ML19246A375
| ML19246A375 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/04/1979 |
| From: | Mcgovern H METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TM-0647, TM-647, NUDOCS 7906180681 | |
| Download: ML19246A375 (10) | |
Text
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TMI DOCUP (S
T DOCUMENT NO:
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COPY MADE ON 0F DOCUMENT PROVIDED BY
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METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY.
SuperYtsor, Document Control, h1C i
?906180681
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i 228 349
TMI STAFF INTERVIEW Ungh McGovern 0730 Hrs.
Sby 4, 1979 Conducted By:
E. F. O'Connor, L. Kripps, B. Center O'COLSOR:
Hugh, would you briefly tell us what your posi tion is here at TMI and when you arrived on site on March 23?
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4CCCVERN:
I an a Contrui Room Operator on Unit 2 and I arrived on site about 6:45, I arrived in the Unit 2 Contrc' Room about 6:55.
O' CO..NOR:
Were you scheculed to relieve the watch at 7 o' clock?
4CC0VERh:
No, I was scheduled to b; cn the relie f shif t.
O'CO:3CR:
Can you describe briefly for us what was going on in the control room w:vn you arrived there at 6:55.
MCGCVERN: Af ter I arrived on site as I was going between Unit 1 and Unit 2, I heard the site emergency being passed over the page system.
When I got up to the contrcl room, everybody was busy carrying out their duties and alates were going off.
I walked over to the area of the secondary plant and started helping out there.
As I recall, the problem at that time was with gland steam and vacuum.
It war pretty hectic for awhile.
O ' CO:;SOR : You were involved mos tly with the secondary plant?
'.CU 'ERN:
Tha t's where I started out.
Lynn Wright was at the secondary plant and I was helping him, then I wal'<ed around to the back panels and did what I could.
Ed Fredrick asked me to remain behind the panels so tha t I could oper-ate vr.rious valves and switches.
I stayed behind the ?anel most of the ti me.
O' CO:,SO R : How did they give you your instructions when you were back there?
"t7C7ERN.
las truc tions we re given verbally over the panel.
O' CG:" 0R:
Did you get involved at all on the primary side of the plant?
':CG dJ E F '..
Yes, I did.
I carried out several functions.
I stopped the spent fuel pum and isolated EWST recire.
I was also reading the high pressure in ection flow rates on the back panels.
The position of the valves are controlled from the front panel, but the flow rate is indica te(' on the rear panel.
We were throttling for 250 gpm.
O' CO:NOR :
Is that flow recorded?
.C D. ER':.
';o, it is not recorded.
O'CC:0?'
.;oes it tadicate the combined flow rate through all the "16" valves?
X i r ',
No, there are four i Jimators, one for each line, and ice were trying t<
nain-tain 250 gpr th roui;h each line, which is the.iccepted procedure folio ing
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ES 2ct ua tien.
228 350 e
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O'Cun0R:
1 e ce you trying to maintain that flow rate t h r ong' iou t mos t of the.dirning?
':CM'ian I don't recall.
Yo u' re asking ce to re me mbe r things that happed a mon th ago.
I do remembe r tha t several tives ::e isolated one of the makeup pumps and when that happened, we isolated the injection valves on that side, which again is an accep ted procedure.
O'C% NCR:
In ge ne ral, do you remenbe r wha t the app roach was for using the HP injection systen?
':CCOV Wh In y e ral, they ere watching level and pressure.
They were p robably trying a
to keep the pressurizer from going solid and they were watching RCS pressure.
As far as specifics, I don't really know because I was at the rear panel.
O' CO' ':0R :
How about le tdown, how were they operatine that systen?
'iCC O'i E R5 :
I real ' y couldn' t tell you, after the reactor tripped they shut 31UV376 which is the letdown isolation valve, that is the accepted thing to do on a trip, however, I cannot vouche that they did that.
So there probably would not have been any letdown flow.
O ' CCM:0R :
Wh't was the general plan of attac: to get a reactor coolant pump started?
F:CGOVER:4 I think they were trying to maintain pressura in a band whica would allow them to operate reactor coolant p ump s.
I can't even rate ber when the shut them of f or if they were of f when I cace in.
Being behind the pao. _s, I had some dif ficulty unders tanding the big picture.
I was only involved with isolated tasks, for example, operating the nakeup systen, watching this indicator and that, or operating valves.
'Ine guys who vece on shift and who were involved with the accident knew what they had to do and they were asking me ta assist them.
I really aalked into this thing blind.
O' CC:M 0?s:
At deven o' clock when the relieving shif t care on did they take over the watch?
'4 CG O'l E R', :
No, Zewe's crew maintained the watch.
The relieving uatch just helped out where they could.
O' CC." :
So you we re p ricarily taking your directions from Zewe's crew?
'iCO O. Ta Yes.
O' C3. :CR:
How -ould you characte rize the rood the control room?
".CG C v n ', -
Hectic.
Anytime you have an accicent o. any nature, things happen fast.
It's 7 cement-tc-conent thing, when something happens you nake the co r re c t moves to counteract it.
O' C ~..OR :
'la s it still that ' cay three hours after the initial trip?
A CG C 7 ;;',.
Yes, ~nt of the day.
The supervisors got to ge the r in the office around 10 or 11 o' clock and they started to collect their ideas and formulated a general plan of attack.
Before that tin, we n eme d t o be j us t re a c t in g to one c c c ur re nc e at a time.
pla728 351 O' O
'0-Did jeu participate at all in carrying out the O r ge n c;.
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'ICC O'J u ',
No,.br T 70t on site, the onsite emerg ncy had already bern declared and af ter
.ime they had enough help without ne.
I did not get involved 1-with the F S or any of the calculations.
I was ;rostly involved with the panels.
H, wever, about 4 or 5 o' clock when Fred Sche inmann, Bill Ze *,
Ed Fredrick, and Craig Faust were relieved, I did becoma involved with front panel operations.
Bo th TH's se re bo th peg;cd hi gh.
We knew we had bubbles in the notlegs and we were using HP inj+ction to try to work them out.
We did manage to break down the bubble in the A side.
O' CC:N ?R:
Could you explain the flow path and how HP :njection was able to break up
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the bubble?
.;CCOVE3,:
fiP injec ti on goes into the suction of the reactor coolant pumps in both loops.
'.s e were injccting into the A side and the flow was going into the cold legs, through the reactor coolant p ump s, through the core and lato the hotlegs thereby allouing us to condense the stean into the hotlegs.
Af te r continuing thc t, for quite some tire, we finally saa our hotleg teap-erature drop of f and we thougat we aere moving the b ubble through. We also saw Indications on the pressurizer; pressurizer level came back on scale, as we were collapsing the bubble in the hotleg.
The volume was shrink-ing and pressurizer level came back on scale.
O'CO:U:CR:
While you were doing that, were you using just one makeup pump ot two?
MCG OV E F ', :
Just one.
And as I recall, the injection valves we re throttled to about 200 gpm each.
O ' LO:, ' ' : You were putting in about 400 gpm; were you taking out an equivalent amount?
':CGCVEF :
At that time, I believe ; bay were still popping the electromatic relief valve to the RC drain tank.
O'C05"0R:
I'm curious, why weren' t you using the letdown line?
MCGOVE:_,:
They probably we re, I'm having dif ficulty remembering what happened over a month ago.
O' CC' ' 1R -
How much flo*., will the letdown line handle?
'lC G li C..
150 gpm.
O' CO:;,0? :
You were putting in 400 gpm with the high pressure injection system and only taking out a maxirum of 150 gpm with the letdown system, so you had to use the electromatic relief valve to take out the di f fe rence.
'dCG CV 8 ',:
I think that was the c ri te ria se were going by.
O'CT..;R:
Do you :ecall what time that approach was being taken?
MCGGJEF',
Five or s L>
o' clock in the evening.
I think the notes that I dicta ted to Ecbba :Srshall the m:rning of March 29 are a lot rtore detailed than what I can reembe r now.
It was a 30cd idea taking these notcs down at that time because the events ',are still fresh in y mind.
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228 35 2 4
O' CR:NOR: ' a re those notea taken in lein of a log since a l o g ' w; 1>t kept during the accident.
- CUOV F-Yes, basically '!arshall pulled us aside one by one and took a transcript down.
It was about 3 o' clock in the morning when he did ne.
KRIPPS:
%garding the reac tor c.colant drain tank did you turn c,a the leakage coolant p ump s ?
X:0Vd,-
Yes, we tried to coal the drain t a nk wh ich wa s ve ry h o t.
I think it was in the neighborhood of 200.
It was obvious that the drain tank had flashed, and the rupture disk had blo.en.
KRIPPS:
Are the leakage coole rs no rmally ope rated the re?
':CGGV ER:. : On an ES signal the auctions for the pumps close off.
The pu ps had to be restarted several times.
KRIPPS:
Are you talkin; about the isola tion valves on the... decay hea t coolers.
'!CG OV ER ', :
DC-V-103 KR I.'. S :
I guess it's not clear if you are talking about... the isola tion going out...
%'UGVERS:
I t's the decay heat to the leakage closed system.
KRIPPS:
You.ee re unisolating those valves?
You say that those things isolate not only on the building isolation but also on the...
'ICG OV E R:!:
I think it's just on the building isolation.
There we re j us t two butiding isolations.
KRIPPS:
Did you get any response :ehen you turned those leakage coolant pumps on?
'!CGO VE RL :
Yes, the pu ps would run but the discharge pressure was not nor=al.
It was obvioua that the puap suctions were flashing.
So we tried bu ping them one at a tire to avoid overheating then but at he same time getting some flow.
KRIPPS-b'h a t is the nor.al. ay of transferring ' eater out of the reactor coolant drain tanki MCG C/ U 'i:
The leakage coolant pu.ps recirc the RC drain tank.
There is a tap off line that goes through L'DLVlll8 which has j ob ea h a control, and then it is dis cha rge d in *.o the RC bleed tanks in the auxiliary building.
RI??S:
L'a s that line up shut at the time?
'.C';f U N :
Pumping the RC drain tank is a unual ap. ra tion. it is not done automatically.
You ha.. to go back and physically do it.
i r.e pu ps run con tinuously re-c i r cin;, the tank.
Se val'/e must be m e -d =1nually.
-I??S:
So you er to physica1L. open a "alse?
To the best of yimr k nowledge, was that e '. e r dune?
.J.
y MCGCTF.RN:
'!o it wasn't.
KRIPPS:
The fluw chart recorder which records flow throt:gh that line has some spurious indications on it.
Af te r S o' clock the re are all sorts of spurious signals early on that recorder and one would believe that there was f ? ow going through that line.
';CG F CFJ':
To the beat of my knculedge, that tank aas never punped down.
KRIPPS:
In the notes, that you dictated to Bubba Parshall, you indicated that you
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were involved with isolating the B ste.n gene rator a round 3 o' clock or 8:30.
MCG G'. h.R::: As I centioned before, I was behind the panel and the salves that I isolated were 21SV 43, 7B, 153, the tap of f for the main s teaa header and tap of f f ir the bypass valves.
KRIPPS:
The alarm printer indicates a ten or 15 minute time lapse between the time you shut 43 and 73 and the ti x. you shut 153.
.MCCOVE?J;:
Shutting 15B was an afterthought but I didn't think the dM ay "a,
10 or 15
=inutes.
The 4B and 7B valve was shut i=edia tely aac it seemed like the 153 valve was hsut shortly thereafter.
KRIPPS:
rna t about the feedwater side of the steam genera tor?
MCGOVEE:
That's all on the front part of the panel, I was in the rear.
KRIPPS:
rnat world you normally do in that?
.MCGOV E?d :
It would have been isolated at the sace ti e, as far as I know.
KRIPPS:
During the day, the re we re two reactor building isolations on at about 0800 and one when you get the spike, once you get a building isolation is it nor al procedure to check the indications and see if all the valves that should have shut were shut?
MCGCV O6 Yes, there is and both times we had that we made up a list of every thing that went into che isola tion position.
It was a list of every thing that did not close.
GI??S:
Did you reopen anything after that?
MCCOVE?a.
Yes.
':uclear Services to the reactor coolca t pump
_nte wdiate closed cooling water to the CRD's, and p robably others wh2.ch I fon' t recall.
KRI??S:
Would there '.a;e been any reason to reopen the reactor building sump pump line or any of the ventilation lines cut of the reactor building?
SC F d rM.
I:o t on ly 'zas there no reason to do it, they were no t reopened.
Certain lines aere open for specific purposes for e:7:ple cooling water to the reacto r coolant pumps, cooling water to tha control rod drives...
I KRI??S:
I' m us t t rying to cef.ne ahich one of thcse could have N -n reopened.
Al-
-hough your.ndicating thit sone of these things did not iaolate.
I MCW. /, :
Eefore we go to f ar on t ;; a ;.... I !an't rece-be r any opecific,, but there 228 354
wisn'- any thing nejor that didn't isolate.
I think one of the things was one of the Control Eldg chillers didn' t start but the re easn't a large hole through the reactor building.
KRIPPS:
We could limit our investigation quite a bit i f we could casune that the isolation valve was shut at 8 o'cicek and that pathway was never reopened.
So that's a good clue to us as far as trying to cczi5nate leakage paths.
Regarding the reac tor building purge sys tem, the strip chart shows some very low scale indications of flow.
It could be just thermal currents but initially there was nothing and somewaere between 6 AM and 8 AM the re are little spurious signals like scrething eas going on, could someone some have been playing with the dampers.
'4CCO'. dRN:
At no time did anybody go back there and play with the purge dampers, especially under a LOCA condition.
CENIER:
Part of this time was before there were any radiation alarns.
Do you think anyone was playing with those dampers before the alarms came in?
MCCOVERN:
I only came in af ter there were radiation alarms so I would not know.
But I can' t iragine anyone...
KRIPPS:
Shortly af ter the initiation of the accident wasn't there, soce discussion of naking preparations for a reactor building entry? Would it have been normal the purge system in preparation for building entry?
to start up MCGOVE RN:
No absolutely not.
You don't use the purge system even for a routine entry.
First, you would take a reactor building sample and af ter an analysis is perforted, you g;t permission; there is ten tons of paper work that you must process first before you open those valves.
KRIPPS :
Uere you at anytime involved with changing the ventilating sys tem line up or controlling the fans?
MCGOVERN:
Yes, I was.
I remember one time I started the exhaus t fans for the auxiliary building and the fuel handling building.
CE:;TER:
Could you shed any light on when the building ventilation systens were turned of f and on and when control room personnel were required to put on or take off respiratcrs.
MCGOVER?,:
No, I really don' t have. good feeling for timas.
No, as I said before, the only thing that I remember is startin; the exhaust fans for the auxiliary luilding and.he fuel haadling buildings.
As far as correla ting that with the wearing of respirators, ty cenary fails re.
All I recember is that we we re wearin g resp ira tors aos t of the day.
KRIPPS:
Wh a t does it take to start an exhaus t fan? Did you have to override any inter 1ccks'
" C C C'. E 2 '..
50.
The e > u us t fans aed to be interlocked.
The radiation moni tors s topped all the fans in the building it was acsociated with but that has been done away w;th.
':c, the exh : it fans ccatinue to run after a rad ta tion ala rn, the 228 WJ
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supply fans trip.
I'm not sure 'zhy the c.Oaust fans we re off unlecu s o r.e -
bod'/ manually shut them down.
KRIPPS:
Do those fans occasionally trip on overload?
!!CGC 7.. :
Yes, the fuel handling building especially on the r,a l ove rload.
KRIPi'S :
But you don' t r-:
,nber geing back and restarting then a t one time.
MCG O'. ER::.
It looked like they were turned on or of f, or so: ehody was playing with
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them quite a bit that no rnin g.
'31PPS:
You remember being in respirators most of the day in the c ontrol room.
MCCC/E?d:
Yes, almost continuously from about 1000 hrs.
KRTPPS:
Cere people trying to play with the control roam ventilation system? When you Nent to turn it on did it stay on the first tice?
If you believe the designers, you folks should have had a pressurized control room and shouldn't have bean bothered a t all by radiation. Was the co.. trol room ventila cion on to te t recirculation?
MCGOVERN: ?!a, the way the system is designed, it draws 1500 c fm f rom the outside.
KRIFPS:
Could you attribute the fact that the control room was not pressurized to there boing a whole lot of people there going in and out of the doors, and thereby defeating the pressurination system?
MCGOVE?l:
Yes, we were hardpressed to keep the centrol room under a positive prr.ssure.
CENTR.
In the notes that you dictated to Subba Marshall, you indicated that HPR227 was isolated and the time was giaen as approximately 1100 hours0.0127 days <br />0.306 hours <br />0.00182 weeks <br />4.1855e-4 months <br /> on the 2Sth.
Is that your best recollection of time?
MCC O'!EP2: :
If that's what I gave him at the time that was probably as bes t. as I can remenber.
I did isolate it.
KRIPP3:
Tha t seems strange, the reactor building isolation s tgnal first came in at about 3 101.
Why <ould the conitor have been running at 11 o' clock?
"CGOVEM -
I don't know if someone restartad it or not.
KPEPS:
Di ' soneone aa yru to shut ' awn the radiation nonitor?
M( C C'. E.G -
I don't recall.
Cr W.
When :cou went t c.
the m o rd i a - ontrol switch, the indication was that it was runn i n g '?
'!CC C '. a ' ',
- Yes.
2.IP P 3 :
Did " tor ecntrols c e c. u
'2 A and 4 A trip when you
.e re the re ?
228 356 e
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!!CCm E?a:
Yes, ani I can give you the exact t i:r.e, it cas e:actly chen we had the reactor luilding pressure spike.
At the tira [ don't think anybody though t it 'eas at e:glosion.
Uc thought that.ee just lost a bus.
The buses that y-mtioned are located on the 328 ft. level.
'xe lost the t rans fe r pumps, the oil penps for the reactor coolant p ump s, and arious other loads.
At th a time we t1ought the spike on the recorder was an elec trical spike and not an ac tual p ressure spike, tal??S:
U':en was that..otor centrol cente r reenergized? Ona of the other operators that we interviewed indicated that it,casn't reenergized until the following day.
'1CGJJ ER:,:
That's what was done.
L ere is no way to d, it outside the auxiliary buil.d-ing, ana at the time the radiation levels in the an.<iliary building were extreaely high.
Besides reenergizing the buses, they stripped all the loads off then, anc then they reshut caly individual breakers for essential loads.
We were afraid that we cay lese the entire bus again if a particular compon-ent were grounded ot t.
KRI??S:
One of the loads we' re particularly interested in is the rad uaste pump sealing water system.
One of the things that people have postulated is that with loss of sealing water you could get back flow f rom the bleed tanks through the pump seals and into the auxiliary building.
- iCGO'lEPS-Yes, tha t is one of the things that 'Je were thinking about.
When I was here during the mid. shift on March 29, that's one of the things they did reenergize.
KR I?? S :
Fron your knowledge of that system, is it possible that the tanks could drain through the pu p seals?
MCGCVEF3:
"ach p urp has two seals.
The inner seal is cooled by tne process fluids, cnd so it is quite possible that water could have leaked out of the other s>al.
KRI??S:
Uc uld the seals have degraded if they were run without sealing water?
'1CG C J E?T :
Th. outer seals could have. but the inner seals as I said before are lub-ric ated by the fluid it is pumpin g.
KRI??S:
If /ou lost the bus and lost the sealing water system you also should have lost power to the transfer pumps, hcwever, I know the re is a notation in the log that they were pumping the D neutralizer tank to Unit 1.
Is that p rp po ered off the same bus., the scaling water pumps?
CG O'J CS :
I really couldn't te ll you.
They may have energized the neutralizer tank pump by that time but not the sealing water pu.::ps.
- -3 I? ? S :
One of the cbvious leakage,aths out of the reactor buildi,g is the letdown system.
I'a s there been any history of excessive seal lerkai;e th rough the takeup pumps?
'< C C O'J ;.; ', :
50, that systen has been pretty tight.
228 357 e
a KRiPPS:
Tie next evening j us t about the time you :.e re c.xu n g ba ck on shift they lest the letdowa system.
h"na t did they do to try to restore that?
- Ccn'J- ',: Are you concerned about the lerdewn relief val.e? That ius had a his tory of po; ping.
The downst ream isola tica alves a re some ticca chut and the pt scare builds up in the line and le f ts the re l ie f /a lve.
RiPPS:
Is this the one that is j us t downstron: of the blocking orifice?
MCG O'. ER N :
Yes.
GIFFS:
20 you know if that relief valve discharge is pipad to the bleed tan'< ?
MCGOV ER', :
I pe rsonally don' t know that to be a fact.
Until I became a control room opera tor in Janua ry of las t year, I was an auxiliary operator.
I consider nyself fairly familiar with the makeup system.
Up until that time, the relief valve was not piped to the bleed tar.k.
KRI?PS:
Tne B&R piping diagram shows it discharging into the bleed tank.
As a matter of fact, Bubba ' arshall said the came thing tha t you said.
M CG OV ER',:
b"nen I was an auxiliary operator, I remember that that valve used to lift on the floor, pe rhaps they've installed the piping since that time.
KRIPPS:
Tna t relief valve is the cost obvious source of leakage becac a it is only set at 30 psi.
3ut what about the cnes that a re j us t dca strean of the demine rali.:e rs ? Tneir se t points are higher (in the neighborhood of 130-150 psi's) but according to the drawings, they just feed lif t to the pump drains.
Could a combination of :ypassing of the demineralizers (which apparentl-j they cid at one time) and not bypassing the filter which is just downstreac o f the demine: alizers, have b :ilt up pts re to the point where the relief valves lifted?
- CCOVERN:
1 ion' t really know if they bypassed the denineralizers or not.
CRIPPS:
Do you have any feeling for the maxi =um pressures they saw in that line?
'iCG0VERL:
I can't visualize a letdown p res s ure gauge, I den't know.
KRIFPS:
" hen you care back en shift, the morning of the 29th, were you folks venting the rakeup tank, through M'JV13?
- 4CGC'JER'?
fes, they were.
..e were having a p roblem with letdown ficv.
Pressure in the ikeup tank was getting up to around 70 psi. which is far greater than normal.
Sar ally it's around 24, 25 psi.
I believe they were venting it off to lowe r the pressure in the makeup tank and it gave us letdown flow.
CE"TER:
The re are many nota tions of the takeup tank being vented.
The first no ta t i ori in the log is at C435 [" arch 29] but we're trying to leek for an earlier tice ehen the tank may have been ented.
Does MUV13 have a history of being leaky.
O e
e
e
- c. ally suspected that.
It is n.tir-crerit.d diaphram valve and diaphrn s do tend to leak.
",a f o re t h i. s incta nt, I h,d m ver heard anybody
- ay that '
- U'/13 lea'-:s, but there a cears to be a curre la tion be tween when that "alve was p rensurized to 7C psi a n d t'i.>
role.ucs from the auxilia ry building.
G:pPS:
Regnding the raste gas systcm,
' 'ith as r ;eiving a lot or gaseous act1rity at that t itee, do you have any knowledge of that systen not being very tight or not operating properly? Son 2one has postulated that a slug of vater entered the easte gas vent header f re:n the reactor coolant drain tank when it
- as firs t p ressurized.
'4 C G C'! E R ', : ::o, not to my knowledge.
I haven' t heard any cor: plaints with that system.
O ' C'" ':0R :
0.'ould you have a:q objections if we ide a copy of this tape and gave it to the ':RC? Ice wi 1 also e,ke a copy of the tape,nd any transcript for your o.m pe rsonal file.
'iCG C JER:4:
- o.
The only thing is that I wish you guys.could have done this a long time ago while the facts were still fresh in my nind.
O' CO::::OR. Tnank you ve ry much, Hugh.
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Reviewed I;y:
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Hugh cGove rn
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