ML19249B030

Transcript of 790524 TMI-2 Investigation Interview W/Sw Porter

ML19249B030
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Site:	Crane
Issue date:	05/24/1979
From:	Porter S PORTER CONSULTANTS, INC.
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Download: ML19249B030 (63)

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i h UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1.

In the Matter of:

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IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW l

3 of 4

Sydney W. Porter, Jr.

Porter-Gertz Consultants, Inc.

6:

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Trailer #203 91 NRC Investigation Site i

TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10 Middletown, Pennsylvania 11 May 24, 1979 12 (Date of Interview) 13 July 5, 1979 (Date Transcript Typed) 267 and 268 15 (Tape Numcer(s))

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L NRC PERSONNEL:

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Thcmas H. Essig oc'O 071 Gregory P. Yuhas 24 Owen C. Shackleton 25 i

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SHACKLETON:

This is Owen C. Shackleton speaking. The time is now 11:47 2

a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 24, 1979.

Tnis is an interview of 3

i Mr. Sydney W. Porter, Jr.

Mr. Porter is the owner and chief executive 4

of the firm known u.i Porter-Gertz Consultants, Incorporated, headquarters 5

at Ardmore, PA.

Present to conduct this interview from the U. S.

6l Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Mr. Thomas H. Essig.

Mr. Essig is a 7

Chief, Environmental and Special Project Section, Region III, also 8

present is Mr. Grecory P. Yuhas.

Mr. Yuhas is a Radiation Specialist 9I assigned to Region I.

My name is Owen C. Shackleton.

I am an Investigator 10 assigned to Region V.

Mr. Porter has been interviewed by the NRC 11 Investigative Team on two prior occasions, on April 24, 1979 and April 26, 12 1979, at that time Mr. Porter was presented on initial interview on the 13; 24th of April a two page document to you which advised you of your 14 rights and the scope and purpose of this investigation and that you had 15 a right to refuse to be interviewed and did not have to furnish anything 16l to the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in writing.

I wish to make I

17 1t clear that the circumstances set forth in that document still prevail i

18l and it also identify that you have the right to have someone present of 19f your choice at this interview and you have chosen to have present 20f Mr. Behrle from the Metropolitan Edison Company.

Do you understand 21,t Mr. Porter that these conditions still prevail?

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PORTER:

Yes I do.

2 3

SHACKLETON:

Do we have your permission to tape this interview?

4 5

PORT 6R:

Yes you do.

6 SHACKLETON:

And would you like a copy of the tape?

8 PORTER:

Yes, as well as a copy of the earlier ones that was promised.

10 11 SHACKLETON:

Alright sir, we'll provide those to you at the close of 12 the interview and now I will turn the interview over to the interviewing 13 team, beginning, the first speaker would be Mr. Yuhas.

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15i YUHAS:

Mr. Porter as a result of reviewing your transcripts of your 16i previous tapes, I learned that part of your responsibility as assigned 17 by Mr. Herbein was to assist in the in plant Health Physics program.

18 Is that correct?

19 20 PORTER:

Yes, this was an overview kind of assistance that was given 21, very early in the game before there were many more health physicist 22 that were available for work in that program.

23 24 n e'0 0 7 3 25 I

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YUHAS:

Can you describe to us specifically how you accomplished this 2,

assignment?

3 4

PORTER:

Well first of all can we talk about what time periods are 5

involved, because the job change with time?

6 7

YUHAS:

The time period involvement as far as I'm concerned for in plant Health Physics is from your arrival onsite to midnight Friday, 3/30/79.

9 10 PORTER:

Okay, so this is 3/28 to 3/30?

11 12 YUHAS:

That's correct.

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PORTER:

Let me see now, that was what, seven weeks ago, I have to 15l think back on this now.

This has been some time since those dates have 16 come and gone.

Now you say in plant Health Physics, is that correct?

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181 YUHAS:

That's correct?

l 19l 20 PORTER:

Well one of the first things that I did was to make sure that 21 we had a whole body counter available for counting people, by contacting 22 on the 28th of March, Radiation Management Corp. and telling them that 23 even though they have a whole body counter onsite that there was nobody 24 here to operate it and no keys to move it, it was downwind of the plume 25

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and it had to be moved, offsite so it could be used, so that it could 2

be utilized.

Also, concurrently with this I notified them that I 3

needed their mobile van set up with a lifting and drifting Ge(Li) 4.

detector, with the associate electronics and computer equipment and 5

that I needed this man around the clock once it was set up, calibrated 6

and I needed this immediately because of the fact that the noble gasses 7

where so high in the Unit 1 counting laboratory that the TMI Unit.1 8

Ge(Li) system unusable where it was located.

Concurrently with this I 9

made a mental note that as soon as we could get the people together I 10 wanted to move the Unit 1 Ge(Li) detector out of the station buildings 11 and put it somewhere that would be close enough so that the plant HP 12 chemistry group yet it would be less influenced by the large amounts of 13 noble gasses that existed.

These are the, all these things obviously 14 j

ran through my mind immediately when I came onsite early that evening 15l or late that afternoon and so I set about making the initial contacts 16i to get these things accomplished.

I also talked to several people 17 about getting more Ge(Li) detectors onboard.

I also found out that the 1-NRC was sending down their van, I just asked, this is all verbal by the 19 way.

I also asked, there was half a dozen NRC people in the Watch 20l Engineering office there off the Unit 1 Control Room and I said is your 21 system coming down and then here they stated that it was down or it was 22 on its way, I don't remember at this point which it was, but it was one 23 or the other so that point was taking care of too.

I also talked to 24 Maggie Reilly over the telephone I said Maggie we have a number of air 25 "O 075 l

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samples here that I think we might have some false / positive on, not 2'

many a few, false / positive air samples that were in the environment as 3

a matter of fact, not ones inhouse and that I wanted to have those 4

checked and if we did not, in a reasonable amount of time get these 5

other Ge(Li) systems up and running, I wanted to know if on a limited 6

basis we could use their Ge(Li) system just to count certain important 7

samples that I thought needed to be counted right away.

This, its hard 8

to separate inhouse and outhouse samples, in other words, we needed 9

both counted in order to completely assess the situation and to reverify 10 the data that we already have.

We were using SAM-2 both inhouse and 11 outhouse at that point and we were having troubles with resolving 12 times, high dead times, so to speak because of all the noble gasses 13 involved and the use of those.

So I knew that any posia a iodines 14 that we had on charcoal that were evaluated by SAM-2 were suspect and I

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had to be recounted on a Ge(Li) system, so I put out the word right 16 away that in the field that we just shouldn't use them at all and that 17 if we were going to use them in the plant we had to try to find a low 18l background place which was hard to come by, in order to use those and 19 this word was put out very early in the game that the SAM-2 were suspect 20f because of the high dead time problems we had because of the noble 1

21l gasses.

That is suspect for evaluating iodine on charcoal.

22 23 YUHAS:

Before we get too far down let me ask you to try to be more 24 specific about the time of the day which you contacted RMC corporation.

25 PORTER: Ah boy.

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YUHAS:

Do you remember when you arrived onsite when you came..?

2 3

PORTER:

Yeah I remember, I arrived onsite in the neighborhood of ah 41 boy, we are going to have to look it up, my earlier testimony somebody 5

asked me that and that was back in April and I remember that a lot 6

better then than now.

But I remember arriving onsite in the neighborhood 7

of about 7:00 in the evening 7 to 8 p.m. it seems to me about the 8

general time frame that I arrived, and one of the first things I did 9

when I saw it was to make a quick call to RMC then I called them again, 10 I remember their calling me in the morning about 6 or 7 a.m. calling 11 back again in the morning and giving me times when the Ge(Li) counter 12 would be here and when they would move the whole body counter.

13 14 YUHAS:

You called RMC after hours, did you call Roger Linnemenn directly?

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i 16i PORTER: No I didn't, I tried to but he was in Europe so therefore I 17 wasn't able to talk to him and so when he was in Europe I think, as, 18f the problem is your really asking me for times and I cannot accurately 1

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give them to you..

I 20t 21 YUHAS:

At this point I'm just asking you do you remember who you 22 talked to?

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1 PORTER:

Well I remember leaving some messages early on because I 2

couldn't get a hold of Linnemenn and asking somebody to call be back.

3 Now seems to me vaguely that sombody call me back and we talked very 4

briefly or maybe they called and talked to someone else, in other 5

words, I'm trying to think what happen there.

There was just a lot 6

going on in those early moments and the first thing I remember clearly, I remember being satisfy that they had gotten a message that they had to do these things.

And the first contact that I actually remember was 9

Fred Rocko and Jim Brune calling me early in the morning 6 a.m. maybe 10 something like that, 7 a.m. in the morning of the 29th and I remember 11' rattling cages about the fact, that hey, I need that whole body counter, 12 I want that counter here just to back u,o what were doing here, even so 13 I didn't have any specific knowledge, I know which I talked to the aux 14 operators what they had done on Saturday night and I did not suspect 15l any great internal body burdens, and the fact that we didn't have any, 16 but I wanted that as backup and I also had to have the Ge(Li) detector 17 for obvious reasons, and I wanted that.

And I remember, I can remember 18l just saying where is the Ge(Li) detector I need that, in a way I need 19' that more than I need the whole body counter, but I need both, its just 20f that the whole body counter is here onsite, lets get the cotton picking 21{

thing moved, because it useless to you under the plume.

It was sitting 22 almost abutting Unit 1 there in one of the major downwind direction:.

2 31 and it was just obviously, I didn't have to look at any data, I knew 24 that if I was reading 10 mR per hour on a survey meter that that whole 25 i

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body counter was useless.

Just from experience 1 mR knocks it out so 2

10 mR, its just silly to turn it on at that point, except to warm it 3

up.

4 5

l YUHAS: As part of your functional responsibilities as a consultant were 6

you involved in the emergency plan statements that eludes to the availa-7 bility of backup counting labs? Are you familar with that part of the 8

emergency plan?

9 10 PORTER:

Yes, we all... when was I involved.

11 12 YUHAS:

When the plan was revised and worked on were you a party to 13 incorporating within that plant its statements as to letters of agreement 14 for individuals to provide backup counting systems?

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PORTER:

We I know that we had some general statements in the plan that 17 say, that backup counting, that backup instrumentation is available 18 from RMC, for instance, because thats one of their major functions is 19]

to have this available and I know those statements are in the plan.

I 20 do know that the actual statement about what was available was actually 21 !

furnished to us from RMC and I remember having that incorporated into 22 the plan as they wrote it so I would not misrepresent anything they 23 could provide.

There was a possibility of a conflict of interest 24 there, since I use to, I was one of the originators of RMC and help 25 l

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them, set them up, etc. and so I wanted to make sure that I didn't make 2!

l any, since I was no longer associated with RMC, I wanted to be very 3

sure that I made no statements about what they could or could not 4'

provide and therefore, we used they written statement thay sent to us 5

to put in the plan and that way I could not be accused of trying to 6

speak for someone that I couldn't speak for.

Does that answer your 7

question?

8 9

YUHAS:

Yes.

In the interim from the time that you made the request 10 the evening of the 28th til the time that those facilities arrived 11t sometime on the 29th did you utilize the analytical capabilities of the 12 NRC mobile van for isotopic identification?

13:

14 PORTER:

Yeah, we sent, as I remember, I trying to think back now, we i

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sent several charcoals over there as a minimal probably more samples 16 then that, I think that their sample logs will bear out the fact that 17 they were pretty busy counting samples for us and of course, one of the 18l problems was, that some of the samples we sent over was some of the 191 early charcoals from the Unit 2 RMS System.

Now we you say inhouse 20 Health Physics are you including the evaluation of what was leaving the 21 plant at the time, in other words, am I getting in an area that you are 6

22l not questioning about?

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YUHAS:

Let me be more specific and we'll do it on the point that you 2'

just brought up, did you direct that the HPR 219 charcoal cartridge be 3

changed when you came in?

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5 PORTER:

Yes.

I asked that that be changed and that we get that over 6

to the NRC counting lab, it was the only one that wa, vailable very 7

early to count.

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9l YUHAS:

Now, to clarify my point, the method that you implemented your j

10j desire, was this you directly telling HP technicians for letting job of 11 counting HPR 219 or did you specifically call Dubiel?

12l 13 PORTER:

I called over, well I trying to think, it seems to me that I, 14; I'm not sure about this, I do know that I called over and talked to 15 someone over in Unit 2, on the hotline and I'm not sure whether it was 16' Dick directly or whether if, in other words, I can remember asking for 17, Dick, because thats how it ordinarily should have been done, that the 18l normal command pathway for this type of mission, and I remember calling 19!

over, I cannot remember whether Dick was there at the time and whether 20 I can get him on the hotline to talk to him to say this needed to be 21{

done, but if I did not talk to Dick then I talked to the Shift Super.,

22 in other words, I talked to one of the two responsible people there 23 that could get it accomplished and its just to many weeks, Greg, I 24 can't remember who I talked to at that point, but I do know I did call 25 over.

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SHACKLETON:

Gentlemen, I just like to caution you to help us in making i2' the transcript to please try not to talk over each other.

It makes it 3

very difficult to try to transcribe.

4 5

PORTER:

Excuse me.

6 7

YUHAS:

When you called over to express your request that this charcoal f

filter be changed, were you told of the whole body radiation dose rates 9I or the airborne radioactive materials present in the area of the filter 10 at that time?

11 12 PORTER:

I was aware of them because I think I asked about them to 13 begin with.

Because thats the first question, what kind of exposure I

14' are me going to have to receive in order to get this information? Was t

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the first question, and they had a couple of very rough numbers, and so 16[

I said, well I only want to change this maybe once a day but I feel 17 that because of the massive amounts of noble gasses thats gone out that 18-I want to get this thing changed so that we have useful data in the 19l future.

And I said that I aidn't want to do this very often but I felt 20' tnat, I tried to set out once a day, I said lets try to do it once a 21; day and I did say the work try and I said lets try to combine this with 22 something else to somebody else whose going to be doing in there.

So 23 with the guy goes :"

ha's got to be up on the 328 elevation anyway 24 then he can change this thing out and look a couple more gages or do a 25l i

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couple more things that operations needs to be done in any case.

Cause 2!

I knew that there were things that operations wanted accomplished in 3

the aux building at the time.

So we had a very fast discussion about 4l the fact, that yeah, its going to be costly, and I aise remember saying 5

hey fellows, I'm a virgin as far as exposure concerned, I have nothing 6

for the quarter whatsoever I'll be glad to go in mysel f if you feel 7

that your fellows are getting too much exposure performing this operation.

8 And later on I did go in, they didn't ask me to go in for the first 9

couple of days I might add.

10' 11 YUHAS:

When did you first go on the Island?

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13 PORTER:

On the Island itself, on the 28th of March s:mewhere in the 14!

vicinity of 7 to 8 9.m.

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15; 16l YUHAS:

Did you proceed to the Unit 2 Control Room at that time?

I 17l1 18!

PORTER:

No.

I proceeded ta the Unit 1 Control Room where I w-- directed i

19' to go to.

20 21 YUHAS:

Your actions in the first time that you wer,t in to the Unit 1 22 Control Room were they primarily ef fluent release re'ated?

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PORTER:

I guess primarily they were but not completely because one of 2,

the things I did was to think about the whole body counter, the other 3

thing I did v s to go over very early, that day I went over and I 4

questioned'the aux operators and the operations people from Unit 2 to 5

find out who had been in Unit 2 aux building.

Cause I wanted them 6

whole body counted.

7 YUFAS:

When you say that you are referring that you did go to Unit 2?

9 10 j PORTER:

Oh yeah.

I was back and forth, for the first two weeks, I was 11 back and forth for at least three or four times a day, sometimes a oI dozen times depending upon what was going on because I would ask for 13 information and then there be a long pause and a guy would come back 14 and say hey, we just can't get it for you now.

And I would say okay, I 15l don't want to hassle ycu I'll come over a get it myself if thats the 16j case.

They were busy and sometimes they could give me the information 17 and then sometimes I got answers that I would say hey, I wonder if 18 thats correct, and I better go over and look at the script chart myself 19 and so I would go over and I would pull out the scrip chart and I would 20' icok at it myself kind of thing.

This was constantly doing the first 21 week of going barr. and forth, although my desk, I had actually an 22 atsigned desk in Unit 1 because I felt that I c ald be of more help to 23 these pecpie, you know kind of overseeing what the offsite teams was 24 doing Ch, the other thing I did when I first arrived was to make sure f

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l 11 that the, in fact, before I even left to come up here I made sure that 2{

their was a group of Salems of Salems five best HP people, their supervisor 3i j

of rip and their HP foreman, I made sure that the supervisor of HP and 4l four HP foreman all experienced and all knowing this emergency plan 5!

j almost as well as they knew their own because they were trained in the 6l same, I made sure that they were on the way up here with their van, 7

with all their equipment and rith the procedural thing identical, so 8

that a!) we had to do was tn show them where to go to and they could 9f relieve people, cause I knew the guys were tired, because they just 10i came out of a five-week outage to begin and then they had been going i

11 for twelve hours or so.

And we your twelve hours on top of a five-week 12!

outage its rough, and so another thing I did was to relieve these 13l; people and I talked to the people up at Susquehanna that had roughly i

14 the same training and I got them down here from the Berwick plant at 15!

SSCS in order to relieve these guys and that help to inplant HP because 16l it relieved some of these peo- % that were around in the environment 17 that could turn their attention back to inplant Health Physics again.

3 18l All these, see Greg, its hard to answer your questions because their 19!

was so many things that I was trying to just track for a little while 20f til we had more people onboard that we could use for inplant Health f

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Physics.

But I did personally, each day I'd spent a little bit of time 22l over in the observation center just telling Herbein what was going on 23 and just relating to different people information to different people I

24l there.

And so, on my way out, I would stop you know, in the early days i

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l what they did was to take their dosimeter readirigs the first few days 2!

that you were talking about, they took their dosimeter readings at the 3

guard points and both bridges, mainly at the north bridge for the first 4l couple of days as a matter of fact, then it was switched to the south 5

bridge.

And what I did is I reviewed those dosimeter readings just 6

four of five pages and just quickly went through them and anybody that i

7 look fairly high, I forgot, I picked a number, I would pick a number 8!

that would give me the top twenty of exposures from pocket dosimeters 9

and I would put them down unless we whole body countad and the reasons was that I knew that we did not have, we could not expend the man rem 11 j

to take a whole lot of air sample where these people were going and so 12I the reason that I did this was not being able to air sample in all I

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these places that I would have like to in ordinary, nonemergency con-l 14l ditions, air sample what I wanted to do was to get them whole body 15 counted to make sure there was no surprises as far as halogen intakes 16i were concerned.

And so that's why I set that up by questioning the t

17 Unit 2 people, the aux operators are the people that were most likely 18f going into the aux building and, you know, each of thcm I questioned 19i them, for the first three days, I personally questioned them each shift 20, to make sure I caught everybody, it was essentially two shifts in those 21lj days and then went out and got hit parade from the pocket dosimeters 22 exposures and from that I just personally made up a list of people I 23 wanted whole body counted to make sure that we weren't missing some l

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significant internal intake.

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YUHAS:

,, hen did you first go to the Unit 2 Control Room?

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i PORTER:

When did I physically walk over there?

I can't remember now, 4

Greg, I really can't, it was sometime during that long night now whether St j

it happened to be on the 28th or the 29th, I don't know, but sometime I 6l wa:: just in there for a little while because they were giving me some j

7 numbers on some ficwrates that I really wondered about.

And I was just 8

there for a short while and then came right back again to my desk.

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I 10' YUHAS:

Did you make contact with Dubiel while you were over there?

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PORTER:

No.

He wasn't there when I was there.

Not the first time I I

13 was there, Dick wasn' t there.

14 15 YUHAS:

Did you review the methodology that the licensee was using to 16!

control entry into the aux building?

17l 18l PORTER:

No I did not.

19j 20I YUHAS:

Were you aware when you first talked to these auxiliary operators 21 on day 1 and day 2 of the exposure they were receiving was not logged 22 on the dosimetry sheets at the gates?

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PORTER:

I wasn't aware of that immediately, I became aware of that 2

later on after they were, everything was being logged.

I did, who did 3

I talk to, I talked to several people and I found out that the, all the 4I exposure logged at the gate didn't cover the whole story, I found that i

5 out right away.

The first time I looked at those and then from thinking Gl about the guys I had talked to, hey all these exposure aren't here so 7

either (a) they didn't log them at the gate, (b) they didn't go home, 8

which I think was the case in some cases, or (c) there was just a foul up, in other words it was given to the guard and the guard didn't put 10' it down or something like that.

And that's why I ccntinued to talk to 11' these people just to quickly, just to go and talk to them and say whose 12 been in the aux building today and how much exposure did you receive, 13 because the guys knew, '. hey themselves were all trained to watch their 14j own exposure and they pretty well knew what was happening.

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15i 16f YUHAS:

In the first twelve hours, did you review to determine the 17 licensees was actually operating his Health Physics department in 18I accordance with the emergency plan?

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20l PORTER:

Well thats a big statement Greg, I certainly did some of this, 21' your talking about a yea thick emergency plan.

I, what I did was to 22 try to, let me tell you what I did do, I did review to see what the i

1 23 exposure were, I did assure myself that the only people, people were 24' only being sent in for very important functions into the aux building, 25!

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they weren't just people going in there cause they were interested in 2'

something that was not very important, the only people being sent in 3

there were people that were happening to get it. formation that was vital 41 to trying to bring this to an orderly shutdown of the plant and there 5

was some vital information that they did have to get in those early 6

days, and-it was understood by everybody, that hey, no, people, only a 7

person, a person would only go in there if it was very important that 8

he went in there and that again that we would try to send people in 9

that had fairly low exposures so we would not have any high exposures.

10 As a matter of fact, if one think about the severity of the accident 11 and the amount of exposure received as you yourself know, there were 12' many many higher exposures received in normal outages when there was no 13 emergency involved then were received during this entire emergency.

14i And so I think that speaks for itself as to the control that excercised, 15!

the bottom line speak to what the control really was.

Now I didn't 16!

finish answering your question, I reviewed a lot of portions of the 17 plan as far as the Health Physics, now my first thing was, the first 18{

thing that one think of is, okay, exposure control, the second thing is 19l internal, external exposure control then internal exposure control, 20' then breathing air.

We made a lot of decision that were extremely 21 conservative as far as breathing air is concern, as you know, we had a 22 number of instances where we had very high levels of noble gasses 'n 23 both Units and in all areas including the Control Room and when we l

24 would have a sudden, I'll use the word burp, of noble gasses the question 25l

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that needed to be resolved was do we have any significant halogen with 2'

l these noble gasses? And so we went on respirators a number of times 31 i

until we were able to reasonbly answer this question.

When we were 4

like 99% sure there wasn't halogens because we seen none in the past c

and we had no reason to think that the source term had changed, however, 0

we still went on put people on respirators until we did resolve this point each and every time.

8 9

YUHAS:

How was the point recolved?

10 11 PORTER:

The point resolved by either getting a SAM-2 in a stable 12l background area to count the charcoal over the SAM-2, well first of all i

13l it was resolved by taking a charcoal sample and that take a certain 14!

amount of time, so you can get a significant amount of air on it so you 151 have reasonable statistics.

Then we would either count in on a SAM-2 16:

and get it to a jelly later or get it right to a jelly if there was a 17 jelly was available.

18j 19f YUHAS:

Did you utilize the instrumentation installed in the air monitoring i

20 systems?

21 22 PORTER:

We did to the extent that we could, I remember we had some 23 problems with that, I don't remember what they were right now, but on 24 Unit 2 there was some problem with that instrumentation, I don't remember 25l

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what the problem was, but there was a problein with that instrumentation.

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And so therefore, I knew that we had to take samples.

It just been to 3

many weeks to remember what that problem was, you know what the problem 4l was, aid you..

5 6

YUHAS:

I think you may be slightly confused, for the records indicates 7

that Unit I control tower area monitor may have been out of commiss, ion, 8

Unit 2 appears to have been operating properly according to the records.

9f I

10' PORTER:

Maybe trats it, I knew there was a reason we had to take 11 those, I'm just t"ying to remember back to that point.

Its a shame we 1li didn't have this inte view six weeks ago, something like that, so that 1

13!

my memory would be better, I ju:t bc2n under a, I don't want to make 14 any excuses, its been a long time.

I'm trying to remember back and I 15f certainly would not have been taking all these samples if there was an 16; easier way around, I certainly looked for that easier way immediately, 17 I started looking for that easier way and one of the easier ways, of 18l course, is to simply use the Control Room data and for some reasons we 19i couldn't use the Control Room data that why we had to keep using this, 20 I can't remember what it is, the strip chart recorder will tell us 21 that.

22 23 o^0 091 24 25 l

l l

i t

21 ll YUHAS:

Lets go on to another point, did you provide guidance to the 2

emergency director as far as how to handled single acute exposures in 3

excess of 5 rem that might result as a result of the need to operate 4

vital equipment?

5 6

PORTER:

Well, first of all, there is guidance in our emergency plan in 7

general terms, and secondly we didn't have anybody up there, at 5 rem, as I remember, we had a guy that exceeded 3 but we didn't have any 5 l

rem exposures.

10 11 YUHAS:

Were there instances where individuals were sent into the 12 auxiliary building were they likely could receive exposures in excess 13 of 5 rem?

14:

15!

PORTER:

This is conjecture, like could have, I don't know how to take I

16l that.

In other words, I think what the maximum guy was about 3.2, 3.3, 17 something like that if I remember, isn't that correct?

18j 19 YUHAS:

Individuals however were sent ir,to fields of greater than 750 20 R/iin' to perform valve operations and check various equipment.

21, 22 PORTER:

I realize that, but the point is, that I don't think anybody 23 get significantly above 3 rem, so that the 5 rem question is conjecture.

24 25l "O 092 I

i I

r i

22 I

s 1

YUHAS:

My question relates to the guidance that you proviced operations 2!

as to what measures and precautions to take in those instances where an 3

individual might have?

4l Si PORTER:

Well the guidance was to try to keep the guys below the 3 rem j

l per quarter if as all possible, if thats what you mean by guidance.

7 Now there a few instances where we weren't able to stay below that, but 8

I don't think the term, the number 5 rem I can't remember that coming up, because I don't think we ever got close to it.

Thats my whole 10' point, in other words, what we were trying to do is to balance out the lli exposures of the peopl.e, so we kept everybody within the legal limits 12 if at all possible, trying to stay to ALARA principal if you will.

13 14)

YUHAS:

What instrument was used primarily to provide radiation monitoring 15!

for entry into the auxiliary building?

i 16!

t 1

PORTER:

I believe, the one I remember most often being quoted was the 18 teletector, thats the one that I think was used more often, thats the 19 telescoping high-range GM instrument.

20h 21l YUHAS:

Did you advise the licensee representatives as to limitations 22 of that instrument in xenon-133, when xenon-133 hits the predominant 23 isotope present?

24 2.J.,

" O 093 i

l

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t

23 1

PORTER:

No, I remember discussing it later briefly, but not during the 2!

l period 3/28 to 3/30.

However, I think that the HP people were fairly 3r i

familar with the fact that, you know, none of the GM tubes have great 4

response characteristics, and therefore one has to be aware of the 5

limitations of the GM tube instruments. The guidance that I've always 6

tried to give the plant is, where possible, use an ion chamber, so that you don't have to think about these response characteristics, but as you know, its not practicle to have ion chamber on the and of a 16 foot 9I telescope kind of thing.

At least I'm still waiting to the first one, 10 I haven't seen it yet commercially available.

And so therefore you 11 have to use what you have at the time and, of course, there are energy 12 respor.se, there is a fairly significant response characteristic with 13 the GM tubes.

14i r

15 YUHAS:

Are you aware of the upper range limits on the pocket dosimeters 16f that were available to individuals in the first three days?

I 17 18!

PORTER:

Well let me see now, I certainly saw a lot of 50 R dosimeters 19(

at the Control points, personally, because they were given to me as I 20 would go in.

I didn't ask them to break into the emergency kit and get 21 out some of the 200 R ones.

22 23 YUHAS:

Your fairly confident that you saw 0 to 50 R dosimeters?

24 25j

" O 094

24 1.

t PORTER:

I had a couple in my pocket during one of my earlier entries.

2 31 i

YUHAS:

Where would those have come from, the licensee has stated that 4f the only thing he had available was 0 to 5 R?

51 6

PORTER: I just remember being handed one, it might have come from the 7

emergency kit, in other words, I didn't ask where it came from, I just 8

remember being given a 0 to 50 R at one point, and I can't remember which day it was either.

It might have been as late as a week after 10 the incident begin now that I think about.

I just remember looking at 11 the thing and just noting that, hey theres a big gap between 200 mR and 12l where this one really starts to be reasonably accurate and thinking to 13 myself that well I have to be careful, your better off with the 5 R one 14 in a way if you keep watching it, because the gap between the end of 15l 200 mR and the 5 R one is easy to bridge, the gap when you have a 50 R 16l one is hard to bridge and I can remember thi nking to myself that I 17 might be better off with a lower range one, as e matter of fact.

If 18!

what your telling me is that they only have 5 R ones available when 19 they were just starting out and since no one went over 3 R then probably 20 it was a very reasonatie thing for them to have.

And it was better 21 than that one instar,ce where I remember being given a 50 R one and just 22!

being thinking it wt to the fact hey I have to watch it if I go to my 23 200 mR which prob:dly why I didn't go over.

24 25

" O 095 t

f 5

h

25 l

l' l

YUHAS:

When were you first aware of the need to take a reactor coolant 2!

letdown sample?

3 4:

PORTER:

Let me think.

I'm sorry, I can remember writing procedures, 5

an outline for a procedure to take a sample but this was after the 6

first sample was taken, I wrote an outline and showed it to John Collins, 7

and he said, great lets use that as much as possible.

8 9f Hig:

Is that referring to the sample that was taken on the evening 10 af the 29th?

11 12 PORTER:

I don't think that I had anything to do with the planning and 13 taking of that sample.

To the best of my memory.

14) r 15i YUHAS:

Did you direct two chem HP technicians to go down and split 16i that sample for distribution to various agencies for analysis?

17 18!

PORTER:

Did I direct them.

19f 20' YUHAS:

That's correct.

21i 22!

PORTER:

The first sample?

23 24 YUHAS:

The sample that was taken on the evening of the 29th?

25l t

t l

^^0 096

25 i

I 1!

l PORTER:

Boy, not that I can remember directing anybody to go take, to 2t split the sample.

I remember wondering how it was going to be split 3

but I certainly was not the person who made the decision as to how it 4'

ought to be split.

All I do is remember that it was going to be split 5'

among a number of groups tut I can't remember directly the chemist to 6

do anything directly.

Point 1, I can remember directing to other 7

people that hey this is how we ought to do something, but I trying to 8

think, in other words, I don't even know the chemist that took that, yes I do to, it was Ed Houser, I don't remember having any discussion 10i with Ed whatsoever before he took that first sample.

I can remember 11 that when he came up with a high exposure after having taken the sample 12 j I wanted to make sure that Ed had a whole body count, because I was 13 told about the exposure.

Thinking back on those early days, you got to 14 remember that my memory is not that clear on those early days cecause I i

15l was tired a lot of the time, because I didn't have that much sleep.

16l But, my first recollection about that sample was that Ed Houser had a 17 possible overexposure and that I wanted to get him whole body counted 18{

and that, I was told that he had scme surface contamination and I said 1Nj okay thats could trick your whole body count, I'd like to go in there, 2i I'd like to be there when they whole body counted, which I was.

And 21, Fraser Bronsen and I discussed it and we even brought Dr. James T.

t 22 Brennan in, to review this.

23 24 "O 097 25}

l l

I 27 1,

YUHAS:

Let me interrrupt, when did you accompany Mr. Houser on his 2

whole body count, what day?

31 4

PORTER:

I sorry I can't remember the day now, I can go back and look 5

it up, but the point is I cannot remember right now specifically what 6

the date was I accompany him.

But I think this might have been three 7

or four days later after his first count that I was told that he had 8

some surface contamination there that couldn't come off and I though okay, the surface contamination interferes with the results of the 10 whole body count significantly and that I just would like to review 11 have him whole body counted again and make sure that Fraser Bronsen 12l himself personally does it and that I have a chance to discuss the 13 results with Fraser Bronsen and I was told that Ed Houser was a little i

14l anxious about his surface contamination, so I asked for Dr. Brennan.

i 15 Talk to him, without me there and to discuss the significance of this 16l surface contamination after we had determine how much was on the surface 17 of his body and how much was internally deposited in his body as far as 18l iodine was concerned.

Now all this might have taken place as late as a l

19l week after the beginning of the event.

20' 21 YUHAS:

You were aware that Houser had surface contamination on his 22; body the night of the 29th?

23 24

" O 098 25!

I l

l

28 i

l i

l!

l PORTER:

Night of the 29th, I don't know...I'm sorry to be so vague 2

Greg, but I just cannot remember.

4 Gentlemen at this point we'll turn the cassette the time SHACKLETON:

5 is now 12:31 p.m. eastern daylight time, May 24, 1979.

Si 7

SHACKLETON:

This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Sydney 81 i

W. Porter, the time now is 12:35 p.m. eastern daylight time.

9 10 YUHAS:

We are still discussing Mr. Housers' exposure, did you read the ECS log from time to time on the night of the 29?

This would be the 12 log in the Control Room.

13

~ 4f, PORTER:

In the Unit 1 Control Room then.

Yeah, from time to time, 15l well, wait a minute now, did I read the log or did I discuss it with 16l them.

I can remember discussing a number of things with the Emergency 17 Director there or Emergency Coordinator, I think we call him.

I not 18f sure, I can remember later on talking about a log but thats a few days 19 later as far as a log was concerned.

I remember just when I went in I 20~

sat down with him, and I said, okay whats happened and just verbally 21 he's giving me a update on the thing.

I don't remember spending time 22 in that early day with a log.

I might have, but I can't remember it.

23 So I can't be sure again.

24

"~0 099 25!

f t

e a

29 I

I li YUHAS:

Were you aware that Mr. Velez also had substantial skin contam-2 ination as a result of drawing that reactor cooling sample?

3t 4'

PORTER:

I think I was told that he had some skin contamination but that his whole body count showed that the total activity that he had was not that high.

In other words, the skin contamination plus whats in the thyroid and in the circulating blood, the total thing was not 0

that high.

I vaguely remember questioning well what the total that he 9

has, skin and thyroid and circulating blood and the number came. back 10 that it was less than investigation level, everything put together and t

lli l

so I don't know what you mean by substantial, I remember being satisfied 12' that it was not substantial.

13 14l YUHAS:

Can you describa to me what you consider to be the dose signi-i 15' ficance of having 1 microc'tries per square centimeter of iodine on the 16i skin?

17 18{

PORTER:

Well, I can't calculate it out right this second, but what I 19f could say is, that I would say that if it was 1 microcurie per square 20{

centimeter that there would be there certainly would be a significant 21 amount of dose involved with that and thats something that one should 22 certainly try to scrub off.

Once you try to just leave that kind of 23 activity on the..

24 "O

100 25' l

30 l'

YUHAS:

Did you advise anyone to perform either a detail assessment of 2

the distribution of skin contamination on individuals during this 3

incident and that records be maintained and dose calculations be made 4!

for skin contamination?

5 6

PORTER:

I remember thinking that what we needed to do was get off the 7

easily removable iodine, point 1, so that we kept the exposure low and 8

I remember telling people yeah, lets get off, lets take off what we i

9 can, I don't remember being told my anyone that we had one microcure 10 per square centimeter of contamination.

11 12{

YUHAS:

I didn't say that, I just asked you the significance of one 13 microcurie per square centimeter.

141 15l PORTER:

Well its certain is a significant contributer to dose when you 16 have levels that high.

Thats obviously a problem that have to be 17 looked into quite carefully.

Now, as far as your earlier question, I 18{

can remember being told that the skin contamination is a total activity 19 on everyone but Ed Houser was less then investigation level.

Skin plus 20 thyroid which makes it a fairly low level and I can remember making the 21.

discussion, alright, I have time nv., to go back and look at these i

22l things later because we have less than the total investigation level 23 for everything.

Now, Ed Hauser, I think, one early count was greater 24 than the investigation level and we had him, we knew that some of that t

25

" O 101 l

l

31 11 l

was due to the skin contamination and they reworked his skin again it 2'

any number of times, you know, he scrubbed, he was asked to scrub, take 3

j baths, to soak, to get his skin contamination down and I remember the 4

next count that we got from him, the skin contamination was in fact way 5

down and he was well below investigation level and so therefore, I 0l thought, well, thereds so much to be done here I'm not going to go back 7

and do those kinds of sophisticated kinds of assessments now.

We'll go 8

back, since we have the whole body count data which is much more accurate then just running a survey meter.

Its hard to calibrate survey meters 10 for skin contamination, I think you'll agree.

11 12' YUHAS:

Did you suggest to the licensee that he collect bioasay samples 13 from Houser or that he analyze those samples which hao been collected 14 shortly after the incident?

15l 16 PORTER:

I suggested that, let me think now, there was somebody I asked 17 for some bicassay samples from and if my memory is correct is probably 18 both Houser and Gary Reed.

But then after the subsequent whole body 19!

count I told them, when we saw they was below an investigation level, I I

20 said, look we have a million samples to count, we don't need to count 21 samples of people that are below investigation level because the lab 22 was backed up for half a day worth of counting anyway at that point, at 23 least a half a day.

So I said, alright at this point its now longer 2

necessary to collect the urines, and I used the criteria of the investi-25!

"O 102 l

l l

32 1,

l gation level as to whether or not the urines were necessary.

Actually 2:

that is not a, how can I say, just because you go above an investigation 3

level does not mean that you have to take urine, it depends upon how 4'

far above it you are really, but what I said was, lets take a few, lets 5

take some.

I can remember having the conversation with Gary Reed and I 6

don't think I had it directly with Houser, I think I had it with someone 7

else, but I can remember people coming back and saying do we need to 8

save these and my saying, no we don't need to save them because they 9

are, I looked at the records, I discussed them with Fraser Bronsen 10 personally and I was satisfy that they were below investigation and 11 that there was no reason to continue to take urines or to count them.

12 But they were very conservative cause somebody just called me the last 13 few days and wanted to know if there was some urines that was still 141 there and wanted to know if we needed to save them and I said well make i

15!

one more check, go back and have Radiation Management Corporation give I

16!

you the answer because I have not reviewed in the last couple of weeks 17 all of the internal dose data but as far as I know there is no reason 18 to keep it, but in fact I said, as long as I have time now, lets just 19f go back and re-review it one more time to make sure me don't need to 20' get rid of these, but there are some that did exist as of about yesterday, 21 I believe, some urines.

They still had them back there.

Trying to 22 remember who called me.

I can't remember who called me.

231 24

""O 103 25j l

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33 1

j YUHAS:

The call probably extends from the fact that I was personally 2

concerned, Houser had supplied a urine analysis first catch probably 3

eighteen hours after the incident.

That sample sat there in the lab 4

until today.

Which counting it today is probably irrevalent.

Counting a~

of the sample would have been shortly after it was collected and I'm at 6

a loss to explain why you having people collect samples and then just let sit for 45 days.

8 9

PORTER:

Well I think, the word that I gave, they asked me a reasonable i

10 time, two or three days after the sample was collected I remember 11 getting a call about this and I remember saying, hey I just finished 12l looking at those records, there's no reason to collect samples any i

13 longer and looking at the whole body count results I see, since we 14 still backed up in the lab this is just, it will be an interesting 15 thing to write a paper about but we don't have time for that kind of 16 luxury now.

17l l

18f YUHAS:

Yes, let me ask you, was there any more significant whole body 19!

count then Houser's or Reed's?

20j l

21l PORTER: I remember too..maybe they were but I can't remember nnat they 22 were.

They were below the investigation level, I know that.

23l 24 "O

104 25!

i l

i l

34 1l YUHAS:

I believe Houser had something like 6600 nanocuries of iodine 2'

j total body?

3i 4l PORTER:

Right, but when they counted his total body with a thyroid, c*

blocked, shielded, I believe that he was well below an investigation 6

level.

When I was there,-that Monday I believe it was, that Ed Houser was recounted I was physically present when he was recounted.

8 9

YUHAS:

This must have been an subsequent Monday to the initial Monday 10 count that he received, the initial count values were very high.

11l i

12 PORTER:

Well maybe it wasn't Monday.

Okay what I'm saying is, that 13 when he was counted I was present there, I was satisfied that he was 14 well, it wasn't even close, in other words, he was really well below an 15 investigation level there was not many percent of the investigation 16j level, or something like that, the numbers came out significantly lower 17 than I had been lead to believe that they were.

18 19 YUHAS:

Do you remember off the top of your head was an investigation 20 level for iodine is?

21l 22 "O

105 23 24 i

25' i

35 1}

PORTER:

I should remember, 360 nanocuries maybe, something like that, 2

I'm trying to hone in on a number and I'm not sure about the number 3

l now.

No, I can't I'm just trying to think about it.

Have you looked 41 it up lately?

e 5

6 YUHAS:

No.

Let me ask you, have you maintained any sets of notes that 7

would assist you in remembering specifically your involvement in in plant Health Physics activities?

9 10' PORTER:

Yeah, I have some sets of notes that would help me remember 11' this.

12 13 YUHAS:

Have you provided these notes to Mr. Behrle?

14!

15j PORTER:

No, I have not, he hasn't asked for them.

16!

17 YUHAS:

At this point, consider it as a formal request that you provide 18!

copies of your notes dealing with in plant Health Physics for the 19 period of the 28th through the 30th be provided to the NRC via whatever 20 vehicle you see fit.

And would like those provided within one week if 21 at all possible.

22 23 PORTER:

Okay.

(taking notes) Provide to William Behrle.

Okay.

24 0

106

t

{

(

36 1!

l YUHAS:

I have no further questions at this time, I'll turn it over to 2!

l Mr. Essig.

3 4l ESSIG:

Sid, what I'll like to do is to, since I've interviewed you on 5

two previous occasions and I've reviewed a number of records since that 6

time and I've interviewed 'a number of people, in the process of sort of 7

drawing togethe.r a picture of what was going on environmentally during 8

the first three days following the event.

And it seems pretty clear to 9

me and I think you had stated this previously, was that first of all 10 there were not during the first three days a particularly significant 11 iodine-31 levels measured offsite in air samples.

12!

13 PORTER:

That's correct, I think that what happened was that we did 14 have a few what I call false / positive caused we measured them with the i

15!

SAM-2 but then when we put them on Ge(Li's) we found out that there was 16) nothing there at all and it was resolving time problem.

17 18{

ESSIG:

And I think it was also established previously that the routine 19 environmental monitoring program data the so call REMP were available 20l at 8:30 Friday morning the 30th from Dr. Steven Gertz of your office, 21{f available to you.

i 22' l

23 PORTER:

Yes, and I believe there also, they were available pretty 24 early in that day to Bob Bores cause he made a record.

25 "O

107

(

37 1.

i ESSIG:

Yes, we established they were made available to Dr. Bores 21 l

about 11:00 that morning, at least Dr. Gertz had indicated that he had 3'

I called you.

5[

l PORTER:

I think that I had walked over with these results and discussed 6

them briefly with somebody that was in the Watch Engineer's office at 7

that time, and I don't remember who it is anymore.

But I remember 0

getting these and saying hey we look like were in pretty good shape 9

here and I remember just briefly discussing it with some NRC people and 10' I can't remember who was there.

Even you might even had been there lli then, I don't think you were there that early.

I thinK you were there 12+

the next day, something like that.

13, 14)

ESSIG:

Okay, what I'm leading up to is that if there were I think if 15i you looked at the first couple or days, the first two days, the Wednesday 16!

and Thursday, 28th and 29.

Is there anything of significant at all it 17 was probably the offsite consequences of noble gas releases?

18[

19!

PORTER:

Yes sir.

t nc0 108 20j 21 22 23 24 25 t

f i

38 1

l ESSIG:

There was a lot of measurements being made with portable survey 2

instruments, I believe you had stated previously that the source terc 3l, estimates, noble gas releases probably weren't very reliable and because 4!'

of that you were relying mainly on portable survey instruments really 5

being a good indicater of what was going on ir. the environments.

6 7

PORTER:

That's correct, we were relying on that before we got our REMP 0

data which we knew would take a little while to get.

9 10 ESSIG:

Right, and looking at some of the data which had been collected, 11 there are a couple of points which I'd like to discuss with you, a 12f couple of measurements and if I believe you were here, you were onsite I

13 at the time but it was one of the times when you happened to go home, 14 go offsite and get a little rest let me know.

The two times in particular 15!

are both Thursday morning, very early in the morning, one of them was 16!

at 0425 hours0.00492 days <br />0.118 hours <br />7.027116e-4 weeks <br />1.617125e-4 months <br /> on the 29th and the other one was probably 0600 hours0.00694 days <br />0.167 hours <br />9.920635e-4 weeks <br />2.283e-4 months <br /> and i

17l several hours prior to that also on the 29th.

And at those two times I

18!

there were two of the more significant offsite radiation levels were 19j measured.

Those were'two of the highest, I won't make a comment as to 20 their significance, I'll just say they were higher than a lot of the 21 other measurements that was made.

One of them was barely offsite of 22, the north gate which I'm considering for the evaluation purposes here 23 is essentially number the public could be right adjacent to the north 24 gate since it is on the Highway 441 side of the bridge.

25l t

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I

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39 l!

j PORTER:

I believe it was onsite the measurement though.

2!

3 ESSIG:

The measurement was made on the dark station or on the Island 4j side of the bridge?

5 PORTER:

Well, the site is defined as outside perimeter security fence.

7

{

ESSIG:

Okay, but the north gate...

10 FORTER:

Oh thats right, your right, the north gate is yeah, I think of 11l that l'eing on site because its controlled by Met Ed and so it is part, 12 in other words, I think if the land where the gate if I am not mistaken 13 is, is Met Ed land.

That's not, that land doesn't belong to an indi-14 vidual per se, so it is on the Met Ed site, if you will, and so I was 15l using the site from that point of view.

16!

17 ESSIG:

Okay.

The specific question I wanted to ask you about it, 0425 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br /> the survey records shcwed that'a exposure rate of 27 mR/h was 1N!

measured at'that point and previously about 4 hours4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> or so it was at 2

0050 hours5.787037e-4 days <br />0.0139 hours <br />8.267196e-5 weeks <br />1.9025e-5 months <br /> was the last measurement made at that point was 3-1/2 mR/hr, 21 as near as I can tell there weren't any measurements made between the 22j two points and there didn't appear to be much if anything in the way of 23 followep, that is the next measurement at that point was made at 0900 2d hours so that 27 mR/hr could have persisted for some time or it could 25 I

"O 110 i

t 40 I

I 1!

have been just n ' instantaneous measurem2nt, I guess I rea17y dan't 2t l

know, but first of all, were ycu aware of, I was going to ask yeJ if 3

you were aware of that measuren$ert, but I recognized that you looked at i

g 4'

a lot of numbers since that time, doc;, that at all stand out in your Si j

mcmory?

6l 7

PORTER:

A couple of things ste,nd out, wmber on2,' I remenbar there 8

being several high measurements caring the morning, ca.n remember 9

saying that I wanted to go baci and recheck those gain ind I can 10 remember the wind was moving around so that no piace had much dcA ror i

11 much of the time because of the wind swinging, i' seems to me tnat the 12 wind was really meandering tha'. early and I ccd.1 be wrono on that and t

13 I have to go back and look a. tre meteorological data, but I remember

)

i 14 the wind meandering from the majority of that day from very early to i

15l very late it was e very poor day meteo;-alogically is the thing that I

remain in my mind.

' dave you sota cats trere on the wind?

17 18l ESSIG:

Yes, I co.

I have the wind speed and direct on.

19l It l

i 20 PORTER:

I thought that you might have done your hom mork Thomas.

(ha 21 ha) And it happens that that period o' Lime is the main reason that 22 prompted the questien.

During that, at that time of the day, at 0425 23' hours, the winds were reasonable steady, that is thay were on the order 24 of 5 to 10 miles per hour from abeut midnight on.he 29th to, ;t grc h !!y 25 h

l 0

1,;

i l

{l 41 i

11 l

drop dowa to about 2 to 4 mile per hour at around 0900 hours0.0104 days <br />0.25 hours <br />0.00149 weeks <br />3.4245e-4 months <br />, so all 2t j

during tha', n'ght the winds were fairly steady and they were blowing, 3l' well initially at midnight they were blowing from 144 and then it 4J, thitted to 198 and then it shift to 108.

i Sj i

6 PORTER:

During what time perico?

7f 8

ESSIG:

This would be bet.,2en midnight and 0340 hours0.00394 days <br />0.0944 hours <br />5.621693e-4 weeks <br />1.2937e-4 months <br />.

Between 0340 9

and 0910 hours0.0105 days <br />0.253 hours <br />0.0015 weeks <br />3.46255e-4 months <br /> the winds were reasonable steady from about 108 to 90, 10 in other words, they were blewing tcward to 270 to 288, roughly towards 11j the west to just slightly north of that.

12, 13 PORTER:

Towards the west, to the west northwest?

14!

15!.

ESSIG:

Right.

1

.6, 1

MRTER:

So what your telling me is that tnis is not downwind, is that 13i wnat your telling me?

19i nn0 ll2 20!

21 22 23 24l 25 I

i u

{

42 I

6l!

ESSIG:

That's exactly right and that was why I'm wondering if that 2

l would, I'm trying to explain this one to myself why it was that we seem 3t to be measuring apparently 27 mR/hr at the north gate and its not 4

downwind, the winds were fairly steady, it wasn't really a question of 5

plume meandering at all.

Si 4

7f P312TB:

And the winds were 5 to 10 miles per hour?

8 9

ESSIG:

Yes.

10 11I PORTER:

And so therefore there should not by that much eddying at 12 winds that speed the plume tends to go offsite without being stuck 13l onsite for any long length of time, we know that from you know just 14 years of experience of looking at local meteorology, we also knew it 15l from just following the plume, now there, I believe that there was also 16f do,nwind measurements made at that time, during those periods of time 17 from 0340 to 0910 hours0.0105 days <br />0.253 hours <br />0.0015 weeks <br />3.46255e-4 months <br /> there was, most of the time there was at least 18l one team and maybe even two that was downwind, one onsite, one offsite.

19i

,3 l

20l SHACKLETON:

The time now is 12:57 p.m. and Mr. Behrle has a request.

21 22I BEHRLE:

I'll like to take a break.

23 0

113 24l i

25 t

e.

43 1f SHACKLETON:

Okay we'll stop the interview at this time.

2' BEHRLE:

Thanks.

4 5

RESNER:

The time now is 1:01 p.m., Mr. Behrle has rejoined us, also 0

note for the record that I relieved Mr. Shackleton as moderator for this interview at 12:35 p.m. and we'll pick up where we left off.

8 9

PORTER:

I'd just like to make a note hear that the measurement 27 10' mR/hr is one that I can remember rather vaguely and asking that it be 11 rechecked again and boy, my memory is bad here, to the best of my 12 memory they went back and rechecked it and could not reverify the 13 number so that I felt to myself, well it was a one time kind of thing 14 and if what you say is correct the wind had shifted away from then, 15:

since they couldn't reverify and the wind had shifted.

Its hard for me 16 to remember to be very truthful back here, but I remember that it was 17 not just one of these, there was 3 or 4 of these were there would be a 18' single high number then they'd go back again and they recheck it and 19' they come back and say, hey the numbers were significantly lower.

So 20 from that point of view I really can't answer your question except to 21 say that I can remember a number of high numbers during that day, 22 especially that early morning that 1 asked to be rechecked because they 23 did not look reasonable, so to speak.

And I also remember thinking 24 well we had to pick of these TLDs soon and that would really tell us 25 i

""O 114 t

44 1

the whole story, because there is a TLD fairly close to that point, as 2'

a matter of fact, in fact there's one on the bridge and then there's 3

one just off the bridge which is representative of where maximum individual 4

might be.

I think that that TLD, as a matter of fact, was probably the S

uncorrected number about 80 millirem that is uncorrected for energy response that was used in the interagency Task Force Report on exposures.

However, I must state for the record,.that that number was gathered 0

with a calcium-sulfate dosimeter which did not have energy compensation 9

shields around it and that it not a final number, that is a raw data 10' numoer which has to be corrected for energy response yet.

And were in 11 the process now of putting together a story on what the total cloud 12 composition was in the way of radionuclides so that we can do the full 13 investigation and resolve once and for all what the energy response 14, should be.

What that response correction should be.

Does this answer i

15!

you question Tom?

16' 17 ESSIG:

Yes, I think so Sid.

What I'll like tc do now is to briefly 18l discuss the other measurement offsite that caught my eye, the one I 19f mentioned earlier at 0600 hours0.00694 days <br />0.167 hours <br />9.920635e-4 weeks <br />2.283e-4 months <br />, the measurement tnat was recorded was 20!

30 mR/h beta gamma window open, 20 mR/hr window closed.

And it was at 21; 0600 hours0.00694 days <br />0.167 hours <br />9.920635e-4 weeks <br />2.283e-4 months <br /> in Goldsboro, approximately Goldsboro, and Wayne, I should 22 state for the record that I have lying on the cable in front of us here 23 a xerox copy of the Unit I wind speed and direction recorder and I have 24 it unrolled so that were not looking at March 29th 1979, were looking 25 n"0 115 l

45 1

l at the period time in question here and what I'd like to point out, 2

Sid, is that at the period from well to back up here to even 0140 hours0.00162 days <br />0.0389 hours <br />2.314815e-4 weeks <br />5.327e-5 months <br /> 3

or so we have one anomaly here which I'm at a loss to explain but that 4

is an anomaly of the wind direction indication which occurred perhaps 5

less than the 5 minutes or so, but what this chart generally shows is 6{

that the wind was on the order of 5 to 10 miles per hour and gradually 7

decrease in the later morning hours to somewhere around 4 miles per 8

hour less.

But during those early morning hours it appears that from 9

about 0130 hours0.0015 days <br />0.0361 hours <br />2.149471e-4 weeks <br />4.9465e-5 months <br /> or so that the wind was coming out of roughly, these 10 are 18 increments on this charts, so were talking about 2 increments 1

above 90 that would make it 130 or so, so its blowing toward the 12l northwest roughtly, north, yeah I would say that a fair statement, 13 toward the northwest and then it gradually decrease or changes slowly 14 in direction to come in out of 90 blowing toward the west and during r

i 1

that period of time there were surveys made up in the north / northwest 16l to northwest sectors at about 1:30 and then there weren't any surveys 17 made at all until 0600 hours0.00694 days <br />0.167 hours <br />9.920635e-4 weeks <br />2.283e-4 months <br /> at that was the survey in Goldsboro and 18 thats the one that showed roughly 20 to 30 mR/hr.

19l 20 PORTER:

Tom I have a hard time with that, because we had a helicopter 21 running back and forth since that time as I remember, that morning, he 22 was running back and forth and he was bri.. have you checked the charcoal 23 data to see that the charcoal wasn't taking over there.

Becaese there i

24

""O 116 25 f

(

46 1

were survey meters readings made at every point that we took charcoal 2'

readings still.

And I remember the helicopter survey running samples 3

back and forth early that morning.

4 5

ESSIG:

I have a summation of those here, let me just quickly look and 6

see what kind of data we did have.

The charcoal samples, the record 7

shows that those that were analyzed on a SAM-2, we had one collected at 8

0050 hours5.787037e-4 days <br />0.0139 hours <br />8.267196e-5 weeks <br />1.9025e-5 months <br /> at the north gate and then the next one that was analyzed 9!

with the SAM-2 was collected at 0600 hours0.00694 days <br />0.167 hours <br />9.920635e-4 weeks <br />2.283e-4 months <br /> at W 11 at the same time as 10 this exposure rate measurement was taken and let me look and see if we 11 have, we have a couple taken on the Island in the early morning hours 12!

and lets see if we have any that was analyzed by RMC at that time.

We 13 have a 329 at 0945 hours0.0109 days <br />0.263 hours <br />0.00156 weeks <br />3.595725e-4 months <br /> from location W 11.

14I i

15l PORTER:

Okay, what was your statement earlier that you thought they 16l were... you didn't find any beta gamma measurements?

l 17 18{

ESSIG:

The statement was.. let me tell whats of some concern here to 19l That we appear from the radiation survey record, its the record me.

i 20' that I have which is the summary that was put together in the ECS as 21 the results were radioed in.

I requested the original survey sheets 22l but ha.

opies of those, but haven't yet received them.

But according 23 to that summary the surveys made in that general direction that is, i

24 between west and north / northwest, let say, during that hour in the 25l f

j

"~0 117 9

I

47 1,'

morning it appears that the surveys made in that direction the last one 2'

}

had been made about 0130 hours0.0015 days <br />0.0361 hours <br />2.149471e-4 weeks <br />4.9465e-5 months <br />, as I recall I don't think any significant 31

}

breeze levels were detected at that time and that was in the north / northwest 4'

to northwest and then there seems to be a gap from about 0130 to 0600 5

hours at which time were in Goldsboro and were measuring 20 to 30 mR/hr 6l the question I have, based on the wind data the wind appears to be 7

barely steadily blowing in the west to northwest, direction all during 0

the night and we have a fairly large gap in the surveys that were done 9

and then all of a sudden we come up with a significant at least one of 10 the more significant offsite measurements that was made, and the question 11l that I have to ask is, do we know how long that may have persisted?

12, 13 PORTER:

No, two thoughts immediately come to mind, number one, I know 14 I was up during that time, point one, and I know that there was great i

15l deal more data generated, now the question is was it croperly, do we 16 still have copies of it.

That team didn't disappear that team was 17 essentially downwind the whole time.

Now they took a break, they might 18l have changed at 0700 hours0.0081 days <br />0.194 hours <br />0.00116 weeks <br />2.6635e-4 months <br /> and they might have left at 0600 hours0.00694 days <br />0.167 hours <br />9.920635e-4 weeks <br />2.283e-4 months <br /> to go 19{

in to be relieved at 0700 hours0.0081 days <br />0.194 hours <br />0.00116 weeks <br />2.6635e-4 months <br /> but then

.ebody should have been out 20l there at very shortly after 0700 hours0.0081 days <br />0.194 hours <br />0.00116 weeks <br />2.6635e-4 months <br /> chere was another team downwind 21 again.

22 23 ESSIG:

The record show there was another survey made in Goldsboro at l

24 0715 hours0.00828 days <br />0.199 hours <br />0.00118 weeks <br />2.720575e-4 months <br />.

25 nn0 118 t

48 1

PORTER:

Okay, there was a 0715 record...

2 3

ESSIG:

In fact it only showed 1 mR/hr in Goldsboro.

4 5

PORTER:

Thats west 11 isn't it?

6 ESSIG:

Yes, West 11.

8 9

PORTER:

Right, that confirms that part of my memory which I do not 10 vouch for very well at this point.

I think that there were other 11 measurements made and we are going to have to find out who was there 12 and if you want to pursue this I think you we will have to try to find 13 out who was on the team at the time when that measurement was made in 14 order to back this up.

But there was an offsite team downwind during 15 those hours.

Because we had four teams out there at that point, not on 16l the west shore, but the point is I know there was one team on the west 17 shore almost continuously during all that time.

Now the question is, 18l did we get sloppy and not make records because they were all quite low, 19l which shouldn't been done, but the point is in other words, the records 1

20 was made but the question was it preserved because as you know we had 2 11 the little sheet and the sheet was all as the recorder, as the data 22 came over the radio phone the radio talker wrote these sheets and 23 handed them to the nuclear eagineer and thats the system that we had 24 25l C9

49 going from hour 1 essentially and the question I have is we need to go 2' through carefully and look for the sheet, it sound like you done that 3 though, you actually looked at the sheets themselves. 4 5 ESSIG: I looked at some of the sheets there are small sheets, I think 6 the ones to which you referred are approximately 8-1/2 inches wide by 7 perhaps 5 inches long or so. 8 9 PORTER: Handwritten xerox form, so to speak. 10 11 ESSIG: Unfortunately, not one of those sheets has a date on it, it has 12 a time, location and radiation level and these are present, were located i 13 in plastic bags, in white plastic bags, with drawstrings on them and I 14;, looked at those in trying to piece together and that's why I requested 15 the original survey records which I've been told, I think by Mr. Mulleavy, 16i he seems to think that they might very well still be in notebooks, 17{; loose-leaf notebooks in the emergency kits themselves and so the other 18{ day I requested Mr. Behrle if he would make available those, look for 19l those records and make them available. 20j \\ 21' PORTER: My only recollection ther9, boy, I don' t have that many rec.. 22 my recollection was that we were... certain high numbers were popping 23l up and as soon as I heard a certain high number I would turn around to 24 the radio recorder or to the Nuclear Engineer whoever is handiest at 25 o-i I i i

50 1 the time and say lets try that one again. Lets reverify and I don't 2 remember that I ever reacted any differently except to say that when it 3 was a high number, I say, hey lets reverify that, lets see if they get 4 the same number again. And I remember this happening not at just these 5 two points but a number of other times, when there be high numbers and 6 then they go and reverify this. Sounds to me as if we were missing some sheets or the sheets aren't dated or something like in there, but 8 I do not remember for any extended of time for having any high numbers. 9 I remember that they were, my original statement was before we talked 10 about specific data there was a number of isolated high numbers and we 1 11 went back and reverified them and by that point the wind had changed or 12 something and that there was... or they just simply could not get the 13 number again. 14 15 ESSIG: Okay, the point is this particular questioning is as I said 16i earlier I'm fccusing right now on the first two days, that is the l 17 period of time before the intended TLD results were availt.ble to you, 18l and just to see if we in a... if there was any times situations where 191 perhaps a recommendation could have been made to the state, I think 20! you'd established that your own perco level was on the order of, what 21 you got your accumulated dose of about a 100 mR or so or 100 millirem 22; and so I just looking if there were situations that were approaching i 23 that which may have gone unnoticed is what I was doing and this one of 24 course sort of begged the question being that it could have been only 1 25 "^0 121 i

51 1 persistent for a few minutes or it could have been since the wind was 2! going in that direction for some time it could have persisted for 3 several hours. 4 PORTER: What my memory is that wind the wind persis~ted for all those 6 hours the instruction that that team had was to stay in the downwind direction and to continue to take measurements. And they.. during that 8 period of time I can not imagine they didn't call in a measurement at least once an hour and most of them was much more frequent than that, 10 as a matter of fact, so I think were missing some data or we have some 11f data that is in fact not dated properly, is what is sounds like, but I i 12$ can only tell you what my general recollection was that there was a I 13l number of spotting numbers that we were not able to reverify when the i 14) team went back to that actual location. But if the wind was staying 15! there, then probably the team stayed there, they might go out of the 16! plume a little bit but then within an hour they were back in the plume I 17l again. And I don't think there was any exceptions to that, that was 18{ one of the ground rules that we had very early on in the game that we IN! would have one team onsite and one team offsite downwind at all times 2b' with no exceptions to that. The other thing that I can remember doing 216 occasionally was since the people were standing there in the plume the 22 whole time, often, I would just simply ask what exposure do the team 23 members have. Which is the other thing, since their there all the 24 time, and see that was the other check that we had I don't think that 25 l "O 122 I c l

52 1. we recorded the answer to those questions in the Control Room when they 2 came through but since the guy was standing there downwind of the plume 3 the whole time, I figured well if there ever was a maximum individual, 4 its that person and when he would call back and say, well I got 15 mR 5 something like that, and I ask how long you've been there, six hours, 6i that kind of thing, then I say alright, I would think of that something 7 else that needed to 5e thought about kind of thing. That was other check that I would have to admit was not written down but I was also, I 9 had some concern for the team members and their exposures and I wanted 10 to make sure that those team members were not exposed. And as far as I 1 11 know we didn't have any exposure that got up for these team members, 12' even so they were sort of downwind of the plume we did not have any 13 numbers for those guys that reach a 100 mR. 14 15 ESSIG: I think that 16i 17 PORTER: That gave me, I think a reasonable feel for the data. 18 19{ ESSIG: Okay, Sid what I'd like to do now is to move on to a couple 20 other areas and hopefully these areas will not result in very long 21 question and answer period. Amongst the records we were provided by 22 Met Ed I have in my hand now something that appears to be a log and 23 that it has time recorded in the events so on. Now one of the these 24 was actually started before you arrived onsite, and another one was 1 2s! " O 123 t I 4

53 1.' started later on, just ask you to look at these, do they look familiar 2' with you. Now I have done some scribbling of my own on here, I've 3 added a date for example, and anything that's in there in any color 4l pink is something that I added. I'm trying to determine whether or not 5 this was a log that was maintained at the ECS or if it was a log that 6 was maintained at the observation center or in Emergency Control Center 7 or just exactly where it was maintained? The second and third days, by 8 the way, is considerably thicker and I don't even know if these are in 9 fact the same log, the same point of origin. 10 11 PORTER: The guy keeping the log, I can reme. lets see Lexy Garry did 12 not come on the first couple of oays. t 13 14 ESSIG: He came on on the 30th. 1 I 15l 16! PORTER: Yeah, he came on the 30th, I remember Lex keeping a log very i 17 specifically. We did have a lot of information being written down as l$l it was being telephone to the BRH over the hotline to the State, over l$i the State hotline and so its possible this was information that we felt i 20 was significant and we were telephoning to the BRH, I would question 21l the operators, the hotline operators to see if this was what they were 22 writing down. Cause the operators were also keeping a log as I remember. 23 24] ""O 124 i 25j l t i i

54 1 ESSIG: These were in the ECCS then? 2, 3 PORTER: What I'm saying is this could have been what the hotline 4 operators were writing. 5 6 RESNER: This time we changed the tape, the time is now 1:23 p.m. 7 eastern daylight time. 8 9 PORTER: However, this looks like an observation... 10 11 RESNER: This is a continuation of Mr. Sydney W. Porter. The time now 12 is 1:27p.m. EDT. 13 14l ESSIG: I'd like to move on to another area, briefly Sid. I have in my 15 hand Procedure 1670.4, which is the radiological dose calculation 16l procedure. 17 18, PORTER: The Emergency Plan. 19l 20 ESSIG: Yes. And I think you had previously stated that you had reviewed 21 all or part of, most or all the procedures that implement the Emergency 22 Plan. There is a specific point on here that I wanted to clarify, and 23 it's back in the Enclosure 3 to this Procedure, and it involves the 24 calculation of...where one takes the source term, the atmospheric 25j l " O 125 i I t

55 1 dispersion primer of the X/Q, multiplies the two and then divides by 2 the wind speed. Now in the process of dividing by the wind speed, is that done because the X/Q values have been normalized to...or based on 4 a wind speed of 1 mile /hr or something. S 6 PORTER: A wind speed... It's either 1 mile /hr or 1 meter /sec., whatever 7 the units are there. That's correct. 8 ESSIG: These are in units of miles per hour. 10 11 PORTER: Alright, so if it's miles per hour then they're normalized. 12 The overlays that we have are normalized to that. That's why we do 13! that. 14 l 15l ESSIG: Okay. Very good. That takes care of that point. I was able 16! to I think to clarify a question which I had asked you on one of the 17 previous two times we had interviewed, concerning management verses 18{ direction of the teams, and I think your statement that the team direction 19' never left the ECS is probably the true one as near as I can tell. 20' That is, there are a number of people that I had asked who seemed to 21[ be, who were giving the answers, but they were a little fuzzy.

And, 22 like if you recall, we had mentioned Mr. Graver and as near as I can 23 tell, the statement that you had made earlier that Mr. Graver had never 2

directed any of the surveys is true, that is, that they were always 25j "O 126 i I

56 Il j directed out of the ECS. The ECS was telling the teams where to go. 2! Mr. Potts indicated that there were a couple of times and he nipped it 3 in the bud right away, when the observation center had indicated sp-4l parently, Mr. Herbein was there, and he wanted a couple of surveys Si j made, so the observation center was directing that these be done. 6 Potts got on contact with them right away and assured them that those 7 surveys were to be directed from the ECS. So that was taken care of; and that's the only instance that I was able to find that the direction 9 was other than from the ECS. So I just wanted to clarify that point. O Another question that came up was: you had made some estimates of 1 11 radiciodine of these effluent releases. The question, and this is not 12 a question that I have, it's one of the other individuals on our in-13 vestigation team who was unable to be here for this interview; he 14 wanted to know what the sources of information were that yvu used in I 15i determining the flow rates, the ventilation system flow rates. 16! 17 PORTER: The ventilation system flow rates for what monitors... 18l l 19l ESSIG: That were used in the radioiodine release calculations from the 20 facility. 21l A"O 127 I 22 23 24 25l { l

57 1 PORTER: We used the strip chart recorders from the Unit 2 control 2 room, and when you use those, you have to be careful that you do not 3 use the printed numbers on the strips, themselves, but you have to use 4 the vernier above the strip in order to interpret the line on the strip 5 chart recorder. 6 7 ESSIG: Okay. And I think there were references.made to a so-called 8 corrected flow and some of the correspondence, I think, in your data center file, that Mr. Jackson was able to find. Does that sound familiar--a 10' corrected flow--what specifically was being referred to? 11 12l PORTER: Okay. We were mostly referring to, well first of all, some of i 13! the data we had gotten over the phone and we wanted to go back and 14 verify it. We got it over the phone during a period when people were f 15! very busy, and we went back and verified the flow with the strip chart i 16i recorder, and we also, during the early days, had not added in the 17 service building flow. The service building flow is estimated to be at 18 approximately 7000 cfm. I think I probably should state for the record i 19l that it might have been less than that, so if there is an error, the i 20' error was, after we corrected it, we erred in the conservative air mode 21 and if we see that this 7000 cfm was too high, which it very well might 22 have been it looks like now, we're to have to recorrect again, but it 23 will be in the conservative area. However, it was not conservative to 24 leave that out, and we knew that we had to put something in for that 25l l "^0 128 s t

{ 58 1! and we just had to go get the data. We, subsequently, went and got the 2 data, which is 7000 cfm, and we are having that system recalibrated in i 3 the next few days. It's been on the agenda for a week to be recalibrated 4l now, and when it's recalibrated, it probably will be not a significant 5 change; but if it is, we'll go back and correct the record. 6 ESSIG: Okay. I'll move on to another area then, Sid. There was an 8 entry in one of the logs and I'm not sure if it's the one I have in my hand right now, which I think we've considered an ECS log.S It may have 10 been another log, but the entry was that, and I know this was before 11 you arrived on the plant--I'm not going to ask you to verify that this 12 was done, but I just want a little information about it if you could--that 13 at 0737 on 3/28, ther. an instruction or request was made to turn on the 14l Yorkhaven monitor, and that's about all it was. I just would like, for 15 my information, could you tell me what the Yorkhaven monitor is--is it 1$i a liquid monitor at the dam, or is it merely a sampler and not a monitor 17 at all? 18j 19! PORTER: Well there are two things there: a) we have a, they take 2b samples for us at Yorkhaven and they composite for us, and they might 21 have been referring to taking water samples; but I believe also that 22I there's a survey meter over there, and they might have been referring 23 to the fact that these guys should turn on the survey meters to see if 24 there is anything detectable coming their way. 25l "^0 129 I t

59 1, ESSIG: When you refer to survey meter are you just talking about.. j 2' 3 PORTER: A beta gamma survey meter. Right, a beta gamma survey meter and both are over there, and since I wasn't here or I was not onsite at the time, I have no way of knowing what they were referring to. It could have been either one since there is such vague wording. 7 8 ESSIG: Or both. 9 10 PORTER: Or both. 11 i l 12 t ESSIG: Okay. When you say they, to whom would that instruction been 13 addressed? 14! i 15! PORTER: There are not that many people at Yorkhaven. So (laughter), 16j so that probably would have been whoever was in charge of the shift, I 17 would imagine. 18f 19I ESSIG: It would either be Yorkhaven city or village employees or. 20 21 PORTER: Oh no. Yorkhaven is a, I believe it's owned by Met Ed. It's I 22 a power plant, see, it's a power plant and so therefore they're Met Ed 23 employees, and they have been pretrained to use survey meters, I know 24 that. They also for years have been taking water samples for us, and { 2 "O 130

60 1. l therefore, we have the ongoing sampling program, the water sampling 2 program, so it could have been either/or, and at this point I have no 3 idea. 4 5 ESSIG: Okay. In one of the other logs that are referred to, I think, 6 this one is the observation center log. On page 47 of that log, there 7 is an entry, at 1559 which I have circled red, and I ask you, the entry 8 question says probe may be contaminated again. Was that a frequent occurrence? Were you aware that that kind of thing was happening? 10 Can you shed any light on the basis for that statement? 11 12( PORTER: Alright. This is from the helicopter and they had been taking 13 a number of samples over, right over the vent. When you take samples 14 right over the vent, you know, you can have & fair amount of rubidium 15 that can be formed when you have very high levels, and you can have a 16i rubidium daughter product contamination. It's the only thing I can i 17 think of, as far as how do you contaminate a survey meter detector in 18{ the air. The thing is, if you have high enough levels of noble gasses ld! that some of them--the xenons are going to be decaying to rubidiums, 20 remember, or the kryptons to rubidiums; but anyway, some of noble 21l gasses decayed to rubidium-88 and rubidium-88 is a particulate, and 22 especially, if you have a survey meter which has a charge on it, which 23 they all do, of course, it's how they work the GM probes; then we have 24 a situation where you can contaminate them. Normally, they're very 25}! i oc0 131

61 1 l easy to decontaminate-you can just wipe them off with a soft cloth--and 2' that, a dry soft cloth, will be often a very effective decontaminating 3l process for these things. They are easy to decontaminate, or with a 4I' 15 min. half life, you just wait around for awhile. 5 6 ESSIG: When we speak of contamination, were you aware of any instances 7 where use of an ionization chamber, that there was any xenon which 8 either fused through or around the mylar window, and actually was, at

• l present, inside the ionization chamber itself.

I am just wondering if 10 that might have been the thing that was referred to. 11 12 PORTER: That's possible, too. That's certainly possible, especially 13 with plastic. For some reason, we really see this on the installed 14; monitors; we see this phenomenon happen again and again, so therefore, 15 that's possible that this happened. We had mostly experienced teams 16 out there and the guys were used to checking their backgrounds often, 17! and they had enough extra survey meters so they would just switch off. 18! Will have to ask them about that. I had asked the people that came up i 19l from other sites to be aware of the fact that they could contaminate 20 their probes, and to every once in awhile, put it in a low background 21f Because see the truck had bricks in it, they could have stuck it area. 22 under a few bricks. 23, "O 132 24 25! i

62 l l' ESSIG: Do you recall that this was a significant problem in terms of 2' its frequency of occurrence, or was it just limited to the situations 3 that you were discussing--the helicopter measurements close in to the 4 plant vent and that type of thing? As far as the other environment 5 surveys... 6l 7 PORTER: I think that there might have been a few onsite ones, on 8 ground level onsite, and the helicopter ones are the only ones that I remember. There might have been some more. The other point, of course, 10 is that this makes you err on the conservative side and so therefore, 11I you don't spend much time getting rid of this error, when you have 12 other better things to do with your time. 13 14 ESSIG: Right. Let me ask one last question and then I think we can 15l conclude the interview. The other log that we had here, which I think 1 16 is perhaps the ECS log or 328, it had an entry at 2120, which I've 17 circled in red, and it makes reference to at 2120 offsite survey highest 18l levels, and I've been unable to really understand what that statement lbf means, because at that period of time, in looking at the records seen, 20 I didn't see any particular high offsite levels at that time. I think 21 there were a few in the Island that were high, and maybe that is perhaps 22 wnat is referred to, but to me offsite means off the Island. Were you 23 aware of anything.... 24 "^0 133 25 I t i t I

r 63 1! e PORTER: Yeah. During that time, we were having high levels onsite as 2 I think you know, and therefore, my continual question which didn't get 31 1, written down anywhere probably was: what are the highest offsite 4l levels--let's make sure they are documented. I kept asking again and t I S again and again. Either I would ask or the radio-talker would ask: 6 what are the highest levels offsite in the middle of the plume. And so 7 when we had high onsite levels, the natural reaction of the person A running things is, what are the highest offsite levels, so I think this might reflect my concern because I was there at this point. I was 10 physically there and physically asking questions, and so, I just asked that again and again for days, what's the highest offsite level. As 12 soon as we'd get a high onsite level, what it did was to trigger us to 5 i 13l say, let's make sure we have an offsite measurement that corresponds I 14 with the high onsite measurement, so we know what the situation is in 15! the environment. 16l 17 ESSIG: Okay. I think that's all the questions I have. 18! 19f RESNER: Okay. Mr. Porter, thank you very much for coming over here i 20j today, and this concludes the interview. The time now is 1:42p.m. EDT. i 21' '0 134 23 24 25' t l i .... -}}