ML19242D909
| ML19242D909 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/18/1979 |
| From: | Mcgovern H METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908280837 | |
| Download: ML19242D909 (54) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
I In the Matter of:
2 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3l of 4:
Hugh A. McGovern l
Control Room Operator, Nuclear Si 6l t
1 7
81 i
Trailer #203 9l NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Pcwer Plant 10i Middletown, Pennsylvania i
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May 18. 1979 12!
(0 ate of Interview) l 13l July 9.1979 i
(Date Transcript Tyaec) 14!
i 224 15!
(Tape Numcer(s))
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18:
19:
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21 NRC PERSONNEL:
22l Robert D. Martin 23l Thomas T. Martin Owen C. Shackleton 24\\
25l 790r w o!37
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l SHACKLETON:
This is an interview of Mr. Hugh A. McGovern.
Mr. McGovern 2'
1s a Control Room Operator, nuclear, for the Metropolitan Edison Company 3
assigned to the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Station.
The time of 4!
this interview is 5:17 p.m. EDT, May 18, 1979.
Present to conduct this i
G interview from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Mr. Robert D.
61 Martin.
Mr. Martin is the Chief, Nuclear Support Section No. 1, Region II.
7 Also present is Mr. Thomas T. Martin.
Mr. Thomas T. Martin is an 0
Inspection Specialist, Performance Appraisal Branch, Inspection &
9 Enforcement Reactor Construction Inspection, presently assigned to 10f Region I.
My name is Owen C. Shackleton.
I'm an Investigator assigned 1
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to Region V.
This interview is taking place in Trailer No. 203, which 12 is parked just south of the south security gate at the Three Mile 13l Island Nuclear Power Station.
Just prior to the bgilning of this i
14 interview, I presented to Mr. McGovern a two page uccument from the 15!
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission setting forth the scope and purpose 16!
of this investigation and explaining the authority of the U.S. Nuclear i
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Regulatory Commission to conduct this investigation; in addition to 18!
identifying Mr. McGovern's rights to refuse to be interviewed or to 19l have someone of his choice present and to refuse to give a signed f
20 1 statement.
On the second page of this document are three questions and i
21; Mr. McGovern answered all three of these questions in writing to the 22 affirmative.
At this time, to make it a matter of record on the tape, 23 I'm going to repeat these questions and Mr. McGovern would you please, 24j sir, respond.
Did you understand the document that I'm referring to?
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1 MCGOVERN:
Yes, I do.
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SHACKLETON:
And do we in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have 4
permis: ion to tape this interview?
5 6l MCGOVERN:
Yes, you do.
7 8
SHACKLETON:
And would you like a copy of the tape?
9 10 MCGOVERN:
Yes, I would.
11' 12!
SHACKLETON:
Al ri ght, sir.
We'll provide that to you at the close of i
13) the interview.
And now, Mr. McGovern, to assist all the people that i
1M will be listening to this tape would you please briefly give your own 15, background, education, and work experience in the nuclear field.
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MCGOVERN:
I entered the U.S. Navy in 1970, became a reactor operator 18; and stayed in the U.S. Navy through October 1976.
At that time, I 19!
became an auxiliary operator with Metropolitan Edison at Three Mile 20 Island nuclear control rnom.
I spent approximately one year as an 21l auxiliary operator in Unit 2, and at tne end of that year I bid a CR0 22l job, it's a control room operator job, and finished nine months of 23l qualifications and passed my licensing exam in November of 1978.
Since i
24l that time, I've been a control room operator in Unit 2.
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1 SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much, Mr. McGovern.
And now I'll turn the 2
interview over to Bob Martin or Tim.
Do you want to start the ques-3 i
tioning, please?
41 5
T. MARTIN:
Hugh, I'm interested initially in what time you became 6
aware of the event and what time you arrived onsite.
Would you address 7
those matters?
8 9
MCGOVERN:
I arrived onsite before I became aware of the event.
I
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10 arrived onsite about 6:45 in the morning, the 28th, and about 6:50 11!
a.m., as I was passing between Unit 1 and Unit 2, it was the first i
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l indication I had of any real problems.
They passed the word for a site 13l emergency.
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15l T "ARTIN:
Hugh, would you pick up at that point and describe to us a 16l sequence of what you saw, the activities that you were involved in, and 17 any comments that you might have.
I will attempt not to interrupt you 18!
during that sequence, but we will be taking notes so that I can come 19!
back to specific points.
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21l MCGOVERN:
Okay.
Like I said at 6:50 a.m. or approximately 6:50 a.m.,
22l when they passed a site emergency, I hurried to the Unit 2 control 23 room.
Upon arriving at the control room, it was obvious that they had 24!
a major problem of some nature or other.
There were several alarms 25l g
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going off and people were crowded around the console trying to control various parameters.
I moved to the secondary side of the control panel 3
and was assisting Len Wright.
We were having problems with vacuum and it was obvious that they had had a trip, that the plant was down.
Other than that, it was also obvious that they were starting to get 6
radiation emergency alarms on the rad monitoring panel.
We were working mostly in trying to maintain vacuum in the condenser.
That was the 8
first thing I became involved with.
One of the first actions I took 9
was, we started anothei set of circ. water pumps.
They only had two on 10j at the time, which meant that '.ne aunospheric dumps were controlling 11 the steam pressure.
Putting an extra set on put it back into the 12 condenser, instead of allowi1g it to go through the atmospheric dumps.
13 That was about 7:15 a.m., I would guess.
Like I say, we were having i
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problems with aux boiler Unit 1 was supplying our gland steam, and we 15 were having quite a lot of difficulty maintaining any pressure at all 16!
or vacuum for our sealing steam.
We got in touch with Unit 1 several l
17 times trying to get all the boiler problems straightened out and then 18!
keep the gland steam on.
The next thing I became involved with, it was 19!
about 7:30 a.m.,
I was involved in isolating the steam side of the l
20
- e $am generator.
That's MSB, 48, 78 and 158.
I did this on request 21l from one of the other control room operator's from the shift that was i
22l on at the time of the trip.
After I did that, one of them asked me to 23l remain behind the main console area and, more or less, if they needed a 24j valve opened or an indication read, or something along those lines, in 25I l
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5 IlI the back second row of panels, to do that for... to act as a kind of, 2lf you know an extra set of eyes and hands back there.
That's basically 31 i
what I did for quite some time.
Just various--would you open this 41 valve, would you check this, type functions for most of the day.
One c
of my jobs that I had was about 7:50 in the morning was I stopped the 61 spent fuel pump and isolated the BWST recirc.
The A spent fuel pump 7
was recircing the BWST, and we had an ESE actuation.
This was incon-O sistent with the spent fuel running on recirc, so we stopped the pump 9
and isolated that.
At another time, I went back behind the panels to L
10' the ventilation panels and started the aux's, and fuel handling building 11 exhaust fans, and put the control room on recirc.--started AHE48, 12, that's the, actually, the filter train fan.
Other things that I was 13 involved with were:
I isolated HPR227 from the reactor building and 14 secured it.
This was approximately 1100 hrs.
I looked at the RC drain 15; tank also at that time; and, at that time, it had 0 pressure, approxi-16i mately 225 on it.
With the shift forman we attempted to restart the j'
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leakage close pumps, but we couldn't get anything to go through them.
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They were obviously air-bound or steam-bound, starting when you see a 19i discharge pressure and then the pressure would fall off, so we were 20f alternately bumping the A and then the B pump, in an attempt to move i
21 some water through them and maybe get the temperature down a bit and 22I cooled off som'e.
We didn' t have any luck with that.
We couldn't get 23 any pressure at all on the pumps.
About, let me jump back here a 24 little bit, somewhere around I believe it was 10:00, was the first
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Y time, I'm hazy on this time, but I think it was about 10:00 that we saw 2'!
the first building actuation.
They'd been popping the electromatic 3
relief into the drain tank previous to this time, and the pressure had
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slowly creeped up.
It hit about 3.55 lbs, if I remember right.
We got 5
the building actuation.
When that occurred, like I say, I was back 6
uehina the panels and after they defeated the building spray, which merely means that it allows us to take control of the building actuation 8
systems, we reopened nuc services to the reactar coolant pumps, inter-9 mediate closed to the control rod drive, and I believe that was it.
10 The sy:tems that were required for operation inside the building.
11 Other things that I was involved with:
about 1400 hrs, well we had two
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12l building actuations, the 3.55 and then another one a couple of hours 13 later, again, because when they were popping the electromatic relief, 14 the pressure came up in the building.
About 2:00 is what I gave the 15; time as I understand it was sometime earlier than that, I had a large 16:
pressure transient inside the reactor building.
I started the building 17f spray pumps, the building actuation occurred, and spray water was going i
18j into the building.
We looked at the spikes, while it went straight up 19l and down, and one of the operators secured the bui' ding spray pumps and 20l I shut the DHB8's, which are the sodium hydroxide valves to the building 21 spray line, and the BSBl's which are the actual spray valves into the i
22l building.
Then again, we unisolated nuc services to the reactor coolant 23 pumps, and intermediate close to the CRDMs.
About 3:00 p.m., I helped 24i at the panel itself.
I moved from behind the panel to the main console 1
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L 1l area, and at that time, we had hot legs, both hot legs had bubbles in 2'
i them.
We realized this because they were both pegged out greater than 31 620.
The pressurizer was solid and we had the A makeup pump running.
4i We were using MUV16B and MUV17 were the injection pass.
16B was throttled 5
at about 100gpm, and 17, we were just watching the makeup tank, more or 6'
less.
There wasn't much pressure.
We were trying to control both and 7
get water intc the system.
We did succeed in collapsing the A-loop 0
bubble.
We saw this by the hot leg temperature in the A-loop came down from 620; I don't remember what it dropped to, it's on the graphs, but 10 it droppea sharply down.
We figured we were successful in collapsing 11 the A bubble.
So we stopped with the 168 valve and started MUPlC, and, 12; hoping... MUV16C, trying to collapse the bubble on the 8 side.
When 13[
we did that, it must have diverted enough flow, I don't know why, but 14 anyway the temperature on the A hot leg went back up and pegged again.
15 So we stopped with the B-loop and we weren't very successful with that, 1 61 went back to the A and collapsed it again.
This time we saw a really 17 sharp temperature drop and we actually had a decrease in pressurizer 18!
level, indicating that we had cooled down that section of the piping 19!
enough that the water was in the hot legs again, and, in fact, we 20!
actually had level back on scale in the pressurizer.
We did that for 21 awhile until we got to about 180 inches in the pressurizer and we 22 stopped injecting at that time, because of the level in the pressurizer.
23l We fed that back up and then continued spraying.
That's basically what 24 I was involved with for ost of the time.
I did a ccuple of auxiliary i
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functions.
At noon, I filled the 50K tank, the demineralized water i
f storage tank to 10 feet.
That was done using water from Unit 1.
- Also, 3l they asked me to check and see what was relieving outside.
I went 41 outside, and at that time, the A atmospheric dump was blowing out the ci top; that was all that was going out.
That's pretty much all that I i
OI was involved with.
7 8
R. MARTIN:
About what time was the atmospheric dump?
9l 10 MCGOVERN:
This was roughly noon.
I can't give you more precise data 11l than that.
I made the run outside.
I filled the 50K tank and at the 12!
same time I checked that.
13 14; R. MARTIN:
That would just finish out the day.
About what time of day l
15 did you leave the site?
16i 17i MCGC'!ERN:
Roughly, 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening.
It's kind of rough to
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say.
When I left the site here, they were taking people offsite to 19i decontaminate and I finally got out of there about 7:30, I guess.
20l 21 R. MARTIN:
Was that done at the observation center?
22 23 MCGOVERN:
It was at the 500KV substation.
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l R. MARTIN:
Okay.
Then you left before they asked you about the 28-2A 2!
j re tor coolant pump in operation.
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MCGOVERN:
That's correct.
When I left there were no pumps running.
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R. MARTIN:
Had there been, were you aware, when you were on the front 7
side of the panel of any decisions or talk going on that they were 8l preparing to run the system up solid and try to get a pump running?
9l i
10 MCGOVERN:
No sir.
I really wasn't aware of their overall plan of 11' attack.
It was more or less, the shift foreman and the shift supervisor 12l giving directions on a moment-by-moment type of thing.
You know, open 13 an electromatic relief, starting EPlc, open 16C, directions on that 14l nature.
15 16 R. MARTIN:
Were you relieved by someone else coming in on an incoming 17 shift in the later part of the day?
18[
19l MCGOVERN:
I was actually relieved by the day shift operators.
I was 20!
on the relief shift.
The day shift operators actually took over the 21j control room plant at that time.
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23f R. MARTIN:
That would have been?
7:00, 8:00, 9:00 in the morning or 24) much later in the day?
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Sir?
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R. MARTIN:
Was that in the morning or...
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MCGOVERN:
No, I was actually..
Well, I wasn't on shift for any Of period of time.
As a relief shift operator, he carries out his order 7
functions, mostly surveillance testing, and I just happened... Our 8
relief shift is scheduled from 7:00 until 3:00 in the afternoon, and 9'
coming in at 7:00, I immediately became involved in what was going on.
10 11I R. MARTIN:
Okay.
That clarifies that.
I was thinking of you coming.
I 12 I didn't realize you were coming in as a relief shift operator and I 13!
had visions of you doing auxiliary functions, while someone else was 14 taking your normal control station.
15 i 16i MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
17) 18; T. MARTIN:
I would like to go back now to the baginning and focus in 19 on some specific events; try to walk you through the sequence in picking 20; your brains.
At approximately 6:50, site emer ency; you are between 21:
Unit 1 and 2; you make your way to Unit 2 and you move to the secondary 22, panels.
Who was manning the panels at that time?
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l MCGOVERN:
Len Wright was on the secondary panel at that time.
He was 2{t one of the day-shift operators, scheduled to come in on day-shift, and 3
I believe he had just arrived in the control room shortly before I did.
4l Si T. MARTIN:
What was the status of the plant as you arrived?
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MCGOVERN:
The reactor was tripped, the turbine was tripped.
Specifics:
8 various alarms on the rad monitoring panel were just beginning to come in; the turbine was, like I say, it was tripped and we were on two 10 circ. water pumps on the secondary side; we were having problems with 11 gland steam, vacuum problems.
Other than that, I really didn't focus 12l in on the primary side or any part of the primary panel.
I just went 13 to the first panel in front of me and started helping out.
141 15!
T. MARTIN:
Do you know whether the reactor cool pump was operating 16l when you arrived?
i 171 i
1Sk MCGOVERN:
No, sir, I don' t.
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i 20l T. MARTIN:
You indicated we had a problem with vacuum associated with 21 gland seal.
Was this because the aux boi'er in Unit 1 had tripped?
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l 1lr MCGOVERN:
I'm not sure if the boiler had tripped or if it was just f
producing poor steam or low quality steam at the time.
When I came in he had 40 or 50 lbs gland steam pressure, normal is about 120-130.
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think that he was still producing steam but it wasn't up to capacity
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and that was basically the problem we were having.
6i 7
T. MARTIN:
Was there any discussion of a problem with the hot well 8
level at this time?
9f 10 MCGOVERN:
Not to my recollection, right off the top of my head, no.
11!
l 12l T. MARTIN:
What did you do to assist Mr. Wright in recovering frcm 13 this vac'aum problem?
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MCGOVERN:
One of the things I did, was, like I said, I started the 16I second set of circ water pumps.
Another thing was I called over to 171 Unit 1 and talked to one of their operators and explained that we had a f
18!
very grave situation and we needed those aux boilers for aux steam for 19l the gland steam.
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21l R. MARTIN:
What was their response?
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MCGOVERN:
They said that they would get an operator on it right away.
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And I believe, in fact, they sent the shift foreman down to check on that.
I'm not exactly sure what they did over there.
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5 R. MARTIN:
00 you know what the status of Unit I was at that particular 6i time?
7 8
MCGOVERN:
They were shut down.
They were in the middle of their 9f refueling outage.
I believe they were just getting ready to come back 6
10 up but they hadn't started.
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12l R. MARTIN:
There was no steam available from Unit 1.
I 131 14 MCGOVERN:
No, Unit 1 could not supply steam off their reheat steam.
15; It was definitely just aux boilers.
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17l T. MARTIN:
From where you were standing, could you see the source l
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range monitor that was mounted up on top of the main console?
19t 20' N!CGOVERN:
No sir, I couldn' t.
Well I could of if I had focused in on 21 it, but I really didn't.
Like I say, I was more or less concentrated 1
22l on the one side There were other operators there; there was a shift 23' supervisor; a shift foreman there.
They were concentrating on the 24 primary and I was trying to help out where I could.
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14 ill T. MARTIN:
Are you aware of any emergency borate that was conducted in t
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this period of time?
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MCGOVERN:
I don't remember whether they started the boric acid pumps Si i
or not, to tell you the truth.
That again was on the primary side and i
6l I was on the secondary.
7 8
T. MARTIN:
Within approximately 15 minutes, it was.. apparent you had 9
assisted in isolating the B steam generator on the steam side.
What 10 was the basis for that action?
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MCGOVERN:
I believe at that time, they had determined that they had a 13 tuce rupture in the B steam generator.
I'm not sure exactly what they 14i came to or how they came to that ccnclusion.
You know, I arrived in i
15; the middle of the things; it's kind of tough to get to..
what they 16:
were doing and why at the time.
Bur., when the shift foreman directed 17l me to, yes I did, I shut the steam isolations for him.
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T. MARTIN:
Hugh, as I reconstruct it at this point, as you arrived, t
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they had problems with the vacuum; apparently they were already using 21l the atmospheric dumps.
I have heard from other interviews that they I
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were steaming both A and B steam generators at that time; obviously B t
23 must have been functioning because you didn't isolate it until 7:30.
24 Did you hear any reports of high radiation alarms on the off gas monitors?
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j MCGOVERN:
Like I said, when I came in, they were just beginning to get 2
all sorts of alarms, radiation monitor type alarms (unintelligible) 3' l
whether VAR 748 the off gas monitor was more or not, I'd be hard put to 4l tell you, but I believe the problem was going on at that time.
The 5'
entire board was pretty well lit up.
6 7
T. MARTIN:. Alright Hugh.
Sometime after this you then moved around to 8
the back panels and you indicated that you operated valves and switches and directed.
Can you give us some examples of valves and switches you 10 operated, and if possible, in the sequence that they were operated?
11!
12 MCGOVERN:
I gave you one example.
The spent fuel pump was running on 13 BWST recirc, stopping that and isolating that.
One of the other func-14!
tions I carried out was the high pressure injection of the valves, the 15; MUV16 valves are located on the front console; howrcer, HP injection 16i flow is on the back panel.
So for them to throttle it, the HP injection 17li ficw and set it at certain.. 250gpm per leg, then they have to have 18!
somebody back there to read those gauges and I did that for them on ld several occasions.
Throttled them down to 100 gallons per minute or 20 200 gallons per minute, depending on how many pumps they had running 21:
and what they were trying to do at the time.
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16 1f T. MARTIN:
Hugh, the flow of the HP injection is very important to us.
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When you initially moved to the back panel, how many HPI pumps were 3
operating.
Do you know?
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MCGOVERN:
I believe they were running two pumps.
I believe A and C 6i were running.
I might be off on that, but that's the sequence.
When 7
you get an ES actuation, you get the A & C pump start, the B pump 8
trips.
I believe that's the way it was at the time.
9f 10f T. MARTIN:
Hugh, as you were sitting on the back panel, what kind of 11 fl:ws were they trying to maintain?
12:
13 MCGOVERN:
Approximately, 250 gallons per each leg, 250 gpm for each 14 leg.
When they were running just one pump then the total flow was 500 15i gpm; when they were running the two pumps then they were running 1000 16:
gpm.
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L MARTIN:
They were always running at, essentially run-out or just 19!
not quite run-out, just before the pumps running out, when they were 20l operating the pumps.
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MCGOVERN:
No, that's not correct.
250 gpm design flow, and as far as 23 always... No they weren't always at 250 gpm.
Sometimes they back them i
24j down to 200.
I'm not sure what their criteria was.
I believe they 25!
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l were watching pressure and pressurizer level and trying to control 2
those.
More or less, he was timing it.
You know, the control room 31 i
operator was saying things like I want to throttle 16B for 200gpm.
I 4
watched the gauge for him and tell him when it got there.
5 61 R. MARTIN:
Let me interject just for a moment.
Am I mistaken that on 7
to the left of the rod control panel where the makeup pump switches are 8
located; are there not flow gauges there on the vertical section of the 9
desk panel.
10 11 MCGOVERN:
No sir.
There are not.
Not for high pressure injection 12; flow.
There are for seal injection flow and there's a normal makeup 13 flow gauge there, but there is no high pressure injection through the 14 MEV-16 lines.
That's on tue back panel.
15l 16 T. MARTIN:
At any time during this event was HPI secured?
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MCGOVERN:
I would be hard pressed to tell you that, sir.
Again, I 19I wasn't the controlling CR0s.
I was, more or less, just acting as 20!
another set of hands and eyes and watching various parameters I
21 would say, no.
On the basis of what I saw, at one time or another, i
22, they were either running the A pump or the A and C pump combination, 23 and whenever they were doing that they had 168 throttle open.
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T. MARTIN:
We talked about operation via spent fuel recirc and the isolation of that; we talked about the throttling of HPI.
Were there 3\\
j any other things you were doing at the back panel that might be of 4I interest to us?
5 l
6 MCGOVERN:
No, that's pretty much it.
I was watching various other.
7 I really don't think that, you know, it's more watch this, watch that 8
type thing.
So I watched BWST level a couple et times, which of course 9!
was coming down; checked various monitors, why is this monitor doing 10 this, one thing or another, but that's basically what I was doing.
11' 12l R. MARTIN:
To give me a little bit of perspective on how busy you t
13l were, or that is, how actively you were moving from one station to 14 another e.c the back panel--when you were at the back panel was there 15i any particular portion of the panel that you were stationed at or were 16!
you pretty much roving wherever you were needed behind the back panel?
17!
i 18i MCGOVERN:
No sir.
I basically tried to station myalf near the contain-19l ment isolation controls after the first building actuation, because 20 that was what they were trying to get back right away.
As soon as they 21l had gotten building actuation and had defeated the signal, then I was 22f on isolating, like I say, mixers just for reactor coolant pumps and 23l t
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intermediate close for the CROMs.
So I was basically hovering in that i
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area, but I was by no means confined to any particular area, and was moving across the entire range of the back panels.
4!
l 5l R. MARTIN:
And let me ask another point, to make sure that I understand I
physically where you were located.
When you are saying you are at the 7
back panels, I have a mental image of you being behind the panels, that O
i is, in that portion where the reactor coolant drain tank is stationed.
9l 10 MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
111 i
12l R. MARTIN:
Are you speaking of the vertical panel?
13 t
14I.
MCGOVERN:
That's correct.
The vertical panel is behind the front t
15; console and we have two rows; we have the front console and the upright 16l vertical panel.
I was at the vertical panels.
I 17l 18i R. MARTIN:
Thank you.
19i 20j T. MARTIN:
You discuss some switching that you did in the ventilation 21:i system.
I am not conversant in the valve numbers and the equipment 22l designations used, so could you take us through that ventilation changes 23l that you made?
24 1
25j i
r p
{(
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1 UUJ l
5
I l
l 20 i
l l'
l MCGOVERN:
The only real changes that I made were:
I started the aux i
building exhaust fans and the fuel handling building exhaust fans and I 3I i
put the cor. trol building, the control room on recirc, by starting the 4
AHE4B which is a, it's just a small fan that pulls air through the 5l filter string.
By starting that it throws the control room in a recirc l
6l mode with a 1500 scfm input and the rest in on recirc.
That's all I 7
had to do with ventilations, started about three fans, four fans.
8l 9!
R. MARTIN:
Is it normal that the aux building fans and the fuel handling 10 building fans, exhaust fans, would not be operating routinely.
11 12l MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
They're normally on.
We do have problems with i
13!
them tripping on thermals occasionally, but I'm not sure if somebody 14I shut them off previcus to this time or not.
It was just one of those 15:
things that came up.
One of the shift foreman, like I said, was taking 16:
directions from various people, and one shift foreman came up and said i
17 would 3 u mind starting the auxiliary plot and fuel handling building 18' exhaust fans and that took care of it.
191 20j T. MARTIN:
If the auxiliary building fan hao tripped on thermals could 21l you have started from the control room as you did?
22 23 MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
If the thermals had cooled and reset.
24l 25 r
i i
f 21 i
i 11 j
T. MARTIN:
They do automatically reset then?
2!
i I
3{
MCGOVERN:
They're, I forgot the type, Magnetic Overloads, I don't 4
remember the exact type, but yes they can be reset.
5' 61' T. MARTIN:
You indicated that you, in essence, shifted the control 7
building ventilation to recirc.
Was this before or after they found themselves in respirators?
9l l
10 MCGOVERN:
It was
.. I'm hard put for that too.
I don't remember the 11 exact time we went in respirators but I believe it was before.
I'm not 12 exactly positive on that.
13!
14!
T. MARTIN:
Doesn't the control building ventilation system automati-15 cally shift to recirc on a radiation level alarm?
16!
17!
MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
HPR220 is supposed to shift it into recirc.
I 18!
don't know if somebody had gone back and stopped it.
I don't remember 19) the status of the fan at the time.
I don't remember if it was " pull 20!
the lock" or if it was still in auto; but, like I say, I do remember 21 going back and actually starting the fan and the damper shifting into 22l the recirc. position.
23I i
24l l
25!
l i
3 i
[
22 l
tl!
T. MARTIN:
Hugh, in your discussion of sequence, you then mentioned 2'
j some effort or some work that you did, and I believe I heard RC leakage 31 i
pumps.
Is that correct?
4l i
Si MCGOVERN:
Leakage closed cooling pumps, yes.
6 7
T. MARTIN:
Again, our problem with nomenclature.
Would you explain l
O!
what these are?
9l 10 MCGOVERN:
Okay.
These are pumps that circulate the water through the 11 RC drain tank and through the leakage closed coolers.
The leakage 12I closed coolers are in turn cooled by the decay heat closed, using the 13 decay heat closed cooling pumps, the DCP2s.
The problem we were having 14 was that the tank had flashed, it wae 220-225, 0 pressure, the rupture 15i disk had blown and in attempting to start the pumps, like I said, you 16[
could see the discharge pressure start to come up and then drop, indi-17 cating that there was no water in the suction pump.
18l 19l T. MARTIN:
What was the purpose of attempting to start these pumps?
20; 21.
MCGOVERN:
Attempting to cool the RC drain tank down was basically the 22!
function.
We were just trying to get the water recirculating through 1
23l that cooler which is inside the building.
We just closed the cooler to 24l!
see if we couldn' t bring the temperature down some, prevent it frcm 25j flashing on.
rO" 1
1 bij i
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23 i
!l!
T. MARTIN:
Had the reactor coolant drain tank been lined up to pump it 2'
j to the reactor coolant bleed tank in the auxiliary building.
Was that c
3 line up still in existence when you were trying to run these pumps?
4j i
5 MCGOVERN:
The lineup goes through WDLV-lll8, which is a jog-type 6l valve.
What it actually does, is it taps off the discharge of these i
7l l
leakage closed pumps and goes into the bleed tank letdown line. WDLV1118 8
was shut at the time; however, the rest of the lineup downstream of it 9
is normally left open, because that's the same path that the normal 10' letdown path goes into, or excuse me, bleed path from the makeup system 11 into the RC bleed tank system.
Normally on unisolated.
But the 1118 12 was shut.
I 131 14 T. MARTIN:
You-knowledge of the position of this particular valve was 15!
based upon what indication?
16:
17)
MCGOVERN:
There is an indication on the control panel, on the RC drain f
18!
tank control panel.
19l 20 T. MARTIN:
Is that a position indication or a demand position?
21, 22, MCGOVERN:
It's a position indication.
l 23l I
24i 251 r
l a
i J
i
I 24 ili l
C ?t.
Hugh, approximately at 10:00, we had a building 2
f isolation, and you were involved in reestablishing certain flow paths 3l l
so that the equipment in the reactor building could still be operated.
4l Would you again cover those items that you reopened?
5 6i MCGOVERN:
The ones I remembered were the nuc services to the reactor 7
coolant pumps which supply nuc services to the lube oil coolers and the 8
air coolers for the reactor coolant pumps; and the intermediate close to the control rod drive stators.
That's what we unisolated; we were 10 obviously trying to keep the pumps cool and the CR nuc stators from 11l overheating.
I 12l l
13l R. MARTIN:
In your first comment of the first building actuation, you 14 did mention the actuation of the sprays.
15:
16i MCGOVERN:
No sir.
That wasn't on the first actuation.
17l 18l R. MARTIN:
I want us to make sure of that.
You did mention also the 19' second actuation.
20:
21(
MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
22l 23l R. MARTIN:
But you did not indicate that there was any spray actuation I
24j on the first.
25l g
, a; 6
25 l
l!
MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
There was no actuation until, (I'm bad on the 2f time) I believe, I thought it was around 2:00.
I've been told since 31 then on the charts that it was earlier than that.
s!
MCGOVERN:
Well, what can I say.
Plus or minus 10 minutes.
i 6i 7
T. MARTIN:
Try to glean from you maybe something that you picked up O!
off the side.
At approximately 10:00, we had a pressure of 2000,
}l 2100 lbs. in the primary system.
We were controlling pressure in the 10 primary system by cycling some mechanism on the pressurizer.
Do you 11l know, for a fact, what that thing was?
l 12' 13 McGOVERN:
I'm not sure if they were cycling the vent valve or the 14!
electromatic relief.
15!
16!
T. MARTIN:
Okay.
When you refer to the vent valve, are you talking 17 about the small line, the pressurizer vent.
18j i
19!
MCGOVERN:
The RCV137, the vent line.
20' 21, T. MARTIN:
To your knowledge was that vent line ever used during this 22 event?
23l i
24l MCGOVERN:
Like I say, I'm not sure what they were using when they were 25) depressurizing or attempting to control the pressure level.
/
6 ()
t i 1
k i
26 I
t i
l j
T. MARTIN:
Alright, thank you.
Okay, you indicated that you did
'm j
establish the cooling flow to the reactor coolant pumps following this 3
building isolation.
Was that related at all to any desire to restart 41 reactor coolant pumps during this period of time.
si l
6 MCGOVERN:
I'm not sure if that was the big picture on it or not.
More 7
or less, it was a, like I say, again I was given instructions to unisolate 8l nuc services, direct cooling pumps, unisolated they reclosed.
I think 9
they were more interested in the fact that the system was still hot, 10}
and they wanted to avoid damage to the pumps or the CROM stators, due I
11l tn the fact that we still had hot water in the system.
I can't really 1
12l tell you for sure, if they were restarting them or not.
i 13l i
14 T. MARTIN:
Wouldn't the building isolation have shut letdown?
15:
16; MCGOVERN:
Yes, it would have.
17l 18!
T. MARTIN:
Did anyone ask you to assist in reestablishing normal 19l letdown?
20i i
21l MCGOVERN:
That's not required.
You can unisolate a letdown from the 22 front console.
I don't have to do that from the back panel.
23 24) l
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27 l
T. MARTIN:
Alright Hugh.
Apprcximately 11:30, apparently the decision 2l was made to depressurize the plcqt and go down on the decay heat or to 3l j
go down to core flooding.
Were you aware of that decision being made?
4l I
Sl MCGOVERN:
Yes, like I say, I was in the back watching various parameters 6j j
and I remember them talking about trying to put the system on a core 7
flood flow, more or less, allowing the core flood tanks to dump into O
the system and maintain the flow inward.
At that time they asked me to 9f watch the levels on the core flood tank, so I was aware that they were 10 trying something along those lines.
ll!
i 12f T. MARTIN:
At that this time, we will change the cassette.
The time 13 is now 5:55 p.m., EDT, and we will resume in just a few minutes.
14!
t 15; SHACXLETON:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Hugh A.
16 McGovern.
The time is now 6:58 p.m., pardon me 5:58 p.m.,
EDT.
Please 17l continue.
I ISI 19!
T. MARTIN:
We were discussing the decision to depressurize to go down 20i to the core floods or decay heat.
Do you remember any discussions in l
21l the control room, the basis for this decision?
t 22E l
23 24 25l bJ i
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{
28 i
l l'
I MCGOVERN:
I think at that time they were worried about, as I said i
2l' before, the hot legs being steam saturated, bubbles in the hot legs; 31 they were worried about getting the water into the core.
We weren't 4'f sure that we were getting the water in with HP injection.
At least,
]"l that was the basic idea I got, and they were looking for all three b
means of putting water into the ccre.
7
\\
8f T. MARTIN:
At approximately 1:00, we reached around 500-450 lbs.
You 9
apparently were instructed to watch the levels in the core flood tanks.
10' What did you see?
11' 12 MCGOVERN:
At that time, I believe that was the time that we were 13 actually getting some water from the core flood tanks, we did see some 14 drop in level.
I believe they dropped to like 10 ft from the starting 15i point of 13 ft, and af ter that indication, it became fairly erratic, 16; one of the levels would be going up at the time the other level in the 17 same tank would be going down.
Pressures in the tank were not equalized 18!
at all', two pressure taps on each tank and they'd read different pres-19; sures.
20!
21!
R. MARTIN:
Were they equalized before the start of the..
22l l
23l MCGOVERN:
At the start of the transient, the tanks were approximately 1
24l 13 ft, and right around 600 lbs.
They were, in fact, equalize 1, yes.
25!
i he I
)
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29 s
l i
l'
]
R. MARTIN:
So you say af ter you had some discharge of the core flood 2'j tanks into the vessel, the difference between readings--are you speaking 31 i
of taps, redundant taps on the same vessel, or differences between the 9,!
two vessels.
i 5
OI MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
Redundant taps on the same vessel, indicating 7
instrument problems of one nature or another.
a; 9f T. MARTIN:
So we indicated that we did get scme drop in level in the 10 core fluod tanks.
What was the response in the control room, when you 11 ga/e them this piece of information?
12; I
131 MCGOVERN:
It was expected.
You expect when you depressurize & t the 14!
, -ve flood tanks are going to dump, and it was more along the lines of, 15!
okay, that's going, that's working.
There wasn't room to do, jumping 16 or shouting or anything like that.
It was just that, okay, let's go lY ahead.
18i 1
19' T. MARTIN:
About 1:30, we, I believe had the same lineup and the 20j pressure wouldn't go down.
It hung up about 450 lbs.
Do you remember 21!
any discussions about this?
22 23!
l 24j 25l 4
L J
f l
30 l
1 1!
l MCG0VERN:
No, lika I say, after that initial shouting, we did see the 2f level going down; the instrumentation became erratic and I'm not sure I
3l what the core flood tanks, you know, you could look at the gauges and 4
say, yeah they're going up and they're going down.
There was no real d
way to tell.
That goes for pressure as well as the level.
6 l
7I T. MARTIN:
At around 1:50, through other interviews, we get the impres-8 sion that a decision was made to try to depressurize even further, to 9
get down to the point where we could use the decay heat removal system, 10l the decay heat pumps.
Were you aware of such a decision, a discussion 11l relative to that?
l 12l 13 MCGOVERN:
No sir.
I i ally wasn't involved with anything along those 14!
lines.
Like I say, again, I was in the back panels, and watching...
15 most of that handled from the front cor. sole.
If they wanted to use the 16 decay heat system, they wouldn't have had to involve me at all.
17l 18i T. MARTIN:
Are you aware of anything that occurred immediately prior 19:
to the time the reactor building pressure spike occurred?
20l l
21!
MCGOVERN:
Not immediately prior to, but at the same time, the same i
22 time frame, we lost 232 and 242, which are busses in the auxiliary 23l building, on the 328 level.
I think we put that down, more or less, to 24 the same problem that we had there was the problem that caused the 25i g
I L
( a f s i
(4 d l
i
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31 i
1 spike in the pressure switches.
We more or less, looked at it and 2i j
said, well the pressure came up and dcwn lika that, it must have been some sort of instrumeilt error, at least, that was my thinking at the 4f time.
It jumped up and down.
We lost two busses on the 328 level, cl which is the same area where those pressure switches are located.
It's
~
i Gj not exactly the same level or the same area, but it is the same level' 7
and we more or less, or at least I did, in my head, put it off saying, 8
we had electrical transient that caused the actuation.
9l l
10 R. MARTIN:
Do you recall anyone looking at the pressure trace, itself, 11 at that time, or was just the alarms that you were reacting to.
12l 13{l MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
Several people looked at the pressure trace, 14 i.1cl udi.ig mysel f.
I looked at it, personally; one straight vertical 15 line straight up and down the r. arrow ranges was completely off-scale 16l and then came back.
i 17l 18l R. MARTM Did you use that as a basis in your thinking, figuring it 19l was pr;bably a noise spike..
20 21l MCGOVERN:
In my thinking I wasn't, you know, we had been venting the 22l electromatic relief and the pressure had slowly risen over a period of I
23l time unt'l we had an actuation; and my thinking at the time, there was I
241 an extremely rapid rise and an extremely rapid fall, so I, more or 25l
, c, 4 - -
l ii,.
l l
l 32 f
11 less, put it off to, weil, we haven't had anything like this before, 2'
l you know, what happened now, must have been some sort of an instrument error.
Like I say, that was my thinking on the subject.
4l l
- i C
R. MARTIN:
That's what we're looking to gain-your thinking, your 6l observation.
Do you recall anything, like a thud, or anything that 7
would give you a physical sensation other than just an observation of 8l data.
9f i
10f MCG0VERN:
No, sir.
I doubt very seriously.
I didn't feel anything in i
11!
the control building.
I certainly didn't at the time.
J 12l
.I 13 T. MARTIN:
Did it surprise you then that the reactor building spray 14, pumps came on?
15; 16; MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
They are designed to come on with a 30 lb. signal.
17!
We had two indicators that both said, yeah, it made it up enough to 18!
give the actuation.
It surprised me that we had a transient wnether 19!
electrical or pressure large enough to do that; but when we had the 20l transient, yes, we had the pressure.
It did not surprise me at all 21 that the pumps came on.
They should have come on.
22 23l l
24l 25j r
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33 l
!ll j
T. MARTIN:
Aren't these supposed to be separate and redundant pressure switches isolated from each other so that a single event other than real pressure would not have effected all of them simultaneously.
4j I
{
MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
That's basically true.
There's three located on 0
the 328 level and one located on the 305 level.
Yeah, that's basically 7
true.
It should have been... You know, you think that the electrical 8
wiring would have been separated and that, and I believe, in fact, they 9
are, but at the time that was not what we were thinking, or at least, 10 what I was thinking.
All I saw was the spike come straight up and 11 straight down, you say, well nothing changes pressure that fast except 12l an explosion.
13 14 T. MARTIN:
You've given me a piece of information which I was not 15!
aware of, the fact that we almost had simultaneous loss of busses, at 16:
this time in this area.
Can you help me a little bit by better identi-17l fying those busses for a layman, and also, if you can indicate what 18l kind of things are on those busses.
19!
20j MCGOVERN:
Yes sir, I can.
232A and 242A.
They are, more or less, i
21l miscellaneous parts on panels on the 328 level of the auxiliary building.
i 22l The way that we knew that they had been the ones that were knocked out 23 was, we lost the waste transfer pumps, WDLP5s, from the RC bleed tanks, 24l and we lost aux oil pumps from the reactor coolant pumps, which will 25!
i t
l.'
I
I
{
34 1.!
also supply them from there.
One more thing that I,... at the same 2f time, we also saw, and I'm still not sure why this happened, but all 3\\
the area monitors on panel 12, I'm talking of gamma monitors, went out 4!
l at the same time.
Those are all, they're part of RFPEANEB which are on d
the 328 level of the auxiliary building.
Now, again, my thinking, when 6l we saw the spike and we saw the 232-42A and those panels going out, I 7
thought we had some sort of a major transient or a fire explosion in f
the auxiliary building on the 328 level.
That was my first thought on 9
the subject.
At the time, the levels in the auxiliary building were 10!
too high to send anybody just waltzing in to take a look, so I wasn't i
11!
able to back that up with other observations.
I 12l 13 T. MARTIN:
Hugh, thank you very much.
Shortly thereafter, apparently
\\
14!
you were directed to shut the spray sodium hydroxide tank suction and 15!
also to isolate the spray valves.
Who gave you that direction and what 16!
was the basis for it?
17l t
18i MCGOVERN:
I can't honestly remember who gavt. me that direction, but I 19!
remember looking myself at the spray, or at the pressure gauges and 20[
seeing that the pressure was back down to where it was previous to the 21, spike, and it was obvious that there was no need for the spray in there 22f at that time.
I really would be hard pressed to name the name who said 23l close the valves.
24j 25!
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r o r,
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35 i
t 1!
R. MARTIN:
In looking at the alaria printer which so signified the time 2i l
in which a number of things took place, some of the resetting of certain 3
ECCS functions which came on as a consequence of that pressure spike were done fairly rapidly, but the spray pumps themselves were not clear I
Sl for about five minutes, were not shutdown for about 5, 5 1/2 minutes.
61 In your own mind, I presume you were doing a lot of those activities at I
that time or was there someone else at the panel also assisting?
8 9
MCGOVERN:
No sir.
There was, well, all of that is done on the front 10 panel, the resetting of the ECCS, the defeating of the building spray 11 system and the pumps, themselves, are controlled from the front panel.
12j My function was to shut the BHV8s which are the, like I said, the i
13l suction lines from the sodium dioxide tank, or sodium hydroxide tank to 10 the system and isolating the BSVl's which are the spray valves into the l
15!
building, the containment isolation valves for the building.
I really, 16:
you know, I don' t know what the thinking was, why we didn't stop the 17I pumps right away.
18i i
19{
R. MARTIN:
Alright.
So you don't think it took you five minutes 20 before you had those valves isolated.
21:
i 22l MCGOVERN:
I really, well, when they got the actuation, I had enough 23 time to walk around the front, and like I say, I personally observed 24!
the spike, and somebody said something about ah the building spray is 25]
on and I walked back around the back and shut the S's, and they turned I
the pumps off, and simultaneous with that was when we shut the ESVis.
m m
o/
OUj
36 1!
l R. MARTI'i-Thank you.
2!
l 31 l
T. MARTIN:
Did we inject any sodium hydroxida into the reactor building?
4l I
w MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
We did.
Gj I
T. MARTIN:
Do you have any feel for how much?
8 9!
MCGOVERN:
I think I did a calculation the next night--about 4,000 l
10 gallons.
11l 12' T. MARTIN:
Alright.
You indicated that approximately at 3:00 p.m., we 13 had the first indication we might have collapsed one of the bubbles.
I 14!
think it was the A-Loop that we discussed.
I would like to talk about 15{
the maneuvers that were being used that ultimately affected this collapse 16l of the bubble.
You indicated I believed, that the A makeup pump was 1
17 running.
181 19l MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
The A makeup pump was running.
20!
t 21 T. MARTIN:
And what was the flow path.
22l l
23l 24l 25!
', AJ c
,a.
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i
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37 i
li MCGOVERN:
Tne flow path was through MUV-16A which is the A high pressure m
]
inject valve.
16A or 168, I really, I don't remember which one.
They 3
both go into the A-Loop suctions, A-loop pumps, and there was still i
4!
l flow through MUV17, which is the normal makeup path.
It flows in i
f through 16B and I believe, the more I think about it, I think it was O
MUV16A, and that way we had a flow through 16A and MUV17, which is both legs of the A legs.
8 9[
T. MARTIN:
And we were preferentially injecting, using iiigh pressure 10!
injections if I remember correctly.
Is that correct?
It's true!
I 11f We're usir.g the 16 valves.
I 12!
13 MCGOVERN:
That is high pressure injection!
Yes, sir.
14:
l 15:
T. MARTIN:
We were going only into the A-loop, not into the B.
16i 17l MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
At that time.
181 19I T. MARTIN:
And the indication that we might have collapsed the bubble 20l in the A-loop was what?
I 21; 22!
MCGOVERN:
The T in the A-Loop came off at 620, and dropped rapidly g
23l down.
That was what we used as an indication.
That was our first i
24l indication.
I 25i i
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1 I
i j
38 l
T. MARTIN:
Did you notice any change in A steam generator pressure?
2!
3' l
MCGOVERN:
No Sir.
I was, more or less, on the lefthand side of the console at that time.
There were several operators at the console 5.
throughout this, more or less, each was in a small range, a small area.
61 i
7 T. MARTIN:
Subsequent to this, it was decided to attempt a similar 8
maneuver on the B-Loop.
Who made that decision?
9j i
10 MCGOVERN:
I believe it was the shift supervisor at the time.
I really 11l can't remember if Bill Zewe was on then or if the night shift supervisor 12 had come in.
I 13!
14!
T. MARTIN:
Would you explain how this was attempted, what the lineup 15i was, what pumps were used.
16i 17!
MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
We left the A lineup basically the same as it was l
1S[
before; MUPlA was running; the 16A valve and through MU17, and in 19!
addition, water was drawn from the BWST borated water storage tank 20l througn MVPlc which we started and through MUV16C, which is the high 21j pressure inject line into the B side.
That's basically what we were 22 trying to do.
23 24l 25!
i10
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39 l'
j T. MARTIN:
So, at this time, we had flow going through both loops.
Do 2f you remember the flow rates that we were using through the different 31 injection legs?
4l l
ci
]
MCGOVERN:
I believe that they were up to 100gp through the HP inject lines and through the MUV17..
I don't remember the ficw rate through it.
8l 9l T. MARTIN:
The result of this maneuver was what?
10 11 MCGOVERN:
We lost all the advantage we had gained in the A leg.
The A 12 hot leg pegged back out again.
13l 14!
T. MARTIN:
What did you then do? What were you then directed to do?
15 16:
MCGOVERN:
Stop MVP-lC, the second makeup pump, and isolate high pres-17 sure injection to the C side and concentrate on the A leg.
We did that 18l again.
Again, we got the hot leg to collapse, the bubble to collapse, 19l and, as I mentioned earlier, that's at the point where we started 20j seeing pressurizer level again.
There was obviously enough collapse 21:
inside that leg that we were drawing water from the pressurizer into 22!
the hot legs.
23 t
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40 Ill T. MARTIN:
Hugh, from this point on, we discontinued injecting into 2{'
the A-loop.
Is that the truth?
3l 4!
MCGOVERN:
Frcm this point on, it was very shortly after this, that I c:
]
did leave for, more or less, was away from the console.
I was, more or less, relieved and left on my own.
I believe we stayed with the A until we got to 180 inches on the pressurizer, at which time we throttled O!
down, I don' t remember if we actually stopped the injection or not and 9!
we were attempting to get water into the makeup tank, or into the 10 pressurizer.
11!
12!
T. MARTIN:
Subsequent to this you left Unit 2 control rocm and went 13 outside.
14!
t 15!
MCGOVERN:
Right.
I stayed for a little period of time after that, not 16i very long afterwards, more or less, watching, making sure that everybody 17l was, more or less, at one spot or another and more or less that all the 18 bases were covered.
And then after that, yes, I did leave.
19{
i 20j R. MARTIN:
Do you recall the period after the core flood tanks were 21l utilized and you were sitting probably in the 450 lb range, whereby a 22 flow path was established or injecting water into the core flood tanks 23 for the purpose of somehow getting that through the core.
24 25!
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l 41 6
fI' MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
I don't remember any attempt being made, like that I
]
at all.
3t 4:'
T. MARTIN:
You're not aware of any abnormal or bastard type arrangement-i having been hooked up.
6i i
7I MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
8 l
T. MARTIN:
You stuck pretty much with conventional flow paths, conven-10 tional injection points, and conventienal treating of the core flood 11 tanks.
12l 131 MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
14i 15i T. MARTIN:
Were you in the control room or in that general area at the 16:
time they started to repressurize the reactor coolant system?
17 18!
MCGOVERN:
I was in there at that time.
As I've indicated earlier, I l$l was there at the time we finally collapsed the A hot leg and it was 20j pressurized at that time.
I don't remember specifically when they did i
21.!
this; it was sometime during the day when I was there.
22 23l 24 25j 631 L'J 4
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i 42 11 l
T. MARTIN:
I was curious if you recall, or happened to be in position 2
to notice that after the tanks discharged from 13 ft down to about 31 10 ft, I think you thought you remembered, and then started oscil-i 4f.
lating; when you speak of erratic behavior, are you speaking only of Si l
the difference in the redundant level instrumentation behavior or did 6i you see any fluctuation of tank level?
7l 0
MCGOVERN:
I'm speaking of two levels on the same tank disagreeing by a 9!
large margin.
10l 11 T. MARTIN:
The margin being...
12l 13 MCGOVERN:
Well like, one would indicate, one of t'.e tanks would indicate, 14 these are just numbers I'm pulling out, because I really don't remember 15!
the exact numbers, but I remember a 3 or 4 ft difference.
Like one 16!
would say 10 ft and the other would say 14, or something along those 17l lines.
18' 1
19t T. MARTIN:
Did both tanks behave the same way?
20:
i 21l MCGOVERN:
Basically, yes.
I think one of the indicators, I think it 22i was the B side, both of the instruments just plain failed to approxi-23 mately 7 1/2 ft midscale in the indication and just stayed there.
On 24 the A side, there was, like I say, the wide difference.
I may have 3 ',
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1.
l those backwards.
It may have been on the A side there was 7 1/2 and 2'
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the other one was the difference across them, but, yes, they were both 31 very erratic.
4l Si l
T. MARTIN:
When you say the one side which you are not sure of, I 6i think you used the expression, failed to 7 1/2 f t...
7 I
8l MCGOVERN:
I indicate failed because they were not going up; they were i
31 not going down.
They both indicated exactly the same in midscale i
10!
position.
11l 12l T. MARTIN:
Do these instruments upon failure, are these amongst the
(
13!
class of instruments that are sort of programmed to fail to a midpoint?
14' 15' MCGOVERN:
Yes cir.
I believe they are.
16f i
17f T. MARTIN:
Again, let me pursue.
In the one instrument that you had 18' some, all be it they were different in reading, but at least you felt 191 they were responding in some fashion to signal, was there any evidence 20!
of an oscillatory behavior, such that the tank level seemed to be going I
21!
up and down, or was your attention really directed just to the difference?
22!
23 24 i
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l' MCGOVERN:
No, it wasn't so much that they were oscillating.
It was, t
e 2'
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more or less, the difference.
Two level taps on the same tank, 180 3l apart, shouldn't be indicating 4 ft apart.
That's why I say I believe 41' they were failed.
Si l
Gl T. MARTIN:
Do you happen to recall from any of your instrumentation i
71 l
lectures or from whatever source of information, if the, alarm printer 8!
apparently does indicate one of the core flood levels, and the alarm 9
printer for that period of time shows some alarms that the, for the A 10f core flood tank.
Do you have any idea which of those two level taps lli might be used to feed the alarm printer?
l 12!
i 13 MCGOVERN:
No sir.
Not off the top of my head.
I can't pull that out.
14!
I have that information available to you.
I could look it up on prints 15' and find it, but...
16; 17f T. MARTIN:
I was just wondering if you recall.
i 18!
19:
MCGOVERN:
No.
20j 21!
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45 i
t T. MARTIN:
Do you ecall the levels in those tanks going up substan-f tially? The reason I'm asking this is before you left the control 31 room, when they were undergoing the start of the repressurization 4'
system, did you happen to notice whether or not the core flood tanks i
e gave any evidence of water being driven back into them?
Gi MCGOVERN:
No c'c.
I think by that time, as I said before, the indica-8 tions were, at least in my viewpoint, very erratic and probably failed.
9f I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to them after that initial i
10 dump when we did see the level go down to about 10 ft.
When they 11 became erratic and started acting up like that, I was, more or less, 12f concentrating my efforts elsewhere.
i 13l 14 T. MARTIN:
Thank you.
15i 16!
R. MARTIN:
Hugh, Tim Martin, we are going to leave the sequence here i
17; momentarily.
I have some questions about normal turbine trip.
Have 18!
you ever been in the control room at an actual trip?
19' 20t MCGOVERN:
Yes sir, I was.
21l 22 R. MARTIN:
Do you remember when this was?
23 i
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46 i
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MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
It was approximately March or April of last year, i
2'!
1978.
3l l
4!
t T. MARTIN:
I remember correctly, stortly after initial criticality, we 5l had a very siralar trip.
In fact, this is almost the anniversary of f
6 the same trip.
Were you the control operator at that time?
7l 8
MCGOVEP No sir.
As a matter of fact, Ed Frederick was the control 9[
room operator at that time.
I was on shift at that time, and I did 10 participate tc some small degree.
At that time, I'd been a CR0 for, 11l well a CR0 trainee for about 2 months.
I was not licensed, and I was l
12!
more in a craining status, but yes, I was in the control room at that i
13l time.
14 15:
T. MARTIN:
I'd like to give you a hypothetical situation.
I'm going 16:
to put you as a CR0 on the panel.
You're in charge of the primary 17f plant and we are at high power; we've had a turbine trip.
I'm trying l
18!
to find out the things that your procedure, that you know of, would 19!
force you to do--the immediate actica is what I'm interested in.
I'm 20 not so much interested in your training aspect, but I'm really interested i
21l in how much you guys hdd to do to get this thing down.
22 23' 24 25j 5 !
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47 l!
l MCGOVERN:
A turbine trip in itself is not, well obviously it's a major incident; however, it is not that difficult a procedure to carry out.
3 More or less, what it involves you doing is checking that the generator 4!'
breakers did trip and the field breaker did trip, which is a yes they 5
p did type function.
The biggest function that you have to carry out of 6l any of them really, is to insure that the ICS of any stations were in i
7 hand, that the ICS, that you, in fact, run them back.
You take on the 84' function of the ICS system.
The ICS system is designed to run the plant back on its own, but should it not do so, or if one of the stations 10 was in hand that would be your function.
That's a major function.
11 Also, when you trip the turbine, the pressure in the primary system is
' 2' going to go up.
You can sit 1.here, and usually we'll have an operator i
13l that will head for the primary side and monitor pressure, and maybe 14!
spray down, to help control pressure or, you know, whatever he feels is 15!
necessary.
fMcause once you make the turn, the pressure is going to 16!
rise and it's going to drop due to the new lower power.
So he might i
17 have to take various actions to control pressure in the pressurizer.
18!
Basically, no I don't fee' Y extremely difficult to carry out the 19l functions of that.
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2 11 R. MARTIN:
Okay.
You don't t.
it's heccic.
t 22i 23; L
24:
25!
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l 48 l!
MCGOVERN:
Well any incident is going to be hectic.
Any type of trip 1
2 l'
or a transient.
Yes, it's hectic, of course, it is.
I mean you don't 31 i
trip....
4l
]"l T. MARTIN:
Had you been exposed to a transient of this type of a O
simulator?
7 i
O!
MCGOVERN:
Yes sir.
9 10t T. MARTIN:
You felt that that trip doesn' t bother you in particular?
11!
12!
MCGOVERN:
I would say that by the end of the simulator training, I'd,
\\
13i that, you know, it was well within the capabilities of myself or any 14 operator that had been through similar training to handle it.
15:
16 T.
MARTIN:
What I want to look new at--at your training, specifically, 17l what training you have received recently from the company.
Do you 18j remember the last time you received formal training from this company, 19i any type at all, one, two, three hours.
I don't care what it is.
20l 21 MCGOVERN:
Well, do you count last week?
22' l
1 23l T. MARTIN:
Okay.
Tell me about last week.
I 24l 25l i
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MCGOVERN:
I spent nine hours on an off scheduled day training on new i
2 systems that have just come in.
More or less, it's a recovery training 31 program.
To get us up to speed on what's going on around the plant, 4'
j the various systems that they are putting in; the plans behind the d
various systems; controlling stations, etc., etc.
6 T. MARTIN:
Okay.
Let me focus on a period before this event.
Do you 8
remember any training that you had shortly before the event?
9l
[
10' MCGOVERN:
Well, I have just recently finished the training program.
11 Its a nine month CR0 training program.
You know, I was heavily involved 12{
with the training department in the sense that their training program, 13 I think its an extremely good training program for CRos.
14!
15 T. MARTIN _:
When did you complete that specific block of training.
16 I
17 MCGOVERN:
It culminates in the licensing of the operator which in my 18!
case was November 1978.
19' 20l T. MARTIN:
Frem November 1978 until the event, did you receive any i
21l formal training?
22l 23l l
i 24 25!
(,,
50 f
MCGOVERN:
Yes sir, we have training week lectures.
We are on a six 2'
i shift schedule.
One of the weeks is an actual training week and during i
3l 3,
that time, at least two or three of those days will be devoted to 4i lectures of one nature or another.
Either a view type thing, emergency d
procedure recalls, preparation for recall exams, one thing or another.
6l T. MARTIN:
Let me ask you some specifics.
Does Category E, Review 2, 8
mean anything to you?
i 10 MCGOVERN:
Category E, Review 2?
Not really, right off the top of my 11!
head, I'd have to...
l 12l l
13l T. MARTIN:
How about industrial waste treatment systems?
Does that 14 mean anything to you?
Do you remenber receiving any training in that 15i recently?
16i i
17!
MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
l 18!
l 19!
T. MARTIN:
Work request procedure?
20 21l MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
22 23 T. MARTIN:
Water and waste treatment systems?
24 25i i
3 ~7 7,, 7) 1 '
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51 I
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MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
2:
i 3
T. MARTIN:
You remember those and they were fairly recent?
4j r
C MCGOVERN:
Yes, sir.
6l i
T. MARTIN:
At this point, I guess I have finished with my specific questions.
I would now like to explore any areas that you think maybe 9
we should have asked some questions that will help us understand the 10 scenario.
Or, if you don't have any of those, or even if you do, after ll; that, do you have any comments about this event, about the way it was i
12) handled by Med Ed, by NRC, by State, by others and would like to put it i
131 on record whether it was complimentary or not, the floor is yours, sir.
14 So please indulge.
15, 16 MCGOVERN:
I would like to get to the second category first.
As far as 17l specific questions that you haven't asked me, if you would, we basically i
18{
covered the period of time on March 28th when I was in the control room 191 or involved in this system.
The second category, however, comments 20' that I have on the way thing were handled.
I think this period of time i
21l right now is a classic example.
Its almost 2 months after the time of 22f the trip and this is the first interview I have had with the NRC.
I i
23 had been interviewed previously and I think it was more a stroke of 2 41 luck than anything else that one of the engineers from the Metropolitan l
25!
i I
,-7
{ l.'
j
52 1
l Edison, from the plant itself interviewed me the next night.
It was a 2
month after that before I received the first formal interview and this 31 i
was conducted by GPU.
I feel that anytime you are looking for some-41 thing of this nature, highly detailed information you can't come back i
Si i
60 days later or 45 days later and expect a person to remember exactly I
what was the pressure at 2:00, what was the level, did this go up and I
down, was it oscillating?
I think that is asking too much of an operator.
O I really do.
Since that time, obviously that was a major incident, and 9
we've had, many actions have been carried out since that time.
Its 10f just, I have trouble sorting things after a period of time like that.
i 11 That's my one comment and my other comment is I think that we were 12!
shafted by the media.
I'll leave it with that.
13 14!
T. MARTIN:
You may, can help me here.
We are concerned also that it 15' took so long for us to come and interview you specifically.
We also 16i did not want to jeopardize the plant by taking away valuabl trained men 17 from the recosery operation as long as the plant might put the public 18!
in jeopardy.
Can you suggest any mechanism that we might have, or 19f could use in the future, maybe through other regulations that would 20l capture that information.
Can you suggest something that we might 21f utilize?
r 22l 23 24, I
25{
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l 53 i
il!
j MCGOVERN:
I think maybe, I don't know how well it would work, but 2'
l maybe a tape recorder in the control room.
When things start happening 31 rapidly there is no time to sit and write i:1 the log book, there's just i
41
{
not.
Maybe a tape recorder just for emergency use.
Okay, the FAA's 51 j
got them for pilots.
If things are going to happen, the pilot puts on 6l his tape and there you are.
Thinks can happen just as capidly in a 7
nuclear power plant and I think it wouldbe a good idea if you had some 8
way, if you could just sit there and say hey throttle 16 for a 100 9
gallons times 14 up to ar.d keep on about your business.
You could 10f catch the tone of the conversation.
You could catch what's going on in ll, the control.
I think that would be 10 times better than trying to 12l reconstruct it two months later.
13 l
14' T. MARTIN:
Do you think it might be possible following other events of 15i this type, and hopefully there never is one, but any major event that 16l might need documentation and understanding that formal statements of i
17l all people involved, the guy sits down as soon as he's able to be 181 relieved and writes down what he remembers, do you think that would 19 help?
20l 21l MCGOVERN:
It certainly wouldn't hurt.
As I had mentioned before, one 22l of the engineers basically did that with me.
At 3:00 on the 29th, I 23 sat down with the engineer and he took a transcript of what I remem-24 bered of the March the 28th and what happened.
And I, since look back 25!
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f 54 i
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at it and say, oh yeah, I remember doing that.
Oh yes, that provides 2f me with a little more detail than trying to remember two months later 3l what happened.
Yes, I'd say that would probably be a big help.
4j l
ci
~j T. MARTIN:
Hugh, do you have any other comments?
6i I
7\\
MCGOVERN:
No, sir.
8[
9I T. MARTIN:
Hugh, I have no further questions and I really appreciate i
10f your candid comments and the information you gave us on the sequence.
}
11 If no one else has any questions, I think I'll turn it back over to 12!
Owen.
13 14i SHACKLETON:
Hugh, thank you very much and your recall is far above 15 average and we really appreciate the time you have given us on behalf 16i of the Commission.
We thank you and will bring this interview to a 17l close.
The time is now 6:32 p.m.,
eastern daylight time.
181 19!
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21' 22 23 1
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