ML19249B084
| ML19249B084 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 07/02/1979 |
| From: | Hunter D, Kirkpatrick D, Shackleton O NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908290610 | |
| Download: ML19249B084 (59) | |
Text
'
e UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
In the Matter of:
2' IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3'
of 4
Michael J. Ross Supervisor, Station Operations - Nuclear 5
6 7
8 Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10l Middletown, Pennsylvania ll!
- 12l, Aoril 25, 1979 (Date of Interview) 13!
July 2, 1979 (Date Transcript Typec) 14 81 and 82 15 (Tape Numoer(s))
16 17, 18 19
[
NRC PERSONNEL:
'22 j
Dorwin R. Hunter, Inspection Specialist 23:
i Donald C. Kirkpatrick, Nuclear Engineer 24I j
Cwen C. Shackleton, Investigator 892 300 25r l
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SHACKLETON: This is an interview of Mr. Michael J. Ross. The time is 2
3:48 p.m., April 25, 1979. Present in the room to conduct this interview 3
from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is Mr. Dorwin R. Hunter.
4l Mr. Hunter is an Inspection Specialist, Performance Appraisal Branch,
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1 n
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Inspection & Enforcement, Reactor Construction Inspection.
Also present 6
is Mr. Donald C. Kirkpatrick.
Mr. Kirkpatrick is a Nuclear Engineer 7
with Inspection and Enforcement, Headquarters, Bethesda, MD.
I am 8
Owen C. Shackleton, I am investigator assigned to Region V and will act 9
as moderator during the course of this interview. Prior to the interview, 10 I presented to Mr. Ross a two page advisement document from the U.S.
11I Nuclear Regulatory Commission which set forth the purpose and scope of 12 this investigation, identifying the authority of the U.S. Nuclear 13 Regulatory Commission to conduct such an investigation, and setting 14 forth those rights that Mr. Ross has to refuse to be interviewed.
15l Mr. Ross answered three questions on the second page of this document.
16l He answered all of them affirmatively.
At this time I am going to read 17 these questions and request Mr. Ross to respond. Mr. Ross did you 18{
understand all the information contained in the advisement document?
19l 20l ROSS:
Yes, I did.
21 22 SHACKLETON:
Do we have your permission to tape this interview?
23 l
24l 2s!
892 301 l
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1:
ROSS:
Yes, you do.
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SHACKLETON: Would you like a copy of the tape?
4 5
ROSS:
Yes, I would.
6 7
SHACKLETON:
All right sir, that will be provided, and on behalf of the 8
Commission I extend our appreciation for your being here to furnish us information regarding the incident at Three Mile Island.
For reference 10 and for understanding for those persons who will be utilizing the 11 information you provide, please, if you would, briefly set forth your 12 experience that brought you to the nuclear industry.
13 14 ROSS:
I spent approximately 8 years in the United States Navy, basically 15'
.as an enlisted man. My speciality was electronics and reactor control.
16 Included in that was one term in a tour of duty with Naval Reactors 17 Branch and the Schenectady Naval Reactors Fuel Office in Schenectady, Idf New York.
Since then I came to Metropolitan Edison in 1968, served as 19 a Staff Instructor at Saxton Nuclear Experimental Corporation in Penn-20 sylvania for approximately 2 years, being assigned to Metropolitan 21 Edison as a Shift Foreman in 1970 and coming to Three Mile Island at 22 that time.
Since 1970, I've been active in startup of both Unit I and 23 Unit 2. I've held positions of Shift Foreman, Shift Supervisor, and in 24 1978, Shift Superv.ar of Operation in Unit 1.
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892 302 i
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SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much.
And now gentlemen, I'll turn the 2
questionir.g over to Mr. Hunter.
3 4
HUNTER:
Thank you. Mike, we'd like to pick you up the morning of the 5
incident and allow you to tell us when you came to the plant and your 6
immediate activities that jou were involved in at that time.
~
7 8
ROSS:
My first contact really started at 4:35 in the morning when I 9
received a call from my Unit 1 Shift Foreman saying that Unit 1 had 10l suffered a trip and he had lost heated steam to Unit 2.
At that point 11 there was no indication that any thing was serious. His biggest problem 12 was he did not have clean feedwater to feed the Unit 1 steam generators.
13 We talked some 15 minutes, approximately, about what he should do, and not having any cause for alarm at that point, I got up took a shower,
'Si had breakfast, came to work, with no hurry in mind, arriving at the 10 site, I think, somewhere around 5:30 in the morning--that's rough.
On 17 arriving at site, still not thinking there was any thing to be concerned 10f about, I went to Unit I control room, which is my normal station, 19 reviewed with the Shift Foreman what he was doing and where we were 20f going with the Unit 1 plant.
At that time, Unit I was approximately 21l 525 degrees fully pressurized.
In preparation, we were looking at 22 possible deboration criticality on Unit 1 sometime that day after a 23 refueling outage.
Sometime, and it had to be between 6:00 and 6:30, I 24 received a call from one of the Shift Supervisors, at this time I might 25l I
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add that both Shift Supervisors were in Unit 2 at this time.
He told 2
me that, and that's one of the reasons that I started to come in, 3'
because both guys were down there and they were busy.
4 5
HUNTER:
Maybe, excuse me. The two Shift Supervisors that were in 6
Unit 2...
7 8
ROSS:
Bill Zewe was assigned to Unit 2 and Ken Bryan was assigned to 9
Unit 1, and I guess after the trip Kenny went on down to Unit 2, near 10 as we can tell.
The Foreman that contacted me was Dale Pilzitz from ll{i Unit 1.
Sometime I received a call from Bill Zewe saying he really had 12'1 a big problem and would I please come on down and give him a hand.
I'm 13 not sure of that time--it tough, it's dark somewhere between 6:00 and 14f 6:30 in the morning.
I then--and his words wasn't very...he just said 15 he had something he didn't understand real clearly, would I come. So I 16l did, I still had no reason to rush down at this point.
I arrived at 17 Unit 2, and I'm still not sure of the time. When I got there, both 18l Shift Supervisors were there, Joe Logan was there-- he's the Superin-19 tendent--George Kunder, a couple staff engineers were already assembled 20l at Unit 2.
At that point, I tried to ascertain what we really had.
I 21l
'About the time I came into the Control Room, or shortly thereafter, all I
22 reactor cooling pumps were tripped.
When we looked over, to my recol-23 lection, we did have high pressure injection.
It started--right after 24 I got there we saw something on the source range monitors, and at that 25l 892 304 t
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5 1.
time I told Bill if he wasn't injecting he ought to be also emergency 2!
I borating.
We saw a spike of some kind on that recorder.
It bothered 3l me real bad. When I look down, high pressure injection was already 4l established. Whether they reinitiated, I don't know, I never asked.
5 When I looked down we had flow and we had boric acid going in.
6 7
HUNTER:
Dale, when you came into the Unit 2 control arca, were you in 8
direct contact then with Bill Zewe?
9 10 ROSS:
Yes, I came to the console and Bill said, "Look around, I got 11 some problems here. I'm going to need some help shortly."
I started to 12l1 look around.
IT 14!
HUNTER:
Any particular thing that you look at, at that time?
15f 16I ROSS:
I look at primary plant pressure. It was somewhere around, near i
17f as I could tell, 1100 lbs, in that area--not high, it was low.
I 18 thought high pressure injection was initiated and no reactor coolant 19f pumps, the pressurizer level was really high-whether it was pegged I 20f couldn't tell from where I was standing, but it was really high.
And 21f that was what was bothering Bill at the time. He had something he 22(
didn't fully and totally understand.
Shortly, it must have been within 23 minutes, we saw something on the source ranges on the recorder.
It's a 24 big recorder that sits up on a console.
We saw movement on it and it 25i i
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bothered us, so I told Bill I thought he ought to be emergency barating 2t j
and he ought to be on high pressure injection.
That he did immediately.
3 I'm not sure that high pressure injection at this time was or was not 4'
f on.
Like I said, when I did look down, it was in fact on.
5 6
HUNTER:
And that time the pumps was already off, as I understand it.
7 ROSS:
Yeah, the pumps was off.
9 10l KIRKPATRICK:
There's no high radiation alarms at this time, yet...is 11 that right?
12 13 ROSS:
Nothing that would have caught my eye.
I look over, he had a 14l couple of alerts, but nothing that would have said, " Hey we've got a 15l problem." Okay, I did look over, and there was nothing--there was a 16 couple in over there, but I think they were like let-down coolers and 17 stuff like that, which are pretty much normal alarms.
18f 19f HUNTER:
Was there any t.hing else that caught you eye.
Anything else 20!
that caught you besides the pumps being off, the pressure was low, l
21[
t 22' ROSS:
The source range indication really bothered.
It really bothered 23 me a lot.
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HUNTER:
I Do you recall looking at the steam generators at that time?
2 3
ROSS:
No, they are on the other side of the console from where I was 4,
standing. I did not look at that particular time.
j Si l
61 HUNTER:
Okay, go ahead, at the point where you saw the source range 7
and the emergency borating...
8 9l l
ROSS:
The emergency borate had injected.
After that I told Bill we 10' ought to try to get a reactor coolant pump on, and we tried and we 11' didn't get anything.
I'm not sure of the time--it's one of the probites 12 I have, being four weeks after.
13 HUNTER:
Don't worry about the time, I'm more interested in the events.
i 15' Emergency borata, in you words, would be through what flowpaths?
16!
1 ROSSS:
Basically, through the makeup path.
There is,... you start 10f the boric acid injection pumps, it comes into the makeup system and is 19 injected with makeup pumps into the system.
20j 21 HUNTER:
Will that also include a manual pass, or could it possibly 22 include a manual injection...?
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ROSS:
It could. At that time we were using just what was available.
2 All he had to do, the emergency path was lined up to start to pumps, 3
and that's what they did.
4' 5
HUNTJ A Okay.
All right.
6, 7
ROSS:
3r;ortly thereafter, rec.lizing we had a problem with cooling, we 8
tried to start a reactor coolant pump, and we started the coolant pump.
9 First they told me....I was kind of standing back trying to absorb 10 some of this stuff and I had just walked in.
Shortly after they started, 11 they said the pump didn't start.
When I looked we could see the red 12 light on the breaker and knew the breaker was shut.
At that point they 13l ascertaired, the length of time was quite long, I'm sure, the pump only 14) had a 100 amps.
At that point we knew we probably had a dry well or i
15' something.
The pump was tripped and we commenced to increase pressure 16 and let the coolant flow out through the electromatic relief.
17l i
18}
HUJTER:
At the time the pump started, in relation to that time, were 19h there ar,y radiation alarms that came on?
20I I
21f ROSS:
It was either right at that time or shortly thereafter.
It's in 22i the same time frame that everything--
I.
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l HUNTER:
Everything came on? Was there something that came on first, 2,
l to you knowledge?
3l r
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ROSS:
It just started lighting up over there, and then the Superintendent 5
stepped up, and at that point we realized that we probably had at least 61 l
a slight emergency on our hands, and we declared that right away.
That 7
was declared by Kunder and Zewe, a site emergency.
The time was, well, 8
I know what the time was--around 7:00 in the morning by this time.
But 9
I wouldn't have remembered that.
10' 11' HUNTER:
This is a good breaking point. from this event, because we'll 12' know where to come back to it, okr.y.
. a like to go back a minute and 13 pick you brain a little bit.
M en you came in and looked at the plant 14 status, did you look at the power operated relief valve, the RV-2 1
valve, and the status of tr a reactor coolant drain tank?
16i l
17 ROSS: Well, the reactor calant drain tank, unfortunately in this 18 Unit, is around back. It's not indicated in the control room.
I did 19l look at the electromatic relief and all indications of it were in fact l
20 shut.
They have a light with a brillant light that tells you when this 21!
thing is open. It indicated shut.
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HUNTER:
The light deenergized means the circuit was deenergized through 2'
the valve. It should have been closed.
What about--let me go back and 3
clarify something. You said the reactor coolant drain tank was not in 4l the control room. It's not in the control room but it's behind the 5
panel.
6l 7
ROSS:_ Behind the panel. No, I did not look at the status of that.
8 HUNTER:
You did not go behir.d there. Ok. What about on the computer-did 10 you make a pass at the computer at that time?
11!
ROSS:
One of the Shift Supervisors at that time was trying to ascertain 13 the position of RC-RV2--it was Ken Bryan.
At that time he reported 14 back to us that it was 200 and something degrees on his thermocouple, 15 which is a fairly low reading.
And about that time we went in and 16l isolated it.
I 17l 181 HUNTER:
If you had experience in Unit 2 or Unit 1 of the powered 191 operated relief valve leaking, safety valve leakage, what would you 20 have expected that temperature to be if it was realiy leaking?
21l 22 ROSS:
If it was really leaking I would have expected something much 23 higher than 200, although I k.ow that thermocouples are strapped on a l
24l plate. It is not a weld type.
I 2si 892 310 4
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f 11 l}
HUNTER:
Could you recall an example of what temperatures you have seen I
2 when a valve is leaking significantly?
3, l
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ROSS:
We ye seen temperatures in Unit 1 on an electromatic relief when 3
we had a valve leakage problem of 280, 290, 300.
6 7
HUNTER:
During your review of Unit 2 operations, it appears that the 8
l electromatic or safety valve was in fact leaking prior to the event, 9f j
because looking at the computer alarms, looking at the temperatures, 10' the tank was--the operaors indicate that the tanks were hot.
They 11 indicated that they were having to pump a few thousand gallons a shift 12 out of the reactor drain tank, above and beyond what would normally 13 apparently be pumped by reactor coolant pump seals.
Were you aware of 1
that this morning when you were there?
15l 16 ROSS:
No, I wouldn't have any reason to be aware of that. My normal 17f station is in Unit i.
18(
19l HUNTER:
I understand that, I'm trying to...
20 21 ROSS:
I knew that they had a relief valve leaking problem. We were 22 aware of that on both units, but nothing that I would have called 23 gross.
I knew they had a leakage problem.
- h 892 311 25l I,
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HUNTER:
Were you under the assumption that morning that they were not 2!
l aware that the power operated relief valve was open, or going down?
31 4l ROSS:
Yes.
I'm under the 'ssumption that they felt it was closed, r
51 l
because sometime in that time gap we went ahead and isolated it, and 6i the reactor coolant pressure started to drop.
So we felt that the 7
electromatic had in fact been passing.
8 9f
,1 HUNTER:
But before that, had it really entered their mind that it was 10f open?
118 i
ROSS:
I think that they looked at the indications they had, including 13 l
computer, and ascertained that it was shut and just went on to something 141 else.
15i 16 HUNTER:
Okay, the temperatures were low, indicating low, which might 17l indicate that it might be weakened and not drawing?
18f 19 ROSS:
Yes, I would say, yes exactly.
20l 21 HUNTER:
The reactor coolant drain tank, temperature and pressure and 22l level are indicated on a coatrol panel behind, around from the operator--
i 23[
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1 ROSS:
Panel 8A, right.
21 31
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HUNTER:
Which is around the corner.
The operator, except for the 4l computer, do you know if he had any indication on that, on the rea.ctor 5
coolant drain tank, reactor coolant system, reactor coolant drain tank 6i system in front of him?
7 8
ROSS:
No, he has nothing except the computer.
9 i
10' HUNTER:
OK.
In your tour--again, I realize that you just walked in.
11' You were doing a tour and realizing that, I don't know what details, 12 you look at "HIPSI"--if you mentioned high pressure injection.
You 1
mentioned that you oio in fact look--can you recall when--I'm not 14l worried about the time-when you came in, can you recall the high pressure 15l injection light on? Did you look at it in that amount of detail?
16i l
17 ROSS:
I looked down to see that we had flow from the high pressure, 18) and where you look is on the back panel.
I looked over the panel light 19!
to see what--
20 2%
HUNTER:
What did you see?
22l l
23l ROSS:
I saw a flow indication, up in the 200 range in each leg. You 24 know, it was up, normal indication.
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HUNTER:
Four legs?
2!
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3 ROSS:
It looked to me like it was all 4 legs.
4{
5 HUNTER: At that time?
61 7
ROSS:
Yeah...like I said, I don't if it was af ter they reinitiated or 8
not.
I'm not sure at this time.
9 10' HUNTER:
OK, that's fine. The site emergency then was declared. After 11 you started the pump, the alarms went off, and the site emergency was 12!
declared.
What activity did you become involved in then?
13 141 ROSS: Well, then we just decided to increased the makeup flow, but we 15 didn't increase the pressure in the system.
We let it essentially flow 16 through RC-RV2.
The electromatic is our cooling mode if we have no i
17f hole in the system. We put it in there and tried to get some flow 18!
through the system. We started that. Shortly there abouts, within 19 minutes, Gary Miller came into the control room and took charge of the 20{
control room.
Gary is our Site Manager and that time he appointed me 2
as his Liaison for Operations as Senior Operations guy there.
He's 22, formed management staff that was going to report to him for the emergency.
23 24 2s!
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l HUNTER:
What did this staff include?
2!
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ROSS:
The Operations guy, which was me, and I was to give direction or 4
counsel to the shift supervisors; e B&W guy by the name of Lee Rogers, 5
l and where he showed up, I'm not sure, but he's pretty quick; maintenance 6i was going to be taken care of by Dan Shovlin, who's a Maintenance 7
Superintendent; and Dick Dubiel was placed in charge of HP type areas; 8
and Jim Seelinger was in placed in charge of the Emergency Controls 9
Center and offsite activities, trying to give us some control and to 10 divide duties a little.
Basically, I would remember it that way.
11 12 HUNTER:
You were receiving then, your instructions from Gary Miller.
13 1
MS2 Yes sir.
15i 16 HUNTER:
And you then were... and who was orking specifically for 17 you soon after that?
18!,
19!
ROSS:
Shift supervisors.
I was giving instruction in operational type 20 modes at that time.
21, 22 HUNTER:
And that would include Bill Zewe and Ken Bryan, both?
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l ROSS:
Someplace lr. there, we sent Ken Bryan back to Unit I and his 2!
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relief, someplace in there, also came in-another Shift Supervisor, 3
Brian Mehler.
So we kept Mehler in 2 and sent Ken Bryan back to 1 to 4
make sure we had some operational type senior people in both Units, 5
because basically we ended up with everybody down there. And with a 6
radiation amergency going on, they were going to need somebody up 7
there.
8 9
HUNTER:
What did you get specifically involved in at that time?
10 11 ROSS:
At that time Gary had specified and talked about what our goals 12l ought to be at this time, knowing that we did have a problem. The 13 seriousness, I don't think we fully realized. Our guidelines at that 14 time was to try to limit offsite doses, try to keep the core covered 15!
and cool, as best we could, and to limit damage to Met Ed people and 16!
equipment.
That was kind of our charter at that time.
We talked about i
17 the plant status and we decided we'd continue to inject to increase the 18 pressure as much as we could to keep high pressure injection going.
19!
i 20 3UNTER:
Would you expand on that some?
Looking at high pressure 21{
injection, from that time the pump has been secured, the alarms are on, 22 you discovered your main stream high pressure injection--what be the I
231 flow at that time?
892 316 24 25!
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17 11 ROSS:
I would say the flow would still have been 225 per leg.
At that 2t l
time--I'm not sure what we gave the operator, we gave the operator a 3{
pressure drain to maintain with the electromatic block--electromatic 4!
relief valve, and I believe we gave them somewhere around 18-1900 5
pounds to maintain the system at 2000 pounds, in that area.
They were 6l letting the pressure build up like this.
7 8
HUNTER:
Okay, and that was with one or two high pressure injection 9
pumps running and--
10 11 ROSS:
Two high pressure injection pumps.
12 HUNTER: Would they be throttling the high pressure injection at that 14 time?
15j 16 ROSS:
They'd be torottled to maintain leg flows-225, but that should 171 have already been set.
I don't believe we throttled anything else at 18l that time.
19l l
20 HUNTER:
Okay, with this particular amount of time, this time then, you 21 were actually maintaining in the range of 900 for four legs at 225 I
22 gallons a leg, and controlling opening the main door, opening motor 23
. operating valve on the RV-2 valve pressure, the pressure relief? Okay, 24 how long did this go on?
892 317 i
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ROSS:
It seemed like a long time...an awful long time.
2' I
3 HUNTER:
Yes, try to key to the next activity, like "we maintained this 4!
l until this time," and we'll try to key it back into this place time 5
frame.
61 7
7 ROSS:
Someplace in there, we lost the auxiliary boilers and I had to 8
break vacuum in Unit 2, and that was in the morning. I not real sure of 9
the time, but it was well before noon.
10l t
HUNTER:
OK, that's most important, is the activity. Don't worry about 12 the time.
13l 14 ROSS: We lost vacuum, we broke vacuum.
15j 16!
HUNTER:
What did this do to you, this force Unit 2?
17 l
18!
ROSS:
We weren't really much steaming out of that generator, even 19 though we'd brought the levels up. It didn't appear to us that we were 20{
getting any I. eat exchange from that at all, anyway, not much of it.
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HUNTER:
At this time, basically you're sitting with the safety, the 2!
l high pressure injection system discharging out to the power operated 3[
j relief valve, isolation valve, as necessary to maintain the pressure.
41 What did you see on the Th, the temperature, Tc's.
5 Gi ROSS:
They were awful high on Th, indication that, yeah, we did in 7
fact have vapor up in the legs. They were offscale.
8 9
HUNTER:
Did you recall cny thermocouple readings at that time?
10 11 ROSS:
Not till later. We had asked for thermocouple readings, and I
12 they had come back questionable, question marks off the computer.
13 14 HUNTER:
That means, what would the normal temperature on the computer 15j be?
16l 17 ROSS:
Well, normal temperatures would be hard.
In this particular 18!
Unit, we're talking about 1200 or less.
That question mark means it 19 was out of the scan range, is what it means, or it had in fact a rault 20i of somi: kind.
21 2
HUNTER:
The hot legs were extremely high, what about the cold legs?
23l 2j 892 319 25!
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ROSS:
I'm not real real sure. It looked to me like they were down low 2
someplace, indicating there was stagnant flow someplace.
31 1
4l HUNTER:
And at this time, you had seal water injection to the pumps?
5 6
ROSS:
Yes...still on.
7 8
HUNTER:
Seal continuously...were you at the control panel in the 9
control room area when they had their first building isolation signals?
6 10' 11 ROSS:
I was close. I think that was somewhere in the morning again, 12 quite early. I was back trying to map out our next plan is what I was 13 doing. But, yeah I was there when they got an isolation signal.
It was 14 maybe 9 or 10 o' clock in the n:orning, I don't know.
15j 16 HUNTER:
Did you see any changes occur when the building isolated, that 17l you recall, any significant changes in the
...?
18l l
19l ROSS:
The only significant thing was that the operator reported that 20 the building spray pump started.
It started sometime in that area.
21f f
22l HUNTER:
Sometime in the mctning?
23 24l 892 320 25!
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ROSS:
Yeah.
2\\
i 3l HUNTER:
The pressure to start the building spray pump is what?
5l l
ROSS:
30 pounds.
6l 7
HUNTER:
OK, so that one's 20--
8 9
ROSS:
Two different pressure switches.
10 l
l^' '
HUNTER:
OK. Going back earlier in the morning, okay, there appears to 12 be a building isolation when the pressure drifted up to 4 lbs.
Do you have any recollection of that particular time?
14l
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15l ROSS:
It may have, and like I said things were...
I remember at 16!
least once, possibly twice that we did get the isolation signai.
17 18 HUNTER:
Okay.
And your going through this high pressure injection, 19l maintaining pressure, what will be the next--all of your boilers lost, 20' or what would be the next key event--
21 22 ROSS:
Broke vacuum.
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HUNTER:
Broke vacuum.
2 l
31 i
ROSS:
Then we were ordered to shut our atmospheric dump to the atmosphere 4I
{
on the one generator that wasn't isolated.
And it was a concern we Si were dumping activity and we were relatively sure we weren't. And we 6l i
did that somewhere around noon.
7 8
HUNTER:
That was to isolate the actual steam relief pump on the A 9l generator, or the one that wasn't isolated.
10 11 R0SS:
Right. And at that point we reestablished and started pulling 12 vacuum again somewhere, right around in that same area.
It's a little 13 confusing to us exactly when it was.
141 15l]
HUNTER:
That will be reestablishing the auxiliary steam from Unit 1--
16!
i 17I ROSS:
Right.
18i 19!
HUNTER:
Or the auxiliary boiler and then getting the vacuum back.
i 20f i
21 ROSS:
Trying to look for any kind of heat sink we could get, even 22 though we were having trouble getting a circulation path, any heat sink 23 would have better than that.
24 892 322 2s i
i
23 l!
HUNTER:
OK. The next key event that you recall?
2' 3
ROSS:
Well, Miller got orders to the Governor's ofrice sometime in 4j that area, and he had to leave. So we just kept on with what we were i
5 doing.
6l I
7 HUNTER:
Who took his place then?
8 9
ROSS:
Basically, he turned things over to Joe Logan, the Superintendent 10 for Unit 2, and he was gone, I don't know, an hour an a half or so, and 11 he came back. And we had been asking for recommendations from B&W at 12 that point.
At that point, the next key one I remember was making a 13 decision, which was a hard decision, for all of us to blowdown and try 14, to go on 1) core-flood injection and 2) possibly decay heat removal.
I 15{
l 16' HUNTER:
And you said that recommendation came from...
17 i,.
18!,
ROSS:
It was a joint recommendation that B&W concurred in. It was all 19 people involved.
20 21l HUNTER:_ I just want to know where it came from so that we know who to 22 talk to, okay? So, we're going through--
23 1
24 892 323 25l f
24 1
ROSS:
It came out of the think group there, the five of us that were 2
involved so co-equals, and that's what we did.
2l 4
HUNTER:
Lee Rodgers was involved in the think tank and he was directly--
5 6
ROSS:
It was Gary, me, and at that point we tried to make a run, if 7
you will, down as the core flood got on.
8 9
HUNTER:
Okay, so we're at the point now where the high pressure injection 10' is still going, the motor operated valve is being cycled by the operator 11 to maintain pressure, and you are consideting going down to the core flood tanks.
13 i
14 SHACKLETON:
Gentlemen, we'll cut right here. The time is now 17 minutes 15 !
after 4:00 PM, April 25, 1979. We will resume our interview when we 16 turn the tape.
171 18f SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of an interview for Mr. Michael J.
19f Ross. The time is now 4:18 p.m. April 25, 1979.
Please continue.
20\\
l 21!
HUNTER:
We left talking about preparing to depressurize and go to the 22 core flood tanks. Mike, would you continue that?
23 24 892 324 25!
4 i
I
(
25 1
l ROSS:
And that we did, we came down... one of our fears was that we 2!
l weren't getting flow through the core, you can't tell from out there.
3' We were hoping that all that high pressure injection was in fact going 4
up through the core.
Thoughts were that we can come down, get the four 5l flood tanks to go in, verify the core was in fact covered, and keep 6
high pressure injection going pushing water through the core.
We did 7
come in the Unit, and as near as I can tell, pressure only went as low 81 l
as about 200 some pounds.
Core flood tanks went in at some volume, 9
probably a foot, foot and a half, not much. There was no inrush, tre-10l i
mendous inrush into the core, and hopefully that indicated there was 111 i
some water in there anyway.
At that time we decided we'd continue high 12*
pressure injection, hoping we'd get some natural circulation and break whatever steam void we did. Then I think what we started doing was 14 alternating legs on high pressure injection at that time, trying to get 15!
one side to recirc a little more, the other flow back on one side. So 16 we definitely had a--
17l l
18f HUNTER:
Okay. Let's go back.
What did you depressurized to go down to 19!
the core flood tanks, did you reduce the high pressure injection or did 20f you just
...?
21f 22f ROSS:
To my knowledge, high pressure injection was not reduced until 23 we actually got down there and we were trying to swap flow between legt 24l to get the natural cire to break.
25l 892 325 i
l l
t
I l
26 I
1 HUNTER:
In the core flood tanks, basically, it appears you probably 2t l
just flooded the core flood tanks on the system and you then blocked up 3
with whatever pressure the core flood tanks were, would maintained.
4l Then you indicate that you varied the flows to the four loops.
Would i
5 you go into that all in more detail, how you do that.
Si 7
ROSS:
That one is a little hazy.
We were back in the think tank, and 8
one of the things that was recommended was that we try break, get some 9l l
natural circulation of some kind going, maybe increase the flow in one 10' leg and cut the flow bar.,in one leg. Hopefully that would do something f
for us, which we tried.
I'm--not being in the control room at the time, we were back in the think tank--I'm not sure how much they varied 13 at that time, what there range was in varying.
14!
t 15l HUNTER:
What was the. intent? Was the intent to increase the flow in 16f one leg and decrease it in on the other.
I 17; l
18!
ROSS:
Yeah.
19!
20 HUNTER:
Was there any talk about maintaining the same flow, the same 21l total flow to the core?
22 892 326 22 24 25 e
l
l t
t 27 1
ROSS:
Talk was to keep high pressure injection on in a reasonable high 2
amount of flow. We didn't tell them that couldn't move more than ten 3!
gallons or anything, but the idea was to stay in the same area.
4f 5
l HUNTER:
O kay.
Let me make sure I understand.
The intent was to try 61 to, by varying the flow to the legs, to possibly establish some natural i
7 circulation?
8 9
ROSS:
Grasping the straw in the middle, but looking to do something.
10j 6
11 HUNTER:
Okay, no problem, Then, go ahead and continue.
Do you recall, 12 not when, but maybe how long you were actually in this evolution?
13l l
14l ROSS:
We talked about coming back out of it quite rapidly, but then wa 15!
started to see some temperature changes in the legs and indication 16i maybe we were going to get some flow.
So we stayed there and continued 17 this for a little while, and we eventually did start to bring Tcs and 18{
Ths closer together. We started to see Tc's come up and Th's come down.
19l By then we had a recorder hooked up on the Th and it was a higher range 20f then our instruments. They were telling us, yeah, they were seeing Ths l
21!
come down.
l 22 23 HUNTER:
Okay, and can you recall what temperatures they were talking I
24l about?
l 2s!
892 327 i
i i
I 6
f 28 1.
j ROSS:
Yeah, they were talking 700 and then we coming back on scale.
2' 3
HUNTER:
OK, and Tc's at that time, were they still low?
4j n
~
ROSS: ' Yeah, they were low.
6 l
7 HUNTER:
And then they would be coming back from where, do you recall?
8 9f ROSS:
100 and some degrees...or 90 to 100. I don't know. Low.
i 10' 11 HUNTER: I'm having a little trouole with...I'm not to sure I understand 12' where the 100 water came from, except that unless--with high pressure 13 injection going, where does it inject?
141 i
15!
ROSS:
It comes in a discharge to the reactor coolant pumps.
16i 17 HUNTER:
Into a vertical line, or...?
18l 19 ROSS:
Yeah, it comes into the line, right at the discharge to the 20 pump, it comes into the side of the line.
21l l
22l HUNTER:
Okay, in the side.
I 23l 24l 892 328 i
25j i
i
29 i
fl!
l ROSS:
And the thermocouples are in that.
2?
3 :
HUNTER:
What will be the water flow? What would you approximate the 4
water flow at that time, coming into A loop, to pump discharge, would Si j
it go both ways? Would it go.through the...
6 7
ROSS:
I would like to think it would go through the core.
8 9l HUNT D:
Did you recall in the think tank, the discussion as far as 10 what the flow paths were?
11 ROSS:
We kept thinking, we were hoping that we weren't short cycling 13 the core and back this way. But our thoughts were being, possibly were 14!
so cold we were getting a lot of injection into the core.
I 15j 16 HUNTER:
Okay, do you recall the steam generator levels at that time, 17 or the pressures? Did you discuss those?
18l 191 ROSS:
Yeah.
Seems to me they were like a 100 lbs generator pressure.
20}
21 HUNTER:
fil right, you had flood up for natural circulation before you 22 took the pumps off
...?
22 892 329 24l l
25l i
i, a
l
{
30 1
l ROSS:
That's correct. We brought the levels up for natural circulation.
2!
3 HUNTER:
And they were sitting there at that level, I suppose.
4l l
Si j
ROSS:
130, something like that.
6i 7
HUNTER:
Again, at low pressure, apparently.
9 ROSS:
Yeah, real low pressure.
10 11 HUNTER:
The next significant event that you can recall, that you were 12!
involved in?
13 14 ROSS:
Like I said, we started to see the Tc's, and the next event was i
15 !
later that night. Once we had seen that we had talked about tring to i
16 get a reactor coolant pump. By then our Manager had called over and 17 said, "you guys ought to go back solid," which we started to do-Jack 18{
(Herbein) called, and we were starting to go back solid, total injection, 19!
two makeup pumps, to take her back solid. At this time we started l
20j looking we saw all inoications that the loop was in fact filling, both 21 by the amount of water and the pressure kind of hung up and water flow 22 kept on going with the RC2V tube isolated. This told us we were in fact 23 filling all the loops. At that time we talked to B&W and talked about 24 getting a reactor coolant pump started, and we discussed which pump we 25 l
892 330
f, 31 l
l!
l would start, after knowing all the history on all the pumps, what pumps 2
had been run by then and by that time I think about all of them had 3
been run dry, by the way.
So we talked a great length about which pump 4'
would start and at that point we decided which pump we would do.
We 5
then bumped the pump. When I say " bumped", we ran it just long enough 6i l
to see the reactor coolant pressure change and get flow indication.
7 And the reactor coolant pressure changed radically. At the time we 8
bumped it, we were probably 18-1900 lbs and pressure dropped down to 91 l
about 1100 lbs. We had about a 6-700 lbs drop, like right now.
That f
was somewhere around 7:00, you might say.
11l l
12!
HUNTER:
Okay, let's go back a little earlier, during the afternoon. I 13 think you said it was decided to go off the core flood tanks.
You 14l weren't getting down to decay heat removal.
You weren't able to get 15 down that far.
16l t
17 ROSS:
We weren't able to get down.
IS!
l 19!
HUNTER:
And it was decided to go back up in pressure. Where did this 20f come from? I take it--
21f i
22; 892 331 1
23l 24 25!
32
[
l ROSS:
We had talked about it in the tank some, and also about that 2!
t time, Jack Herbein called over and said he wanted the plant taken 3
solid.
4l 5
HUNTER:
Okay.
6{
l 7
ROSS:
So that's were we headed.
8 91 1
HUNTER:
So, you would then continue high pressure injection on two 10l l
pumps, leaving the motor operated valve on RCV closed on the relief 11f valve and continue up. Do you recall any significant changes during the time you were pressurizing?
13 14j ROSS:
As far as Tc and Th continued to diverge for us at that time, 15l and coming closer, indicating we were getting some flow.
161 l
17 HUNTER:
They were converging at that time.
18[
l 19l ROSS:
The other significant event was that, without the pressure going 20l up, we got up to like 16-1700 lbs, and pressure kina of held, indicating i
21!
to us we were flowing into the loops. It didn't just take straight up.
22j 23 HUNTER:
What would that indicate, that you're not solid?
241 I
25l i
892 332
33 1.
l ROSS:
Yeah, that's what that would indicate.
2!
l 31
(
HUNTER:
And that you had a bubble?
4j 5
ROSS:
Someplace, yeah for sure. At least that was my analysis. We 6l j
didn't talk about it, but I kept thinking, "geez, we've been pumping 7
air a long time but pressure is not going up anymore. We must be filling 8
loops." At that time we talked about hcw much extra water...
9l 10' HUNTER:
That was the context you talked about though, that you must be 11l just filling the loops?
12; i
ROSS:
Yeah.
14!
I 15 HUNTER:
And continuing to pressurize and then... it seems like a long 16f time to me. You're going out towards 7:00, I think, the pump was started, 17 later in the evening.
18{
191 ROSS:
Around 7:30 I think.
20 1
21!
HUNTER:
So you bumped the pump.
22l t
23 24l 892 333 25i 4
I I
[
34 r
1 ROSS:
We bumped it once.
We did see flow.
We did see loop temperatures 2,
j change and we did see a rapid decrease in pressure when we did that.
3!
B&W recommended that we wait 15 minutes at that time to protact our 4l pump 'cause they felt that was going to be our cooling mode at this S;
t time.
And we increased pressure quite high, we must have went 2200 lbs 6l or 2300 lbs, maybe, in order to accomodate this pressure decrease, with 7
our goal being, once we started to pump the second time, to leave it 8
running.
9 10 HUNTER:
Then you starting to save time and what happened?
11f 12' ROSS:
Then it went, it ran, pressure dropped down quite rapidly and 13 didn't stabilize and we left the pump running. And it looked to me like 14 when the pump was started we had a loop temperature somewhere in the 15i area of 300-320, in that area.
That would at least tell me that we 16' did cool the core. As a layman, anyway.
17 18 HUNTER:
Okay.
And then, at that time the pump was on, did you start 19I to... did you maintain pressure or go back to normal pressure?
20!
21 ROSS:
What we did then, not thinking we had any further problems, what 22 we did was kept the pressurizer heaters on, brought the temperature up, 23 and we drained the pressurizer hoping to shift.
.. I guess we were 24l kind of solid in the pressurizer--indications were solid anyway--to 25!
i 892 334
f.
i 1
l 35 14 I
shift the bubble to the pressurizer if there was a bubble anyplace 2;
else.
We continued to heat the pressurizer and get it hotter and drain 31 l
down a little bit on the pressurizer with the reactor coolant pump on.
41 Later that evening we did see indication of the level coming down and 5
pressure kind of stabilizing.
I think that pressure was somewhere 61 around 14-1500 lbs.
7 i
8 I
HUNTER:
With the heaters on, you were heating--the power operated 9
relief valve closed, the pumps on, the system is basically solid except 10l l
if there was a bubble somewhere.
At least you were steaming, you were 11!
[
going through a steam generator at that time. Then you were able to 128 steam...
13 f
14i j
ROSS:
By that time we had vacuum also, again.
15i i
HUNTER:
Were you cooling do through the..
what was you cool down i
I path?
IS{
19!
ROSS:
Dumping back to the condenser through the turbine bypass valves.
20 i
21 HUNTER:
Pumping the water then back..
22 23 892 335 24 i
25; I
t i
l 1
I
(
36 i
l lj l
ROSS:
Back, and we did go into a cool down made shortly thereafter, 2!
cooling the plant down.
From what I remember, about 330, we brought 3
it down to, late that evening, very late we were like 250-260 in that 4!
area.
That was about 2:00 in the morning, by then.
5 61
)
j HUNTER:
Looking at the pressurizer, since that probably was the only 71 l
thing that was going on at that ti.?.e, seems that things were fairly 6L I
well straightened out by that time.
I hope you were probably involved 9I
(
ir that particular avolution, and you, ir fact, had the pressurizer 10 heaters on.
11 1
ROSS:
Yes.
13 14 HUNTE Q What would the pressurizer temperature be coing!
i 15l If'!
ROSS:, Coming up.
17!
l 1
HUNTER; If you were sitting at 1450 or 1350 lbs, you had a goal to 19l come up to tne satucsdon temperature, I presume.
And then start 20!
draining?
21:l i
22l R0SS:
Yeah.
23 s
892 336 24 25'i f
l t
37 1
l HUNTER:
And get the bubble into the pressurizer?
2' 3
ROSS:
Get the bubble in the pressurizer and try to get to what we 4
would call a normal cooldown mode.
We'd have the pump on, we'd have 5
the bubble supposedly in the pressurizer, we would be steaming the 6
generator, except one generator bottled, we would go into a normal 7
cooldown rtode at that time.
And basically, that's for we did that.
8 9
HUNTER:
So, you ended up that evening, sometime that evening, with a 10 bubble sitting at constant pressure, one reactor coolant pump on, 11l1 normal charging makeup, reactor coolant pump seals.... Do you recall 12 letdown at that time?
13 14l ROSS:
We did not have any indication by then.
Letdown was a source of 15l problems al'l through this because we never determined what we had.
16l 17 HUNTER:
Give me the reason.
See if you can key on letdown sometimes 10!
and maybe we'll try to put it together.
19f 20 ROSS:
I think earlier in the morr;ing we had letdown flow indication, 21; relatively low.
And then later on we lost all indication. We felt we I
22 had some letdown and sometime in that period of time we went ahead a 23 isolated the letdown and we saw the effect of the letdown relief valve 24l 2s!
892 337 f
i i
38 1;
i lifting back at the bleed tank.
We actually had seen the flow spike.
2!
l At the time we couldn't determine whether or not we didn't have any 3
letdown flow or whether the instrument was screwed up.
The instrument 4
would move every time it would look like the relief valve relieved or 5
lifted.
It just continued to... we did have indication, yeah, we did 6
have letdown but we were not able to ascertain how much it was.
7 8
HUNTER:
Okay,in the letdown relief lifting, did that go to bleed tank?
10 11f ROSS:
Yeah, it's a hard fight to the bleed tank.
12t 13 HUNTER:
Okay, could you tell that it was going to the bleed tank?
14!
l 15l ROSS:
Not for sure, there was no real way.
We had indication trit the 16 relief valve was lifting and that--
17 18{
HUNTER:
What about the bleed tank level?
19f I
20l ROSS:
It went up some, I'm saying but that--
21 22 HUNTER:
Yeah, I'm trying to make sure that the line actually went to 23 the bleed tank.
24 892 338 25l s'
i
39 l'
ROSS:
Yeah, I wish I could say I could guarantee you that that's where 2l l
it went.
We had indications that the bleed tank pressure went up, 3l which could have been just from the vent header, and also indications 4
that level did in fact go up in the bleed tank.
So it could have came 5
from there, it should have came from thsre.
61 7
HUNTER:
What was the letdown situation as you went on through the day?
8 9
ROSS.
We continued trying to open bypasses and establish more letdown 101 I
to give us more control in the situation we were in--open some bypass 11 valves in the system that we could get to externally without giving 12 anybody a big dose.
By then we had relatively firm HP control in areas 13 and they were all roped off and their was Scott airpack areas to get 14 into.. things like this. We continued trying to establish anc wondering 1~5 why we couldn't get any flow indication.
We tried somethings like 16 valving in other demineralizers, some experiment trying to get letdown 17 f)gy, 18j 19!
HUNTER:
Did you end up with scme?
20l l
21 ROSS:
We also felt we had some, but we never ended up with any indication.
22 23 HUNTER:
Okay, and that's were you left it?
24 2s 89c 339 t
i
I 40 l
ll HUNTER:
The indication I'm talking abcut is actual flow indication in 2t the letdown line.
We had indication we had letdown in that we could 3
control our level and our pressure somewhat but no indication of amount 4l of gallons.
53 61 HUNTER:
What about the makeup tank?
7 8
ROSS:
The makeup tank level told us we did have some letdown.
9 10f HUNTER:
I'm trying to visualize.... Would you still have been using lli the baron, the 8W5T, the Boric Acid, the Baron Water Storage Tank at 12(
this time or would you be strictly on the volume control tank?
13 14 ROSS:
Still strictly on the volume control tank and making up as 15 !
necessary from the BWST at that time.
16!
17 HUNTER:
Making up as necessary?
18l 19l ROSS:
Yeah. When the makeup tank get a little low, you open the value, 20f suck a little water into the tanks.
l 21j 22 HUNTER:
Right. Where would it be going?
23 24 25>
892 340 i
41 1
ROSS:
Into the system, into the makeup tank.
2!
3t l
HUNTER:
Okay, the makeup tank is then being charged into, being added 4l the primary coolant system.
5 l
61 ROSS:
Yeah, right.
7 8
HUNTER:
Were you leaking anywhere at that time, that you were aware 9'
of?
10 11' ROSS:
Nothing we were aware of, and its kind of hard to ascertain the 12) fact that we were changing temperature and cooling down at the same time.
We had no reason to think we had any gross leaks anyplace, based 14) on what we had seen.
15j 16 HUNTER:
Okay, I think that I have got up to the point where we're at 17 15 hours1.736111e-4 days <br />0.00417 hours <br />2.480159e-5 weeks <br />5.7075e-6 months <br /> into the event. The pump is on, things are fairly stable. This 18!
is the first cut at our program to get your involvement.
Are there any 19 areas you can think of--not times or anything--but any activities that 20 you were involved in that are significant--of course, I'm just trying 21!
to l'ead you through it--that you feel that are significant that we i
22' should discuss? Even if we don't, what will happen is, as we go to 23 other people, I'm sure we'll key back into you and try to cross-reference 24 your activities.
But if there's something significant that we need to 25
.)
(
42 l
Il!
l get, that we need to look at, we don't want to miss anything...
2 concerning the high pressure injection.
One thing that I might ask 3
that might key your thoughts, is that there are two boron samples that 4
we're dealing with, that was earlier-one was 400 ppm and one was 700 ppm.
51 l
Were you involved in that or
...?
Gl ROSS:
I heard the results of one of them, in the morning--
8 9
HUNTER: Which one did you hear?
10' 1
I ROSS:
It was either 6 or 700.
i 12(
1 HUNTER:
Okay.
141 l
15 ROSS:
Okay. I thought it was either. It was discounted in the control 16i room the first time, of course, as being an erroneous sample.
I think 17 they had that piece of information--we had seen the spike on the source IS{
range, I can't be sure of that.
'Cause at that point we said, "Oh man, 19 maybe that sample is right.
Let's..."
20 21l HUNTER:
Did you get another sample at that time?
22 22 892 342 24l 1
25i i
{
43 f
ROSS:
There was two samples requested. I don't remember which can 2
first.
But on doing the second sample, when Dick Dubiel got involved 3
and started isolating the building, I guess he had seen something, 4
activity wise radiation levels wise.
5 6
HUNTER:
During the second sample, you said that's when the building 7
was...was Dick...
8 9
ROSS:
No, Dubiel--let me rephrase that for you guys.
Dick Dubiel is a 10 person.
11, 12l HUNTER:
No, I understand that. I knew that--
13 14 f
I said building was isolated, and he was saying get the people ROSS:
15l for sure out of the auxiliary buildings for both units, because he 10 wasn't sure what was going on.
17 10!
HUNTER:
Did he see something at that' time?
19 20 ROSS:
Radiation levels on the sample line, I think.
21!
22 23 892 343 1
24 25 r
l l
l
.t
44 1
HUNTER:
OK, so he was picking up something... to get a boron sample..again, 2.
j my understanding that that letdown sample would be on recirc through 31 l
the sample room.
4l 5
ROSS: That's correct.
And the sample room being located in Unit 1.
6 7
HUNTER:
Then you would have the hot lines.. Do you happen to know 8
what time that was? Do you have any feel for it?
9 Was there any...
10 ROSS:
Before 7:00 12l HUNTER:
Was there any event that happened that would key us to that i
14) time?
I guess maybe drawing the sample would key us to that time.
15j i
16!
ROSS:
Yeah.
17l t
18 HUNTER:
OK, and I got this sample, the technician would log that he 19' drew a sample at time, I guess. Anything else?
20 21 ROSS:
Radiation monitoring charts in Unit 1 possibly, in that the hot i
22 machine shop lines pass through the Unit 1 monitors.
23 I
24 2sj 892 344
{
1 45 1.
I HUNTER:
OK.
We'll key into that. So were trying to see when we saw 2
the first radiation increase into the Units.
3 4f ROSS:
I think Dubiel would have that time, 'cause he'd just come to 5
work.
6 I
7 HUNTER:
Just a general area, just a general question--and I go through 8
the procedures of what you do when you trip the plant and try to understand-t's 9
my understanding that as soon as you tripped the plant there are chemistry 10 requirements this plant, that you have to get the chemistry, run 11 baron, and reduce some other chemistry, iodine, that type of thing.
So 12 they would have put the letdown on recirc early, based on the fact that 13 they had--the operators do a shutdown margin calculation also.
14; 1
ROSS:
Right.
16 17 HUNTER:
Is that based on the baron that was there when they tripped or i
10I did they get a new boron sample?
19l 20f ROSS:
The first one's based on the boron at the time of the trip.
Of 21 course, he was trying to make sure that we are shut down.
He corrected 22 with actual barons in the plant.
23l 1
24l 2sl 892 345 l
l
{
46 l!
HUNTER:
How long does that normally take?
I 2
3 ROSS:
It can vary.
We are talking, probably by the time that the guy 4
gets down there and gets a sample, we are talking about an hour or two i
5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br />, really, by the time the guy recircs it and gets the number back 6'
to us.
7 8
HUNTER:
Okay.
But probably the normal time frame would be before they 9
turned the pumps off.
That's at 7:00, that would mean you have three 10 hours1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br />?
lli 12 ROSS:
j Yeah, I would think that they would have them by then.
13 14f HUNTER:
Okay, any other area that we can key on, or particular actions?
15i Any comments?
16l 17 ROSS:
No comments, except that one of the big problems we had was 18 keeping track of time.
19l l
20{
HUNTER:
One of the.... Were things going on so heavy that you just 21l couldn't--
i 22 23l ROSS:
Grasp it.
24l 892 346 i
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11 l
HUNTER:
Grasp the time?
2!
3 ROSS:
Time went by and we found we spent 20 or 25 minutes on something 4
we thought we had spent 5 minutes on.
I think if we knew that, that 5
would have helped us an awful lot.
6l i
7 HUNTER:
What about the numbers of people in the control room? You 8
were in fairly early?
9 10l ROSS:
j Yeah, ECS moved twice throughout that incident.
That added to the confusion in the control room, but--
12 1
HUICER:
Where--they moved once?
From where? Unit 1 to...?
j 141 15 ROSS:
To Unit 2, to Unit I and back, and back again, as far as I know.
16i 17 SHACKLETON:
Mr. Ross, could you define ECS for people not familiar 18f with the terminology?
19f 20 ROSS:
ECS is a body of people, basically staff engineers, and it's 21 emergency control center. Their job is to take care of and mitigate the 22I offsite things, track offsite doses, predict offsite doses, communicate 23 with the State and the NRC and our consultants in any emergency.
24 25i 892 347 l
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HUNTER:
Where was the emergency center first located?
2 31 i
ROSS:
Part of the Unit 2, first.
4 HUNTER:
And that is where?
Gi 7
ROSS:
They were around the area of the. shift supervisor's offices.
8 9
HUNTER:
Okay, and then where did they move?
10 11 ROSS:
They went to Unit 1, and I recollect it came back once for just 12 a few minutes, and then it was gone.
13 14 HUNTER:
Numbers of people around the control board during the incident?
15j i
16!
ROSS:
Not excessive. One thing we did do, and probably increased the 17 number of people around the control board is, in the morning hours we 18f realized that we did in fact have at least a major plant problem at a 19f minimum.
And we assigned an operator to every panel and a shift ? reman, t
20' a supervisor to back that guy up, allowing us to get back to the t, ink 21; tank and try to recall people in and put a guy at aach panel, basically.
22 23 892.348 24 25 l
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l HUNTER:
How did that end up with Bill Zewe and.
.?
2 3
ROSS:
Well, Bill is responsible for control room operations and plant operations.
5 6
HUNTER:
And did he have those people, both he and the foreman who were 7
assigned, did anybody else helping Bill, or was there anybody else 8
assigned to that particular position?
9 10' ROSS:
Well, at that time Brian Menier was also onsite to assist Bill.
He is another shift supervisor.
But the idea was to get some supervision 12 down to a lower level and concentrate on each individual item so we 13 didn't miss something big.
141 l
15l HUNTER:
Okay, and the foreman were assigned at the panel levels--that's 16l my understanding...
17 l
18 ROSS:
Yeah, that's right. And an operator to each section, so we 19 should have 3 operators and it should have been a total of 3 supervisors.
20l 21 HUNTER:
What about the people back in the back, the numbers back in i
22' the back...
23 892 349 24 25 I
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l ROSS:
' here were a lot of people back there but they mainly stayed out 2;
r of the way.
A lot of the operators were back because we had run them 3
out of the auxiliary buildings and they were trying to stand by the 4
control room to see if there was anything they could do.
51 I
6 HUNTER 1 Were you still able to communicate adequately with Bill Zewe 7
and these other shift supervisors?
8 9
ROSS:
Yes, I think so.
10 11 HUNTER:
You weren't having any trouble getting the word to him when 12 the think tank had a direction, that was to you, and as I understand, 13 and then to Bill as the shift supervisor?
14!
15 ROSS:
Yes.
16 17 HUNTER:
In the morning, sometime during the interviews, we picked up 18{
that an entry was made, at least one, and I believe Greg Hitz made an 19f entry into the auxiliary building with an operator to look at the 20f auxiliary waste panel.
Were you aware of that or, involved in that?
21f 22 ROSS:
Yes, we were interested in ascertaining what was going on in the 23 auxiliary building--was it under water, what was going on, what was the 24 vent air pressures, etc.
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HUNTER:
What came out of that, anything significant?
2 3l ROSS:
He reported approximately 3 inches of water in some areas.
But 4
only at the peak sections, so in other words, the floors weren't totally, 5
and he repo_rted no gross major leakage.
6 7
HUNTER: What about the auxiliary building sump? Obviously, then that 8
was full.
9l l
10 ROSS:
Yeah, it was overflowing.
lli i
12 HUNTER:
What about the miscellaneous drain tank?
13 14 ROSS:
At that time he came bac;; and I think he told us the level was, 15l in fact, not overflowing at that time.
16 l
17 HUNTER:
The makeup bleed tanks are indicated in the control room.
18f 191 FOSS:
Yes, they are.
l 20 21 HUNTER:
What was their status at that time, do you recall?
1 22 23 ROSS:
It's hard to remember..
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HUNTER:
Were they normal or abnormal?
2 3l l
ROSS:
I would think they were fairly normal at that time.
4l 5
HUNTER:
So at that particular time, then, it was your understanding l
that you just had a few inches of water the low points in the 7
drain.
8 9
ROSS:
Three inches at the lowest points in the drains, backing up on 10f to the floors in some areas.
11 HUNTER:
And that's all the questions I have.
13l 14 SHACKLETON: We'll close the tape at this time. The time is now 4:46 15l and we will return in just a minute. The date is 4/25/79.
I 16' 17 SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Michael J.
18!
Ross.
The time is now 4:47 p.m., April 25, 1979, 19f 20 KIRKPATRICK:
All right, Mike, I would like to go back to some of the 21, earlier comments you made and try to get clarification on a few things.
22 At one time you said after you had decided to go solid that you noticed 23 24I 892 352 25f I
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1, j
a lot of water was going in. You thought--it surprised you.
Were the 2
people in your think tank generally aware that the water level must 3
have been fairly low, prior to that time?
4l 5
ROSS:
The water level in the loops, I think so, in that the reactor Gi coolant pumps wouldn't pump I would say yes.
7 8
KIRKPATRICK:
So that they did attribute the fact that they wouldn't 9
pump to the fact that the water probably was low.
10'
{
ROSS:
Yeah.
12!
13 KIRKPATRICK:
You also said that the manager had called and said it was 14 time to go solid.
Had there been consideration of going solid prior to 13I that time?
16l 17 ROSS:
Well, basically, we spent most of that morning in that mode.
18!
Most of the day in that mode.
19!
20f KIRKPATRICK:
In an attempt to get it to go solid?
21l i
22!
892 353 23 24l t
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l ROSS:
Yeah, we put it in the, all but letting it go out the code 21 safety--we did increase pressure and, we maintained a high pressure, we 3
maintained a high pressure injection.
4 5
KIRKPATRICK: What was the main reason that you couldn't get it to go 6
solid?
7 8
ROSS:
I think we never really let it go solid because we were worried about pushing water through the code safety valves.
10 1
KIRKPATRICK:
I see.
When you tried to pump it up, the pressure would 12 go up?
Is that right?
13 14 ROSS:
Yeah.
i 15j l
16 KIRKPATRICK:
Had there been any consideration to going ahead and 17 opening up the code safety at the time you were pumping out?
18 19f ROSS:
Just ir, passing.
It was kicked back.
I dcn't know who in B&W 20!
was talked to but we had talked about going flow thicugh them, and i
2 11 nobody was real keen on that idea at the time.
22f 23 KIRKPATRICK:
So that you were hesitant to open them up?
24 i
1 51 892 354 l
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j ROSS:
Not knowing whether it would ever reseat again, you know, once 2'
you wash water through a steam safety valve.
3 4
KIRKPATRICK:
I see.
You could not get enough pressure reduction with 5
the normal electromatic relief valve in order to keep your pressure 61 j
down, is that right?
7 8
ROSS:
That's correct.
9 10 KIRKPATRICK:
So you were trying to raise the water level but when you 11 did that the pressure would go up.
12, 1
ROSS:
Right.
14 15 KIRKPATRICK:
And you couldn't keep the pressure low enough with electro-3 16!
matic relief valves in order to add water?
17 18{
ROSS:
We ended up cycling the valve while adding water, is what we 19f ended up doing.
The valve would actually open and shut.
20 21 KIRKPATRICK:
I see.
So you know you were low in water and while 22I trying to add water, you basically couldn't.
23 24l 2si 892 355 i
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ROSS:
I don't think we could ever fill the loops.
That's what we 2
would like to have done.
We would like to have filled the loops but 3
the loop system didn't seem to want to fill.
The pressurize up and we 4
had indications that we were headed, in fact, for solid and the pressure 5
would go rapidly up.
We'd opened the electromatic and flow it back, 6l.
you know, to some level to keep injecting.
Later in the day when we 7
went in an attempt to go solid we did, in my opinion see a difference 8
as we got up, you know, a few--15, 1600 hundred pounds--the pressure 9
kind of held and everything was kind of filled, you know--it looked 10 like to us.
11 12 KIRKPATRICK:
Well, what was the main difference then that permitted 13 you to go ahead and go solid?
14 l
15!
ROSS:
I think our Th temperatures were different, our Tc's--I think 16l aur plant temperature was different.
We had washed a lot of high 17 pressure injection water through the core at this time.
That's my 18 personal opinion.
We had put quite a number of gallons through the 19 system by then.
20l l
21f HUNTER:
Did I hear you say that the Th, the hot leg temperatures and 22 cold leg temperatures were different at that time?
23 4
892 356 25\\
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ROSS:
Yes.
2 3
HUNTER:
Had they decreased, is that what you're saying?
4 5
ROSS:
Yes.
I think we had indications that we maybe had some flow 6!
circulation through there by then.
That's the way I remember it right 7
now.
8 9
KIRKPATRICK:
Possibly could it have been also the steam--the fact that 10 the steam generators were filled up and gave you better cooling?
11 126' ROSS:
No.
I don't think, because the steam generators were filled 13 quite early.
Very, very early.
Hours and hours and hours before.
14) 15 HUNTER:
Were the--well, the steam generators were set near a full code 16 at low pressurizer, I guess, weren't they, at that time?
17 18{
ROSS:
Right.
19I i
20' KIRKPATRICK:
That's all the questions I've got.
21l 22 HUNTER:
Mike, what would you, what would be, at this plant you are 23 better aware of some of the aspects of it than a lot of people.
When i
24j you looked for a natural circulation what were you looking for?
25(
i T
I
58 l!
j ROSS:
What you are looking for is the fact the Th and Tc do circulate.
2!
l You are looking for any indications of flow.
What you're looki.ig is 3l some difference between Th and Tc, but no great total difference between 4
them.
You are looking for some delta T across the core, you are looking S
for some difference between the two, but you are lookir.g for indications 6i that you do in fact have a temperature transporting one loop to the 7
other.
8 9'
HUNTER:
All right, have you seen natural circulation at this plant?
10 11 ROSS:
On Unit 2, I haven't. I've seen it on Unit 1 years ago.
12 13 HUNTER:
On Unit 1, was it during the preap testing when you actually 145 saw the--
15 16 ROSS:
Yeah, I think we did a preop natural circulation test over 17, there.
i 18l l
19!
HUNTER:
Okay, I don' t have any more questions. Don...?
20 I
21 KIRKPATRICK:
How many people did you have in your think tank back 22 there?
892 B8 24 25j i
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ROSS:
Well, it would be B&W, Miller, me, or HP guy on and off, Logan 2!
l on and off, Kunder on and off.
3l, 4
All right thank you.
I don't have any more.
KIRKPATRICK:
5 61 HUNTER:
Do you have any comments? Would you like to say anything?
7 8
ROSS:
No.
9 10 HUNTER:
We will, I can't promise you, but we will probably be getting 11 back with you because we will be trying to pull out more details.
We 12 do appreciate your time.
13 14 SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much Mr. Ross.
The time is now 4:54 p.m.,
j 15 April 25, 1979.
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