ML19242D908
| ML19242D908 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/18/1979 |
| From: | Potts W Metropolitan Edison Co |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908280827 | |
| Download: ML19242D908 (48) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIGH I
l 1!
In the Matter of:
2l IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW
]
31 of William E. Potts, Superintendent of Technical Support - Unit i 41 l
5; 6;
7l 8
Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10j Middletown, Pennsylvania 11f May 18, 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) 13!
July 9,1979 14['
(Date Transcript Typec) 1 5
222 & 223 15j (Tape Numter(s))
16l 17,I 18[
19' 20:
21!
22l NRC PERSONNEL:
Thomas H. Essig Corenthis B. Kelley 23!
Mark E. Resner 24i 25l 77W woPL7 I
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RESNER:
The following is an interview of Mr. William E. Potts.
Mr.
2 Potts is employed with the Metropolitan Edison Company at the TMI facility 3
and is the Superintendent of Technical Support for Unit 1.
The present 41 time is 4:08 p.m.,
EDT, and today's date is May 18, 1979.
This interview
]l 5
is being conducted in Trailer 203 which is located just outside of the 61 south gate to the TMI facility.
Individuals representing NRC present at this interview are Mr. Thomas H. Essig.
Mr. Essig is the Chief, Environ-8!
mental and Special Project Branch, Region III, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 9l Commission.
Also present is Miss Corenthis B. Kelley.
Miss Kelley is 10 an Inspector and Auditor with the Office of Inspector and Auditor, the i
11 U.S. NRC.
Moderating this intervice is Mark E. Resner, and I am an 12 investigator with the Office of Inspector and Auditor, USNRC Headquarters.
13f 14!
RESNER:
Prior to taping this interview, Mr. Potts was given a two page 15i document which explained the purpose, the scope and the authority by 16j which the NRC ccnducts this investigation.
In addition, it apprised Mr.
17 Potts of the fact that he is entitled to a representative of his choice 18I during this interview and that in no way is he compelled to talk with us 19i should he not desire to.
On the second page of this document Mr. Potts 20 has answered three questions. which I will state for the record.
Ques-21:
tion 1:
Do you understand the above?
Mr. Potts has checked yes.
Is 22) that correct, Mr. Potts?
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241 25I
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l POTTS:
Yes.
2:
3 RESNER:
Question 2:
Do we have your permission to tape the interview?
4!
i Mr. Potts has checked yes. Is that correct, Mr. Potts?
S' O
POTTS:
Yes.
7 8
i RESNER:
Question 3:
Do you want a copy of the tape? Mr. Potts has 9
checked yes.
Is that correct, Mr. Potts?
t 101 lli POTTS:
That is also correct.
12!
I 13i RESNER:
Okay.
We will provide you with a copy of the tape.
At this 14I time I will ask Mr. Potts if he will briefly give a synopsis of his 15:
educational and job experience in the nuclear industry.
Mr. Potts?
16:
U, POTTS:
High school graduate '59.
I joined the U.S. Navy in 1960.
18l Served aboard the USS George Washington until 1966. Penn State Electrical 19!
Engineering from 1966 to 70.
Worked at Saxton Nuclear Experimental 20i Corporation as a Met Ed employee 1970 til 1972.
Was transferred to TMI 21 as a supervisor of Quality Control.
Started the Quality Control organi-22{
zation at TMI, was Met Ed's first QC employee.
Worked until 1976, I 23 believe.
I was transferred to Reading corporate office where I was a 24 supervisor of licensing. January this year was transferred back to TMI 25i as Superintendent-Technical Support.
So far as education, nuclear:
at r
I i
i 3
11 Penn State I took a number of options in nuclear power, I have also r
2l' attended a number of schools, two of which come to mind, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare Rad'.ological Protection and that's not the exact title.
There were two scnools with titles I don't recall.
c Had an SR0 license at Saxton Nuclear.
Been trained in 1972 on the B&W OI simE tor.
7 8
RESNER:
Okay.
Thank you very much.
At this time I will turn the 1
9!
interview over to Mr. Essig.
i 10[
l llf ESSIG:
Mr. Potts, what we would like to do during the interview is to 12 go back to Wednesday the 28th of March, and as best as you can recall 13 relate for the record your involvement in the followup of ti e event of 14 0400 that day.
We recognize that the trail is getting colder as time 15 goes on but we are hoping by interviewing a number of people such as 16l yourself that timing of certain events we can piece together, for those 17 things that weren't recorded by interviewing a number of individuals and 18i just meshing the stories.
So what we would like from you is to let you l
19l start, just give us as best you recall your involvement, what time you 20!
came on site, and in what capacity you were functioning at that time and i
21!
just sort of sketch for us the whole three days.
When you went home and 22' what your duties were for each. day.
I 23 24l i
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POTTS:
You're quite correct.
The trail is cold and I was unable today t
2 to review any records.
I had hoped to...that time would permit review 3
of some logs so I could fix some times, but I'll do the best I can.
The 4l' morning Wednesday, the 28th, Mr. Miller and I had scheduled previously
]I to attend a meeting at Oyster Creek in New Jersey.
I was called early 6i j
in the morning by Gary.
He informed me that we had had a turbine trip 7
on Unit 2 and that he was not certain that he would be able to go to 8
Oyster Creek with me to the meeting.
He also told me that he had talked i
9!
to Don Hetrick and told him we would probably not be meeting him part i
10' way for the trip.
He'd call me back shortly.
He called me back shortly 11 and said that yes indeed he would not go but I should go down to the i
12!
meeting.
I made certain that there was nothing I could do to assist him 13 and drove to Oyster Creek.
14!
15!
ESSIG:
Excuse me.
Do you recall what time approximately that was?
16f Was it was fairly early in the morning?
i 17!
i 18!
POTTS:
It was early in the morning.
I would say.
I 19e 20j ESSIG:
Five or six o clock?
21i 22 POTTS:
Earlier than six, certainly.
Certainly earlier than six.
We 23 had planned to leave Elizabethtown at six which meant I would be up at 24l five to meet Mr. Miller at six.
And he called me before I arose, so my 25 l
g uus I
I 1
f guess is between 4:30 and 5:00 but it was probably 5:00 is the best I 2'
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can say, I guess, with certainty.
I drove to Oyster Creek as I said; 3
arrived at Oyster Creek a few minutes after nine; the meeting was scheduled for nine o' clock.
About 9:30 I believe it was, Ivan Finfrock, Vice 5l President of Jersey, had me paged from the meeting and asked if I knew 6f what was going on at TMI.
He said that he was besieged by newspaper 7
media with questions and he couldn't get a tie line into TMI.
And I Of tried a few phone numbers I knew, not attempting to go into the control 9
room.
The reason I chose not to go into the control room is, if there 10 was a proolem I didn't want to disturb control but I did try a number of 1 11 engineering numbers.
And I couldn't get thrcugh to TMI so then I called i
12!
my replacement in Reading, as supervisor of licensing, John Hilbish.
13 John at that time knew that there had been a turbine trip and a reactor 14 trip and that there was some problem and he didn't know to the extent 15i what the problem was.
He said he'd get back to me and then I relayed 16 the message to Ivan that we were working on it.
Shortly after that, and 17l I really can't say what time it was, but I think it was about noontime --
l 18 John Hilbish gcc back to me and said that there was an emergency, an 19) emergency had been declared at TMI and there was a need for some partic-20 ulate filter masks, would I pick some up from Oyster Creek and return to 21) the Island with them?
I asked John if he wanted the iodine masks or i
22l particulate masks primarily to determine the extent of the problem.
23 John wasn't certain so I told the HP at Oyster Creek we wanted iodine 24i masks and proceeded.
I got a trunk full of those and returned.
I 25:
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stopped for gas once, called the wife and told her to lay out my clothes, 2t pack a sandwich and a cup of coffee and ignore the radio.
I got into 3
l the house and changed clothes and changed cars and came to the Island.
4l I think I got here about 7 o' clock but I'm not certain as to the time.
L Cl3 It was about seven.
I stopped at the north gate, gave the filters to a
6 the guard who was dispatching filters to anybody who came into the gate -- respirators, I shouldn't say filters, respirators.
Talked to 8
him for a few minutes, he really didn't know the extent of the problem.
9!
And about that time George Kunder appeared at the north gate.
So I i
10 jumped in the truck with Geocge and came into the site.
George gave me 11.
a briefing of what he knew of the incident.
I'm not absolutely certain 12, from this point whether I went to Unit 1 or Unit 2 ccatrol room first.
13 I do know that I thought I wanted to go to Unit 2 contial room, that's 14!
where the problem was, but I knew that my major responsibility was for l
15; Unit I and I probably ought to stop by there and see that all my people 16!
were working there.
So I may have stopped at Unit 1 control room first.
17!
In any case in '.he early evening hours I visited both control rooms and 18l got as much information from the people on watch as I could.
Got. in 19:
contact with Jim Seelinger who is my boss superintendent.
And for the 20j next several hours functioned as Jim's assistant or whatever Jim needed 21; for his assistant in assistance.
Sometime before morning -
and I think 22I it vis approximately midnight it may have been 1 o' clock, times are very l
23l difficult to reconstruct, I just don't have the feeling for the times.
I 24l But Jim said that he needed some rest he had been up all day working 25!
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l with the problem and he would like to go home, would I take his job as 2'
l the emergency center director.
And for the next several days I functioned 3l there in the Unit 1 control room as emergency control center director.
i Jim Seelinger relieved me for a day or two, I'm not certain how many i
~I days even.
Most of the time it was 16 or 17 hours1.967593e-4 days <br />0.00472 hours <br />2.810847e-5 weeks <br />6.4685e-6 months <br /> on and 6 or 8 hours9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br /> i
0 off.
That meant that both of us were available for a considerable 7
period during the day.
As I said, a couple of days into the incident 8
then Lex Tsaggaris was brought in from Titus, who is senior supervisor 9
from TMI previously.
He and I then rotated watches on the Unit 1 emergency i
10 control center director.
Shortly after that, this sounds stupid, but 11 shortly after that then I was removed from there and taken over to Unit 12!
2 control room as a superintendent and got onto the watch bill there.
I 13 And without going back and attempting to reconstruct that through logs 14 and time sheets, I can't tell you what days the change was made.
15:
16; ESSIG:
You had mentioned logs and time sheets, such are available?
You 17f said earlier that you didn't have a chance to review these logs and time s
18:
sheets before you came over.
What was available to be reviewed at the 19l time?
20:
21f POTTS:
Lex Tsaggaris and I started a log book in the cor. trol room of b
2.
Unit 1 several days into the incident.
The first day I kept notes on 23 paper and we passed them from cne watch superintendent to the other.
I i
24 don't know that those notes are available anymore.
I think those were 25j c.'
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destroyed each day as we completed items or as we passed information on.
2li But then perhaps two days, perhaps three days into the incident...I 31 don't recall the time...it occurred to us that we may want a more permanent log book and we started one.
That log book is available and I had a
]
intended to review it and I did not have the time today to do that.
I O!
wasn' t here yesterday.
7 8 !
ESSIG:
That log book probably would not cover the period of interest 9
here that we're looking at?
10j l
11l POTTS:
I think not.
I think you are interested up until the 29th at i
12l 12:00 noon.
13l 14!
ESSIG:,
No.
Through the 30th.
At midnight.
15) 16!
POTTS:
Through the 30th at midnight.
17l 18!
ESSIG:
Friday the 30th, so Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
19i 20!
POTTS:
There is a small possibility that Friday would be covered.
I t
21l believe Friday was the -- Friday or Saturday we may have started that
- 22f, log and I am not absolutely certain without checking.
23 24i 25!
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lll ESSIG:
Okay I have in front of me a... some papers that we collected i
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that Bill Burley, our liaison man at Metropolitan Edison, has turned over to us and some of these aren't very well labeled.
And I'm just 4!
wondering if I show one of these to you...I mean i~t's labeled to the c
extent that it calls out some items to be done, types of surveys to be O
made, but it doesn't give too much in the way of date or anything like 7
that.
It has a number of pages which are numbered and a package is 8
stapled toge'.her.
It consists of about seven pages.
Let me show that 9
to you and ask if you...if that looks at all familiar?
In one place it 10 coes have a date I think, of the 29th.
That's the page you're looking 11l at now.
I 121 13l POTTS:
07:21, 29, March 1979 hours0.0229 days <br />0.55 hours <br />0.00327 weeks <br />7.530095e-4 months <br /> done.
This specific item does not 14j look familiar to me, however it is very similar to the type of logs that 15; were kept in Unit 1 control room ar.d are available.
Of onsite and 16:
offsite readings.
/
17 18!
ESSIG:
Okay.
I will show you another record then.
I have in my hand, 191 for the record, this is a copy of the survey results -- offsite survey 20!
results that were radioed back to the ECS.
Is that the xerox of the i
21I material that you referred to earlier?
22I 23, POTTS:
Yes.
This is not the log that I referred to earlier.
This log l
24J was kept throughout.
This log is the perlodic readings of onsite and 25j offsite radiation doses.
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I 10 ESSIG:
Right.
2l POTTS:
The log I referred to originally was one that Lex and I started.
We entered things such as " Informed the State of 1.ie last 15 minute's 5
readings," or " Talked to the NRC about some piece of information" or 6i "The status of the plant in Unit 1 and Unit 2 is" and "I now relieve Lex 7
Tsaggaris of the watch" or "He relieved me of the watch;" and then 8
indications that we had understood the plant status and what our job 9l was.
That kind of a log.
This is an information log.
101 11 ESSIG:
Yes.
Do you know if while you were in charge of the emergency 12I control center -- or should I have used the word station?
You were in i
131 Unit 1 control room, so that would have been the emergency control 14I station after it had been moved there from fir 1 tne Unit 2 health 15.
physics area.
Then the Unit 2 control room, then the Unit I control 1$
room as I understand it.
Been moved twice in that first day.
I 17i 1d!
POTTS:
Yeah, well, by the time I arrived at TMI it uas in Unit 1 control i
19!
room.
20l 2]#
ESSIG:
Okay. So you were the emergency control station director.
That 22, would be the proper word, would it rot?
I think the emergency control i
23' center, that would have been still in Unit. control room, but the 24i station -- I'm sorry -- that would have been in Unit 2 control room.
I 25j
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The station, the emergency control station would have been in Unit 1 2
control room where you were.
3l I
POTTS:
That's correct.
And I most probably earlier used an incorrect term.
i I
61 7I ESSIG:
I think you did use the word " center."
Okay.
I just wanted to S
try to since we haven't yet been able to locate the original survey 9
sheets which were filled out by tfie people running around in vehicles 10j and in helicopters and so on, we are trying the establish if the times 11l recorded on these sheets, the times in the left hand column there, were l
12l actually the time that the person operating the radio in the ECS was 13 notified of the survey cr if that was the time f. hat the survey v.as 14!
actually made.
15i 16!
POTTS:
I'll give you a..
17l 18j ESSIG:
Will you be able to shed any light on that?
19i 20l POTTS:
I'll shed something on it.
Perhaps confusion.
When the onsite i
21!
teams radioed in times, on occasion the time is the time on the control 22j room clock that the radio cm.imunicator used.
The helicopter on many i
23' occasions took a series of readings, and those readings are the times 24 ti.at he took using his watch.
And a number of times the time was yadioed 25i c'
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i 11 When the site onsite and offsite ground teams were radioing readings in.
2 in, we were within a minute or so of those.
On one occasion I did check 3
that for another reason, to see how much difference it would be in time.
The helicopter, when it was making the series of readings, the only way to get the time that was meaningful there was to use... for him to k
record the time that the reading was taken and then to radio the entire 7
data in.
8 9f ESSIG:
Relay it to you in one lump sum, sort of on a delayed basis 10[
then?
?
11l t
12!
POTTS:
That's correct.
That's the way it was radioed to us on occasions.
I 13!
t 14 ESSIG:
Okay, but back to to land based surveys, then.
To the best of 15!
your knowledge these times were pretty well consistent with the actual 16!
time of the survey.
I mean given the difference that the individual's 17l watch may differ from the control room clock.
I 18j l
19l POTTS:
Yes.
At one time, and I don't recall which day it was, I attempted 20l to verify whether or not a reading was immediately prior to an action in i
21; Unit 2 control room or subsequent, and we did a watch check of everyone 22 and it was either one or twc minutes difference total in the circuit 23 that could have occurred in these log times.
24 t
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ESSIG:
Okay.
You arrived on the Island abc.t seven o' clock, you indi-2!
cated, seven o' clock p.m. on the 28th.
And then about midnight that 3!
night to 0100, somewhere in that area on the 29th, Seelinger asked you 4I to function as the ECS director.
5[
i 61 POTTS:
Yes, and when I think about that, that may be off as much as 8 7
hours.
It may have been eight o' clock in the morning.
8!
i 9
ESSIG:
Okay.
So you could have been on duty then...
10f i
11 POTTS:
We could have shared, I could have been his assistant to as late 12i as 8 or 9 o' clock in the morning.
I think it was more towards midnight 13 but I'm not certain.
14:
15; ESSIG:
Okay, I believe you indicated that he said that he was getting 16i tired and wanted to go home.
Would that help?
You stayed on an additional 17j eight hours..
181 IN{
POTTS:
Well, really it's hard to say what time it was because I just 20j don't recall.
And say that he said he was tired is not the complete 21!
story.
What the discussion centered around was that we would need to 22 have continuous coverage and relief and the way we were going to do it l'
23 was to set up a watch and he felt he was going to need some sleep, why 24 didn' t he go home.
I had just been attending a meeting and driving 25!
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which is relatively nonstrenuous and I was pretty fresh so I'd continued l
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the watch until he got a few hours sleep and then he'd relieve me and 3t then we'd get into a cycle of normal watch reliefs, was really what the 4j discussion was.
i St i
6i ESSIG:
So then you and Mr. Tsaggaris were taking then, roughly 12-hour 7'
shifts.
8 i i
9 POTTS:
That's what it is on paper but it doesn't work out to 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br />.
10f
,I 11 ESSIG:
There was probably some turnover time and...
12[
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POTTS:
Two to three hours turnover.
What we were using because neither 14 Lex nor I felt like walking into the control room fresh from a night's 15 sleep or a day's sleep or whatever it was and air in the tanks, water in 16.
the tanks, I've got it if you know what I mean.
Watch relief.
What we 17 normally did was, whoever was coming on to the watch would spend at 18[
least an hour or perhaps a little more than that reviewing status of 19}
both units getting a feel for where we were.
And then we'd start to 20 operate in parallel with the communications and the discussions with the 21j State, with the NRC that were in the office, communications between 22l control rooms.
And it was usually 2-3 hours til the watch relief was 23!
effective and then you repeat that on the other end.
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l 15 ESSIG:
Okay.
2l i
3l POTTS:
At any time...and there were a number of occasions...there were 4!
several occasions when there was great deal going on at the time you
~9 expected to relieve watch and it just wasn't appropriate to leave right 6l away, so we didn't.
It was reasonably informal is what I'm saying.
It i
7 was scheduled for 12 and 12.
8I I
9 ESSIG:
Do you recall who the individuals were under your direct super-10' vision.
I believe supervision is the.. we'll use it somewhat loosely 11 but in the context of an emergency organization which has been set up, 12; you are nominally an ECS director, you've got people that you're. giving l
13i instructions to.
Do you recall who those individuals were in the early 14i days?
15:
16; POTTS:
I couldn't tell you which days which individuals were on, but 1
17l Bev Good, Gregg Landry, Charlie Hartman.
181 19 ESSIG:
Gregg Landry or Lynn?
20[
t 21!
POTTS:
Lynn Landry, I'm sorry I always call him Gregg.
For HP support t
22l I had Joe DeMan for awhile and I also had Fred Huwe.
The shift super-23 visor was, on scme occasions were Craig Hitz, other occasions I don't 24j recall I guess.
There were a number of other people.
There was Dennis 25j
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McGetrich.
So far as the team members, the offsite and onsite monitoring i
team members, I couldn't recall their names.
3l 4!
ESSIG:
I don't really need to know them at this time.
5!
i POTTS:
Or tne helicopter pilot.
i 7l t
8!
ESSIG:
Pardon me?
9l 10 POTTS:
Cr the helicopter pilot.
11l 12l ESSIG:
Okay, so you had Bev Good, Lynn Landry, Joe.,Jan, Fred Huwe, 13 Dennis McGetrich, now that name is new.
14!
15-POTTS:
Dennis McGetrich is an electrical engineer who works for me.
16!
Normally as a I&C control engineer and he functioned for some period of 17l time as a cccmunicator on the radio.
The setup that we had was I had a 18!
communicator on telephones to the State and we had a radio operator 19I communi:ating tc all the offsite teams.
I had a nuclear engineer ',hich 20!
was usually Howard ':rawford, Mike Benson or Scott Wilkerson.
They 21f handled air plots and dispersions.
Source terms.
22I 23l ESSIG:
The communicator, Mr. McGetrich.
The instructions that he gave i
241 the teams, as far as those were concerned, was he merely acting solely l
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1 in that capacity, a communicator, just what the name suggests? Was he i
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required to make any judgments or decisions?
He was given an instruction i
3f and he was to relay that to the team?
4; 5
POTTS:
That is correct.
6i 7
ESSIG:
Is that a fair statement?
I 8j 9{
POTTS:
Yes.
10l l
11 ESSIG:
And he was given that instruction by you or one of the nuclear 12l engineers, or...
13 i
14 POTTS:
Combination of both.
The nuclear engineer and I worked very 15h closely to decide where the teams should be placed and what the strategy 16!
of taking the readings would be.
It was my responsibility.
17!
i 18!
ESSIG:
Okay.
191 20; POTTS:
And I got assistance or advice frcm the nuclear engineer.
i 21i 22l ESSIG:
In reviewing the data on these sheets here, and in going through 1
23 there I've noted just for my own information there with a blue A with a 24l circle around it, the times the collection of air samples which were 25i l
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counted, I believe, in the field on a Sam-2.
After going through the 2
entire log there that you 1 ave in front of you, it appears that there 31 l
were about 22 samples collected, at least that were collected...at least 4!
j that are recorded..in there during the first day.
And in the second 51 and third days there appear to be something on the order of about 2 each 61 per day.
Now I know that there were more samples collected the second i
7 and third days because there are other records such as the analytical 8
sheets from your contractor, Radiation Management Corporation.
And in 9f fact the NRC mobile lab analyzed some of the samples.
I am just curious 10f if you know, were either the samples not recorded in there because they 11!
were not measured with the Sam-2 then ai+er the first day's experience?
12 And the first day's experience was that there was an awful lot of xenon 13 present on the ck coal and this was interferring with the -- well, the 14 xenon was essentially being then counted as iodine.
I guess what I'm 15:
trying to establish is, during the second or third day, was the fact 16!
that there were only about 2 samples recorded per day on these sheets, 17 was it recorded that way just because they weren't measured with the 18!
Sam-2 but roughly just as many samples were collected?
Had you -- I 19I guess -- let me phrase the question in a different manner.
Had "ou or 20 had either you or someone else you are aware of -- had they been given 21f an instruction not to count the samples with the Sam-2 on the second and 22l third day?
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19 1{
POTTS:
My recollection is that we were counting those with either the 2:f NRC trailer or, very early in the game, Radiation Management came up i
with a count trailer.
That's why I believe that the samples were not --
4f the analysis results were not recorded here.
Cause we took the air 5
samples to those trailers to count which meant there was a time delay.
6i 7-ESSIG:
Had you, when you first came in on the 29th and took over as the 8
ECS director, were you -- was it explained to you by Seelinger that 9
there had been a problem using the Sam-2 to count these samp12s and that 10' we, new that we've got a laccratory set uo let's just have the samples 11 delivered to the laboratory and not even bother with the Sam-2.
I'm 12!
Just trying to establish how that sort of evolved.
It appears to have 13 evolved and I just wondered if you recalled anything of the development 14l of like that or was it already -- or did it just sort of happen?
15 16 POTTS:
In answer to your question, no I do not recall Jim Seelinger l
17l telling me of that evolution.
And if I were to look into it : would 18l check with Sid Porter.
That's about as helpful as I could be I think, 19!
on that area.
Sid Porter functioned as our consultant or advisor.
20r 21l ESSIG:
Yes.
22l 23l 24!
25!
, oc I, j tJ j d
i
i
{
20 I
l l:'
POTTS:
Very heavily in that area of his expertise.
2t i
3!
ESSIG:
Was he located in the Unit 1 control room a good deal of the 4f time that you were there?
SI 6i POTTS:
He spent significant portions of time there.
As far as located 7
there, he worked out of both control rooms.
He spent a lot of time in 8l my control room where he coula be in Unit I control room when he was not 9
involved with the Unit 2 problem.
And in the first few days of the 10l incident, as I recall it, his major involvement was with the monitoring 11 program; collecting of data, analysis of data, insuring that equipment 12i was proper, we had sufficient parts, and in fact arranging for Radiation l
13!
Management to proceed to the Island without further delay.
14' 15:
ESSIG:
Okay.
Would you describe what kind of interactions that you 16; had between Mr. Tom Mulleavy and Mr. Richard Dubiel during that period i
17 of time? What kind of contact? Was it frequent contact, was it face to 18i face, was it over the phone, the radio or were they giving you instruc-19!
tions or asking for input from you?
20l l
21j RESNER:
We'll give a little time to think about that one Mr. Potts and 22l take break to change the tape.
The time is now 4:44 p.m. Eastern Daylight i
23!
Time.
24l i
25 lf r
M 3
21 6
i 1:
RESNER:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. William Potts.
2f The time now is 4:45 p.m Eastern Daylight Time.
Mr. Potts is about to answer a question.
4j
]9 POTTS:
As I recall the question was to describe my interaction with 6
Tom Mulleavy and Dick Dubiel.
One of the names I missed in the earlier 7
listing working in the Unit 1 control room, Tom Mulleavy did at some 8
time work in the control room with us.
Tom spent I think a considerable 9f.
portion of his time in the Unit I control room the first few days func-10 tioning as an advisor and HP supervisor.
Dick Dubiel, I had frequent 11l contact with him by the hot line phone to Unit 2 control room.
They i
12-were availabla any time I needed them.
Consistence if that's the point i
13!
of your question.
I don't recall spending any time working with Dick in 14 the first couple of days.
15i 16l ESSIG:
Did you find that you had to call on Dubiel for ass,;tance?
17!
Were there any real thorny problems that you came across that you had to l
18i discuss with him?
19i 20i POTTS:
I would not characterize it is as real thorny.
There were 21i several occasions when Scott air packs were unavail'ble for one reason 22 or another.
Dick and I talked on those occasions end I undertook attempt-
.23 j ing to locate additional supplies for him.
All of this data that I have 24l on this table before me, which is the radiation readings from the onsite 25) f L
2 h
i 22 i
l:'
and offsite teams, was relayed to the Unit 2 control room almost on a i
2'
{
continuous basis as well as to the State.
The NRC had a number of 3f inspectors there and it became obvious very early in the game instead of 4!
l me attempting to tell them all of this data, what we did was~ periodically c!
xerox it and give it to them.
6i 7
ESSIG:
I see.
8 9
POTTS:
There was so much of it that it just turned out a lot easier 10 every half hour or so to xerox it and hand them the sheets.
11f 12 ESSIG:
Do you know, I think I alluded to it a little earlier but I'd 1
13!
like to come back to it, these sheets that you have in front of you, i
14 we'll call them ECS radiation survey summary sheets, they represent what 15 was taken down in the ECS from what was recorded in over the radio from 16 the field, I believe.
Correct me if that doesn' t agree with what your 17l understanding was that those sheets represent.
18l 19i POTTS:
I believe that's right..
20!
21l ESSIG:
Okay.
That being the case, I also believe that there were some 22l surveys.
Each survey that was made, there was a record made of it in i
23i the field.
The individual making the survey was probably noting the 24 radiation level, the date and time and so forth.
And what I'm trying to 25!
4 y
f) -
() ) J
23 i
I 11 y
establish, there seems to be somewhat of a tricky problem because there 2f are a lot of pieces of paper that the whereabouts of which aren't precisely 1
3'l known at this time and this appears to be one of them.
Do you have any 4t knowledge of where those sheets of paper that were accumulated by the i
]i survey teams might have ended up?
6l 7l POTTS:
I have no first hand knowledge to that at all.
I just can't S
j shed any light on it.
i 9j i
10l ESSIG:
We've talked to the individuals who made the surveys.
I've 11l talked with a couple of them and their response was, well we left it in 12!
the vehicle for the next...for the relief shift to be collected all in 13 one package.
And we are just trying to establish when that package was 14!
finally collected and where it is now just so that 5:e can compare some 15:
of the actual measurements made out in the field.
One of the points 16!
here, and I guess it happened before you -- I'm sure it happened before 17l you came on board because it was the first day it was on the 28th.
But 18l I know that there was some -- from other information I have, I know that 19f there were some surveys made very early.
"Early" being around 7:45 in 20j the morning.
There are no records of those surveys on these sheets and i
21l in fact the first -- this sheet starts at about 08:42 on the second page i
22j there in Goldsboro.
And there is no record of those early surveys that 23 were made on the island and so I just feel there are probably a few gaps i
24 and there, things which didn't get recorded on this ECS summary sheet, 25!
g I
l 24 1
,f especially early on.
It may not have been the case later, but I think it would be helpful to get some of the original survey sheets assuming 3j they exist.
It would be helpful in filling in these gaps.
And that's 4!
l why I was asking if you had any knowledge of where those might have
-l ended up.
That was the point we had behi1d that.
61 7
POTTS:
I could only give you assumptions.
Si 9
ESSIG:
Okay.
During the course of the -- fol'owing the event there is 10j a procedure on the emergency procedures which -- I'll give you a little l
11 better reference here a minute..
It's procedure -- Radiation Emergency 1
12!
Procedure 1670.4, Revision 3, dateo to February 15, 1978 entitled, i
13}
" Radiological Dose Calculations" and this procedure contains in it 14!
several enclosures which detail how the source term or the release 15i calculations should be made and then how the atmospheric dispersion i
16' factor should be applied and how one eventually then comes up with the 17l predicted offsite dose rate.
Now it's my understanding that in the 18i first day these calculations were made much ir the manner that's pre-l
scribed in this procedure.
I will show you Enclosure 3, which is the 20t dose calculation sheet, which you take the source term frcm the previous i
21l enclosures; multiply by the atmospheric dispersion parameter; divide by 22l the wind speed and then using other figures in this procedure come up 23j with a dose rate and a dose for the particular offsite location.
On the i
24!
fi rs t day this procedure, as I understand it, was used much in that 25
~
'gy D /
r o
l
(
25 l
r 1:
But then later on it appeared to be used in a -- shall we manner.
2't say -- a backwards manner in which the offsite dose calculation was --
3' the procedure was run backwards.
Starting with the offsite dose measure-1 41 ment in this case and then running the calculation backward to find out i
Si what release rate for the given atmospheric dispersion conditions would 61-give you that measureJ dose rate.
Were you aware that that was being 7
done?
J 8!
9 !
POTTS:
I know of a couple of times it was done that way to attempt to i
10l determine what release rate in the way of curies per second might be 11 going up aux building stack.
I also know we used it backwards on occasions 12 to see if we -- a number of the readings were with wind conditions i
13[
stable.
Wasn't possible to calculate from.
We tried several things as 1
a, I don't know how to characterize it.
Howard Crawford and I looked 15!
into it to see what was available to us or what information we could 16; gain from it but it didn' t...
I 17) 18i ESSIG:
When you say when the wind conditions were stable, that ap-19f peared to prevent you from doing what not.
Could you elaborate a little 20l bit?
21:i i
22j POTTS:
I am trying to reconstruct those one or two occasions that 23 Howard and I had time to talk about it, with some difficulty.
I can't i
24l give you many of the details.
I kr:r, that we were talking about doing 25l
, o
~r hCJ
I i
{
26 1
j dose rate calculations and filling out these forms more frequently than 2lf were being done and Howard was...
The point of Howard's discussion was f
to show me that the conditions were such -- the release was so slow or in some cases it was no wind that it just -- it didn't give you meaningful c!1 results.
Which was why it wasn't done on a more frequent basis.
I Gi don't remember to much more than that.
I do know we had the book tnere 7
and the book being the manual it contains these HP procedures.
And we 8
occasionally review it and most of the time that I recall being there, 9
the release rates were very low.
10l i
11l ESSIG:
Now these would be release rates.
Now from the.
12l
[
13 POTTS:
Let
.e say the " dose rates," not " release rates."
The dose 14!
rates.
15 16 ESSIG:
Okay.
The dose rates.
Do you recall, or were you involved in 17l any discussions of the use of the HPR-219 as a predictor of release l
18!
rate?
I'll just refresh your memory of how that's used as a predictor 19 in this particular procedure, 1670.4.
It has a table for the HPR-214 20!
monitor showing the monitor, indicated dose rate on the monitor, and i
21l then a noble gas and iodine release rate in terms of curies per second.
I 22.
Were you involved in any discussions with any of the nuclear engineers 1
23j or with Dubiel or Mulleavy, either one, to decide whether or not the --
24l to confirm that the monitor reading was not giving a realistic prediction 25!
of the dose rate -- or, of the release rate?
t i '-
obj u
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27 l;t POTTS:
Your question is completely complex.
It's got a number of i
f facets and I don't even know if I can recall them all.
3!
ESSIG:
I can take them a little at a time.
Let me give you a couple of c!
1 statements in the way of background.
On the first day, the 28th, it is 0
my understanding...because I've interviewed Mr. Crawford already...it is 7
1 my understanding from having talked with him that the initial prediction 8l that was made overestimated the dose rate in Goldsboro by about four 4
4 9!
orders of magnitude, a factor of 10.
It predicted about 10 mR/hr,
(
10 that is 10 R/hr, and about an hour or so later when it was confirmed, it 11l proved to be less than one mR/hr, the wind still going in that direction.
I 12 So he, Mr. Crawford, discussed with Dick Dubiel at the time and Mr. Crawford 13 indicated that since that monitor, this table that we're looking at here 14 in Enclosure 2 of that procedure, is to be designed or was designed to 15' be used for containment pressures that might be realized after the 16 design basis loss-of-coolant accident.
That is around 55 or 60 psi in 171 containment.
And in fact the actual containment pressure at this time 18!
was only about -- at the time that Mr. Crawri rd made his first calcula-19l tions only about two psi.
The leak rate from containment would be very 20j much less than that because of the differenc in pressure.
Becaure this l
21; procedure assume 2/10% per day?
22f 23l i
24l l
25l 685
- Lu i
l 28 l
POTTS:
Uh-huh.
2:
3!
ESSIG:
So, wnat they did at that time then was to abandon the use of that monitor as a dose rate or as a release rate predictor.
Okay, r.aw.
c;
- l With that as background, my question -- and I'll restate it in slightly I
b different terms than I did earlier, are you aware of any situations 7l during the time that you were -
say on day number two and day number 8
three, the 29th and the 30th -- where there was a decision made to use 9f this monitor once again as a predictor of release rate and offsite dose i
1 rate or when you were director of the ECS was that monitor just simply 11; not being used in that capacity?
i 12l l
131 POTTS:
Oriainally you asked me if I had conversations or knew of any i
14!
conversations with Dick Dubiel and I don't know of any with Dick.
I 15>
That's the part that made that complex.
15:
1 ESSIG:
Okay.
181 19!
FOTTS:
Howard ano I had discussions on this.
There were a number of 20j discussions in the several weeks of the incident about dose rates and 21(
all, and the Unit 2 instruments, wnether or not they were indicating 22 correctly.
But I can't give you the specific conversation with which 4
23i individual.
Nor can I shed much light on when the decision was made not i
29!
to use the 214.
25l
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.n; U<
j
. s I
i i
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29 l':
ESSIG:
I think it may have been made on the previous day, the 28th.
I 21 l
3 POTTS:
That's possible.
4 I
Sl ESSIG:
And I'm just trying to ascertain whether or not there was 6i eventually a scheme devised to correct for the lower containment pressure I
and hence the icwer leak rate from containment, and be able to correct 8
the values on that table to come up with a different source term.
And 9
that was really the point of the question.
I was trying to decide 10i whether or not that was the case.
11; 12l POTTS:
I don't recall direct participation in that kind of a decision.
13 14!
ESSIG:
Okay.
During your tour of duty as ECS director, were you aware 15!
of any occasions during which the actual directing of the survey teams, 16 that is, telling them where to make surveys, was performed at a location i
17!
other than the ECS and the Unit I control room?
18i 191 POTTS:
Yes.
20j 21 ESSIG:
You do.
Okay.
22 23 POTTS:
There was at least one occasion, I think two occasions when an 24 NRC helicoptor interferred with my helicoptor which took perhaps five or 25 j
l l
1 30 t
i 1f six minutes to straighten out and get priorities.
As soon as my chopper 2f pilot moved out of the way, I explained to him that he had priority and 3'
l he wouldn't move for anyone.
There was at least one occasion when the 4!
personnel in the observation center directed a reading or two and I'm
,* l j
not know certain whether you have the tape of the airways or not but I 6
informed them I was going to tell them where to go and if they had any 7
request I would entertain them.
8!
9!
ESSIG:
Uh-huh.
10f llI POTTS:
That was acknowledged by Mr. Arnold.
So far as did I have any 12!
difficulties with that, no.
That sort of thing wouldn't get in my way.
13l 14 ESSIG:
Okay.
So it was just a temporary problem at most.
15; 16:
MTT5:
Very few minutes on one or two occasions when first the NRC and
?
17]
second company management wanted some readings of a specific area and 19.)
directed them there and we got it understood that they'd clear those 19!
with me.
20f i
21{
ESSIG:
Okay.
i 22l l
23 24 25 1
{
31 I
11 POTTS:
Do you have the tape for tho e airways?
2 3
ESSIG:
No I don't.
4!
5 POTTS:
Oh, okay.
I've often wondered 'f anybody monitored that.
6i 7
ESSIG:
This morning I interviewed Mr David Carl who functions as your 8
Metropolitan Edison Corporate meteorologist.
He indicated to me that he 9
had made available to the ECS near the end of each day -- end of the day 10' being in the neighborhood of 5:00 p.m.-
end of his day, copies of 11; atmospheric dispersion estimates, so called x/Q values.
That he had i
121 made available the telecopy, I believe, of these x/Q estimates which had l
13 been made by Picker, Lowe and Garrett, your radiological contractor.
I 14j asked him to whom did he supply the estimates and the name that he gave 15:
me... I have it here... I guess I didn't bring that folder with me but I 16!
guess the name isn't so important.
But the question I was going to ask 17!
is, were you aware that those had been supplied and if so, did you 18l direct anybody to do anything in particular with those values?
19l 20!
POTTS:
No, I was not aware of that.
i 21l 22 ESSIG:
Okay.
These would not have been live time values.
They would 23 have been values probably for the previous eight hours or so, or previous i
24 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, which could have been used in a retrospective manner to 25l
,a'
/b
I l
32 l
l j
per'aps correct some assessments that you made of say, of source term 2f release rate.
When you took the measured dose rate and ran the calcu-3' l
lations backwards you used a x/Q value in that calculation.
This might 4I L
have been used to just make a better estimate of that release rate.
And Sl I was just wondering if there was any attempt to your knowledge to do OI that?
7 8
POTTS:
Since I wasn't aware they were available, the other part of the 9
question is moat.
10!
i 11l ESSIG:
Okay.
There's a procedure, 1670.9.
It speaks to training 12 which would be given and a person in your capacity, that is, I believe i
13!
your normal job title is Unit Superintendent - Technical Support is that 14!
not?
15i 16 POTTS:
That's correct.
17l 18j ESSIG:
You're supposed to have training in the following items and what 19l I'd like to do is to list the items and have you let me know if you have 20j received training or which areas you may not have received training in, 21li in the event that you haven't.
The types of emergencies... definition of 22 emergencies - local, site, and general emergencies..and I'll just read 23 through them and if there's one that you recognize as foreign, that you 241 may not have had training in, would you just stop me.
I 25j
.nJ 3 (o
E, g-1 b
6
33 l{i POTTS:
Do you propose to define that training or....
2!
i 31 i
ESSIG:
No, I'm not proposing to define it.
I just want to know if in your opinion you have received training.
That is, do you know what a 5
local or site or general emergency consists of? What criteria, or that 0
there are certain criteria that have to be met in order that one of 7!
these be declared?
I'm not asking you if you... if you can recite what 8
the criteria are, but do you know that in fact that there are criteria 9f that are detailed in a procedure and... received certain inplant radiation 10 levels?
i 11J l
12!
POTTS:
Yes.
131 14!
ESSIG:
Okay.
Training in the emergency organization; what it consists 15I of?
16 17!
POTTS:
Yes.
18!
l 19I ESSIG:
Responsiblities, and actions required of an emergency director?
20 21, POTTS:
That's difficult to answer.
I went through extensive training 22l' when the several years I was on the island, previous to this assignment.
l 23l And I knew that the material was available, in fact I sat down and read 24 most of it when I went to the control room the first day, then referred 25i fpc
%) ~
l
~ --
I 1
{
24 1{r to it periodically afterwards.
That's what I referred to earlier as the 2
book which is the health physics book.
3.
4!
ESSIG:
Okay.
And that book would have included some of the procedures
]cl that we were discussing a few minutes ago?
Gi i
7 POTTS:
Yes.
8 i
9 ESSIG:
Offsite dose calculation monitor, and would it have also included 10' the offsite radiological monitoring procedure 1670.6?
1 11 l
12!
POTTS:
Yes.
r 13[
l 14!
ESSIG:
Okay.
15:
16!
RESNER:
For the record, could you speak a little louder?
17l 18l POTTS:
Yes, to both.
19!
20!
ESSIG:
Okay, and I'll just quickly go through the other areas.
And 21 available emergency communications?
t 22' 23 24l 25!
(I G -)
1 l or f
t
{
[
35 l
t 1!
POTTS:
Yes.
t 2!
1 3
ESSIG:
Accountability; evacuation criteria?
4l l
5!
POTTS:
Yes.
6i 7
ESSIG:
On and offsite notification responsibilities?
8 9f POTTS:
Yes.
I 10j 11!
ESSIG:
Medical emergencies?
l 121 t
13!
POTTS:
Yes.
14i 15i ESSIG:
Available support services?
16; 17!
POTTS:
Yes.
i 18!
19l ESSIG:
And the fire emergency plan?
20!
t 21!
POTTS:
Yes.
22l l
23l ESSIG:
Okay.
Now that training you indicated would have been given..when i
24j you used to be regularly...
I 25f i
< oe m1 4
i i) ;
I q
~
l t
36 l
lli POTTS:
'72 to '76.
2l 3
ESSIG:
'72 to '76.
Okay.
4I l
O!
POTTS:
And then I also updated my health physics course every jear l
0l since then while I was in the corporate headquarters, in Reading.
7 i
8l ESSIG:
What I am doing here is going through collections of notes and records and so forth that we have collected as a result of our request 10 for certain types of records.
I'm just trying to see if there are any 11l in here which I think it would be appropriate to ask you a question i
12!
about so that we can maybe clarify if you have or have not seen that 13l particular record before and you maybe know a little at it it to help...
14 Because some of these are kind of sketchy, some of the records and I 15 would just like to -- if there are any more details that we can add to 16I them it would be that much better. I have here in front of me about a 17i 13, 14 page log of some sort.
It's titled at the top " Site Emergency" i
18!
and it has alot of monitor HPR-219, HPR-220 fuel handling building and 19r so en, readings on it.
And it has some other notes besides the monitor 20 readings.
I'd just like to show it to you since you were involved in 21l ECS.
I'm not even sure if that particular set of notes was generated in r
22f ECS but I'm just trying to put an author's name on it if I can.
Just so 1
23l that we can maybe talk to the individual and maybe add a few more details 24{
that might not be there as best he can recall.
Does that look at all 25l familiar to you?
i (OG iU) uua
[
1 I
i
[
37 I
f l{'
POTTS:
Yes, the spelling is definitely mine.
2; 3l ESSIG:
That is your...
4!
Si POTTS:
That appears to be my handwriting.
i 6i ESSIG:
Okay.
8 9
POTTS.
With the exception of on page one, the black ink, I don't 10l believe is mine.
Starting with the blue ink appears to be mine.
In F
11l fact, this is part of the notes that I was taking while I was on watch I
12!
and would turn over to my relief, and explain at the time of relief.
I 13}
14 ESSIG:
Would you have begun, since that log appears to be undated, as 15; near as I can tell, that many of the entries in there are undated.
Do 16, you know if that would have been begun?
Or did you already say and I i
17l didn't catch it?
Did you begin keeping that log when you first took 181 over the ECS?
19i 20f POTTS:
The first evening I kept such a log but I think this one is l
21l dated later than that period of time.
For instance, you note the pages I
22!
are numbered, which is a habit of mine.
And if you go to page eight 23 there is a note where NRC management called the State and recommended to 24 evacuate 10 miles down stream, downwind, excuse me.
I won't read further 25 than that.
I didn't ever anticipate this being read by anybody else.
b
- i
{
38 i
l l'
i ESSIG:
So that log, we'll call it a log, that's basically what it is.
2!
I guess, that appears that page eight probably would have been dated 3
about the 30th.
That's Friday the 30th.
A date which the State has l
4; j
termed " Black Friday."
5' 6l RESNER:
For the record, you're nodding your head instead of indicating...
7!
I O!
POTTS:
I'm sorry I nodded my head.
I didn't want to speak because I 9f had called it something other than " Black Friday."
10f l
11 ESSIG:
Okay.
12l 13I RESNER:
At this time let's break to change the tape so we won't get 14{
caught short.
The time now is 5:18 p.m., eastern daylight time.
15!
16:
RESNER:
This is a continuation of the interview with William E. Potts.
37 The time now is 5:24 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time.
I8t 19f ESSIG:
Mr. Potts I'd just like to determine, in your capacity as an 20l ECS coordinator, did you occasionally make any verifications, for exampla, l
21 if the right overlay was being used in the offsite predictions?
Did you 22 feel compelled to do that or did you pretty much t;ust things to the 23 nuclear engineers that were on duty and sort of let them go their own 24 way! What kind of interaction did you have along those lines?
25; O.s ii l
i
.l I
l 39 1
{
POTTS:
I do not recall ever verifying that the correct overlay was 21 l
u s e d.'
31 4I ESSIG:
Okay.
These would be the stable, unstable and neutral.
Si l
l POTTS:
I understand what you're saying on the overlay.
7 8l ESSIG:
Were you on dutf in the ECS on the morning of Friday the 3Cth?
9 At...
101 l
111 POTTS:
I was on dutv..
excuse me.
i 12; i
13l ESSIG:
At approximately eight o' clock in the morning?
Do you recall?
14!
r 15; POTTS:
I don't recall.
I worked Friday the 30th..
16:
17 ESSIG:
Let me give you one other piece of information that might help 18l refresh your memory.
At that time, around eight o' clock, there was a 19!
helicoptar survey -
one of the helicopter surveys measurements was made 20l at that time.
And a dose rate of 1.2 R/ hour was measured at an elevation t
21f of 600 feet.
That is, about 300 feet above containment.
That one i
22 number, there is now in retrospe.t to cause a lot of commotion at least 23l for outside.
A lot of concern on the ; art of NRC headquarters; there l
24{
was an awful lot of action that was keyed to that or tied to that one 25!
1 7gc t
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40 t
I i;t number.
Now it appears that that one number came into NRC headquarters t
2+
i at about the same time that some offsite dose calculations were made and une number, for whatever reason, seemed to be consistent with the particular calculations that were made.
I don't know if the number was misused or e*
what, but at the time -- were you there at the time that that result was 6) radioed in?
7 8
POTTS:
Yes sir.
1 9
10 ESSIG:
And do you recall what action -- did you take any special i
11 actions at the time other than relay this to the NRC and to the State as
~2 you had previously done witn the other surveys?
131 i
14 POTTS:
The clearest recollection I have of that morning..and it 15-certainly was morning...was, I do recall the radio message on the 1200 16!
mR/ hour reading, I recall that we passed it on to the State and that the i
17!
NRC and Unit 1 control room was aware of it.
And the next recollection i
18!
I have was being informed that the State had been advised by NRC management 1
to evacuate and if I may refer to the notes that we've talked about 20!
earlier, page eight I believe it is, has some comments on that.
When I t
21 went -- From there I informed Mr. Miller in the Unit 2 control room and 22 he asked me if we had readings of concern and I did not have any offsite 23 readings of concern or onsite readings of concern.
I then went into the 2 41 shift supervisor's office in the Unit 1 control tower.
That was where l
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j the NRC people were located at that time, in Unit 1, and talked to the 2'
l man in charge and I'm sorry but I forgot his name, and asked if he had i
3I all the information that he needed.
He said that he had.
Did he have 4!
any information that concerned him, he said he had not.
Then I ask him
]I S
why was NRC management concerned and why were they recommending evacuation.
Of And at that time he was confused and he couldn't understand...that's not an approcriate way to put it...he didn't understand why the reccmmendation 8
had been made, but he did promise that he would get to NRC management on 9
the phone and get back to me.
I left there and went back to the State i
10 and talked to the State and actually I did not personally talk to the 11l state.
I had my phone talker..who happened to be Charlie Hartman I l
12l believe... talk to the State and see if they had any concerns.
The i
13!
statement that I got from the Department of Radiological Health in f
14!
Pennsylvania was that they were -- and I'm using other words,-- that l
15 they were upset, that they had been reccamended that they evacuate.
I 16i checked with Unit 2 control room NRC to determine if anyone over there I
17 had any reason to be concerned with conditions of either unit and I was 18l informed that Unit 2 control room NRC personnel were not concerned, not 19!
upset.
Then I went back into the Unit 1 shift supervisor's office where 20!
the NRC man in charge at the time was in an excited manner screaming, I 21 would say, over the phone to the NRC management...I presumed in Bethes-22 da...but that they were wrong, there was no need for concern, we were 23 going to start a panic of the public and there was no danger.
That's i
24!
why earlier I said I'd have characterized it something other than " Black i
25l Wednesday."
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42 i
l 11 ESSIG:
Black Friday.
2!
l 3i POTTS:
Friday excuse me.
Black Friday.
I was told by the NRC man 41 after his discussion with NRC headquarters that there apparently had I
S been some confusion in the use of that helicopter number and that it had 6
been interpreted or misinterpreted to be a ground level reading and the 7
population was being exposed to 1.2 R.
8 9
9 RESNER:
When you say helicopter number you are referring to the reading 10l of the helicopter?
11, i
12!
POTTS:
Yes sir.
The reading dose rate of the helicopter.
(
13l l
14 RESNER:
Thank you.
15l 16!
ESSIG:
Mr. Potts, do you recall at that time when Gary Miller asked i
17' you if you had any basis for a concern offsite?
Did you feel the need 18!
to institute a more extensive survey in the event that there was really 19 something that you may have missed?
20!
21l POTTS:
I don't recall if we instituted more extensive surveys.
What I 22 do recall is reviewing a number of hours previous data and during the i
23' next several hours as this played out, checking data over and over again 24 to see what I was missing.
And periodically going into the NRC office 25l i
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l 43 1{
and the shift supervisor's office and asking them a number of questions 2f about was I missing something and to try to keep up to date on whether or not we could really determine if it was possible to turn event that 4f around.
But I convinced myself and feel certain that everybody who was 5'
present in Unit 1 control room and Unit 2 control room were convinced 6) that there was absolutely no problem.
That may have included additional I
surveys; without going back to these logs, I don't know that I could 8j answer that.
9l t
10j ESSIG:
Okay.
At any time during your tour of duty as ECS coordinator, 11 did you get the feeling either from your own knowledge or something that 12l may have been relayed to you by one of the others under your immediate i
13 supervision that you were unable to keep up with the -- where the plume 14!
was going offsite? Were you always in a position where you felt on top 15i of things? Were you ccmfortable?
16i 17 POTTS:
I, of course, couldn't answer the question that I was comfortable.
I 18i You know, you're just are not " comfortable" in a situation like that.
19j But I think I had sufficient information.
The only time you didn' t know 20l where the plume was when there wasn't sufficient wind speed to have a 21l plume or when the wind died down and commenced to shift.
Because there 22l really wasn't any wind speed.
But I had wind speed and wind direction 23 information constantly and instantly available to me.
24i l
25:
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44 1
1 j
ESSIG:
Was there an individual that you had assigned to read that recorder or were you personally going over and reading the wind speed 31 j
direction recorder and relating that to the nuclear engineers or.
4l 5
POTTS:
Well the nuclear engineers were assigned to read it but I 6l frequently looked at it myself and discussed with them the wind, I 7
talked to the Unit 2 control room, if there was an evolution in Unit 2 8
control room such as the venting or opening of MUV -- the vent valve and 9
makeup tank, MUV-17.
You'd look at the wind, you'd look over the last 10 hour1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br /> or so and determine was it shifting.
We used the wind constantly 11 to shift the location of the onsite and offsite teams and then we used 12I the wind to give the helicopter instructions to what position we wanted l
13{
him to monitor.
So the wind speed and direction were just scmething you 14I checked either by looking ct the graph in the control room or by looking 15 at what the nuclear engineers wer writing down off of that graph.
16!
Frequently.
17 3:
ESSIG:
Did you give the monitoring teams or did the nuclear engineers 19l give the monitoring teams independently of you, any instructions with 20!
respect to the frequency with which air samples should be collected?
21, 22 POTTS2 Not independent of me.
We set up - we being with Sid Porter's 23 either advice or review and approval, I don't recall which -- but Sid 24l Porter and Lex Tsaggaris and I wrote out a list of sampling that was to 25!
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2 l
t i
45 t
1 be taken -- that is a schedule and posted it near the radio operator and 2f gave it to the nuclear engineers
...d they participated in that.
We also 3
included mundane instructions such as, you don't relieve until the other 1
4!
team is on site, when you do relieve you will check your battery, your I
c radio, your instrument; and one of the things that I liked was to require 6
them to contact us on the radio every 15 minutes when they were making --
7 the offsite teams in particular, so tnat if you did have an occasion 8
were they couldn't reach you by radio then their instructions were to 9!
report back to-the last location that they were at when they had contact 10 on the radio.
That list was available, I suspect, on the 29th... yas, i
11l the 29th, that would be my guess.
l 12!
13{
ESSIG:
Do you recall if that list called for a collection on a specific 14!
frequency such as every hour or every two hours.
15' 16!
POTTS:
Air samples once per hcur.
17l l
18l ESSIG:
Once per hour.
19l 20 POTTS:
Once per hour.
21i i
22l ESSIG:
Wherever the plume happened to be at this time? Was that the l
23l instruction?
24 25 i
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f 46 11 i
P0TTS:
Yes.
2l l
31 ESSIG:
Were you aware of the presence of an individual by the name of 41 William Graber from Electric Boat, a contractor?
By " presence" I mean, 5
it's my understanding that he was located in the observation center and OI as of a certain point in time -- and I don't know exactly when that point in time is, because several people that wa've asked this question 8
differ as to when it actually occurred,...but he was instructed to...
9f apparently by Met Ed management...to indicate to essentially all the i
10 normally rad protection... normally rad protection people and then all 11{
the people that were in a supportive role to rad protection or emergency 12l organization such as yourself..that he was instructed to tell them that i
13j as or a certain point they were working for him.
Do you recall having 14!
been told that by Mr. Graber?
15i i
16i POTTS:
No.
17l 18 ESSIG:
Okay.
19!
20l POTTS:
I'm rather certained I wasn told that by Mr. Graber.
I 21' 22 ESSIG:
I believe, Mr. Potts, that I've exhausted ny list of questions 23 I wanted to ask you about.
At this time I'd iike to give you the oppor-24!
tunity, if you'd wish to do so, to any personal observations that you'd 1
25!
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47 I
1!
I care to maka with raspect to the followup of this incident.
The followup 2'j either on the part of Met Ed and thair contractors or the NRC or outside 31 agencies; the interactions between them; what you might hav+ appreciated having; and now that we have 20/20 hindsight, what you might have appre-c; l
ciated having at the time either in terms of personnel, training, equipment, f
that type of thing.
If you care to I'll give you the opportunity now.
I 7l 8
P0TTS:
One, I'm working with Met Ed management on a list of recom-9!
mendations for in house Met Ed changes, if you will.
I have not completed 10 my understanding of the Unit 2 incident.
I've spent considerable time 11-studying it so I don't know that I'm in a position to give you an all-in-l 12l clusive list of recommendations or, for that matter anyone else.
13l 14!
POTTS:
The one that will always be most difficult for me to understand 15i and impossible for me to do anything about curing is the dichotomy that 16i existed apparently in the onsite NRC support cooperation.
And what I l
17!
presently understand is a lack of understanding on the part of NRC's
}
18!
management of the situation.
I'm told that within hours NRC personnel 19j were present in both control rooms and established communications.
I am 20!
personally aware that we had frca anywhere from 6 to 12 NRC personnel in i
21l the control rooms at all times with rather elaborate communications.
22 Worked very closely and helpfully with us and yet we had " Black Friday."
23 Apparently from what I read in some of the newsp.tpers some misunder-24, standing on the part of NRC management.
4.nd I hope someday to get a few 25l I
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e
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48 I
1!
l days vacation so I can check into a newspaper article that says the NRC 2t completed day four, a two-day computer study that came to the conclusion 3
there was relatively. minor or no danger at Three Mile Unit 2, but didn't put the information out to the public because they didn't want to appear Sl to be jumping to quick decisions, snap judgments.
And I made a promise to myself I'll look into that one.
I want to find out if that actually 7
happened.
I don't believe too much I read in the newspapers anymore.
8 9
RESNER:
Okay.
Do you have any more additional comments you'd like to 10l make, Mr. Potts?
11' 12.
POTTS:
No.
I 13l 14!
RESNER:
The time is now 5:43 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time.
This con-15i cludes the interview of Mr. William E. Potts.
16:
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18 19t 20i l
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23 24 2si ou' i