ML19242D890
| ML19242D890 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/15/1979 |
| From: | Yochheim E BABCOCK & WILCOX CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908280756 | |
| Download: ML19242D890 (28) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION l
i In the Matter of:
2:
IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3;
of Eric D. Yochheim Senior Engineer Si El 71 8!
Trailer #203 9!
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Pcwer Plant 10!
Micdletown, Pennsylvania 11l May 15,1979 12!
(Date of interview) 131 June 29, 1979 (Date Transcriot Typea) 194 15f (Tape Numcer(s))
15:
17f 18i 196 l
20l l
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NRC PERSONNEL.
i i
22!
James S. Creswell, Reactor Insoector 23 !
, obn R. Sinclair. Investigator c4 i
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25;
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770dO7M
l If SINCLAIR:
The allowing interview is being conducted of Mr. Eric D.
2 Yochheim.
Mr. "achheim is a Senior Engineer, Babcock and Wilcox, i
3l Nuclear Power Generating Division, Lynchburg, Virginia.
The present i
4j time is 3:41 p.m.,
EDT.
Today's date is May 15, 1979.
The place of 5
the interview is Trailer 203, which is located immediately outside the 6
south gate to the Three Mile Island Nuclear facility.
Individuals present for the interview will be Mr. James S. Creswell.
Mr. Creswell 7
is a Reactor Inspector, Region III, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
8 My name is John R. Sinclair.
I am an investigator, Office of Inspector g
and Auditor, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Prior to the interview O
being conducted and recorded, Mr. Yachheim was provided a copy of the document explaining his rights concerning information to be obtained 12; I
regarding the incident at Three Mile Island.
In addition, Mr. Yochheim 13l l
was apprised of the purpose of the investigation, its scope, and the 141 authority by which Congress autho izes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 15 to conduct the investigation.
On '.he second page of the advisement document, Mr. Yachheim has answered to three questions.
The questions and Mr. Yochheim's responses will now be recorded as part of the 18l interview.
Mr. Yochheim, do you understand the document?
19!
20!
YOCHHEIM:
Yes.
21l 22' SINCLAIR:
Second question.
Do we have your permission to tape the 23 interview?
24l 25!
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YuCi;:!ETM:
Yes.
1 I
2:
I 31 SINCLAIR:
Third question.
Do you want a copy of the tape and transcript?
l 5
YOCHHEIM:
Yes, I would.
6!
7 SINCLAIR:
- 0. K.
Fine, Thank you.
At this time I would ask you to g
briefly to give us some of your background, academic and work training in the nuclear field.
g 10 YOCHHEIM:
- 0. K.
I got my bachelor's degree from Ashland College in y
Ohio, in 1967, in the field of chemistry.
The next pertinent thing
' 9'
' Y 13 g
master's degree in radio-chemistry from New Mexico Highland University.
15;!
I have not completed the degree.
I have had two years of industrial 16.'
uperience as a radiologicai environmental minitoring of nuclear power I
plan +,.
And since 1974, I've been with Babcoce and Wilcox - two years 17 with the Lynchburg Research Center, in which most of the time was 18i spent in the field at the startup of two of our nuclear facilies, Crystal River and Arkansas Nuclear 1, and other time spent at some of 21:l the other plants; and since, the last three years have been with the Nuclear Power Generation Division.
My work involves the area of chemistry and radiochemistry as related to the plants, generally our 23 177 fuel assembly plants, not much to do with the 205s or design.
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has to do with the chemistry and essentially, day-to-day problems in 2
chemistry and radiochemistry that have been occurring throughout our 3f plants.
l 41 5
SINCLAIR:
- 0. K.
61 7
YOCHHEIM:
Enough job description?
8l t
SINCLAIR:
- 0. K.
Thank you very much.
I'll turn the interview over at g
i this time to Mr. Creswell.
10 5
CRESWELL:
0.K., Eric, who do you report to in the Nuclear Power Generation Division organization?
3 14l YOCHHEIM:
My immediate supervisor is Daniel Levsteck.
15 16; 17l CRESWELL:
And his title?
i 18l YOCHHEIM:
Manager.. Unit Manager of Materials Chemistry and Codes.
20l CRESWELL:
Thank you.
And, generally where are your duties? What 21:!
22,j duties do you perform? What responsibilities do you have in the I
performance of your job?
23l 24l 25j 4
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ilj YOCHHEIM:
As I described recently, or just a little bit earlier, the 2{
.ork in.cives very closely watching plant chemistry and radiochemistry l
3[
parameters, and working with the site chemistry people with problems i
4j they have.
Also a major part of my,)ob in the past couple of years, 5
has been performing onsite steam generator inspections, secondary site 61 inspections and primary site inspections during refueling outages and 7
during their aintenance outages.
I 8l CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
At this point, I'd like to take you back in time to ad, 10h the day of March 28, 1979.
Could you tell us when you first learned i
l of the event at TMI 2?
12!
YOCHHEIM:
I'll give you approximate times.
It was somewhere after 8 14l; o' clock in the morning, after I had reported for work for that day.
I had heard that there had been an incident.
And found out a liitle bit more, but again, in very, very sketchy information.
At about 9:00 or j
9:30, there was a general meeting there, which I attended as a repre-1,/ ;
sentative from the Chemistry group for technical staff, and at that 18t time was asked if any chemistry problems would occur, to please use me as a focal point.
One of the main reasons, I've had a lot of involve-20:
ment with Three Mile Island.
I know a le of the pecple, a lot of the chemistry staff.
Another reason being that I was a badged individual 22!
cleared to come on site at that time, in case of any problems.
23l 24i 25; i
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5 1!
CRESWELL:
Were you cleared to wear a respirator?
2:
3 YOCHHEIM:
Yes, yes, I was, i
4!
5 CRESWELL:
Do you recall who you found cut first
. who you found out I
6 from first... about the event?
7 YOCHHEIM:
I would only be hesitating a guess.
There was a group of 8
gj gentlemen discussing it.
I was involved in something else and I had heard about it.
10 And they said that there was this meeting going on and I asked my supervisor, and he said yes, go ahead and attend it.
i And I went down to that meeting of indivicJals.
But to say who exactly I
who that name was, I would hate to right now.
'Cause I really don't 13!
physically remembe.
r 15 CRESWELL:
About what time did this meeting take place?
17I l
YOCHHEIM:
It apparently was going on at the time that I'd first heard 18I about it.
It had started a little after 8 o' clock, to the best of my recollection.
It was somewhere after 9 o' clock that I got down to the 20:
meeting.
It was not a formal meeting at all.
There were several 21i people involved.
A lot of the senior officers of the Power Generation I
were trying to find out what was happening.
And I stood as an outsider 23) l at that time.
24!
25i l
1
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l!
CRESWELL:
Do you recall who some of those sen'ar officers were?
2!
I 3l YOCHHEIM:
I can yes.
Some of them - Jim Oeddens was there, and i
4 William Spangler.
Another gentlemen, he is in charge, is Allan Womack, 5
who was helping handle the situation.
l Gi 7
CRESWELL:
Was this the meeting that was held in the training room, close to the simulator?
g b
YOCHHEIM:
Yes, yes, it was.
10 11 CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
How would you characterize the discussions that you i
heard during the meeting? What was being discussed?
i 14!
Y0CHHEIM:
The major emphasis was trying to come up with some reason-15 :,
16:
able, quick scenario on what had happened.
A Metrcpolitan Edison --
i as I'm sure you' re awar'. - person, Jim Floyd, was there doing simulator I
training.
And as I ur.derstand it, had gone in before I got there, and 18l tried to simulate to the best of what he had heard, what happened on our simulator, and tried to see if some of the numbers were floating 21;l that people were generating -- and how they were generating, I don't know -- but how they were generating and come to be, and what we could 22l l
make out of the incident with the sketchy information we had available.
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I'm not sure exactly at that time, again, I think Allan Womack was 24j 25!
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asked to be a cognizant individual at that time, to head it.
Mr.
2 Deddens asked that any information going out of B&W would be passed I
3l through him, that he was the major individual in charge, as it should I
4j have been.
And that was the thing -- it was a very brief quick...
gf you know, it was organizational, and trying to put some details together, 6
r trying to attack the plan of what would happen, and to try to get 7
some more information.
8l g,
@ WELL:
Do ycu recall that any plant parameters were discussed at the meeting?
Plant conditions and that sort of thing.
10 11!
YOCHHEIM:
We heard some sketchy numbers about..
that there was a i
severe transient.
That's about all.
There were several different 13i numbers floating around.
I would hate to try and recall all of them I 14.
15 16)
CRESWELL:
Did you get the impression, from what you heard, that there had been fuel damage at the facility?
196 YOCHHEIM:
I don't know if I can say -- I guess there was fuel damage.
All I can say is that we thought that, again, there was a severe l
It was different -- mcaitor airborne containment, monitor 22' I
FN containment radiation levels, we had heard - we were thinking either dere was a severe release inside the containment building from the 25!
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fission product gases, or maybe it was worse than that, but again, it 2,
was very much speculation.
f6 concrete numbers.
l 3!
I 4j CRESWELL:
Did you receive any instructions during this meeting, you 5
personally?
i 6i YOCHHEIM:
7 The only instructions were, essentially is that, to be, as a asM earlier, to be 2e contact And R was mendoned dat I 8
would be the contact for the chemistry, should chemistry problems to 9l l
come through our group.
J 11:
i CRESWELL:
How long did you personally stay at the meeting?
13l YOCHHEIM:
Approximately a half an hour - 40 minutes.
Something like that.
15i 16j CRESWELL:
What did you do after you left the meeting?
I ISf YOCHHEIM:
I went back to my desk and resumed my normal activities, at 191 that time.
20!
21!
CRESWELL:
That would t,a working on another --
2 24 23l l
YOCHHEIM:
Yes, I was actuall; working on one if our other projects --
24l a rt ort for one of our other customers.
25 4
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l CRESWELL:
What's the next thing that happens relating to Three Mile 2
Island, as far as you were concerned?
3[
Y0CHHEIM:
About noon that day, or a little after noon, I got a call 4j Sj from Allan Womack, requesting that myself and Dale Yule, from the i
6j Lynchburg Research Center, go on a chartered plane up to the island, 7j to perform any chemistry or radiochemistry consultation services we could do either for B&W or for the Met Ed organization.
We left 8
i L nchburg at approximately 2.. it was a little after 2 o' clock.
Gc
/
gj a nc.11 on the airplane to not try to go to the site, but to go directly
.s, to Grt.7 Shadell's house, which, wnen we arrived at the site, we went 11.
out to Greg's house, and probably got there somewhere after 4 o' clock 12!
in the afternoon.
- 13I, 14!
CRESWELL:
Did Mr. Wcmack indicate why you, in particular, and Mr.
Yule were selected to come down?
16j 17:
YOCHHEIM:
No, not at that time.
Dale was at that time Section Manager 18t of the aadio Nuclear and Radio Chemistry Section of the LRC, where 19!
most of our expertise in that field 20; 21l CRESWELL:
LRC?
22' 1
23l Y0CHHEIM:
Lynchburg Research Center.
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1 CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
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YOCHHEIM:
Dale waJ the Section Manager, as I said, and had been with i
4l the company, again, knew a lot of the people there.
I personally, I think 5
l 6i CRESWELL:
Knes a lot of people at Three Mile Island?
7 8
Y0CHHEIM:
At Three Mile Island, yes.
I personally assumed I was g
selected because I had - two reasons:
numoer one, as I mentioned in g
our interview, I was a badged individual on site here, through other i
work activities; and second of all, because I have had a reasoable bit i
12!
of familiarity with the plant.
I was up here for the
.. helping with 13l 1f,!
the startup, with initial criticality and aise through hot functior al
+;
I testing.
15:
16 17;(
CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
So, at this point in time about what time did you arrive at Greg's house?
18i 19!
YOCHHEIM:
It was somewhere after 4 o' clock.
a rough guess, 4:15 in 20) the afternoon.
21!
I 22f CRESWELL:
And after you arrived at his house, what sort of discussions 221 did you have with Greg?
24!
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11 1
YOCHHEIM:
We tried to get as much information as we could, obvicusly.
I 2l Greg was getting informatio, second, and possibly third hand by the I
3!
telephone from the control room.
That was the focal point that had 4j been set up by the only B&W person on site, Lee Rogers.
But the 5l inf rmation Greg was getting, there was very little having to do with 6
the chemistry and radiochemistry parameters that I was having to do with.
7 We had heard again that we had had a severe transient.
That we had a high pressure condition followed by a loss of pressure to the 8
sense that the HPI came on.
We had no idea on how long it came on, g
10f how much borated BWST water was put in, whether or not at that time, even whether we had a caustic injection.
We could speculate to past experiences, but we really had no firm numbers, no firm idea what i
physically had happened.
13l 5
14!
CRESWELL:
What was that other previous experience on caustic injections?
15:
16; Y0CHHEIM:
We'd had, as I understand, as I recall, two incidents here.
The way the system is set up, when -- and this has recently been, was 18 changed prior to the incident -- the caustic addition into the high pressure injection comes on with either building spray pressure or the 20!
building pressure, reactor building --
21l 22 CRESWELL:
Four pounds (psi)?
23!
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c.
a 1 0 P
12 1
YOCHHEIM:
Yeah.
I think that's what... or it comes on with dropping 2
of level in the borated water storage tank.
So at other times -- a i
3f 1 ss of pressure, a rapid transient, a rapid cool down -- we had had 4
injections.
And these last two changes were made... I don' t know...
5 several months, I understand, prior to the incident... to require...
i 6l f r the caustic to come on.
7 CRESWELL:
What's the purpose of the caustic?
g, 9[
YOCHHEIM:
0 I think, from a chemistry standpoint, it's to keep the pH up from a loss of cooling accident, or a minor... to avoid low pH pipe cracking conditions.
13 CRESWELL:
So as to protect metallurgical --
15 YOCHHEIM:
Metallurgical protection.
17l CRESWELL:
Does that have anything to do with iodine fixation?
18t 19' YOCHHEIM:
After the building spray comes on, if it was in the..
un the sump, it would then be pumped throughout the building gpray system.
Yes, it would indeed do iodine removal.
But the initial purpose is 22l metallurgical, at that point.
23t i
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CRESWELL:
In the previous two events that you mentioned, was there 2
any deleterious effect on the caustic injection?
I 3;
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YOCHHEIM:
Not to nur knowledge.
We saw no evidence of any problems.
5l gj CRESweLL:
- 0. x.
i 7l YOCHHEIM:
Except it took them awhile to clean it up.
B&W required g
that the caustic be cleaned up to what we consider permissable levels, g
i prior to allowing them to heat the plant up.
10[
l lli I
CRESWELL:
Sometimes, I guess the sodium hydroxide contains a relatively 12, high concentratica of chlorides.
Is this a concern?
14!
YOCHHEIM:
I would be.
But as I understand it, this was not a concern 15:
here, that their caustic was of high enough quality grade, that their f
chlorides were at a high level.
We did not notice a chloride excursion 17!
I at a prior incident, that I, again, that I recall.
18r 19f CRESWELL.
Going on back to the time that you arrived at Greg Schaedel's 20i i
house, did he mention anything to you about the plant personnel having 21!
l isolated one of the steam generators?
22' 23l l
YOCHHEIM:
I'm trying to remember.
I think that I I think in one 24l of the conversations, yes, that he did mention that one of the steam 25j t
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lj generators -- and I think he mentioned it was the B steam generator --
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had been isolated.
This may have occurred the following day, I might 3j have heard it.
I'm not sure, that I recall.
I think that what l
4:
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CRESWELL:
Nothing stands out in your mind, though?
l 6i y
YOCHHEIM:
No, no.
That there could have isolated one of the staan i
generators.
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9!
CRESWELL:
Something that I didn't ask you previously was, what sort 10 of instructions were you given before you left Lynchburg?
I mean, what were you tasks when you came down here?
's 13!
YOCHHEIM:
14;;
Essentially, was to provide any type of consulation in the areas of chemistry and radiochemistry, and to assist their plant chemistry and radiochemistry personnel in any type of activities,hich we could help him in.
l 18i CRESWELL:
Helping set up any type of sampling program;, or working
,9' 2.
with their people, providing backshift coverages for their technical 21l people, for their supervisory people, also.
There's real ly...
22 CRESWELL:
Was there any mention, when you were at Greg's house, of i
23 there having been some boron samples that were taken that were anonymously 24i l
low -- ancmalously I'm sorry -- anomalously low?
25' a ^
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1 Y0CHHEIM:
Not that I recall.
I 2l 3f CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
So what's the tha next thing that happens?
4!
YOCHHEIM We stayed around Greg's house until about 6:30 or 7 o' clock 5
6i that evening.
The information was... the telephone calls were --
7 with Lynchburg -- were going on regularly.
But most of the time it g
was Greg on the phone talking to the control room or Greg on the phone gj talking to Lynchburg.
We went out to dinner.
I told Greg where we Would be staying and left him, to go.
We were going to recort back to his house the following mornino to see what happened, and when we arrived at his house we found out that he was on site, or had left to i
come to the site.
And then Dale and myself came on out, and went out 13) to tbc Otservation Center, as we had been left a note to do, and found out that we could not get on site.
We ctayed around here until approxi-6 mately noon and went back to the motel and waited around for any type 16.
of telephone calls or something that we could do.
The following day, 171 we -- and nothing cama up -
we, at that time Dale mostly, was 18!
invalved 19l 20; I
CRESWELL:
Dale who?
21l 22f YOCHHEIM:
Dale Yule was involved with trying to get the B&W Radio-23 chemistry Mobile Counting Trailer up to site He had been requested 24!
25:
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1 to he'o provide this service.
We were also regi'ested to try to get 2{
some c; our Alliance Research chemistry people down here in the laboratory 3j to ;ielp analyze samples, if necessary.
Again, at that time we had no 4
idea how necessary that would be, but we thought that, if we could 5{
provide the service and have it up here.
So, Dale spent most of the 6l afternoon, Thursday, on the telephone trying to arrange this.
And I l
7 worked with the people at Alliance trying to come up with that.
We g
came back out Friday morning, 7:00, 7:30, again to the Observation Center.
g; And at about 9:30 there was a call over to the Observation Center for me to come on site.
I was cleared to come on site and came 10 in that morning.
Functioned essentially, working with the r ant I
secondary - -
or the plant's chemist in Unit 2, Kary Harner -- working with him and any kind of little problems that they have had at that l
time.
1 41 l
15; y
CRESWELL:
Did you get involved, say, in sampling the secondary side of the B steam generator?
18!
YOCHHEIM:
At that time, there was no samples taken, although we were trying to get scme.
We were trying to get the results and sort ott the results from the primary coolant sample that had been taken an 21{
hour later by the Met Ed people.
1 23!
CRE$ KELL:
- 0. K.
So you did some evaluations of that primary coolant 2 41 sample?
i 25i
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17
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YOCHHEIM:
After we saw the data coming back, it came... that sample 1
2 went out to Idaho Falls for the sample.
And we, there again, reviewed i
3; the data.
And I guess some of - part of the sample went to Savannah l
River.
Another part -- another sample went to somebody else
And we were trying to look at the three pieces of 5
data and see how closely they coincided, to get some of idea of what 6
type of reactor coolant activity that we.
At that time we knew.
7 we had known that the radiation levels in our nuclear sampling room at 8
the island were more than reasonably high, ana knew we had a severe r
9l l
problem.
Again, not, knowing I say, severe problem -- higher than 10l what one would expect... activities.
And had
.. were just trying to sort out the best we could, how good the data looked from that initial i
12!
sample, and how good the initial sample may have been under the conditions.
I 14i CRESWELL:
Was there some question about whether the sample was truly 15 representative of the conditions in the reactor coolant system?
16i i
17j t
YOCHHEIM:
There is always a question in chemistry when a number 18i doesn't come out that people like.
There's always the first question -
191 "is the sample representative?"
And the gentleman who took it, is a 20; l
very competent individual, and we were pretty convinced that he had 21 done an excellent job in obtaining the sample.
22 23l l
CRESWELL.
Was the sample on recirc for awhile before he took it?
24l 25!
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18 1{
Y0CHHEIM:
Yes, it was.
I'm not sure how long.
They have a normal 2
procedure for doing that, and I don't recall right affhand how long -
i 3'
it's generally an hour or more that the sample is on the recirc.
I'm 4;
not sure that a lot of times, that sample is on recirc continuously 5
to the sample rocm, so that they are not isolating in valves, contain 6
the valves.
And they may have been on recirc the whole time.
I don't know if that was ever isolated or not.
l 8j g'
CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
What did - ycur evaluation of the sample -- what did it inean? What did you derive from the analysis?
10 11' I
YOCHHEIM:
Just as a totally subjective point of siew when I saw it, was that we indeed had a large percentage of fission product pouring, based on what one sees from pinhole type defects - a large percentage 14 released into the coolant activity, based on iodine and cesium numbers that we were seeing.
Again, it got tight in the stage and ccme out 16; liek (phoenetic), a lot of the words that data was coming back, hand I
to mouth, second, third, fourth hand, and which we found out later 181 that some of the numbers that already been passed were really not 19!
acurate.
So we were getting pieces of paper, but not official data l
sheets, and having to make judgments -
or not having to make judgments, 21:
but trying to speculate, based on those.
I 23j CRESWELL:
Were there particular nuclides that were under question?
24l I
25:
i 1
{I 19 1!
YOCHHEIM:
Oh yes.
The iodine isotopes and cesium isotopes. mostly.
l 21 1
3f CRESWELL:
Because of their high concentrations?
4!
YOCHHEIM:
Well, that and because of the environmental problems in 5
release of iodines.
And iodines are one of the major fis? ion products 6
I 7
that we monitor in release from the plant.
Cesiums would be, but this plant is reasonably nr. and the cesium activity were not one that g
you'd expect normally to monitor.
But we indeed, were looking for g
10f se, f r the fission particulate matter - fission product particular i
matter.
And what ncmbers we had.
11l t
12l l
CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
Did you derive any sort of conclusion about what the 13l 14l:
fuel condition was from that sample?
15; YOCHHEIM:
No.
I have a general area now, I'd know that, but I don't 16l have high specific knowledge.
At equalibrium conditions in plant 17f life, I can calculate that
. pinhole defect levels.
This was obviously i
18{
not an equilibrium condition, and there was
. it appeared that there 19!
was indeed large fission product leakage from the coolant.
No percentage 20l l
whatsoever number, could we evaluate on site as to how much cladding, --
21!
l well, fission product leakage though the t' adding -- actually occurred, 22l l
wnether they indeed were still -- whether there was a pinhole defect 23!
mechanism, or whether it was a severe cladding mechanism.
Those kind 241 l
of numbers could not be obtained from that.
One could speculate, but 25!
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20 I
i llj that's about all.
2!
CRESWELL:
Who are some of the people that you..
did you report to 3
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anyone on the site when you entered?
\\
5}
YOCHHEIM:
6 When I got to the site, I went through to work with, as I said, Kary Harner, the plant chemist.
Only because Kary nad called --
7 I think it was Kary had called out to the trailer, -- and we had let g
g it be known that we
.. Dale and I let it be known that we over there.
m l
If they needed us, we would come on site.
And Kary called and asked 10l 11:!
that I do come on.
And at that point, essentially we were working, 12{
again, at any type of problems, and I can't specifically remember, exactly which little problems were.
There was nothing really major.
131 There was nothing, really, of a major operational things we were 14i worried about.
We were just working with limited data we had in 15j trying to sort out what would be the next step, from a chemistry point 16i of view, and what we would like to try to do, to find a little more 171 l
information..
chemistry information -- what was happening inside 18r both the reactor coolant system and the secondary plant.
Trying to 19i keep that water as clean as we could, also.
20!
21\\
CRESWELL:
Did you have any indication who requested that you come 2 21 i
down?
23 24i YOCHHEIM:
From Lynchburg, the only words I had that Allan Womack 'ad 25i requested that I come up.
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21 CRESWELL:
But do you have any indication of who had requested that 1:
2 you be sent down?
I 3!
r 4j YOCHHEIM:
No, no.
Not other than that.
Allan called and asked that I g, and that's --
5 6j 7l CRESWELL:
And when you got down here you got no indication of that?
y, s me y rmie at had requested Gad 8
I YOCHHEIM:
No.
Not really.
10l 11 CRESWELL:
What were the conditions at the site, whenever you tried to I
gain entrance to the plant?
Security, Health Physics, and so forth.
131 l
14!
YOCHHEIM:
Well, having been badged and respirator qualified here 15i previous to the incident I was did not scrutinized very closely.
They had the security guards stop me at the north gate, where I came through 17!
and out, and waited till the clearance came down from the Observation 18!
Center, saying that yes, I was cleared to have entrance.
Having been 191 badged, the badging was there and I had that, to come on.
And then 20 when I got to the Process Center, I was instructed that respirators --
21l tharcoal or cartridge (?) respirators - would be intermittently 22!
l required, or possibly could have been intermittently required.
Later 23{
on that day, I was in the cartridges for several hours while I wc: in 24!
the control room and control building area.
l
l 22 1l CRESWELL:
Did you receive a TLD when you came on site?
2 YOCHHEIM:
It was not issued -- thinking where I was issued one.
As I 3j 4j recall, there was one with my badge I had previously had and the TLD w s with it.
5 l
6i SINCLAIR:
The time is 4:11 p.m.
We going to break to change the 7
tape.
The time is still 4:11 p.m. We're continuing the interview with g
Mr. Yochheim.
g I
10l f
YOCHHEIM:
Let me clarify what I just said.
I've been thinking back 11, I
and that... the badge was not with that.
I was issued a TLD prior to 12; l
coming over here at the Observation Center.
13l 14!
CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
15:
16!
17l YOCHHEIM:
As I recall, and from then on the badge was kept with it.
i 18l CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
So you cleared through Security, and you were in the 19i access building, and then you went to the control room.
20!
i 21i i
YOCHHEIM:
I went directly up to the control room of Unit 2.
22t 23!
l CRESWELL:
What were the conditions in the control room that,vou 2 41 found?
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YOCHHEIM:
From the standpoint of?
l 2l 3I CRESWELL:
Number of people... what was going on?
4 YOCHHEIM:
There was a limited number of people at that point.
There 5
6 were one or two people from B&W, and the normal control room operating people.
I'm not sure... I don't remember if Kary Harner was there at 7
that time or not.
A lot of my time for that first day was spent 8
working for B&W, as well as for the chemistry consultation type services i
i 9l 10i I described, drawing as much data as we could off the instrumentation.
l The first few days I was here, I was just looking at the instrumen-11{
i tation.
12',
13 CRESWELL:
You were working for B&W, and gaining this nformation, 14; what type of data were you accumulating?
i 16i YOCHHEIM:
17;l Looking at the different instrumentation in the control 5
room as to steam generator water levels, the reactor coolant pressure 18, temperature, indications off of the daily computer, borated water 19!
storage tank level, core flood tank levels, monitoring this kind of 20:
data in an hour later, by hourly basis as requested.
At that point in 21; time, we had set up a 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day telephone line directly to Lynchburg i
22l l
from the control room, and this cata was being passed back and forth, 231 l
as much as possible.
24l 25!
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24 l
CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
What sort of condition did you find the B steam 1
2{
generator in?
You mentioned that you had been taking some data.
l 3!
4l YOCHHEIM:
We heard... we found out that, indeed, it was isolated, and that they were not feeding any wa:er to it.
There was specula-5 n, at that point, that indeed, there was a problem in the steam 6
generator, that it had possibly suffered a tube leak during tha initial transient, or scmetime there reasonably closely thereafter.
We were trying to set up a method of trying to get a sample of the water, g
I whenever we could, to determine... or to help determine, if indeed 10l this actually... or if we actually thought that that did happen.
And 11!
if indeed it was, like, we could n.onitor it and on a periodic basis --
was it continuing to have a leak, if it did occur.
13l 14!
CRESWELL:
Did it appear to have a leak, a continuing leak, to you?
16i YOCHHEIM:
After we saw
. after we had obtained one or a couple of 17!
samples, and this, again, is down the line a little bit from the first 18i time that I was there, this is af ter a week or so -- it appeared to me 19i that, no, it was not leaking u.1 der the cooler -- cooler down cold 20l J
conditions.
But, obviously, something happened ir.itially, tnat the 21 levels in the generator, activity-wise, were high.r, unless it was 22' l
just a case of it had been bottled with activit' There was some 23i ingress o; activity into the secondary system.
Of that, there is no 24!
doubt.
25i
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25 1!
CRESWELL:
But that wouldn't necessarily be a tube leak... there 2{
could be another path?
i 3l YOCHHEIM:
I suppose there could be another path.
I don't know of 4
S ne, right off hand.
I can postualte a couple.
But I --
6 CRESWELL:
What would they be?
7 8,
i YOCHHEIM:
g When I said postulate... I think if I looked at the plant 1
drawings, I probably could come up with a cath they can do.
I know at 0
other sites, I have found various methods where one could put primary
~!
12l6 activity water into secondary systems.
My suspect that it and frcm the data we saw there, we suspect that there probably was a la, primary to secondary leak, in some form or other.
Whether it was a 14l tube leak or a weld leak, I don't know.
But that's the data, that it would appear to me have been.
17!
I CRESWELL:
You said you had accumulated some other data.
18t What was that again?
19j 20:
l YOCHHEIM:
We were looking also at reactor coolant pump seal leakage, 21l water leakage, temperatures, trying to correlate trying to get as 22ll much data as we thought was available.
I had looked at pressurizer 23' water levels and temperatures.
There was a series of, probably 30 or 24!
40 paramete,
that the people in Lynchburg had asked us to start 25l 1
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26 i
l btaining data for.
And we were having around-the-clock coverage 1{
2{
tryir.g to obtain this data for them.
l 31 4f CRESWELL:
Who did you contact in Lynchburg?
t Sj i
6j YOCHHEIM:
There were several people on site at this..'the other end i
f of the phone line was on all the time.
And there were several, and I can't really give you names necessarily of any individual at any one 8l time.
gd As I said, there were several different people assigned to man the different posts.
There were chemistry people there, and there 10 were nuclear physics people there, and there were reactor operations people there, all of which were were giving the data to.
12!
I 13j CRESWELL:
What was Mr. Yule doing, to your knowledge, during the 14!
event?
15j 16' r
YOCHHEIM:
While I was inside the plant, as I understand it, Dale was 17l
[
doing his best to try to get the B&W chemistry -- radiochemistry 18{
trailer set uo, and organize for counting samples, should it be necessary 19i outside.
And by about Saturday morning or so, we realized that there 20l t
was enough airborne activity on the site xenon levels - that getting 21; icw level backgrcund counts was not then, and the Met Ed instrumen-tation was the location of it, was such that the background levels 23l were high encugh and access was limited enough, so that we could not 24l l
use our instrumentation.
So, we were in the process he was in the 25:
I
I 27
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1 1{
pr cess of trying to set this up, and at the same time, trying to set t
2{
up the access for the Alliance Research Center pecole, who were doing l
3l cold chemistry analysis.
During those times, Dale and I had very i
little communication.
We decided we would take a 12 and 12 hour1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> 4
5 c ver ge.
I w uld take the night shift; Dale would take the days.
Si And for the first, I guess, until Wednesday following the event, i
that's what we did.
We turned over in thc morning, trying to push 7
things.
And I think Dale got on site, finally, Friday afternoon.
8 9l 10l CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
Well, at this point, I'd like to ask you if you have f
any comments that you'd like to make, of any nature?
11!
12l 1
YOCHHEIM:
No really.
Again, my involvement was mostly advisory for 13!
awhile.
Aafter I collected data, I had..
I was again just asked to be here in an advisory capacity, and to make comments.
Again, most of 15; the things we, the advisory, came out of was with consultation with our people in Lynchburg, and it was mostly data gathering, and how best we could collect samples, what was the bost path to get them 18l analyzed, once we got them - the radicchemistry samples; trying to get 191 as much information as we could; trying to do the best we could on the 20:
secondary water system, to provide good quality water to the steam 21!
generators during the cooldown mode.
And that's about all.
22' i
23l l
CRESWELL:
- 0. K.
John, I'm going to turn tne interview oack over to 24l you for concluding statements, or any questions that you might have.
25!
(1,D i
(
28 If SINCLAIR:
I don't have any questions.
Thank you, Mr. Yochheim, for 2
coming in and making yourself available today.
I understand it's a 3
pretty tight schedule.
At this time we'll conclude the interview.
4 The time is 4:20 p.m., May 15, 1979.
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