ML19242D907
| ML19242D907 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/18/1979 |
| From: | Laudermilch D METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908280823 | |
| Download: ML19242D907 (34) | |
Text
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i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 8
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I
1 In the Matter of:
2!
IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW i
3 of Dale J. Laudermilch l
Auxiliary Operator B 4
1 Si 6!
l 7!
8!
il Trailer #203 91 NRC Investigation Site l
TMI Nuclear Power Plant 1 06 i
Middletown, Pennsylvania 11f May 18, 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) 1h; July 9.1979 (Date Transcript Typed) 1 41 220 and 221 15 (Tape Numcer(s))
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17l 181 19l 20' 21:
NRC PERSCNNEL:
22!
Tim Martin y
William H. Foster t
245 C50 r
7os 1, u a 25i' 790r?M &3
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lj F_0 STER: My interview is being conducted with Mr. Dale J. Laudermilch. Mr.
2j Laudermilch is an Auxiliary Operator 8 at Three Mile Island Nuclear Facility.
The present time is 2:00 PM.
Today's date is May 18, 1979.
The place of the interview is Trailer No. 203 located immediatedly outside the TMI site.
5l Individuals present for the interview are T!m Martin, Iaspection Specialist, 1
6h I&E Performance Appraisal Branch.
My name is William H. Foster.
I am a
[
Senior Inspector and Auditor for the Office of Inspection aad Auditor, NRC.
- 9 8 i Mr. Laudermilch was provided a document explaining his rights concerning 9;,
l the information to be obtained regarding the incident at Three Mile Island.
101 1
In addition to Mr. Laudermilch was provided with the authority of the llj investigation, the purpose of the investigation, the scope of the investiga-12!
13l; tien, and the authority by which the Congress authorizes the NRC to conduct
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this investigation.
On tne second page of the Advisory Document Mr. Lauder-14' milch has answered three questions.
The questions and Mr. Laudermilch's i
15:
answers will now be recorded as part of the interview.
16' 17!
FOSTER:
Mr. Laudermilch, do you understand the document?
1%
19i LAUDERMlLCH:
Yes, sir.
20t 21l
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FOSTER:
Do we have your permission to tape this interview?
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23f i
LAUDERMILCH:
Yes, sir.
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lj FOSTER:
Do you want a copy of the taped transcript?
2!
LAUDERMILCH:
Yes sir, I do.
3 4!
g)
FOSTER:
Mr. Laudermilch, at this time, would you please provide a brief 6
summary of your academic background and employment history as it relates to the nuclear field?
8l LAUDERMILCH:
9l I was employed by Met Ed on the 9th (I believe) of July 1976.
l I started as a site protection officer when Met Ed first started their own 10j 11;:
security program.
There we had extensive training in the security aspect and of course firearms and the legal aspects in carrying a firearm.
We had basic HP training there.
If I remember, I was awarded an RWP on my badge 13{
for that training. I think that it was a 16-hour type session, we had some 14; brushup sessions after that.
About June of let's see, it would have been 15' the next year, I guess 77, I left the security department and went to the Health Physics Department where I received somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks of health physics training to move into the job of a Rad C'.em Tech, Jr.
181 Immediately upon completion of the training there was a layoff and I was 19; bumped out of my position.
I was given the chance to take a test to become 20!
an Auxiliary C Operator.
I took the test and was awarded the position of Auxiliary C Operator.
I spent about three months on shifts, on the job 22) training, filling out some reports corresponding to that training.
From 231 l
there, I believe it was in late October or November, we went to school for 24I l
nine weeks for Auxiliary C Operator school.
I spent a year on shift, took 2 51 l
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a test in July of 78 and was awarded Auxiliary B Operator and at the end of i
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July of 78 I reentered schhol for another six weeks of primary side trdining l
3l nd some math and health physics training also.
After that time I have been on shift and have received the normal shift training OJT Training, 5l company training programs that they have, when we were on our training I
g; week, when we have been on our relief week, we have had training sessions and so forth. That's about it.
8 FOSTER:
Thank you, Mr. Laudermilch, can I ask you to speak a little louder, b
i please? At this time, I will turn the interview over to Mr. Martin.
10j i
llf l
MARTIN:
Tim Martin speaking.
At what point did you become aware of the 12 '.
l event and what was your involvement?
13l 14' LAUDERMILCH:
Well, I was en shift the night of the trip, OK.
I was on 15 Outbuilding 4 just finished adding hydrogen to the main generator.
I was 16:
17j coming in Unit 1 security building or just out of the Unit 1 security building, the area of the Unit 1 service building
- heard the Unit 2 181 safeties lift. So that would have been my first my first time that I realized 19i that we had tripped and from there I went back to the Control Room via the 20!
outside route to check some things on the way.
That was the first indica-21[
f tion I had that we had a trio.
22 23 MARTIN:
Dale, you indicated that you heard the Unit 2 safeties l# #t.
24 Could it have been any other safeties that lifted that gave you that indica-25' tion or how can we be sure that it was the Unit 2 safties that lifted?
4 r3 6Pb u'
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4 LAUDEP. MILCH:
Well, like I said, I was right outside the Unit 1 service 1;
2 building as I came in the door I heard it and I went Dack outside and from i
3[
that point, if it had been the Unit 1 safeties lifting, I could have seen 4
them and I looked and it wasn't Unit 1 so I knew it had to be Unit 2.
f
-5l MARTIN:
Dale, Martin speaking again.
Could it have been safeties associated 6
with the Auxiliary boiler.
I ai LAUDERMILCH:
g No, because there is no mistaking the difference in volume you know o? sound of the Unit 2 safeties and the Aux boilers.
The Aux I
boilers make noise but nothing like the type Unit 2 safeties do.
11; l
12l I
MARTIN:
Martin, speaking again.
Would you try to sequence us through what 13) you did from that point on, what you saw, and I'll interupt if I have some 1m,,
specific questions.
16 LAUDERMILCH:
OK.
17; If I may, I have a copy of an interview that I had right after the trip.
I may have to refer to this to try to remember some things.
181 As I said, I started back toward the Unit 2 control room.
I took the 19!
outside route around the Unit 2 Auxiliar) Building by the main transfcrmers, 20i I
condensate storage tanks, steam and water tanks and back in the Unit 2 21!
turbine building on the West side.
I was assigned to out buildings that 22l l
night, so I figured that it was as gocu a chance as any to make a quick 23l l
tour and just check things out to make sure everything was all right out 24li there that nothing abnormal was going on.
I didn't see really anything 2T
, q ",
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abnormal there.
I came in the Unit 2 turbine building of course by the lj I
2.
sounds in the building I could tell that we had tripped.
I don't remember i
3l whether it was louder or quieter but I knew that it was different and knew 4
that we weren't on the line anymore so on the way back up I went via 305 5l level of the turbine building.
One thing I did see were the gland steam I
6l exhausters were blowing steam fairly bad.
7 MARTIN:
This is Martin again.
What would that indicate to you?
g 10l LAUDERMILCH:
Well, apparently that the exhausters had tripped off and they I
weren't removing the steam the way they should have been from the turbine glands.
That is about the only thing that I can think of right off the top i
of my head.
13l 14!
MARTIN:
Is that normal on a turbine trip?
161 l
LAUDERMILCH:
t>o, I don't recall seeing that before.
I looked at it quickly 17}
l on the way by, OK?
They were bicwing steam and I just made the judgement 18t at that time that it wasn't critical and the best thing I could do was go 19i to the control room and be dispatched where I was needed, CK.
So that's 20t about all that I can tell you about that.
I can't really make a judgement 21i on what sequence of events might have led up to the exhausters tripping, 22 you know scme sort of electrical problem maybe or maybe some sort of pressure 23l l
spike that made the exhauster malfunction.
But that's the problem as I saw 24l it on the way by.
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MARTIN:
Sorry, I interrupted your thought trtin here, would you continue rom that point on?
2 I
3l LAUDERMILCH:
q From there I went to the Control Room and waited to be dis-patched on a job.
I did a number of jobs that evening and I am not real q
sLre of the time frames and so forth, but I will try and remember the best I can.
Terry Dougherty and myself were in the control room.
Don Miller had been dispatched down to the turbine building or he had been working in the turbine building earlier tha" night, he was on the polishers.
I don't 91 know if he was down there at the time or what but apparently he called the 10(
I control room and said they had a leak en the suction of the A booster pump.
11!
So Terry and I left and went down there to help him out.
We got down there 12!
and there was a leak it was just downstream of the suction valve so we 13!
m started to close the valve.
They started calling me on the page for another job so Terry said that he would get it.
So he took the message and was 15 dispatched somewhere else and Don and myself and there was an engineer 16' standing by and we asked for help and isolated the leak.
I think I reported IT back up to the Control Room after that to the next so called job I would 18!
have been dispatched to would have been trying to maintain hot well level.
191 Hot well level was high.
The downstream isolation of the main reject valve 201 l
was throttled, OK.
I was told to open it up, I think four turns, to try to 2 11 bring the het well level down.
I did that and I can't remember whether I 22l was running back and forth to the control rocm being dispatched on all of i
22f these jobs.
Some of them I know that I was down there and they called me i
24I and so forth but I worked on that and they called me again and told me to 25; l
7 If open it further and you know then stay down by the page and try to maintain 2'
h t well level.
By that time, Bill Zewe and Terry Dougherty and Don Miller l
31 were down there was a problem Don had told me earlier that the polisher 4
outlet valves had isolate; and they couldn't get COV 12 which is a bypass Sf r und the polishers open OK?
They were up there on top and the handwheel 6l was missing on the valve, OK.
I:'s a limit torque valve, the thing never 7l did work right.
We've always had problems with it.
But they got uo there 8
and the handwheel was apparently laying on top of the ventilation duct and I
they had to meo, around trying to get the handwheel on you know and then g
0:
they got it on and they were cranking on it.
Then Bill was called down to the page.
Craig Faust called him and had some question about the turbine bypass valves.
Anyway, Bill left then and I was on the ground and Terry f
and Don were up trying to get the valve open.
I told them I was going to
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14l; go up and trip and reset the breaker for it and see if that might help us 15l; out to get the thing open, you know.
I told them to just keep cranking on i t.
So I did that and came down and told Terry to listen for the page you i
know if they wanted to do something on the hot well level, he would have to 17l I
come down and take over that job.
But I got back down and I don' t know if 18i it was the breaker or they finally got it off the seat far enough but apparently we got travel out of the valve and got the valve open OK.
We were downstairs looking at things, I was looking at the leak and the booster 21, pump there was a leak in the outlet of one polisher I was looking at that.
22l There was a lot of confusion.
Somebody had called and said that the circ 23 water flumes were starting to overflow.
Terry was on the page and he told 24',
me that and I said well, stand by the hot well level here and try to main-25!
f o r, C'J
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tain that and I'll go out and try to take care of it.
I had a radio with me you know from being on the out buildings so I ran upstairs and called I
the guards and they met me at the gate and I ran out to the circ water i
house.
4jl The flumes hadn't yet overflowed, they were a few inches from the top so I called Ed Frederick on the page and told him and he said OK, then j
let's isolate makeup.
So I isolated it and yelled it over the page that it et was isolated and he acknowledged it OK.
So I -an back inside and the i
7j guards were waiting for me and let me back inside the rate.
I went back downstairs and things had calmed down for a period of time.
I remember looking at the hot well level and the whole time it was out of the sight 10j glass and I couldn't understand this.
We weren't getting the hot well ll!
level down and the water was clear but then I think when I came back in f
from securing and makeup to the flume and looked at it the water was dirty.
13)
+
You know, it was just like from the water hammer downstairs.
I heard a 14!
pretty loud water hammer.
I thought, well maybe it just shook some iron loose and it finally wound up in the sight glass or I thought you know I 16) was thinking all kinds of things and I thought well maybe it was just or 171' maybe we could have a possible circ water tube rupture.
I told Bill Zewe 18i about it and he acknowledged it.
He didn't say what he thought about it l?'
but he acknowledged that I had told him.
So then we were downstairs and 20:
Gingrich and Harold Farst were jacking the feedwater pump over by hand 21!
l because the B feed pump turning gear was shot.
It hasn't worked for a 22!
while.
Terry was over looking at the main reject valve we were throttling 231 l
on downstream isolation.
And here, the darn thing was shut the whole time 2 41 j
because when the trip initially happened, I guess, Don Miller was downstairs 25l l
, o-('[s V
d t
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and he said the water hammer was just horrendous.
Where we saw the leak we 2
saw that line move two or three feet horizontally.
Apparently what happened 1
3f during that part of the transient, the lines moved such that the air to the 4J main reject line had severed the air line and the valve had never opened.
gj We knew that we had lost the feed pumps and all this and we knew that the 6
reject valve was supposed to be open and we were throttling on the outlet isolation 7
on th downstream isolation and we figured we were doing good all this time and we weren't.
Then they got the instrument guys down and I 3
remember them working on it and I guess they finally got it open.
I went 9{
i back upstairs and I saw Steve Mull Don Miller and myself went back upstairs and we saw Steve Mull he was shutting the isolations to the reheaters 1 11 I
and Don said he was going to give hi,a a hand and I said well I am going to 12!
i grab a sandwich.
I hadn't eaten yet that night I figured I would grab a 13\\
I sandwhich and go back into the control room and stand by there and see if 14!
they need anything else.
During that course I went well I left for the 15:
control room and I was eating my sandwich and Ed Frederick told me that 16; there was a breaker, two valves that 7e needed open and he needed them open 17l r
real quick.
They were the four flood valves, CFE 1A and 18.
I have that 18r in here somewhere I am sure that those are the numbers.
The braakers are 19j normally locked open on those, OK.
So I took off and ran down the primary 20 f
side of the auxiliary building and closed the breakers and yelled over tne 21:
j page that the breakers were closed and Ed acknowledged.
You know, he had 22 gotten the power light upstairs and he knew that the breakers were closed.
23l l
So I just stayed down on the primary side because Terry was primary earlier 24[
and he had gotten pulled over to help on secondary side so I.
Ed told me 25i i
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,I l
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lj to stay over there so we could have some coverage on that side of the plant also.
2 Let's see, let me look through my papers here.
I don't think that I i
3j have left anything out so far.
I stayed over thare on the primary side for 4j the rest of the evening.
Terry, I remember him telling me that they were trying to maintain the temperature on the letdown or not the letdown but 5
the intermediate closed coolers, OK.
So I went downstairs and I went over
-bi to the coolers, checked the temperatures on them.
They were running a 8l little hot so I went downstairs and thrcttled a little bit on the cooling water a little bit.
I went and made a tour of the basement.
At that time i
91 there wasn't any water c 1 the floor or anything.
I went back upstairs and walked around a little bit.
I looked at the vent head pres;ure on the rad I
waste panel that was pretty normal.
I went over to the SFAS cabinet and 12',
I looked at the reactor building pressure and that was high, it was about 2-13l l
1/2 pounds.
I knew there was a problem in the reactor building because I 14t was up in the control room earlier when Ed came around the panel and said that they had lost a little water RC drain tank and they got the reactor 16; buil<1ir.g fire alarm.
They looked at the building pressure and they said 1T!
I that building pressure was going up, OK.
So I was just I was trying to 18!
think of things that I could check in the Auxiliary Building, things that 19:
might indicate any problems anywhere else.
So the coolers then cooled down 20!
a little bit too far, so I went back downstairs and reopened or reclosed on 21l l
one of the coolers a little bit, OK.
Now this is something that I think is 22:
l pretty important at the time.
I'm sorry that I'm jumping around a little 23!
bit here.
At the time when I was in the control room, ok and they made the 24j comment about the water, losing water in the RC drain tank and the RB 25!
i (38 5 Lo
i I
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11 I
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building pressure going up.
Sht.rtly after that Terry Dougherty had been on 2
the primary side, ok, he called up and told them that the reactor building 3
sump was pegged high and both pumps were pumping.
Both sump pumps were on, f
OK.
I heard the phone conversation and as soon as they got off the phone, I said, "Look, I said I don't think that there is ancther overflow on that 5
taak, but the thing has been into the vent header, that tank's been ruaning bt fairly high all week, if you let those pumps running you're going to run a
/
possibility of pumping water into the vent header.
They immediately discussed this and called Terry back and Terry shut off the pumps.
That was before I 9,.
-I went over to close those breakers and everything else.
So those pumps were 10!
l shut off at that time and those pumps remained shut off for the rest of the ll; time, OK.
Pacause we were over, Terry and myself were over in the Aux
,M i
building later on, getting back to where I was.
Ed Frederick had called me 131 and asked me to ct:ck for a bc,ric acid injection lineup, he gave me the valves and I went up by the boric acid mix tank and was checking the boric acid lineup he gave me over the phone and there was one valve downstairs 16:
that I was in the process of getting cnecked when I heard him start those pumps, OK.
Apparently what he had done was dispatch Terry over to nelp me 181 out and Terry had checked the valve downstairs, OK.
So I confirmed w!i.h 19!
Terry that yeah he had told Ed the valve was open so the whole line uas 20!
complete and apparently it was getting water where it was needed or he 21j would have called me back, OK.
We were down at the panel after that and we 22!
l had an Auxiliary Building fire alarm and Don Miller came over and we all 23l three went up through the auxiliary building looking for any possible fire 24 and we didn't see any and Don had gone back and Terry and myself went back i
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d wn to the rad waste panel.
I remember looking at the misc. waste holdup i
2 tank and it hadn't overflowed.
The reactor building sump pumps were off 31 and that's where the sump pumps were lined up to, the waste holdup tank, j
OK. Ed gave us a call and said he was having trouble that it seemed like he
.i was getting demin water injection somewhere into the RCS, he was having I
trouble bringing like reactor power counts down.
So, he told us to see if 6
we could check things out to see if we could come up with anything.
So we got the printout and we were looking at the prints and in t.he meantime Adam Miller called up and told us to check there was three demin water valves down by the makeup pumps and another demin water valve, I can't remember l
the valve numbers, OK.
So we were getting ready to do that and we were lli 1q]
walking over to the elevator and you have to walk right by there is like a i
service pit in the floor where you can see right down into the basement.
13l At that time, we noticed the water coming out of the Auxiliary Building sump, ok, out of the floor drain.
And right then we just stopped what we were doing and we looked at the water and said where is all that darn water 16 coming frcm and we went back to the panel.
We were there trying to figure 17!
[
out where we were getting all the water.
By that time we had HP technicians 18i were coming over and starting to take surveys and they were telling us to 19!
stay out of the makeup tank room it's like 10R there its 5 R back in the 20:
valve valley and so forth.
The one foraman had used had picked up our 21!
instrument to do to do some survey so I told Terry I am going to run down-l stairs and get us an instrument so I got us an instrument and I brought it 23]
j back, OK? We were back at the panel trying to figure out again where the 24{
water was coming from, we didn' t have any idea, we were kind of lost, we 251 050
,on oo
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13 t
Ilj were still looking at th. prints and so forth and Mike Janouski the HP tech 2!
came running down the hall and he said, "Get the hell out."
He said evacuate i
the building.
3 4l sl FOSTER:
Excuse me, Dale.
We have to take a break to change the tape.
The time I have is 2:30 PM.
6 7
FOSTER:
We're now going to continue with the interview with Mr. Laudermilch, g
The time is now 2:31 PM.
9!
10(
LAUDERMILCH:
Where were we? We were back in the auxiliary building being 11; evacuated, OK.
This in my mind is another very critical point.
At that 12!
I time Terry and I were both at the panel.
The last thing we looked at was 13t the level in the misc waste holdup tank and the reactor building sump 14' pumps.
I don't remember the exact level in the holdup tank.
I know the 15I needle wasn't pegged and I know that tne reactor building sump pumps were 16:
still off, they were never turned back on, OK.
Terry was working with the 17l aux building sump, we were trying to pump the aux sump into the sump tank ISr trying to get scme of that water off the floor because we were concerned 19' about contamination problem.
He turned the sump pumps off and we left.
We 20:
I went to Unit 1 HP they had the ECS set up over there.
The ECS or emergency 21i j
center over there they had people on the pages and sr forth.
Now there was 22 I
people there waiting to be dispatched on HP type jobs and so forth and 23!
Terry and I decided that we had better get back over to Unit 2 and see if 24!
we could help out.
So we went back over to Unit 2 they told us to go down 25,
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pr a I
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14 l
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to HP and get checked out to make sure that we weren't crapped up.
So I
,f went down and we uuth went down I was... a little my clothing was crapped 2
3l up because I kind of took off in a hurry for that fire alarm that time and I flopped on my backside and rolled around on the floor a little bit so my 5i cl thing was crapped up so I got out.
At that time the Unit 2 HP area was 6
becoming contaminated airborne wise and they had to get respirators on and 7j they told me to just to strip all my clothing off, get on paper coveralls 8j and get out.
So that's what I did.
From there we i~st went back up to the control room and we didn't do much more because ic was like 7:30 in the g
morning and later on we were sent over to the bait 1 control room area and 10j we waited there for a while and then they told us to go home and we out I
11:
I through all the check out points the 500 KV.
It was like 1:00 in the 12!
afternoon by the time we got out.
That is pretty much it in a nutshell the j
things I did during that night.
Like I say, there might be other things in here, but nothing +5at I 16i MARTIN:
Dale, Tim Martin speaking.
What I'd like to do now is focus in on 17!
some areas that are of specific interest to me and try to glean some addi-18i tional information.
19i 20i LAUDERMILCH:
OK.
21t 22l MARTIN:
Where are the condensate pumps located?
231 i
24i 25!
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2
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15 LAUDERMILCH:
280 of the turbine building.
They are almost dead center in 1.
2, the south, excuse me, the east end.
31 1
4j MARTIN-OK.
l Si LAUDERMILCH:
6 Right next to the condensate booster pumps, the polisher 7l panel. the polisher vessels, and so forth.
l 8!
MARTIN:
Martin, speaking.
Did you see the pumps being in a tripped status
,j I
when you got down to the polisher area.
Were they tripped off the line at 101
'1 that time?
11l l
12l 13l!
LAUDERMILCH:
No.bhen I went down we had at least one condensate pump on.
14!
I don't know about the other one, OK because when we were trying to get that COV 12 open, that polisher bypass valve, we were going to call them up and have them knock off the pump so we could get the darn thing open, OK.
That never came about.
Bill came down because Craig had a question about 17l something else.
In the meantime I ran over and said well I'm going to get the breaker, keep crsnking but so I know there was at least one pump running 19' while I was there.
Personally, I myself don' t recall seeing all three 20i pumps tripped at any one time while I was down.
2 11 i
22l MARTIN:
Dale, Tim Martin again.
Was the booster pump operating when you got down by the polishers?
24j 25i i c: (d u~
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16 1{
LAUDERMILCH:
Geeze, I can't...
I don't think so, no.
No because I'm 2{
sure it couldn't have been.
At least I know the A wasn't and I'm sure the others Weren't beCause opo of the first things we did was to isolate the suction valve for the A booster pump because of the leak we had down there.
e So I am sure that the booster pumps were probably tripped at that time.
~ I, 6i MARTIN:
Dale, you were in the control room several times.
7 Si LAUDERMILCH:
Yes.
i 10i l
MARTIN:
Can you address what things were going on in the control room, the i
number of people in the control room, the general noise level, confusion in 12l the control room, the time you were in there?
13!
i 14!
LAUDERMILCH:
From what I remember in the initial stages there were four 15 people, there was Bill Zewe, shift supervisor, Fred Sheimann shift foreman, 16:
Craig Faust and Ed Frederick were the CR0s.
OK.
They were all four working 17!
together at the panel.
At no time, did I see them. ave any sort of panic 18; on their face, they were all calm.
I saw that they were concerned.
I saw 191 there was a time when they weren't, when it looked like they didn' t under-20' stand what was happening at one point, when we got the reactor building 21..
fire alarm in and the building pressure was going up, they didn't have e'i 221 level in the RC drain tank you know.
Those were basically the four people 23 I
that were in there and they seemed to me that they had everything under 24i l
control.
When I went in there I knew that it wasn't a normal trip after we 25!
i
/ 4T (.
i l
bUJ s
'~
s
I f
17 i
1 had the fire alarm and chat sort of thing.
I've been there when we've 2
done power trip testing and we've done other trips and so forth and I never 3{
felt... I mean when I went out in the plant when they sent me out in the i
4j plant on the job, I felt confident because I felt they knew what they were 5l d ing.
That's the impression that they gave me and that's the impression 6l they always gave me.
I can't say enough good things about those people.
I 7!
feel that if it hadn't been those people we might have been in a whole lot i
w rse shape than we are now.
I think those people are to be commended, OK.
8f 9i
' " 9 "'
Y*"
'Y" 10 were in the control room and how many people ultimately accumlated there and the general noise level.
13!
LAUDERMILCH:
The noise level wasn't too bad.
I'm going to talk say between the time of the trip and when I got in there OK, it might have been half an hour after the initial trip or mayue 15 or 20 minutes after the initial lo, ;
trip maybe up to about 7:00 o' clock in the morning and so forth.
There was 17; basically those four people.
Now when I came back from Unit 1 HP area 18[
after we were evacuated.
There was a lot of people there.
I can't remember 19!
how many.
The commotion was greater at that time, there was more congestion, but up until that time, noise level, the alarms, there was a lot of alarms, i
21:
you know, the alarms were going of# but other than that, it was just those 22' people in the control room.
We were there and discussed things among 23 ourselves about what we were doing and trying to.
we tried to let each 24l other know where we were going so if I was watching one thing and had to go 25; for D 'l b t.x,
i
(
18 t
1!
on something else for another quick job that somebody else would know that 2l hey, this parameter over here needs a little attention, OK, and they could 3
take care of it.
We've always tried to work that way.
So we could overlap.
p Of course, now after 7:00 o' clock there were people everywhere, it was just polluted with people
'l the control room.
It was very congested and I
~!
6 couldn't tell who was running what show where.
There were an awful lot of 7
people therr.
8 MARTIN:
Dale, Tim Martin again.
You indicated you were following some g
p rameters during the prriod you might have been in the control room.
Can 10 you remember what parameters tho:. were?
12l LAUDERMILCH:
TPere's only really two that I can remember and one of those was the reactor building sump, OK.
And when I discussed it with Ed about the vent header and so forth, I remember Craig Faust working on the feed-water side and I remember him making a statement like it looks like we're 16:
j maintaining pretty well, I'm going to kneck one of the emergency feedwater 1/l pumps off.
Now apparently that was after they had already established i
18!
their ficw and everything, OK.
Other than that, in the control room itself 19,!
there wasn't a whole lot of time for me to be in there and try to follow 20; things.
I stayed away from the panel and I stayed out of people's way, OK.
21l l
I didn't have that much time while I was in the control room to try and 22j l
study what was going on.
To begin with I don't normally work out of the 23l control room.
There is a lot of things that I would see in there that i 3
241 I
wouldn't necessarilly recognize as to what were going on.
But those were 25!
I about the only two things that I can remember that morning.
r
(_
J
19 lj MARTIN:
Martin, again.
At one time you were dispatched to the reject gf valve to attempt to reestablish normal hot well level?
Can you place a l
3l time on this, or maybe associate it with an event?
l 4l LAUDERMILCH:
That was I'm going to say that I came to the control room 5
l 6l initially I was there about 10 or 15 minutes after I hwrd the safeties go i
the first time.
We went down on the booster pump job.
That took maybe 7
an ther 20 minutes.
I came back upstairs maybe another 15 minutes, so 8l we're talking maybe an hour or an hour and a half after I heard the safeties g
g go.
I don't know whether anybody else was dispatched on that job earlier to try to help out on that and then had to do something else or not, OK.
12l But that was
. other than the leak, that was my first operational type I
job that I went down on was the reject valve.
13]
14!
MARTIN:
Martin, again.
What were you using to give you indication of 15; level in the hot well?
16:
17 LAUDERMILCH:
There is a local sight glass on the side of the condenser.
19i MARTIN:
Martin again.
This was the sight glass that you later found muddy 20; l
water in?
21j t
22l LAUDERMILCH:
Right.
23l 24j r
25j r
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20 MARTIN:
Martin again. When you were attempting to reestablish the reject g
to the condensate storage tank, were they steaming to the condenser?
3!
LAUDERMILCH:
Steaming, you mean the turbine bypass valve.
1 5l l
MARTIN:
yes sir.
61 7]
LAUDERMILCH:
I don' t know for sure... I don' t think so, OK.
I can't give a definite answer on that but the one time we were trying to open that bypass valve, Craig had called down and had a question for Bill about opening one of the turbine bypass valves or doing something with it.
I 11;.
know at this time that the safeties were still burping.
Of course the 12l l
bypass valves show automatically open on a high header pressure you know.
13'f that to relieve pressure also.
So I don't know if steaming to the condenser 14!
per se was actually a controlled function at that time or just something 15; that happened as an after effect of the trip and the high header pressure 16; i
and so forth.
So I can't give a definite answer on that because it's 17!
something that I wasn't really involved with.
18j 19i MARTIN:
Martin again.
You indicated that at one point you were attempting 20t to open the COB 12 valve the bypass around the polisher.
Was this before 21l or after your efforts on establishing auto reject?
22l 23!
l LAUDERMILCH:
That was during.
I had gone down opened it four turns and 24 either went back up to the control room, I think I did go back up to the 25:'
f(
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Uo>
1
4 21 1
e ntrol room and they said go back down and open it more.
I went down and 2
opened it more and then I got involved in the bypass valve around the 3
polisher aspect.
Then I turned it over to Terry when I went out to secure the flume and then came back in.
When I came back in, we or rather Terry 4
5 had discovered that airline had severed and the valve was not open.
And 6
then I saw that they had an instrument man down there working to get the valve open.
7 8l MARTIN:
Martin again.
What was your understandi.g of the purpose of g;
I establishing the path around the polisher?
10l 11l LAUDERMILCH:
Well, my information was that the polishers went to poc.
All 12!
the outlet isolation valves isololated.
So apparently the condensate pumps 14l' had to be dead headed so we had to get the valve open.
So anytime we come down, the first thing we want to do is drop polisher off, OK, and if we can't get them off.
if we got have a guy there and establish the right i
amount of flow like say two vessels for the ficw we're putting out.
Say we 17i trip a feed and booster pump and we're on quick flow for the condensate 1Si pumps so for that given flow you want to put so many polishers on for 19!
whatever flow you have, OK.
But we didn't have that case, we lost all the 20!
l polishers so the condensate pumps were dead headed.
So we had to get a 21{
flow path around the polishers in order to be able to feed it or we wouldn't 22 have had any feed at all.
23l 24!
25i
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22 1
MARTIN:
Martin again.
Then your understanding is they were trying to 2
establish the normal feed path for the steam generators?
I 31 LAUDERMILCH:
I would assume so.
I know, Yeah I would think so, it would 4
5l have to be because, I don't know what to tell you.
Well, that's the only y
think I could think of that it could be for.
i 7
MARTIN:
Martin again.
Dale, we're trying to understand what ultimately g
tripped the main feed pumps together.
The computer printout indicates that g
10;!
we lost the condensate pump one second before we lost the feedpump.
i i
11' l
LAUDERMILCH:
Right.
12 ',
13l MARTIN:
We didn't lose the booster pumps for almost 7 minutes.
Now our 15 l, understanding is that one condensate pump did continue to operate and that we can't see a sequential relationsnip between the loss of the condensate pump and the loss of the feed pump that would allow the booster pumps to 17!
remain on the line given the fact that they operate ver;. close to their low 18 suction limit.
19r 20[
l LAUDERMILCH:
Right.
21 22 MARTIN:
Like within 50 pounds if I remember correctly.
Do you have any 23l l
opinions on how they're connected and are they?
24 25j r
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N ) G.)
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t
23 y
LAUDERMILCH:
I've been thinking about that myself and I've been drawing a 1 t of blanks.
Feed pumps don't trip on low suction pressure.
My opinion 2
3f is as soon as you loose one condensate pump you are going to trip the feed 4j pump.
As soon as you loose a booster pump you are going to trip the feed g!
pump because your flow is going to go just like that.
Why the booster pump N
didn't go, I can't tell you.
I don't know.
Because a lot of time even in 61 startup and testing in the last couple of years, tripping the secondary
/
l side off a number of times has come from low suction on the booster pump so 0l I don't know what to tell you on why the oaoster pump kept on running.
I 9l don't know why the condensate pump tripped other than from what I understand 11:
it was an electrical relay problem that tripped the pump.
Which to me, l
isn't too hard to understand because I don't have a very high opinion of a 12!
I lot of the electrical relays.
A lot of them are very sensitive a bump here 13l i
a bump there they can trip just like that.
I don't have any answers on the 14!
booster pump problem.
If I pooled with some of the other operators maybe 15 we could figure it out.
We've been talking about it and we haven't really 16i come up with anything yet that is real logical on it from past experience.
17) i 18!
MARTIN:
Dale, I would like to explore and get your feel for this.
Looking 19i into the alarm procedure and also the condensate pump, I find that if the 20!
condensate booster pumps were in auto a trip of the impaired booster pump 21{
would cause the condensate pump to trip.
Well, that's not the normal way 22}'
of operation, is it?
23l 24; 25l i
ni, val
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24 llj LAUDERMILCH:
Gee.
If you lose a condensate pump and booster pump paired, it should trip.
It's automatically going to trip the feed pump right?
2 I
3; 4l MARTIN:
That's affirmative.
l 5
LAUDERMILCH:
So I'm not picking up your question here.
6i i
7l MARTIN:
The question is there are two things that will trip the condensate 8
pumps one is an electrical fault the other is with the AMS switch being in g
i auto.
That switch which is associated with the condensate booster pump 10j that is paired with a condensate pump.
12 i
LAUDERMILCH:
So you are saying that maybe we lost a booster pump to begin 13!
{
with that took the other condensate pump out with it initially, instead of an electrical relay.
f 15i 16; MARTIN:
That happens to be the only other trip that we can identify and 17!
18i LAUDERMILCH:
That's very possible.
I don't know how those pumps are run, 19' in other words it would be my understanding that they would be running.
20t It's not my responsibility..
those controls are in the control room, I 21; f
don't have any idea what position the switch was in or how they were being 22{
run.
23l 24 25l
,or f'
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25 MARTIN:
Tim M2.rtin again.
Given that the booster pump did stay on the 1.
2 line f r 7 minutes, does that imply to you that the polishers had to stay 3
n that long or the pump would have tripped on a low suction pressure, wouldn't it?
l 5'
LAUDERMILCH:
Yeah, I would think so.
Gi l
7 MARTIN:
So doesn't this throw out the theory that possibly the booster or 8;
the polisher outlet valves going shu+ caused the trip?
g i
10' LAUDERMILCH:
Yeah.
It would seem to.
But the thing of it is I don't know? When you say the booster pump, there's two booster pumps running, 12!
which one tripped when and which condensate pump tripped when, I don't know.
I'm not associated with
.. I don' t think if you' re saying dead 141 heading the condensate pumps tripped the plant, while the polishers failed shut.
I don't see that.
16:
l 17; i
MARTIN:
Neither do I.
I was pursuing that thought to see if it were 18!
possible.
All right, let's continua.
We talked about the potential relay 19' problem on the condensate pumps.
Have we had condensate pumps trip spuriously 20 in the past?
21!
l 22\\
i LAUDERMILCH:
No.
I we might have had condensate pump trip before but 23 I don't remember it.
Booster pumps have been the biggest problems running 24!
I the polishers too'high delta P on the polishers.
25i n
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26 MARTIN:
Isn't the sensitivity of the booster pumps to a suction pressure 1!
2 limit shown in the fact that the auto reject valve has a series valve that i
3 is normally throttled to prevent 4l LAUDERMULCH:
5 Right, exactly when we want to reject to Unit 1 or reject to 6i the storage tanks, we've got to be very careful on how much flow we take in the reject process because you will trip them off.
Normal reject procedures 7
were that we take a little bit at a time, maybe a quarter or a half of a g
turn at the most a turn at a time.
g
[
10 MARTIN:
Tim Martin again.
New area.
At one time in the event you were dispatched to close the breakers for the core floor tank isolation valves.
12; 13 LAUDERMILCH:
Right.
14!
f 15; MARTIN:
Can you place this timewise or relative to some event that we 16 17;;
might be able to tie it up with.
l 181 LAUDERMILCH:
Timewise, I am lost.
It was after I did the secondary jobs, 19!
{
I went up to the control room.
I am going to guess and that's exactly 20!
what it is, guessing, maybe two hours after I heard the safeties 90.
I 21f 22l MARTIN:
It would be before you were evacuated from the primary plant side.
23 24 25!
or o..
1 J
bV i
i 27 l
If LAUDERMILCH:
Oh yeah.
2j MARTIN:
of the auxiliary building.
3 4l LAUDERMILCH:
That was the first job I dio on the primary side.
I did that 5
and while I was over there.
I was checking other problems and then we had 6i the fire alarm then I lined up the boric acid injection, you know, well the 7
lineup came before the fire alarm and then we had the water on the floor g
gj and it was immediately after we had the water on the floor I would say a
period of 10 to 15 minutes after we discovered that we were evacuated out 10I I
of the building.
1 11 i
12!
MARTIN:
Would this be before the reactor building sump pumps were secured?
13l 14)
LAUDERMILCH:
Oh no.
The reactor building sump pumps were secured before I took any primary job.
They were secured back when I was running back and forth from the control room on the reject valves and some of the other things.
Because Terry was on the phone, I overheard the conversation, IS{
discussed it and they immediately the decision to knock off the pump.
19!
Those pumps were knocked off and I am going to say that was a good hour and 20; a half before we were evacuated out of the building.
Those pumps were cff 21l and they remained off nobody turned them back on, OK, because Terry, Don, 22l l
and myself were the only ones on that primary side after those pumps were 23l turned off.
Don didn't do it because the only thing he came over for that 24!
j I knew of, in that time period he c.ime over to help out on something 25!
gq}
vs k
f
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28 l
lj and then he helped us look for the fire and thcn he left.
Terry and I were there the whole time.
Those pumps were turned off for about an hour and a 2
3 half before we saw any water coming out of the floor trains.
4j Sj FOSTER:
We are going to have to take a break to change the tapes.
The time is 3:00 PM.
6 FOSTER:
We're still continuing sith the interview with Mr. Laudermilch.
,l
/
The time is now is 3:01 PM.
g 9i 10lf MARTIN:
Dale, Tim Martin again.
I'd like to explore a little further when r
the core flood tank isolation valve breakers were shut.
It sounds to me 11!
like they were sometime before you started the emergency borate lineup or I
before the pump was actually let off that might be on the computer printout.
13l 14!
l LAUDERMILCH:
OK.
Well definitely I cut the breakers before I lined up for 15-the emergency boration.
I'm going to say make it 20 minutes to a half an i
hour before that, maybe shorter, but I'm going to say definitely before 17j I
I performed that lineup or checked that lineup It was already lined up.
As 18i far as the valves I checked, there wasn't any valves that I had to open 19!
that I remember.
201 i
2 11 MARTIN:
Martin speaking again.
I'd like to explore nos the status of the 22!
sumps in the auxiliary building and the condition that you found them in.
23}
One of the first things that I'm going to ask you is about the auxiliary 24!
building sump tans.
Did it not have a ruptured diaphram?
25!
uLJ Lu a
i
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29 Il!
LAUDERMILCH:
At what time?
I 2!
3 MARTIN:
Several weeks before, I think.
At the time of the event, it was 4
already an open tank.
I Si l
LAUDERMILCH:
I can't answer that, I don't recall any discussion about 6i 7
that, unless I missed it somewhere along the line.
I don't recall that problem.
g 9
10:
MARTIN:
When the reactor building sump pumps were shut down, was their lineup to the auxiliary building changed at all?
I 12l LAUGERMILCH:
No, not to my knowledge.
In other words, the reactor building sump pumps were in normal line up.
They were both in auto and they pumped g
to the misc waste holdup tank.
They both came on at high level.
Terry turned them off and that's exactly what I'm saying.
That tank never over-16,;
ricwed because the next day somebody went in there and was jockeying water i
with that tank.
I don't know what they were doing with it.
But I discussed 18i this with Terry and he discussed it with whoever was jockeying the water and if that level indication worked.
Had that tank overflowed, that level 20 ;,
indication or that level instrument would have been flooded out, and would 21 have had to been blown down and drained out and put back in service to 22, l
l jockey that water using the level indicator on the panel.
So that tank 23l never overflowed.
It wasn' t that the level I was seeing was an erroneous 24i level Decause it overflowed and flooded out the level indication and came 25j
,oc r.
U.S j U #
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{
30 1
back down.
To the best of my knowledge and Terry's and we were there, and 2l discussed all this and that was a true level indication I believe Terry said it was 7.4.
He remembers the figure on that, but all I remember was 3
4; that that tank was not ovarflowed and it wasn't lined up
.. and the reactor 5
building wasn't lined up anywhere other than that and those pumps were 6!
turned off and stayed off.
7 MARTIN:
Martin speaking again.
Is there any automatic level control on 8
that tank which would transfer water 'n that tank to other tanks in the g
"9 10 lli LAUDERMILCH:
No, not to my knowledge.
i 13)
MARTIN:
Was the depth header aiigned frna the reactor coolant drain tank 14!
to this same tank or would it have gone other places?
I'm trying to under-stand potential flowpath out of the containment.
16!
17l LAUDERMILCH:
'I just out of my memory, I can't say.
I would have to 18i look at a print.
It seems to me that there was something about their 19' lineup to the bleed tank.
But then I remember talking about that before 20!
and I remember somebody saying that it wasn't lined up to the vent air, but 21j I don't know.
I would have to look at a print to say for sure.
22l l
2 31 l
MARTIN:
Mart.a speaking again.
When you first got over on the primary 24l side, there was no water on the floor in the basement.
25i I
lyjb o
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31 1
1 LAUDERMILCH:
That is correct.
2.
l 31 MARTIN:
When you were aligning for the emergency boration, there was no i
4{
water on the floor?
5 LAUDERMILCH:
That is correct.
6i 7l MARTIN:
g Sometima shortly after this you were walking by the makeup tank g
room and you first noted water coming i
10l LAUDERMILCH:
Well, this was a Terry and I were at the panel, we were Ig to go down and check some heat and water valves, they thought they were having a problem with water injection.
When you go from the panel to the 14!
elevator, there is a service hole in the floor and you can look down through.
15l There's floor drains just directly below.
That is the time we noticed it.
And I'm going to say that was in the area of 6:15 or 6:20, somewhere in that area.
I believe it was around 6:30 when we were evacuated out of the 17!
building.
That was when we first noticed it and I am going to say the amount of water that we saw on the floor might have been 5 or 10 feet in 191 diameter around the drains It wasn't a huge volume, but we knew that the i
water was coming out of the sump.
21 22 MARTIN:
At what time were the auxiliary building sump pumps turned on to 23 try to remove some of this water from the floor, shortly thereafter?
24 P ' '3
,oc
- 25l,
t 32 l
1:
LAUDERMILCH:
Shortly thereafter.
We had to I'm sure Terry called up 2
for permission to do something.
From what I remember, we were... Terry 3
was working on that.
I was still looking at the print and trying to figure 4
out where it was coming from and I remember turning around and seeing Terry 5
marking the level gauge and trying.to pump the sump into the sump tank to 6
try to get rid of some of the water.
And shortly thereafter, as a matter of fact, that is probably the process we were in when it was evacuated.
7l Because when the HP technicians said " Evacuate."
I turned around, Terry 8j shut off the pumps, and I remember him looking at the sump tank, and the g
thing that I looked at was misc waste tank and the reactor building sump 10 j
pumps and those were off.
12l I
MARTIN:
Martin, speaking again.
We talked about level indication ir. the 131 i
14:!
reactor building sump.
Do you actually have a meter which indicates feet of level?
15; 16i 17jl Right, that's on the rad waste panel in the auxiliary building.
LAUDERMILCH:
It's got sump level, gives a mock diagram of the flow path, and the level in the misc waste tank, and a mock diagram of the tank and so forth and the 191 controls for the sump pump are there also.
20l 21l MARTIN:
Is there a duplicate meter in the control room anywhere?
22i l
i 23 LAUDERMILCH:
I don't know.
I don't know that.
i 24l i
25j l
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i
33 I
MARTIN:
Dale, at this point I have no more specific questions, I would 1.
2 like to request that if you have any comments about the event or subsequent I
3l actions by Met Ed, NRC, or others if you would like to put on record, I I
4 would like for you to do so now.
5 LAUDERMILCH:
g Well, it's like anything else, wa could probably go on talking
[
abe"t this thing forever, I could give you a lot of opinions.
I have alrEldy said how I felt about the guys in the Control room.
I want that to g
be a part of the record more than anything.
They are a great group of guys g
10l and they know I'd work for them anytime.
Through the event, the HP coverage was bad, I don't know if we just didn't have enough people or they were lli busy doing other things.
Those guys were making entries in the aux building, I
we were dressing and undressing them, there wasn't any real control point 13{
that you know things of that nature that went on.
It's an opinion, but I have on how things were run before the trip, there are things that are 15i hurting us now that were bad before the trip, OK, and they're hurting us right now.
For instance, the makeup tank, everyday we had to add hydrogen 17!
to that thing.
Apparently, there was a leak somewhere, well everytime they 18[
work the makeup tank now, all the levels in the aux building go up.
Now 19i if somebody would have bothered to worry about where in the devil that leak 20f 21ll was before this thing happened, it might not plague us so much now.
There is things that I and other guys might have thought to shutdown or maybe 22l getting a little harder look at things at getting things fixed before we 23i went up or stayed up Again, it's a matter of a lot of opinions.
The opera-24l tors would do the job the best that we knew how.
We would go out and we 25l l
con r ~
U' ty,>J i
.l
[
34 1!
were told what to do, we'd go up and we'd tell them what we'd see.
It's 2{
not our job to make decisions on hey shutdown r.aw to fix this because if l
3l y u don't its going to bite you in the butt here.
We just do what we can 4l to let them know what's going on out in the plant.
My opinion might not be 5
w rth a whole lot in a lot of those respects, it's just the way I feel.
6 Again, the basic thing I really want to express how I feel about the guys in the control room.
That is about it.
7 8;
i MARTIN:
Dale, thank you very much.
g I
10[
11:!
FOSTER:
Dale, I also thank you.
This concludes this interview at 3:12 PM.
12 '.
13!
14!
151 16f 17; i
1SI 19!
20:
21!
22 23l i
24l
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