ML19208B120
| ML19208B120 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 07/06/1979 |
| From: | Morrell M, Mark Resner Metropolitan Edison Co, NRC Office of Inspector & Auditor (OIA) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 7909190074 | |
| Download: ML19208B120 (36) | |
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i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I
In the Matter of:
2 IE TM1 INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 2l of Michael P. Morrell l
Nuclear Engineer III Representative:
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Alan S. Brown 6i i
71 Si Trailer #203 si NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10!
Middletown, Pennsylvania 11:
June 11, 1979 12:
(0 ate of Interview) 13!
July 6, 1979 (Date Transcript Tycea) 144 307 15:
(Tape Numcer(s))
1 16i 17' 18i 19!
20l 21!
NRC PERSONNEL:
22; Mark Resner Anthony Fasano 23:
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t lj RESNER:
This is an interview of Michael, that's MICHAEL, P. as in Paul, f
M rrell, MORRELL.
Mr. Morrell is a Nuclear Engineer III employed with GPU 2
31 at the Mountain Lake facility.
The address for the facility is 260 Cherry 4j Hill Road, Parsippany, New Jersey, 07054.
The present time is 11:32 p.m.,
gj excuse me, 1:32 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time.
Today's date is June 11, 6l 1979.
This interview is being conducted in Rocm 203 at the Mountain Lake 7
facility.
Prior to taping this interview Mr. Morrell was given a two paged 8,
document which explained the purpose, the scope, and the authority of this investigation.
In addition, it apprised him that he is entitled to a g
101 representative of his choice to be present during the interview, should he g
desire one, and in this case, he had chosen Mr. Alan 5. Brown, BROWN, to be present as his representative.
On the second page of this document Mr.
Morrell has answered three questions.
Question 1, do you understand the
, 31 above? Mr, Morrell has checked yes.
Is that correct, Mr. Morrell?
,4; A
15 MORRELL:
That's correct.
16:
17:
RESNER:
Question 2, do we h=ve your permission to tape this interview?
18t Mr. Morrell has checked yes.
Is that correct, Mr. Morrell?
20I MORRELL:
Yes.
21' 22l RESNER:
Question 3, do you want a copy of the tape? Mr. Morrell has 23l checked yes.
Is that correct, Mr. Morrell?
24f 25i
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MORRELL: Yes.
I 2:
3l RESNER: Okay. We will provide you with a ccpy of the tape.
At this time I'll ask Mr. Morrell if hell please give us a brief synopsis of his educa-4 Sj tional and job experience ~as related to the nuclear field.
And also note 6l that individuals present representing the NRC are Mr. Anthony Fasano who is 7j an inspection specialist employed with Region I of the NRC, and Mark Resner, RESNER, I'm an investigator with Office of Inspector and Auditor, Head-8 gj quarters, with the NRC. At this time I'll give the microphone to Mr.
10 11!
MORRELL: My experience in the nuclear industry started out with experience g
in the Navy nuclear industry where I received the standard year and one-half of Navy nuclear training followed by service onboard two submar!nes where I qualified as engineering officer of the watch and as chief engineer officer.
I left the Navy in 1976 and served as a Nuclear Engineer on the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project, mostly in the design of the reactor 17:;
service building and the reactor containment buildings.
I worked for Burns
,9l and Rowe and I was there for approximately 10 months.
Since that time I a.
have been with GPU as a Nuclear Systems Expert involved in the review and design of systems for nuclear plants and also for some cold plants, but mostly for the design of the Forked River Nuclear Station which was in construction for GPU with some activity on the Three Mile Island 2 as it 23l finished up it's licensing process.
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RESNER:
Okay.
Thank you very much, Mike.
At this time Tony has some I
2.
questions he'd like to ask you.
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FASANO:
Mike, we'd like you to describe in your own words, your knowledge gj of the events of March 29, 1979, and in particular, your notification and 6
subsequent involvement of the events of that day.
You can start, if you 7
like, when you were notified.
81 MORRELL: You want March 29th, not the first day.
g 101 FASANO:
March 28th, if you were there.
l y
MORRELL:
No, I...
?
14i FASANO: When you were notified.
16; MORRELL:
Right.
17!
18t FASANO:
I'd like to start with the 28th, if possible.
20 MORRELL:
Okay.
On March 28th, I was notified of the incident at approxi-mately 11:00.
I was not in the building at the time.
I was at a Cost and Schedule Control Seminar training.
After being notified at 11:00 I only 23{
received sketchy details, I returned to the office at noon, and then provided 24j system related support to the Director of Technical Functions, Dick Wilson, 25; gsI k
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i lj and the Vice President of Generation, Bob Arnold until 5:00 p.m. that 2
evening.
I received very sketchy information on that day.
About all we 3j could determine was that we had had a trip due, related to a condensate
,p system malfunction, that there was apparently high activity in the B steam f
generator caused by steam generator tube rupture or primary to secondary 5
6i leak and that the system apparently was stable at the time.
There were 7
offsite releases of a small magnitude below the Tech Spec limits and the 8
plant was attempting to... plant personnel were attempting to get control of the plant and bring it down to a cold shutdown
.aition.
'anen I left g,
10l at 5:00 on Tuesday, we really knew very little.
We had indications that g
there were radiation levels in the reactor building about, several thousand
]
R per hour in the reactor building.
We knew tnat there was some probicm different from an ordinary scram and transient situation because there was 600 mR per hour at the sample sink shortly after the accident.
We had word that the staa.n generator pneumatic reliefs had lifted, perhaps code safety reliefs had lifted. At least the electromatic relief valves had lifted on the primary system if not the pressuri;:er code sr.fety relief valves.
Our belief was that the trip had occurred on low pressure which occurred as a result of the transient due to loss of feedwater, due to the loss of a condensate pump. And that was essentially all that I knew during the day.
I spent most of that day trying to figure out what could have happened to get all the activity in the auxiliary building since we apparently had high 22l activities in that building so it was simple to find out pretty soon that 23]
the reactor building sump pump had apparently had come on due to high water 14i level in it, and from that we surmised that the drain tank rupture disc was 25i l
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p ruptured and that was the cause of the activity in the auxiliary building.
2 I believe that's all we knew from the day of March 28tn.
Do you want me to l
31 go ahead with March 29th?
4!
FASANO: Well, the rupture disc, what rupture disc was this? Fasano speaking.
5 Si MORRELL:
Reactor drain tank rupture disc.
/
8' FASANO:
Okay.
It had nothing to do with the tank that you were lined up, g
that you were pumping water to.
O 11:
MORRELL:
No.
I 131 FASANO: Okay.
i 15, 16' MORRELL:
The next day I came in and again, I just provided maybe one hours worth of 5elp to upper management.
I received a briefing just after lunch cn Thursday, Mitch 29th, t!.at day in wYch Bob Keiton outlined the scenario of the incident as had been determined by Gary Broton, who was on the site and on the island.
We went over what we thought the scenario was, and at 20i that time that we learned that reactor coolant pumps had been stopped 21!
several times and attempted to start them, the high pressure injection had 22!
i started automatically and had been secured for quite a perico of time. We 231 surmised at that time that there was a vacor bubble in the hot legs and 24l perhaps in the core itself, and we went over actions that were going to be 25!
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taken, namely at that time there was supposibly a senior review team formed, 2
a second senior rev1:w team, another team at the site. We learned that 3
there were senators going to Three Mile Island to review the incident and i
4j that '<as essentially all I did that day. We had a better idea on March 5l 29th, though, that there weie very high radiation levels like 6000 R per
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6l hour at the top of the dome, but I provided no support during that day other than to go to that one meeting and get a briefing on exactly wht
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8l ccurre.
After going hcme that night I received a call that said that gj people are needed at the site.
So the next morning, on March 31st, which was...
yg; 11!
i FASANO:
The 30th or the 31st?
12!
131 MORRELL:
On March 30th, Friday, March 30th, I went to the site and I
,4 A
arrivec at the site at approximately 9:30 in the morning.
I was taken straight to the control room and st=yed there most of the rest of the day.
After going to the control rocm, we... I learned that there was a bubble in the core the size of it had been calculated, and if I recall the correct size... I don't have it written dowr., but I believe it was 1508 cubic feet... was the size of the bubble at the time that I got there.
21l FASANO:
At what pressure?
22j 23!
l MORRELL:
The plant was at approximately 1000 pounds of pressure, 2Pa 2 41 degrees, and things seemed to be a lot less stable than I had thcaght they 25j C38 i
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if were on Wednesday and Thursday. At that time I stayed in the control room 2!
to provide support and we went to a two team rotation in the control room.
I 3j I was the senior man on one of the teams and Ed Wallace was the senior man 4;
n the other team, and from that time on, throughout the rest of the time i
at Three Mile Island I shifted on 12 hour1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> shifts with Ed Wallace staying in H
t 6l the control room providing support.
Majority of the first day there was 7l spent trying to understand what the situation was and trying to figure out what to do, but I was not there very long before we felt like we were g
definitely convinced there was a bubble in the top of the core; that the size Was near a thousand Cubic feet, although We were having trouble getting the exact size of the bubble and refining our down so that we really believed them.
And we spent most of the day trying to convince the GPU and Met Ed personnel that the necessary thing to do was get rid of the bubble and the 13}
best way to do that was to degas the primary system.
And the main method we we.'e recommending to degas was through the pressurizer spray system, since that was the way that they teach it in the Navy and there were quita a few Navy Nukes around, so that's the reason we decided to go that way.
17,:
We also ' pent a lot of the day trying to cycle, trying to get pressure cycled around because it aided in the refinement of the bubble calculation; 19i didn't want to cycle it very much, just uo and down a hundred pounds so that we could zero in on the size of the bubble.
We did get pressure 21:
cycled enough in terms of degassing though, we didn't feel like that we 22l made any progress at all on that day, and that one of the, the major way we 23{
wanted to degas, as I said, spray in the pressurizer and then vent the r
24:
pressurizer to the reactor building. We made preliminary calculations that 2f
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Ilj day that showed that the worse case hydrogen concentration, if all the 2
hydrogen in the primary system, as we calculated, had been released in the 31 containme.it building, it would only increase the containment building 4;
hydrogen concentration by 1.2%, yet we could not get permission to vent the Si pressurizer and as a result we felt like we were unsuccessful in accomplishing 6
any significant degas during that day.
The major objection to venting the y
pressurizer came from the NRC who made calculation more conservative than 8
urs that basically said that if we opened the vent we would be at 4%
9; hydrogen concentration in the building, which is an explosive conceritration, i
in about 1 1/2 hours.
For that reason we didn't degas on Friday, the 30th.
111 FASANO: Excuse me.
At that time did, was there knowledge that there had I
been a burn?
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14:
MORRELL:
The day that I got there :n Friday, nobody mentioned that there was a burn.
However, it seemed to, I don't recall exactly when it became common knowledge that that pressure spike had occurred, but the pressure strip, the reactor building pressure st.ip chart, was still on the control 181 board...
191 20:
FASANO: When was that?
21:
22l MORRELL:
On Friday.
24l 25!
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FASANO:
The original chart still on the board?
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3l MORRELL:
Yes.
Yes.
Anc' I want to make sure I say that because the NRC I 4;
believe it was Hendrie said that the thing had been rolled up and then 5
finally on Friday semebody unrolled it and said, gee, there's a spike.
That's not true. When I got to the control room and throughout the day of 6i 7;
Friday the 30th, that the original chart was on the chart, on the board, gl and showed the spike to 28 pounds.
91 FASANO:
10 You wouldn't see that though, it would be already past that point.
11:
MORRELL:
Oh yeah, but it goes around the corner and when you pull the chart out, which is the way they normally keep them at Three Mile Island, normally the chart recesses in so that you can just see the front of the chart.
If you pull it out you can see that the paper come up and then goes over and goes down the side.
17i FASANO:
They don't normally have it sticking out like that during operations, 181 do they?
20:
MORRELL:
On a lot of the charts they do, and I couldn't say if they normally 21; do on that chart or not.
Very many of them, for instance, pressurizer 22!
level they normally keep the chart ccmpletely out so that they can look at the trend around the corner.
So, I don't know if it had been out but when 241 I got there that day and throughout most of that day, that chart was pulled i
a 4
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out.
I didn't notice the spike until I was told about and '. hen I went and 2
1 ked and the spike was there. At that time I'd questioned Gary c1 iller, 3
who is Station Superintendent, and I was told that it was apparently during i
4; the cycling of RCV 2 which was the block valve for the electromatic relief, 5!
that the pressure: spike had occurred, nobody noticed that the pressure f
spike occurred at that time although Gary Miller told me that he felt he 6
7 had heard something like a detination.
He left the su atvisor's room to Iy investigate what that was and everybody said that it was really, said they g
thought it was just one of the 2 ton doors slamming or scme other normal noise, so, he didn't think anymore about it and didn't worry about it.
Now, en that day, on Friday...
11:
i 12:
FASANO: Well, just excuse me.
Then to the burn you'd have to have at I
least 4%, your saying?
14!
15i MORRELL:
Righc.
17l f" SAN 0:
So, on time it, one didn't take into account the hydrogen that was already in reactor building plus what was in the reactor vessel, you could 19!
be above, could not just what was in the reactor vessel at that time.
Is 20!
I that correct?
21; 22h MORRELL:
That's right.
23l 24!
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FASANO:
lj What I'm'trying to get is it's, it is just based on what you knew 2l suld be just the volume that's inside that worId consider the bubble 3j inside the reactor vessel that would only bring it up maybe 1 or 1 1/2 i
4 percent.
Si I
6i MORRELL: Yes, yes.
I'm ju.
talking about if what I said before was that 7
is if there was some ambient concentration of hydrogen in the...
8 gj FASANO:
Atmosphere...
10t MORRELL:
g Atmosphere inside the building, if you took all the hydrogen in g
the reactor vessel and loops and released it into the building, spread out 13 throughout the containment shoula only increase the concentration by 1.2*..
g There could possibly be local concentrations, obviously, where you could get an expl sive mixture.
After we determined that the pressure spike 15i existed, the general concensious was that it had been a burn or detination of some type but there was no, as far as I remember, no serious investiga-g tion or nobody had any real qualms about that.
Nobody really did anything 19:,
about it, its just that it was passed on to our management, NRC's management, and more or less forgotten.
I think that's the extent of my, there was one
,40 other thing.
The night before that I had got there, which would have been 21.;
Thursday night, a line was hooked up to vent the waste gas decay tank to the reactor building.
It was taken from a waste gas decay tank pressure 23' connection to a reactor building spray pressure connection.
So that line existed when I got there and the intent was to vent the gas and the waste 25; Q\\[
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lj gas decay tank back to the reactor building because the waste gas decay 2:
tanks were filling up and apparently were the source of some of the releases i
3l to offsite.
That line was in place when I arrived at the site and one of
,;l the things that I did on that day was to write a procedure for venting that 3{
tank back. We had got the procedure and the line was in place and its my 6
understanding that the, it was attempted to go ahead and vent the tank on iy Thursday before I got there, but they ran into minor problems and even-y tially aborted venting the w.;te gas decay tank on that day.
But it was g
attempted by Met Ed personnei and apparently without very few other people's 10l knowledge.
I don't think the NRC knew, I'm not sure Met Ed upper management yyj knew either.
But in any case, I wrote the procedure and we attempted to g
get permission to vent the waste gas decay tank.
The purpose of that was to get, oper up sor e volumes so we could have som:where to put gas frcm a
73 g
the primary system.
The, and again, but the real purpose was to prevent, g
to stop some of the offsite releases that were occurring.
We could not get perzicsion to do that mainly because of objections by... I have to charac-terize the people across tr.e river as one group, whether thev '. vere my management or NRC, and in my opinion they were objections by people who were not close to the situation and did not know what was going on in the 191 control room. They had qualms about venting the waste gas decay tank back
,0 4
21,l to the reactor building for fear of a hydrogen explosion.
So we had the procedure and had the system in place but we never did vent the waste gas 22 I
decay tank and I felt, we spent a lot of time that day trying to get that i
23!
done, but it was mostly to no avail because there was extreme worry about 25i.
that being explosive concentrction.
We tried to refute that arguement by d
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f saying that 'here could be no ormar: in that gas since it was just stripped l
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Ac of the p. imary system, but 1obody would listen to trat.
Their desire 3j was that we had to sample it, we had to know for sure if there was an I
explosive concentration.
The only way to do that was sample it.
We didn't 4
g have a sample system hooked up for that tank so that we could sample it.
l It is feasible to sample it locally under normal conditions, but the levels 6
7j near that tank were above 100 R.
So there was no way to sample it at the tank.
g 91 FASANO:
10l On the offsite releases, you were getting releases via the waste g
gas decay tank? I mean, how were you doing that?
12f MORRELL:
g I don't think we knew where all the releases were coming from but the waste gas decay tanks have relief valves on them and normally they can only go up to 100 pounds.
The comcressors which take a suction off the waste gas header and in which in this case was getting most of the gas from 17, the makeup tank, will essentially continue putting gas in the waste gas decay tanks forever and ever until you relieve a relief valve on the waste gas decay tanks.
And sinca the gas was not, since gas pressure was no longer building up in the waste gas decay tank and yet since we were strip-ping gas out of the primary system, we were losing gas somewhere between the makeup tank and through the waste gas decay tanks.
So, it was either i
along the line to the suction of the waste gas compressors or in the wasta 23l gas compressors or on the discharge of the waste gas compressors or in the 2 41 tanks themselves.
And I believe that we had liftec a waste gas decay tank cy?
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i relief valve and it never properly reseated and was simply releasing radio-l activity almost all the time, almost continuously.
But there's no hard 2'
I evidence of that.
31 4!
FASANO:
Once you arrived at the setpaint, you probably would just continually move it out.
Si 71 MORREc :
That's' true but I'm not sure, I don't think we stayed at the 8!
setpoint because the pressure we usually hung around 80 pounds and yet we 9I kept putting gas in that and it wouldn't go up.
So it seemed to ma that we 10!
were losing gas elsewhere.
And later, you know, not pertaining to this 11!
day, but later on there were Icaks found in the system and they were stopped.
12l And that could have been the source of all the offsite releases to begin 13; with.
The main thing, you know, since we didn't know where the leak was 14!
and there was apparently a leak due to the continued offsite releases, it 15i wasn't my recommendation to vent the waste gas decay tank.
It was my 16i recommendation to vent the makeup tank.
Just get right to tne source and 171' forget all the downstream piping.
But that I cannot recall exactly why 18i other than most pecole just didn't want to do that.
So, we abandoned that 19!
idea plus they already had the system hooked up for the waste gas decay 20s tank so we kept concentraticg on it although it eventually took us another 2~' '
5 or 6 days to finally get the thing vented back to containment building.
22 I think that is the extent of my recollar.tions on Friday, the 30th.
Do we 23!
want to go into the 31st.
241 25j c Uj, b
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lj FASANO:
Three days, 28th, 29th, and 30th.
If you want.
l 2!
l 31 MORRELL:
It's almost a carbon copy of the 30th, went back most of these 4
days we did exactly the same things.
On Friday you did one set of things, Si on Saturday you came back and tried to get them done again because we never 6i got anything accomplished. We never did anything. We simply sat there.
7 Never did anything to stop the releases, never did anything to cool down
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the system, never did anything to lower the pressure.
We did nothing to g
ad try to solve the problem other than argue back and forth from tha people f
wh knew to the people across the river.
10 t
11!
FASANO: Were you taking, Fasano speaking.
What was the organizational structure there?
13 I mean did you have somebody you were reporting to or any
]
assignments or?
15' MORRELL:
Um, um.
P 17I 181 191 MORRELL:
Yes.
I reported to Gcry Srougnton who was in the trailer on the
,40 site and Gary Broughton reported to Dick Wilson and/or Bob Arnold across the river.
They were negotiating with the NRC, I presume, to get work done 22l l
and we would make recommendations to, through our chain, to our manrgement 23j and, in general, they would be ignored or beaten back by ceaservative NRC 24!
calculations or other recommendations by other experts.
So, you know, our 25i s
7
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16 lj goal was to do essentially two taings and that was deras the system, cool 2
down, well, degas the system, cool down the system, depressurize the system, 3j and vent the. waste gas decay tank back to the reactor building.
And in i
4 almost every case it took several days before we ever got any of those gl started.
Si p
FASANo-On the, you mentioned that you were involved with the, of course, 8
the offsite releases to some degree, at least the cau.2.
Did you get g
anywhere involved in the auxil,iary building flooding where water had spilled over in the aux building.
I guess this was one of the sources of one of 10lg your original releases.
12!
MORRELL:
Yeah, I think that definately i+. was the source of the original release.
The fact that the tank that the reactor building sump pump, pumps g
who had overflowed and spilled rather high activity water all over the floors of the auxiliary building.
As far as getting involved in it I can't really say we did.
In the control room we mostly left the auxiliary building to other people so I didn't get involved in it.
I don't think there was 18t very much that was being done other than trying to figure out someway of 19 cleaning it up and also tryirg to make sure that it didn't get into hereto-fore uncontaminated systems.
Se really I didn't get involved very much at all in the water in the aux building and that problem.
22!
23i FASANO:
You know, the valve lineup to the tank where you did have overflow, 24:
was that a ruptured disc on that tank wn'ch overflowed? Did you get infor-mation on that or were you involved?
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Ilj MORRELL:
I did not get any information on it and as far as I'm concerned 2j it wasn't a ruptured disc that was the source of the leakage.
As far as 3
I'm concerned the tank is normally vented to atmosphere and you just f'll i
the tank up and it went out the atmospheric vent.
Si FASANO:
Do you recall which tank this is?
6 7\\
i MORRELL:
Yeah.
It's the miscellaneous waste holdup tank.
3 9f FASANO:
Qi Are there any comments you want to continue with or we could go t,ack and start with the 28th.
12!
MORRELL:
No, I don't see any other things.
We considered a lot of things, a lot of good ideas were running though people's heads like measuring the water level in the reactor building...
,5 1
16; FASANO: Were you able to do that?
ISi MORRELL:
No. We never tried.
The only method we could come up with was 191 through the sump valves and that idea was quickly killed due to the fact that the activity in the reactor building was probably too high in activity so that we didn't want to breach the containment by opening up the sump 22!
valve.
So, we essentially forgot that problem for several days, didn't 2 31 worry about it.
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FASANO:
This would be a pressure measuring...,
l 2!
3 MORRELL:
Yeah.
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FASANO:
Possibly air backflow, or something like that?
I 6i 7l MORRELL:
It would just be a static pressure measurement.
Put a pressure 8,f gauge on the decay heat removal pump suction lines, open un the OHV 6 A or g
B and just get a measurement of pressure converted into feet of water.
10!
FASANO: Okay, on the 28th then you were notified (unintelligible), and g
your main assignment then w u to keep management appraised, apparently...
I 131 MORRELL:
Right.
And they were appraising themselves of the situation through phone calls, they didn't understand some of the things because they don't know the system, so, essentially I was just shov ag them how the 17l:
letdown system worked and where pressurizer spray went.
I know the most of the drawing numbers and I can turn right to the drawings and show them where the things are.
So, I sort of stood in the corner and when they had questions, I answered them.
20:
21l FASANO:
Okay.
So you sort of elaborated on details,...
22!
23l 241
-MORRELL:
Yes.
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FASANO: Make it clearer from Arnold and Wilson?
l 2!
MORRELL:
Yes.
3 4;
Sj FASANO: Was there a cc, :inuous flow of information coming in and to you, 6i was it meaningful information? Could one make decisions from the type of p
information?
6!
MORRELL:
It was a continuous flow.
Each piece of information in and out g,
of itself Was meaningful, but the situation as a whole Wasn't, Could not be meaningfully assessed from the information that we had.
So, definitely not, no decisions could be made based on the information that we got on that first day, as far as I was concerned.
That doesn't mean we weren't trying to make decisions though, and I think we probably made some good recommendations that way.
As soon as we found out that reactor coolant pumps were secured on that afternoon, we, I wanted to recommend that we get them started again.
15!
FASANO:
They were secured in the morning.
20i MORRELL:
Right, but we didn't find out until that afternoon.
Well, let me put it this way.
I got here at 12:00 and maybe by 2:00 I determined that 22' the reactor coolant pumps were secured.
And it could be that I just didn't get a full assessment of the situation down there when I came in.
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Okay, then about 2:00 I guess they were in a depressurization mode I
gj going to decay heat.
l 3
MORRELL:
Yes.
They were " making a run for decay heat," and at that time, 4!
gj as soon as I heard that I said there's no way they'll ever get on decay i
6j heat with the decay heat that they're gonna have.
It's gonna be too hot 7
for them ever to get down te the heat removal capability of the decay neat g
system.
As it turned out they never got on decay heat.
But in any case, I g
was just saying that there was no way that you could go straight from a 10!
shut, from 100% power condition to decay heat removal in 4 or 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br />, or 7 ig or 8 hours9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br />, whatever the number was.
And so that to me was a fruitless effort from t:te beginning.
13 FASANO: Well, did you question why a decision was made like that in the control room?
15i 17:;
MORRELL:
No, I didn't question it.
I told the people that were in Scb Arnold's office that there was no way they could get on decay heat removal and Bob Arnold, I believe, relayed that information over the phone.
And I 2
19I think he was talking to Jack Herbein at.ae observatio,' center who was 1
20!
getting second hand information from the control room.
Although he may have been talking to somebody in the control room at that time, I'm not sure.
But in any case, I simply informed my management that it would not 23t be possible to go on decay heat removal in so short a time after 100% power 24i operation for any length of time.
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21 lj FASANO:
Telephone communication then, was really with Arnold and his l
2!
contact...
I 31 4j MORRELL:
That's right.
l Si 6i FASANO:
At the island and you were not on the phone.
II MORRELL:
Definitely.
I didn't cet on the phone the whole day, or the nr t g
day.
gg 10i 11l FASANO:
So, you don't know who he was getting his information f:cm.
All you would do would get questions and then answer whatever you could in the best way you could.
13 14!
15l MORRELL:
That's rignt.
16i FASANO,:
So, actually first hand information, first hand evaluation, this was not your function.
g 19i MORRELL:
No.
21!
FASANO:
You did make suggestions and they were then transmitted?
23t MORRELL:
That's right 241 25!
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FASANO: Okay.
For the first day you got involved about noon and you left 2
here about 5:00 p.m...
i 3l, 4
MORRELL:
That's right.
Si FASANO:
And so during that period it was mainly an allusidation type 6i function to clear technical points.
8!
MORRELL:
That's correct.
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101 FASAN0:
Subsequent to the event now, did you work on any specific area where there were further questions and come up with any conclusicas?
13l MORRELL:
Not, excuse me.
I didn't work on any particular problem.
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spent all of my time after the accident, in the control room trying to get 15.
our recommendations put into effect.
And so, as far as taking any specific
, 6, 1
i problem and working on it and coming up with the answers and the recommen-le-dation and the solutions, I really didn't do any of that.
19!
FASANO:
Do you have any questions at this time?
21 RESNER:
No, I do not.
23!
FASANO:
Mike, do you get involved in reviewing transiants on Three Mile 24l Island during the, say like, during the 1978 area when they were doing 25!
their assention to power testing?
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lj MORRELL:
No.
If they have a transient that was apparently caused by a l
2 system related prroblem, ! might be called in to evaluate what the problem 3;
with the system, the given system was.
But I've nevar been called in to 4i look at the history of any transient and I'm not sure that we really routinely gl went over all of their transients to find out everything there was to know 6j about them and what could be learned and what we should do the next time 7{
and shouldn't do.
No, I never reviewed transients myself.
i 81 gj FASANO:
You are a nuclear engineer, is that correct?
101 if MORRELL: Yes.
I'm a nuclear engineer by professional license.
I have a g
B.S. in Oceanography from the naval acedemy by... in reality.
I call myself a nuclear engineer.
14!
FASANO: You're then heavily into the systems aspects of nuclear engineering.
16i MORRELL: Yes.
I'm not a core and core physics type.
I'm-really more a 17{
nuclear systems engineer although we don't have that title here.
So, I'm a 181 nuclear engineer.
20; l
FASANO:
Did you get involved a all in the condensate polisner system?
21:
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MORRELL: On Three Mile Island, no.
23!
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i 24 ij FASANO:
So, you didn't get ir'to the, or did you get into the trip sequence, 2{
the sequence of events?
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4l MORRELL:
Not in the least.
I really have heard, havr. tid nothing to do g
with any analysis of exactly what caused the trip and all the ins and outs 6
of that other than to read them and various memos which were not routed to y
me, but i just read anyway.
i 8i FASANO:
Okay.
So I think then the information on your hot leg temperature, g
incore thermocouple temperature, you wouldn't be involved in that kind of 10t information, specifically to your evaluation.
MORRELL:
No.
, 31 They only have, for instance, the hot leg temperature and I 2
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remember the first day we had that information and they were 'tirly high and they showed that we had a... essentially a super heated steam bubble in the hot legs.
Thermoccuple temperatures were offscale the first day, l
higher than the 700 degrees they can read and while I was in the control 17!
room, I continuously monitored those things.
But, as far as analyzing them 181 and what they meant especially during the early part of the transient, I've had no involvement.
20!
21l FASANO:
When we say T and you then come out and say in the hot legs, h
i super heat in the hot legs, your assuming that because the location of t" 23!
resistance temperature device, is in the hot leg of the upper section..
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Yes.
2' 3
FASANO: Just underneath the bend...?
41 3l MORRELL:
That's right.
Its located on the hot leg just before you bend i
6j d wn into the once through steam generator is.
Its at the top of what's 7
called the candy cane. And the temperature on that day, the day of the 8{
acc'ent, was, I think I have the number here.
I't's a little over 600 degrees, which is temperature higher than saturation temperature for the g,
Of pressure that existed at the time we got the temperature.
t FASANO: Which it indicated two phase systemu 131 MORRELL:
Yes.
14; 15; FASANO:
When did you become knowledgeable of the lack of water to the once through steam generators in the emergency feed mode?
17,;
i 18l MORRELL:
On Thursday, the 29th at the meeting that Bob Keiten called.
He 20l said that the emergency feedwater pumps came on but the valves were not opened for approximately 20 minutes sc, the steam genera.or went dry and then steain was restored to dry steam generators and that we believed that that was why the B steam generator had the leak because of the thermal 23 shock that occurred when feed was restored.
But we did not, I did not kncw 20 that the first day.
I don't believe anybody here knew that the first day, 25!
6 A
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it at 1:00 on Thursday.
I 31 4
FASANO:
Are you familiar with that system at all?
Si i
Si MORRELL:
Yes.
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FASANO:
If the 12 valves, I guess, they were the ones that were closed,...
g 91 10j MORRELL:
Right.
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FASANO:
BF12 A and B, if they were open, would you have flow as soon as Y"
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- 13 14!
MORRELL:
You would have flow as soon as the feedwater pumps started and 16.l came up to speed and filled the lines, it wouldn't be instantaneous flow, i
but, yes, you should have flow within about 10 seconds to each steam genera-to r.
18 191 FASANO:
Before you reach the 30 inch ICS integrating control system actua-21;l tion of the 11 valves?
22l MORRELL:
As far as I'm concerned the 11 valves should be open at the time and should allow flow to immediately go to each steam generators.
24!
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FASANO:
So they not secured when you say closed 11 valve, they are not 2!
totally closed even when they are...
3i 6
4j MORRELL:
That's right.
Si FASANO:
(Unintelligible) setted?
6 71 MORRELL:
That's right.
That's the way that I understand the system works.
g 91 10!
e, w en yu ave n w e ge u sa a yu ere concerned about reactor coolant pump being off.
12!
I MORRELL:
Rignt.
131 14!
FASANO:
And you learned about, the first time you learned about it was towards the noon time...
16; i
17!
MORRELL:
2:00 on Wednesday, the day of the accident.
19f FASANO:
So you had no idea of flow degradation at the original closing of I
the pumos..
21!
22l MORRELL:
Right.
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1 FASANO:
Or their reasons for their shutdown at the initial.
2!
3 MORRELL:
No, that's right.
At that time when I learned that they were 4!
shutdown I was told that the reasons were that they had oscillation in the Si current drawn by the pumps from like 100% to 50% and I believe flow escilla-Si tion from 100% to 60% flow and 100% flow and that lead them to secure the 7j pumps.
l 81 FASANO:
g4 Did you learn about the baron concentration being icw early in the
,O, day within the first hour and a half or so, 700 parts per million?
L 11:
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MORRELL:
No.
Not to this day I don't know that it was ever any 700 parts y
per million.
14:
FASANO:
Mark, do you have a question?
Oh, okay.
So you weren't knowledge-able of the boron concentration of the change in the source range indica-17l; tion, intermediate range in the early stages?
18i' MORRELL:
No.
19!
20!
FASANO:
How about the reactor building pressure increase.
When did you 21:
become knowledgeable of reactor building increase of pressure and also the 22!
I pressure spike?
23!
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MORRELL:
The pressure spike, as I said, I wasn't aware of that until 2
Friday when I got down to the site.
As far as the reactor building pressure i
3j going up I was aware of that the first day.
I have a specific note of one pound in reactor building pressure being reached and also we received 4:
gj information that afternoon that I think we knew that building spray had initiated.
So, that tells me that reactor building pressure had to be up Si 7;
or at least there was some kind of spurious signal which caused a 30 pound 8
building spray actuation signal to start building spray.
So, during the g
day I say probably 3 or 4 in the afternoon, we knew that building spray had, what we felt was a spurious actuation because essentially what we had as a trend was about one pound of building pressure.
12!
FASANO:
So, spurious, it was then considered a spurious signal that caused...
14i MORRELL:
Right.
And the operators interpreted it as the same and immedi-15 ately secured it.
I think it only ran for a couple of minutes.
17!
RESNER:
The time now is 2:15 p.m. and we'll take a break to change the 18!
tape.
19i 20j RESNER:
The time now is 2:16 p.m.
This is a continuation of the interview 21i or' Mr. Michael P. Morrell.
22l 23!
FASANO:
We were talking about reactor relief pressure.
24i 25;
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,%RRELL: And what I said was that the reactor building pressure was higher 2
than normal during most of that day, it was going around 1 pound of building 3l pressure. There obviously had been an increase of building pressure or at 4j least an indication of it due to the actuation of building spray but we gj interpreted as being a spurious actuation because there was no indication 6l that actually a thirty pound condition had existed.
Get the chart and 7j finally looked at it, it had 28 for sure and its very easy for one of the 8
actuation channels to pick up a 30 pound from 28 pounds to actuste the j
building spray.
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10!
RESNER:
1g Resner, speaking excuse me, take a break here, the tape is making a g
funny noise.
I went to check it and make sure its recording.
It's 2:17
]
p.m.
Resner speaking, we corrected the problem with the tape and the time g
now is 2:31 p.m. This is a continuation of the interview with Mr. Morrell.
15, FASANO:
Mike, I showed you the chart and the length of the chart,do you
,7l think when you came in that yr read this on the readout on the console at 18!
191 MORRELL:
I think that's where I read the building pressure and saw the spike.
Although after looking at the chart it does not seem feasible that 21, the time period in which the spike occurred would still be on the chart 22l l
even though it was pulled out of the control panel.
It should not still be 23!
there on Friday morning.
There seemed to be an ancmaly in what I said and 24!
what is actually possible.
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1:
FASANO:
Ok, when were you knowledgeable of the electromatic valve being 2:
stuck open, did you know that first day in your information transmittal to i
3l and coordination with Mr. Arnold?
4; 5
MORRELL: We were aware that the electromatic relief had lifted and it was i
6l suspected that it was...had stuck open and about two o' clock we had definitely
~
7l decided that the electromatic relief valve was open or partially open and I
gl was the source of the depressurization so the short answer is yes, we were g
aware of them the first day the electromatic relief valve was open.
10l FASANO :
3 When were you aware of a general emergency at the site? As soon as you got in at twelve?
y
?
13J MORRELL:
I'm not familiar with all the definitions of all the emergencies down there but I believe when I was called at 11 o' clock my boss told me that they had had a transient, had high radiation in the auxiliary building.
17;l The state trooper had sealed off the roads. And a general emergency had been declared.
It could have been some other kind of emergency, maybe just a site emergency or...cause as I say I'm not familiar with the exact defini-tions of the emergencies down there.
21!
FASANO:
Well, at this time I don't have any rurther questions, do you?
22!
23!
RESNER:
No, I do not.
l 25!
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32 i
1 FASANO: Would you like to take some time now and go over your experience 2!
as far as what you learned and how you might share these experiences with
(
3{
whoever made this into the State, as far as suggestions as to how one could 4l handle the situation like this or maybe better cope with the situation like 5l this from a service aspect, as GPU is?
i 6i MONELL:
Yes, I'll try to make a small statement there.
The one of the 7!
8 major recommendations I guess I could make is it would be helpful for a g
company that suppose to pr, ovide the technical help and expertise could get 10 g d reliable word early in a transient.
So it would help for us to either g
have instant telephone communications or have a remote monitoring center here so that we could monitor key parameters to determine exactly what was 13l happening during a transient.
So that would be a help.
Another prob em...
what I consider to be a better way to handle the problem would be to allow g
competent technical people onsite to make decisions, to make technical decisions about the best method to cope with the situation and that was not done at Three Mile Island.
In general the decisions were made by people
,7 who removed from the situation mr. inly acorss the river and I don't think really had a grasp on exactly what was going on in the plant for several days, if ever.
There's an obvious need for some reactor plant operator training and even if the training was nothing more than to emphasize that 21,.
the people should get out the procedures and do what the procedure says, 23!.
even if its a poor procedure which was the case at Three Mile Island, then the accident would not have happened, because it's my belief that the 2?!
procedures, as inadequate as they were, would have told them to keep pressure 25i
's V p+,
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l 33 on the reactor and when I say the procedure, any pror.edure that tney had 2,
gotten out.
If it had been a reactor trip procedure or turbine trip proce-3 dure any applicable procedure would have told them ever to make a run for 4:
And that's exactly what they did.
They didn't treat g;
the pressurized water reactor like pressurized water reactor.
They didn't keep the pressure on it, in other words.
So that's part of the operator 7!
training that has to be emphasized and then to go further though we need to replace more reliance on the operator and treat the operator like he knows what's going to happen and like he is going to have a vital part in com-bating any Casualties and the only way we Can do that is to make eVerybody realize that the operators are an integral part of 'the line of defense at 12!
the stations which I think is directly opposed to the way the NRC now thinks who pushes us toward a 30 minute hands-off rule or a 30 minute...
13!'
the operator will never do anything and after treating the acerator in that 141 mode for so long the operator is now I think most likely to do the wrong lo,i thing if he does step in.
So there's a need for operator training to combat some of that problem.
And I think that's the only recommendations I i
17!
ha"e ar;d the main one I guess is the having the technical people make the decisions.
I feel like if the right decision were made during the first day or two the offsite release's would have been drastically reduced from i
what they really were.
That's it.
21!
22!
FASANO:
Just on... commenting on your comments.
Technical people available 23!
l on site, I get the feeling that maybe you felt that if ycu mean that the 24I information to GPU technical people versus Met Ed technical people?
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f MORRELL: Well I wouldn't necesarily say versus Met Ed...GPU verus Met Ed I
2 but anyway competent technical people that were on the site which included 3
a combination of GFU and Met Ed.
And in this case I beleive that the GPU 4;
technical people were more likely to make the right decisions.
So I have Si to say yeah, the GPU people in this case who were on ttc s1ta, knew what 6
the right things were that needed to be done yet they couldn't get them d "*-
7!
t 8;
FASANO:
In the early stages of the transient do you feel that still the gj 10(
cperator who has to take the correct reaction correct action... do you feel i
g that an outside technical opinion is going to be timely?
12l MtiRRELL:
Definitely not.
I don't feel like an outside technical opinion 131 for a group, at GPU for instance that might have a remote monitoring center, would be of any real help to them.
I don't feel lika that an outside observer, as a for instance in the NRC a man in each Control Rocm, I think it would just be another technical opinion that would really solve no
,7 problem, so I think the operator nimself has got to make the initial deci-sions without any outside technical help.
19) 20 FASANO:
So you're saying if I may interpret a little here, is that the 21, operator needs to be more technically competent, either by training or I
education or experience or something.
231 25!
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MORRELL:
Yes.
Preferably by training.
I don't believe that imposing 2j educational inexperience requirements would be the answer.
I think you can 3{
take the people that we have and train them properly.
41 5l FASANO:
I have no farther questions.
6l 7j RESNER: Ok, Mike thank you very much for your time.
This concludes the I
interview.
Time now is 2: 40 p.m.
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