ML19207B729
| ML19207B729 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane, Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 07/05/1979 |
| From: | Gilinsky V, Hendrie J, Kennedy R NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| FOIA-79-98, REF-10CFR9.7 TAC-11649, NUDOCS 7909050142 | |
| Download: ML19207B729 (85) | |
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NUCLE AR REGULATORY COMMISSION
-f IN THE MATTER OF:
PUBLIC MEETING STAFF REVIEW OF OPERATION OF DAVIS-3 ESSE
{
s Place -
Washington, D.
C.
Date.
Thursday, 5 July 1979 Pages 1 - 84
-eeeec e:
- n :47-:::e ACE - FED ERAI. REPOR"'EPJ5. INC.
OfficialReponers 9' 1'2 0 8 0 au N :r-n C; itel Street Wcshi,gten. D.C. CCCC 1 NATICNWICE COV! RAGE DAILY 7 009050/M
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_fu Nuclear Regula:Ory CC==ission held on Thursday, 5 July 1979 in the Cc==issions's offices at 1717 " Street, N. W.,
Washington, D. C.
The meeting was open to public attendance and obser ration.
This transcript has nct been re riewad, corrected, er edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
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NUCLEAR REGUIATORY COMMISSICN i,
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PUBLIC MEETING 6
STAFF REVIEW OF OPERATION 7
OF DAVIS-BESSE i
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Recm 1130 10 1717 H Street, N. W.
Washington, D.
C.
l II Thursday, 5 July 1979 The Corrtission met, pursuant to notice, at 10:35 a.m.
f 12 BEFORE:
13 DR. JOSEPH M.
HENDRIE, Chairman 14 VICTOR GILINSKY, Corrd.ssioner 15 i
RICHARD T. KENNEDY, Commissioner 16 JOHN ?. AHEARNE, Commissioner 17 '
ALSO PRESENT:
18 Messrs. Murray, Ross, Keppler, Gcdsick, Snyder, and 3ickwit.
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CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let us move ahead.
I will ask you to join me in voting to hold, on less 3i i
f.
4i Ehan one week's notice. the briefing by the Staf f on Davis-1 5
Besse.
6f This being the briefing which we referred to in the l
i 7 !
order just approved.
It is a briefing which -- as to the basis I
i for the Staff's conclusions to be carried out permitting the S'
9 res tart of a f acility.
10 l
.NW. Gossick, Mr. Denton, Mr. Kepple from Region 3, 11 gentlemen, welecce.
How are things in the Midwest?
12 MR. KEPPLER: Seautiful day, i
13 '
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You should hate been here yesterday.
1 f
Mr. Ross, Mr. Murray, good morning.
14 15j Lee, go ahead.
I 16 '
MR. GCSSICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I 17 i I thi.-t-Mr. Denton has scme l
18 '
CHAIRMAN HENDRII: Sy the way, did we get a vote?
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19 '
I got to wandering of f t'nre.
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20 CCMMISSIGNER AHEA3NE :
I don' t thini you did.
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1 21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
All those in f avor cf the short-I l
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22 voted meeting?
I, 23 '
CCMMISSICNER GILINSKY:.;y e.
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24 CI."MISSICNER AHEARNE:
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CEAIRMAN HENDRIE: So ordered.
2l All right, Lee.
3 MR. GCSSICK:
Harold will introduce the briefing.
t MR. DENTON:
The Staff has satisfied itself that 4l I
1 5
the Licensee b =.s complied wit the terms of the order and we i
l 6'
would propose that if you concur, we wodE permit the restart.
i 4
7l Denny Ross will discuss the --
3 i CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: This is the original order --
i 9,
MR. DENTCN:
Yes, sir.
10 CEAIRMAN HENDRIE:
-- shutting the thing down.
i i
II MR. DENTON:
The items in the original order, and I
12 Mr. Keppler, Regional Director for this plant will discuss I3 management capabilities of the company at the appropriate time i
i I4 of this briefinc.
l i
15 MR. ROSS :
What I am going to do, I have seme slides i
16 l that outline sc=e of the features of our SER, and as Harold I
17 said, Jim has get scme prepared remarkes on the man: genent aspects i
I i
18 If it is okay with the Cc= mission, I will go throuch !
i I9 the SER matters, and then we will make the transition to dr.e i
management aspect.
l 20 1
21 (Slide) i I
i 22 :
Ckay, as we go through them, if we have r.. ore ferailed, 1
3 questions we may call upon some of the interoffice team that 24 werked en Oavis-Besse, which includes Jerry..szedas from NRR, 4c.-%.,w a.oo,an i nc.
ec the project manager, and also Ion Fisher in the auxilary o,
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l' feedwater area, Dale Thatcher of the instrument control area, mm3 2
Dick Westman frcm I&E who worked frcm this end on the procedures, 3
3ruce Wilson frem operator training and awareness, and also Matt Taylor has sc=e cc==ents on the reliability aspects of 4
5 aux feed, Byron Siegel from -- who reviewed the dual level
?
6 set points and Lon Fremm can answer questions on the September 4
7
' 77 f eedwater transient that occurred at Davis-Besse.
i l
8 (Slide) 9 If we go to slide 2, the Davis-Besse order was a 10 little different. Most of the other orders had A through E; II upgrade aux feed, eliminate ICS f rcm t re -- a s a control Option, i
12 add secondary trip, develop small break LOCA proc.edures, I3,
and' the TMI-2 9 4mulator training.
I4 Davis-Besse order picked up item F, which covered 15 a dual level liquid set point centrol on the ence-thrcugh i
t i
steam generator, and item G is to contrast the September '77 l
16 t
I,'
feedwater transient at Davis-Besse with the TMI-2 accident this !,
i 18 i
year.
I9 (Slide)
'O There are also scme significant design differences.
d
'l Davis-Sesse 1, has a full safety grade auxiliary feedwater i
en i
system.
i
'3 These five aspects are scrt Of hcw we found this
'4 b2 dedsf at 4 tOOFTSFS, Inc.
we started deve10:inc the nature svstem twe cnths aco when me of the Order and also the natur a c f the fixes.
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It more nearly meets mcdern requirements, although --
2, CCMMISSICNER GILINSKY:
It is the newest of the plants, 3
isn't it?
t 4;
MR.ROSS:
I think TMI-2 is newer.
I 5
Yes, TMI-2 is newer.
At the aux --
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Didn't Davis-Sesse ccme to be 7:
seismic category I?
Do you remember Denny?
8 MR. ROSS: No, I don' t remember.
i 9
Do we have a historian? Don Fisher, do you remember?
i 10 MR. FISHER:
(Inaudible.)
11 MR. DENTON: Scmewhere along the fairly recent past, l
6 12 this requirement did get into our standard review plans and i
13 it was required.
New what the cutof f date was, I don't remember.
t I
14 l COMMISSICNER GILINSKY: This was a result of NRC 15,
requirement?
16 '
MR. DENTCN: Yes, sir.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, I would doubt that it was i
18 '
a requirement because, my guess is that the Davis-Besse unit 19 was far enough down the line to have been -- I think to have 4
20 been grandfathered, but I don't knew.
21 MR. ROSS: We did inquire when we made cur site 22 visit.
When ycu go to the aux feedwater pumprcces, you find it 23 is fairly crcwded.
Large pecple with broad shculders have ::
24 squeeze in.
And we were :Old after Sechtel had laid'the plan
" ce Jerlef al R epor*grg, lnC.
.5 !i cut, the decision was rade by scmebcdy, ei ther by us or "" them.
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to apply seismic standards.
And this made things more
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crowded.
3 So it was not designed from the ground up as seismic 4
class 1.
That decision was made after layout, 4
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3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Bechtel was the architect-6 engineer?
7 MR. ROS S :
Yes.
I 8
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, I thought maybe we knew.
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I 9
Whoever it was, I apolaud their decision.
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MR. ROSS The pumps are in dif f erent rooms.
It's 2
Just protected f rom the other by a wall, a leak-type barrier 3
missile protection, and it is single failure proof.
4 There are some -- as we get into the SER, there are 5
some aspects about the aux f eedwater s ystem that don't 6
fully meet current requirements.
For example, diverse motor 7
power boat pumps.
Both trains are powered by steam turoine.
8 Modern requirement would have a diverse motor 9
resource, electric motor, and a steam turbine.
And we comment 10 on this further in the SER.
11 Let's go to the next slide, which is a layout.
12 (Slide.)
13 And we are approximately on page 6 now in the SER.
14 I have put a bid more detail on this slide than we have 15 shown you because it br*ngs up the events that took place 16 about a week ago.
And I feel sure that there will be some 17 questions.
13 The principal f eatures of the aux f eed system, in 19 fact, the re we re two tra ins.
Normally, they're allowed to
^
20 take water from what's shown here as condensate storage 21 tanks, each 250,000 gallo ns.
22 That portion of the system is not seismic class 1.
23 What is indicated as SW No. I near the bottom and SW No. 2, 24 the service water system, is se ismic cla ss 1.
And if chere 25 is a f ailure due to seismic or other event, it cuts off the C-
'I bdb
0 4
9 3761.04.2 gsh I
condensate storage tank.
The pressure switches will 2
detect loss of water and swit.a over to the seismic class 1 3
system.
4 These pressure switches shown on your diagram were 5
among those reported in the recent LER as being somewhat 6
out of calibration to the point where they would not have 7
performed a function.
3 If you look at the connection from the condensate 9
storage tank that tees in and goes into either aux f eed pump, 10 either of those switches arranged in a 2 out of 2 logic on
.11 low pre ssure, if you get down to the set point which 12 indicates the condensate storage tank is about out of water, 13 then it closes some valves and opens some other valves to la put the service water in f eeding the suction supply.
15 Proceeding up just to right before you enter the 16 pump, there is an addition on a pair of pressure. omitches 17 and one out of two logic says that if the pressure is low, IS even lower than the otners, then it would shut the pump off 19 by turning o ff the steam to the steam turbine.
20 These were put in to protect the pump from its 21 ceing out of water.
22 Of these e ight switches, five were out of 23 c al ibr a tion, and.some of them were, recalibrated and some of 24 them were replaced.
25 Ihe discovery was made on May 21st.
On June 15, Mr.
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4 761.04.3 10 gsh i
Keppler -- a letter was sent to Mr. Keppler dated June 15, 2
reporting it as an LER.
3 dhen we get into. the lie side of the story, there 4
will be more on that.
It turned out it had what I would 5
call a relatively benign and there was no deliberate attempt 6
to obscure reporting it to us.
At least that's our 7
c o nc lus io n.
3 As you go into the discharge side of the auxiliary 9
f eedwater pump not shown on here, there are new flow meters, 10 one portraying going into the steam generator.
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Upstream or downstream of the 12 cross-overs?
13 MR. R055: I believe -- you can't tell by looking at 14 this, but I believe it is between the last end and the 15 stsam generator.
Let me see if Dale knows what that is.
16 Da l.e o r Co n, do you know where physically the 17 f eedwa t er --
13 VOICE: I think downstream of the --
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: That would be the sensible. point 20 to put it.
I think that's wnere most of the piping 22 is, despite what the graph may indicate.
23 Okay.
Now that we have gotten oriented on the 24 f eedwa ter system, starting cn page 3, there were a few 25 improvements.
?ast experience has shown that the speed OI Il,t 1L t
761.04.4 11 gsh I
controller could contri' ute to oscillating and oversp eed.
o 2
So a special circuit was put in the speed controller 3
to make it a more stacle device.
We looked at that.
It's 4
called a dynamic break.
We concluded that it ought to work.
5 We also, in part -- it's where you had the 6
stipulation that you install the f ull measurement devices.
7 They put on the same clampetron flow meter system that 6
Rancho Seco did.
9 We f ound a little more homework since Rancho Seco.
10 We can discuss how that works if there's any commission 11 interest.
12 CO MMISSIONER KENNEDY: You might take two seconds 13 anc dispe ll the fog.
All right.
Dale, why don't you come 15 up to the loudspeaker or microphone.
16 VOICE: Do you have a slide?
17 MR. R(ISS: One of the back-up slides is one that IS shows --
19 VOICE: The transducers pipe?
20 MR. ROSS: The flow meter to the steam genere:or.
21 (Slide.)
22 MR. ROSS:
All right.
There it is.
23 VOICE: There it is.
As you can see, we have a 24 p ipe.
Basically, tnis is a clamp-on flow meter.
The 25 transducers go on tne outside of. the pipe.
You don'c have to n :11 e <l U/ I
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F761.04.5 12 gsh I
break the pipe at all.
2 What the transducers do is -- let's say that the 3
upstream one sends a signal to the downstream one and tnen 4
af ter raceipt of that signal, the downstream one transmits 5
a signal back to the upstream transducer.
6 No w, basically, you are detecting a time dif ference 7
caused by the actual fluid flow.
The reason that you send 3
one in one direction and one in the other direct. ion, 9
theoretically, you could do it by sending a signal in one 10 direction, but ycu would have problems, if the temperature 11 of the fluid changed or the density changed.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You have to know the velocity 13 of propogation and the m adium tnat was there. And that's la precably harder than the base measurement.
15 VOICE: It sure is.
So they send a measure to us, 16 a sonic beam back, and that basically cancels it out.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDR.IE It makes a difference.
13 VOICE: Yes.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Very good.
Myst ery dis pe lled.
20 Any questions?
21 (No response.)
22 MR. ROSS: Le t's go back to Slide 4,
then.
33 (Slide.)
24 Our concern then on evaluating the latest LER 25 Inf orma tion was that tne condensate storage tank could oe 0,
7 n.l L U
761.04.6 13 gsh I
drawn and be broadened down and the level -- from the pr e ssur e 2
switch that indicates level and does the automatic trans f er, 3
could either shif t too late or shift too early.
4 So what we wanted was for the procedures to require 5
that the le vel which is indicated separately in the control 6
room of the condensate storage tank be brought into part of 7
the procedures and the operator should monitor the le vel and 3
take appropriate manual action, if necessary.
9 We also thought that these switches ought to be 10 caliorated more frequently.
This was the first calioration
.11 pursuant to tech specs, and we have a commitment that the 12 switches.will be calibrated weekly for a month and tnen 13 based on that, we'll decide wnat to do next.
14 We also are going to do a post-mortem on a couple 15 of switches and see it we can see why they drif ted out of 16 calibration.
17 Not snown on here, an additional switch that was la in the steam pressure line f.eeding. one of the auxiliary 19 f eedwater pump turoines, was also found out of calibration.
20 With these changes wnich we mentioned on page 7 --
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
De nny,.before you leave 22 page 6, could I ask you, you mentioned there were 65 23 actuations of the aux feed system over, I gue ss, a year and 24 a nalf.
25 Is that an acnormally large numoer, or is that a ei, o
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761.04.7 14 gsh I
reasonaole number to expect?
2 M R. R(ISS : A good number of those would be test.
3 And this would oe wnen we tested the system, that component 4
failed.
5 I don't have it broken down into how many of them 6
were -- you know, the conditions where aux f eed was called 7
on was on purpose.
I do have a list of a suoset of ten 3
where they called on the system, not as a test but because it 9
was needed f or one reason or the other.
10 As far as the failure rate, it appears to me within
.11 the sane order of magnitude and what you would expect for 12 trains of this sort.
13 de didn't give la tt Ta ylor much time, but I would 14 l ike him -- Ma tt, come up and comment a little bit on the 15 derived failure rate.
16 MR. TAYLOR:
I understand that you had 3 out o f 65 17 there, Denny.
Is that co rrect.
13 MR. ROSS : Yes.
19 MR. TAYLOR:
That indicates roughly a f actor of 2 20 different than what we have predicted in the past for a 21 similar turoine train.
22 COMMISSIONER AMEARNE: Higher or lower?
23 MR. TAYLOR: A factor of 2 higher.
24 MR. ROS5: We don' t have de ta ils ye t, but we cc 25 intend at a meeting on the 20th of this month witn :ne S&M O '.
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761.04.8 15 gsh 1
owners group to discuss long-term compliance features.
And 2
one of them we are going to make every attempt to put on is 3
a generic methodology f or a ssess ing auxiliary f eedwater 4
sys tem reliability.
5 It is nentioned here and there in the long-term 6
orders, but it's not defined we ll.
I think it needs more 7
work.
We try to do some of this ourself in the B&W and CE S
s ys tems.
9 I think it would be more appropriate to try to 10 get the industry to do their own and let us review thcir work.
.11 So I hope when we come back on long-term orders, 12 we'11 have better inf ctmation than we have now.
13 C0 9MISSIONER AHEARNE 8 At the bottom or that page, 14 you mention that the licensing will perform corrective 15 actions and the f ailures in the compenents haven't 16 reoccurred.
bh 17 Mas the system been called on since those corrective C'
18 actions were taken?
19 MR. ROS32 Yes.
20 21 22 23 24 25 9l' bVb f
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16 5761.05.1 gsn 1
MR. ROSS: 5:arting f rom January 6,
'78, going up 2
through Feeruary 22,
'79, there were 10 events where, for 3
one reason or another, the auxiliary f eecwater was called to a
come on. Now you have to incex which ones are which.
5 COMMISS IONER AHEARNE: My question, as you mentioned, o
there were failures and that as a result of the failures, 7
corrective actions were taken, e
And then you go on to say, f ailures in the 9
components haven' t reoccurred. My only question is after the 10 corrective actions have been taken, has the system been 11 called on.
12 MR. ROSS: I believe the last one was January, ' 79,
13 and I s ee t ha t there was two calls on the auxiliary f eedwater 14 system since then.
15 But I believe that they also get picked up on a 16 mon:nly test, wnich wouldn' t show up in this list of ten.
17 With these adaec procedures of the operator and la witn the mucn more f requent calibration of the pressure 19 switches, we concludec they me t par; A of the oroer.
20 MR. MAZ2DAS: Excuse me.
Just to repeat a previous 21 point, my name is Jerry Ma:edas.
There have been demancs on 22 the system again because of testing of the sy stem.
Thi s 23 woulo be a demand.
24 I also jus: learned that ene of tho se three failures 25 wnica I celieve reper:ed as a oischarge valve fai.ure, las-e.
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17 761.05.2 gsn 1
nign: there was a test, a functional test of tne sy s t e m, and 2
there was a pparently a malf unction of the cischarge valve.
3 And the sta." hasn't really discussed this f ailure in detail 4
witn the a pplican t.
But that would be another data point.
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: A data point that perhaps has 6
not been en the positive side?
7 MR. MAZEDAS: Yes, sir.
8 MR. DENTON:
Le t me say i t's one that we will icok 9
into bef ore we take any final action.
10 MR. ROSS:
I gue ss we jus: learnec that in the last 11 five minute s.
12 MR. MAZEDAS:
The last 30 minutes.
13 MR. ROSS: Okay.
I wasn't aware of it.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Mr. Marecas in Nil.
15 MR. ROSS: Right.
Io COMMISS IONER AHEARNE: It's an informa:ional briefing, 17
'/ i c, a nd it goes two ways.
le
( Laughte r. )
Iv MR. ROSS: Let's move on to part 3 in the next slice.
20 (Slice.)
21 We're actually at a hiatus between sides.
We can';
22 have a particular sice of part 3.
23 de have alreacy talkea about the two-train auxiliary 24 f eedwater system.
Part 3 of :he order hac to do wi:h control 25 of :ne feedwater sys:em, and in particular, to eliminate :ne C1 Du7 J//
18 7c1.05.3 gsn I
integrator control system.
2 The re is a pistol grip switch on tne control console.
3 It has three po si ti on s.
I gue ss I should say it hac three 4
positions.
One was ICS control.
One of them was 5
auto-e ssential and one wa s manual.
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: This is wi th regard o auxiliary 7
d MR. ROSS: With regard to control of auxiliary 9
feedwater flow.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: The ICS continues to be an 11 operaole control circuitry for the secondary or main f eedwater?
12 MR. ROSS: Ine orders hac stated that you should 13 revise procedures to eliminate the aux unit.
Procedures were 14 revised.
Also, a mechanical stop was assembled over the 15 switch to preclude switching into ICS control.
le The plant would ordinarily run in the au to-e ssential 17 position. Under certain circumstances in the procedures,
!c the o perator, af ter initiation of aux feed, would switch 19 over to manual, de pending on the nature of the transien:.
20 He coulc -- tne wi.res are still tr.ere so he could unscrew 21 the detent or the stop if he wanted to, if he was so 22 motivatec, and violate procedure and use ICS.
23 We chin'< this is -
pencing the f ailure moces in 24 effect stucy on the I CS, wnic n i s par : of the long-term order, 25 we celieve tais mechanical stop is sufficien:.
e3 iOd i
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19 7c1.05.4 gsn 1
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So what you're sayir.g is that 2
right now, :ncre's an actual mechanical fixture en that whi ch 3
prevents it from being used to automatically control the 4
aux f eed.
5 MR. ROSS: That's correct.
6 And with that, we conclude tnat Part 3 of the order 7
was met.
Part C is the subject of the current slide, was 6
the control grade reactor trip, basec cn loss of main f eedwater or turbine trip.
y 10 The circuit was a little bit different for Davis-Sesse thani t was for the others.
The separation of the 12 control from safety was not well cefined at Davis-Besse cue 13 to the nature of the trip coils.
14 As shown on :nis diagram, you have a parallel series 15 a rra ngemen t.
If the PDS I and PDS 2 refer to pressure 16 diff efential switches on ma n f eedwater, and they're in series 17 Ir you lose both f eedwa te r and close that train, you would la energize a relay.
19 Now the relay that's energi:ec -- actually, four 20 of them -- is a qualifisc :la ss 1 -A relay.
Anc they are 21 tied in:o, in effect, a control grade circuit, since it's a 22 qualifiec relay.
23 We concludec tha; even : hough i; is hoo:<ed up in 24 the reactor protec tion sys;em, tha: there is no undue coupling 25 of control anc safety.
Oi' i ;; C) 4 O-
20 7o1.05.5 gsn 1
In o the r an ti ci pa to ry trips, we had -- the re we re 2
separate coils that were proviced.
The control grade took 3
one coil and the safety grace took the other.
4 Again, in tne long-term, this anticipatory reactor 5
trip system will be converting to the saf ety grade.
The 6
same two pick-ups, and there is the same rationale for 7
installing these two on the other plans.
6 And on page 12 of the SER, we conclude that thi s 9
circuit meets part C of the order.
10 Okay, let's go to slide no.
6, wnich carries us to
.11 part O of the order.
12 (511ce.)
13 Starting at the top of page 13 of the SER.
Wha t 14 we thought we would co en this pre sen ta tion was highlign; a 15 little oit more of the actual reactor operating training to programs, inclucing a few of the sample que stions and 17 answers on the wri tten exams.
Id I would like to empnasize some mechanical cifferences 19 between Davis-Sesse and the other plants.
20 Davi s-B e sse is a ra t sad lcop plant, wni ch T.e ans tha t 21 there is more liquid above the core to drain into the core.
22 If you have a transient, a loss of f eecwater transient or 23 a small break.
24 So :.nerently, there is more time to boil ccwn to 25
- ne top reactor fuel.
e1 1 JO
21 761.05.6 gsn 1
The make-up pumps at Cavis-Be sse are two se pa ra te 2
pumps.
They are of relatively small capacity.
On the other 3
loder loop Oconae class, the make-up pump and tne hig h 4
pressure pump are the same pum p.
5 The high pressure pum p a t Davi s-Be sse, there are o
two pumps.
T he.
shu t of f head is 1500 pounds.
Ac the Oconee 7
plants, the shut off head is about 2600 pounds.
o These cifferences mean that Da vi s-Be sse is 9
innerently more de pendent on aux feec, ultimately.
Ultimately, 10 they would need auxiliary f eecwater, altnougn they could go 11 a 01: longer before they had to have it.
12 Sooner or later, the auxiliary f eedwa:er woula ce 13 naeded to come in and cepressuri:e tne system enough to get 14 th6 high head pumps workings whereas, tne high head pumps 15 alone at the Oconee class could ccol the core for small breaks.
1$
COMMISSIONER >4EARNE: Piha t is the implication of 17 the 16D0 psi, as opposed to the muca nigher value?
Io MR. ROSS:.Nell, a small break coulc be pressuri:ed Iv to the point wnere, say, the quasi-equilibrium pressure was 20 lc00 pouncs and t..ere woulc be no high celivery and you would 21 jus; hang up anc boil of f anc eventually cover :ne core.
22 There is that potential.
23 COMMI SSIONER AHEARNE: I s t hi s 16CC unique to 24 Davi s-S e sse ?
25 MR. ROSSr Yes, in :he ' cones class.
Now wnen we e1
..u. I i
22 761.05.7 gsn I
start Lnto other classes of plans, otner vencors, you will 2
find --
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Tha t is unique 4
They can manipula te 5
some valves anc go to I SCO pounds by sending the suction o
water tnrcugh the low pressure pumps first.
You don't 7
ordinarily align pumps that way, bu t it can be done.
S COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Let me be su r e I understand 9
w ha t you say.
This is unusual or unique f or S&W plants?
10 Ma. ROSS: That's right.
Il COMMISSIONER KENNEDY : But it's commen in o ther 12 plants?
13 MR. ROSS: That's right.
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE What's the capability of the 15 c hargi ng pumps ?
10 MR. ROSS: A pre ssuriner saf ety valve, it's 100 17 GPM, one pump, anc 160 for the two pum ps cge ther.
It's no lo acdi tive because tney're gcing througn a ccmmen line.
19 Anc then as you ccme cown in pre ssure, it's a 20 ccuple r.undred gallons or so.
It's a very -- it's a f alling 21 head.
Precede charac teristic s?
22 New a: 14C0 pouncs, there's a cro ss-ove r.
The 23 Davis-5e sse pumps deliver more water per pump.
Selow laCC 24 pcunes in the aconee class of. cum es, the run-out is almos:
25 wice as much.
feu can get almost a thousand GPMs at, sa y,
C 1
I s
'dL
23 761.06.6 gsn 1
4C0 or 500 pouncs.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So if you're down low 3
pre ss ure --
4 MR. ROSS: Rignt.
The low pressure on 3&W doesn' 5
come in until aoout 300 pcunds.
So there is -- it would be 6
a fairly small, well defined creak that would gat you in this 7
pre ssure hang-u p si tua tion.
8 Also, the Cavis-Be sse
.a s almo s twice as much 9
relief capaci ty througn the pilet-operated relief valve.
When 10 we went thro ugn
.he --
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Denny, coes that mean :na; they 12 come out of a certain cla ss of small, I guess very small 13 break, that their best route out is the de pre ssuri:ation?
14 MR. ROSS: Yes.
Well, what we decidea was witn the 15 auxiliary f eecwater system having only steam as a acce of to power, in :ne snort-term, we wanted an alternate way to 17 cepressurize the system.
IS And wnat they came up witn was using :ne start-uo 19 pump.
They have an electric start-up pump.
It's not 20 seismic grade anc it's no t an off-site power.
Su: it is 21 capable of su pplying abou t 250, 3CO GPM to the steam 22 generator.
23 And if you ge t in in a half hour af ter a ;c tal 24 loss of f eedwater and if you turn on ene of the two ma'<e-up 25 pum ps and o ce n :he.30R'/ -- we ll, even if ycu don': open :ne n.,
,,7 51'
'UJ
24 761.05.9 gsn i
POR /, it will procably be all rignt -- then the system will 2
de pre ssuri:e anc the hign pre ssure pumps will come On.
3 So there is an alternate, and these are written 4
i n to the procedures.
5 We do believe that in the long-term, tnere should 6
be the f unctional equivalent of 100 percent electric 7
f eecwater pump.
6 In thi s re s pec t, we think the diversity of motor v
power will be backfit.
And we have no t ye t :aken ste ps to 10 implement t hi s.
Our SER says that we will require it.
The 11 mecnanisms of requiring it, sending a le tter saying, put it 12 in and give us a schecule, have not yet been impl emen tad.
l3 14 15 10 17 18 4
s 20 21 22 24 c
4.
I
) ij r
a 5761 25 i
i ELTZER
-6 mte 1 l!
CCMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Adding up all the dif ferences,
2, you conclude Davis-Besse is more dependent on satisf actory functior l
3 ing of the auxiliary feedwater system than other plants?
l 4i MR. RCSS:
It is more dependent.
l 5
COMMISSICNER GILINSKY:
Although that system seems i
i 6l to be in some ways better?
I 7;
MR. ROSS:
Well, contrasting it with Oconee, I wculd j
i.
say it's better than Oconee, which, until they volunteered 8
9 their electric pumps were all steam.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
are you saying contrasting it 11 with Oconee as it was or as it is ncw?
12 MR. RCSS:
Well, with the electric pumps.
See, the i
13 l Cconee, even the new electrics, neither the turbine nor the i
14 electric are seismic Class 1.
I 15 '
CCMMISSICNER A* EARNE:
I see.
d I
16 i MR. ROSS:
We haven't reviewed completely the l
17,.
electric c. umps.
If you icok at Slide 6 as kind of a read map I.
18 to the operator training, the next 8 cr 10 slides are all of l
19 them on the subj ect of training.
The first few items dcwn to 20 3 were mostly done by the utility, and they started in early 21 April.
t 22 There were teams -- Step 2 ILE reviewed.
There were 22 teams that went 20 the cperating plants and did review the 24 TMI-2 accident.
Chrencicgically, from mid-April tc new, ycu c..;a:.r., a.cor.rs. i nc.
25 would see simulated training.
The new prccedures were writtan, 01 1oc UJ
/ i
.te 2 26 i
l l
l' so it would be discussion.
The clant hasn't ccerated since 2;
I guess sene time in March.
There was formal training, and 3
this is dccumented, I believe, for about 20 hours2.314815e-4 days <br />0.00556 hours <br />3.306878e-5 weeks <br />7.61e-6 months <br /> of training.
i 4
And then the facility administered an exam.
I have scme l
5 slides illustrating what they covered.
There was an audit by l
6 !
NRC, NRR-I&E inter-office audit.
l 7!
Based on that, we noted some deficiencies.
Then I
i I
i 8
there was follcw-up training.
And the last item, the f acility i
9 audit, was an audit by Toledo Edison.
(
10 So that's kind of a road map on the tr aining.
Let's Il icek at Slide 7.
12 '
(S lide. )
1 1
13 l The tour main areas for the exam that was developed i
1 4
14 '
and administered by Toledo Edison covered the reactor coolant 15 ;
system, the safety features, =cstly high-pressure injection t
16,
equipment operation and when not to override it, the changes 17 in procedure, an6; then the auxiliary feedwater sys tems.
t la,
(S lide. )
19 l In Slide 8, a tv.eical exam uestien on theory.
What s
20 is shown here is all Toledo Edison information.
They formu-21 lated the question.
They formulaced the answer.
They lccked 22 '
at the answer and they graded it.
So this doesn't represent 23 anything other than NRC repcrting what the licensee did.
24 CCMMISSICUER AHEARNE:
What are you -- dc you have
.ce; ce, i a ee, en. inc.
25 any positica On, A, the questiens, the righ: kind Of 1il O, 1 uU i-
.te 3 l
27 i
I i
I guestions; 3,
whether you agree with their answers that they I
2 have posed?
3 MR. ROSS:
We looked at all of this.
I'm not saying i
4, we agree.
We compared tests with other people.
We did 1cck i
I 5
at the answers and the questions and the grading.
I i
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
So you are essentially I
7 agreeing that these are appropriate questions and the grading 8
is appropriate.
I 9
MR. ROSS:
That's right.
I'm just centrasting it 10 with a test that we might formulate in a few mcnths.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Let me ask you scmething that 12 has concerned me and applies not just to this case, but to all 13 l the other reactors where we folicw the giving of exams on i
14 '
TMI-2.
How are the exams made up and hcw does that relate to i
i 15 the classrecm instruction?
j i
16 In other words, I hope the situation isn' t that the re 17 is a standard package that is laid cut en the blackbcard, and 18 then you are asked to regurgitate it.
Is there scme check on i
19 that?
20 MR. RCSS:
In effect, are they trained On the exam 21 during the training --
22 COMMISSICNER GILINSKY:
I hope the answer is that 23 they are not.
24 MR. RCSS:
I'm Scing to ge: 3ruce to speak to it.
s s.eerse a.rer n. me..
c 2f, I don't see hcw they could be, because they started the TMI
'; i _
lU7
l
=
.te 4 i
28 i
l 1,
training a month or so before they ever even had a test.
)
2!
But Bruce?
3 MR. WILSCN:
Typically what would be done is they 4,
do have classrcom training sessions, and since the operators i
i I
l 5;
are on a shift rotation they do not get the exam all at once.
i i
6; They give several events and cover all of the shif ts at dif ferent i
I 7:
times.
i 3
I wouldn't state for a fact, but I believe in no case !
9 would they give tae exam right after, say, giving lectures all 10,
day long and giving the exam right there in the af terncon; 11 probably several days later.
12 MR. RCSS:
As I recall, we didn't decide to require l
13 a uritten exam until early May.
Isn't that about the right i
f 14 l time?
And I think the other training had already taken place.
15 i I think the course material had alreadv been formulated bv.
l 16 then.
17 :
MR. WILSGN:
At Davis-Sesse, that 's true,
t IS '
MR. RCSS:
Let's go to Slide 9, which is a parallel 19 exam questien, answer and grading on the system.
20 (S lide. )
21 In this case, verifying that when the auxiliary I
22 feedwater is tcld to ccme on, hcw do you verify thac it's 22
- cperating.
The acronym SFRCS is steam feedwater rupture 24 - control system, which is unique to Davis-Sesse.
l
.cs.s.e.rm =.cor es. rec. a 25 And Slide 10, analegcus questions, answers and 9)-
IOb
te 5 i
29 l
j!
grading procedures.
i I
2l (Slide.)
Let's leck at the end creduct of these written I
4 exams and grading distributions.
I S
(Slide. )
l 1
6 Broken into the senior cperators at the top half 1
7 and reactor operator licenses at the bottcm.
We see there were g
some less than 90.
After some en-shift training, retraining, 9
scme tcok a second enam.
10 COMMISSICNER AREARNE:
A different exar.?
i 11 MR. RCSS:
Yes.
12 And there is one persen, if you lcok on the operator _ ;
t i
13 licenses, fourth from the bottcm, did not make 90 on the second 14 exam, ei ther, and he went into the requalification program.
I i
15 don't know when ne will retake his tes*
16 (Slide.)
j 1
17 Okay.
On Slide 12 we describe what we did in our la '
audit, which pretty much parallels the training program.
This 19 would be selecting about 40 percent of the reactor cperaters 20 and having all discussions with them en these five subjects, 21 what they understecd about TMI-2, what they wculd expect :c 22 see en small break LCCA and so on.
- 3 We did nct separately give a written exam.
Sc we 24 fermed a conclusion as to the adequacy of the training prcgram
.c a.cer.i a.comn, inc.
- S based en cur cral audits.
l
'C D1 1-u) s ;._
30 1
ee i
t I'
CCPMISSICNER AHF.JuniE:
Who selected the operatcr 2l that you talked to?
1 3'
MR. RCSS:
I guess the Operator Licensing Branch 4
examiner who did this is Bruce voger, and he's not here.
He's 5
on vacation.
6 Bruce Nilson was speaking.
But Tom Tambling was there.
I i
7; Tom, do you recall how the operators were selected for the i
i I
a audit?
i 9
MR. TAMELING:
It was to a large extent random.
10 There were several cperators that he picked specifically 11 because he had given them the license examination, given them 12 their license examination, and he wanted to see, you knew, how t
i 13,
they had come along.
But outside of that, it was basically a l
14 I randem selection.
i 15 He =icked coerators on varicus shirts, getting all l
i t
16 the shifts.
17 MR. RCSS :
I guess I would have to ask the Commission,!
13 Slides 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 are =cre details on the nature 19,
of the oral audit, and I don' t kr.cw that there's any particular 20 need to go through these.
They're just =cre details.
If 21 you're interested, we can elabcrate.
22 COMM SSICNER AEAEiE:
Ycu mean the points that(vou
/*
i 22l discusse:
24 MR. RCSS:
Yes, during the cral audit, right, which ace Jocerel R ecor'srs, t ec.
25 13 pretty much the same peints that we ccvered cn the cther
<; i 's 1i0
31
.te 7 I
slides.
2,
.G. SNYDER:
I have a questien.
Was the exam given 3
at the same time for everyone or as they came in en the various 4
shifts?
i 5
MR. WILSON:
I don't know the question.
6' MR. ROSS:
Ecw was it given at Rancho Seco?
What i
7.
procedure was follcwed?
3 MR. TAMBLING:
I didn' t bear the question.
i 9
MR. SNYDER:
Was the exam given at the same time 10 fer everyone or was it given as the men came in on their ncrmal Il assigned shift?
12 MR. TAMBLING:
I'm not pcsitive.
I can't give you l
13 :
a pcsitive answer on that.
i I
14 '
MR. SNYCER:
It was the same exam.
Everybcdy got r
Ic ene same exam.
I 16 MR. TAMBLING:
There were several exams formulated, 17 ;
as I remerter.
There was such -- as I remerter, the situaticn i
13 was that they attempted to have several exams, so that, vcu 19 know, a series of questiens, so that the operators taking the 20 first series couldn' t go cut and tell the answers to the next 21 cne.
But I don't remerter the exact details on that one.
22 CHAIRMAN HINCRII:
Denny, if there are not specific 22 questiens on these :.tems on -he NRC audit, why don': we run --
d
.i u s t slash the viewe.rac.hs?
Whv. dcn':.rcu skic these viewe.rac.hs?
.c. e.e.,e a.co, m. me.
e MR. RCSS:
I believe you can curn off the viewgraph
/l
4
~
\\te d l
32 l
l 1
1 machine new.
That's all the slides.
2l CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
May I ask a question about 1
3 operators?
In the answer to a set of questions that Mr. Centon 4
and Mr. Stello had sent me earlier in June, they said the rate i
5 of operator errors has not decreased, as would normally be l
6, expected with the gaining of operator experience.
The rate I
7 has remained the same.
In fact, it may have increased slightly.,
I i
3 Do you have any cem=ents on the overall quality of 9
the cperators based on that?
r 10 MR. KEPPLER:
I think, Commissioner, the rate of 11 cperator errors was high through January through March.
This i
12 was one of the f actors that led us to schedule the meeting i
i l
13,
that we did and to express our concerns that the grade of I
I 14
- cperator errors had not declined at this facility.
Since that i
i 15 time, of course, the plant has been shut down, and it's really 16 not a very. geod opportunity as such ec judge the numbers of i
17,
operator errcrs at this point.
i la I can say since April there have not been sericus 19 operator errors that have occurred.
20 CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
It hasn't,been operating.
21 MR. KEPP LER:
There has been surveilance testing 22 going en during this period of time.
Sc ycu get an cppcrtunity 23 see scme performances of the cperatcrs this way.
,l 4-Cne of the areas tha: _ tnink is an impcrtan:
I tce#.we aeoemn. inc. t 25 element that I was gcing to go into a little bi later --
h ) _.
ll2 l
te 9 33 i
l lll COMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
I was really more fccused cn ---
2 in Denny's review of these tests, the reflection and his i
3I previcus comment might have led scmeone to infer that the overall l
4 quality of ocerators was icw.
And I was wenderine whether t
t 5
these tests and oral discusslor.s that you had, whether that I
t l
6l came throuch.
I i
7' MR. RCSS:
We saw no such trend.
Not all of the i
i 1
3 errors that were made were made by licensed cperators, either.
9 I'm sure that there were some non-licensed --
i i
10 '
MR. KEPP LER:
That's an important point, thcugh.
11 '
Most of the errors do occur by auxiliary operators, who are 1
t 12 ecuipment operators but are not licensed by the NRC.
i 13 l CCMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What's the nature of those l
l i
14 errors?
Let's elaborate on these.
l i
15 '
MR. KEPPLER:
Valving type errors or system alignment i
16 i type errors, failure to conduct certain tests, that type of 17; thing.
13 CCMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
And what surveillance over I
those auxi'iary cperators is exercised by the shif t superviscr.
19 '
a 20 MR. KEPPLER:
I think in general what they have is 21 precedural control to deal with chese things, and I think this 22 has been an area that to us has 'ceen a matter Of concern, chat 23 cperatcr er crs have cccurred and che 1 censee is implementing 24 scme changes, bcth procedurally and in special reviews cf Leas CSJW:8 fit A DOQr*Sr1, lMC.
25 that I am he would reduce the number Of cperaccr errcrs.
I I
/1 L.
34
.te 10 I
i 1'
MR. TAMBLING:
Can I add to that?
Scme of these t
2, errors, not only are they licensed operators or equipment 3
operators or auxiliary operators; they include the INC, such 4
things as shorting out a module when they are reinstalling the l
5 module or getting -- turning the wrong switch.
So that it's a I
6, cross-section of pecple that are causing it.
I 7'
New, a lot of the operator personnel errors are also f
8 included in not meeting surveillance requirements.
When you i
i 9
have -- ch, sn example.
They have a computer program that 10 monitors quadrant tilt.
When that cc=puter program goes out, Il the operators are to do it manually, and they have to do it at 12 a frequency of every four hours.
Well, I think it was i
i i
13 23 percent of the personnel errors dealt with this type of I
.i ja,
thing, wnere tn.e operators weren't picking up unis :requency, 15 increased frequency of surveillance required.
16 So there is a bread cross-section here.
That
- ,e particular thing represents the biggest percentage c
- _ personnel 18 '
errors in the plant.
t 19 The licensee is taking ccrrective action in this 20 area to correct this problem, to give the cperators additional 21 aids to remind him that he has got an accelerated surveillance 22 requirement ccming up.
22 Oces that help you?
4 4
CCMMISSICNE2 KZNNICY:
Thank ycu.
- C3 89Ceftl StOOrT1, Inc.
- C M?.. K222722:
That is Mr. Ta!".b ling, whC _s the reactor O1, I 'I !
/i -
.te 11 35 I
~
i I
i i
l' inspector for Davis-Besse.
I I
2f MR. RCSS:
Okay.
The additional features of the l
3' order that we haven' t discussed in other cases.
Item F is the 4
1 4{
dual level set point, is needed because of the raised loop i
i Sl configuration.
As I said earlier, the auxiliary teedwater l
l l
l 6!
control switch is lef t in the auto essential.
If you have i
7j a transient, it calls on auxiliary feedwater.
For example, if I
8; all four reactor ecolant pumps trip and if the switch is left i
i 9'
there, it will autcmatically fill to the 120 X level.
And 10 tests have shown that that will overcool the system.
11 -
So the operator, seeing what was hapceninc and doint t
I i
12 some immediate action diagnostics, would switch over to the 13 l manual pcsition and control feedwater manually at the 35-inch i
i 14 l level.
l 15 l They intend to put in dual level set points such l
16 '
th a t -- and equipment has been ordered, but it's seismic i
17 j Class 1 and it has to get qualified and it's just not here i
18 yet.
You could control it at the 15-inch level until you've i
19 gotten dcwn to 1600 pounds.
That's when you turn on the safety injection, and then it would fill up to the 120-inch 20 21 level, and you wouldn' t have to =cve the pistol grip swicch 22 from auto to manual.
23 CCECSSIGNER IdiEARNE:
Hcw icng have they had 9.ac 24 en crder?
ice 4w:eral Aeporters, inc, ac MR. RCSS:
2 d:n't recall.
We did lock ince it.
c ',
' \\ '-
js,
I ite 12 36 i.
l 1l I don' t recall the exacr ordering date.
i l
2' COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think the problem was raised 3
about a year ago.
The issue was raised, certainly.
4 MR. ROSS:
Bob Reed, the Operating Reactors Branch i
5' chief, can help.
i 6
MR. REED:
Yes.
I'm not sure exactly when it was 7;
ordered.
But the design -- the agreement that it would be 8
installed or that they would ccmmit to install it was in f
9 December of last year.
The proposal of the design was in, I i
10 believe, late January or early February of this year.
And so l
11 you're talking abcut frem, I would say, early February until i
12 new, which is not an extensive time as far as this seismic i
13 qualified equipment is concerned.
l 3-
\\
d f
I I
l 16 17,
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 w s,e.,.
a.co m,.ine.
- t 4
/I e
' iv
37 761.07.1 gsn 1
MR. ROSS: Pending the dual level automatic, we 2
conclucec tne procedures they had in place was enough that 3
the operator could be trusted to switch as neeced.
4 Part G in the last portion of the order asked that 5
TECO submit an,bvaluation of the September'7 7 event in light 6
of TMI anc they did submit a rather brief comment. We 7
provide in our SER pages 31 through 34, an analysis done in a
a slightly dif f erent way.
9 In early April of this year -- I think it was 10 April 10, in the Chairman's testimony te one of the 11 Congressicnal committee s, the f orma t was taken acout what 12 eere the six even ts that either causec or increased the 13 severity at TMI.
14 Ne used that format and con tra sted the n w ha t 15 happened at Davis-Be sse with what happened at IM I.
There 16 were equipment failures that were similar and there were 17 operator ac tions that were similar.
Ic inere were some important differences. The 19 initiating transient woulc be an equipment failure in both places.
There's a different tran sien t, but nevertneless, 2:
it was an equipment malf unction.
22 At both places, the pilo t-o p e r a t ed relief valve 23 cpenec anc stuck open.
At Cavis-Se sse, it stucx open f or 24 20 minutes cefere it was isolated.
At TMI, about 2-1/2 hour s.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Page J2, tc p, you mention that Cl' -
1 } ~/'
38 5761.07.2 gsn i
Davis-Be sse modified by the operator and cetter status and 2
positicn of the relief value.
3 What modification was that?
4 MR. ROSS: Instead of a pcwer on and power off 5
se tting, wnich is -- a le ss ambiguous limit switch is put in o
on the pilot portion of the stamp.
There's a mechanical 7
switch as contrastec with this -- is the power going out there 6
or no t?
v But it is still on the pilo t pcr tion.
10 CHAIRMAN HENORIE: It is still a stage away from 11 the actual --
12 MR. ROSS: That's right.
I think the only unamciguous 13 indication is procaoly a flow meter.,
I don't know of 14 any other indication unambiguous.
That's the most 15 direct.
. urther i.aprovements in this area are lo MR. CENTON:
17 recommenced by the lessor earned group.
le COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I was just curious as to the 19 mcdification.
2C MR. ROSS: They are one step better than TMI 2.
21 COMMISSIONER AFEARNE: So they ac tually have something 22 on ne stem which wculd indicate a closure action.
23 MR. ROSS: Of the pilo t i t se l f.
v 24 COMMISSIONER AMEARNE:
es.
25 MR. ROSS: Scme of the impcrtant -- an H. I w a s 01?
1 ] fJ
/i
t 39 i76 I.07.3 gsn i
terminatec at times at Davis-Besse.
Some of the im po r tan t 2
diff erences is the length of operation.
There was no 3
infinite operation at 100 percent of power.
The cecay heat 4
was different and the stored heat of the fuel was different 5
because of the lower power level.
6 Davis-Besse event was only running at 9 percent.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Do you have an estimate of a
w ha t woulc have happened had it been at the ICO percent?
9 MR. ROSS: The re has been no detailed analysis.
But 10 I don't see how -- I should have poin ted ou t on Davi s-Besse, 11 at least two pumps were kept running.
Only about 10 percent 12 of the primary system fluid --
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Whicn pumps are you talking 14 about?
15 MR. ROSS: The two primary ccolant pump -- water in 16 each lecp.
Only about 10 percent of the contents of the 17 primary system left thrcugh the p0RV, wnch is no t anywhere la near enough to uncover the core.
IV The pumps kept pum pi n g.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: They got the valve closed again?
21 MR. ROSS: They go t the valve closed in time.
So 22 I don't see, even ICO percent that there could have been any 23 fuel camage.
You can always go one Jterp further anc say, 24 well, what if he had closed it, in 20 minutes, had he ceen 25 at ICO percent pcwer because of other trauma that nignt have l
llh
t 40 2761.07.4 gsn 1
been there.
2 COMMISS IONER AHEARNE: Sut there were voids in the 3
core, weren't tne re ?
4 MR. ROSS: My reference now as to the November 14th 5
licensee submi ttal, they say that there may have been voids 6
ir. the core.
There were voids in the system.
And they 7
contrast core voids as being just circulating voids with 6
actual nuclear film boiling which they don't think occurred, 9
and I don't, either.
10 So it proccoly wa sn' t boiling in the coolant, but there procaoly we re voics, just because it was pumping it 12 around the system.
13 If you look at the pump flow meters, there don' t 14 seem to be any unusual primary system flow anomalies.
15 The flow rates seem to be reasonably steady.
16 COMMISS IONER AHEARNE: Now given that you -- so you 17 are saying that there were voids formec, bu: they cian't IS lead to the boiling in the core.
19 MR. ROSS: Secause the heat flux was tro low.
20 COMMISSIGNER AHEARNE: If it were ICC percent, w hen 21 t ha t ha ppened, wha t would ycur conclusion be ?
22 MR. ROSS: Well, I would expect -- now the flow rate 23 here end the quality was still very hign.
tne linear velocity 2d in the core -
you snould have hac a gcod hea t transfer 25 ccefficient.
The ne a ; f l ux -- oh, parcon me.
At the ICC 1 J I' O,
'i
' L L)
41 701.07.5 gsn I
cercent?
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
3 MR. ROSS: Well, t he power to flow ratio was much 4
higher af ter the transient than bef ore.
I would't expect 5
coiling.
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Even if you get boiling, you 7
still may be a long way f rom fuel damage, which I think, e
everything I know about TMI 2 says that if they close the 9
relief valve in 20 minutes, even witn everything else they IC hac cone up to that poi n t and then had gone ahead anc run 11 the HPI to get the pressure back up solid and ge; their 12 recir; pumps star ted, ;ha t there would have been either no 13 fuel camage or just a few leakers, and so on.
14 MR. ROSS: I can't prove it, but I suspec t -- I 15 think I could prove it. I don't have the information now.
I lo suspect you coulo procably run Davis-Sesse at full power a:
17 the flow that it was having with one pump each loop.
It 15 would be boiling.
It would run T. ore like a SWR.
Surface 19 temperature might ce ICCO degrees or so.
2C But I certainly woulcn': expect any fuel camage.
21 MR. TAYLCR: We also have to remember we have 22
, auxiliary feedwater available at time zero, virtually time 23
- ero in one steam generator.
24 So this would have providea ccol-down neec to the 25 pre ssuri ec reactor.
O, ;
17i
>Ll
42 3701.07.6 gsn 1
MR. ROSS: Tha t's ano ther half point of similarity.
2 One of the two-train feecwater systems.
One dicn't function 3
f or the first la or so minutes.
The speed governor 4
malfunctioned and tne o pe ra tor had to go over manually and 5
raise t he speed up high enough to get the pum p to cump.
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay.
Why don't you continue?
7 MR. ROSS: Okay.
That concludes the 5
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Let me just ask you one of 9
the se points that you list, the ma tter of containment 10 isolation.
And one of those six poin ts ref ers to highly 12 radioac;1ve water f rom the relief valve, discharge pum ped ou t 13 of a containment, and so on.
14 I thought we no longer believed this to be the 15 case.
16 COMMISS70NER AHEARNE: That was certainly what 17 Gibson said at the result of the investigation.
15 MR. ROSS: I haven't tracked TMI 2 sequence of 19 events tnat closely.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY : So you don't know that?
21 MR. ROSS: No.
22 MR. CENTON:
That certainly is what IAE briefed the 23 commi ssion on.
That first few minu te s cicn' t have e lot of 24 radioactivity in it.
25 I guess for myself I'c ce a li: le ceu;icus acou
? ') L 7
u.
43 7el.07.7 gsn I
saying that what the actual cause of that contamina ted wa ter 2
in the auxiliary cuilding was until we're able to get in to 3
see some of that.
4 Rememcer, he ruled out si phon s.
He put in some 5
leaking relief valves.
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: At the moment, wo ul dn' t it
'e better to say that we now have had several versions of 7
c 5
W ha t could have b een the cause.
Y CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes.
I guess what you pref er 10 to say in the safety evaluation is that the outga ssing f rom this wa ter, and so o n an d so on, was one of the sources 12 of the off-site release rather than the principal source, 13 s ince t ha t's not so clear at the momen t.
14 COMMISSIONER DENTON: That's right.
15 MR. ROSS: Ac tua lly, if we put this in quo tes, then 16 we woulcn't have to enange it because that's what i. is.
17 I t's a quote frca the April 10 th --
13 (Laugnter.)
19 MR. ROSS: I'm not trying to --
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Geoc thinking.
21 MR. ROSS: What happened on Cavis-Ee sse?
22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Take his name, Len.
I think we've 23 got a cancicate for the counsel's office.
24 (Laughter.)
25 MR. ROSS: The wa ter was ccming cut at accut a 7
Ci' 1 '; J
'i
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44 761.07.8 gsr.
I thousand gallons a minute.
And we were aole to i sola te it in 2
about three minute s.
3 So, in theory, i f t he pum ps, some pumps hac been 4
p um ping, if they can pump a thousand GPM, if you're just about 5
ready to pump, then in theory, on Davis-Sesse, 30C0 gallons 6
could have lef t before isolation.
7 CD4MISSIONER AHEARNE: Davis-Sesse isolates, as you S
say, Arthur, when the high pressure pumps go on, or a t v
4 psi?
10 MR. ROSS: That's right, wnich is a be tter way to do 11 it.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I don' t wan t to uncerplay the 13 importance of con tainment isolation.
It did seem to expre ss 14 a view on what we thought ha ppened at TMI and that was 15 different f rom the one presented on I&E.
16 MR. ROSS: Rignt.
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY : You want to ceal with that.
15 MR. DENTON: Tha t's a good poin t.
19 MR. ROSS: We're 1 coking in to tha t.
20 21 22 23 24 25 Oi, l '/ /1
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761.08.1 45 gsh 1
MR. ROSS: At this point, I think Jim Keppler has 2
some points on the other part of our story.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I have a couple of questions.
4 You mentioned on page 23 that the staff review is the result 5
of the order, as well as any generic weaknesses discovered 6
in the written exams.
7 Were any generic weakne.sses discovered in the 8
written exams?
9 MR. ROSS: I don't belie ve so.
Bruce, dld you get 10 any indication?
.11 MR. MILSON: No.
I talked with the tra in ing s pervisor at Davis-Sesse several days ago on that.
And 12 u
13 what they did, if there we re generi: wea kn e ss es, they were 14 identified and corrected because he said he formed a matrix 15 of' the areas that we re sought on the exam versus the response 16 from the operators, and tried to see where any of the general 17 problems were found.
18 And he didn't indicate to me that he found any, 19 but if..ey were, they were looking for it.
20 COMMISSIONER AHE ARNE: These weaknesses would have 21 ceen weaknesses in the tests or weaknesses in what?
22 MR. WILSON: They would ce weakne ss es in the 23 response of the operators.
24 COW 4ISSIONER AHEARNE: All right.
25 MR. RO SS : Bruce, before you leave, there is sometning O1 1'c fJ
i761.08.2 46 gsh I
tha t we didn' t p ut in the SER because it was something that 2
wasn't done at. this plant diff erent than the others, and we 3
.ought to bring it out.
4 The other B&W utilities have had, for one reason 5
or another, have hired external consultants to help in the 6
training.
That was not done at this site. And our review 7
concluded it wasn't ne ce ssary, out I thought I would bring S
it out.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Could you expand a little bit 10 on why you thought it wasn't necessary.
.11 MR. ROSS: Tha t's why I had Bruce stay at tne 12 m icro pho ne.
13 (Laughter.)
14 MR. WILSON The basic reasoning was their history 15 of training in the past, as evidenced by the result of the 16 licensing examinations has been very grod.
They only had 17 three f ailures out of 39 exa:ainations.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Who wrote those examinations?
19 MR. WILSON: NRC.
They did have sp'e cia l 20 preparation for this incident and distributed training 21 materials.
They had on-shif t discussions and two days o f 22 f ormal classroom training.
The classrcom training involved 23 all of the subjects we were l ock ing a t, small break 24 phencmena, LOCA procedure.
25 In addition, these dere taught by the on-site nuclear
,i' 2b
761.08.3 47 gsh I
performance engineer who tended --
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Let me go bac k to still that 3
earlier point.
4 You are saying that the reason you didn't think it 5
was necessary for them to. hire an outside consultant was 6
because of the good performance on the test.
7 MR. WILSON: No.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Now let me repeat this quote, 9
whic h 15 from -- the response from Mr. Denton and Mr.
10 Stello,.who point out that in the past, and I think Mr.
J1 Keppler had also just commented on it, that the operator error 12 at that plant had been rather unusually high.
They had not 13 decreased, which I guess would have been a counter to the 14 fact they may do well on tests, but in actual operation, 15 they weren't do ing that.well.
16 It would appear that that would have been a prime 17 candidate for an outside consultant.
18 MR. WILSON: Well, we based our jucgment on the 19 quality control concept.
de looked at the end result and 20 concluded that --
El COWWISSIONER AHEARNE: I would have thought the end 22 result would be how they actually operated at the plant.
23 MR. KE PPLER : CommLssioner, aga in I think an imcortant 24 point is that the majority of the personnel errors we re done 25 oy unlicensed operators at Davis-Se sse during tha; perioc. I D1 1
'~
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'761.08.4 gsh I
don't think it's a reflection directly of the licensed 4g 2
operators.
3 CO MMISSIONER AHE ARNE : So that the licensed operator 4
errors were not signif icant, you're s aying?
5 MR. KEPPLER: I don't nave a breakdown specifically.
6 But if my memory serves me, they were a small portion of the 7
total.
S COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: All right.
9 COWWISSIONER KENNEDY: What specific -- are you going 10 to get around to talling us, Jim, something aceut the JI specific kinds of steps that they have taken?
12 MR. KEPPLER: To deal witn these things?
13 COMMISSIONER KEMiEDY: Yes.
14 MR. KEP?LER: I am prepared to, sir.
15 MR. DENTON2 I think it would be worthwhile to 16 Just mention a moment about. this operator training. It's 17 unfortunate that our examiner at this plant isn't here 18 today.
But normally, we don't take a mode of training for 19 the operators.
It was at Oconee tnat we felt th a t tne 20 operators wno had been trained oy the company really did 21 not understand the items of the order adequately.
Anc 22 that's wnere we recommended that they started using Outside 23 consultants to train them in the aspects of the order.
And 24 it's also wnere we raised _the passing grade up to a higher 25 grade.91-128
761.08.5 49 gsh 1
I think wnat Bruce was trying to say is that we 2
base our decision of adequacy which was based on personal 3
interviews of their knowledge of the aspects covered oy the 4
order, as opposed to looking oack at their total operating 5
capability,. which might be re-examined agaln through the 6
lessens learned sort of approach.
7 MR. ROSS 2 Okay, I think that we are ready to go 8
into the I&E portion now.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: You aren't going to go away, 10 though?
Ji MR. ROSS2 No.
12 MR. KEPPLER: Mr. Chairman, and commiss ioners, I would 13 like to take just a f ew minutes to summarize oriefly the 14 activities performed by group 3 in connection with tne 15 Davis-Be.sse plant that lead us to endorse the conclusion 16 by the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulatlon that the shut-down 17
. order can be lif ted and the reactor returned to coerstion 18 without undue risk to the p ublic heal th and saf e ty.
19 During the past three months, Regicn 3 has been 20 giving considerable inspection attention fo llcwing Toledo 21 Edison's act Lvites at Davis-Besse.
22 In.this regard, we have expended.c ver 1200 man-heurs 23 on-site since Three Mile Island, involving 14 di ff e re n t 24 inspectors, reviewing the licensees' program to comply with the 25 shutdown order, the IE bulletins that wa-=
<= sued to the 3&J Q
L 1 :
u i
761.08.6 50
~
gsh I
plants, and other commitments made by the licensee relative 2
to these matters, as well as any other issues that surfaced 3
during.this period.
4 With few exceptions, since AprL1 2, we have had 5
daily inspection coverage at the Davis-Besse site.
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I gather that phrasing says 7
that there is not a resident inspector.
8 MR. KEPPLER: There isn't yet, but there will be.
9 Sut we are providing the equivalent of or greater than 10 resident inspection coverage at this time through the J1 regional o ffice.
12 We will be putting a resident inspector over there 13 later this summer.
We have assigned one.
He is here to day.
14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: When will he be on site?
15 MR. REYES: I'll be on site before the end of 16
- August, 17 MR. KEPPLER: Thank you.
I'm glad he connitted 18
. himself.
19 (Laughter.)
20 But based on this inspection e ff ort, it is our 21 conclusion the licensee has complied with the actions required 22 by the shutdown order and the I&E bulletins and we can go 23 Into the inspect ion activity should you desire it in greater 24 detail.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I'll be inte res ted in 9i.
'50
i761.08.7 51 gsh I
understanding what equivalent level inspection means.
2 MR. KEpPLER2 Certainly.
3 In addition to the order and bulletin-related 4
matters, we have devoted considerable regional management 5
supervisory attention toward upgrading ths licensee's 6
regulatory perf ormance, de have met. Meetings were held with 7
top corporate management representatives on April 18 and May 8
31 to candidly address NRC's concerns and to define a 9
program of prompt and long-term corrective actions to improve 10 the saf ety and compliance performance of this licensee.
.11 It is my personal observation that Thr ee Mile 12 Island has had a ve ry therapeutic e ff ect on this licensee, 13 as wall as some of the other licensees in Region 3 14 particularly with respect to attitudes in dealing with 15 identified problems.
16 In this regard, response to our expressed concerns, 17 the ccmpany has scoped its program of corrective actions 18 broadly and has been most receptive towards problems that 19 we have brought up in terms of dealing with them.
20 It is my view at this time that Toledo Edison is 21 being responsive to our concerns.
de are going to be meeting 22 with them frequently and monitoring their activities to 23 ensure tha t the cocrective measurss are timely and eff ective.
24 In this regard, we have the next meeting scheduled 25 for the week of July 16.
S ^,
bl
~
761.08.8 52 gsh I
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Is this the normal procedure 2
that you have with 'll your licensees, these several management 3
meetings over a period of a few months?
4 MR. KEPPLER: Well, my approach, commissioner, is 5
that I meet with each licensee at least once each year and 6
more frequently if required.
I go througn at that annual m eting, if you can call it that, through the licensee's 7
e S
regulatory performance, their compliance history, their LER 9
history, and we talk about areas that we feel need 19provement.
10 In the case of Davis-Besse, we have had more
.11 problems there than we have had at most u t il it ie s.
12 CO MMISSIONER AHEARNE : 1s there another utility, 13 another plant?
You don't need to give the name.
But is there 14 another plant that you have had to go through as many 15 management meetings?
16 MR. KEPPLER: Yes.
This experience of observing 17 myself at management meetings is not unique.
IS COMMI.SSIONER GILINSKY: Could you tell us wnat 19 plant that is?
20 MR. KEPPLER: I did it with Commonwealth Edison, at 21 all three of the Lr operating stations, and I've had a very 22 similar meeting with American Electric Power and D.C.
Cook.
23 So I think it is a ma tt er o f --
24 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I'm not sure wnat you are 25 saying, Jim.
Are you saying that Davis-3 esse is not uni:ue in 01.
1 y7 i'
JL
~
761.08.9 53 gsh 1
its level of performance, but, indeed, s imilar to a.11 the 2
others?
3 I didn't.think that's what you were saying, but it 4
sounds like it.
5 MR. KEPPLER: No.
I am saying -- Co mmi ssioner 6
Gillnsky asked if I had ever had to do this previously, de 7
had serious problems with Commonwealth Edison through, oh, S
'76 and ' 77, which resulted in a similar type of approach, 9
if you will.
10 More frequently, I would say that American Electric
.11 Power's performance at D.C. Cook with the operation of Unit 2 12 has taken a pattern similar to Davis Besse and we are 13 dealing with that issue, too.
14 I guess to try to put it into perspective a lLttle 15 bit, this plant went -- Davis Be sse went in operation or at 16 least commenced power operatlon sometime in August or 17 Septembe r in 19.77.
13 Now at the end of the first year o f operation, 19 which was not untypical from what we saw of other utilities, 20 other new utilities in the busine ss, the first time with 21 the nuclear plant, the kinds of dif ficulties that were 22 experienced and the approaches taken by the company were 23 not dissimilar f rcm what we had seen before.
24 de met with them -- I think it was in August of 25
'78 -- to so rt of let them.know that we were expect ing to s ee r',
177
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'^
3761.08.10 54 gsh I
a turn-around in this pe rformance, that the numbers of 2
repetitlve equipment problems should start decreasing.
The 3
numbers of LERs, in general, should start decreasing.
4 Personnel errors and the kinds of break-in period, the 5
learning curve Was, in our view, at a point where we should 6
start seeing better performance.
7 Now this be.tter performance did not come about --
8 you might say that we were bothered by it, but perhaps not 9
bothered enough by it to do a heck of a lot about it, until 10 I guess it was in March that we became aware of some events
.11 that occurred over there -- valving errors with the E.CC5 12 system and an evaluation that was done by the licensee 13 in connection with the high pre ssure injection s ystem, where 14 the system was degraded.
15 That really got to bother ne.
And at that t im e, we 16 scheduled another meeting with the licensee.
You might say 17 it was a threshold that was reached by me to get af ter the 18 licensee agaln.
19 We had. this meeting seneduled and we had to defer 20 it because of the Three Mile Island accident involvement of 21 people.
And that meeting was subsequently held on, I gue ss, 22 April 18th.
And at that meeting. I met with the chairman 23 of the board, chief e xecutive. o f ficer, end we discussed the 24 unde siracle trend of non-compliance that had occurred there.
25 We discussed the prcblems with LEES, the numbers of personnel
(; ;.
1 ( /3 J
/ s'
761.08.11 55 gsh I
e rrors that were occurring.
2 In fact, it would acpear to us to be even an 3
increase in the number of personnel e.rrors.
And we felt that 4
equipment prcblems weren't being dealt with in a timely 5
f ashion.
Design changes weren't being dealt with properly 6
and promptly and we told the license e at that time performance 7
had to change and we wanted him to come back to us with a 8
plan of action for dealing with these matters.
9 We also -- I had my staf f also prepare a program of 10 ac t ion s which they felt was essential, which I was ready to Ji ratchet at the licensee, if you could call it that, in terms 12 of getting the corrective actions taken.
13 Now the licensee came to our o ffice on May 31 st 14 and outlined a program of corrective actions, which to me 15 was quite important, because it told me -- it convinced me, 16 if you will, that they understood the scope and depth of the 17 problem.
18 The program of actions that they out1.ined I felt 19 were pretty responsible and I'm prepared to go through these 20 with you.
21 CO MMLSS IONER AHE ARNE : Please.
22 MR. KEPPLER: I.will.
23 Just putting it in some kind of perspective, I.would 24 say that they precably saw the thing at 9C percent of what se 25 saw, and we did ask them to take en sem.a other things as par:
01 17c i
JJ
761.08.I2 56 gsh l
0$ this, which they are doing.
2 Sut why don't I go into the se things f or you?
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10
.11 12 13 14 15 16 17 3
IS 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 9 ) 5' l36
5761.09.1 57 pv i
Thls meeting, by the way --
2 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
May 31 meeting?
3 MR. KEPPLER:
Yes.
Involving the present chief 4
operating officer of the company, Mr. Johnson, and other key 5
people, and did involve three representatives of the State of 6
Ohio.
They have beccme quita interested.
7 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What's the nature of their 3
interest, and wnat agencies in the State of Ohio?
9 MR. KEPPLER:
State of Ohio representatives were:
10 the director of the Environmental 9rotec tion Agency, 11 Mr. McElvoy1 the director of the Department of Energy, 12 Mr. Ryan; and their state liaison o f f icer, Mr. W1.llia ms.
13 The ir interest, quite frankly, is related to the 14 governor, who asked them to perform an assessment as to whether 15 the y think anything additional ought to be done over and above lv what NRC is dolng.
I have been in touch with Mr. McElvoy 17 almost constantly relative to these matters, and ! tnink he's IS very appreciative of the way we have been keeping him. informed 19 and so forth.
20 There is not any problem with the State of Ohlo 21 right now, at least with the governor's office.
22 The program that was outlined by the company dealt 23 with control areas, staffing, training, and co rrecticn of 24 equipment preolems, and plan.: operations.
25 Now le me ge t specific with you.
h)'
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58 761.09.2 pv i
The company has initiated e fforts to augment 2
staffing.
In this regard, they are adding 12 addition al 3
staffing position in their engineering of fice, and 22 openings a
at the plant.
5 COMMISSIONER AHE ARNE:
Now, are these new positions?
6 MR. KEPPLER:
These are new positions.
7 Of these 34 positlons, 22 are technical positions.
3 COMMI SSIONER GILINSKY:
How large is their technical 9
sta ff ?
10 MR. KEPPLER:
Tom, can you answer that?
J1 MR. TAMBLING:
The question, you have to define 12 whether you mean at the plant le vel or at the corporate level.
13 At the plant level they have engineers and technical people in 14 the various groups.
They have a tech section, and they have 15 engineers in the operations groups they have engineers in the 15 maintenance group.
A number o f engineers in this area.
17 Maintenance, INC, and operations is, of course, smaller than 13 the technical section.
These are supported by people at the 19 corporate level and their power engineering.
20 C07GIS3IONER AHEARNE:
Do they have an off site 21 engineering support group?
22 MR. TAMBLING:
That is the power engineering 23 superintendent, has people at the corporate level.
24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Do you have an idea of how 25 large a group this is?
ll ) I' ljb
59 i761.09.3 pv i
MR. TAMBLING:
In numbers there?
No.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Are we talking about five, 3
50, 100?
4 MR. TAMBLING:
If I were to hazard a guess, I would 5
say in the neighborhcod of about 20 at the corporate level.
6 MR. KEPPLER:
I. think, by comparison, Co mm iss io ne r,
7 I would say Toledo Edison is not as strong from an engineering 3
point of view as a number of the bigger utilities in Region 9
III, and I gue ss I view this in a positive way here, that they 10 are creating these positions ' ecause I think the y have largely o
.11 relied on consultants in the past here.
And I think this is a 12 step in the right direction.
13 One of the concerns that was very real to us was the 14 gap that existed between the plant and the engineering office 15 In terms of Identification of something that needed to be done 16 end the actual carrying out of that.
17 CD MMISSIONER AHEARNE:
So you f eel these additional la positions are people who would be needed?
19 MR. KEPPLER:
I.think so.
20 CCMMISSIONER AMEARNE:
Are they sufficiently n eeded 21 so that the plant shouldn't start to coerate until they are 22 filled?
23 MR. KE??LER:
No, I don't belle ve so.
I f eel that 24
-- I think when you take a look at it in conjunction with tne 25 other things that have heen done, 1: l e a ds.T.e to believe thet
/
4
/j
60 1761.09.4 pv 1
the program will represent an improved licensee operation.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I realize it.will lead to an 3
improved operation.
What I am asking you is :
Are those items 4
which are essent.ial so that unless they are met you can't reach 5
the threshold of saying that they are --
6 MR. KEPPLER:
I.think the key thing is to ge.tting 7
action when a probelm occurs, to have the licensee deal with it 3
either through consultants or through engineering.
And I 9
believe that this step will help over the long haul, but the 10 other s*.eps that are more immediate should improve that
.11 problem.
12 I might add also, with respect to the staf fing, tnat 13 the licensee, once this is do n e, will conduct a separte 14 In-house review on f uture manning requirements and 15 organizational. structures as part of it.
16 Another area let me touch on is procedures.
A group
!7 is being developed to centralize the preparation and 13 maintanance of procedures.
This has been a problem in the past 19 and different procedures have been coming cut of diff erent 20 departments of the operation, and not tied together.
This 21 group is going to ccordinate the control of drawings, and steps 22 are going to be taken to reduce the use of what was called 23
" temporary mcdifica 1cns to procedures," which we felt was an 24 area that was heavily abused in the past.
25 An outside censultant is being brougnt in to review 01 ian i
7U
E761.09.5 61 pv i
plant procedures for their adequacy.
The scope of tne review 2
will be designed to establish uniformity and a general 3
ucgrading of One procedures.
It was estimated that this would 4
take one to two T.onths to ge t under way at the time of that 5
las t meeting.
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Now, are the se -- in both the 7
question of this improvement in the way procedures will be a
handled and also the staffing, are these now definite 9
commitments that you have?
10 MR. KEPPLER:
That's correct.
.11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
So,. the y a r e items that.you 12 would f eel you would have sufficient commitment so that if they 13 don't get accomplished in the next f ew months, then what would 14 you do ?
15 MR. KEPPLER:
If the company did not carry through 16 these commitments, I would be in talking to my management about 17 shutting the operation down.
I treat these commitments like 13 the Ten Commandments.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Which one?
20 (Laughter.)
21 MR. KEPPLER:
I treat them religiouslyi let me say 22 it that way.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Continue.
24 MR. KEPPLER:
de have had some concerns, quite 25 frankly, in the area of direct management involvement.
They 4
761.09.6 62 pv I
have had some illnesses in their top management program.
They 2
have recently made some organizational struc tures wnicn I feel 3
will help.
Le t me be specific.
4 Mr. Williamson das formerly chairman of tne ocard 5
and president of the company.. which I think in any organization 6
is a rather big responsibility.
The pres ident of the company's 7
position has been turned over to Mr. Johnson recently, who I 3
feel is on top of the problems.
Al so, they have promoted 9
Mr. Crouse to a position of assistant vice president of energy 10 supply, with direc t responsibility for concentrating on the
.11 nuc l e a r --
12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I guess en the management my 13 question would be Given you have had many years' now la excerlence with a variety o f companies handling nuclear plants.
15 small and large, do you think Toledo Edison is capable of 16 capably operating a nuclear plant?
17 MR. KEPPLER:
The answer to that question has to ce la "Yes."
19 CO MMISEIONER AHEARNE:
dny does it "have to ce 20
'Yessu7 21 MR. KEPPLER:
I think if I didn't think they were 22 capabla of doing it, I would snut tne plant down.
I feel they 23 have had their prc blems,,ce rhaps a little bit nore extensively 24 than some of the other newer lic ensass, but I do feel they have 25 the technical and management capacility to deal wi th cne
'l' I42
~
63 3761.09.7 pv 1
problems.
2 And these points that I am going to be going througn I guess my assurance at tais moment or tne areas 3
here are 4
that I am leanire on to make sure that the answer means "Yes."
5 CO MMISSIONER GILINSKY:
How large an organization is 6
Toledo Edison?
7 MR KEPPLE.is I don't know that I can answer that, S
sir.
9 COMMISSIGNER GILIN3KY:
,1 hat sort of other power 10 plants do they have ?
11 MR. KEPPLER:
- 1 ell, by c
- mparison, this plant 12 represents a large portion of their total system; and by that, 13 I would put it in the ballpark of close to 50 percen:.
I may 14 be wrong on that.
15 MR. ROS5:
40 is what I neard.
16 MR. KEPPLER:
40?
So, I t%1nk that their experience 17 is lean in the area; no question.
18 I think.one of the things that I wculd just mention 19 along with these organizational changes that I.think.will have 20 a positive result, and :na: is that Mr. Johnson is a technical 21 man.
He has started meetings pe.-iodically with the ceople at 22 the plant to learn of their problems, to ur.derstand the proolem 23 areas that they are dealing witn; and I tnink that can have a 24 bene fi:ial e f f ec t, too.
25 In the area of training, tney have initiated 7
1 t.
' 't J
761.09.9 64 pv 1
recently implemented a broad training program directed 2
primarily toward improving job-related skills.
This program is 3
a long-range type program that will take it up until next year 4
to be completed.
5 And the company is also evaluating the use of 6
purchasing a simulator for training and requalifying of 7
operators.
S COMMI SSIONER AHEARNE:
When you say " training," this 9
training is mcre than just for operators?
I3 MR. KEPPLER2 Tha t's co rrec t.
.11 CO MMI SSIONER AHEARNE:
pernaps this might be an 12 appropriate point f or you to comment on.
As you mentioned 13 several times, the operator errors that I was talking about la were not really licensed operator e rrors in a small percentage.
15 So perhaps you could talk about your f eeling about the 16 competence of the nonlicensed operators at Davis-Basse and wnat 17 is being done to improve that.
IS MR. KEPPLER2 I don't know tnat I have a view 19 nec.essarily of the competence of taalr nonlicensed operators.
20 Maybe my other people do.
21 Sut I guess I have felt personally -- and this is my 22 view of it -- I have felt that part of.the problem has oeen due 23 to, I guess, a ccndoning of perscnnel errors or a lack of 24 discipline in the coeration.
25 COMMI S5!aNER AMEARNE:
Co ndo n in g b y --
Oi 14/nk s
65 761.09.9 pv i
MR. KEPPLER:
By management.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
By management?
Do you mean 3
the snift superintendents or the senior management at Toledo 4
Edison?
5 MR. KEPPLER:
I haven't pinpointed it to any one 6
level, myself.
I just sense that view on the basis of comments 7
that I had received, and I am going back prior to TMI here, but 3
bas ica lly co mments that were related to, " We ll, you have to 9
expect mistakes to occur in a plant, and you can't stop every 10 mistake."
It just seemed to be an a tt.itudinal problem, in my
.11 view.
12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
What leads you to celleve 13 this a ttitudinal problem has turned around?
~
14 MR. KEPPLER:
I think, in part, this training 15 program and, in part -- I guess the next point I was going to 16 mention which I f eel is perhaps a key point of this thing is 17 that beginning in June tha licensee set up a spec.ial 19 investigative group that is designed to investigate and 19 evaluate all LERs.
23 CD 4NISSIt'NER AHE ARNE:
That has been set up?
21 MR. KEPPLER:
That has been set up beginning last 22 month.
And this co mmi.tt ee is going to be particularly 23 sensitive to personnel s.nors and repeti.tive equipment problems 24 wnich have been two of our big concerns nere.
- ne concept of this gr up is basically. I g uass, s im ila r to the grou ps nat 25 c
c: 1 145
66 761.09.10 pv i
have been used to investigate industrial type accidents.
This 2
w ill involve both o ff site and onsite personnel, and the 3
significance of each LER will be e v alu a t ed, and a report 4
subaitted to management on this.
5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
These are their own LERs?
6 MR. KEPPLER:
Pardon me?
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY :
These are their own LERs?
8 MR. KEPPLER:
These are their own LERs ; tnat's 9
c o rr e c t.
And a t the end o f these, there will be monthly 10 meetings held with the plant staff to go through the review and 11 any changes that are needed.
12 COVMI SSIONER AHEARNE:
On the. subject of LERs, had 13 many LERs has Cavis-Besse had?
14 MR. KEPPLER:
I don't know that the numoer, but a 15 lot.
16 MR. ROSS:
We counted around J20, give or take a few 17 since day one.
About 10 or 12 a month.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
10 or 12 a month.
Is that 19 average for a plant during its first couple of years?
20 MR. KEPPLER:
No.
I would say it's high, but it 21 probably isn't --
22 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Hign cy what factor?
23 MR. KEPPLER:
Let me qualify it just a second.
de 24 took a 1cok at othe r plants that were licensed about tn e time 25 Davis-Besse was licensed, and I would say tnat they we re acove N,'
'00
L761.09.11 67 pv 1
average, but not outside -- not by a lots mayby 10,
. percent, c
2 15 percent.
I can't give you a numoer, really.
3 But, I guess, Commissioner, one point I would try to 4
makes I think it's wrong to focus on numoers of LERs oy 5
themselves.
First of all, the newer plants have mucn more 6
extensive reporting requirements than some of the older plants 7
so you really ought to be talking about maybe comparisons of 3
plants of their own vintage.
9 Sut, I think, also, I guess I try to focus more on 10 what I would say is the. significance of the LER.
This company I am almost afraid to say it this way for fear it will 11 12 change -- but this company reports more LERs than some 13 companies don't report.
If a guard m.isses checking a decr, 14 going through his rounds, they'll send in a report on that.
15 Most licensses would not.
So, I gue ss I would give them a plus point for 17 extensive reporting.
IS They also, as Mr. Tamaling pointed out, too, I 19 tnink a large, s ign if ic ant percentage of their licensee even:
20 reports have related to surveillance test programs wnere the 21 f ailure to ccnduct surveillance test programs in e required 22 time period.
23 COMMI SSIONER AHEARNE:
Rot necessarily trivia 19 24 MR. KE.:PLER:
ch, I couldn't agree wita you more.
25 But aga in, there is another prcgram tnat they are implementing Nj n
a i
~
761.09.12 68 pv i
he re that is tied to -- this has not 'oeen started yet, but they 2
are laying the f oundation for it -- to set up a specialized 3
computer progran f or tracking this, which I think will ce a 4
significant step in the right direction.
5 I don't dismiss --
6 COMMISSIONER AHEAR.1E:
How many LERs have they had 7
this year?
8 MR. ROSS:
72.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE 72?
end*9 10 MR. ROSS:
In the first six months.
.11 12 13 14 15 16 17 la 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
'i o o
t tO l
CR5 761 Meltzer 69 l
i t10 jl 1 1!
COMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
There was an exchange of l
2 letters between NRR and Toledo-Edison with respect to this t
3 May 21st issue, and perhaps it 's j us t like so many things it i
t 4
represents, by lack of familiarity with the way the sys tem 1
5' cperates.
I i
i 6
I was surprised that when you -- I guess I could see l 1
7.
the May 23rd letter not picking it up.
Letters have a i
8 tendency to get written many days before, so I see that.
But 9
then you met with them en June 8, and it wasn't raised.
And 10 a response frcm Tolede-Edison was diat. the pecple that you 11 met with didn' t knew about it.
12 Would it be normal that two weeks after the event 13 !
th at the station superintendent wouldn' t knew an LER?
Is it i
l I
14 -
such a cc= men cccurrence at Davis-Besse that the station l
15 sucerintendent dcesn' t cay any attention to LERs ?
16 MR. KEPP LER:
I would s ay it unce rcn, and I think 17' perhaps -- at least based en my understanding of the matter, la the fact that it occurred at Davis-Besse is als, uncccmen.
19 '
And let me try to explain it if I may.
20 Ncr= ally, the plant superintendent is given a ccpy 21 of ever7 deviation report th at is generated at the plant.
We 22 are nct sure that he received a ccpy in this particular case 23 cr net.
We have not been able 20 as certain that.
24 And also he has daily staff meetings in which ic.Jece m =.oo m n.t,e.
25 deviariens are normally the subject of discussion.
In this
)'
l4)
ji 2 70 l
i lil particular cace, what happened was that the technical 2
. supervisor of the site, who was aware of the prchlen, made a i
3.
considered decision en his part not to inform the plant i
4,.
superintendent, because he was so precccupied with other i.
S problems during this period.
I t
1 i
6l Ncw, we view that as a mis take, an error in judgment.
I I
i 7'
on his part.
And I guess we were concerned -- Mr. Ross and l
i g
others were at the site -- and that the plant superintendent l
9 didn ' t knew about it two weeks later.
10 CCMMISSICNER AHEAFNE :
You say the technical i
7 11 superintendent, and he was not at this meeting en June 8th?
12 MR. RCSS:
I don't knew.
I have a list of pecple I
13 i who were at the meeting.
I don' t knew if we 've got his name 3
l 14,
en it -- the technical superintendent.
l l
15 :
VOICE :
He was not at the meeting.
i i
16 !
MR. KEPP LER:
I Ehink there are two aspects to this 17 :
problem that I would highlight.
la Cne is why they didn't pass this information on, i
19,
And I think -- by the way, we were concerned abcut that --
i 20 enough, to the point that I suggested that this meeting be 21 pcstpcned last week, because I wasn't in a pcsition to 22 '
ccme in here and answer that question.
22 I felt that we needed to investigate the matter,
1 24 and we did ccnduct an investigation over the last weekend.
A S E1C 9f al 9 000,*tr1, I PC.
C 25 As to why they didn ' t repcrt it, i: seems :c bcil I
i o ; '-
1Ln I
iJU
,. 3 a-71 i
if to the f act that the Licensee 's understanding of what the 2
staff wanted was those types of failures which were of a 3
system-type failure.
And Ehey treated this more as a ccmpenent-type f ailure.
i i
4 t
i 5'
COMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
My only problem with it --
l l
I 6;
guess the nub of the prcblem is that you have held this 7l April 18th -- you had held previous meetings because ene of the; a
s O
8, flavors that comes through is concern about the management.
e JC 9l You held one en April 18, concern about the manage-f to ment.
Then en May 31st, the elaborate things they were new 11 fixing everything up, and one of the thines was a special 1
12 investigating group to investigate and evaluate all LERs,
t 13,
starting with ti i beginning of June.
6 14 And then in tne : rst week of June, June 8th, a i
t 15 crcup frcm the NRC-NRR ccmes to meet with them to talk about I
I 16 ;
the plant.
And here is an LER cn the aux feed system, which 17 not only wasn' t NRR told about, but Toledo Edison's reply is i
13 ncne of the pecple that met with Ehem knew about it.
19 So I am just wondering ibcut this improved management 20 system, which is new going to be en tcp of this plant.
21 MR. KEPP LER:
Commissicner, without having locked 22,
into this particular case, I am at a less to really explain
.3,
it :c vou.
I can say that it may be tied := the transiticn 4
peried; I don't knew.
Su let T.e s ay this.
We don't take C5 8900fti AfDOf*tft,Inc,
- 5 it lightly, the fact th at the plant superintendent did nct
- bj i
i,
'h
4 jl 4 i
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72 f
i l
1:
knew ibout this matter.
We think he should be aware of things 2
of this nature on a more timely basis so at least he 's in a i
3 position, if he so chooses, can influence the course of i
i 4,
action as to what to do about this matter.
l 5
Maybe he wouldn' t~ have done anything.
I don't knew.
6 CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
I wasn't saying he should have i
t 7;
done something.
It was just a surprise that he didn't know t
I 8
about it.
i 9
MR. KIPPLZR:
And it was to us.
And I guess I would 10 like to say, with respect to that aspect, we have discussed 11 the matter wi-"
"be ccmpany, the ccmpany has made sc=e 12 revisicns to its procedures and way of doing business, such i
i i
13 th at the plant superintendent will be aware of these devia-i i
1 14 tions usually within a day or two of their cccurrence so that 15 he can then influence -- in f act, he will concur in the i
16 proposed action that is to be dene with each deviatien.
17 CCMMISSICNER GILINSKY:
Is it f air to say then that la you did not,sregard the company's respcnses as entirely 19 satis f actory on dhis point, their letter explaining --
20 MR. XIPPLER:
Cur investigation confirmed that the 21 s tatements made in that letter --
22 COMMISSICNER GILINSKY:
I'm not questioning che 23 f acts here, but questien whether that is a satis f acecry stace 24 of affairs.
Ac= s.emi a.oomn. ir.c.
25 MR. KEPPLZR:
Are you asking me de I think they i
Oi 1H9 ii iJL
J 13 i
i 73 i
I l!
should have reported the matter to our pecple?
i r
i 2l CCMMISSICNER GILINSKY :
Yes.
r i
3' MR. KEPP LER:
Yes, I do.
With 20-20 hindsight, I'd t
4!
s ay th at.
I can understand why they didn ' t, but I can s ay,
i 5
perscnally, that the fact that auxiliary feedwater systems i
6:
are a big issue at this point -- yes, I think they should have t
7; written i* up.
1 8
CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
I wasn't even questioning 9
that input.
What I was concerned about is that here sc=e of t
10 the senior management -- Ehey didn' t knew what was going on.
11 MR. KEPP LE R:
I guess I wculd leave you with the 12 thcught that based on what I knew about it, under normal l
13 ;
situations, the plant superintendent is aware of things of l
1 l
14 '
this nature.
Because of the circumstances and 4crk load, an 15 '
individual tock it upcn himself to not censider that important 16 '
to bring to his attention.
17l And what we have done is try to bridge the gap here la s o th at there is a systematic approach to this new.
19 '
MR. DENTCN-
' bought we considered it to demon-20 strate a certain lack of sensitivity to issues cn censiderable 21 importance to us, and that's why we wanted to decurent it 22 before moving ahead.
23 And I think IsE agrees that th _ s s c r cf thing shculd 24 de f el;cwed carefully in the future to see f the improvements s. s.eu. a.oemn. me.
c
-e thev. ta_,.<ec acc"- -=', v ccme ahcut or nce.
l i
's 1s7 l
JJ
41 6 a
i 74 i
i i
1 I guess, based on the discussicns that Jim and I 2
h ave had, I would be willing tc permit them to start up and 3
demonstrate that they are en top of the prcblers, but I think i
4 it is something that should be monitored very closely.
I f this !
i, 5
sort of pattern repeats, obviously a dif ferent matter would be t
l l
6 called for.
i i
/
CCMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Jim, what is a negation task r
i 8
force?
I 9'
MR. KEPP LE R:
This was a task force that was set up 10 by. the Licensee to go through one of the systems of the plant I
11
-- and in this particular case it was the auxiliary feedwater i
12 system -- to verify that the sys tem, ccmpenent by ccmponent, i
1 13 l was in place and aligned properly, and this was one of the l
l 14 l areas that we felt shouldn't be drcpped at this point.
i 15 We wanted to see it done with all the systems in the 16 plant, all the safety-related systems of the plant.
We think 1
17 '
it was a good idea.
I'm not sure at this particular time who la originated the idea, but we felt it was a good idea and one 19 that should be considered -- should be carried out.
20 Again, it was one of the points that we brought up 21 at the meeting and which they agreed te do.
22 CCMMISSICNER AHEAPNE :
There had been two PNs put 23 1 out en Davis-Besse recently.
Cne was an allegaticn regarding 24,
steam generator superts and the other was a main steam line, tc..e,cu.i =.oor.n. in:.
25 rigid supports inside Ehe containment.
Cculd ycu summarize l
n, l
7 il 75 l
I t
1 what the status with respect to these are?
I l
2' MR. KEPP LER:
With respect to the allegation, an 3
allegation was made to the NEC Staf f about two weeks ago, 4
relative to the adequacy of the strucutral supports for the I
Si steam generators.
It was a rather general type of allegation. i i
6 The individual declined -- in f act, I don't know who he is, but i i
l 7:
he declined to meet with us directly because of rear or his i
i, 8
jcb, but he was -- we 've received enough informaticn to I
9 indicate Ebat his general concern was for the adequacy of the 10 supports under dynamic leadings, whatever Ehat meant by 11 i ts e lf.
12 I sent one of my top mechanical engineers over to 13 Bechtel in Gaithersburg, and th at, in turn, teck him to B&W i
14,
Lynchburc.
We have completed cur investigation or this I
t I
15 matter, and it is our finding Ehat the structural supports are 16 i acceptable and do meet code.
So we dcn ' t have any reserva-t 17 '
tiens en Saat issue at this =ccent.
i 18 With rescect to the other one -- and let me broaden i
i 19 it just a little bit -- in additicn to the steam line supports,
20 there were prchlems with the hydraulic snubbers and also with 21 sc=e seismic restraints.
22 We have carried cut a detailed review cf Ehat and 23 confir ed that th a -s cessary repairs and cperaticnal tes ting 24 had been ccmpleted.
w cum =.cor m. :nc.
25,
COMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
Have been cc=pleted?
l 1 '<
!55
$18 76 1
1r MR. KEPPLER:
Right.
So that is done also.
I 2
CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
I only have two other 3
questions.
4; First, do you have any concerns about the fire 5t protection at Davis-Besse?
i i
6; MR. KEPPLER:
I'm going to have to call upcn my l
7l staff on this one, if I can.
I g
Scb, are you in a position to discuss it?
9 MR. HEISHMAN:
Commissioner, my name is Scb t
- kup s2 10 Heishman frcm Region 3.
I have had discussions -- the day 11 before yesterday -- with Toledo-Edison recarding an 12 inspection that we conducted to confirm that scme of the l
13 l cc=mitments that have been made by the ccmpany to NRR 14 regarding the fire protection system, whether or not they had i
13 been cc=pleted.
We have not ccepleted our inspection in that 16 area.
17 We have a couple of areas th at are still cpen that la have to do with the administrative centrols that are suppcsed 19 to be established, that have been cc=mitted to.
I -- the 20 Licensee has returned a call to my office this morning, which 21 I unfortunately was not there to get the information that he 22 was giving me.
22 Sc we still have not cc=pletely resolved that area.
24 I think it is fair :: say, hcwever, th at we dcn't have any scs 3.c u i a.co m n me.
25 majcr ssues that we can't resclve; and I think, frcm a C-1 '
1 L.b'
l
'J
ji 3 77 i
1[
regional point of view, we would be in a position to resolve 2l these issues before we get to the peint of the staff I
3, concurring that plant could go up.
I 4
So I can't give you specific informatien, but to say l i
i S
that there is still a couple of unresolved items.
But I don't ;
i l
6; categorize dhem as a major issue.
i, I
t 7l CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
Ycu are sayino thouch that i
l 8
there are a couple of items that you would want to have 9
res olved.
I dhink your words were, 'before the staff would i
10 concur on the plant going back up.
1 11 MR. HEISHMAN:
That's correct, and I unink these i
i 12 involve certain ccmmitments frem Ehe company which we are I
13,
still trying to negotiate precisely what those are.
i i
14 !
CCMMISSICNER AHEAPSE :
These have to do with 15 ccmmitments that have -- or recuirements that had previously I
16 been laid cn.
17' MR. HEISHMAN:
Yes, sir.
I think it's fair to 18 say it's clarifications of ccmmitments previcusly made as to 19 '
precisely what they mean.
20 MR. KEPPLER:
Ccmmissicner, we will have th at 21 issue resolved.
22 CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
Nculd you then plan On I
23 '
sending as scme sort of a summary cn what chose issues ere 24 and what che resciution was ?
CS Fedefal 9eOO M ft, rC.
23 MR. KIPPLER:
If that'3 fesired, yes.
I j
91-1,7
il 10' 78 l
i l
l COMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
That would be nice, i
2 And the last questicn, there was a meeting -- in 3
Feb ruary, I think it was -- at B&W which you attended, or at 4
least three of your inspectors attended.
i
$l MR. KEPP LER :
Scme of my inspectors attended.
i I
I i
6' COMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
Did that relate to the Davis-i i
7l Besse plant per se and concerns about the Davis-Sesse plant?
I 8
And if so, what were the concerns, and have they been i
9 resolved?
10 l MR. KEPP LER:
Yes.
Basically, mee ting" is sort 11 of a misncter to scme degree because of concerns raised by 12 members of my s taf f in two areas.
13 :
One was the loss of pressurized level indication i'
14 i and whether or not it was a prcblem unique to Davis-Sesse, or 15 whether it had occurred at other 3 sW-type plants ; and f so, 16 '
what were the circumstances, and hcw long -- hcw much 17 information did 3&W have about this prcblem?
18 There were ccncerns in this regard.
That was one 19 of the issues.
20 The second issue dealt with a problem involving 21 under-voltage, relay setpoints and raised s-1e ccnce rns in our 22,
mind abcut the timeliness of the reviews that was done,
23 relative to the implementa:icn of the tech spec ch ange.
24 We initiated an investigation cf this matter, and CW ES #f f AeCorMrt, 'ec.
25 when we -- this tcck as to 3 &W, and when we contacted 3&W to 1
i t; )
1;B l
jl 11 79 f
l
}
1I discuss these matters, we were told that some information had 1
2 to be cbtained frcm s~cce of the cther utilities -- I guess 1
3 because of the sensitive nature of it.
i i
4, I don't personally knew what is sensitive about it, r
i 5
but I guess they felt they had to get some informatien frem f
I 6'
some of the other utilities.
i 7
So when our people shewed up down there to start I
i' a
the investigation, they walked in and there was a meeting 9
that was arranged with a number of pecple frem 3&W, and I guess; 10 e ve n s cme of the other utilities.
11 So this involved an investigator from my staff and 12 an inspector frcm my staff.
There was also a Shird person 13 there who was conducting a vendcr-type inspection at 3&W, who i
l 14 sat in on that reeting, but wasn' t really a participant to i
15 the inves tigatien.
16 I Shink, to answer the latter part of your questien, 17 yes, we felt basically -- I guess I would say that key cencern la,
that we came away with was, again, a reinforcement of hcw icng 19 it was taking the Licensee to deal with scme of these problems.
20 And that was factored into cur meetings that we held in April 21 and May.
22 We weren' t satis fied with hcw quick scme of chese 23 things were proceedings.
So I guess to thac extent the 24 investigation reinforced scme earlier views in that area.
.c. e ceni a.comn. inc.
ut n
S r=S c t.e specific inf ormatisn ~2.at we I,
I
'l
.D/
1
a jl 12 80 i
+
t i
I t10 1l went there to obtain, we resolved those matters, yes.
1 1
2' CCMMISSICNER AHEARNE :
You had planned on mentiening i
l 3'
what equivalent inspector is?
4 i MR. KEP P LER:
Yes.
I t
5, Tom, could you give the Ccamissioners a rundown, i
i 6'
briefly, of what our inspecticn covered in David-Sesse?
i 7
CCMMISSICNER AHE ARNE :
Or will be.
You said you I
8' were going to maintain an equivalent inspector until a 9
resident inspector gets there?
I 10 '
MR. HEISHMAN:
The instructier.s en at we have frca 11 cur headquarters that we are follcwing for the 3&W plants --
12 for Davis-Besse specifically -- is that we must have cove rage I
13 ;
for at least 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> a day, to include all shifts.
i 14 l
'icw, th at, of course, will be translated into i
l 15 l inspection that says there will be sete inspection on all i
l 16 l three shif ts every day at the time the plant is cperating.
17 !
Cur intent to satis fy that requirement is by using two 1
I 18 inspe ctors, and we will have these pecple ccme in early to 19 cover scme of the shift, or they will cover all three shifts 20 en an unannounced basis.
21 They will be there, and the coverage will be ac 22 least 12 hcurs a day.
23 '
Ncw, th at is much more than the equ_ valent Of the 24 ]
ncrmal residene prcgram.
The ncrmal resident progr1m is 40 kG E9Ctf 96 9 tOOr'tr1, I nc. '
25 hcurs a wee.k to cover spasmcdically all shifes and chis kind ef~
i60
~
jl 12 31 i
i i
i 1l thing.
So I hope that respends to your question.
2, COM'4ISSICNER AHEAPSE :
Yes, it does.
3 i
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I think while there is discussion 4.
I ab out the depth of that coverage, and we will see as we go 5'
t along whether it is necessary to keep the level that high I
6' i
above water resident, normal resident coverage should be --
l 7.
i any questions?
l 8
l MR. KEPP LE R:
Could I make one additional ccament, 9
i Mr. Chairman?
10 i CHAIP2Gli HENDRIE :
Yes.
11 +
i MR. KEPPLER:
I think that even if the inscection 12 i
coverage for S&W plants is reduced, it would be my pcsitien 13,
l l
to keep the inspection coverage at Davis-Besse quite high until{
we are satisfied that scme of these programs are taking e f fect. '
We feel it is cne thing to identify the breadness of i
16 )
~
l the orchlem and cutline programs to deal with it.
I think new
./'
I it's important to see that it is actually implemented, and we would be doing that.
CCMMISSICNER GILINSKY:
I want to thank you for a ver,/ e f fective presentaticn.
MR. KEPPLER:
'"h ank v ou.
^
22 CCMMISSICNER.2diEAPl!E -
An d I cathe r, Jim and Iennv 23 and Harold, all of you are enfiden:
- f. a t this plant is ncw in
,J a positicn ec be able Oc be brought b a ck up, is
-h at sc?
e 3, -
1e1 i
82 i
jl 13 i
I 1
CCIC4ISSICNER KENNEDY:
Subject to review of whatever 2l the new situation is that we were infor ed of this morning, t
3' MR. DENTON:
Th at 's right.
4i MR. KEPPI.ER :
That's right.
i 1
1 5'
MR. DENTON:
And the fire crotection -- that is 1
6 still outstanding.
I a
7i COMMISSICNER AHEAP2TE:
As his guess is cbvious, I I
a, am skeptical.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Okay.
I 10 l Other comments?
11 (No respense.)
12 COMMISSICNER KENNEDY:
As I understand it, when you 13 l have resolved the fire protection questien, that is still open i
i 14,
with Jim; and the questien of the valving matter, which we 15 heard abcut earlier this morning, when that is res o be d, then i
16 !
I gather that you intend to raise -- to authorize the plant 17.
to ccme up?
18 MR. OENTCN:
Yes, sir.
Th at 's ccrrect.
19 COMMISSICNER AHEAF2iE:
Watching it like a hawk.
20 CHA!3 MAN HENDRIE:
I want to add my thanks to that 21 very Icng and detailed discussicn.
I think :.t's useful and 22 werdwhile in the circumstances.
23 Thank ycu all very much.
24 COMMISSICNER AHEA?lII:
Thank ycu.
cs dedef al 9tDorters, Irc. '
- S CHAIF24AN HENDRIE:
The Cc:m:tission will recess Oi?
1 p /._')
/ 4 _
V
.L' jl 14 i
84 i
i 1l until 2 :00 o' clock.
2I (Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m.,
the hearing was and til 3
recessed, to reconvene at 2:00 p.m.,
this same day. )
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18 19 20 21 22 -
23 24 i
ACS 89Ceret deDorter1, lmC.
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