, I stand 17 corrected, it was not an enforcement conference. It 18 was a memorandum issued by the NRC on July 1st, 2011, 19 the purpose of the meeting was representatives of 20 Carolina Power management team, and to discuss the 21 strategic plan for the H. B. Robinson Steam Electric 22 Plant, Unit number 2. You're right, I stand 23 corrected. It was not an enforcement conference. It 24 was a discussion about their new management team.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 31 MS. MOZAFARI: Thank you.
1 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Okay. And a clarifying 2
question slash comment, Mr. Saporito. You, on 3
numerous occasions during your discussion this 4
afternoon referred to the event as the October, 2010, 5
event. I assume you meant the March 2010 event. Is 6
that correct?
7 MR. SAPORITO: Yes.
8 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Okay.
9 MR. SAPORITO: Yes, that's correct.
10 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Okay. Are there other 11 questions here in the room or at headquarters? Okay, 12 I'm going to go to Jim Dodson, in our Region II 13 office.
- Jim, did you have any questions or 14 clarifications for Mr. Saporito?
15 MR. DODSON: No, I don't believe so. Not 16 at this time.
17 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Okay, thanks, Jim. I'm 18 going to ask if anyone from the licensee joined the 19 call, and if so, do they have any questions?
20 Okay. Before I conclude the meeting, as 21 Trace stated earlier, members of the public may join 22 the call and do not need to identify themselves.
23 However, at this time, if there were any members of 24 the public that did join the call and would like to 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 32 ask any questions, I would like to invite them to do 1
so now.
2 Okay. Hearing none, there is no questions 3
from the public. Mr. Saporito, again, I would like 4
to thank you for taking the time this afternoon to 5
provide the NRC staff with clarifying information on 6
the petition that you submitted.
7 Before we close, does the Court Reporter 8
need any additional information for the meeting 9
transcript?
10 COURT REPORTER: I have no questions.
11 CHAIRMAN LUBINSKI: Okay. With that, this 12 meeting is concluded, and we will be terminating the 13 phone connection. Thanks, everyone.
14 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 15 under discussion was taken off the record at 1:49 16 p.m.)
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25