ML19242D892
| ML19242D892 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/16/1979 |
| From: | Limroth D, Yuhas G METROPOLITAN EDISON CO., NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908280766 | |
| Download: ML19242D892 (32) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION l
l 1
E In the Matter of:
i 2!
IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW l
3!
of David F. Limroth, Superintendent, Administration I
and Technical Support i
Sj Gi 7l l
81
(
Trailer #203 9;
NRC Investigation Site i
TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10f Middletown, Pennsylvania 11!
May 16, 1979 12l (Date of Interview) 13!
July 18, 1979 (Date Transcript Typec) 14) 196 and 197 15]
(Tape Numcer(s))
16; 17,i 18l 19i 20!
21:
NRC PERSONNEL:
22 Gregory P. Yuhas Mark E. Res ar 23!
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RESNER:
The following is an interview of Mr. David F. Limroth.
2l' Mr. Limroth is employed with the Metropolitan Edison Company, at the 3!
Three Mile Island Facility.
His official job title is Superintendent, Administration and Technical Support.
The present time is 4:11 p.m.
Si eastern daylight time and today's date is May 16, 1979. This interview 6'!
is being conducted in trailer 203 which is located just outside the I
7 south gate to the Three Mile Island Facility.
Individuals present for 8!
this interview is Mr. Gregory P. Yuhas.
Mr. Yuhas is employed with 9
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region I.
He is a Radiation Specialist.
10f Moderating this interview is Mark E. Resner, and I am an investigator 11!
with the Office of Inspector and Auditor, Headquarters U. S. Nuclear 12 Regulatory Commission.
Prior to taping this interview, Mr. Limroth 13l was given a two page document which advised him of the purpose, scope 14!
and authority with which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been t
15!
granted to conduct this investigation.
In addition, it apprised him 16l that he is entitled to a representative of his choice should he desire 17!
one and that he is in no way ccmpelled to talk to us should he not 18!
wish to.
On the second page of this document Mr. Limroth has answered 19j three questions which I will state for the record.
Number 1:
Do you 20j understand the above? Mr. Limroth has checked yes. Is that correct 21l Mr. Limroth?
i 22!
i 23l LIMROTH:
That's right.
i 24!
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RESNER:
Question 2:
Do we have your permission to tape the interview?
2 Mr. Limroth has checked yes.
Is that correct Mr. Limroth?
31 4 '
LIMROTH:
Yes that is.
5 Gl RESNER:
Question Number 3 do you want a copy of the tape? Mr. Limroth 7
has checked yes.
Is that correct Mr. Limroth?
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8!
9 LIMROTH:
Yes I would.
10t 11:
RESNER:
Okay we will provide you with a ccpy of the tape.
At this 12l time I will ask Mr. Limroth if he would please give us a brief syr.opsis 13'!
of his educational and job experience in the nuclear field.
14!
15!
LIMROTH:
I have a degree in a Bachelor's of Mechanical Engineering 16 from Villanova University.
I graduated in 1954, following which I 17l spent twenty-four years in the navy.
From 1960, January of 1960, 18f through June or September of 1977, I was directly associated with the 19I operations maintenance and supervision of the, in the naval reactors 20l program, with the navy, in nuclear submarines.
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21; l
22l YUHAS:
Thank you Mr. Limroth.
Did you complete the entire naval i
2 31 reactors training program, by this I mean nuclear power school, qualifi-l 24!
cation of prototype, and then assignment as either Engineering Officer 25j or E0W of the chain of command?
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LIMROTH:
Yes and in addition to that I, in 1967, I spent three months 2'
W "- nirector of Naval Reactors and the Director of Division Naval
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Reactors, going through the perspective commanding officers course and 4'
following that with five and a half years in command of nuclear sub-marines.
t 6i 7
YUHAS:
Mr. Limroth, when did you join Metropolitan Edison?
SI 9
LIMROTH:
On the 18th of September 1978.
10l l
11l YUHAS:
When you accepted work with Metropolitan Edison was it in this 12 position?
13 14!
LIMROTH:
Yes it was.
15!
16:
YUHAS:
Okay.
At what point did you assume direct resoonsibility or i
17l management authority over the Radiation Protection and Chemistry 18!
Department?
19j 20{
LIMROTH:
It was a gradual movement into that area.
Really the first 21!
eight weeks with Metropolitan Edison was spent in training, plant 22l familiarization, and until about the end of February I was primarily 23l involved with the administration end of my job and was just then 24l starting to pick up the reigns on the radiation protection and the 25i technical support end of the job.
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l' YUHAS:
So then we can say that back to March 1, 1979 you assumed 2l direct responsibility? "
3 4!
LIMROTH:
Yes.
5l 6
YUHAS:
For the Radiation Protection Department?
7 8!
LIMROTH:
Yes.
9l
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10f YUHAS:
Can you describe the organizational responsiblity in both 11!
directions, in other words who reports directly to you or who do you 12f report directly to and who reports directly to you?
13 14)
LIMROTH:
I report directly to the Station Manager, Gary Miller, and 15i reporting to me in the Radiation Protection area is Dick Dubiel who is 16:
Supervisor of Radiation Protection and Chemistry.
17l 18!
YUHAS:
Can you describe to us basically the scope of responsibility 19i of that job, in other words are you coordinating a resolution of 20 technical matters primarily or are you concerned with personnel matters 21j or both or can you enlighten me as to the job description?
22I 23 LIMROTH:
All of the above.
And I would be glad to provide you with a i
24l copy of the position description which would probably summarize it 25i better than cover all the aspects of the job rather than my trying to elaborate on it.
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lt' YUHAS:
We'd be happy to have that, a copy of that.
I 2!
LIMROTH:
I'll bring one down this afternoon.
4j i
5 YUHAS:
Thank you.
At this point I'd like you to go through your 6I involvement from the time of how you were informed of the incident on 7
March 28th.
When you came in where did you go to, what responsibilities 8
did you accept, and we're interested in the first three days up until 9I midnight of the 30th, Friday the 30th.
10j 11' LIMROTH:
My first indication of a problem here was when I got to work 12; about 6:15, on the morning of the 28th and found the gates closed, l
13!
went up to the Observation Center and got a briefing from Pete Velez 14 who is a HP Foreman who was in communication by radio with the Emergency 15:
Control Center in Unit 1 and he give me a quick briefing on what had 16; occurred.
At that point no more people were being let on the island 17l and I was requested to remain at the Observation Center and take l
18[
charge so to speak of the efforts there and the coordination of the 19!
off-site survey teams and the...we had a couple of hundred employees 20t up there..just to get them organized and really that took care of 21 just about all of that morning and into the afternoon was the supervision 22li of the efforts coming out of there and really for the...that was my 23' involvement really for about the next two days was getting the opera-24 tions center set up up there the communications established with the 25l island so they could have the plots coordinating the movement of I
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i ltj people the sampling effort off-site, we had huge numbers of people 2
coming in at that point in time, trying to get them into t.5e right 3t place to get to work on the proL~em.
I was really assisting Jack Herbein 41 primarily during that period.
And it wasn't with the exception of a 5
couple of trips down there more than four per day for specific jobs.
6l I can't remember what they were right now.
I didn't really get down 7
to the island on a sort of a permanent basis until about it was either 8{
Saturday or Sunday following the accident.
91 10 YUHAS:
Okay.
Let's go back and I'll try to prod you a little bit to 11!
get some more specific information.
How firm are you on 0615 time?
i 12!
i 131 LIMROTH:
That's firm.
That's what time I got in here.
14!
15i YUHAS:
Okay and that would have been at the north gate?
16l 17l LIMROTH:
Yes.
181 19!
YUHAS:
Okay.
Did you stop your vehicle at the gate and ask the 20t guards why the gate was closed?
l 21!
22l LIMROTH:
Yes I did and they said they didn't know...they couldn't 231 tell me why they were closed and they were just instructed to direct 24 everybody to the Observation Center.
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YUHAS:
The guard did not specifically tell you that a site emergency 2?
i had been declared at that point?
3h l'
4 LIMROTH:
No he did not.
5 6l YUHAS:
In your eight weeks of training can you describe the training 7l that you were given in the Three Mile Island Emergency Plan?
8 9
LIMROTH:
Yes.
It was a...well it was just...that was one of the 10l required reading assignments for the...there wa:3 'he emergency plan Ill along with many other procedures and documents.
m 13!
YUHAS:
Essentially you were just told that's one of the required 14!
readings?
15i 16i LIMROTH:
Yes.
17l 18j YUHAS:
Okay.
How did you perceive your responsibility in the emergency 19; plan?
20 21 LIMROTH:
Well I don't think it really crossed my mind.
I knew the,...what 22l had to be done in the emergency plan and the...my communications with 23!
the control room... Unit l's control room indicated that was that it 24j had been establisned down there as far as the tracking of off-site 25j releases, the calculation of dose rates and so on, and that the biggest t
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1 problem was getting the people moving in the right direction outside 2'
j making sure that the teams were properly equipped with the sampling 3!
equipment, the survey instruments, and that they were getting to where 4!
they should be and that we did have significant communications diffi-Si j
culties in there... radio communications difficulties, in there, between 6
several of the vehicles and the site itself.
So we were setting up to 7
assure that the data got relayed...we were functioning largely as a O
relay station insuring that the correct data was relayed back and 9
forth.
That we were getting it logged there so that, you know, we 10!
knew that we had to reconstruct this item so we were keeping some 11l incredible records there.
12l l
13l YUHAS:
Had you participated in a site emergency drill either here at 14!
Three Mile Island or any other commercial nuclear facility?
15!
16!
LIMROTH:
None no I have not.
17 ISj YUHAS:
Had you been provided any formal classroom training in terms 19i of the emergency plan?
20j 21;i LIMROTH:
Nothing other than...than the standard RWP training which...
22!
no that did not cover the...well, it just covered the broad emergency 23; plan that's all nothing in more depth than the standard RWP training.
24l 25!
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YUHAS:
At the conclusion of your eight weeks of training was there 1
f either an oral or a written assessment of the training program, in 3!
other words, a test or oral exan, something like that?
4f t
3 LIMROTH:
There were two written exams given during the course of the 6{
instruction but they were really oriented toward the hardware of the 7
plant rather than the operating procedures and so on.
8 9
YUHAS:
So neither test covered questions from the emergency plan?
10 11; LIMROTH:
That's correct.
I 12t 13 YUHAS:
Okay.
WI.9n yoI arrived at the emergency center, or excuse me, 14!
the Observation Cente.". Mr. Velez was already there apparently.
15!
16' LIMROTH:
Yes.
17l l
181 YUHAS:
Did you recognize any of the other people that were there at 19!
that time?
20l l
21:
LIMROTH:
Oh yah, there were all our team...they...all of the people 22 who were there were our TMI employees.
I 23 24l YUHAS:
Okay. Can you relate to us the briefing that Pete Velez gave 25 you?
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I 10 i
li LIMROTH:
He basically told me that there had been a reactor trip, 2f there had been a turbine trip and a reactor trip, that the reliefs...a 3i relief had opened and wa had quita a bit of water in the building, in 4lI the containment building we had had a release to the atmosphere, that Si j
some liquid had gotten as far as the auxiliary building and that ne k
didn't have much more..he didn't give me much more detail than that other than the fact that the plant was shutdown and we had had a 8l release and there wasn't too much information beyond that.
9f i
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YUHAS:
When you t'egan to organize the Observation Center can you i
11{
describe r.he information that was available to you in the Observation 12!
Center, specifical;y I am concerned about current copies of operating i
13l procedures, system descriptions, current copies of the emergency plan, 15 that sort of information, communications with and with our hardware 15 ines :o the control room, that kind of thing.
16l 17!
LIMROTH:
We were..we didn't have much in the way of documentat on 18!
out there as far as procedures were concerned.
I specifically recall 19!
havinj to get a copy of the emergency plan from the plant out to the 20{
Observation Center for reference. I don't remember any other procedures i
21l being called for specifically although they did migrate out there and 22f by the time it was over we had...within probably the first twenty-four 23 hours2.662037e-4 days <br />0.00639 hours <br />3.80291e-5 weeks <br />8.7515e-6 months <br />...we had copies of the tech specs and the FSAR and the flow 24l prints as well as that as the emergency plan and some limited number 25;f of procedures but I couldn't really tell you which procedures we had 77 0 7
\\JJ out there.
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11 II YUHAS:
j Early in the day did you become aware of the plant conditions, 2
specifically, the plant parameters that would have given you information 3
to base conclusions of your own by previous operating experience as to d
what was happening in the primary s items?
5 6l lIMROTH:
I really can't recall.
It's been, you know, six weeks and 7
there has been a hell of a lot of information that has transpired in 8l between that area and during...it was pretty sparce and we got a 9
second radio set up there within the first twenty-four hours it was 10 almost a day later.
Telephone coamunications were extremely difficult.
11 We started out with one telephone and any kind of communications was 12!
very difficult.
The radio communications was the one one net on which 13 we were talking to the control rcom and to all the off site vehicles I
14 and the helicopter or helicopters that were in use for surveying at l
15; that time and plant specific parameters were not...if they were coming 16i up the:'e I wasn't mede aware of them until probably sometime on Friday.
17 I guess we got a status board established and we were getting some of 18I the plant parameters at that time.
19l 20j YUHAS:
Was there an operations oriented representative of management 21l in the Observation Center that morning?
I 22l 23 LIMROTH:
I think the first real operations oriented person that we 24l had up there was probably Mr. Herbein who arrived 10:00-10:30ish 25 sometime later that morning at the Observation Center.
There may have cu D
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lli been a shift supervisor but I really can't recall at this time if 2i l
there was or not.
3l YUHA5:
In the period from your arrival to Mr. Herbein's arrival were Si l
you the Senior Met Ed Licensee or Met Ed Representative out there at 61 the Observation Center?
7 8
LIMROTH:
Yes I was.
I i
f YUHAS:
Okay.
In that period of time did you issue any requests for 11l activation of contractual agreements for manpower, what I am thinking 12 of specifically is did you request help for instance from Pennsylvania l
13!
Power and Light or from Philadelphia Electric Company or from RMC, 14 anything like that, would you coordinate any requests for additional 15' manpower or equipment?
16!
17f LIMROTH:
I contacted NSS and asked for somewhere in the order of 18!
thirty technicians and supervisors to come up here. I knew they were 1
going to need a whole body counter.
I was involved in getting RMC up 20j here with a whole body counter and by that afternoon it wasn't a 2b question of our contacting anybody it was people were calling us 22 volunteering and I think Philadelphia Electric sent several techs up 2b here they had just arrived there...to the best of my knowledge they 24 arrived.
There was a group that had come up from $alem that was up 25!
through the weekend of techs.
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YUHAS:
How about people like Bill Allen from...he must be Pennsylvania 3
2' Power and Light right?
Did he show up with some people technical 3
types?
4; i
Si LIMROTH:
That name doesn't sound familiar.
j 61 7
YUHAS:
How about troops from Oyster Creek?
8 9
LIMROTH:
There were...as I recall there were two people from Oyster 10 Creek and I can't remember their names I have them written down...some-11!
where there, and they were either foreman or supervisors and they were 12l; up here for less than a week as I recall and they got recalled back to 1
Oyster Creek.
14!
15' YUHAS:
It appears that the majority of personnel that arrived in the 16 first couple of days were health physics oriented.
Is that correct?
17l l
18i LIMROTH:
Oh no, I wouldn't say that.
I'd say that they were power plant 19I oriented. They were not necessarily health physics oriented. Whoever.. gees 20l you know the Stone and Websters...there was a group of something like 21l seven from Combustion Engineering that came in including a Vice President 22 that was...there was a pretty broad spectrum of engineering and health 23 physics.
I can't speak too much for the operator types but that was 24I my impression at that point.
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i 11 YUHAS:
Did you allocate this manpower as it arrived?
2l l
31 i
LIMROTH:
Yes.
4f Si YUHAS:
Okay.
Can you describe basically the groups of people who j
6i were generic types of people and where you sent them and what you had to do?
81 9
LIMROTH:
The health physics oriented people we used immediately off-10j site to augment the surveying teams and the technical people that came i
11l in were guided over to a group under Bob Arnold who was then in the 12
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process of putting his recovery team into being.
13 i
14i RESNER:
Let me interrupt here at this point to break the tape the 15 time now is 4:36 p.m. eastern daylight time.
16 17l RESNER:
This is the continuation of the interview of Mr. David F.
l 18f Limroth.
The time now is 1638 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
And I 19!
guess we'll pick up where we left off.
20.!
l 21l YUHAS:
We were talking about allocations of manpower, and you just 22f finished by saying that the health physics people were assigned to the 23 offsite and onsite but not in plant, I guess.
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LIMROTH:
That's right.
2l 1
3t YUHAS:
The surw.y team was in the first few... first few days as they 4:
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came in.
Can you describe the organization that you developed beneath you at the Observation Center to coordinate all these activities in communication and other demands that were being placed upon you at the 7
time?
8 9
LIMROTH:
The...the organization was varily the one of communications..e 10 of the radio communications, in trying to coordinate the telephone 11 calls that were coming in.
That was one group there about 7 or 8 12i people and we were being...we were rotating, in other words it was on 13{
a...there wasn't anything as formal as a watchbill, let's put it that 14 way.
As the various company officers came in, I guess the...really 15 the first organization we had off there was anything tnat was, you 16!
know, Rippon appeared about...probably 48 hours5.555556e-4 days <br />0.0133 hours <br />7.936508e-5 weeks <br />1.8264e-5 months <br /> after the accident i
17l occurred.
But the tecnnical people, I just tried to get them in touch i
18f with the proper technical people on the...of the company and just 19l getting them to work there.
The health physics people we had, I think 20t it was 5, 4 or 5 survey teams going.
It was one on the west side of 21, the river; we had one airborne; we had one at least one on the island 22f itself that was doing surveying, and there was one or two on the east 23 side of the river, one on the observation side, the center side there 24l on the east side, so it was a matter of keeping that manned and moving.
25i Oh, and one othe: one of the huge effort was the photodosimetry effort.
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j At the time of the accident, virtually all of our TLDs and photodosimetry 2
equipment was on the island.
We got a crew down to the island to 31 bring out the TLD reader and we set that up in the Observation Center 4
and we brought out all the TLDs that we could find.
Now, the practice 5l l
has been to leave all our TLDs in the process center as you left the 61 plant in the afternoon and you pick it up in the morning when you came i
7 in again.
People had been issued, by this time, some people had been 8
issued some temporary TLDs to gain access onto the plant immediately, 9
and in the mean t!me we had biought out our permanent ones or all of 10' the TLDs that we could find in the plant, brought them out, read them to rezero them, and set up a program with the...with the guards at the 12I gate to issue TLDs and gave them a very simple format on which they 13 recorded the individuals name, his social security number and the TLD 14!
that was issued.
And the people...there was a, I won't say a large 15I number of people coming and going but we had a limited number of TLDs 16I and a lot of people that were...that needed them read so that they 17!
would bring them right back to the process...to the Observation Center 18l and we would read them and then turn them around and get them down to 19l the North Gate so that we could keep them moving, and it took us a few 20l days to get that thing sorted out afterwards but...
21l 1
2 21 YUHAS:
What body of people were used to set up the TLD reader and I
23l then to operate it?
24 25!
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LIMROTH:
As I recall, we got somebody from Harshaw out here that 2?'
morning.
And I don't know who called them out here, but at any rate, i
3l a representative from...a Technician from Harshaw was out here and Mike Euring, who was...with the Radiological Safety and Environmental Engineering group at the Reading staff came out.
He was qualified to 6
operate the TLD reader, and he was reading it.
We had one of our 7
technicians, one of the Rad Chem Techs, was also reading these things 8
and we had numerous clerical people, anybody really that we could get 9f our hands on.
They were opening these up and preparing them for 10' reading and then reassembling them as they came out the reader and that was...that was a pretty massive effort for the first several... couple 12 of days until we got a trailer and got ourselves established for 13 clearing Observation Center so that was really the third before we had 14!
it going.
15; 16 YUHAS:
In this interim period, how were the dose updates accumulated?
17!
18l LIMROTH:
As the people brought their TLDs out to the Observation 191 Center they were read almost imaiediately and the individual was informed 20!
of what the reading was on that..on the TLD.
There were 3.. 3 over-21k exposures which occurred within the first 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> of this.
One was f
22l involved in taking a letdown...one or two was involved in taking that 23f initial letdown sample and the third one was Ed Fuhrer who went into 24j the Auxiliary Building, I believe it was, to make an inspection for a i
25l leak.
They were the only overexposures which occurred, and we knew them as soon as we got them read out.
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I l:f YUHAS:
Are you aware of what was going on at the 500 KV station?
2!
3l L_IMROTH:
Yeah.
We were...we had set up a survey area at the 500KV I
4f substation and the reason for that was that our background in the...even 55 as far away as the Observation Center was such that you couldn't do 6
any meaningful frisking of either personnel or vehicles, and we had a...we did set up a system whereby the people or vehicles leaving the 8
North Gate, and that was the only traffic that we had coming in through 9
onto the island for at least the first three days.
Those vehicles 10 would come up and go down to the 500KV substation and the people would lli be frisked, the vehicles would be frisked, and then released.
We had 12!
a rig, again by this one...one radio network we were calling the i
13I guards would call the substation and tell the substation that the t
14!
vehicle under so and so and give them the license number had just come 15; out and he should be down there keeping the record there just to make 16l sure th't nobody had...or everybody who had lef t the North Gate was I
17 going down there to be frisked and then released.
18!
19l YUHAS:
Were you aware of any individuals that went through this that 20j were contaminated?
21 22 LIMROTH:
There were a few cases of contamination that were reported 23 back from the substation.
By this point we had some techs and I 24l believe they were NSS techs down there.
We had very limited decontam-1 25i ination facilities down there, it was really not much more than a sink (38 3 iL i
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and there were a couple...I can't give you the exact number, but it 2
was less than 10, cases of minor skin contamination, and they were decontaminated down there and released.
4!
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YUHAS:
Were any of the individuals that were overexposed or...I OI wouldn't use the word overexposed...but exposed in excess of the 7!
regulatory limits, were they contaminated?
8 9
LIMROTH:
Yes, Ed Houser who is a Chemistry Supervisor, and he was 10f involved in drawing the letdown sample, as I recall.
He did have some 11l skin contamination on his arm and, as I recall, some on his leg or his 12' knees that was fixed because he had that in a...we had that wrapped up 13l in poly just to sweat it out of him for the first couple of days.
14 Then they, you know, he sweat it out and got rid of it, but that's:..that's 15; the only case that I can recall of someone exceeding 3 rem per quarter, 16!
who had any contamination on him.
17f i
18l YUHAS:
Are you aware that Mr. Velez was also contaminated?
19j 20 LIMROTH:
I can't recall whether he was or not.
21!
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YUHAS:
Did anyone inform you of the relative levels that Mr. Houser 22l 231 was contaminated to?
l 24f 25l 6
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LIMROTH:
It was in the...on tne arm, it was in the order of a couple i
2 of millirem and I don't recall if it was 5 or 10, but there was...it 31 was enough...it was above the hundred counts per minute range, it was 4l in the millirem range, yes.
5l 61 YUHAS:
Are you aware of any facilities or agreement facilities for i
71 decon of personnel available during an emergency?
8 9
LIMROTH:
The Hershey Medical Center is the closest one.
That is 10 where we would normally senri, you know, a casualty...a contaminated 11 casualty.
12l 13 YUHAS:
So as far as you know the only provisions for sending someone 14 to Hershey for decontamination would be if they were also injured?
15; 16; LIMROT_H:
Yes.
I 17' r
18f YUHAS:
Okay, so in other words no consideration was given to sending 19!
Houser, for instance, to Hershey to be decontaminated?
20f i
2 LIMROTH:
No, uh uh.
22I 23!
YUHAS:
Did you physically observe any decontamination efforts being
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24l performed in the Observation Center in the mens room?
25!
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21 1f LIMROTH:
No I did not.
i 2'
i 31 YUHAS:
Were you aware if or if not logs were being maintained as to who was contaminated and the extent of their contamination and after c!
their deposition, either at the 500KV or there at the Observation 6
Center during the first 3 days?
7l l
8l LIMROTH:
There were records being kept on the log, and it would be 9l stretching the imagination, there were records being kept, they were 10 extremely informal records, I had given them verbal instructions 11l that...to write down, or keep some semblance of a record on anybody i
12!
that had come up there, and then had any decontamination 13!
14.
YUffAS:
Who did you give that direction to?
15i 16' LIMROTH:
They were...it was some of the NSS techs who were there that i
17!
we initially...that we first got down and I can't recall whose names 18[
at this point.
19!
20 YUHAS:
Did you ask any of your rad chem foremen to verify that records 21, were being maintained in some semblance?
22l 23f LIMROTH:
No because my foreman were...as soon as they came in they 24 were immediately down there in the plant and with the exception of 25{
Velez who runs...as I recall got called back into the plant that t
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i
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22 I
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morning.
I didr.'t have any foreman other HP or chemistry foreman or 2]'
my two supervisors...any of my supervisory people up here...up at the 3!
Observation Center.
4:
5 YUHAS:
Do you know a Robert McCann?
Si 7
LIMROTH:
Yes I do.
8 9
YUHAS:
Is he a....HP foreman?
10j i
11!
LIMROTH:
He's an HP foreman, yes.
I 12!
13l YUHAS:
Did you see Mr. McCann out there in the first 3 days?
14!
15 LIMROTH:
I really...I can not recall his being out there, no.
16i i
17l YUHAS:
Okay.
Were there any chronologys or rough records of any sort i
18r maintained there in the Observation Center as to communications or 191 disposition of manpower resources during the first couple of days?
20t 21!
LIMROTH:
There were records kept of communications and that was it.
22l The record of communications did not keep any records of where people 23;1 were or what they had been assigned to.
l 24!
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23 l
i 11 i
YUHAS:
Do you know the deposition of these records?
I 2:
31 l
LIMROTH:
Not at this point I don't, no.
They were all being transcribed i
from pretty rough notes to type records and somewher; along that line l
I remember that they had minutes of it would be up in the 130, 140 1
6!
pages of typed notes, and that was before that week and had come they 7
were the typed records.
8 9f YUHAS:
Could you give us any idea of who would be the best person to 10 contact regarding these records?
11, i
12!
LIMROTH:
I don't exactly know where those records are now.
The last i
131 time I saw them was in the Observation Center, and I don't know exactly i
14 where they got transferred to.
15i 16 RESNER:
Who in the Observation Center had responsibility for those 17l records?
i 18l 19!
LIMROTH:
I don't think, well, I don't think the responsibility was 20!
really never assigned for those; they were being generated, they were 21l being preserved and were being typed, and the Observation Center per 22!
se, was still I guess in operation of some form when I came dow, 23j over...when I left there over the weekend..about the veekend and came I
24!
down into the..got down on the plant up in the Unit 2.
25; l
4 i
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24 i
l!
l YUHAS:
Can you describe briefly Mr. Herbein's actions on arrival.
2t j
Did he establish a secondary control center or an immediate reponse 2!
center, or something of that order in the Observation Building?
41 Si j
LIMROTH:
He had, as you want to call it, a command center established.
61 We had already gotten started by the time he arrived.
It was primarily communications oriented and we had a plot you know, the chart of the 8
area, the...not *'ie grid but the polar plot of the area on which we h
were maintaining an up to date status on the release and the dose data 10 as fast as it was being reported in.
I think that's about it.
11!
12f YUHAS:
Wa:...en this isopleth that you had, was someone calculating 13I atmospheric dispersions of the release?
14!
15' LIMROTH:
They were being calculated in the Unit 1 control room and a 16' little bit... sometime during that day, Mr. Sid Port" of Porter Gert::...
17l they're our consultant... arrived and he...I think he was sent to the 18!
control room immediately and that's where they...where the dispersions 191 were being calculated.
l 20t 21!
YUHAS:
Did you assign someone to keep this plot up to date, this map?
?
22'I i
23l LIMROTi:
v es I did, that was being kept in the front end of the 1
24l Observation Center, if you will, and it was being kept up to date as l
25j we came...as we got the information in from the survey teams.
What i
1
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5
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25 i
1; the specific activities were that they were recording either in 2{
radiation exposure or specific activity that was being recorded 31 I can't say.
4!
i Si j
YUHAS:
Who is the...the first 3 days now, who was coordinating relations 6i of information to the press-from the Observation Center?
7 8
LIMROTH:
The releases of information or coordination of reieases of h
information were being controlled by Mr. Bill Gross who is a Public 10' Information Coordinator, and although the information that we were lif giving them at. that time was pretty sparse, there was and 12I sometime, I think it was Wednesday afternoon, Jack Herbein did address 13 a group of probably, by that time there was somewhere about 30 or 40 14 reporters out there that day.
It was about 2:00 in the afternoon as I 15!
remember, that he addressed them and all further releases of information 16 were...we just weren't releasing much information at that point.
17l About that time, as I recall, the NRC got here.
Some of our information 18j services people started to appear on the scene and press inquiries 19I were being directed really to our...to either Bill Gra s who worked at 20j the..our information services people.
21l 22 YUHAS:
Were you in the Observation Center Friday morning, the 30th?
23 This would be the morning that great consternation developed over the 1
24l evacuation.
1 25i i
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26 11 LIMROTH:
Yeah.
Yes I was.
i I
2!
l 3
YUHAS:
I wonder if you could give us a run down on what was going on in the Observation Center in terms of the various conjecture as to 5
l evacuate, not to avacuate, and how far out to evacuate.
Who was recommend-61 ing, who was not recommending, etc.?
7 8
LiMROTH:
Well to put it...to say that it was confused would have been 9
an understatement.
We were getting as much information off the 10 television set there as...as far as the evacuation was concerned as 11:
anyone else.
The general at.titude within the Observation Center was 12 that it had gotten out of control and based on the information that we 131 had seen there was no need for evcuation and the information that we'd 14!
gotten from the plant, things were in sort of a semi-stable condition 15!
and knowing radiation levels that we were having reported back, the 16l release information and the specific activities, the airborne activities 17l that we were picking up there.
It was the general impression of 18!
everyone there in the Observation Center that this was...there was an 19!
awful lot of over reaction on the part of the state, and it was very 20; difficult to find out wF-6s..who outside of here...outside of the 21l island was making
]f recommendations ordering evacuations, I
22l recommending evacua ions, and
.o on.
I know that to the best of my 23 knowledge there was no recomme v
from the Observation 24!
Center area that the area be evacue.c o.
(
25-U,;
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i' 27 l
1!
l TAPE RUNS OUT.
2; 3}1 RESNER:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. David F. Limroth.
4!
The tape cut it short the time now is 1706, excuse me, 5:06 p.m.
S' eastern daylight time and Mr. Yuhas had just asked a question.
6 7
YUHAS:
The question I was just asking Mr. Limroth was specifically 8!
how did you coordinate the sampling effort?
Si
\\
10l LIMROTH:
The coordination of the sampling effort was to ensure that...
11 that the sampling teams had instrumentation and the counting equipment 12l and the sampling equipment which is necessary for that... these are I
13 portable air samplers, radiation survey meters and the SAM 2s, portable i
14 SAM 2s, for counting airborne samples that were drawn. The actual 15l direction of where to go and how many teams was being directed by the 16!
ECS and we were implementing making sure that we had people there, 17 that they had the equipment there, and they got underway and that it 18i was getting done.
19 20!
YUHAS:
It is my understanding that there were only two operable 21 emergency kits and those kits contain a SAM 2, PIC-6, and some other 22I equipment.
When you were outfitting these additional teams where did l
23 the instrumentation come from?
24 25 i
l, j
[
(
28 l!
l LIMROTH:
We some...we got...we did get some instrumentation...was 2'
j brought in by Philadelphia Electric and some other instrumentation 3t came up from Salem I think.
We got some instrumentation very early 4l that morning from Salem that came up with a group of technicians that 5
were being brought up which was quickly put into service with the 6
survey teams.
7 0
YUHAS:
Would you know if for instance in the 140 pages of writtan notes they would include information as to when the support groups 10 arrived at TMI?
11, l
12f LIMROTH:
I don't believe that that is in there.
I couldn't say yes 13 or no but I do not believe that that is in there.
14l 15!
YUHAS:
Basically do you know who maintains these records that were 16!
finally collated and put into some form?
17l l.
18!
LIMROTH:
There was... the manning of that group was primarily our QC 19!
Department personnel here with Terry Macky and... I can' t remember who 20!
else is in charge...I think John Brummer headed up another shift worth I
21l of personnel in there and we had someone that was heading up the l
22l clerical people... I can' t remember who it was.. that..I can't 23 remember the constitution of that effort there.
24f 25!
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29 i
l 1!
l YUHAS:
Are you familiar with Technical Specification 6.2, Facility 2t Organization, both at TMI-l or 2?
3 4l Yes, probably not by that number but I'm...
LIMROTH:
5 6l YUHAS:
Okay.
Where do you fit in in the facility description area as 7
far as personnel that they have on?
8 LIMROTH:
Unit...we were just in the... in the process of revising that 10' tech spec.
I had reviewed it, in about February, because the current one doesn't even reflect my position in that in the tech spec and I was being..there was a revision that had come through me for review, 13l which put my position...my position is a new one in the station.
14 15l YUHAS:
Do you... if that proposed revision to the organization chart has 16f been submitted or not?
17!
I 18)
LIMROTH:
I don't know whether that had been submitted or not.
It had 19!
been commented upon out here...out. here at the island and sent back to 20f the licensing section and ready for submission.
I 21!
22!
YUHAS:
I am a little confused over what position suborted to Mr. Dubiel l
23l that's referred to in the emergency plan and that's the Chemistry 24 Supervisor.
Has that position been done away with and now you simply 25i have some chemistry foremen?
~q lO,
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30 1!
LIMROTH:
We do not have a Chemistry Supervisor per se.
We have only I
2{
three chemistry foremen who report directly to Mr. Dubiel and we have 3l l
a position staff chemist which is...has now been changed to chemist that 4l is a support position I guess is the best way to describe it,
- l]
to whom nobody really reports he...that's a technical position rather 6
than a line or line supervision position.
That the incumbent in that 7
was had just been changed about February I think it was.
8 9
YUHAS:
Does Mr. Fredericks...I think his name is...
10 11 LIMROTH:
Ken Fredericks, yes, had been our staff chemist and in about 12I February as I recall he was transferred to the service company or to 13 the lab in Reading and his position was filled by Mr. Gary Chevalier.
14!
4 15 YUHAS:
Do you know if Mr. Fredericks was on site during the incident?
16l Did he come down and help out or perform in any way the first couple 1
17 of days?
181 19!
LIMROTH:
I know he got up here but I couldn't tell you exactly when 20!
he arrived.
21;I t
22l YUHAS:
Do you know if Mr. Chevalier was involved in the incident at 23 all?
24l 25l fO t.,
i
I
(
31 l!
j LIMROTH:
Yes he was...well he was in the...he was called into the 2i j
plant very early on and he came to help with the chemistry sampling. I 3
presume it was supervision in the lab.
4l Si.
YUHAS:
Do you know who filled the position in the emergency room organization as the supervisor of chemistry...the chemistry supervisor?
7 8
LIMROTH:
No I do not.
9 10 YUHAS:
Al right. I don't have any other specific questions right at 11 this time.
I do have one generic question.
I ask it even though you're 12) probably not in a position to...since you haven't been with TMI that i
13!
long to answer it but...do you suspect or have any reason to believe t
14 that any individual may have precipitated or may have aggravated the 15:
incident that occurred on March 28th?
16!
17l LIMROTH:
No sir.
l 18{
19!
YUHAS:
Okay. I'd like to thank you for your time and we will be 20!
expecting to get a copy of your job description.
21f 22' LIMROTH:
Yep.
23 l
24l YUHAS:
...Or of the tape.
2{
'J t '
l i
32 1!
l RESNER:
Resner speaking.
This concludes the interview with Mr. Limroth.
2!
l The time now is 5:15 p.m. eastern daylight time.
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7 81 91 i
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