ML19242D886
| ML19242D886 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/09/1979 |
| From: | Deddens J, Bob Nelson BABCOCK & WILCOX CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908280727 | |
| Download: ML19242D886 (24) | |
Text
j UNITED STATES OF MERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION n
l l
E In the Matter of:
2 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 21 of Mr. James C. Deddens Manager of Project Management Department 4J Babcock and Wilcox Corpora'. ion i
Nuclear Power Generation Division Si REPRESENTATIVE 61 Mr. Byron D. Nelson 7!
Assistant Council Babcock and Wilcox Corporation af Nuclear Power Generation Division cll Trailer #203 NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10i Middletown, Pennsylvania 11!
May 9, 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) 13!
June 29, 1979 (Date Transcript iypec) 14i 189 15i (Tape Numcer(s))
16!
17' 13l 19i 20:
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NRC PERSONNEL:
22; James C. Creswell t
23 Owen C. Shackleton 24 25i I
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Ilj SHACKLETON:
This is an interview of Mr. James C. Deddens.
Mr. Deddens is 2
presently Manager of Project Management Department of the Babcock and 1
3l Wilcox Corporation, Nuclear Power Generation Division, headquartered in i
4 Lynchburg, Virginia.
The date and time of this interview is May 9, 1979, 5{
and we are beginning this interview at 10:44 a.m. eastern daylight time.
6 Present to conduct this interview from the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commis-7' sion is Mr. James S. Creswell.
My name the first name is Owen Shackleton.
8 I am an investigator assigned to Region V.
Just prior to starting this g
interview on tape I presented to Mr. Deddens, for his review, a two page 0;
document from the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which outlines the i
scope and purpose of this investigation and explains the authority of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct this investigation.
In addition, this document advises Mr. Deddens of his rights to refuse to be 14'.
interviewed and to refuse to submit any form of a signed statement.
The document further advises Mr. Ueddens (. hat he has the right to have someone 15, of his chosing present during the course of this interview. Present at i
Mr. Dedden's request is Mr. Byron D. Nelson.
Mr. Nelson is the Assistant 17l l
Council for the Babcock and Wilcox Corporation, the Nuclear Power Generation 18!
Division, at Lynchburg, Virginia.
On the second page of this two page 191 document are three questions all of which Mr. Deddens has answered in 20t I
writing to the affirmative.
At this time I'm going to request of Mr. Deddens 21!
l to respond to these qt ations orally for record on the tape.
Mr. Deddens 22!
l did you understand the text of tnis two page document?
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2 llj DEDDENS:
Yes.
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i 3j SHACKLETON:
And does the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission have i
4 your permission to tape this interview?
SI DEDDENS:
Yes.
6 i, 7
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DEDDENS:
10' Yes I would.
1 11 SHACKLETON:
Alright sir that will be provided to you and I will send it l
through the mail. This interview is being conducted in the offices of the 13!
145 Babcock and Wilcox Corporation, the Nuclear Power Generation Division, in Lynchburg, Virginia.
At this time Mr. Deddens for the purposes to give your background, for the understanding of thoso persails who will be listening 16i to the tape the infarmation you are providing would you please give us 17!
briefly your background as to education and work experience in the nu-lear ISl field.
191 20t DEDDENS:
I'm a graduata of the ah University of Louisville, Louisville, 21 Kentucky, with a Bachelors Degree in Mechcical Engineering which I obtained 22 in 1952, and a Masters Degree in Mechanical Ent,ineering, which I obtained 23i l
in '.;53 from the University of Louisville.
I'm also a graduate of the Oak 24!
Ridge School of Reactor Technology in the 1953-54 slass.
After completing 25I I
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i lf the year of schooling at Oak Ridge, I was employed by the Babcock and 2
Wilcox Company in September of 1954.
Since that time I've held various i
3f p sitions with Babcock and Wilcox starting initially on the design of the 4{
Indian Point Unit 1 reactor.
From there I progressed through a variety of 5
p sitions such as Project Manager for the Indian Point 1 reactor project, a ig period of time as a Nuclear Marketing Specialist, Manager of the Nuclear 7
Service Department, later Manager o' the Engineering Department and my 8
current position is Manager of the Project Management Department.
i i
91 SHACKLETON:
Thank you very mucn sir.
And now I'll turn the interview over 101 I
to Mr. Creswell.
11:
l 12!
T CRESWELL:
Mr. Deddens who do you report to in the Nuclear Power Generation 13 Division Organization?
4 14!
i 15 DEDDENS:
I report to John McMillen the Vice President of Nuclear Power 16i Generation Division.
17!
i 181 CRESWELL.
And in relation to the Three Mile Island Unit 2 facility what indiv' dual reports to you?
20t 2:.;i l
Dt'DDENS:
Mr. Grant Ward is the Senior Project Manager for the Three Mile 22' Island Unit 2 contract.
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I li CRESWELL:
Do you have, do you discuss issues regarding Three Mile Island 2
Unit 2 with Mr. Spangler also?
l 31 i
DEDDENS:
Not as a routine..not as a routine basis but in the case of a 4l 5
pr blem with the plant dealing with actual plant operations I would discuss l
6l that matter with Mr. Spangler.
i gj CRESWELL:
Okay.
Understanding that Project Management ususally deals with t
g' contractual type of agreements..that is your main orientation in that in
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10j 11!
DEDDENS:
Yes.
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13l CRESWELL:
Toward the implementation of the contract?
14!
15; DEDDENS:
Yes.
16:
17j CRESWELL:
Who do you normally deal with in the Metropolitan Edison Organi-zation or its parent company GPU regarding contractual agreements?
191 20!
DEDDENS:
The contractors administer primarily through a General Public 21; Utilities with Metropolitan Edison as the operating company responsible for 22!
l the operation of the plant and also Metropolitan Edison is the licensee for 23 the plant.
Our dealings with GPU in the execution of this contract are 24 primarily with their project people in Parsippany, New York.
Pardon me 25!
l Parsippany, New Jersey.
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CRESWELL Who would you customarily deal with in that organization?
2 3
DEDDENS:
We would deal with ah with Mr. Bob Arnola who is Vice President 4{
of operations at GPU, with personnel under him Mr. Dick Wilson.
The Project 5
Personnel, I'd say someone in their legal department, Mr. Gordon Bond is 6l the Project Officer that we deal with in GPU.
7 CRESWELL:
Okay thank you.
At this point I would like to go back to the g
gj date of March 28, 1979, and deal with your recollections during that day.
When did you first become aware that there had been an event at Three Mile 10 i
Island Unit 2?
11!
i 12!
l DEDDENS:
About 8:15 in the morning shortly after I had reported to the 13l i
office I was informed that there had been an occurrence at Three Mile 14t Island Unit 2 by Grant Ward who is the Senior Project Manager for this project.
17)
CRESWELL:
What was the nature of the information that he related to you?
19i DEDDENS:
Only that there had been a transient of some kind that there was 20!
evidence of radioactivity released into the reactor coolant system which nay have indicated the possibility of core damage, and that there was going 22l to be a meeting taking place in about 15 minutes to discuss further what we 23 knew about the occurrence.
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That meeting would have been roughly 8:30 ir, the morning.
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DEDDENS:
About 8:30 in the morning.
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CRESWELL:
Who attended that meeting?
6i i
7l DEDOENS:
I'm not sure I can remember all the names, there was a combination 8
of Project Management people, Engineering Department people and Nuclear gj Service Department people. There were perhaps ah twenty people involved.
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CRESWELL:
I see.
Where was the meeting held?
11!,
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DEDDENS:
g It was held in one of the Nuclear Service Department training l
rooms.
15 CRESWELL:
Who, who assumed responsibility in the meeting..who directed the activities in the meeting?
18!
DEDDENS:
Mr. Spangler had most of the available information cause he had been contacted by our site representative, Lee Rogers, had phoned.Mr. Spangler about 7:45 a.m. on March 28th.
21;,
22l CRESWELL:
What was the nature of the information that Mr. Spangler related 23!
at that point in time?
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7 DEDDENS:
He described the..in fairly general terms..because at that time 1l 2
we did not have a great deal of detailed information to go over, but he 3{
described in general terms the nature of the transient that the plant had 4l gone through...the loss of feed water transient and information on the sj current plant status at that time, was shut down condition of the plant.
t 6i General temperature pressure information which was relayed to him on the 4'
7l phene by Lee Rogers.
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CRESWELL:
Do you recollect what any of those conditions were?
10j 11l DEDDENS:
No I don't specifically at that meeting.
i 12' CRESWELL:
How long did this meeting last?
13 14!
DEDDENS:
15:
About twenty minutes and it was adjeurned pending a call back from I.ee Rogers which was scheduled for 9:00 that same morning.
17!
CRESWELL:
Were there any decisions made on your part as a result of this meeting?
20l DEDDENS:
Yes there was.
21i
- there were decisions made not necessarily by me al]ne...but decisions made to dispatch to the job site technical personnel who are familiar with this kind of transient who could analyze this kind of transient when it had occurred on another reactor.
they were sent to the 24l job site with a special chartered plane so that they could get there as 25i promptly as possible.
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p CRESWELL:
What other transients had these individuals been involved in
,l that were applicable to this one?
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31 DEDDENS:
Loss of...well specifically... loss of feed water transients at 4f i
plants such as Oconee...very similar in design to the Three Mile Island II 5;
,l plant.
01 1
7l CRESWELL:
So the decision to elect certain people was based on their 8
previous experience 91 10j DEDDENS:
Yes.
11l 121 CRESWELL:
With similar events at other facilities.
13l 14!
DEDDENS:
Yes.
15; 16:
CRESWELL:
Were you involved in the selection process?
17!
18r DEDDENS:
They were recommended by the Engineering Department, personnel 19' and I concurred in their recommendation.
2Dj 21'
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CRESWELL:
Now the meeting lasted about twenty minutes: and after it was.
22
did you leave after the twenty minute time period?
23 24!
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i DEDDENS:
I left after the twenty minute time period I returned to Bill lj 2
Spangler's office at 9:00 to await the incoming phone call from Lee Rogers.
t 31 4l CRESWELL:
What time did Rogers..did the call come in from Rogers?
i Si j
DEDDENS:
The call did not come in precisely at 9:00 and the meeting was 6l, 7
moved from Lee Rogers office to another location which was a bigger, larger 8l room.
The call came in approximately 9:30.
9; 10j CRESWELL:
Who was present then at that point in time?
11:
DEDDENS:
12 Again a fairly large number of people and the occurrence had r
13 generated a good deal of interest.
I was there, Dr. Roy, who's Manager of g!
the Engineering Department, Dr. Womack, the Manager of Piant Design Section, 15 Bill Spangler was there, and a fairly large number of pecole who were i
familiar with the various aspects of the plant.
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17 CRESWELL:
gj And this meeting at 9:30 took place in what roc:r 19!
DEDDENS:
In tne Project Management Control Center.. Project Control Center.
21!
CRESWELL: What is the normal usage for this room?
i 23!
DEDDENS:
Well the usage of that room is to review data and schedules and contractual information relative to our various contracts.
It's equipped en 039
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with charts and oraphs and things that you need most to properly manage our i
2l contracts. Also equipped with communications equipment, speaker phones and i
31 so on and so forth.
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5 CRESWELL:
Was it aoout 9:30 that you received Rogers call?
6!
7 DEDDENS:
We received a call at 9:30 but it was not Lee Rogers it was from 8
Greg Schaedel also a B&W representative assigned to the TMI-2 plant. And gl Greg was calling from his home but he had in turn been in touch with Lee 10j Rogers in the control room.
11j CRESWELL:
What was the nature of the information that Mr. Schaedel relayed 12 73 to you?
14!
DEDDENS:
Again he revit d with us data that, concerning plant status that 15 16 he had received from a phone conversation concucted earlier with Lee Rogers who was in the TMI-2 control room.
And it was a report of plant status f
involving temperatures and press'ures around the reactor coolant system the status of operating equipment high pressure injection pumps, reactor coolant g
pumps, reported conditions such as the "A" steam generator being in service c0 but the "B" steam generator being isolated.
I don't recall him having at 21; l
that time any significant information on radiation.
22l l
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CRESWELL:
For the information that he gave you what observations did you 24l make about the condition of the reactor coolant system?
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DEDDENS:
That the that the reactor coolant system was in ah abnormal state i
2:
relative to what we had observed before on plants having gone through this i
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kind of transient.
The temperatures and pressures were indicating super 4;
heated conditions in the reactor coolant system.
5 61 CRESWELL.
What were the oiscussions by the technical people that were 7j present about the abnormal conditions that it could have been caused by?
8l' gj DEDDENS:
Well the...the concern was that...that the core was not being 10 adequately cooled because the temperature and pressure conditions were 11 indicating super heated super heating in the reactor coolant system and the 12l presence of a possibility of steam existing in the reactor coolant system 1
- p. We lso obtained information on intensify the plant operating personnel 13 to start reactor coolant pumps which were indicating low motor currents 15 which then was an indication of the pumps were not pumping very much fluid.
Again w uld indicate the presence of 6-17l CRESWELL:
They were not pumping very much liquid.
19!
DEDDENS:
Liquid fluid right, which would again indicate the presence of 20:.
21,l steam or gas in the reactor coolant system lcop.
That focused our attention on status that could be taken to quench the steam bubble t'.at might exist 22l in that loop and to provide more adequate cooling. Which then directed our 23I i
attention towards starting the high pressure injection pumps wnich at that 24i point in time had been shut down by the operating personnel.
Starting the 25!
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high pressure injection pump and then provide a source of cooling water to i
2 the reactor coolant systen would serve to reduce the temperature of the 3j reactor coolant system and quench the steam bubble in existence.
That was 4
the principa! thrust of our thinking at that time.
t Ol I
CRESWELL:
6l Do you recall who made the recommendation that high pressure 7
injection should be used to accomplish this?
8 DEDDENS:
I believe it was jointly arrived at after, by the experts there.
g; 79 After reviewing the data related to temperatures and pressures and motor 11!
currents...I don't recall any specific individual who said this is what ought to be done..but it was a joint recommendation of the technical experts.
13 14!
CRESWELL:
Was this recommendation conveyed to any individual at GPU or 5;
Metropolitan Edison Company?
16:
i 17l DEDDENS:
Yes it was.
It was relayed to the control room by our group here to to our people at the site, Schaedel and Lee Rogers.
Also during that time we asked that Lee Rogers call us directly right away rather than 40, 21;.'
calling Greg Schaedel calling us so we could have a more direct communica-tion path to the control room.
The information was relayed at that time to 22!
the control room by that path.
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CRESWELL:
Was Mr. Floyd of the Metropolitan Edison Company present in this 2l particular meeting?
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4l DEDDENS:
I don't believe he was present at that particular meeting.
He i
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was present later on.
I 6l 7
CRESWELL:
About what time would you estimate that he was involved?
81 i
gf DEDDENS:
Oh 10:00 or 10:30.
10f 11 CRESWELL: Was between the time of 9:30 and 10:00 to 10:30 were you involved 12 in this meeting continuously or i
13 14{
DEDDENS:
Yes I was.
15!
CRESWELL:
When Mr. Floyd arrived what sort of discussions resulted from 16
,7j his arrival?
18i DEDDENS:
.g, Mr. Floyd had been had been in Lynchburg to undergo refresher training on our simulator aitd he had been in touch with the the Three Mile
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Island plant by a separate communications path and had been spending some I
time trying to duplicate the transient on our simulator here.
When he came 22!
I into the room he relayed having knowledge that the auxili cy feed water block valves were not opened until about 8 to 10 minutes inta the transient.
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They were supposed to be open but they were not.
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1l that aspect of the occurrence. He had some success in duplicating the 2l transient on the simulator.
And so it was just a general discussion on 31 along those lines.
4l 5
CRESWELL:
You indicated that Mr. Floyd had some path of communication with 6
the TMT Unit 2 facility. Did he indicate what that path of communications 7
was?
8, i
g DEDDENS:
No he didn't.
He just indicated that he had been in touch with 10!
personnel at TMI-2.
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,CRESWELL:
During these discussions was he advised by the S&W personnel to 13 make certain recommendations to the plant?
i 14!
DEDDENS:
15 My recollection is that we discussed with him increasing high g
pressure injection flow into the reactor Coolant system.
I 17l CRESWELL:
Were there any other recommendations to your knowledge given to Mr. F1oyd?
gj 20!
2,l DEDDENS:
I don' t recall... I don' t recall any other specific recommendations being made but that one was the was the principal recommendation that we were making at that time and was the was the single most important recommen-dation in our judgment.
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CRESWELL:
During the period of time of..or the day of March 28, 1979, did i
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you personally contact any official of GPU or Metropolitan Edison?
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41 DEDDENS:
Yes I did.
I personally talked with ah with several individuals t
5l at GPU, I contacted Mr. Bob Arnold, Vice President of General Public I
gj Utilities who at that time was in his office in Parsippany.
l 7l 8
CRESWELL:
About what time would that have been?
Si 10l DEDDENS:
We had several conversations during the day.
The first one, the 11 first conversation between myself and Bob Arnold, was I think about 2:00 in i
l.W, the afternoon.
13l CRESWELL:
g What was the nature of your discussion with Mr. Arnold?
15)
DEDDENS:
The nature of that discussion was to review the situation as we lo..i understood it to compare infccmation that we had with him and to relay our recommendation regarding steps that we ought to be taking specifically to
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increase the high pressure injection flow to get more cooling in the reactor g
20l l
21 CRESWELL:
Did you discuss with him the startup of a reactor coolant pump?
i 23l DEDDENS:
In a later conversation we did discuss that, not at the first conversation we were concerned with getting water back in the reactor 25l I
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cooling system, getting it cooled, punching the bubble, and getting the 2,
system solid.
And then a later conversation I had with him which was t
3 perhaps between 4:30 and 5:00 we discussed starting a reactor coclant pump.
4; Sj CRESWELL:
During your discussions with Mr. Arnold in recognizing that you l
6l in the course of your conduct of your business you deal with contracts did 7h y u discuss contractual agreements relating to recommendations of work or g!
in general the definition of the B&W, GPU or Metropolitan interface regarding the event?
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DEDDENO From a 11f i
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NELSON:
13 Excuse me sir, this is Byron Nelson, I don't quite understand are g
you asking Jim to give an interpretation of the contract?
15; y
CRESWELL:
No I'm not asking if he.,to for him to interpret the contract 17:;
the question tnat I'm asking..could you identify yourself?
1 18i SHACKLETON:
Yes he did.
19i 20!
CRE5WELL:
Oh I'm sorry.
I'm asking him if contractual matters were discussed?
21i l
22l NELSON:
Fine thank you.
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DEDDENS:
No they were not.
Our discussions centered around the condition l
2!
of the reactor coolant system and the technical questions concerning that 3l and recommendations regarding what steps ought to be taken to bring reactor l
4l to a safer shut down condition.
5!
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CRESWELL:
So they...how would you characterize B&W's position regarding 7l providing recommendations or support as you related it to Mr. Arnold?
gl DEDDENS:
Well we were very concerned about the condition of the reactor at 10l that point, we were primarily concerned with achieving a cold shut down I
11:
condition and we were drawing upon our experience with the designer of the 12l reactor coolant system and our experience with the operation of similar 13l reactors and our capability to provide tecnnical support to our customer as i
14 required.
15!
CRESWELL:
16 So there was no reluctance on the part of B&W to provide 17!
DEDDENS:
g No reluctance at all which I think was demonstrated by the 1arge number of pecple we sent to the site, the large number of people we had involved in this occurrence, that from the very beginning of it and the the
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unqualified support we had provided to the customer.
22l l
CRESWELL:
Going back to the point in time which these people were dispatched 23!
these basically three people earlier in the day Mr. Winks and Mr. Kelly and Mr. Twilly, did you personally give them any instructions on what there 25;;
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responsibilities would be when they arrived +hara7 r
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1 DEDDENS:
I personally did not.
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CRESWELL:
Are you aware of any instructions that were given?
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DEDDENS:
Not directly.
I Gl 7
CRESWELL: You had mentioned that you had a 2:00 or approximately 2:00 p.m.
I 81 discussion with Mr. Arnold and then about 4:30 to 5:00 you again had a i
gl discussion about starting a reactor coolant pump.
What were these forms..
10 these discussions were they in the form of a recommendation that they i
11l perform certain operations?
I 12 DEDDENS-13 Yes the second phone call I had with Mr. Arnold was again to g
emphasize our recommendation that high pressure injection be initiated. In conversations witi. the control rocm, we had, we were given the information 15 that they had not yet started high pressure injection.
So the second phone conversation I had with Mr. Arnold was to further emphasize the importance i
of that recommendation. And it was at that time that he reported to us that 18{
pressure injection had been initiated. There was a time lag between our 191 last conversation with the control room and that conversation with Bob 20!
21:!
Arnold.
In the meantime, high pressure injection initiation had been started.
Then following that, we were back in touch with the control room 22' and the conversation...the main topic of conversation at that time was 24)l placing one of the reactor coolant pumps in service.
The principal thrust of that conversation was how to proceed to get the pump in service, things f
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such as establishing seal injection flow and there was concern about the i
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presence of steam or gas in the upper leg of the reactor coolant system i
31 piping...the hotleg piping and whatever not steam bubbles or gas bubbles 4f wher "'ating a pump would be drawn down through the suction of the pump 5l and what possible effect that might have on the pump and so we did work out 6
a procedure with the control room on sequence to go through to start a pump 7
and what to look for and what to monitor in starting the pump. We, when we g
had those worked out and agreed to I had another conversation with Arnold g
relative to that evolution.
10l CRESWELL:
About what time would that conversation have been?
11 12; 13l DEDDENS:
That would have been I would say about 5:00 in the evening.
I reviewed with Mr. Arnold the sequence of events that we had discussed and y
15; relayed to the control room and basically that was initially to bump one of g
the pump to start it for only five to ten seconds then shut it down, observe the parameters and then if everything appeared to be normal then we would start a pump and let it run. We reviewed those and Bob Arnold concurred g
on the recommendation and then went back to the pho e conversation in our g,
control room here and asked them to go ahead and star the pump, wnich they c0.
did.
21l 22!
CRESWELL:
You had earlier stated I believe that there had been a recommen-2 31 dation to start reactor excuse me, high pressure injection and the later 241 conversati c you had determined from Mr. Arnold that it had not 0 ")
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20 11 DEDDENS:
With the control room...we determined with the control rooni that i
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it had not started.
I 3r 4j CRESWELL:
Okay.
I St Ig DEDDENS:
And that prcmpted that call back to Mr. Arnold to get our recom-7 mendation in at the executive level of GPU so that it we go to the control 8
r om in a forceful way.
9!
10f CRESWELL:
Did Mr. Arnold indicate any reluctance about performing that peration?
11l 12t 13 14!
CRESWELJ:
That is to establishing high pressure injection. Okay.
Did you 15 have any discussions with Mr. Arnold after 5:00?
17l DEDDENS:
I had one additional discussion with him saying that this was after the reactor coolant pump had been started and temperatures and pressures around the loop had stabilized I called him back and reported that that we felt the starting of the pump was a successful evolution and that the reactor coolant system appeared to be in stable condition, that we were i
satisfied with the conditions of the reactor at that time and 1 gave him a 23!
series of names and phone numbers who would be available including my home as we continued to monitor the operation during the night so that if during i
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lj the night he wanted to get in touch with me or his people wanted to get in 2!
touch with our people here they would have communication path established.
I 31 4
CRESWELL:
Were there any discussions with any other officers of ah GPU or 5!
Me*.ropolitan Edison Company?
I 61 71 DEDDENS:
Ah no, not by me personally.
My contact with their offices was 8!
with Bob Arnold.
91 t
10f CRESWELL:
During the time period from say 8:00 in the morning of March 28, 11l 1979 till approximately 5:00 did you have any discussions with your superior 12 regarding the events at Three Mile Island?
i 13!
14f DED0 ENS:
Yes I did.
I don't recall the exact time, he was on vacation at 15:
the time, needless to say it ruined his vacation, and I believe he called I"-
16i 17!
CRESWELL:
And that would have been?
1Sl.
19i DEDOENS:
Sometime in the afternoon.
I'm not sure I'm not sure when it 20l was.
At one point my recollection is that it was on the 28th, it may have I
been the 29th, but during during one of those calls he callad in and I had 22l l
Bob Arnold on the phone at the same time and so I connected the two together 23!
in a conference call and we all talked.
I believe that was on the 28th I'm not positive.
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lf CRESWELL:
What was the nature of those discussior.s?
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DEDDENS:
A review of the situation?
I recall there was a discussion of 3
4 communication paths and the need to establish round the clock communications 5
and a general review of the situation.
6 7
CRESWELL:
Was the matter of Babcock and Wilcox Company's posture relating 8,
to providing of information, recommendations, analysis, discussed during g
that discussion?
i 10' l
11l DEDDENS:
In a general way it was.
We did discuss the steps we were 12 taking here to establish round the clock coverage and attempts to improve our communications both with the control room and with the GPU offices.
13) 14!
15
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Manager of Project Management do you normally interpret contracts?
17l DEDDENS:
Could you clarify what you mean by that in terms of the meaning 18l of the contract language or 20[
CRESWELL:
By that I would mean that you would review the contract and make 21; 22;l decisions based on your review of the contract.
23!
l DEDDENS:
Well, the Project Management function is a function which is 24!
responsible for the execution of the contract which we have in our customers.
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That naturally involves familiarity with the contract provision and decisions 2j regarding administration of that contract.
It also from time to time I
31 involves contract interpretation.
We may make those interpretations t
4 ourselves within the Project Management Department or we may seek the 5
advice of our legal staff to help us interpret the contract provision.
So I
61 I think a general answer to your question is yes we would make contract 7
interpretations.
l 81 t
gj CRESWELL:
Were your decisions that were made on March 28th conducted under 10 that type of situation?
11!
f DEDDENS.
Our decisions on March 28th were I believe overridingly guided by
, 31 past experience on plant operations.
We have a reputation and kind of 1
posture within B&W that we are very responsive to the needs of our customers na me emergency.
And W s certainly was an emergency s huation.
15 16; CRESWELL:
This is Jim Creswell I'm going to turn the mike over to, oh I'm sorry. Wel1.
19!
DEDDENS:
Our actions that day were guided by providing the customer with
,,40i the assistance he needed to cope with this emergency.
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22l CRESWELL:
There was no reluctance.
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DEDDENS:
I told you there was no reluctance and we did not make our decisions in an atmosphere of commercial consent.
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4; CRESWELL:
Okay, thank you very much.
I'll now turn it over to Owen to Si complete.
l 61 7l SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much Mr. Deddens and Mr. Nelson. This will i
8l w.lu e our interview.
The time is now 11:29 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, gj May 9, 1979.
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