ML19249B085
| ML19249B085 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/26/1979 |
| 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 7908290615 | |
| Download: ML19249B085 (59) | |
Text
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h UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION I
i 5
In the Matter of:
2!
IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3l of Mr. George A. Kunder Unit 2 Superittendent q
Technical Support Si 6i 7\\
el Trailer #203 91 NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10!
Middletown, Pennsylvania 11:
1 Aaril 25, 1979 (Date of Interview) 13!
June 26, 1979 (0 ate Transcript Typea) 11 83 and 84 IS!
(Tape Numoer(s))
16i 171 18i i
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NRC PERSONNEL:
22!
f Dorwin R. Hunter
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23; Donald C. Kirkpatrick Owen C. Shackleton j
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7j SHACKLETON:
This is an interview of Mr. George A. Kunder.
Mr. Kunder is presently the Unit 2 Superintendent, Technical Support, Three Mile Island 2!
with the Metropolitan Edison Company, the time is 5:10 p.m.,
April 25, 3
1979.
Present to conduct this interview is Mr. Dorwin R. Hunter, Mr.
g; Hunter is an Inspection Specialist, Performance Appraisal Branch, I&E Reactor Construction Inspection with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ci Also present is Mr. Donald C. Kirkpatrick.
Mr. Kirkpatrick is a Nuclear 7
Engineer with the Inspection and Enforcement Headquarters in Bethesda, MD.
81 My name is Owen C Shackleton, I am the Investigator in Region V with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
This interview is being conducted in 10!
Trailer #203 at the Three Mile Island site just outside the south gate.
l Just prior to the beginning of this interview on tape, I presented to 12',
Mr. Kunder a two page Advisement Document outlining the purpose and scope 131 of this investigation in the authority of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 1C Commission to conduct such an investigation and his rights to refuse to be 15; interviewed or to provide any type of statement.
On page 2 of this documerit, 16 Mr. Xunder in writing answered in the affirmative to the following questions.
l Mr. Kunder do you understand the document that I just described?
18!
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KUNDER:
Yes, I do.
20l 21:
SHACKLETON:
And do we have your permission to tape this interview?
22l 1
23l KUNCER:
That's af firmative.
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I SHACKLETON:
As I understand you'll like a copy of this tape and the trans-1; i
cript?
2 ',
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KUNDER:
I would appreciate that.
4; Si SHACKLETON:
Very fine, they will be provided to you.
Mr. Kunder to assist those persons who will be listening to this tape and learning what trans-
/
pired at Three Mile Island during those first days of the incident, would 81 you please provide your background and training concerning you work in the 9!
nuclear industry.
101 11; KUNDER:
I graduated from Penn State University with a B.S. in Mechanical 12:
Engineering in 1968.
I joined Metropolitan Edison Company as a Station 131 Engineer at Tyts Generating Station, which is a small fossil plant in 14!
Reading that provided me my initial training in the utility industry, I was 15 assigned there for one year.
Assigned to Iller Generating Station in 15)
Reading for approximately six months and then I was assigned to the TMI 1T Project Management Group, which was at that time, responsible for the 18{
overall control of the actual management of the TMI construction project.
19r I was with that group for approximately two years until around April 1972, 20!
where then, I performed reviews of requirement outlines and specifications 2~1 for Materials Procurement, did some System Design Reviews in the area of my 22}i cognizance, I participated in setting up some of the meterological stations 23l that we currently use on and offsite and performed at various junior tech-24 l
nical activities in the Reading of fice.
I was assigned then, around April 25i 892 2 78 6
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1972, to come out to Three Mile Island and was assigned to the E.3".treering group responsible for writing procedures for both cperations, far curveillance and emergency procedures.
I was assigned cogni;:ance on certaPi of the Unit i systems and was later assigned, just under a year, to work for the g
Unit 1 Supervisor of Operations as his Engineering Assistant, if you wi'l.
From that time til approximately September 1975 I functioned in that capacity and during the process of the startup and testing vf Unit 1, I trained for my Reactor Operating License, spent time down at the B&W Simulatar in Lynchburg, trained up at the Penn State Triggir Reactor and of course, trained on Unit I through my activities in the startup and test program, so i
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I got both practical experience and nuclear technical experien:e in that 11.
fashion.
I did receive a Reactors Operator License along witn one of the 12 ',
first groups of Operators to be licensed on Unit 1.
Then I aent into a 131 training program to receive a Senior Reactor Operators Lic?nse, I car't 14:
recall the exact date, but it was approximately prior to my tern which 3
ended around 1975 in September.
At that time, I was promoted to the Sup e-visor of Operations in Unit 1 and was responsible for supervising the 17' Operations Department consisting of the Control Rocm operators and auxiliary ISl operators in Unit 1.
I was responsible in this position through the period i
19:
of the latter part of the first cycle of operations, Unit 1, through the 20 first refueling outage and just prior to the second refueling outage that 21!
was in about December 1977 when I was promoted to Unit 1 Suoerinttqdent, 22!
i Technical Support.
I functioned in that position until Decenicer of 1978 e
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when the Unit 1 Superintendent resigned and had transferred to another B&W 24i plant and the Unit 2 Superintencent, Technical Support, Jir Seelinger, was 25j 893 2/9
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f promoted to the Unit 1 Superintendent, and I was asked to and elected to move over into Unit 2 as the Unit 2 Superintendent, Technical Support, principally to gain additional experience and broaden my background in the g,
industry by learning another Unit, which is of course Unit 2, so I've been functioning in that pusition since December 1978, which pretty much brings up to the present.
Gi 7l SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much, now I'll turn the interview over to 8;
Mr. Hunter.
9!
101 HUNTER:
Okay, George.
The inforn'ation that I would like to start with is ll, the morning of the incident, can you recall when you came ensite, approxi-12!
mately?
131 14:
KUNDER:
I came onsite approximately 10 minutes of 5 and I arrived that by 2E sort of correlating wnen I left my house which was somewhere around 4:30 l
16:
and I don't live to far, I came in and dropped off my briefcase in my 17i office and I had noted that the Unit I atmospheric relief valves were 18!
relieving and wasn't quite certain why and I called the control room in 19{
Unit 1 and indicated over the page that the Unit I atmosphere dump valves 20!
were relieving, just to be sure that they were indeed aware of that, then I 2 11 i
proceeded over to Unit 2 control room.
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HUNTER:
Why did you come in?
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i KUNDER:
I was called by Scott Wilkerson, he war a nuclear engineer on duty at the t!ce in Unit 1 and when the trip of Unit 2 occurred he had gone over
.i to Unit 2 apparently and was asked to call people out, I don't know who asked him to call people out, but I was called and I was told that Joe 4,;
Logan was also called, he's the Unit Superintendent.
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HUNTER:
What was the trip, when did Unit 1 tripped?
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8l KUNDER:
Unit I was not tripped, Unit I was in a, i believe, a Sot shutdown position at the time.
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HUNTER: Yhen Unit 2 tripped then he was..
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KUNDER:
He was in Unit 1 and he went over to Unit 2.
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HUNTER:
Unit I was in hot shutdown after refueling.
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KUNDER:
Yes, he was shift to begin the physics test program, as a matter 1Si of fact.
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I HUNTER:
Okay, when Unit 2 tripped, then he called you?
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i 22 KUNDER:
That's carract.
I was home in bed, he asked me to come right in 23 because they had a trip in Unit 2, no further detail, so I did get up right i
24r away, got dressed and went right in.
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l HUNTER:
You know Scott, did he sound like there was a problem?
I 2l KUNDER:
I don't recall any particular urgency in his voice.
He did indicate 3
4,l that Bill Zewe who is the Shift-Supervisor, wanted me in, needed some help.
So I just proceeded in.
That's the tone I recall.
6i 7l HUNTER:
On the Unit trip, or routine trip would you normally be called in?
I 8l KUNDER:
I would have, I at the time was responsible for the duty section, 9!
that was my week for the duty and normally the Shift-Supervisor calls the 101 Outy Section Head or least the Superintendent of the Unit, informs him of 11; the problem, he will ask for assistance in whatever area he feels he needs 12(
in order to, depends on the nature of the trip, if it was a turbine trip 13l bc'd try to get the engineers associated with a turbine generators, that 14!
typically the routine that we go through, you don't wait till day-shift for 15; instance to start looking.
You call people out...
16' 17l HUNTER:
You were the Duty Engineer or Duty Superintendent at that time.
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When you got to the site and you had in fact made it to Unit 2, what was 19i you understanding at that time, what did you find, how did you find Unit 2?
20i 21;l KUNDER:
I found the Unit 1 Shif t-Supervisor, Ken Bryan, was in the control I
22l room, Fred Shiemann who was the Unit 2 Shift-Foreman at the time and I'm 23l l
pretty sure there was two operators in the control room were the only 24i people that I recall.
I think Scott Wilkerson was in there, but I can't 25!
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remember just where he was when we came out of the Shift-Supervisor office j
or not.
At any rate, I came over to the console and inquired what had 2,
happened and they indicated that they had a trip.
The thing that sepmed to 31 be of immediate concern to them was the pressurizer leve.
Ken Bryan or 4l l
someone indicated that they had ruptured the drain tcnk rupture disk.
I 51 wasn't that familiar with all the instrumentation in Unit 2 since I only el begun my Senior Reactor Operator Cross-License t;aining program and my 7!
experience on the panel is very small.
So I wasn't quite sure what I was 8I seeing and I pretty much had to ask the Foreman what his probicas were and 9I at that point in time the pressurizer level seem to be the main point of i
10j concern and the pressurizer leral was nigh or pegged at the time.
..ecalled 11:
that the hig pressure injection had been secured at that point, looking 12l back I was completely unaware this situation, the emergency feedwater 131
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system and I was really unaware that til later in the morning or later in 10 the day, to be honest with you.
15:
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HUNTER:
How did you find out about that?
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18 KUNDER:
I think, I had found out about it from the GPU engineers that were ici
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looking into this scenario.
I recalled the fact it was later much later in 20i the day if even that day, I learned about it when I was, I knew the emergency i
21 feedwater pumps had started through my subsequent review of the sequence of 9M
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the events by now.
The pressure came up that discharge the pumos but I was 23!
unaware that the valves failed to open or that we weren't getting flow, and 24i I later learned through that group that it was apparent that the SFV 12 A1B 25:
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valves were shut at the time.
The only thing that was apparent was Bill Zewe had come into the Control Room and I don't recall how long after I got I
there, it was a few minutes maybe five minutes or so and he had been down 31 4l trying to secure the water going into the condenser, apparently what had 1
happended on the trip was that the condenser level instrumentation indicated 3l J
a low-level which called for the hot-well makeup valves from the condensate ci storage tanks to open and the condenser hot-well filled up and he was 7l trying to secure that problem for fear of it causing problems with the 81 bypass steam being flooded, causing water hammer and that sort of thing.
91 Bill had come into the control room from trying to get that process secured.
That was pretty much my immediate impression.
11l 12; HUNTER:
You indicated high pressure injection, you were discussing with 131 the Foreman, I assumed that Fred Shiemann who was the foreman on shift that 14!
morning.
What was the condition of high pressure injection at that time?
15:
16:
KUNDER:
When I came in I didn't see it but I understood that the high-17' pressure injection was secured.
Someone mentioned that the letdown was 18i occurring they were trying to reduce the level in the pressurizer.
I can't 19i l
remember if I looked at the high pressure injection valves, I do know where I
20i they are in the panel, to ascertain that for myself or not, I just can't r
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quite remember.
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HUNTER:
What 2cout the flows, high pressure injection flows, did you lock 24:
at the flows?
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y KUNDER:
No, I think they're on the back panel and I know I didn't see those.
i 3l HUNTER:
Okay.
So the rupture disc on the reactor coolant drain tank had blown high pressure injection was minimum or was 5,
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KUNDER:
It was apparently secured.
7:
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HUNTER:
Pressurizer level was up, letdown was going.
9t 10l KUNDER:
Right.
11:
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l HUNTER:
Excess.
The amount of letdown, trying to get the pressurizer 131 level down.
Any other keying items that you looked at, Bill had just come 14!
up from...
15:
16i KUNDER:
I did locate tne reactor building pressure recorder and I noted 17!
I that the pressure was up around 2 pounds, 2.2 pounds, in the building.
So l
1St that made sense to me.
I believed that the fact that the rupture disc had 193 blown.
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l 91!7 HUNTER:
What would that indicate to you, or did it, what did that indicate 22!
to you?
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KUNDER:
Well, it indicated that we did have a pressure rise in the contain-l!
ment which likely had come from the reactor coolant drain tank, rupture disc blowing because I wasn't aware at the time what pressure the rupture 1
disc blew.
I'm familiar with the Unit 1 system and our drain tank in Unit 4!
1 is much smaller in size.
The pressure rating for the rupture disc is 55 I
pounds and I later recognized that Unit 2 rupture disc blew about 200 61 pounds pressure.
But any rate, there's a lot energy released through the relief valve and if it blew it's apparent that we either had leakage or 81 something continued to expel steam into the drain tank and cause it to 9l' blow.
But at that time it wasn't clear to me what had really occurred...in 10; terms of...
11:
12 HUNTER:
Besides the pressurizer level being high, did Fred tell you, you 13l know, indicate to you that he had any other problems, did Bill say or LL indicate or Ken Bryant even?
15-16 t
KUNDER:
No.
One conversation I recall with Ken Bryan was that he was 17!
looking at the computer temperature for the relief valve discharge line 13:
I and, I'm judging ten, fifteen minutes after I got there he had noted that 19' the temperature of the discharge relief valves in the pressurizer had come 20; i
down from what it had previously been earlier, prior to my getting there j
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and he seemed satisfied that the relief valves were not blowing steam 22 l
anymore or at least it had decreased.
That was my perception of how it 23l seemed.
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HUNTER:
Okay.
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2; KUNDER:
And beyond that, what I tried to do, I was tryir,g to figure out for myself what they had had and I was looking at the pressurizer level and they told me that all three channels behaved the same way and it seertad inconsistent with what I've been experienced to on a trip of that nature.
6,1 And, I recall that I found a uncompensated pressurizer level indicator on the panel 5 or something like that.
It's, and when you look at that, level i
and corrolated it using the uncompensated, the uncompensated pressurizer 9!
level chart that's posted on that console, it appeared to agree with what 10!
they were saying on the LT 1, 2, and 3.
11!
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HUNTER:
So that gave you four levels that were consistent.
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KUNDER:
Yeah, but I thought too, at the same time, the uncompensated level 15; probably comes off the same transmitter.
Because really in the B&W plants, 16i l
at least in Unit 1, you have three transmitters.
You don't have a fourth i
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transmitter.
You ge't Op which comes out in the computer.
You get the, of 18!
course, the compensated level which is on the recorder charts and also in i
19' the computer and you can get the uncompensated level which was on this one 20i' indicator.
So that, that really didn't help me out really.
Just told me l
21!
that everything agreed and that it appeared as if the pressurizer was 22l seeing or the instruments were probably seeing a high level, but there was 231 l
that element of doubt in my mind and I think in the mind of the operator, j
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my perception of that.
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HUNTER:
Okay.
1; 2l KUNDER:
It just didn't seem consistent.
3l 4l HUNTER:
Did you recall looking at pressurizer pressure?
Sj i
i 6i KUNDER:
I did, I can't recall exactly when, probably wasn't too long after 7
I had gotten there.
My perception of that was that I had thought that we 8
took the system sclid and we expelled the steam in the pressurizer and that 9l the pressere ended up low because we did not have an adequate bubble at 10j that point.
And, that was, that's how I perceived that condition and the 11; l
fact that they were letting down and trying to reduce the level to get it 12l
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in range and heaters, you know, trying to build the bubble back up to get 13l pressure back up.
It seemed to be what was going on, to me.
14!
15 HUNTER:
At that time, do you recall getting a pressurizer liquid or steam 15:
space or surge line temperature?
17!
18i KUNDER:
No.
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t 20i HUNTER:
Did you check to see what the temperature in the pressurizer was?
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22l KUNDER:
No.
And, I'm not sure that I would have, I doubt if I would have "3 l' 9
t recognized and alarm of that nature because I'm still not that familiar 2M with the layout of the control room and all the instrumentation.
That, I 25!
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must admit, was one of the most frustrating parts of performing.
I just didn't have enough expertise in Unit 2 to interprete everything they were 2
saying because I wasn't able to recognize everything as an operator would.
3 Perhaps if I had had my training program through and had really qualified in the unit...
al 6l HUNTER:
What's the status of your training program right now?
8 KUNDER:
I began an in house cross license program which first consists of going through what's called a Category For Operators Training Program.
The 10!
first part of its pretty much of it is self-study effort.
The area that I i
11!
have studied so far was the Secondary Plant System, turbine generator, the 12l auxiliaries for turbine generator, condensate feedwater system and the main 13!
steam system.
I hadn't had my first oral on the system.
The program is 14!
split up into six cycles and it's generally intended that you can go through 15:
it an excellerated pace in about perhaps 5 to 6 months.
Normally, the 16:
program is designed to take an auxiliary operator and train him in about 9 17l month program on a, you know, a more of a routined pace.
I'd gotten through ISi the answering all the questionnaires and doing some of the exams on the first cycle which I had been submitting to the training department and I l
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had not had the first oral exam so I hadn't, I didn't have a good feel as i
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to how much in depth I really, you know, knew that first cycle, even.
So, 22l I was really only beginning the program unfortunately.
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t HUNTER:
The, you can go to 4, 5, or 6.
That would get you 4 from Secondary 2l 5 into the primary and 6th into the license.
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KUNDER:
Yeah, it would be, you got into Cycle 2, you got into decay heat 4,
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removal, makeup purification systems and then you start getting more experi-ence on the console.
The design of the oral exams are prett:t much to get 61 you, really challenged on the console and to verify that you got the depth s/I i
to see all the alarms and understand what they're telling you and know 81 where all the controls and so forth are.
9l 101 HUNTER:
After the Category 6 and all is that an R0 license as a result of lli j
your training or an SRO.
12!
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KUNDER:
No, it would, the SR0 licenses is what I was going for, the Cate-14i gory 4 Training Program was one of the vehicles to get you into material, 15!
to get you through learning the plant, okay?
It was an organized lesson 16!
plan, if you will and the part that would pretty much give me the depth and IT' qualification for the SRO portion of the exam would be in a large part, you 18; know, the emergency plan training, knowledge of the administrative proce-19!
dures and controls, knowledge of 10 CFR 20, and a lot of the more admini-20!
strative oriented parts of the job and a lot of that I had and the program 21!
did cover a review of all those areas.
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Jon HUNTER:
Okay.
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j 15 KUNDER:
Okay? So I was reallv going for an SRO cross license.
Just mere'ly utilize the elements of the CR0 training program to..
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HUNTER:
What did you project you'd get through with that?
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KUNDER:
Well, I was hoping I could get through it by the end of the summer
=t or I was really hoping to get through it by mid-summer but I found that my
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commitments, I mean, the normal parts of my job prevented me from really devoting the time to the study, you know, to get through the accellerated 9!
program.
I was going to study at my own pace and typically my training 1Dj program involved a pretty significant commitment and time on my part and I only really got to start studying some of this stuff in earnest when I got down to the simulator the week prior to this event.
I was able to spend 131 some time in the evenings, you know, do some of the review that I just 14!
hadn't had the opportunity to do prior to this thing.
But with the startup 151 of the plant over our engineering workload was tending to wind down and I 16i was expecting to be able to devote a greater share of my time in the training 17!
program which is going to do two things.
They get me cross license, but 18!
the real intent, of course, is to get.
13i 20l HUNTER:
Cross license you might explain that..
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KUNDER:
License in the Unit 1..
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i HUNTER:
SRO?
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t KUNDER:
Ycan, that's right.
I was required to have that license as a 4[:
supervisor of operations in Unit 1 when I held that position.
I wanted to get the cross license mainly for the benefit of the learning experience in et j
Unit 2.
To do my job most effectively in managing the engineering depart-ei ment which is my prime job and also in my function as the chairman of the Unit 2 plant operations review committee an interfacing with the licensee 81 matters with the commission.
It, I've always felt that the experience of 9!
the licensing process prepares you technically and operationally to do a 10!
much more effective job.
So I placed value on the license for that purpose 11l l
and, of course, when I took the job I had been asked if I had any problems 121 l
in going for my Senior Reactor Operators License and of course I didn't, my 13) question was does the Company have any problem if I do make that kind of 141 commitment and spend some of the time its going to take to get the license.
15i Thats the program I embarked on.
16:
17' HUNTER:
You worked directly for Gary Miller?
18!
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KUNDER:
No, I worked directly from Joe Logan, Unit 2 Superintendent who in 20!
i turn works for Gary Miller.
21l 2 28 HUNTER:
Excuse me, I'm sorry, that's what I was after, you work for Joe Logan,
23 who is the Unit 2 Superintendent.
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SHACKLETON:
We'll end our interview at this point to change the tape.
The 2j time is now 5:39 p.m., April 25, 1979.
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SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. George A. Kunder, 4
-f time is now 8:33 p.m. April 25, 1979.
We discontinued the last meeting inasmuch as Mr. Kunder had another meeting attend and now is back to continue y
our interview.
Continue on please.
g 9l KUNDER:
One of the things that I recalled also that I had done when I got into the control room and again the timing was I think within about 5 or 10 11;
,2::
minutes of arriving and trying to get an understanding of what was going 1
13l on, since pressurizer level was higher or pegged and we had reportedly ruptured the drain tank rupture disk I was concerned because of the unusual 14!
situation, I did ask Scott Wilkerson to call out additional people, and I specifically asked for Dick Dubiel, my lead engineers, Dick Seeklets and I'm pretty sure I asked him to recall Joe Logan because I wasn' t absolutely certain, although I thought he had said that he had called Joe I wasn't 13l Certain that he had.
I believe I had asked, because of the fact that the 19!
guys were pretty busy with the plant at hand. I had asked them to call out j
20t i
the oncoming Shift-Supervisor and Foreman so we can get additional supervi-i 21:
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sion and experience in there, because we were dealing with something that 22i to me was out of the ordinary in terms of the transient response.
Of l
course at this time there was no indication of any radioactivity or anything j
24i unusual with respect to radiation.
That I could observe.
He did make 25; I
893 293
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I 18 tna e calls, I don't know who he reached but I know Dick Dubiel had come in 1
2 a little later on and my lead engineers did come in and reported to the Control Room.
I do recall, Ivan Porter at least, Ron Warren, Dick Bensil 3
and offhand I can't think of anybody else that reported.
Dick Seeklets y
ater came in, perhaps jumping ahead a little bit, but those people were 5
nhand just prior to the time we announced the site emergency.
I thinK 6
that helped.
8i HUNTER:
George, you indicated out of the ordinary, lets key on that for g
i awhile, okay lets key on your here and you've looked at the drain tank and 10l 11:l determined that its ruptured, or somebody told you, you look at.
What else was really out of the ordinary, you've seen other trips at this plant and 12' also vou've seen them at Unit 1.
131 ld KUNDER:
I don't think I ever seen a trip in progress in Unit 2, I've seen the I don't want to say aftermath, but I've seen the results of previous 16 trips, through the reviewing the reactor trip reports and that sort of 17' thing, I've never seen a situation either in this plant nor in Unit i nor 18(
the simulator where the pressurizer level was pegged and we had a low 19i pressure in the RCS and in that sense and the fact that we did apparently 20l blow a rupture disk in the drain tank and had 2.2 lbs or so in the reactor 21!
l building that was the nature of the unusual situation that I was referring 22' to.
23 24 O h 3
.? 9 25i l
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t
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i 19 s
i HUNTER:
Rupture disk blown, couple of pounds in the containment, pressurizer 1
2j level up, pegged or high offscale?
I 31 KUNDER:
Yeah, it appeared right up against the top of the chart in a
,J straight line.
ol si a
HUNTER:
And also low pressure, how about giving us your feelings at that d
I time?
81 9l KUNDER:
The pressure appeared to be, it was about in the range of 1100 lbs 10j and sort of leveling off and my perception in not having gone through the 11l whole thing from the initiating event or not having experienced the whole 12l l
scenario through the iniH ating event was that somehow the plant was 131 taken solid and we lost the steam bubble to the extent that we didn't have 14:
adequate pressure control, pressure was low, we had a solid system, we 15i didn't have an adequate steam bubble to get the pressure back up and pres-16i surizer heaters, I'm not sure, I didn't, I didn't know if they were on or not, I just presumed they were and they were letting down and trying to get 18; the level on scale and the pressurizer level instrumentation and trying to 191 reestablish the bubble and get the pressure up.
I think it took me a 20:
little while to really understand what was going on with pressure, I don't think I perceived that initially but I do recall, that I had gotten a call 22' from Gary Miller who was made aware of this thing, I was the one that 23l l
communicated with Gary Miller and I'm pretty sure I gave him the key para-l 24 i
meters, pressurizer level was pegged and that pressure was low and he 25; l
r 893 295 f
I q
i
f i
20 t
I lj decided he best get a call, conference call set up between he and Jack Herbein 2
and Lee Rogers of B&W and try and get some sort of resolution to the problem, 3j y u know, understand what was going on and make them aware of the problem.
f 4!
HUNTER:
I'm still, I'm still, we're still pretty earlier in the program 5{
timewise.
Si 7l KUNDER:
It was around, I'm guessing, around 6:15 or 6:20 or so when that g
first phone call was made.
9!
i 10l KIRKPATRICK:
Was that prior to the time tha+. the primary coolant pump, the 11!
last batch of the primary coolant pumps were tripped.
i 12l l
13:
KUNDER:
Yes, pretty sure it was, that phone call, yeah.
141 f
15i KIRKPATRICK:
You said, you gave to Gary Miller the main parameters which 16; were, I take it, which were pressure and level and temperature.
17!
18!
l KUNDER:
Levels, and I guess we keyed on level because that appear to be 19i i
the big concern at that point, the fact that the level was high.
20l i
21:
KIRKPATRICK:
And he was discussing these parameters with the B&W people.
22l 23 l
KUNDER:
No, when I told him what the parameters were and that we were in 24:
i l
on a condition that I just wasn't sure what was going on and whether we 25i 893 ?)6 l
i
i l
i t
{
21 i
i
{,
should believe the indication or not.
He decided to set up the conference call between Herbein and rayself and Lee Rogers, and he broke off the line 2
i
~d and proceeded to set that call up.
i 1
4i KIRKPATRICK:
By indication did you mean level indication?
m 61 HUNTER:
Pressurizer level?
i 71 8l KUNDER:
Pressurizer level yeah.
9l l
10i I
HUNTER:
When you, how long did it take you to get the conference call, to 11:
get it established?
i 131 KUNDER:
I'd estimate about 15 minutes.
14t t
15:
HUNTER:
And that included Jack Herbein, Lee Rogers, Gary Miller, yourself?
16:
17 KUNDER:
Yes, that was it.
181 19!
HUNTER:
That was the first conference call.
20i i
21:
KUNDER:
There was only, there was two calls made, the first one was myself 22l and Gary Miller when he called in, and the second one was after he had 23i initiated the conference call.
At the conclusion of that call Lee Rogers l
24i and Gary oroceeded into the plant and I'm not sure what happened to Jack 25-'
Herbein.
I I
893 297
+
1
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22 I
i UNTER:
1 What was the general discussion in the conference call.
I i
2!
KUNDER:
Well, again the general discussion evolved around what the plant 3
parameters were, what was the pressurizer level, RC pressure and Jack and Lee and Gary were trying to acertain what we had, I think we did talk to an g
extent about whether the pressurizer level indication was real.
I seem to ci 7\\'
recall, I was asked by, I think it was Lee Rogers, that if the electromatic block valve was closed and I talked to someone in the control room, and I just asked was the electromatic block valve closed and they said yes and came back in and said yes the operator said it was r-losed.
Of course, I I
told them what the pressure was and I told them the pressurizer level and 11!
we seem to all agree that the pressurizer level indication should be believed l
and so we continue to believe the level indication that it was high.
That 13!
I was pretty much based on the fact that all three level indicators performed 141 similarily they were all high and it just wasn't consistent that they'd all i
15 be the same and there be some sort of a common known failure because they 16; are separate transmitters lines off the pressurizer and separate transmitters, 17i there's no, it's a totally independent channels both electrolly and mechani-181 cally, so whatever was happening they were seeing a high level.
I seem to 191 recall mentioning probably towards the end of the conversation that we had I
20!
I had problems with the steam generator, particular the 8 generator, I wasn't 21!
following the secondary side that closely and I was never really clear in 22!
i my own mind what had been done to the 8 generator and again I was unaware 23l of the fact at that point that we were without feed for the first 8 or so 21 i
minutes which is what I got out of all the curves and soforth that we 25i' extrapolated after the fact.
But, early 893 298 I
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{
l 23 i
HUNTER:
1 You were unaware of that fact, that meant that on the conference call, Gary Miller was unaware of that fact?
2 l
31 KUNDER:
Yeah.
I would've have said that to him.
They were unaware that 5;
the BFV 12 A & B valves had to be opened by the operator manually.
6i HUNTER:
They were not aware of that at that time.
8!
KUNDER:
That's right, I'm sure they didn't talk to anybody else, so they wouldn't have that understanding at that point.
But I did indicate to them 10t that, Bill Zewe and whoever was operating on the secondary side, had noted that the steam generator pressures differed and that the 8 generators I
i pressure was lower, I seem to recall about 300 lbs lower than the A generator 13l pressure.
They thought at first that they may have had a steam leak on the 8 side and as a result they followed the procedure to isolata the B generator 15; and attempt to see if that had an effect as it was believed that may be 16!
contributing to the pressure in the reactor building and I understand that l
17!
was done, I did not verify with any valve lineman or anything like that, 1Si cause I didn't really participate in that side of it, the operation.
I 19i believe it was a little later on when that thought was dismissed and I 20i believe thats when Mike Ross came into the Control Room that they,
.I'm 21l trying to think of the parameters that they looked at to determine that it 22l was probably not a leak in the 8 steam generator and offhand I can't think 23) ij of what it is now, but there was a relationship between the reactor building 24P l
pressure and we figured B is probably isn't leaking steam so they did cut 25!
893 299 s
t
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24 yj it in.
And they did cut it in before the level had dropped very far.
I f
think it was the level hadn't change if I'm not mistaken and 2
1 i
3l HUNTER:
That was the first time?
l Si KUNDER:
That was, yeah, that was the first time the generator was isolated 61 and I think that was the parameters they were looking at, same generator levels'but I'm little fuzzy.
8!
i 91 KIRKPATRICK:
The water was staying in the steam generator so they on that 10:
i basis they eliminated that that is the cause of the pressure in the contain-11!
ment..?
12l 13l KUNDER:
Yeah.
14l 15i HUNTER:
Also this was before the reactor coolant pumps were tripped.
16; i
17!
t KUNDER:
I'm pretty sure that's true.
Yeah.
Okay.
But I recall noting 18; that to Jack Herbein and Miller, so that really occurred before our conver-19!
sation.
Now that conversation lasted, I'm judging another 15 or 20 minutes 20; I would think, cause it seemed that I was on the chone an awful lot.
i 21,I
(
l 22l l
HUNTER:
In the meantime, I'm presuming that others came in, you indicated I'
23l I
as your going along you wrapped up the phone call and then there's a group 24!
of you available for the plant, to help out with the problem?
25i 893 300 g
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i
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25 i
lf I'm trying to put the, when we knocked off the reactor cooling KUNDER:
pump in a little bit of perspective.
Seems to me that we knock off the 2,
3f first set of coolant pumps prior to ending the conversation with Herbein, i
4{
Rogers and Miller.
And the reasons they knocked off the first set of pumps, was they were afraid they were getting into the pump NTSH curve 5
i 6l limitations were just about being violated they were afraid of losing suction, cavitating the pump, so they decided to secure one set of pumps.
7!
I recall looking at the curves myself to verify that the pressure and 81 temperature conditions were justifiable to allow securing the RC pump.
I remember the pressure was down around 950 to 1000 lbs in that region and
, 0 [,
1 the saturation temperature was, I'm sorry, the TC was up in the region of 11; 540 or something like that.
But at any rate, the point was on the curve 121 i
in fact slightly below.
13i 14 HUNTER:
Were you reading the curve on the phone?
16:
KUNDER:
No I had come away from the phone.
I'm having trouble fixing in 17l my own mind when we secured the first set of pumps, it was either just 18i prior to the conversation or during the conversation when I had come out to 19:
the Contrcl Room just take a look at pressures and temperatures again and I 20l looked at the procedure.
21; 22l HUNTER:
B-loop pumps at this point, the first set.
23l i
24i 251 l
e it i
I l
I i
26 i
KUNDER:
I had thought yeah, I think it was the B loop pumps, because I 2{
recalled the flow went down in the B-loop pumps.
I believe that they i
3j secured the B-loops so that we could still have adequate spray flow and the A-loop gives you more pressure and you get better spray flow, gives you 5f better pressurizer spray control.
But at any rate, we finally ended the
_l conversation and Gary and Lee Rogers said they were coming.
Joe Logan I ci think was the first Senior person to come into the Control Room.
Best to my recollection we had already secured one set of pumps by the time Joe came 8!
in and it was about the same time frame that when, it was either about the time he came in or shortly thereafter that we secured the second set of 10; pumps, because the flow was starting to degrade on the console flow indicator.
11l i
I seem to recall that it was the flow in the A-loop, two pumps running was 12!
I up above 60% on the indicator and the flow was degrading and had degraded 131 somewhere I think in the region around 30% so it was clear to me that flow 14; was decreasing and that it was thought we were cavitating.
So, the Shift-15i supervisor secured that set of pumps expecting to go on natural circulation 15i because the pressure was low and we didn't want run into cavitation problems 17l with the pumps.
I guess prior to that point I started to get into a dif-181 ferent thought process, I had a, Bubba Marshall had come into the control 191 room, and Scott Wilkerson was still there and I had asked to have a shutdown 20!
l margin calculation performed and I wanted to get the boron concentration 21!
from the system.
I had asked Bubba Marshall to call the lab and get a i
22!
boron pretty quick.
Again I was sort of concern where this water was 23; j
coming from but at that point I still felt, it still appeared to me that 24!
somehow we other water in t.ne system and I didn't know where it had come 25l 893 302
,i I
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27 y
from.
Cause the operators had indicated to me that they didn't have high-2 pressure injection on for that long that it would have filled the system up 3l and we would have gone solid.
I didn't understand that.
I had a, let me think.
Dick Dubiel had arrived and I told him that I had asked for that g
baron sample and asked if he'd go down and coordinate and make sure we get g
the boron sample, get the results of them and I guess it was an interim
,ei period of perhaps 15-20 minutes or 30 minutes before Dick got back to me.
I This was probably close to, when I asked Dick to go down and check on SI getting the sample I believe it was around between 6:00 and 6:15 that sort of thing, so it would have taken them a certain period of time and by that
.,0 1
teunnicians may have been getting a sample cause that had been asked for a 11:
little bit earlier.
Dick had called up to me, and I believe it was around 12l l
6:35 or so maybe 6:40 and he called up the result, and he said the first, I 13) think he said the first two samples indicated 700 ppm baron and he said the 14!
next sample he didn't think that was right so they had another sample that 15; was 400 or something, I don't recall the exact numbers but that change all 16!
of a sudden really frightened me, because I thought I hope that's a bad 17:
sample analysis because I couldn' t at that point I started to think my God, 18I maybe were getting demineral water in through some flowpatn, I just don't understand.
40!
I 21f j
KIRKPATRICK:
This was really only a few minutes after the second set of 22l pumps were cut off, probably around o:30?
23 24i i
I 2s:
893 303 i
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KUNDER:
It was to far from that time frame.
I didn' t know what initial g
boron was I walked over to the status board and it was a little over a 1000 2!.
ppms that was the boron concentration that we should have been at at that 3
i 4f p int in time, then the thought went through my mind, Oh my God, were deboring the system and I told them you got to get another sample and tell 5
me whats wrong, at that point I asked Bubba Bubba Marshall. that is to el start looking at the Unit 2 system and see if there's anyway possible we could be getting demineralized water into the system.
Then again the 8
primary side I just was not familiar enough with over in Unit 2 and although the basic B&W system is the same, the interconnections and rad waste system are totally different between Unit 1 and Unit 2 and I had very little feel for the various system the configurations and soforth and how we could be i
getting demineralized water so I went through my head, maybe we had deminera-13l lized water in BWST and somehow we may have this in our sample analysis, but nonetheless Bill Zewe initiated emergency boration at that as a precau-15; tion.
At that point, I knew something was really, really wrong and at some 161 point in time in that same timeframe I was alerted or I even noticed or IT somebody mentioned that the NIs were kind of high, I went over a looked at 18i sources ranges instrumentation and the source ranges were reading in the 5
range of about 10 counts, intermediate range had come onscale and it was 20:
about half a decade to almost a decade enscale.
The only thing that was 21!
l going through mind at that point, is that the reactor had gone critical 22l again.
I didn't understand what was really happening, I think I understand 2 31 l
now, we think we understood after the fact we seen, but at that point in 2M
\\
time I thought my God we've been deboring the system, somehow that's how 25!
l 1
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I
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29 f{
we've been getting all the water in the system and we taken the reactor critical, so I started to urge, we got to get high pressure injection back 00, we got to get some borated water, what we thought was borated water p
back into the system and Mike Ross was in the Control Room at the time.
I remember him commenting to me George we got to do something because, there 7-1 2
was a, the guys just' set there at console and I guess Joe Logan just weren't et sure of what the next step was and all I could think of was get that damn high pressure injection on, that was the only thing I could think of.
81 There was nothing else to do except to get some borated water into the 91 10:r system until we understand what was going on.
And so we did initiate high-pressure injection and I seem to recall I even yelled it out, get it on, I don't care, we got to get that thing initiated and now.
So that was done, l
immediately after we asked for it and continued thereafter.
Dick called up i
13; l
very shortly thereafter and I heard him screaming over the page George Kunder, LL George Kunder, line one and I answered.
Dick said, George the sample line 15:
had just went up up to 600 mR/hr, and at that point I realize oh my god 16 were failing fuel and I yelled at Joe, I said Joe were failing fuel, Dick 17l gots 600 mR/hr at the sample lines and that was right around 5:45 in that region and I said hey were into. site emergency, its the real thing and site 19' emergency was declared.
I turned around and told Ron Warren and Dick 20?
Bensil and who had been in the Control Room, oh I think just before that i
21; i
Ivan Pcrter who's my lead I&C engineer had come into the Control Room and I 22I l
I briefed him on what had happended, on what the plant was doing and I seem 231 i
to recall, I may have mentioned something about failed fuel, we were getting 2a:
high activity in the system and that was all pretty much around the same 25!
893 305 l
i ly I
j 30 time frame, but I do recall telling Ron' Warren who had been in there ano g
2{
Dick Bensil to get on the phone and start making the phones calls and we 3{
went into the emergency procedures and began the emergency response and I don't know, at that time I really started to just starting reacting to the Condition and really getting it Clear in mind, we were in a real emergency situation and we got to initiate the emergency plan and you know from that ei point on I was, I don't know how to put it, just keyed up to carry out those emergency plans and keeping the plant in a safe condition.
Bill Zewe 8
as I recall pretty much directed his attention to the console and it was around the same time frame that Gary Miller came in, I think he came in, he 10i definately came in after the site emergency was declared, Joe Logan was the Senior guy at the time the site emergency was declared and Gary came in I 12!
l would estimate 15 minutes or so after the site emergency was initiated and 13!
Gary took charge of the emergency as Emergency Director and the emergency IC teams were formulated.
I basically was responsible at that point to work 15:
for Joe Logan, carry out any technical activities he neeced, make sure 16:
communications was established with the State, that was my first concern, IT to get hold of the Civil Defense and I did put two engineers on it, because through previous emergency drills it just takes a long time to make all the l
191 phone calls.
The first one of course is to the Civil Defense Duty Officer 20t and maintenance times that goes to get them notified so they could notify 21i the Bureau of Radiological Health and get that part of the plan moving.
22l 1
23j SHACKLETON:
At this time we'll end this tape, its 9:02 p.m.,
April 24, j
i 2 41 i
l 1979 and we come on other tape.
I 25!
l
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893 306
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31 I
i y;
SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. George A. Kunder.
Time is now 9:05 p.m., April 25, 1979.
2 3\\
4 KIRKPATRICK:
George you were, you had just commented that you had starting
[
making the appropriate calls, Joe Logan was the Senior man on site at that
~!
time.
Does that make him the Site Emergency Director? And shortly, then, 01 Gary Miller came in.
At that time does he assume the
..?
71 1
81 i
KUNDER:
He did.
Gary first appraised himself of tne plant conditions and 10li what we had and Gary, I thought, very forcefully took over as the Emergency Director.
He announced it, and he indicated that he, myself, Logan, I 11:
think he said Ross, and I know he said Debiel were the guys that talked to 12l him, to try and establish good clear communications paths with the people in the Control Room.
And there was the..
communications were being ectab-141 lished by someone else between the control room and the emergency control 15; station.
In otherwords, between ECC and ECS.
I was pretty much making 16i sure that the calls were being made to the offsite people and we got some-17; i
one...
I can't remember who it was anymore.
to keep the emergency status 18i board and I wanted to make darn sure that we go the information from the 191 l
callers, Ron Warren and Dick Bensei, out to the emergency board.
That 20!
i worked fairly well, We had clearly identified who was called at what time.
21l In fact, there was a photograph made of that, so we wouldn't lose that 22 information.
That part of the drill got started fairly well.
23!
20 25; 893 307 i
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32 i
yj KIRKPATRICK:
Step back a minute, I want to keep the emergency in mind, I want to ask you earlier about the conference call between yourself and Jack 2
i 3l Herbein ed Gary.
Cid you keep a log of that or is there a record of your call
...?
4; Si I
KUNDER:
No.
I did not keep a record, Jack or someone on their end may 61 have kept some notes.
I at KIRKPATRICK:
We're down to the point were the emergency has been declared 9l now.
If my sequence is correct, the emergency occurred, you saw radiation increase when Mr. Debiel was down in the lao.
11; i
12l l
KUNDER:
Dick saw the incr?ase down there.
When he told me what his problem 131
~~
ms, it was within seconds that the alarms in the back panels of the RMS 1m starting coming ia.
At this time in my training, I'm not familiar with 15:
which alarms go to which area, but I saw the alert and the alarm lights 16i coming in and they all started coming in very, very quickly.
I knew that 17; there was probably a dome monitor in each unit.
I was not aware that there 18!
was other monitors in the reactor building.
I'm not sure what they did, 19' but tne alarms for the area monitors or the atmospheric monitors in the 20i I
Auxiliary Building or fuel handling building were apparently going off.
A l
21!
lot of alarms were coming in.
72t l
23!
I KIRKPATRICK:
Were you aware they st.crted the reactor coolant pump at that i
24 l
time, or do you recall that?
g 25!
l 893 308 l
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33 KUNDER:
I was aware that the coolant pump was attempted to be started.
I 1:
i thought it was only started one time.
But I learned a little later that 2
they had tried to start one and it didn't work out, but I observed when 3
they started the--let me think, I think it was the 28 pump, if I'm not
,,t mistaken.
There was one control switch in the far right.
They started the Si pump, the indicating light was red.
I looked at the flow indicator, it 61 7;
And I seem to recall Mike Ross and Zewe wondering if it was read zero.
really running.
They called for someone to go down to the switchgear and check to see if the breaker was closed.
And you know they said it was, and they recognized it probably was running, but you know it was just pumping steam up.
There was just no water in the pump and that is why we didn't see the flow indication.
About this same time the way, the intermediate i
range counts dropped off.
13!
14 KIRKPATRICK:
Did that give you any (inda--did somebody report that to you, for instance, or were you watchina,,'* intermediate range?
16, 17 KUNDER:
I wasn't watching.
I 1 m kea at it just after it went down, just ISI to verify that it was going down?
l 19' KIRKPATRICK:
What does that mean to you? At the time, I mean?
21:
oo!
KUNDER:
At the time I was sort of relieved, but I still didn't fully 23 understand what we were seeing.
I think it was later on when John Kenna, 24 of B&W, had been in the control room that he mentioned that procably was i
25!
i 893 309 i
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{
1
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due to the fact that we had the core uncovered, and that the the neutron 1:
2{
leakage output to the out-of-core detectors was greater, and we were seeing 3l the higher count rate.
And that all correlated.
You know, after the fact f
you start thinking about this, and then it fowls up your memory a little bit, because you know--I wasn't-you almost think you recognized it at the
.e. t time but I don't think I really did.
I did r.ot recognize why tne counts a:
went down.
8:
KIRKPATRICK:
During the period the pump was off, somebody.
10l KUNDER:
Excuse me.
I think probably what's going through my mind is the
- 12l, high pressure injection was having some effect, but I just can't recall exactly.
131 14:
KIRKPATRICK:
During the time you had the high pressure injection going in 15 at the normal rate, 200 and some gallons per leg.
15, 17' KUNDER:
250.
IS!
19' KIRKPATRICK:
250, ok.
So you felt that would be boron water? Coolina 20I water?
21:
22!
l KUNDER:
Right, it would be 2270 ppm.
23!
2q 893 510 25t l
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f 35 KIRKPATRICK:
At the time (this is Kirkpatrick) from the time you got very p
concerned that there was a serious problem and told them to turn on the 3l high pressure injection, all during this period you had it going essentially at 250 gallons a minute, is that right?
Si KUNDER:
That's right.
I didn't see the meters.
They initiated high oi pressure injection.
You know I wasn't really part of the operation from
/
the console, so I didn't verify it.
It was my understanding.
91 KIRKPATRICK:
But that was, you told them to initiate, and it was your understanding that they did?
12 KUNDER:
Yes sir.
13i 141 KIRKPATRICK:
Do you understand how they initiated it? Was it by the 15r normal, just by switching two makeup pumps? Or was it by actuation?
16; KUNDER:
I don't, I didn't seem them do it.
I mean I didn' t see them press 13; any particular buttons.
I believe they initiated it with the manual higa j
19i pressure injection push button.
20; 21l KIRKPATRICK:
I see.
Okay.
22{
i 23l' KUNDER:
I'm trying to be very detailed about it.
I didn't go back and i
i j
241 l
look.
I cidn't verify the pumps were on myself, By that time we nad Joe 25!
l 893
!>!1 l
3 1
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36 i
Logan in there, Bill Zewe, Mike Ross.
They were the licensed people, ar.d g
you know I didn't try and track the console to see all that stuff.
I was sort of standing back by the operator's desk, and trying to get an overview 3
of what was all going on.
Si KIRKPATRICK:
Sometimes that's a good place to be.
An overview rather than el being right in the middle of the program.
During this time now, somewnere
/
along the line, somebody decided the power operated relief valves, either lifting or open.
It was indicating closed as I understand it, and by looking back at the other interviews.
But, it was during this time that somebody closed it.
Were you aware that it was closed during that time or was that--
12l 13l KUNDER:
No.
14:
15i KIRKPATRICK:
Okay.
16-17, KUNDER:
All the activities in the PM valves, I wasr.'t aware what was going 1Sl on there.
Because that's part of the console, first of all, that's one 19' i
part that I wasn't that familiar with.
Okay.
There was, it was sprayed l
20' valve, vent valve and a couple of other controls, switches and indicating 21:
lights, and the way they are ' aid cut, they are all sort of together.
So I 22l l
wouldn't have known exactly what I was looking at, unless I had gone up l.
23l there and really picked out the aporopriate indicators.
24!
25!
893 312 s
f 1
f I
i i
i 37 i
i y'
KIRKPATRICK:
Looking at the events from the time you got in, early 4 2
s mething, 4:30 or whatever time you have, and looking down, did you ever, did it ever strike you that you may have had a loss of coolant accident 3!
going on all this time?
q Si KUNDER:
No, I think my first indication that we probably had a loss of oi coolant situation, although I didn't perceive it as a loss of coolant
/
accident in tne normal sense, it was when we started the pump and didn't get flow and the temperatures in the hot leg were going off scale or they had gone off scale.
And it was apparent that we were vapor bound, it was the only thing I could think of.
Somehow, we were vapor bound in the core, A
and T. guess that perception became more and more reaffirmed in my own mind as we went along.
And this is =fter we had the high pressure injection 131 initiated.
1M 15-KIRKPATRICK:
Right.
Did you have that feeling, apparently not, wher you 16:
}
took the first two pumps off?
t 1/:
l 13:
,<UNDER:
No.
f 19r
{,
20)
KIRKPATRICK:
And the next two?
21l l
l i,
m KUNDER:
No.
I didn't have that feeling at all.
I thought that we had l
23(
gone into natural circulation.
Again, I never perceived that we'd had a 2M bubble in the core or in the head, and looking back, it is wnat it appears
{
n to me that occurred, of course.
b9) i
I t
(
38 e
KIRKPATRICK:
1; But basically, well, what was that feeling with, I'm really trying to make sure that we understand when looking at the situation that 2
night, that morning, the pressure was down, the pressurizer level was still 3
up, and I don't want to lead you--but was the pressurizer level the thing that, being full, even though the pressure was down, was that enough to lead you to think that you didn't have a los.s of coolant?
_bl 7!
KUNDER:
Nell, I don't think it lead me, I never even questioned that we had a loss of coolant accident.
Again, my perception when I first came in was that we were filled up in the system and had lost a bubble and for some reascn we wern't regaining pressure control.
And they said that, I guess 11:
makeup, I don't know if I ever really asked or if anybody really told me 12:
that makeup was secured.
But they did indicate the high pressure injection was secured and of course I identified with that in the way we do it.
You 14; know we have had other trips where, you know, following the trip, the 15; pressure gets down low enough to start high pressure injection and then 16:
when the water level in the pressurizer came back up into normal range, they gradually bypassed high pressure injection so they could throttle back 18i on the high pressure injection valves, so that they wouldn't take the i
19-I system solid and 20t 21; KIRKPATRICK:
What did you feel right then when you walked in and you saw 22 the pressurizer full?
23i 241 n)I 893 314 r
i I
l
i t
i
{
39 i
{
KUNDER:
Well, I was confused.
2; I
KIRKPATRICK:
Okay now, it looked solid?
3l 4!
KUNDER:
Yeah, well, it look like it was full.
To me, it appeared that the
- t level had gone up and bubbled around a little bit, close to the flow indica-ei tion.
It was full and the operators were keying on that and trying to let i
7' it down and couldn't get the level down.
My problem was I didn't have enough of a feel for the overall picture because I couldn't pick out all the parameters that quickly.
My familiarity with the panel is sort of limited.
11:
12l i
KIRKPATRICK:
What are Mike Ross's license conditions?
13 14!
KUNDER:
He s cross licensed.
He's one and two both.
15; 16i KIRKPATRICK:
Its a long day.
I think I even asked. aim that to make sure.
17' l
Mike was there all the time?
13l 1 91 KUNDER:
No, he came in, he was in, Mike was in, it must have been 45 20t i
minutes I would say, to an hour after I got in there.
Somewhere in that 21; time frame.
22!
23j KIRKPATRICK:
Right.
I think he actually came in after the pumps were shut i
24;
}
off, is that right? He came in during that time, right? We covered the 25i 893 315
)
i
i l
t i
f 40 t
y nuclear instrumentation and discussed the baron samples, which I was inter-ested in, and we'll key on those as far as time.
Natural circulation we 2
3{
keyed on, thats important.
Okay.
The site emergency, you keyed on the temperatures, high Th, and then the site emergency was declared and Gary q
Miller was here, I assume right away.
Did you recall them initiating the 5;
general emergency?
oi 7!
KUNDER:
Yeah.
The general emergency was initiated about 7--I didn't note the time when they initiated, but based on the log or the status board about 7:24, approximately.
I do know that when the general emergency was declared, I immediately went in and told Pon Warren and Dick Bensel that it was a general emergency, recall everybody.
By that time, I understood that they had reached just about everybody.
In the case of the flRC, I do remem-131 i
i ber that they could only get the girl who was going to ring the duty officer.
Okay? And I don't know what their conversations were specifically.
I know 151 Ron had questioned me, you know, the Civil Defense guy wanted to know a 16-litte more information.
I said, just tell him it's a site emergency and 17' tell him to make the notifications.
Because I didn't want to get into a i
18i lot of detail with him, because I think that would have just confused the 19i issue and I wanted him to get off the phone and start making the calls.
l 20!
I But anyway, a general emergency was declared, and we immediately went
,I 21; i
through and started making calls again.
I, 22l]
l i
23!
I i
KIRKPATRICK:
And you were specifically working in that area, making the l
21:
calls, making sure that was all done?
25:
893 316 5
1 l
p I
[
41 KUNDER:
- Right, l!
i 2!
3j KIRKPATRICK:
That's finished, you've made all the calls.
I guess I don't know how long it took to make all the calls, but...
4 Si i
KUNDER:
Well, what happened, yeah, I guess the calls were made, the second Of round of calls after the general emergency was declared, they began immedi-
/
ately after it was declared and they continued on.
They were probably making phone calls for another 20 to 35 minutes, or something like that.
I g
remember that one call came in on the 944-6017 number, which is the one that they used to tell like the DER to call back on.
That's a direct 11!
outside line.
At least someone answered it and said it was Gerusky.
And I got on the phone with Gerusky.
He had just got into the office.
I told him what we had.
We had a general, at that point it was a general emergency.
It seemed it was about 15 minutes after the general emergency was announced.
15i I told him that the conditions we had, high radiation, and I am trying to 16i remember if I mentioned that the calculations showed that radiation level 17; in Goldsboro wo J1d be 10R, and I was thinking that in line with the do:re 18!
monitoring was what confirmed that we had a general emergency.
And I can't 19i remember if I told them that or not, but at any rate 20; 21!
KIRKPATRICK:
Go back to the radiation level, where?
22l 23l KUNDER:
In Goldsboro.
Af ter we initiated the site emergency, it took 15 I
24) minutes or so til the calculators were.able to use the isopleths, and using 25:
1 893 317 I
I
I 1
i 42 the source term from the reactor building dome monitor.
They apparently did a calculation and the resultant was that we would be seeing 10R at 1
G ldsboro.
I believe that was a whole t,ody dose.
And I had thought at the 3
time that was one of the things that led Gary to declare that it was a general emergency.
I was not aware of what the radiation levels were in
- t j
the dome monitor, okay? And I thought initially we just, you know, we had el the site emergency because we had more than 1 radiation level in the plant 7
t and that was pretty clear.
But at any rate, I can't remember if I told him 81 that fact or not.
But I do know that there was a team dispatched to go 9f over to Goldsboro, and the intent was to get a State Police helicopter in.
Someone else made the initial request and apparently made it in a separate ll!
l call to the State police.
At least I thought that had occurred.
I am not 12!
I sure if it really did.
But a little later into the event I had talked to 13t the State police sergeant, and he wanted to confirm just what we needed.
14:
And I told him, I didn't really communicate with Gary, but I told him what 15!
I thought exactly we needed was a State trooper at the North gate to direct 16'.
traffic, a State trooper at the South gate, and by that time I was aware 17 that we would be diverting all the people that would be coming into work up 181 i
to the observation center.
So, I am pretty sure I asked him for a guide at 19i I
the observation center.
I said I wanted a helicopter to come in so that we l
20l l
can send some offsite monitoring teams out.
I thought the best place for l
21!
l that guy is to come right on site and I told him I would notify security 22!
l that the helicopter was coming in and we'll have the radiation monitoring 23l i
team meet you up at the North end of the site.
I knew the helicopter had i
2M j
come in here once before, and you know, they can land up there without any 25!
I 893 318 1
f
i I
l
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43 1
problem.
So I told him I need to have that done right away.
Whether or 2
n t the helicopter was enroute, I'm not sure.
The helicopter did ccme in 3t pretty ::hort order, as I recall, and I had told Dick Dubiel to reconfirm i
that I had talked to the State police and that they are sending a helicopter down and I called the security sergeant.
I don't know who it was, but you g
d know I told them that the helicopter should be landing on the site to pick I
ol up the radiation emergency teams.
Dick took care making arrangements with
/:
ECS to get the emergency team out and meet them and that's all I got involved g
in that.
10l KIRKPATRICK:
Okay.
12l KUNDER:
I left the phone o;f the hook so that we could talk to Gerusky, 13l r
and I was trying to get Dick Dubiel free so that he could come in and give 1
him a better assessment of what radiologically we were seeing because I did not have a good enough handle on that myself.
From time to time he did talk to him and I really can' c remember how long or just when, but I tried 17 l
to get him on the phone occasionally to just make sure, hey, we are still ISI l
here, and just brief him on any changes.
I think I probcbly gave him the 19; wind speed direction at least cne time.
l 20!
i i
21l K_IRKPATRICK:
Did you remain in the emergency cente.' t.here?
22, 23!
KUNDER:
I was in the emergency center the whole-yeah, I remained in there l
til later in the afternoon when I got called up with Gary Miller to the l
2Sb l
1 4
Soz
?]g
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.)
i i
i,
I I
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44 I
Governor's office.
So my function pretty much through the whole morning 1,
was I would say two things:
I tried to handle communications for Joe and 2:
3l Gary, and certain amounts of coordination.
I think I had called Security q
to make sure the muster was being taken, to find out if they had a muster gl yet, sort of the peripheral communications, and also all the Offsite commu-J nications.
Don Haverkamp called back and I had, I think I had--I'm not c
sura how I had set it up with Don now.
He either called back on the one
/
line and I answered it out in the control room and held that open, or he 81 called in and I told him I would call him back at a number, and I ju'st can't remember what I did there.
But at any rate, I did have Don on tile phone and this was probably 8 to 9 o' clock, in that time frame.
I briefed him on what we had and I held the line open and I recall that he had people in the office that were either on the box or they were there and he was keeping them briefed.
Basically, the I&E group who had set up a command center.
So I did talk to Don on several occasions on the phone, and it was pretty much with respect to telling him where we were with the plant.
16:
Trying to give him the scenario as I understood it from the initiating 17j event.
I was aware at that time that we tripped because of loss of feed,.
16!
tripced a turbine, that tripped the reactor.
Again, I still wasn't aware l
that what happened to tha feedwater emergency system and indicated that, I 20:
f I
am pretty sure in that point in time, that I was aware that we had essentially i 21}
a let down from the RCS and we had pressure having gone so low was, had 22!
formed a steam bubble and exchanged the water from the head of the reactor l
23l l
up into the pressurizer.
That was the way I understood the real problem 24i that we were into at that point.
That was the first part or my responsi-l 25i 893 320 l
l l
r-
f p
l 45 i
lj bilities that morning, aiding in that respect in the emergency plan.
The 2,
ther area was when Gary got together with, basicall'y myself, Logan, Lee i
3 Rodgers and Mike Ross, we discussed pretty much as a team what our next 4j m ve w s with the plant.
This was sometime after 8 o' clock.
It was 8:30 r9
' clock that we pretty much left the emergency to the people that were 5
running it, you know.
Gary We were still concerned about the 6
reactor core.
I recall we did reaffirm our main concern was the health and i
protection of the public.
We sort of reiterated that as a group, and made 8
sure that we had done everything for the plant.
You know, the emergency g
plan was implemented.
We addressed the core, we were still injecting high
,0l 2
pressure injection, BWST was coming down, we still had our hot leg tempera-l tures pegged.
I hadn't realized that in Unit 2, we had a wide range hot 12l leg temperature which goes to 800 degrees.
I found out a little bit later 13l in the morning that they indeed were very high.
They were at or above 700 14' degrees.
I remember praying that we somehow would get a real break in the system because we knew we had a bubble in there.
Somehow we were vapor 16; locked.
There was no way--we recognized we probably had a, the pressurizer 17!
was inceed full of water, and we had vapor in the head of the reactor and 1 81 up in the loops.
We were trying to get as much water in there as we could.
i The pressure was still low.
I guess it was still around 1,000 pounds, and 20:
t we wanted to try and get the pressure up and at that point in time as I l
21l recall, we had the electromatic relief valve open and the RCV2 was open 22l because we felt, you know that was the only way we were getting any kind of 23h[
cooling.
Inject high pressure injection and vent off through the pressurizer.
2h Af ter, at one point, we all felt the best thing we could do was to try and i
as; a
f 893
.32
i lr 1
i 46 i
g get the pressure in the system up by closing the RCV2, the E.M. isolation valve.
And that was done.
That was sometime, I estimate, around 9:30 or g
8**
9 3
i 4i KIRKPATRICK:
Excuse me, would you clarify that again? You said the pressure 4g J
was still down but you were charging water in, but you titink it was going Ol out the relief valvc?
Is that correct?
t 7'
8l KUNDER:
Yeah, we had, at that point the philosophy as I recall was that we wanted to get the flow through the core, using high pressure injection, and by having the electromatic relief valve and the pressurizer open.
We were 11!
hoping to get some sort of flow through the core and out that path.
The l
thing is the pressure never rose.
Pressure just wasn't going up.
We felt 131 that the best thing that we could do to get the pressure back up was close 14!
the relief valve and hold pressure at a high value and then continue the 15i venting through the pressurizer.
We just sort of felt that we were going 16:
to try and collapse that steam bubble that was in there.
Get enough water 17!
in there to make sure that the core was indeed flooded.
We intuitively 18i i
felt that the core was flooded, but you couldn't prove it.
There was no l
19i indications that said, yes, indeed, you were indeed covered.
Okay? We 20:
felt that we were but one of the things that really botnered us badly was 21j the fact that the hot leg temperatures were still very high.
And we felt 22i that we still had steam in there.
I recall one of my big concerns became 23j i
that, my God, we are going to put water in the pot and if we're boiling 24:
off, we are concentrating boric acid, and I was extremely concerned that we 25!
\\
893 322 i
I
l
[
47 I
might be crystallizing baron and get to the point where we don't have 1
enough room for water.
Okay? We end up having a slush of boron in the 2
core, and what would happen then? So that's something that really worried 3
me.
And I felt by trying to get the pressure up and trying to press the Sf bubble, maybe we can do a more effective job of circulating water through the core by using the high pressure injection.
m 7'
KIRKPATRICK:
We'll cut the tape at this time.
It's 9:34, April 25,1979, 8
and we will resume on another side.
9!
10 SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. George A.
11; Kunder.
The time is now 9:36 p.m., April 25, 1979.
Please continue.
l 13l KIRKPATRICK:
George, at the end of your last tape, you were commenting on 14!
boiling and-possible boiling of the coolant concentration of the boric 15i acid diffuser.
Would you go into that in a little more detail.
16i 17i KUNDER:
Okay.
We had been injecting high pressure injection all along.
l 13t j
Our temperatures in the hot legs were still--they were pegged on the panel i
19i I
instruments and by that time I was aware that the temperatures were up l
201 I
above or at 700 degrees F.
It was my perception that we were somehow vapor 22,'
locked, that we had a steam bubble at the top of the core and somewnere in 22!
the legs, had no way of knowing exactly where.
We were concerned that we 23l' were not getting adequate cooling.
We were fairly confident, intuitively, l
24i I
that we had the core covered, but one of my specific concerns was, if we
{
893 323 i
6
I i
I l
l 48 are not getting good water circulatic.1, then the cooling mechanism was--we y
were getting--had the core covered, but it was continually boiling off and we were steaming.
And that would or could lead to concentrating the boric acid to the extent, I was afraid, we might be getting a slush of boric acid in the core and ultimately lose the cooling that we had at that time.
So, as I recall, the logic for making the decision to close the pressurizer 01 E.M. valve and get pressure up was to try and collapse that bubble.
Okay.
/
And see if we can get the level in the system up and try and make a run for 8;
filling the loops and getting the natural circulation cooling or something like that.
The concept was that we may be able to get more effective l
cooling using the high pressure injection through that mode.
So, we all 11 agreed that the we ought to go that way.
I can't recall now whether Lee 12l Rodgers had communicated with Lynchburg to determine if that was the way to 131 go in that particular item, but at any rate, we did do that.
The pressure did come up and we seem to be about over a half hour to maybe an hour-and-15:
a-half time period.
The pressure got up to above 2,000 lbs, and it was 16 decided by, I guess Gary Miller that we try to hold the temperature between IT' the 2,000 and 2,200 lb band by cycling RC82, which is the EM block valve.
13l That was done and we were in that made for a considerable period of time, 191 probably an hour or longer.
And they were cycling that valve, which is a 20!
motor-operated gate valve, about every couple minutes to maintain that pressure band.
I believe the decision was made to widen the band to decrease 22l the amount of cycling on the valve, and based on our experience in Unit 1, 23lJ that valve doesn't perform very reliably through continued cycling.
We 24) i were afraid of maybe developing packing leaks or at some point in time the 25!
t i
I I
i l
1
l 49 motor might fail, or something like that.
So we wanted to just limit the 2
number of times the valve cycled.
We recognized that we hadn't really made 3[
much progress by increasing pressure, in the sense that we were still 4
injecting from the BWST and we only had so long to operate in that made g
before we would be out of boric acid in the BWST, and our problem was what are we going to do next? We still didn't have indications that confirmed
,j we had circulation in the core.
Again, we still intuitively felt that the
/
Core was covered and we were getting some cooling, but there was no clear evidence that we were getting circulation and my concern for that crystali-g Zation still sort of existed at that point.
i 11:
KIRKPATRICK:
This is Kirkpatrick.
At this time were you taking any core i
temperatures or getting core temperature readouts?
131 14:
KUNDER:
I personally wasn't.
Ivan Porter had been, throughout much of this time period, looking at the hot leg temperatures.
He had, as I recalled, hooked up a digital volt meter to the hot leg temperature that goes into the RPS on the RPS channels in the control room.
18!
19, KIRKPATRICK:
Up in the hot legs themselves?
2W 21i KUNDER:
Yes, and he used the output of that and correlated it to the l
22l l
calibration curve for that RTD and was able to datermine temperature.
- t l
23l did agree fairly well with the wide range temperatures, and it was sometime i
24l I
during the morning, I'm pretty sure, that he or someone else hao looked at 25!
I i
893 325 l
I r
s i
t 50 i
i the in-core thermocouples.
Unit I do not have in-core thermocouples, and I g
was unaware that Unit 2 had them installed.
I think Unit 1 probably has 3
the in-core thermocouples but they're just not hooked up, as I recall.
But 4
Unit 2 had them hooked up, and I was really unaware of the information that g
you can get from them, but he had been looking at that and I recall after-wards that they saw very, very high temperatures.
They ranged from some Cl value close to what the, I guess, I'm just guessing now, they had some question marks, I know, which meant that it was out of the range of the g
computer or got a bad signal, but they had high temperatures--up in the 9I 2000 range or something like that.
I did not see the numbers, I'm saying that's based on data that I've seen since this event occurred.
11:.
12l l
KIRKPATRICK:
Do you know if any of these temperatures were in the periphery 131 or do you know the character aspect, you can't characterize it that well?
15' KUNDER:
I can't charactarize it that well, and I believed that Gary Miller to; had specific conversation with Ivan or the people that was getting the data for him, but I didn't participate in that directly.
18i 13 KIRKPATRICK:
The decision then was made to depressurize I presume
.?
20:
21l KUNDER:
Yeah, we talked about that for some length.
We felt that probably the one way we can assure that we got water going into the core was to get 23l down in pressure low enougn to get the core floodtanks going into the core, 21 and also our thougnt was at that point, we try to make a run through for 25i OOK 7, ') {
.s u. d U/s 3
I l
l i
51 t
ij getting on decay heat removal, which means se got to get down to pressure 2j f around 320-325 lbs.
We finally agreed that we'11 allow--and the other 3
concern of course was we were afraid we were going to damage the block valve--at least the motor, operating on it from cycling it so frequently.
So, we decided we would open the block valve, allow the system to depres-g surize, and try to get core flood initiated into the core.
And that was
..W done, and this was somewhere around in the region of 12 or 1:00 something like that.
And the pressure did come down, and it came down fairly rapidly at first and tapered off.
It did come below the 600 lbs and allowed some g
I water to start to dribble in.
10t I
11, i
KIRKPATRICK:
Were vou still running the HPCI at this time?
12:
t 13l KUNDER:
Yes, we neve stopped running high pressure injection to my knowledge, 14:
l and Gary Miller made it pretty clear that he didn't want high pressure injection isolated or stopped for any reason, just to make sure that nobody got the wrong impression out at the console.
I think that the flow rate 17!
was cut back somewhat to conserve water.
I think that it was probably cut, 18j I think I recall that it was cut back to no less than 300 gpm total input 19j t
to the core.
That's a recollection, I never really confirmed that.
20t l
21 KIRKPATRICK:
And you started..
you got down.
and then..
you.
the 22!
l core flood tank really wouldn't dump, apparently.
l 23l f
2 41 I
1 2s 893 327 l
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l
)
8
f l
l 52 7j KUNDER:
Well, we did move water into the core.
It wasn't as much as I was 2
hoping for, I was hoping we could get the pressure down a lot faster and really empty the tanks.
That didn't occur, we emptied probably 10 to 20%,
3 and a little bit more, from the core flood tanks and the pressure was down around, oh it sort of bottom out around 450 maybe as low as 440 lbs in the g;
J RCS.
It was about that time that Gary had indicated to me that he was ei required to go up with Jack Herbein to the Governor's office, and I didn't like that at all. We were in a situation where I felt we needed the exper-tise.
He asked me to go along because he didn't have all the details of where we were at, and what had happened clearly down on paper or clearly in his mind.
He wanted someone technical to back him up, and at that time I t
did have a lot of the details and the thought processes and what we did.
I did in preparation for going up to the Governor's office, I did try to get 131 information from the..
all the logs we had gotten zerox's of the sequence 14t of events.
I had to go over to Unit 1 to get some of that, because the 15; nuclear engineers, Mike Bensen, was trying to get that information and 16i retain it so it wouldn't get lost.
I had to get that from him, so I had to 17' make a trip over to Unit I control room prior to going uptown with Gary.
I 18:
spent probably 10 or 15 minutes trying to gather information and get copies 19' of the printouts in the Unit 2 control room, marking down the status of the 20' I
plant (pressure, temperatures and so forth), and I made a few notes.
Then i
i 21!
I went over to Unit 1, got a xerox copy of the sequence of events, and the 22!
alarm printout and I got a copy of the communications icg that was being 231 kept with the on and off-site monitors.
The ECS by the way had been removec 24!'
to the Unit 2 control room earlier in the day because of higner radiation l
2hl I
893 328 r
l
i j
53 levels or higher airborne levels in the Unit I control access area.
Later y
n, we had again, high airborne in Unit 2 control room.
It wasn't too 2,
3j high, but it was enough that we had to don respirators and it was decided j
to move the ECS over to Unit 1, so that had transpired before 12:00 noon.
S, I went over to get that information and then I met Gary at the service Si building exit, and we both got into the car and went out to the North oi Bridge, and there we met Jack Herbein.
We stayed in that same car and went 7
up to the Governor's office.
9!
KIRKPATRICK:
How long was you gone from the time?
i 11:
KUNDER:
That was--we were gone roughly an hour and a half.
At first I thought we had left around 1:30, but after reviewing some of the sequence 13; of events and some of the plant parameters, I recalled when I left the la plant the prsasure was about 450 lbs.
And I had forgotten that the pressu-15:
rizer level for the first time through the morning had come on scale.
It lb; looked like we were starting to get some method of circulation cooling, but 17!
then the pressurizer level went up again and they had lost it.
That was ISI l
about the time that I left and that was, after looking back at it again, it i
191 I
was somewhere tround 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon.
We were offsite for.
20; went out to the Governors, went up to Bill Scranton's office actually, and 21:
we had talked briefly to Herman Kneecamp who was already up there and had i
22l l
spoken to the officials and went inside.
I went into an office adjacent to i
23l Bill Scranton's office and called back to the plant to establish some 24!!'
communication with them and to see if anything had changed in our absence, 25i 89sX T ') Q
.; c,
1
F i
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l 54 7;
and I held the line for I guess it was 10 or 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, Gary and Jack went in and had their conversation with Bill Scranton.
I guess we 2,
3l were probably there for at least half an hour, probably 45 minutes, maybe a 4
little bit longer.
I do recall when we came back, we tried to pick a route where we didn't have too much traffic, because it was around 4:30 to 5:00, g
somewhere in that time frame.
We got back to the plant, and I believe it ei
,j was when we got back a decision was made to take the pressure back up, and
/
again attemot to get the loop--at least one loop--filled, and see if we can 8!
start a pump.
I don't think it was too long after we got back to the plant that that became our goal, and Jack Herbein had ordered that we take the plant, try to take the plant solid, and I guess we were skeptical of our ability to really do that.
Any rate we did charge it max flow rate, as I recall.
This is a little fuzzy, I'm not really sure what the flow rates were at that point.
But we did attempt to charge the system, to get the pressure up, and hopefully fill the loops.
The decision was made to try to start the one reactor coolant pump.
Lee Rodgers had been on the phone with 16i Lynchburg, I guess, during most of the day.
He was checking out with 17!
l Lynchburg whether it was okay to start the pump.
At any rate the pump was 181 started.
Initially the pressure was uo around 2000 lbs, somewhere close, 19i and pressure initially dropped fairly radically and they secured the pump.
20i I wasn't up at the console really observing this.
I really have a hard 21; time recalling what specifically I was doing, but I was on the periphery 22l following the operation on the console.
It was apparent that the decreasing 23!
j pressure was due to the cooling that was occurring when we started to pump 20 and Joe Chwastyk was the Shift Supervisor on at the time.
Ar.d it was just i
25; 893 330 I
4 i
i
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55 i
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a matter of getting the pressure back up and making a second attempt, which
,. l was done.
I helped to participate in that operation.
They put me back
/
behind the panel to close the automatic isolation valve or the valves DHV 3;
8A&B.
This is the outlet of the sodium hydroxide storage tank,s because z
5!
the first time that they had a pressure drop I believe they had high-pressure injection, which was no problem, except it initiated a lot of ol other equipment, opened those valves.
It was not desired to inject sodium 7
hydroxide into the sytem at that point.
I'm not sure what all else occurred 8,;
when you intiated high pressure injection over in Unit 2, but I was there to close those valves, and they did make another shot at starting the pump and expecting the pressure to come dcwn.
They were going to try and keep 6
11!
it on this time and see how far down it came, and if it leveled off, fine.
I 12;
{
I don't recall if they established a limit on the pressure drop, but it did 13) come down to somewhere in the range of 1500 lbs, perhaps maybe a little bit lower.
But, when we ran the pump at that point, the hot leg temperatures came down into range very close to the cold leg temperatures and shortly 16; thereafter I believe we got flow established in the B loop as well.
Of l
17; l
course, at that point we knew then we had flow in the system and, by the 18t l'
way, the one valve, DHV 5 I believe it was, dia open.
I immediately closed 19!
it.
20:
i 21!
HUNTER:
The sodium hydroxide valve?
22!
l 23j KUNDER:
Yes.
gg 7
25i 1
l l
i i
I 56 yj HUNTER:
The 8A or 88 valve?
2:
KUNDER:
3 The one valve, I just, I hit them both closed just to make sure 3;
they did stay closed or go closed again.
I recall assigning Don Berry to 5
take notes to make sure we were keeping a record of what was going on.
He f
was doing this also behind the console with me.
ol i
7:
KIRKPATRICK:
When would he have started taking notes, during the day or 81
... ?.
10; KUNDER:
No, I don't think.
It was too early in the day, I just rec..
periodically, I recognized that notes were not being taken, because it was a lot activity, and I just seem to recall just prior to that event that I 131 asked them to keep good notes on everythin; that transpired so that we had 14!
a record.
Its awful hard for the operators to keep a log on.
16:
KIRKPATRICK:
I notice that, realizing that things were going on
.. trying l
to build a log now, really.
After you had the pump on again, did you feel 1st l
like things were... that you had things fairly stable, then, far as cooling j
19!
i flow and..?
20l l
21, l
KUNDER:
I think we felt that way.
We felt at least we made a major mile-22!
stone.
And we reestablished flow and it was stable flow, and we had control j
23!
j of pressure, the pressurizer level was still rather high, but it was on i
24l 1
scale and TH came into close proximity to TC on the A loop, and it was very 25!
1 l
89X
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j f
f l
I
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57 1!
shortly thereafter that same thing occur on the B locp.
And for the first 2
time, I think we all felt pretty relieved.
31 KIRKPATRICK:
Was the pressurizer level on scale, you said down to indicate.. ?
4; Si KUNDER; It was on scale and as I reca?1 somewhere around 300..
6j t
7!
KIRKPATRICK:
Was that from the pressurizer heaters and actual steam bubble g
on the pressurizer, or was it just there?
g, 10; K'UNDER:
Well, we, I think we felt we had steam bubble.
I know earlier in the day the pressurizer 1".aters were not very effective.
We apparently had lost a number of them due, presumably to the moisture conditions in the reactor building.
But from the time we stopped venting from the pressurizer, the pressure had come down and presumably some of the condensation, some of the moisture, permitted the heaters to dry out sufficiently, so we could lo, -
reset them and we were getting a little bit more performance out of the heaters.
1Si 19' i
KIRKPATRICK:
Okay.
We've been through the complete event, and I think we 20!
got your position through the whole event, and we can keep that and take points for the radiological people to talk with you cn the health physics 22l aspects of that.
If we need more details we've got pick areas to talk 23!
I specifics to you.
I'm saying that we will be talking with you again, I'm i
24!
l sure.
We will schedule you in again next week, or whatever.
Don, co you 25i i
have any questions?
893 333 l
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58 h
HUNTER:
No I believe I don't have any at this time.
y; l
2:
KIRKPATRICK:
It's getting late and there's no sense going on.
I'm finished 3
for now, and I appreciate your time.
Do you have any comments that you Sj like to put forth? As I say to everybody, is there any area that we need specifically to make sure we do get involved in, that we don't overlook 6
anything, because again we're ccming in trying to rebuild this thing..
We have a fairly decent sequence, and we're putting everything together, but 81 it's going to be.
We don't want to overlook anything, because we're here g
to find out why you were presented with what you were presented with.
11; KUNDER:
A feeling that sort of pervaded the control room was that, and it bothered me, was that we didn't have the ability to control what we had, we 131 didn't have the ability to vent off the system.
Like I said, I was at one l
point just praying that we didn't blow a reactor cooling pump seal, or 15 something we could blow off the top.
That way, we could vent off the steam and assure that we were getting flow through the reactor.
It was more than 17; l
a frustrating feeling.
It was sort of a futile feeling, that we weren't 181 i
i able to get flow through the system at that point in time.
Of course, we l
19:
i were thinking of all kinds of design changes that we'd love to see to allow l
20!
I us to go for that situation.
I've got some recommendations, probably more i
21:
generic recommendations, that I've already taped and given to Gary Miller 22l and he's compiling those recommendations along with those of other people i
23; I
I in the plant to present to Senior Management, and so forth.
No.
I don't 24) think I've any other comment.
25 093 334 i
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il
{-
l 59 4
6 I
7j KIRKPATRICK:
Thank you.
Think about--think about what we can talk about 2
again.
If something comes to mind, make sure you jot it down, 'cause when 3j we d talk about these areas at the time the block valve was closed, oh q
yes, by the way, that's when the source range did something whatever you, recall somebody saying something.
Try to think along that line and gl don't hesitate to jot something down, and we'll try to make sure that we 6
,j cover all the aspects of this thing, that we feel and you feel are necessary
/
for us to be covered to make sure we get the answers.
We are not ever going to have this chance again.
And we didn't expect to have it this 9l:
10,l time, but since it is here, we're going to try to find out what happened.
lli KUNDER:
Now, I certainly want to see that.
12!
13 SHACKLETON:
Okay, thank you very much Mr. Kunder, the time is now 10:03 p.m. April 25, 1979, and we'll end this interview.
15i 16; 7'
893 335 ISr 19i 20i 21,l 22l 23 l
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