ML14259A135
| ML14259A135 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palisades  |
| Issue date: | 09/03/2014 |
| From: | Division of Operating Reactor Licensing |
| To: | |
| Jennivine Rankin, NRR/DORL, 415-1530 | |
| References | |
| 2.206, NRC-1044 | |
| Download: ML14259A135 (26) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board RE Palisades Nuclear Plant Docket Number: 50-255 Location: teleconference Date: Wednesday, September 3, 2014 Work Order No.: NRC-1044 Pages 1-25 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 10 CFR 2.206 PETITION REVIEW BOARD (PRB) 5 CONFERENCE CALL 6 RE 7 PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT 8 + + + + +
9 WEDNESDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 11 + + + + +
12 The conference call was held, Louise Lund, 13 Chairperson of the Petition Review Board, presiding.
14 15 PETITIONER: MICHAEL MULLIGAN 16 17 PETITION REVIEW BOARD MEMBERS 18 LOUISE LUND, Chair, Deputy Division Director 19 Division of Reactor Licensing, NRR 20 DAVID ALLEY, Branch Chief, Component 21 Performance, NDE, and Testing Branch, Division 22 of Engineering, NRR 23 REED ANZALONE, General Engineer, Nuclear 24 Performance & Code Review Branch 25 MERRILEE BANIC, Petition Coordinator, NRR NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 MAHESH CHAWLA, Project Manager, NRR 2 JOSHUA KAIZER, Reactor Systems Engineer, NRR 3 WARREN LYON, Senior Reactor Systems Engineer, 4 Reactor Systems Branch, NRR 5 DAVID PELTON, Chief of Licensing, Branch 3-1, NRR 6 JENNIE RANKIN, Project Manager, NRR 7 ROBERT WOLFGANG, Senior Mechanical Engineer, 8 Division of Engineering, NRR 9
10 REGION III STAFF 11 ALEX GARMOE, Senior Resident Inspector 12 CHRISTOPHER HUNT, Reactor Engineer 13 JAY LENNARTZ, Project Engineer, Palisades Site 14 APRIL SCARBEARY, Resident Inspector 15 16 LICENSEE STAFF 17 BARBARA DOTSON 18 19 20 21 22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 10:02 a.m.
3 MS. RANKIN: So I'd like to thank 4 everybody for attending this meeting. My name is 5 Jennie Rankin, and I am the NRC Project Manager for the 6 Palisades Nuclear Plant.
7 We are here today to allow the petitioner, 8 Mr. Michael Mulligan, to address the Petition Review 9 Board regarding the 2.206 petition dated March 5th, 10 2014. I am also the petition manager for this 11 petition. The Petition Review Board Chairman is 12 Louise Lund.
13 As part of the Petition Review Board or 14 PRB's review of this petition, Mr. Mulligan has 15 requested this opportunity to address the PRB. This 16 meeting is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. The 17 meeting is being recorded by the NRC Operations Center 18 and will be transcribed by a court reporter. The 19 transcript will become a supplement to this petition.
20 The transcript will also be made publicly available.
21 I'd like to open this meeting with 22 introductions. As we go around the room, please be 23 sure to clearly state your name, your position, and the 24 office that you work for within the NRC for the record.
25 I'll start. My name is Jennie Rankin, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 Project Manager in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 2 Regulation.
3 MS. LUND: Louise Lund. I'm the Acting 4 Division Director for the Division of Operating Reactor 5 Licensing and NRR, and I'm also the PRB Chair.
6 MR. ALLEY: Dave Alley. I'm the Branch 7 Chief for the Component Performance, NDE, and Testing 8 Branch, Division of Engineering, Office of NRR.
9 MR. WOLFGANG: Bob Wolfgang, Senior 10 Mechanical Engineer, Component Performance, NDE, and 11 Testing Branch, Division of Engineering and NRR.
12 MS. BANIC: Lee Banic, Petition 13 Coordinator, NRR.
14 MR. KAISER: Joshua Kaiser, Nuclear 15 Performance and Code Review, NRR.
16 MR. ANZALONE: Reed Anzalone, Nuclear 17 Performance and Code Review, Division of Safety 18 Systems, NRR.
19 MR. PELTON: David Pelton, Chief of 20 Licensing Branch III-1 in NRR.
21 MR. CHAWLA: Mac Chawla. I'm the Project 22 Manager in Division of Licensing, NRR.
23 MS. RANKIN: Okay. We've completed 24 introductions here at headquarters. We'll go to the 25 bridge line for the NRC participants from headquarters NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 on the phone.
2 MR. LYON: Warren Lyon, Reactor Systems, 3 NRR.
4 MS. RANKIN: And then the participants 5 from the NRC from the regional office on the phone, 6 please introduce yourself.
7 MR. LENNARTZ: Jay Lennartz. I'm the 8 Project Engineer for Palisades site, Region III.
9 MR. HUNT: Christopher Hunt. I'm the 10 Reactor Engineer for Palisades site, Region III.
11 MR. GARMOE: Alex Garmoe and April 12 Scarbeary, NRC Resident Inspectors at Palisades.
13 MS. RANKIN: Okay. And then are there any 14 representatives for the licensee on the phone?
15 MS. DOTSON: Barb Dotson, Palisades, 16 Licensing.
17 MS. RANKIN: Mr. Mulligan, would you 18 please introduce yourself for the record?
19 MR. MULLIGAN: I'm Mike Mulligan. I live 20 in Hinsdale, New Hampshire. I have been interested in 21 Palisades for a number of years, and I've had a number 22 of failed 2.206's. I'm a whistleblower, and I was in 23 the nuclear industry for a while. Thank you.
24 MS. RANKIN: Thank you, Mr. Mulligan. It 25 is not required for members of the public to introduce NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 themselves for the call. However, if there are any 2 members of the public on the phone that wish to do so 3 at this time, please state your name for the record.
4 Okay. Moving on, hearing none, I'd like 5 to emphasize that we each need to speak clearly and 6 loudly to make sure that the court reporter can 7 accurately transcribe this meeting. If you do have 8 something that you would like to say, please state your 9 name for the record.
10 Court reporter, did you hear everybody 11 okay so far?
12 COURT REPORTER: Yes, I have.
13 MS. RANKIN: Okay. Thank you. For those 14 dialing into the meeting, please remember to mute your 15 phones to minimize any background noise or 16 distractions. If you do not have a mute button, this 17 can be done by pressing the keys *6. To unmute, press 18 the *6 key again. Thank you.
19 At this time, I'd like to turn it over to 20 the PRB Chairman, Louise Lund.
21 MS. LUND: Okay. Thank you. Good 22 morning. Welcome to this meeting regarding the 2.206 23 petition submitted by Mr. Mulligan. I'd like to first 24 share some background on our progress, our process.
25 Section 2.206 of Title 10 of the Code of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 Federal Regulations describes the petition process, 2 the primary mechanism for the public to request 3 enforcement action by the NRC in a public process.
4 This process permits anyone to petition NRC to take 5 enforcement-type action related to NRC licensees or 6 licensed activities.
7 Depending on the result of its evaluation, 8 NRC could modify, suspend, or revoke an NRC-issued 9 license or take any other appropriate enforcement 10 action to resolve a problem. The NRC staff guidance 11 for the disposition of 2.206 petition requests is in 12 Management Directive 8.11 and is publicly available.
13 The purpose of today's meeting is to give 14 the petitioner an opportunity to provide any additional 15 explanation or support for the petition following the 16 Petition Review Board's initial consideration and 17 recommendation. This meeting is not a hearing, nor is 18 it an opportunity for the petitioner to question or 19 examine the PRB on the merits or the issues presented 20 in the petition request. No decisions regarding the 21 merits of this petition will be made at this meeting.
22 Following this meeting, the Petition 23 Review Board will conduct its internal deliberations.
24 The outcome of this internal meeting will be discussed 25 with the petitioner.
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8 1 The Petition Review Board typically 2 consists of a chairman, usually a manager at the Senior 3 Executive Service level at the NRC. It has a petition 4 manager and a PRB coordinator. Other members of the 5 board are determined by the NRC staff based on the 6 content of the information in the petition request.
7 The members have already introduced themselves.
8 As described in our process, the NRC staff 9 may ask clarifying questions in order to better 10 understand the petitioner's presentation and to reach 11 a reasoned decision whether to accept or reject the 12 petitioner's request for review under the 2.206 13 process.
14 I would like to summarize the scope of the 15 petition under consideration and the NRC activities to 16 date. On March 5th, you submitted to the NRC a petition 17 under 2.206 regarding Palisades Nuclear Plant in which 18 you requested a number of actions. The major ones 19 concern operating with a broken impeller and flawed 20 control rod drive mechanism housing.
21 Allow me to discuss the NRC activities to 22 date. On March 14th, 2014, the PRB reviewed your 23 request for immediate action to prevent Palisades' 24 restart and determine that there were no 25 safety-significant concerns to prevent the plant from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 restarting as scheduled. The NRC has reviewed the 2 licensee's evaluation of the impeller piece fragment 3 within the reactor vessel and concluded that it does 4 not pose a threat to the reactor and other plant 5 components. Additionally, the licensee has replaced 6 all of the 45 control rod drive mechanism housings prior 7 to plant startup.
8 Based on the review of the licensee's 9 evaluation related to the stuck impeller piece and 10 replacement of all CRDM housings during the refueling 11 outage, there were no immediate safety-significant 12 concerns to prevent the plant from restarting as 13 scheduled. Your request for the immediate action of 14 shutdown of Palisades and other Entergy plants did not 15 have the adequate basis. Therefore, your request to 16 prevent Palisades from restarting was denied.
17 You were informed on March 19th, 2014 of 18 the PRB's decision to deny your request for immediate 19 action. On March 24th, the petition manager contacted 20 you to discuss the 10 CFR 2.206 process and to offer 21 you an opportunity to address the PRB. You requested 22 to address the PRB by phone prior to its internal 23 meeting to make the initial recommendation to accept 24 or reject the petition for review.
25 On April 8th, 2014, you addressed the PRB NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 by teleconference. The teleconference was recorded 2 and transcribed and has become a supplement to this 3 petition.
4 On May 19th and July 28th, 2014, the PRB 5 met to discuss your petition, as supplemented and in 6 accordance with the criteria for review and rejection 7 described in Management Directive 8.11. The PRB 8 determined that the following requests from your 9 petition meet the criteria for review in accordance 10 with MD 8.11: Number one, request for PNP to open every 11 PCP for inspection and clear up all flaws. Number two, 12 request for PNP to replace the PCPs with a design for 13 their intended duty. Number three, request an Office 14 of Inspector General inspection on why there are 15 different analysis criteria for similar PCP events 16 between the NRC regions. Four, request a $10 million 17 fine over these events. And number five, request for 18 PNP to return to yellow or red status and intensify NRC 19 monitoring of PNP.
20 You were informed of the PRB's initial 21 recommendation to accept your petition, in part, by 22 email dated August 15th, 2014. In addition, you were 23 informed of the basis for not accepting the remaining 24 parts of the petition. The petition manager also 25 offered you an opportunity to address the PRB. You NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 requested to address the PRB by phone following 2 notification of the PRB's initial recommendations.
3 As a reminder for the phone participants, 4 please identify yourself if you make any remarks, as 5 this will help us in the preparation of the meeting 6 transcript that will be made publicly available.
7 Mr. Mulligan, I'll turn it over to you to 8 allow you the opportunity to provide additional 9 explanation and support for your petition in light of 10 the PRB's initial recommendation. You have about 40 11 minutes for your presentation.
12 MR. MULLIGAN: Thank you. Deterrents.
13 You know, we look at deterrents as far as the NRC's 14 activities associated with a nuclear power plant, and 15 we see that the NRC doesn't have any, very little 16 deterrents on the bad behaviors of other plants.
17 As far as all of the issues with Palisades 18 over the years, a recent newspaper wrote up an 19 interesting set of articles about Palisades and all the 20 troubles they had. And what you see over this thing 21 is there is, one thing, the NRC doesn't have any 22 horsepower to, you know, put fear in the eyes of these 23 guys. And that's, basically, you know, if you go 24 one-by-one with these regulations and stuff like that, 25 you're going to consume all the NRC's resources and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 stuff like that.
2 And so there's the deterrence part of the 3 NRC's activities. You know, the utilities are going 4 to exhaust the agency with all the nickel and dime stuff 5 if there's not a deterrence part of this deal, if they 6 don't fear the NRC and that type of thing.
7 We also know that -- I believe that, 8 generally, in the last five years, as shown by the 9 articles in the newspaper, that with all of our 10 troubles, Palisades had better capacity factor than 11 they had in the early years and stuff. And this is all, 12 essentially, because of risk perspectives and 13 reductions of regulations and all that sort of stuff.
14 And so in spite of all their troubles and that type of 15 thing, Palisades has been allowed to continue on in the 16 way they've always done.
17 Palisades did a relatively good job on the 18 control rod drive mechanisms of recent, but they had 19 a horrible history of CRDM problems and that type of 20 stuff. Palisades has had numerous issues of 21 falsifying documents, intimidating employees, lying to 22 inspectors over the recent years and that type of stuff.
23 And, you know, like the recent issue with the security 24 guards, they had a similar incident four or five years 25 ago, basically the same thing: lying and falsifying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 documents to the NRC. And I know the NRC basically says 2 after two or three years, well just make believe that 3 it never happened, you know, the history never really 4 is caught up together. And you don't have enough 5 influence and power to keep a plant like Palisades 6 straight.
7 What's happened here is really ugly.
8 What's happened with the impellers is ugly. It's 9 unprofessional. It makes our nation a laughing stock 10 to all the other nations that are desperately trying 11 to, you know, maintain their fleet safely and stuff like 12 that.
13 And I've heard from numerous professional 14 people in the industry basically saying they cannot 15 believe that we allowed the Palisades plants to operate 16 for so many years with these reactor coolant pumps and 17 all these different kind of warnings we've had over the 18 years and stuff and all these indications. And we're 19 only getting, the outsiders are only getting the bits 20 and pieces of what really went on with these impellers 21 and stuff. You know, a lot of nations think of this 22 as irresponsible and not worthy of a great nation when 23 you get down to these impellers and stuff.
24 And then you've got Salem, like I talked 25 about, the recent issues with a horrendous, all their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 bolts being loose and stuff like that, prior, you know, 2 prior warnings and that type of stuff that were ignored, 3 and the NRC really hasn't stepped in there and done what 4 the public wants. They don't want to have a Salem.
5 You know, a crack starts somewhere in a reactor coolant 6 pump. They want that crack fixed. They don't want to 7 have to deal with these problems for years and years 8 and deal with the broken bolts and fallen down 9 components and the pumps and stuff. That's ugly. The 10 amount of cracked and broken impellers, it's ugly.
11 It's unprofessional. It's an essence of an indicator, 12 you know. If they can't keep these impellers, you 13 know, if they don't have to spend so much resources on 14 these broken components, impellers, the tank that 15 recently leaked, the control rod drive mechanisms, and 16 stuff like that. You know, they're just consuming 17 plant resources, and we fear that other safety problems 18 aren't being dealt with adequately.
19 A lot of these kind of components breaking 20 and stuff like that, that has a tendency to make the 21 employees disillusioned and they know that it's wrong 22 and stuff like that. And they know that the NRC doesn't 23 back them. They know that, you know, we have to make 24 -- they'll be up in the control room and they'll have 25 the indications of a big blade being thrown off the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 pump, and everybody will sit back and not give what the 2 public really wants the Agency to force Palisades to 3 do, to shut down, pay a price, deterrence, deterrence, 4 and make them pay a price so that, you know, when they're 5 in their little rooms and they're making these 6 decisions about, you know, well, we've got some part 7 of the impeller cracked, we can either fix it right, 8 put in new parts so we don't have to deal with this in 9 the past, or the NRC is going to, down the road, if, 10 you know, bigger parts start falling off the pump or 11 it gets strewn about the plant, they're going to make 12 us pay a horrendous price.
13 Most of the people, you know, what is 14 safety related and all that sort of stuff, you know.
15 We think when you talk about Palisades is safe that 16 means that you are pretty sure that they won't have a, 17 you know, a type of severe core damage and off-site 18 relief where you'll have a fatality. That's what 19 you're saying when you say a plant is safe, and that's 20 just not an appropriate standard. We don't think 21 that's an appropriate -- we think this ugliness is a 22 pretty good indicator of the future and that it 23 shouldn't be tolerated. It should be nice and clean, 24 and the operation of the plant should be nice and clean, 25 and they're not all caught up with these degradations NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 and broken components and all that sort of stuff. It's 2 a clean plant. The staff is not excessively busy or 3 the control room employees don't have all these 4 complicated procedures in place of, you know, a 5 well-engineered plant. And, you know, everybody is 6 diligently paying attention to the plant, not paying 7 attention, not worrying about the degradations.
8 Again, these kind of questions, you know, 9 what we know about what's going on in the wider nuclear 10 industry, how many other plants have bolts breaking off 11 on all their coolant pumps and stuff like that, other 12 blades that are getting thrown off the reactor coolant 13 pumps, the blades getting caught in the reactor core, 14 and that type of stuff? We have no confidence that we 15 know really, you know, that our nation is safe.
16 We worry about Palisades, but there's a 17 risk if a lot of plants have degradation mechanisms that 18 the NRC doesn't have under control and, you know, 19 necessarily what you can prove isn't the most unsafe.
20 It's a lot of the stuff that's behind the barrier that's 21 degradated, that's degrading in an unknown fashion, and 22 that's a threat to the nation and to a plant.
23 So that's kind of what we're worried about 24 with -- rules don't carry a lot of information and 25 stuff. You know, staying within the rules doesn't have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 a lot of information. Usually, human intelligence and 2 a brain can process a lot of information and that type 3 of thing, and so that's what I worry about is a lot of 4 these rules and stuff is designed to make us become more 5 stupider than we really are.
6 I think, like I said, we worry about what's 7 going on if regulations will tolerate this kind of ugly 8 behavior at Palisades, certain events in the industry 9 that are pretty concerning that are out there that kind 10 of questions whether it's a lot more uglier than what's 11 being portrayed by the NRC. The example of Cooper 12 plant, some other energy plant, and their issues with 13 training failures. And essentially, you know, I call 14 it cheating. There's a lot of cheating involved there, 15 as far as -- especially that they were simulating 16 booking hooking up the RCIC to the boron injection 17 system and they couldn't make that fire hose go through 18 the floors, the floor as, you know, as expected and 19 stuff. That's kind of cheating. That's the same kind 20 of thing that, you know, we're worried about as far as 21 at Palisades, this level of cheating.
22 You know, it almost gets to the point of, 23 you know, the NRC says, you know, well, cheating isn't 24 safety related, you know. We can't -- it doesn't, it's 25 un-safety related. It can be repaired, or it's not a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 big deal, or it's not modeled appropriately in all your 2 risk perspectives and stuff like that.
3 Another issue we have is really you don't 4 have any proof, there's no engineering proof that those 5 reactor coolant pumps are safe. You don't have any, 6 I don't see any model of, you know, actual building a 7 plant, building, more or less, a prototype type of deal 8 where you're beating the hell out of the pumps and 9 you're getting those kind of blade failures and 10 everybody, you know, you're experimenting a lot on a 11 system like the Palisades pumps and its relationship 12 to its primary coolant system and stuff like that. You 13 don't have really any actual, I don't see any actual 14 engineering that those pumps are safe. Studies, 15 actual studies. It's all kind of, more or less, you 16 know, the fallback of the NRC, it's our opinion that 17 it's safe and stuff like that. That's the privilege 18 of the NRC. They get to say that, basically, the 19 professional people, they get to say, you know, a guy 20 like me needs triplicate proof that Palisades is 21 unsafe, even when it's all there. You guys get to say, 22 "It's my opinion that it's safe," and you don't have 23 any evidence to back it up.
24 So the evidence I'm talking about is, would 25 be some engineering document showing that, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 we've gone through all of the, you know, not necessarily 2 intellectual kind of thing that the NRC likes to do, 3 but we really set up a system and we've repeated the 4 degradation mechanisms on Palisades with their PCP 5 pumps and stuff like that, and we actually seen the 6 results of the broken impellers and stuff like that.
7 We have a full engineering understanding of the 8 mechanisms of what potentially could go wrong in the 9 future with those pumps.
10 And, you know, and after all of this, after 11 all of these decades with this failure mechanism at 12 Palisades, if it's still not fixed, you know, they still 13 have issues with going outside their licensing as far 14 as certain pressures and stuff like that and creating, 15 you know, it's a poor design, probably poorly-designed 16 impeller that causes these, you know, cavitations and 17 all that sort of stuff. It's kind of amazing.
18 All these barriers, all these, you know, 19 proper design of the impeller, a NRC regulatory regime 20 that keeps a plant basically clean and very few 21 operational issues and stuff like that. Those are kind 22 of barriers, safety barriers, and things that the 23 public can see and stuff that gives indications that 24 a plant is safe, not these analysis that we'll never 25 have any proof until a plant gets into really deep NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 trouble. And you can figure out, you know, was the risk 2 perspective analysis, was it accurate and that type of 3 thing.
4 And, again, another issue in the industry 5 is Millstone recently with their troubles with the 6 auxiliary feed pump, turbine-driven feed pump, and the 7 inability of the NRC to make a clean plant, to make sure 8 that the NRC forces a utility to pay attention to the 9 beginning stages of failure with their turbine pump, 10 turbine-driven pump, and to figure out why that 11 happened and then to say, well, do we got these kind 12 of failures any place else, and to have the NRC become 13 intrusive and to figure out these little things that 14 are going around. And if the utility doesn't want to 15 fix it or acknowledge it, then you come down with the 16 hammer and stuff like that; or, in the case of 17 Millstone, you know, the basic themes of broken 18 components and improperly-installed new components 19 nobody really catches, and then the degradation for 20 tube special inspection, inspection reports, and then 21 nobody really catches it until a plant trips and gets 22 into a loss offsite power. And then there's a host of 23 ugly issues that happened in the same transient and 24 stuff like that.
25 I don't think a lot of you guys really NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 understand how difficult that is being in the control 2 room and, you know -- you guys all mostly get to see 3 a lot of this stuff in hindsight. Those guys in the 4 control room get to see those events when equipment 5 fails and they have no idea why it failed and why it's 6 behaving that way. Then they get stuck with procedures 7 that don't work. It's a terrifying situation and 8 unnerving situation in the control room.
9 And we think, you know, with this Palisades 10 deal being ugly and stuff, your inability to enforce 11 integrity and truth-telling -- Palisades is not afraid 12 to lie when they need to or be deceptive to the NRC.
13 That's the history of Palisades and stuff like that, 14 and we think actually that happens a lot throughout the 15 industry.
16 And we worry that what we're seeing in 17 Palisades is similar to what we're seeing in Cooper with 18 their training program, which is terrifying in its own 19 manner. Only two passes out of nine attempted licenses 20 and all the associated problems, the ugliness of the 21 training program and stuff.
22 We think this is all kind of related to, 23 essentially, what our legislators and congressmen, you 24 know, the rules that enable the NRC, they're 25 insufficient and stuff. So Palisades, the Cooper NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 plant, Millstone, and San Onofre, Fort Calhoun, and 2 stuff like that. I mean, I was looking at the Swiss 3 cheese model as far as what's it take to cause an 4 accident, and it's, you know, a set of slices of Swiss 5 cheese with holes in it and they're usually all the 6 barriers to an accident. There's no clear hole through 7 the set of slices of cheese, but when the holes line 8 up that's when an accident happens. There's a lot of 9 holey Swiss cheese. The holes and, you know, maybe a 10 slice or two of the holes line up, maybe there's one 11 last barrier left, but we're uncomfortable with 12 actually having any holes in any slice of cheese. We 13 want these guys to operate a lot better than they have.
14 So there you go. You get my opinion of 15 what's wrong with Palisades, and you really don't have 16 any engineering to prove that those pumps won't cause 17 problems. You've still got the active mechanism on 18 there. You used to allow welding of those blades.
19 Now, you say it's [beep] blades that are welded in there 20 anymore. But there's been one assertion after another 21 that that's been proved false and stuff like that.
22 And then the general stated the nuclear 23 industry as a whole and incentives nowadays for a lot 24 of these utilities with their economic troubles to cut 25 back and stuff. You know, our fear is if we seen all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 that was going on there, we could foresee, and the NRC 2 could behave in a different way. But there's 3 tremendous barriers. A lot of rules are set up, you 4 know, like in this thing here. I can't see all the 5 documents and stuff like that.
6 And if we had all of the knowledge in front 7 of us of what was going on, outsiders could intervene, 8 just like if everybody seen what was going on in 9 Fukushima and the anti-nukes could have that kind of 10 ammunition, maybe that wouldn't have happened. Maybe 11 we could have captured a couple of minds and consciences 12 and not have such an ugly situation facing us in the 13 future.
14 Thank you very much. I appreciate -- by 15 the way, that response to me with this, even though the 16 2.206 failed, I appreciate that response. It was quite 17 thorough, the response to me, and I appreciate you 18 putting it all out on paper and I want to thank you for 19 doing that because at least it's B- well see how the 20 future plays out, if, you know, my concerns were 21 unaddressed and we have another terrible accident in 22 the United States with a reactor. Thank you.
23 MS. LUND: Okay. Thank you. At this 24 time, does the staff here at headquarters have any 25 questions for Mr. Mulligan? Okay, seeing none. What NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 MR. LENNARTZ: No question from Region III 3 in the office.
4 MS. LUND: Okay. Any headquarters people 5 on the phone? Warren, do you have any question?
6 COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry. Who was the 7 gentleman who just spoke?
8 MR. LYON: No, there's no questions.
9 MS. LUND: Who was the person in the region 10 that spoke?
11 MR. LENNARTZ: That was Jay Lennartz.
12 MS. LUND: Okay. Thank you. And this is 13 Louise Lund, by the way. And does the licensee have 14 any questions?
15 MS. DOTSON: The licensee has no 16 questions.
17 MS. LUND: Okay. And do we end up with any 18 members of the public on the phone that want to ask any 19 questions? Okay. Hearing none, okay.
20 So, Mr. Mulligan, thank you for taking the 21 time to provide the NRC staff with clarifying 22 information on the petition you've submitted.
23 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 24 went off the record at 10:39 a.m.)
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