ML19249B016
| ML19249B016 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/22/1979 |
| From: | METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908290186 | |
| Download: ML19249B016 (75) | |
Text
I v:r.
e UNITED STATES OF AMERICA t'
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1.
In the Matter of:
q IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW Ex-C6iltFol Rocni Operator CO 4
5' 6i 7'
8!
Trefler #205 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10' Middletown, Pennsylvania ul i
May 22, 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) 13 July 3, 1979 (Oste Iranscript Typeo) 254, 255 15j (Tape Numoer(s))
16i 17!
l 18l U
/
()f 20' 21 NRC PERSONNEL:
'22 Mr. James S. Creswell 899 001 23 Mr. Anthony N. Fasano Mr. Robert Marsh 24 25' d
i
- ra li MARSH:
The date is May 22, 1979.
The time is 6:49 p.m.
This is Bob I
Marsh, MAR 5il, and I'm and investigator with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 2}6 31 Commissior. assigned to Region III, Chicago, Illinois.
This evening we l
41 are located in Room 119, the Red Roof Ian, in Swatara, Pennsylvania.
5 That's SWATARA, and we are here to conduct an interview of C QD
, who is an ex-CR0 for Met-Ed at the Three Mile Island site.
6 7
At this time I'd like the other individuals in the room to identify 8
themselves, to spell their last name, and to identify their position.
9f 1g!
CRE NELL:
This is James s. Creswell, CRESWELL.
I'm a reactor inspector located at Region III.
}
l 12{
FASANO:
I am Anthony N. Fasano, FASANO.
I am an Inspection Specialist cut of Region I.
141 15i i
CRESWELL:
I'd like to make a reference to C,M.D first name being 16' 17 1S[
Thank you. (,Nyou indicated that you go by ;0D even though MARSH:
ldi your name is C R O right.
Right.
22 23 l
MARSH: CQ.9, before we turn the tape on we had sat here and discussed 241 this two paged memo and I just want to make a few items in there a 2s!.
899 002
. n {1 2
1 matter of the taped record.
As I indicated the memo does cover the 2
purpose and scope of our investigation and goes to some degree into 3
the rights of the individual being interviewed.
On the last page 4-there's several questions which I just would like to get your response 5
to on the tape and that is (1) do you understand the above which 6
addresses the two page memo?
i 7
b Yes.
8 9l MARSH:
The <;econd question reads, do we have your permission to tape 10 this interv,ew?
12 C
Yes.
13 14.
n y, it says do you want a ccpy of the tape?
15 l
16!
C.hD :
Yes.
17 18l l
MARSH:
Fine.
On the tape I will get you a copy of this tape probably 19!
l 20 tomorrow and I will get a copy of the transcript when its available mailed out to you so you have that also.
There's a fourth question 21 covered in the body of the text that does not pertain specirically to 22 you, but it addresses the individuals rights.
We can abide by it if 23 you so want, and that inc'icates that for the Met-Ed employees in that 24l if they so desire, they could have a union representative or a Met-Ed 25j 899 003
=t,
[
3 I
I lj representative present.
I think you've indicated that you did not, i
2{
but can-I get your response now?
I 3t b
I waive my right have any...
4 5
6 MARSH:
Fine.
Thank you. (fN,togetgoingwith,we'dappreciateit 7
very much if you could give us some words regarding your background, 8
y u association with the nuclear field, and your experiences with Met-g '.
Ed.
I'd also like to include the dates that you went to work for Met-Ed and the date that you separated.
10 u.
Ob I started my nuclear career in the United States Navy.
I 13 went to basic nucle _r power school in Bainbridge, Maryland.
I graduated g
in the top quarter of my class there.
I went to West Milton 53G prototype in West Milton, New York.
I was then transferred to the Woodrow Wilson.
I served aboard her 2 1/2 years.
I was transfer ed 16:
to the U.S...
T who was in overhaul in Pearl Harbor Naval Ship Yard.
I was separated from the navy in November '73.
I started work 18[
with Met-Ed, January of 1974.
I believe it was the 28th.
I was hired 19i there as an auxiliary operator.
I went through six months of technical 20' training on the operations, systems, and technical training, some reactor theory about Babcock and Wilcox reactor plants.
I spent 2 1/2 years as an auxiliary operator and was promoted to Unit 2 control rocm operator in September of 1976.
I attended the 8 week cold licens:.)
241 f
program at Lynchburg, Virginia, the simulator trair.ing.
I graduated 25; j
8o.9 004
4 1
there N_o. 1 out of 6 and in October of 1977 I passed the requirements 2,
for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission operators license.
From October 3
of '77 until April 13 I served in the capacity as a licensed control 4
room operator in Unit 2 and I resigned my employment as of April 13, 5
1978, 1979.
And that's about it.
6!
CRE5WELL: O
, I wonder if you could go back to the time of March 28, 7
8 1979 and tell us briefly when you got on shift and wriat went on as you gj got on shift.
I 10 CM:
This is gonna be amusing because I was in Lynchburg, Virginia g
at the one week reactor operation training course cowi. ;here.
So I g
was in Lynchburg on the morning of the 28th.
I guess, well I wcKe up about 7:00 that morning and my shift foreman came over and said that In_l; his girl said Unit 2's down.
The safety's were blowing for a couple of hours.
I thought that was rather odd since they should never blow that long.
And through the course of the day we just gathered bits and pieces of information as it went by, as they became available to us down there.
Mostly from B&W people.
In fact, we had a shift supervisor, Bernie Smith, he was there with us et the time my supervisor of operations in Unit 2, Jim Floyd was there, at the time and I guess later in the day when they figured things weren't so hectic, they called up and got a little bit more technical information as to what 23 happened.
And the way-I understood it at that time was that they had 24 a reactor...a loss of feedwater to both steam generators...and for i
B"9 005 t
I 5'
11 some reason they didn't have auxiliary feed.
Now we didn't know the I
2' real reas; - shy they didn't have auxiliary feed when the pumps failed 1
3 to start, or we didn't really know.
So the rest of the day was then 4
just spent simulating the accident, trying to see exactly what happened.
5l We had several parameters that we knew happened, the pressure excursion 6
in the primary system.
They assumed that they had maybe one tube, had 7
ruptured, it separated in the tube sheet on the B steam generator, g
because that's where the activity came from, that they knew was released at that time.
We just, basically then, well, Jim Floyd and Bernie g
10' Smith, they lef' Thursday in the afternoon.
They took a plane out and 11; came back to the site and they left myself and the two other operators and the shift foreman down there just to continue with the training.
And really the only information we got back then was either from the g
news papers, the television, or what we could get from Babcock and Wilcox and they didn't want to admit too much.
Especially about fuel m
}
damage and any design deficiencies that may have been presei.t or have thought may have been a cause of the accident.
I got back from Lynchburg on Friday and I didn't really find too much out then.
But I did hand in my resignatloa that day, it was the 31st of March.
Or the 30th of 19j 20 March, excuse me, it was a Friday.
And I went in to work then the next Wednesday and basically the accioent was over.
They were still in a state of general emergency according to the radiation, emergency plans.
And my duties there were, I was only there for three days from the time the accident happened until I resigned.
The three days that 24 I spent there were basically a data taker, a log keeper, and such as 25t l
that.
I didn't really get into the operation of the plant.
l 899 006
I 6
l CRESWELL:
Okay,4 0. Who was your shift foreman that was with you up 1.
there on the...
2 I
3 C/N :
It was Dick Hoyt.
q i
5' 6l I
7 8
Dick Hoyt 1s my shift foreman, yes.
I 9'
CRE5WELL: Do you recollect who the other CR0s were there?
g[
l C,bO :
Yeah.
Ray Boyer and he's a licensed CRO, and John Blessing, 12!
he is a trainee.
13 141 CRESWELL:
Now you, if I recollect,.reperly, learned of the event 15i
{
through your shift foreman...
16j bbO:
Yes, who had learned through a phone call from his girlfriend.
ISj 19!
CRE5WELL:
His girlfriend where was she located?
20 CA O :
w,33, 1 eien,t really get that personal with oi:k, but to 22 the best of my recollection he was dating a guard.
It was a Gregg 23 guard.
Or...
24 8"9 007 25f 1
l 7
l CRESWELL:
Gregg's Security?
i 21 Gregg Sect-ity.
And I'm not sure if she was on that evening 3
or what.
Her information may have been second hand, I don't know.
4 5
MARSH:
I think that was the point as to whether she just lived in the 6
area or...
7 8
o 0
Yeah.
She lived in Mount Gretna. As best as I can remember 9l I
she lived in Mount Gretna which is a small mount community about 10; I
10 miles from the site, I believe.
11!
i 12!
MARSH:
But also employed in and around the site, right.
13 14!
CN:
Yes.
15' s
16:
CRESWEQ:
Okay.
Now basically at that point in time was, is it a 17ll fair cnaracterization that the information was restricted to the 18l l
relief, the safety relief valves blowing for a substantial period of 19i time?
j
- EOF, C\\
Yeah.
At that time when she said that the safeties had 22 blown for two hours and it raised a question in my mind that the 3
safties, they couldn't have blown for two hours unless something was 24 really wrong.
The reactor would have had to stay at power in order for those things to blow.
,0,0 9 f)08 l
8 i
Okay.
1, 2 :
._. c 4 0 :
So there's no two ways about it.
3 t
4l CRESWELL:
So you...
5 61 CM:
So I assusieu that they were the atmospheri, relief valves.
7 Now I, the atmospheric dump valves, yeah.
I really didn't know the circumstances which opened.
I knew how they could open, but I really g
didn't know the specifics on why they opened on the morning of the 28th.
11!
l 12:
I CRESWELL:
Okay.
What happens after, are you at breakfast eating 13}
when you found this ou't or...
14!
l 15i C
No.
We just got, we were in the motel room.
16!
17 CRESWELL:
Oh, you were in the motel rocm.
18."
c,40:
um um.
20 21 CRESWELL:
Okay.
So then what do you do?
You go on into work...
22 C,
Yeah.
We went in, we went right into the training center 24 there.
25:
Bo9 009 i
e 5
9 CRESWELL:
On Old Forest Road. Does Jim Floyd try to get in touch with y
the plant or anything at that int in time?
2 3
I really can't remember.
I know, I think he did.
But the 4{
inf rmation, yeaa, as a matttr of fact he did.
He called up ard he 5
g t, he was really interested in finding out some of the' parameters, 6
some of the things, ser of the events, the sequences of the event, some of the readings that they were getting on the radiation monitors, g
and some primary and secondary chemistry analyses so that we could i
. 9f simulate it, so that we could see if we could simulate it, see some of the transients that took place.
They had said that the pressurizer went solid.
They said that the primary system pressure went up above the safety limit.
At the time we didn't know that the pressurizer relief valve, electromatic, I guess it was, it was stuck.
I don't 14 15li even know at this time, to this date.
I just assume that it was the electromatic relief valve.
We didn't know that until I think it was i
16I i
Thursday morning we finally simulated that the valve actually failed 17l1 opened.
18l 19 l
FASANO:
This is Fasano speaking.
M you did mention that, in the 20 conversation and the information that came to you o the first day, 21 that you knew that the aux feed was not feeding.
Were you told that 22 over the phone?
23 V'9 010 24 25 i
i 10 O
Yeah.
They..ad said that the auxiliary feed, they didn't 1!
get it into the generators at the initial point.
We didn't at that 2
time, we didn't know how the feed was stopped.
We did7't know whether 3
.it was a malfunction of the pumps, the piping, or valves.
We really 4;
know what the cause was.
5 6
FASANO:
Do you know what valves they were talking about?
7 8
b Absolutely.
I checked those every time I come on shift.
9 10 FASANO:
Why?
C,h O :
They're important.
And 1 is they're always doing surveil-13 I
lance.
They do a monthly surveillance on each ane of those three 14!
pumps vhen we're at power.
In fact, they have to do a once a month in 15:
mode 4 or above and I know that those two valves had to be shut in 16l order to do the surveillance so that they didn't feed the water through 17 the air operated regulating valves into the generators.
18(
191 i
CRESWELL:
This is Jim Creswell again.
Have you ever found those 20-valves closed before?
21 h
g, 22 23 24.
1 25!
11 CRESWELL:
How many times?
7 I
2 Cr_
Once, that I can remember.
3 4!
I CRESWELL:
Why was it, why were they closed?
S I can't recall why they were closed.
I asked my foreman, 7
when I found them closed, I asked my foreman if this was a general procedure that I follow, I asked him do you know why the ESV 12 valves are shut.
He said no, I don't.
I said okay, Dick, I'm gonna open them, and then I opened them and everything lets loose.
I 12; CRESWELL:
The foreman's name is...
13 h:
Dick Hoyt.
15:
16i r
CRESWELL:
Dick Hovt.
Do your recollect when this happened?
171 L__
b bh :
There were so many things that, there were so many things to 191 l
recollect, I scally can't even put a time frame on it.
I really don't 20[
know.
21; 22 CRESWELL:
Would it.)e iike weeks before the event?
23 24 1
899 012 25!
i
12 1
O Yes.
It would have been weeks.
Maybe, perhaps months.
I 2!
Y' 3
g 8'
S' 6
CRESWELL:
Okay.
But as far as you know it, there's net a practice of 7
1 aving thost valves closed for a specific reason?
You know of no 8
reason?
..l
~
10 o 4 0::
no.
N<ne wnetsoey,c except tnet _n,sury,433 nce proceeure n>
calls for them to be shut when the actual test is being conducted.
13 CRESWELL:
Do you know if that was roported to the NRC that those 14:
i valves were shut?
15i b
No, I do not.
17 18j l
CRESWELL:
Do you know if the unit was operating at power when that 19 happened?
20 b
I can't recall that either.
22 CRESWELL:
Okay.
24 25[
l f
13 C
But it doesn't make any difference, in Mode 4 they're required.
l!
I 2!
t CRESWELL:
Okay.
Getting back to the sequence of the event, the time 3
4 sequence of that day, you went on into the B&W facility on Old Forest 5
Ro-?d in Lynchburg and you started simulating the eveat on the simulator and I guess all of you were in tha simulator at that...
6 y
b Well, it was, they kind of pushed us aside, really.
And 8
every once in a while if we get a break, we had some classroom training g
when they were running this and the three CR0's, in fact, it was the three CRO's, well myself, and two other guys, and Dick Hoyt, the foreman.
We spent most of the morning in class while they ran the tests...
13 t
14!
CRE5WELL:
When you say they...
13!
6l C 9. D aim Floyd, Bernie smitn, there was one or two otner instructors, i
17l1 I know then later there was some of the big wheels down there from B&W 18!
that were on the test site, I don't know their namet..
But I guess 19:
tney conducted tests from like 10:00 in the morning when they got the 20!
information that they needed until probably 2:00 in the afternoon.
21 22 CRESWELL:
Okay.
What basically was the information that they were 23 using when they started at 10:00 in the morning?
Did you run down 24 j through it?
2sl P'9 014
?
i
14 L ss of both feed pumps caused by low suction pressure and 1
2l that caused a high pressure reactor trip and they said that 8 minutes later they got emergency feec.
So that's when we simulated turning on 3
the emergency feed pumps.
It was 8 minutes into the accident.
We also simulated, we also assumed, we didn't get this ' don't believe we 5,
g t this from any information that was sent down that morning, but we 6
knew that the pressurizer was on continuous spray to equalize boron or 7
to keep Foren in the pressurizer and the RCS equalized.
g 9
CRESWELL:
And that was the because of the leaking valves on the pres-surizer?
11 h
13
~
The leeking pressurizer code safeties.
l 14!
CRESWELL:
The safety valves.
15j i
16i MARSH:
Excuse me.
Have you nodded in afirmation to that statment, 17 right?
18l t
O(yes,yes.
20 FASANO:(.e
, you knew that the code safeties were leaking, I mean...
22 23 e
Q:
b Absolutely.
They were leaking, I know for at least 3 months 24
{
before the accident.
2s M9 015 I
i i
{
,.I 15 FASANO:
Now, my understanding the electromotive, the electromatic, g
2 was the main cause of leakage prior to the evert.
Now this is a little different so...
3 t
41 gj MARSH:
Well, this is his understanding.
l 61 FASANO:
I understand...I just wondered where he gets his information.
7 8 hh I can look at the computer.
They have an analog value of 9
the temperatures at the outlets of these valves.
11I l
FASAN0:
These would be the thermocouples?
12l t E d aignt.
14!
~
The thermccouples downstream.
The electromatic relief valve was the lowest of the three and it had been for 3 months.
15j The other two would kind of weep up and down and they would sometimes i
16i maybe every once in a while you'd see them above 200 degrees, but most 17 of the time they stayed between 150 and maybe 180 which before they 18i started leaking they were always down around 100, 105.
I know for.a 191 fact a leak rate is required every 3 days.
That leak rate had to be 20t fudged every time we got, just about everytime that we got it, we had 21 to do something to make it right.
We as control room operators on my 22 shift, I know, we kept asking what are you gonna do about these valves.
23 They're leaking.
We can't get a leak rate out of the computer.
We 24 can hardly even do a hand calculation and have it come out right.
We 8"9 016 l
i t
l 16 i
1 don't have to maybe go look at something.
It was just a bad situation.
2f I didn't like it.
I 3
CRESWELL:
Let me ask you this.
Who did you inform?
4 5
This would be Dick Hoyt knew about it.
I know Bernie Smith 6
7 knew about it, and every other shift supervisor and shift foreman and 8
control room operator that operated the plant in the previous 3 months had to know about it.
g 10 CRESWtLL:
Now you said that you felt that the figures were inaccurate.
What other evidence did you have?
I mentioned that when we simulated the accident we simulated 14 15;!
it down' at the simulator with the spray volve open and the pressurizer heaters on.
And the reason that I know that this, relief valves, were 16i leaking was the fact that if you turned the spray valve off and put the spray system back in its automatic mode that you'd have a continuous j
rod motion in which indicated that the plant was deborating.
When you 19!
turn the spray back on and recirculated the pressurizer, force that 20 borated water that was in there back into the primary system the rods 21 would move out.
22' R
9 017 23 CRESWELL:
Okay,...
24 25 l
l I
I
17 1
We f ught that for 3 months.
I hated it.
Every minute of it.
2; 3
CREskELL:
So this was a.:ubstantial boron change that you were getting fr system.
5 6
0 Absolutely.
7 8
CRESWELL: Due to dirtillation in the pressurizer.
40!aignt.
11 12 CRESWELL:
Okay.
So we should be able to look like at the power range 13
(
charts or the rod positions.
Probably rod positions.
141 f
c, A O.
This was during the early days.
You know there's a lot of 16!
people up there, a lot of, I consider, top notch operators.
But when r
1 17l sometimes it comes down to the basics of knowing what happens, you 18(
know, they really, they look for the complicated picture a lot of 19 times.
They don't go back to the basics.
I picked up how to operate 20 this system right off the bat. You just put it in automatic and you 21 leave it there.
If something happens,...or not in auto I mean you 22 put it into manual...and you just let it continuously recirc that way 23 you have no boron change to worry about except normal leakage, maybe you have to add some demin water for fuel burnout just to bring the 25l t
l P99 018 r
i
(
18 1.
rods back in a little bit for control.
A lot of the operators didn't 2.
understand that and they'd get themselves in trouble with all the rods 3
ut at 98% power or they get them down in too far so that you get close to the rod index curves and I don't know...
5 gD CRESWELL:
Let me ask you this, g,. Regarding the reactor coolant 6i drain tank, the leakage from those valves could go into the reactor 7
8 9f'
~ ~~~l I
h:
That's correct.
10 11.
l CRESWELL:
Now if there was excess leakage it would require frequent 121 startup of the transfer pumps.
Correct?
b That's correct.
15j 16l CRESWELL:
Was that an operation that you customarily go through?
17 b
- Since the relief valves were leaking I ca.. remember, and 19 there of late we had to pump it at least 4 times a shift.
20 21, CRESWELL:
Okay.
22 ego.
And that was, I can't even remember the number.
22 l
We pump it 24l
[
for about 5 minutes and it was probably 100 gallons per minute.
So 25j probably a total of 500 gallons each time.
i 8"9 019 f
l
19 CRESWELL:
Or 2200 gallons per 8 hour9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br /> shift?
g I
2!
-~
C40 Right.
In fact, I took a backlook at the logs from the time 31 i
that we started to have to add water into the makeup tank to keep RCS I
inventory.
And at one time I can remember they would pump 3000 gallons Si i
of demin water a day.
Now that is your information.
You can get that 6
right out of the control room cperators log to verify that.
I even, 7
you know, they, the people that I had to report to didn't even understand the seriousness and I believe that that was a serious problem.
9f 10' CRE5WELL:
11:
In what way?
l 12!
b g b :I Control wise, because everybody had a different way of con-13; trolling.
One time I would come in and the spray would be on automatic 14!
building up boron in the pressurizer.
Pretty soon I'd end up with my 15j rods at the index limit.
Now, where's my boron in the RCS?
I don't 16!
j know.
Now, what do I have to do to get the rods out? Well, I can 17l1 only assume that the baron is in the pressurizer and manually spray.
18i How long it was there, the only thing I can do is go back to the log.
191 l
If the records were kept accurately, then I could make a pretty good 20' judge of, you know, whether my rods were gonna go out the top or 21 whether I was gonna have to add some demin water to keep them in.
22 O
CRESWELL:
Well, let me ask you this, Could ask for a sample on 24 the pressurizer and ask for a sample on letdown, would that help?
25!
P9 020
20 y,
Yeah.
I'm not sure how often those Jamples were taken.
I f
know they were taken at some interval and I believe it was once a 2
i 31 And I can remember at one time a sample came back arid it was week.
100 and, well to the best of my knowledge, it was around 120.
Difference
}
between pressurizer boron...
5 6
CRESWELL:
120 ppm difference between the pressurizer and the reactor?
7
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ '
8 b
Right, between pressurizer and reactor.
And if I remember i
91 I
correctly, that was w'th continuous spray.
After a while we had 10' gotten to the point where everybody was kind of operating the pressurizer spray system in a, I don't want to say it, a coordinated fashion, where everybody kind of did it the same that you could know where you 13 were at, how to operate it.
14!
15i CRESWELL:
What brought about this consistency of opcration?
1h 9
C P O:
we33, 1 eie e 30t of scre, ming.
IS!
19i
{
CRESWELL:
Do you have any indication that management beyond operations 20' was informed or knew about this problem?
21 Oh, they had to.
My supervisor, Bernie Smith, would, he 23 would make a reminder to all the operators on our shift, the operator 24 j
that had the panel, the console that day, hey, don't forget to spray 23I i
8"9 021 l
21 the pressure and don't forget to recirc the pressurizer for at least a 1
l couple of hours.
And one of the operators, Ray Boyer, he always just 2!
liked to put it on recire for a couple of hours and then take it off.
3 And maybe he'd do that two times a shift and everytime he did it he 4j would end up with rods out.
And, you know, it wasn't really funny but 5
then again you kind of had to laugh at the guy because he was ignorant.
Si He didn't you know, I don't like to make ar, cones about the way a 7
fellow operates but...
8 9
CRESWELL:
Let me ask you this.
Why wouldn't management have shut 10 down and repaired those leaking valves?
11!
C@O:
My impression of Met-Ed management was number one, they p t 13 the reactor into commercial operation before it was ready.
It was so 14lI obvious I could run down a list, and maybe I will later, I don't know.
15 I'll run down a list of problems, design deficiencies, that really 16i they should have never gone up with them.
They should it even have, 1
never have, attempted to ap with them.
18(
19 CRESWELL:
Let's go into that list, let's go down.
20 21 Right now?
Okay.
22-23 CRESWELL:
Just take you time and we'll give you plenty of time to 24 think.
2sj P"9 022 i
i I
i
22 1.
We started power operations back in, well I won't say power perations. mayt e we did t.u, back about a year, almost a year before, 2
3 ack in March, I believe we made inWal cWcalRy.
We & de b 4l p wer physics testing and I believe we escalated to 15 or 20% power.
No, I take that back.
We got up to 40% when we had the safety valve 5
problems.
There was one of the biggest design deficiencies that cost 6
them millions of dollars for that job.
And to me it was just misdesign.
7 8
i CRESWELL:
That was when they replaced the Lonergan valves with the 9'
Dresser...
10' Dresser...
12 I
13l CRESWELL:
Dresser valves.
14j l
Ch Dresser valves.
The condensate polishing system.
It was a 16i nightmare.
They didn't have an automatic bypass.
If you lost instru-17 ment air, all 8 c ; charge valves from the polisher vessels would fail 18, closed.
If that happens the booster pumps loses suction pressure, they trip, they cause the feed pumps to lose suction pressure and they 20' trip.
Seven vessels is normally all we were designed to operate with.
21 Okay, you could operate with 8 but that's bad engineering practice.
22 Seven vessels could hardly take the load at 98% power let along 100.
23 The condensate reject valve which was located between the condensate 24 booster pump suction and the polishers, if it would cycle because of a 25l P"9 023
{
23 I
high hotwell level, if we are...or a low hotwell level...if it would 2
cycle open because of a low hotwell level,.it would starve the booster y
pumps of water that they desperately needed to pump and a booster pump i
4 would trip on low suction pressure, taking a feed pump along with it.
This really wasn't too evident until we got up to, to higher power 5
levels, when two feed pumps were really required to supply all of the 6
feed flow.
Whenever the turbine bypass valves, I can't remember the 7
numbers.. 23 A & B, 24 A 5 8 I believe they are..whenever those valves open on a transient, say we had it in a trip, and the bypass g
valves would open... dump steam into the condenser...hotwell level indication would fail low.
It would also cause the controller that 11.
I controls the normal and the emergency makeup valves to see a low level 12t and those valves would fail open, or they would go open thinking that there was a low level. Now the operator at this time saw less than 10 141 l
inches in the hotwell and I don't know how many of the other operators 15j realized this, but when I see less than 10 inches in the hotwell and 16i I've got 3 pumps setting there sucking at 1,000 horsepower apiece, I-18 am very concerned about that equipment damage.
So I would watch the hotwell level, it just would stay low.
It was horrible.
Ari I would 19' watch the amps on the on the pump, and watch the discharge pressure.
20' That way I could tell if the level was actually low then. That was, 21 yeah.
Other than I knew the indicator said less than 10, I can only 22 believe my indication, but I C so realized the necessity for condensate 23 flow during a transient like this. So I was a little hesitant to cut 24 the pumps off at that particular point.
Qn9 02<4 2sj o
I 24 CRESWELL:
That was the indication you had of hotwell level was the 1l 2:
absence... that the condensate pump won't run.
Turn the pump off? If 3
y u 1 st the condensate flow, you would trip the main feed pump?
I 4{
~
5 Trip the booster pumps on low. suction pressure trips the feed pumps.
6 7
CRESWELL:
So, you got a loss of feedwater event?
8 g
D D:
Right.
10 11' FASANO:
How many of these did you have?
h I can remember for sure 2 times.
I don't know the exa:t 14 dates.
It was during one of the many trips they had there.
Well, I 15i wasn't really on them but I was a bystander.
I was on dayshift.
I 16!
was probably on the lead shift or training shift or somet.: ing when 17 they had a trip and I ran up to the panel to see what I could do.
18!
Then I saw it.
But then see, the next problem is with that, I mentioned 19l j
that the normal and emergency makeup valves saw that low level.
They 20t would open and they would d ap tons of water in the condensor.
- Now, 21 the actual level is going high.
Now, if it gets too high, vacuum 22 pumps.
You also use all that space that normally was vacuum, is now 23 water, and any steam that you've got coming into the thing, it covers 24 tubes, you can't condense the steam as well.
So what happens?
The 25j vacuum, pow.
You lose vaucum, atmospheric dump valves open!
I R"9 025
25 CRESWELL:
What about them?
l 26
- ~ ~ ~ ~ '
i CML0 If you got OSTG tube leaks, you're in bad shape.
4.
CRESWELL:
Have they operated properly, the atmospheric dumps?
5 6
The only time I ever remember those things operating, we had 7
just gotten off shift at 3:00.
At 3:30, the oncoming shift had a trip and they lost, I don't know how they lost vacuum.
Maybe they lost circ water.
I think it was one of the same type transients I just 10!
I described with the emergency makeup.
They just lost vacuum because of 11!
I a high level in the hotwell and the atmospheric dump valves opened and 12l i
just if there was anybody down in that room, they would have been PAR 13{
j boiled, they totally wiped out the pressurizer heater cabinets with 14:
[
steam.
Steam was noted to have escaped t;. cough the area where they 15!
are located.
I guess that was called the M20 area.
Through the 16i piping holes in the concrete structure dcwn over inte the control 17 building area and it went as high as the control room floor, back into 18i the instrument shop.
They had steam frcm the bellows rupturing on the 19l discharge of that valve.
20' 21' FASANO:
Both bellows ruptured or one bellow?
22 c (LD_
23 v
One that I can recall.
I know that one bellcws did rupture.
24 I can't recall, I don't think the other one did, but they replaced it 25 with one of the similar design to the other one.
8'9 026
26 FASANO:
Okay.
Other equipment problems?
1.
I ND :
Main steam line supports.
Two years ago I can remember 1
2 somebody coming up to me and saying I don't want to be around when 4j they trip the turbine from 100% with the restraint system that they 5
have on those pipes.
You'll have steam, pipes and lagging everywhere 6
if that turbine trips.
I'd'on' t really know, I know we went up, we 7
heated up so we did have saturated steam in those pipes before the 8
restraints were put in.
I believe those restraints were put in during 9
the relief valve outage when we replaced all the relief valve, they 10 redesigned the pipe hangers and snubber arrangement c.n there or 11!
I those.
(1) I'm not too hot on Burns and Rowe because they never 12!
designed a pressurized water reactor plant, they only ever designed 13 boiling water reactors which is obvious because of the 5 fcat concrete 14 wall between the= turbine building and the control rocm.
I don't know.
i 15!
Did you ever notice that?
16!
17 FASANO:
There is a, okay, you're talking about where the fire door is 10I between the turbine building and the...
19)1
@ h O !
And the control building, yeah, where they are.
20 21 22 CRESWELL:
I've often wondered about that wall that's, not the wall 23 between those two buildings but if you'll notice there's a wall that 24 comes down in that hallway where that door opens up and its separated 25 from the floor by an inch to 2 inches.
gng 7
l t
27 C$b Yeah, I've seen that.
I never real'y wonderad why that was 1.'
i there but I just kind of chalked it up to the rest of the crazy things 2!
I saw.
3 4
CRESWELL:
Okay.
5 What about the engineered safety features equipment itself? The high pressure injection pumps, where there ever any problems 6l with them?
7 h
D No.
I can't really recall any problems with those.
Unit o'
~
2's kind 'of lucked out.
We hadn't burned any up.
Unit 1 went through 10 4 of them, I guess, before they learned their lesson.
11l t
12l' CRESWELL:
I. understand the suction switches, low suction switches 131
[
have been taken off those pumps.
14!
1 That's correct.
They used to have a 3 pound low suction 10 pressure trip on them, I believe.
I don't really remember too much k
that far back, but I knew that I didn't like that particular. thing I
10f because a lot of times you woind start the pump up and it would trip 19l right away because of the low suction pressure.
It also had a low 20 discharge pressure.
No, no it didn't.
It just had a low discharge 21 pressure alarm that I can remember.
No, those pumps, everytime I've o
operated them I never really had any problems with them.
23 24 8"9 028 25j l
l l
EO FASANO:
1 Sounds like most of your design deficienies are concentrated 2
n the balance of plant on the secondary side at least, were there any 3
n the, I mean about, are there any more you that you have in mind?
Can you continue on you list?
And if indeed on the NSS side?
5l
~
C Well, the whole nuclear steam supply system, in fact the 6
j whole plant was designed for a place down in New Jersey.
So in order to accomodate fuel handling buildings they had to take and rotate the g
reactor building, the guts of the reactor building, the inside part, SIj 90 degrees.
So that you could go into the reactor building and look at the wall and you'd have another 150 foot of pipe running cround the 11!
outer edge of the walls that should have never been there.
It should l
have gone straight out but I can't help but think that because of 131 l
trying to, having a plant on the drawing board 15 years ago for Forked 141 River, New Jersey, and then just take and modifing those plans, bringing 15!
them to Three Mile Island and constructing a power plant of that 16i i
complexity that things aren't going to be wrong.
You know, there are 17!
definitely going to be design deficiencies.
Somebody that designed 18I l
the system, somebody else is gonna come along and change it to fit 191 TMI.
One thing that I have...that I never really had close contact 20 with, I know that the auxiliary operators, just because the-were out 21 in the plant, they had a close contact with it, was the fact that they 22 had extension controls that went through the wall and they had clutches 23 that operated the valve behind a concrete wall for radiation.
Those 24 each limit, limiting type thing.
And most of the time the valves 25j l
8 9 029 i
i
(
29 14 would never operate, so you'd have to go through these, back into the 2
valve alley to operate the valve anyway and you had to spend anywhere i
3j fr m 2 to 3 times as much time in the valve alley, crawling over all I
4 these extension controls that were in your way that, you know, the 5l p
r guy w uld end up getting three times as much radiation than he should have.
6 l
7l CRESWELL:
Is this a wide spread problem or an isolated problem?
8 l
9l 10l 1
This is wide spread.
Especially.: filter rooms, the makeup valve suction alley, the discharge alley and the 305 valve alley.
I 12; I
CRESWELL:
Those are only high radiation areas during operation?
13
'4I^!
C 9 51i Yes.
Now I'm not sure, I know the levels were creeping up 15, i
there in the later days of power operation.
I know they were climbing 16i i
up there and there were still valvec in there that had to be operated 171 for surveillance procedures, valve lineups and the like.
Filter rooms 181 is the same way only the filter rooms, you can't get into them.
19!
l 20[
CRESWELL:
Do you recollect a trip that occurred back in around November 21 3rd, November 4th of 1978, a loss of feedwater type of trip?
This is 22 where an instrument technician threw the wrong switch and in condensate 23 polishir.g system, all feedwater was lost.
Do you remember any of the 24 details of that event?
25; P"9 030 l
l
)
l 30 MARSH:
You were nodding in affirmation, were you not?
1!
- 2.,
3
_ OM :
Yes, I was.
I remembered.
I'm trying to think.
I have to repr gram myself, here.
I have got to get ba:k into that.
I've been 4:
through two total loss of feedwaters.
5 Si CRESWELL:
Here?
8 C, N :
Yes.
One was at zero power or very low power and the other 91 one was at 20% power.
And I really don't remember too many of the details.
I do know that the switch that the guy threw was control power for all of the valves in the condensate polishing system that made them shut cutting off all condensate flow path.
13) i 14!
l CRESWELL:
Do you remember any operators on shift discussing that with 15i you, hearing anything about it?
Well, I remember, they had the LER that was circulating and 1st they had a synopsis of the event that 9 read in.
We had to sign and i
initial.
20 21 CRESWELL:
Well, this particular event that I'm speaking of, I don't 22 believe there was an LER generated.
23 909 031 24 25l
[
l p
f
{
31 O
g I see.
l 2l 1
3l CRESWELL:
There was one November 7th that was a loss of one feed pump, but that was with the run back.
Okay.
At this point in time 4
We're getting Very Close to the end of the tape, so we'll break right 6l 7
MARSH:
Time is 7:32.
I'm gonna break at this point and turn the tape over.
9 10 MARSH:
Resuming at this time, the time is 7:33.
12!
CRESWELL:
Okay.
What about you training at Three Mile Island Unit 2, 13 how's that been?
14!
C/
I hate to say this but I'm gonna have to.
They train, my 16i training I thought was very well done.
They put us through a pretty 17 comprehensive program, the 8 weeks at Lynchburg, plus we had lots of 18 time to ourselves just constructing the piant when things weren't very 191 busy.
We could get out into the plant trace systems and alike.
We 20' went through a mock NRC test that was given by a General Physics, the j
walk around and the test and then we had the actual test.
We had a 228 lot of prelicensing training that I thought was a big help.
Onshift 23 we had several lectures.
They weren't always done as planned but we 24 did get in some training onshift.
The guy would take a system and 25 l
8"9 032
{
32 1!
give everybody on the shift a lecture about it.
3ut the licensed 2
perators that have come on since the cold licensing groups, since the i
3{
initial group of operators that went up, those operators are trained I
to take an NRC examination.
They are not trained to operate the
[
plant.
They have copies of NRC tests, the questions, you know.
They're...
6{
7 0
CRESWELL: g4, let me ask you this.
You stated that general physics g
conducted a dry run of the licensees.
Do you find that the NRC exams e
91 i
are predictible, the way the test will be conducted?
10{'
lli c, VJ Yeah.
I think they are fairly well predictible.
TMI has 12 got an excellent record.
I don't know the records of any of the other f
operating plants.
But I do know that TMI's record is good.
I don't 141 think we've had but one failure and that was in Unit 1.
We've had i
15j soveral senior operators th=t went 9 for a senior's license but did 16i fail the senior part b.t got a reactor operators license.
And, you 17 know, I can just say that I feel that this operatirg record is indi-18i cative of knowing what to expect.
They can build up on it.
If they 19 know that a certain examiner is going to come, they can dig out all 20 his old tests, they can, we have old interviews that somebody might 21 have snuck a little tape recorder in their pocket and taped the entire 22 walk around and you can get the tape conversations of those.
I've 23 seen those flying around.
24 25i 8'9
()33 9
i
1
'{
l 33 f
g MARSH:
Have you actually seen a tape or heard a tape before this was done, or just transcripts thereof?
2 3
4; ND :
I've just seen transcripts, no tapes.
Ir. fact, I don't even i
w any @a ee Mi e sland maMng a tape.
5 6
CRESWELL:
Do you know what the source of the tape was?
3 ChO I do know this, I know that it was a Babcock and Wilcox reactor.
10' 11!
CRESWELL:
Okay.
12 And it was a specific examiner.
I can't even remember h'is 141
(
name.
No, I wouldn't even begin to attempt to remember his name.
I 15i l
don' t remember.
16i 17 CRESWELL:
One interview, it was one ir.terview that you had heard of?
18l c
b b b.
I think there was one, one for sure, maybe two 20f 21 CRESWELL:
Okay.
22 23' MARSH:
Where would I look if I wanted to find a set of those? Who 24 would be my best shot that I could talk to?
25i i
0"9 034 e
t i
l f
34 h
I threw all my old stuff away.
,J l
2!
MARSH:
You had had a set of them?
b I had a set at one time.
51 6
CRESWELL:
Did you receive those through your emplovment it. Three Mile Island?
8 6
Yeah.
I can't recall who I get them from.
.' can'L rememcer 10l l
if it was the training department, which I don't think it was.
I 11l think it was one of the other operators and he might have gotten it 12!
from training.
13 14, t
MA'tSH; Okay.
if you have any additional recollections on those, T'd 15i appreclate you get in touch with me.
I'll give you a card and a phone 1
16!
number and all that where you can reach me.
17 Yes.
19I 20 CHESWELL:
You mentioned before you'd come on shift and found those 21:
taelve valves shut before.
What about, have you done your lineup on 22 your panel before and found other valve mislineups?
23 24 2s 9 9 035 i
h l
35 I came in one day, this is just an example of some of the 1
'l things that I've had to come into.
Met-Ed was always famous for per-i forming an evolution 20 minutes before shift relief.
Turning the plant over in total ch'aos.
I hated to turn the plant over that way 4l myself and I m re than hated receiving.a plant like that.
I came in 5
ne day to relieve the shift that had had a trip and I can't recall 6
the exact, what happened, but I know that there was an operator was trying to control p%ssurizer level with MUV 168.
Now that's a high pressure injection valve on the A loop.
He was throttling this valve, j
pressurizer level would go up, he would close it, it would come back down again, and he wculd just keep doing this.
And I asked him, "what are you doing?"
He said, "I'm maintaining pressurizer level."
I 12, I
said, "what happer.:d te 'ha narm.'?"
"I don't know, it just doesn't 13l l
we rk. " /.nd he went over to the pneumatic controller for MUV 17 and he 14!
I showed ae, nothing happened.
I said "did you check MUV 18?"
That's 15!
the maraal isolation to 17.
16i l
17 CRESWELL:
You're indicating something there...
18' C/
I'm indicating that I pointed to MUV 18 and that valve was 20' in fact shut.
And he says, "Ah," and other explicitives.
And you 21 know, I says you gotta wake up.
I said you can't operate a plant this 22 way.
I came in another time.
Now, I wasn'L really taking over the 23 shift but we ware walking out the passage way coming in from Unit 1 24 which is normally the way we came in and every once in a while we'd 2s!
8"9 036 1
I i
t
36 hear a safety go.
And it would go for maybe 30 seconds then it would y
eseat. We'd walk a little further and it, pow, went again.
What are f
they doing up there?
I was with another CRO, we were just about ready 3
to take the shift.
I don' t know.
They're not testing them.
I thought j
we were at power.
You know, What Would they be testing them now for?
We g t up there and what had happened was they lost feedwater, pressure 6
in the steam generators went down to the point where they actuated in the feedwater latching system which ' cuts off all feed to the generators from the normal feedwater pumps, and it riso shuts MSV 4A, 8, 7A, and Si B, which are the main steam isolation valves.
The sensing point for 10'
+urbine header pressure which controls the turbine bypass valves is I
downsti :am of the MSV 4's and 7's.
They restored normal feed, but 12!
l they forgot to open the MSV 4's and 7's. So that the turbine bypass 131 valves were seeing 750 pcunds pressura and the turbine, the relief 14!
valves in the steam generators were seeing 1050, 1060.
So everytime 15i they tried to contrul pressure with the bypass valves, they had those in manual, they would close them down because they'd see pressure was 171 starting to decrease, in closing down the pressure would come back up 181 i
again and poof.
It wasn't two minutes into the shift and Ray Boyer, 191 l
the guy that was taking the panel said, "what are you trying to do?"
20 He said, "you're blowing safties cut '.here."
"But we can't control 21 pressure enough.
And look at header pressure.
It's down low."
RMt 22 next to it is OTSG pressure.
It was 1050.
He says, " Man, what's the 23 difference here."
And he looked up and the MSV 4's and 7's were shut.
24 He says, " crack those valves."
They cracked the valves, they closed 25l t
8'9 037 i
i
37 7
the turbine bypass valves, put them in automatic and the thing came cight on ur.
of Now these are trained operators.
I don't like 2
y to ss t. hat my shift was the best but, you know, I think we were.
CRESWELL:
Let me ask you this.
What are the diff.ic
' ties that you 5
anc unter in operating a plant of thi cesign?
6 7
b Feedwater is very sensitive.
It, : don't know.
I don't 8
9 want to say that feedwater is sensitive.
When you move 11 million pounds of water i.n hour, that, needless to say, is going to be touchy, you know, whatever its just that a slight change in flow is gonna cause a big change in the steam generator, but not only that the primarly system is very sensitive.
The pressuri7.er was totally too small.
Any decrease in primary system temperature, which would result from an increase in feedflow, would cause the pressurizer level to go 15i down and the pressurizer pressure to go down.
It was really very hard 16) i to control in this respect.
You know, I, in fact, when we, when I 17 control the feedwater, the amount of feedwatet* to know how much to put 18{
l into the steam generators to keep the reactor basically as stable, as 191 i
stable as I can keep it in a transient situation.
I look at reactor 20 pressure.
If pressure goes up I feed a little more.
When I start to 21I I
see it come down again, I back it off a little bit.
And that's how I 22 know where to keep feedwater flow.
23 24 8"9 038 25 i
I
~
38 CRESWELL:
How do you, after a reactor trip, what are the immediate 1
actions that you take?
Could you walk us through what actually goes 2
3 l
41 OM:
Well, the first thing that you do is you insure that, you g
mainly trip the reactor.
Okay, that just insures that, well, I don't 6
know why it would, but the second thing says that you look up on the i
PI panel and verify that all the rod in-limit lights are on.
You g
check to make sure that the turbine is tripped.
That it's auxiliary oil pumps are operating.
Make sure that t,ie turbine bypass system is controlling steam header pressure at 1010.
You close MUV 376, which i
is a letdown isolation valve.
If pressurizer level gets down below 12',
100 inches, you're supposed to start a second makeup pump and just keep it ready to go if you need it.
If pressurizer level gets down below, I think its 20 inches, then you're supposed to open MUV 168 to 15i admit more water.
If the makeup tank is low and the pressurizer level 16) is low, then you shut, or you open the DHV 580, which is allows the 17 BWST to come down to the suction of the makeup pumps and then you shut 18l l
MUV 12.
19i 20 CRESWELL:
Is that a valve you have to go out and manipulate manually 21 or do you...?
22' Its one you have walk around 20 feet of panel and back 20 24.
l feet to open.
2s!
P"9 039 l
i l
(
39 l
CRESWELL:
What about the feedwater control...?
1, l
2!
3 Well, if y u have any feedwater stations in hand, you should verify it, you should run those back consistent to the parameter that 9
th'Y Sh "Id h*'
I" th*" *
"d' d"'t **k' It *"d t k* It "Il th'
- Y 5
down.
6 7
CRESWELL:
What if they're in auto?
g 9;
i b Well, if they're is auto you just verify that feedwater flow 10 is coming back at a rate consistent with the header pressure.
l 12:
CRESWELL:
Now, they're set, the feedwater is set for 30 inches, right?
14!
On the low level limits, right, yeah.
1 61 l
17l CRESWELL:
Has that always been the case?
It's always been set at 30 18t i
inches?
19{
Well, 30 inches is the nominal, is a nominal number.
It 21
}
could be plus or minus.
What they do is they set the levels in tne 22 steam generators at 532 degrees so that they could get 532 degrees 885 23 psig.
If they need a little bit more heat transfer to get that 885, 24 then they would raise the level slightly, you know, varied maybe plus 25j i
l P 9 0 4 0 l
40 1!
or minus 3 inches from 30 on either generator.
I knew one that was 2
about 32 and the other's 28.
l 3I i
4{
CRESWELL:
I guess you've had a chance to talk to the operators si..ce the event.
Have they noted anything to you that was peculiar about 5
the event? Where they had to take special actions and...?
6 7
I
Y U *"
9'
'9 ' ' "
8 gj I ever talked was in a bar roon;.
And I, you know, I don't like to I
repeat what I hear in bar rooms.
10t I
11:
FASANO:
You mentioned that you at one time found MUV 18 shut.
What reason would anyone have to have that valve in a closed position?
To the best of my knowledge that particular event came when 15i somebody tried to change a light bulb in the ICV 5 valve controller.
16i I
They removed the lens covers and everything.
They pulled the old 17j l
light bulb out and they went to stick the new one in and, you know, 18l l
these were those PSB 120's that they'rs telephone lights.
They're 191 about that long ano they have a contact niaking surface on either side 20 of them about maybe a half inch.
And as they slid this thing into the 21 socket, it made contact with the hot side and the grour it blew the 22 fuse for that indica'.ing circuit.
It also took away the indication 23 for all the other valves and happened to fail when MUV 18 shut, when 24 they re-energized that.
25 l
P"9 041
[
41 1!
CRESWELL:
Was it, did maintenance repair it promptly?
l 2!
O 3
I really d n't know the time frame.
What I saw, I understand it, how it happened.
I can't remember when the trip happened.
I knew they had a trip on that particular instance.
I can't remember what 5
6 the time they got it fixed.
I wasn't on shift at that time.
Then I 7
do recall a sign back on tnat particular operating panel that said g
operators are not to change light bulbs in this panel, call the alec-g tricians.
So we have to call the electricians and have a light bulb changed.
Another one of Burns and Roe's designs.
12!
CRESWELL:
Okay.
One thing we haven't talked to you about is why you 13!
quit.
14 b
Why I quit? About a year ago, well, it was even, no, it 16i wasn't a year ago.
It was a year ago.
Back in June I had wanted to 17 leave this racket for a while.
I think it can be a good career.
In 18l fact I enjoyed my work up there.
What I did, or what I had to go 191 through to do what I did, it was hectic.
When I left Met-Ed my blood 20!
pressure was 180 over 110, which for a man of 30 years old is outragious.
21 My blood pressure had been hi]h for over a year.
In fact, I had gone job hunting back about this time last year and I had gotten a job but 23 it was a little less money than I really wanted to take and it was in 24; St. Louis, and I didn't want to move.
So it wasn't really a spur of 25; P"9 042 i
f
{
42 1.
the moment type decision, which a lot of people thought it was because f the accider.t.
I did know that once the accident happened, when I 2
realized the severity of the accident, I knew that it was gonna be a 3
i long time.
I had just gone through 21/2 grueling yeus of bullshit, 5
was, with W startup, UE&C darup, and tMn MedE1 w c s
a
- 9 ***
- 6l different supervisors plus 3 or 4 shift test engineerings i.nd various other mechanical and electrical engineers, you know, it was just too '
much.
I couldn't take it anymore.
I thought I was a geod...
There 9) was shift supervisors that would actually stand over your shoulder and 10' tell you exactly what to do.
Raise steam water, you gotta get feedwater l
up, now check this and check that.
It was, you know, ridiculous.
I 12j l
knew how to operate the plant.
He should have been back there taking 13!
care of his paper work, but instead, he was right up there in the 141 i
front lines, and trying to keep myself oriented in my own head I 15i always had to listen to this guy.
And if I wouldn't do something he 16i told to do, well, he was right on me.
He says why didn't you do that, 17 why didn't do that.
Well I didn't see any importance to do that eight 38l 1
at that particular time.
And most times I was right.
19) i 20r
}
CRESWELL:
Well, did they know what they were doing?
The shift super-21' visors?
22
@$Q :
23 Yeah, for the most part, but they worried about the wrong 24 things.
You know, they put their priorities a little different than I 25 did.
pnc I
i
(
43 f.
p CRESWELL-What should they've been worrying about?
2; 6
The overall picture.
They should have been back staying 3
4!
taking a big, a big look at everything that was going on around them 5
and not getting themselves involved in what the control room operator 6
r the shift foreman is doing.
The shift fereman could direct.
Its a 7
team effort and I tried to promote that my 2 1/2 years that I spent on g
that shift, I tried to promote team work.
And it just didn't work.
g There were personnality conflicts, conflicts of interest, period, you n w, e guy jus esn't do R de way I teH Mm, or ne way I ask 10 him or the way I show him that maybe that's the best way of doing...
He wouldn't do it just plup because I told him, and he would do it just to defy me.
Now, this, you can't have team work that way.
14; 15l CRE5WELL:
Let me ask you this.
When the supervisor was stancing over i
you shoulder, was this during a trip condition or during normal (peration?
16; C
0:
No, this was during, in fact, I remember this startup real:v laf well.
My problem has been diagnosed as labile hypertension which means it goes up and then I'm gradual to bring it back down.
I don't have a constant high blood pressure problem.
I keep things bottled up 21, inside of me.
This particular night I came in, I had the panel, we 22 were scheduled to do a startup from 1% shutdown to 15% power.
With 23 all the paper work and everything that's involved in mode to mode 24 checklists and the surveillance tests that had to be done prior to 25i i
" 9 044
f-44 1
lj going critical, getting the operators stationed where they needed, 2l just getting the plant in a general stable condition to perform this 3
thing, it takes a lot of concentration.
It takes a lot of effort on f
4j the part of the control room operator to do that.
At that particular 6
5l time there was, in our alarm system is totally ridiculous, there were 6j too many of them and the system that they have is it fails all the time.
7 An alarm card could go bad and it would just send an alar::t.
It w uld just keep flashing in and out.
You would silence it and it 8
would just keep coming in.
And that God-awful horn, it would just, g
you know, you're trying to concentrate on doing a startup and you got this buzzer going off and I'm particularly conscious of alarms because if you just ignore this stupid thing, what if you get one that's 121 important.
If you g,. one that's important and it goes unrecognized because you're ignoring this one over here you might as well not be in I
the control rocm.
My job is to keep the plant safe.
If I, you know, 15l if I can't see what's going on around me then I felt apprehensive about the whcie thing.
I didn't feel like I can keep as close a surveillance on the whole thing as I really wanted to.
I asked this l
supervisor, I'll even mention his name, Brian Mehler.
I asked, I 191 said, " Brian, could you have an instrument tech take a look at that 20 alarm?"
I said, "its driving me nuts."
I said, "am I gonna have to 21 listen to that all night through this startup?"
"Well, I guess you're 22 gonna have to."
Those were his words pretty close.
And with that I 23 told him, I said, "I won't do the startup under those conditions."
I 24 said, "either get that thing fixed or find me a relief."
And he said, i
P"9 045 l
I
{
45 I
ilj "you know if you become, if you are relieved you might as well get 2l your lunchbox and take off."
Well, at that particular point I wasn't I
3t ready to leave my employment there.
Maybe it was a prayer, I don't i
4j know what it was.
The alarm settled down and I didn't have to listen 5
to it at that point.
It did come back later but not unti1 after the 6
whole thing was done.
They had an ECP there ready for me.
I looked 7
it over and I can generally tell whether the thing is gonna be close g
by just looking at the numbers.
I've done enough of them, you know.
g And by just looking at the numbers I can tell whether they're gonna be...
10 ut FASANO:
ECP end concentrator pointer...
I 13l I
CRESWELL:
No, estimated critical position.
14j 15i bb Estimated critical position, yeah.
And this one looked 16l!
f good.
It was, I think, somewhere around 60% on groups 6 and 7.
It I
was where they wanted it no, no, I'm sorry.
It was about 68%, its the i
18f closest I can remember, on group 5.
No wait, no wait, I'm getting i
191 screwed up here.
I've been away for a month and a half and it's a little...
21!
22 CRESWELL:
Well, I don't think that this is critical information.
23 P 9 046 24 25 i
i 1
Anyway.
Well, just the way they operate.
Its, the estimated 2
critical position was something.
We have a guideline if you go critical 3
before half a percent less than when you're anticipated to go, you 6
4 should shut back down.
You should put all the rods in until you get tha safeties in and then investigate why.
So, I wasn't even, I was 5 :
6 just getting to the minus.5% position and all of a sudden I looked up 7
and I had an alarm, it was the startup rate rod withdrawal inhibit circuit.
The only thing that throws that into count is 3 dpm in the 8
g source range.
And I locked down and I did have 3 dpm in the source 10 range.
It stopped the rod motion.
I put the rod stick in and he says, "no, no, no.
Just take it down one."
I said, "what do you mean.
We just went critical here at 28% on group 5.J' I said, "the ECP called for a half a percent above that or better."
Now that's alright.
That's alright.
We'll calculate a new ECP for where we went 14!
critical.
Now that's what they did.
Now that doesn't show on any log 151 16l books or anything like that.
But that is a fact...
j i
17 CRESWELL:
Was Mr. Mehler still a shift supervisor at this point?
19I
~
I D:
Mr. Mehler is still a shift supervisor at that plant.
20' 21 i
@ESWELL:
At that point.
g 23 c,ygo Yes, yes.
24 251 i
l
f f
47 1
MARSH:
Mehler was the one that was on duty at that time...
l 2!
3 Yes.
He was the one that I kept telling you that he would 4f look over my shoulder.
So I told him, I said, "I don't believe that Sj that's right.
I think that that is unsafe.
I think that there's 6
something wrong here." Well, we'll recalculate it and make it right, 7,
Which is what they did.
They redid the numbers and semehow they fudged them, I don't know.
They...
8 9l 10 Y *** * """ **" *"9 ""*" " **
ll!
12l O
To the best of my knowledge, no.
This was on a midshift.
s i
This was pretty late at night, which rormally that doesn't hamper them 13{
from calling anybcdy out but I don't recall any nuclear enginaer 141 l
coming in.
15!
16i MARSH: c k you say they.
Who else besides Mehler would be involved 17 in that calculation?
18l b
The shift foreman.
201 l
21l MARSH:
Which would be who?...
P"9 048
(/
That was.
I can't recall.
24 25 i
l 1
I, 48 1!
CRESWELL:
Okay.
2' O
I don't want to name any names if I can't be sure.
Because 3
i 4j we were well, Mehler is not my, normal shift supervisor so I'm not sure 5
that I was with my normal foreman at the time.
6 7
CRESWELL:
Could you estimate when in time, it would help us to pursue 8
this matter if you could give us the approximate date.
Was it early gj in the startup test program?
i 10t C
Il Yeah, I believe it was right back before the relief valves.
12; CRESWELL:
And that would have been like in April or May in 1978.
13 I
14) 15;:
CRO:
Right.
Yeah, it was about that time.
16!
I CRESWELL:
Okay.
You mentioned team work before.
Are the panel 17!
18(l assignments clearly indicated to people when they're onshift?
19l D
Generally on our shift what we did was we had a panel operator.
20' He was in charge of taking the, filling out the log book and just generally overseeing the operation of the plant in a wide scope.
Normally we were at steady state.
We also had a person that was assigned to what we call the switching and tagging desk, and he would take care of any safety tags that needed to be hung.
He would also 25i o"9 049 l
I
{
49
\\
iy perform the daily logs and the shift and daily surveillances and any 2!
computer information that had to obtained that day.
Then we usually 3
had a third operator that was assigned to surveillance desk and he 4;
would oversee the, take care of coordinating the control room and the 5
auxiliary operators in performing monthly or weckly surveillance 6
tests.
If ar.ything went wrong generally what would happen the closest 7
guy to a section of panel, you know, like we used to divide it up into 3 sections.
We had the secondary, we had the reactor plant and we had 8
g the nuclear steam supply system which was basically makeup pumps, low 101 pressure infection and that sort of thing.
And then the foreman, he would kind of rove around and maybe if he was in the back panel and if there was some valves back there that he could operate.
This is generally the way we worked.
If something happened, you know, you'd 13 yell out and say... analyze the problems as best you could...and say, "we lost feed water."
And at that time the three operators would come g
up and they would key in on a position that wasn't occupied and then
]
take over.
I 18f CRESWELL:
What about shift turnovers?
What sort of turnovers did pecple ordinarily make to your knowledge?
20t i
21{
~
Well, they varied between shifts.
It depended who you 22 turned over to and I always turned over to major stuff, any, I always let them know where they were in rods, what they were doing, whether f
they were coming in or going out. I let them know of any abnormal 25!
9"9 050
50 l'
conditions that existed in the secondary plant, you know, like they 2
are doing a polisher vessel, regenerating that.
Or we throttled this 3
down and put this in automatic and something, maybe a major change i
4j throughout the day.
Any jobs that were in progress, I'd go over to 5
the computer and show him the primary system parameters, pressure, 6i baron concentration, reactor power, and such things like that.
We 7
generally have a written sheet.
Sometimes guys would draw it our for 8
3 or 4 pages and they would put the most miniscule items on there j
g that, you know, generally I looked over those.
But the major stuff, 10 the turnovers, I guess, were generally pretty good and I say that on a ig steady state basis.
Like, I don't know how may times I've taken the lg plant over in a transient and it was total chaos.
You know, they'd leave. you know...
t 14!
CRESWELL:
You would have a turnover in the middle of a transient?
15 b
Well, maybe nor necessarily in the middle of a transient.
17 I, let me rophrase that.
Let me say after the transient was over, 18f perhaps during the recovery which sometimes took days.
But generally, 19!
you could get things straightened out in a shif' to the point where, you know, the major work is done.
The big t:iings that have to be done and the small things.
Most of the small things are done.
The big things and they can come later, you know.
But its really hard when you have a trip.
There's so many things that you might have seen that 24 you took some corrective action for, that maybe somebody else might 3
25!
" 9 051 l
t
[
{
51 1!
not have done that or maybe the procedure didn't call for but it was 2
okay to do it.
It was safe, it was conservative.
And you forget to 3
mention that to your relief, and you go this valve open and then you 4j go and try and do something else and, you know, it jtst doesn't respond right and you looking around for a problem-why that dummy left that 5 ;
6i valve open.
Why did he do that? You get mad at the guy because he
[
didn't tell you about it but, you know, it was an honest mistake.
I 8
very seldom got mad at guys for poor turnovers because I generally g
made a pretty good tour of the, right after he left I would go around i
the plant, the panels, and look for abnormalities that I saw.
If I 10t t
had any questions I would ask the foreman.
11!
12!
FASANO:
Did you have a check sheet or did you do this just by knowing I
the system, its all in your head.
14!
l C,%O :
Just by knowing the system, knowing how the board was to 16:)
look.
The positions of valves, you know, its like it almost beccmes instinctive after a while.
18f i
19l FASANO:
After a while.
20!
640 ;
y,,,
22, 23 FASANO:
You mentioned that you did have design concerns on both the 24 nuclear and the steam side of the plant.
Are there any ways other i
25)
I P"9 052 2
i l
52 l
~
~
1, than' complaining verbally that you could have reported these to your i
2!
management?
I mean, are you people...
i 3!
c,9 o.
Yeah.
4t 5!
l Gi FASANO:
Allowed to report things on paper?
I 7'
b 8
Yeah.
We can generally write a little letter to, you know, gj the cognizant engineers of the problem.
And generally some of the i
10j perating conveniences, they used to take care of but things like, and Iy we'd write tNse or even a verbal comment, they would normally fot it i
12; down thet.selves.
They were pretty good.
Scmetimes they ne<er got 1
d r.e, but at least they'd listen.
But the major tnings, you know, 33j g
like the relief valves, condensate hot well thing.
I don't even know if he has yet today, whether that system has been modified.
- But, g
yeah, you could write him a letter and even a little diagram showing I
what you'd like to see, explaining maybe even perhaps hcw to go accomp-lishing the change.
18!
l 19 FASANO:
How about reporting to say other agencies?
I mean can you, I mean talk to other people like ourselves or...?
22 b
Well, that is, I forget the part number.
I 23 can't remember the regulation...?
25' O b3 i
l 53 1;
FASANO:
21?
l 2l 3 h Yech.
Its the one where if you see the company doing something 4l in violation of any rules that you can go to the NRC with the complaint.
5 6
CRESWELL-Have you done that?
7 c,, L O.
30, g,
s.
10:
CRESWELL:
Why not?
11i 6
0:
Because I felt that if I had of gone there, to the NRC, then they would come down on me.
I was a little afraid of that.
13 14; 15l MARSH:
What makes you think that way? Do you know of other instances 16;l where this has happened?
Have you been told anything formally or inforually?
No.
They never really came right out and told us that, you 1s know, that you would be " prosecuted."
But I just felt that knowing the way they operated that it would be kind of like being the black sheep now all of a sudden and it was tough enough to get along.
I 22 found it was tough enough trying to get along with the other people up there.
Just, you know, team work type thing. And trying to develop 24 the rapport of the other shift supervisors as well as with my own.
25!
That would just make it totally miserable for myself.
P"9 054 s
(
54
\\
1lj FASANO:
You're mainly on Unit 2?
I 2'
3 Unit 2.
i 4f 5
FASANO:
Do you have any knowledge that this is similar type of operation 6
on Unit 1 or are.they different?
To your best knowledge.
You know, I 7
mean if you don't know, you don't know.
If you do...
8!
b The only thing I can make is an assumption.
The only thing g
10 I can assume is that the shift supervisors that are at the plant today were either former control room operators in Unit 1 or they were former shift supervisors in Unit 1.
Now I can't help but think that they gained some experience in Unit 1.
That's all I'm gonna say.
13 There's nothing really else I can say about it.
l 15j CRESWELL:
How about the performance of surveillance :ests at TMI.
16!
i Can you comment on that?
18(
b Surveillance procedures, I guess, sometimes I, well, I did a 19!
lot of them In fact, I did the one that caused the first safety 20j features actuation w"ere I tripped the alternate feed supply to the inverter and lost a DC supply.
I corrected that too, by the way, 22 while everybody else stood around, looking around like they didn't 23 know what was going on.
Now generally, the surveillance procedures, 24 we did them and sometimes they required a change, you know, like well 25i P/ 055 I
l 55 e
1{
there was a mall procedural deficiency or maybe a valve number was 2{
wrong or maybe thare was a bet.ter way of doing it to get the end i
resu!t.
We would change those, the TLNs would take two licensed 31 l
4!
perators or two senior licensed operators unless nuclear safety was 5
inv lved, then it would take PORC approval.
We would change those, i
6f make them right.
Sometimes in the performance of a test'you couldn't get the required results and we'd go back out with the shift foreman and he would get the proper results.
Sometimes we'd..
8 9l 6
cuse me.
CouM you elaborate on dau 10 i
11 CN:
Well, an exampie, thi emergency feed pumps, running at 12g surveillance, it was a cear.
Every time that we did the surveillance that they called for a thrust bearing vibration measurement and it
{
also called for a temperature reading ti the bearing and called for a certain differenital pressure, suction pressure had to be between a certain amount.
We've never done that test where it came out the same IT way twice.
So we tossed up our hands and we say, you know, what do we 18(
do? We can't get the reference values, we can't get the proper data.
IS!
']kay, well never mind.
I'll take this procedure and I'll threw it 20!
down at the surveillance...
I assign people, the inservice 11. iaction 21 type and they would evaluate the data and then they would come up with 22 a new set of reference data everytime.
And of course the surveillance 23 that we did would fall right into that.
I never did understand that.
24 25 "9
056 e
l
{
56 1
CRESWELL:
Any other systems besides. the emergency feedwater system 2;
involved?
31 h
I can't recall.
I know that a lot of the balance of plant 4
5 surveillance. It wasn't tech specs or balance or anything like that, 6
that would go by the wayside.
You know a lot of time it~ would call 7
for maybe the secondary service coolers to be backwashed and we don't have time for that.
Then you just sign it, you know, throw it in the 8
g!
basket not completed, and it would come back next week to do it, you know, never get done.
There was a lot of things like that or. the g
secondary side.
We normally did all the surveillance that was required f
for tech specs, but there was a lot of times, you know, I can't really 12, name any specific instances but... for specific procedures...but I know that there was exceptions and in the exceptions they could paper those 6
14:
15jl away somehow.
I never did really understand.
I don't go in for that 16l kina of thing.
I figured if it can't be done by the surveillance i
procedure, you change it so that it can be done correctly and within the rcope of the surveillance requirement or you don't do them, you 1S{.
know, you get the thing right and then do them.
t 20'
[, are there ary ocner operators like you that are concerned CRESWELL:
21 about scme of these occurrences?
22 3 - c,Q 0 :
Yean.
I would imagine that there's quite a few that are 24 conce rr.ed.
I'm not sure that their attitude,
'he same as mine.
I 25i l
P"9 057 I
57 It know that they like money.
I mean obviously I didn't quite up there 2q for a higher paying job and that I know that a lot them stay around 3 :
there just because of the money, that they're afraid to leave because, 4
you know, they like money so much.
But not only that, I guess they're Sj a little bit more, well, they are just cut out of a different mold.
I Gi They're not as, they don'.t say things the way I say them.
They have 7
to be concerned.
I can't really see where they couldn't be concerned.
g I have respect for everyone of the operators up there.
I have respect g
for the supervisors too because well they went through hard times but g
somethings that they do I really lose respect for.
There's a couple I just, you know, I wouldn't work with them for anything and that's one of the reasons I left.
13 MARSH:
We are getting towards the end of the tape.
The time being 14) 8:14, so at this time I'm gonna break for a moment while I put a new 151 l
tape on.
16i i
17!.
MARSH:
The time in 8:15 p.m., the data is May 22 and we're continuing with the second cassette on interview of CQ Q,
Jim, you were asking some questions when we broke to put a new tape on?
21 CRESWELL:
At this point Hal, I'd like to ask you if you have any 22' comments, any other comments.
These are of an open nature, they can 23 be directed toward NRC, Met Ed, whatever you feel like commenting 24{
about.
pn9 058 r
I
1, 58 h
Well first, I don't know...this whole accident seems to me I
1 2+
like a nightmare.
When it happened, I didn't really want to dissociate 3
myself completely from the accident, I wanted to be there to take 4
part.
But I realized that my health was endangered at that point, I 5
knew that I had a problem.
They say that high blood pressure has no 6
symptoms but I could actually feel it.
It was so tense inside that it 7
was just indescribable.
That's why I resigned, on the spot.
I was g
looking, I had said before that I had looked for other employment and couldn't find any satisfactory to that point.
I figured that by doing g
this that they would, that I would force myself into it and I would be 0y finally rid of this, this emotional pressure.
The emotional pressure-I operated the plant a lot of times, especially during transcients or tests, knowing that the plant was already 40 years old red they weren't even in commercial operation, and the plant was a wreck.
It was dirty, there were oil leaks, there were water leaks, there were steam 15s 16l leaks, the design deficiencies that I had mentioned before, pump I
controllers not functioning, you knew, if you want to start the booster 17' pump because you need it, maybe it doesn't start because the auxiliary 18l oil system has got so many leaks then it can't build up pressure.
IS{
20 Just not being able to tell myself that when I go to do something at that par.cl, that what I want to do is going to actually take place.
21 You know, I operated it a lot of times up there when I had the panel 22' and I dreaded it.
I really dreaded it.
I would go in there and my 23 stomach would be in knots for eight hours, I wouldn't eat anything, 24 and I was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic, I would go out after 25!
l P"9 059 I
l
59 I
1.
a shift and drink and it was terrible because I was becoming a physical i
2{
and emotional wreck, and it was due to these things-the design of the 3
plant, I knew'how the GPU startup program and the people that performed 4.
those tests were all very smart men, but they had no common sense..
Sj They would have a test procedure, it would have more E's and O's than l
6 it had pages.
And you can't conduct a startup program like that.
7 CRESWELL:
What are the E's and D's?
g 9
10 Oh, those are exceptions and deficiencies.
Let me say, ig maybe not deficiencies, I'll s?y exceptions for sure.
But they had many exceptions to the test proc:< dure.
When Met Ed took a system and accepted it as operating properly, ue still had the oil leaks, we
,4l; still had the water leaks, we still had impellers in backwards, we still had suction strainers that would clog up every two hours of operation. It was a nightmare to operate the plant.
Over a year ago, 16!
I told Bob over the phone when he contacted me that I told my wife over a year ago that that plant was an accident waiting to happen.
Like I said, teamwork, interdepartmental teamwork was one of the 19i biggest things that I saw was a detriment to that plant.
Operators 20!
were always trying to pin something on maintenance, maintenance was 21 always trying to pin something on the engineers, it was just a constant 22 23 fight back and forth, the operators would get stuck with this because maintenance didn't want to do that.
You have the maintenance people 24 from Unit 1 would come over to do maintenance, " Man this place is 25i 9^9 060 l
60 Ilj fucked up, who'd ever want to work over here?"
Now how does that make l
2 an operator who has any pride in his work, any pride in his unit, how i
3i does that make me feel? After a while, it drags you down.
Then 4
pretty soon, you start taking on the same attitude.
Management recognized 5
the problem but they didn't do anything about it.
In fact they probably 6
did more detrimental to moral than anything else.
They bring in a 7
Navy captain to be Unit superintendant just because Jack Herbein, up there, wants to be a captain in the reserves. I don't know that to be g
a fact, but that's the rumors that go around.
The administrative g
assistant that they appointed up there, four months ago, five months 10 ago, a Navy captain.
They had perfect qualified people, with a masters, 3
they had a guy, a master's degree in personnel management, they brought in a Navy captain. I don't care how long you've been in the Navy, I 13!
don't think that Navy people have got an ounce of leadership capability.
141 15.'
They don't know how to lead people.
If you're in the Navy, they tell you to do something, if you don't you go to the brig or you go on 16i 17l report.
Well, see I'm getting the job done, but they have to do the job.
And it was getting to that point with me that they were telling 18l me I had to do something and I cut them off, I fired him.
You're 19!
I fired.
You can' t fire me, I'm supposed to fire you.
No, I'm firing 20l you as my employer. You know, that was the type of atmosphere that was 21!
f 22I generated, I, and I finally had it.
I know that with all good conscience all the other operators up there felt, feel the same way as I do, but 23 they're just not willing to get out.
24l
" 9 061 25!
i l
t t
61 r
I 1l CRESWELL:
I've got one other point that I'd like to cover.
You're 2f experiences with the alarm computer printer.
3 C'Q 0:
4{
Yeah. I've had several experiences with that thing.
5 6"
CRESWELL:
Can you go into that in a little bit of detail?
I'm interested 7
in history of that printer and the problems that had been encountered g
with it.
9 Well first off, the mid-shift is supposed to gather up the 10 g
paper that has been pushed through it during the day and then they i
7 make a nice neat package of it and give it to the operating engineer.
3 A lot of times I'll see the printout for the day, I usually go over g
just to see what happened.
But they, you can see where the typer j
would stop or the paper would tilt and it would just print a bunch of garbage.
The alarm typer itself, it'll back up sometimes for, I've 6!
it backed up for as far as an hour, where it was printing out it seel was two o' clock in the afternoon 'and it was still printing things from 18l one o' clock.
19l l
20l I
MARSH:
21!
Misalignment, and paper feed, paper jams, was that a frequent occurrence?
I'd say in a weeks time or a months time, what would you expect in terms of difficulties?
24 P"9 062 25!
l
I t
i 62 D
Sometimes we'd go a whole week and not have any problems, 1!
s 2l but then other times we'de go and again, it was an operating problem, 3
people didn't understand how the roller-feed mechanism worked and they 4j would take and they would clamp the roller down to the, and make the 5
paper tight in the roller where it shouldn't have been.
And then if 6
there's any misalignment in the back feed, and that roller overcomes 7
the force of the little pins that stick out through the holes.
And g
then that would cause it to run off the track and a lot of times gj you'de find that to be the problem.
We never really had too much 10 pr blems on our shift, but like I said, going back and looking through g
the logs for the day, when I would collect them, I'd say that I'd see maybe three or four times in a week, or on a shift, that we'd have I
problems like that.
13l 14!
CRESWELL:
Have you ever known of an operator shutting the alarm 16l5 printer off purposely?
i 171 b
No that depends for what purpose.
Sometimes I've seen 18{
people turn it off, but the only time I can ever say that I saw anybody, 19!
in fact t was me that turned it off, was the fact that the alarm 20' printer 'tself has the selectric and ther2's a little tape in there 21 22l that mover, the ball back and forth for upper and lower case.
Well the thing got stuck on upper case and it was just printing garbage.
So, 23 at that time, I turned that typewriter off and then the utility typer 24 is supposed to take over in that case and it didn't.
In our case, now 25;
\\
" 9 063
l 63 1,
I can't really say.
I've have never personally seen anybody intentionally 2
turn it off when it was functioning properly.
I don't really see any 3
need to do that.
4l FASANO:
I have a couple of things I'd.like to ask you.
In the training 5
6!
when you were at the B&W simulator, did you go through simulated f
events where you actually did some practicing?
Where they adequate in 8
Y "" Pi"i "?
9 O
10 Yeah, we went through reactor trips, we went through turbine trips, they had individual instrument failures that we had to respond to with various stations at hand. It, for me, it helped me a lot.
In the Navy reactor program, everything was done just manually, everything, i
there was no computer involved.
It was such a simple system, it 14!
15;!
worked so well and then you ccme up here to a complicated mess like y
that is up there.
In fact, I want to make that, I think the place is complicated beyond any technical ability to operate it. And maintain it.
But I feel that the training that I got down at Old Forest Road dcwn there was some of the best training that I ever got, in plant operation.
20f 21t FASANO:
Was the simulation pretty much what you can anticipate at 22 l
TMI-2?
23 24 "9
064 25'
(
I
64 b
q I used the control reactor pressure the same way.
i 2t 3
FASANO:
Yes?
4!
Yes, it was very close.
The only thing that wasn't really 5
6 close was the size of the control room.
The Old Forest Road simulator 7
panel would fit inside this motel rcom, where you might be able to get panel 6-A af Unit 2's in here.
It was a lot closer and working with 8
g it for 8 weeks, like we did, you became very f'.miliar, it was very 0
easy to have a reading become instinct to you where you can just scan the panel and see something, that was abnormal, it was good training that's really what I kind of worked on myself.
13 FASANO:
Then, in your ccmments I gather, could you elaborate on how 14j you would like to see a control room and what would you ha e different 151 in this control room that could help the industry, for nuclear power I
import, for nuclear safety, and ease of operation to keep it safe.
171 b hC:
Unit 2, the general comment that I have is that there is too is!
much, well the panel, the front console is just entirely too big. And 20' there's too many components that have to be operated frcm the back.
21 Like, if you want to open a feed water valve to recycle feed-water for i
22 clean up, it takes two people to do it, sometimes three.
One guy to 23 watch the pump, the other guy to jog the valve open from the back of 24 l
the panel and another guy over at the computer to read the flow.
Just 25j P"9 065
65 1l for a simple, ordinary manipulation, the whole control room could be a i
lot smaller, they could have less indication there.
That may seem 2}
3 kind of dumb, but in Unit 2 they have so much needless information, 4{
like panel 6-A.
I still don't know what those things were, those 5
meters.
I couldn't instinctively look at a meter and say that that is 6l bus 26 volts, I couldn't do that, in fact, I just put it' totally out 7
of my mind, except for the ones for the generator and then I could 8
1 ok at those and say that's close, it's what it should be.
And the other ones, it was a very hard control room to become instinctively 10 familiar with, just due to the nature that you had so many gages that were not necessary, or if they were necessary, they could be located maybe somewhere off to the side, where you look at them every now and then.
g 14!
15j CRESWELL:
Could you comment on the location of the leakage recovery system panel.
i 17!
(
Yes, yo'u can't see it from where you have to operate.
So, if you're the only one in the control rocm, and the drain tank needs 191 pumped down, you can go back there according to the procedure for 20, routine operations, or to investigate alarm and correct that alarm, in which case you would, but you would have to leave the main operating console, with nobody there, which is entirely within the scope of the procedure. There's supposed to be at least one licensed operator in 24 the control room at all times, and the procedure, operator at the
- 25i, P"9 066 I
t
66 Ilj controls, it shows a shade: Area where you can go, it shows during i
2; normal operations and normally it was within the confines of straight 3
lines back to the wall to the shift supervisor's office there from the 4'
computer to panel 6, the electrical panel.
If you had an alarm condition 5:
you could leave that area and go back along the side panels to the 6
leakage recovery system, the ventilation control panel and then back 7
to the RPS cabinets and some of the electrical relays back there, you 8
coula go back there to investigate an alarm. Which if you got a high g
drain tank or a low drain tank level you would have to go back there, if y u were the only one in.
In panel 25, the annunciator system 10 there doesn't give you a flash on the front panel that you have an
{
alarm back there.' So, again if you're only one there and you push the n, it doesn't siler.ce any alarms on panel 25, you have to run u
13 back, around the back of the panel, and push the annunciator silencer button on the panel 25.
15 16i i
CRESWELL:
Previously you mentioned that you were having to pump down the RCDT about 4 times during a shift.
Could you tell us what impact that would have if you were the only operator in the control room?
19) b D
Well generally if I was the only one in there and I had to 21f pump the drain tank down, what I would do is, it's one of those instinct things again, or not an instinct, but it's kind of like an operating method, so to speak.
I would see the high drain tank level. What I 24 would do is I'd go over and push the valve that admits the water to 25i o"9 067 i
l
(
67 1.
the bleed tank from the drain tank at maybe 50 gallons a minute.
And 2;
I would just let it pump.
And then I would get the low level alarm I
3 and I find it, or I'd get an alarm, I'd find I couldn't silence it 4!
fr m up on the console itself and I would walk back and then secure i
5; the pump down at that time.
A lot of guys would stand back there and 6i wait, they'll just push the valve and stand and wait for it to pump 7
out 10 or 15 inches of water.
8 gj I've got three questions to ask and they may seem a little CRESWELL:
s m y to even M ng Gem up, but I do want to cover h and I wou M 10y like to get any knowledge you've. got personal, heresay, or even borrowing kncwledge on any of tnese matters because they are relatively serious.
First of all, would you know of any information regarding personal action by anyone that would have brought this event about or increased 15l the severity of it? Anyone who would have had an axe to grind that in any way could of kicked this thing off?
17lI O:
Absolutely.
I don't know.
I've never heard anything to 18{
that nature.
19 20' CRESWELL:
Then you are indicating in the negative?
21!
b That's correct.
I don't know cf anything like that.
23 24 25l P"9 068 f
68 lj CRESWELL:
Secondly, froa your experience, your work experience with
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2+
THI, what are the demeanor of the work crews when they are on duty?
3 I'm specifically addressing getting lost, sleeping on duty type of 4
thing.
Do you have any comment on that?
Any knowledge of people that 5
going out and taking a nap when things are running in a good steady 6
state?
7 b
On our shift we were pretty good, but we did have our sleepers, g
gj now the auxiliary operators, I know they used to sneak off for maybe 10 an hour, two hours, something like that.
To my knowledge, the plant g
was covered in his absence, that somebody else was if he was supposed to be someplace at a panel, he was covered.
The only thing I quess really detrimental to the plant's safety would be if he was a fire 13 brigade and didn't hear the fire alarm go off, or if we had a small break loca and he was the respondee and he wouldn't be able to take l
his action.
16' 17!
l CRESWELL:
Could you go into that a little bit, the small break loca 18' respondee?
r 2
c.,9.,0 Well, we had two, one was a control room operator who had so 21.
many minutes... A month ago I could have spit these things out, no sweat.
The control room operator would have like two minutes to 23 recognize that you did have a problem.
A loss of coolant accident, 24
~
with the failure of a diesel on the side of the break, or the side of 25i "9 069 l
69 l
[
the makeup pump didn't start.
The control room operator would then go i
2, down to the, whichever affected valves, whichever valves did not have 3
p wer and he would get on the phones and throttle open those valves 4
two turns.
And then at that time he would be in communication with 5l the control room operator at the panel.
The auxiliary operator, at l
6i that time, was to.go down and open up the one remaining shut suction 7
cross connect valve, so that all three makeup pumps suction valves, or suction lines would be tied to one common source, which would be from g
the borated water storage tank outlet valve to the decay heat suction g
header on the unaffected side. All this had to take place within ten 10 minutes after the discovery.
12:
CRESWELL:
Do you have any comments on that?
13; I
141 b
Well, we were supposed to check the communication headsets once a shift, and I'm just as guilty as everybody else. It was just 16:.
one of of those things that if the guy called you up and said, yeah, lets check the loca headset, we did it.
I guess generally the feeling
- 19l, was that it was being done and it was being done at an adequate interval.
20l I don't really think that there was any safety lost. I don't believe that it did that, but we didn't do, we had drills every month that we 21 were supposed to run and generally those were run with a great deal of 22{
consciousness.
I know that that one valve down there that they had to 23 open was a bear, it was a bear to get open.
But, I think that the 24 requirement was for like 2 or 3 turns open and the requirement, it 25 didn't have to be fully open.
" 9 070
70 1.
CRESWELL:
Do you feel that it was in your capability to respond as 2
required, as control room operator for a small break loca?
3 4,
Yes.
Unless... they had scaffolding down there... if they 5
ever took the scaffolding away, it would be tough.
It would be tough 6
on both sets of valves, the A and the B valve.
There's no permanent 7
scaffolding leading up to those valves.
We've been lucky so far that g
it has been there, and you climb up and get it.
As of today, I don't know if it's still there.
g
(
10 FASANO:
This wasn't there purposely for the purpose of doing this?
It just happened to be there?
13 I
b It was there.
I don't know if it was there for that reason 14!
or not, I really don't know.
15i 16l FASANO:
It might have been there for that purpose?
18(
b It might have been there for that purpose.
191 i
20 FASANO:
In your opinion is it?
]
0:
Yes, but then again, it may not have been.
23 24 25l 0l l
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f
l e
t 71 li MARSH:
I have one last question addressing those areas that I wanted 2j to cover.
That's the fact that this event occurred on March 28th, I
3l which happens to be an anniversary of the plant. Do you have any 4l information, or have you heard anything at all regarding the possibility 5,
of a party going on, concurrent with this or any type of celebration 6
that may have been planned or taken place?
l 7
b No.
I have no knowledge of that.
I haven't even heard g
gj anything about that.
l 10' MARSH:
That's all I've got.
Do either of you have additional questions?
I'll cpen it you one more time, Hal if you have anything else, more you'd like to put on tape?
141 bb I don't think I should.
No, I'm about drained. I really am.
15i 16i i
MARSH:
I would also indicate that if more comes to mind, or in cleaning 171 18;f your stuff up and moving around, you come across something you think would be of value to us, you have a phone number, you have my address, you have several phone numbers where you can get hold of me and I'de very much appreciate anything that you do come across additionally.
21 Likewise, if in going over the tape, we do have some interests we 22 would like to pursue a little deeper, do not be concerned if I get 23 back to you again and would like to talk to you again.
It does not 24 25;l indicate problems, it just indicates that we've found something of I
" 9 072 i
b I
[
72 1
interest that we'de like to pursue in a little more detail, so I'm i
going to hold on to your local number and don't get concerned if I try 2}
3{
to get hold of you.
1 4,
hM:
Okay, fine.
5 6i 7
CRESWELL:
We would like to say, very much thank you coming in on your wn time.
I know you've got to travel a ways to get here, and we've 8
g taken up most of your evening, we very much appreciate it.
You've 10' given us some good meat to consider and get into.
We'd just like to g
say thank you for all of NRC.
12!j MARSH:
The time being 8:41 p.m., at this time we are going to terminate the interview of C r?. O, the meter reading on the second cassette g
is at 466, so I'm ending at this time.
15 i:
16l 171 I
0 0 g []/}
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19 20!
21 22 23 24 25 l
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