ML19249B088
| ML19249B088 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/21/1979 |
| From: | Hunter D, Marsh R, Martin T NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908290630 | |
| Download: ML19249B088 (51) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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t In the Matter of:
2 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW
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of James C. Higgins, U. S. Nuclear
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Regulatory Ccamission 4'
Reactor Inspector, Region I Si i
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Trailer #203 9!
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10t Middletown, Pennsylvania 1
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t'ay 1, 1979 12.
(Date of Interview) 13!
June 21, 1979 (Date Transcript Typec) 141
- 88 ISi (Tape Numcer(s))
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NRC PERSONNEL:
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Bob Marsh, Region III Tim Martin, Region I
($)
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Dorwin Hunter, Region III l
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l ilj MARSH:
The date is May 1, 1979, the time is 5:09 p.m.
This is Bob 2
Marsh I am an inspector with Region III of the Nuclear Regulatory i
3l Commission and we are together at Three Mile Island today to conduct 4j an interview of James C. Higgins of the U. S. Nuclear '.egulatory 5
Commission.
Prior to starting I like each member present in the room 6
to identify himself, to spell his last name and identify his position 7l with the NRC.
Dan if you would start.
Okay, Tim Martin NRC inspector i
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with the Performance Appraisal Branch.
Dorwin Hunter, I am a Inspector g
Specialist with the Performance Appraisal Branch, Region III.
J. Higgins Reactor Inspector Region I in the Reactor Operation Nuclear Support 10y Branch.
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Okay Jim you are the individual we wish to speak to this afternoon and as you are aware we are conducting an investigation regarding the incident here March 28.
Both Tim and Dordin have some questions that 15i we would like to present to you and at this time I would like to turn 16,:
it over Tim I would ask a couple of things I would like to keep the 17!
pace of questioning down to speak sicwly if any acronyms are abbreviations or jargons is used I would like to have it defined just for the people 191 who would have to transcribe this.
At the end of the tape and we begin to run out of tape I would give everyone a sign indicating that 21{
we are running toward the end and finally a time when we are down 22' I
within a few second of the tape running out at which time I would like 23 24l 2sj 894 052 1
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2 ilj to put the time on the tape and like to put the time on the tape and
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footage and turn it over so if you see me making certain hand signs 3
thats indicating how much time left on the tape.
With that Tim I'll 4j put it in your hands, you can begin.
Si MARTIN:
Okay, Tim Martin speaking.
Jim its our understanding that you were one of the first NRC inspectors to arrive on site.
I would
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like a confirmation of that and I would also like to find out hos, )u 8l got from yo arrived on site how you to Unit 2 control r-m; what 9l conditions you found when you arrived there and then try to brief us 101 of what occurred what vou saw in the control room during that first 11!
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day, okay?
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~ 3l HIGGINS:
Okay I'd like to preface this just to say that what I'm giving you is my best recollection and hopefully the facts won't be 15i too clouded by the passage of time.
I left in the emergency vehicle from Region I about 8:45 in the morning and there were five inspectors 17l in the vehicle coming to the plant:
Gallina, Plumlee, Nimitz, Neely ISI and myself and we left the Region as I said about 8:45 and proceeded 191 directly to the plant.
We arrived around approximately 10:05 at the 20 north gate.
When we arrived at the north gate there was considerabe 21,'
confusion at the north gate. There was a lot of people milling around 22' l
there was already press there. We heard reports on the radio on c.
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3 lj trip up that Route 441 in front of the plant was closed and barricaded 2
by the state police.
We didn't find that to be the case when arrived.
3 We didn't ktow what to find except when we did arrive but what we 4;
found was that there were several guards out by the front gate.
There Sj were also appeared to be some plant people around there what we did was we went up to the guard shack and Carl Plumlee and I myself both have had at that time picture badges on the site and we went to the guard shack and asked the guard for our picture badges and told them g
we were the NRC team that had arrived to look into the matter that was g
going on in the site, the guards at that point called into the plant 10r and gave us our badges processed us quite expeditiously at the front 11:
gate, then unlocked the gate, the gate was chained at this point, the i
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north gate unchained it and let us in.
Once on the site we drove to 131 the parking lot by the processing center on Unit 1 and went in there.
There we e very few people on the Island at this point as we can see as compared with the normal status that you would expect at an operating plant.
In the processing center there were only a few people, there I
were no guards in the processing center which is normally manned by 18!
the guards force.
At that point, they still had that badges there at 19j the processing center where you pick up your second badge for the 20t protected area.
Karl Plumlee and I did pick up our badges there.
We did not get any dosimetry of any type.
There are any place else tnat 22' day from the licensee.
All of us were using our own NRC 'ilm badges.
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1 Those of us, well, I can't speak for the other people but I did not 2l have dosimeter. All I had was my NRC film badge.
At that point we l
31 proceeded directly to the we were given information by someone that 4
Jim Seelinger was in the Unit 1 cont.ol room and that we were supposed 5
to go up there and see him a.A get our initial information from Seelinger.
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We did at that point di five of us proceeded to the Unit 1 control 7
room and we when we a rived there Seelinger was there in charge I believe and we proceeded to get what information we could from the 8
people therc.
Some of the health physics inspectors proceeded to talk g
to personnel about that and the environmental conditions.
I tried to 10 talk to the shift supervisor and the operators to determine plant conditions, both in Unit 1 and Unit 2.
I spoke with Greg Hitz shift supervisor and Bubba Marshall an operator, reactor cperator, and they had both been in Unit 2 earlier that day.
I got my first 5,cenario sketchy as it may be at the point as to what happened.
I expressed a 15,!
desire at that point to the personnel in Unit 1 control room that I l
desired to go the the Unit 2 control room.
There was some delay at 17' this point... let me check some thing here.
18f 19b MARTIN:
Sure go ahead.
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HIGGINS:
I guess i' was shortly after this cause after we go the 22l first information and we were getting ready to go over to Unit 2 23 l
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1 control room that we got the word via the phones from Unit 2 that Unit 2j 2 control roo.' was being evace=ted because of an airborne radioactivity 31 problem, and therefore, that delayed us getting aver to the Unit 2 1
4 control room.
So we tryed to gather up some masks in order to take Sj those over with us to Unit 2.
Fina'.:y we did get the masks.
In the i
ej meanwhile two other inspectors arrrived Ray Smith and Walt Baunack.
7i While the majority of us were still in Unit 1, in the Unit I control g
room, at that point when we finally did get masks together and Don Neely gj and I proceeded over to the Unit 2 control room together <
the other 4
i 10j inspectors stayed either in Unit 1 or proceeded out to begin independent i
11 surveys around the plant.
It was 9vious at this point that it was a 12f fairly serious occurrence that had happened there because many of the normal procedures that are fo11 sed in the plant were not being followed, 73 that is, in terms of security and and health physics practices, issuance y
f d simetry, issuances of masks and training and this type of thing, 15 gl So anyway Neely and I put on the masks ud proceeded over to the y
Unit 2 control room and we went down through the normal passage way ISI building around the back around the passage way in the back door and up to the Unit 2 control room. When we arrived there everybody in the l
control room was in masks and so were we and it made it initially 21l l
quite difficult to communciate with the people and find out wha
'as 22l going on.
The people in the Unit 2 control room were experiencing 24l 25 i
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some of tne same difficulties in communications, that is, both face to 2
face with each other and over the phones with various people.
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4l MARTIN:
Approximately what time was this Jim you got a feel for it?
51 HIGGINS:
I do have a rough feel.
It is a guess, I'd say some time 6
1 between 11:00 and 11:30 I think that I arrived in the Unit 2 control 7
r m with Don Neely.
At that point and through the rest of the day 8
Don Neely and I tried to cover the actions in that I followed the g
system and the plant operation and Don followed the radiological i
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aspects of the accident.
Both of us talked on the phone with people, 11; 12l with other NRC people in Region 1 and in headquarters and later on in I
the day with Stat.e personnel also.
I don't know what time Walt Baunack 13l i
arrived but later on in the day Walt did arrive in the control room 14l j
also and I would guess anywhere from an hour to two after Don Neely 151 16l and I arrived, maybe several hours I am a little hazy on this but Walt l
did come back to the control room and Walt helped out considerably in 17l with two operations type people we were much better able to follow the 18j plant situation there than we would have with just one of us particularly 19{
with the amcunt of time that was being required for us to be on the 20!
l phone talking with the people in the Region and in headquarters, 21l communications were very very poor the first day.
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MARTIN:
How was the communication established Jim?
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3 HIGGINS:
I don't remember exactly; I just don't remember that.
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5l Communications were broken and established several times and it was on 6
a phone in the shift supervisor office with the Region first and then 7
later we were patched in with Bethesda and there were, it was many times, they did contacted us several times when communications were g
broken and we ended up calling back and getting in touch with them g
m re than once also.
We also at different times during the day, the 10I next day, had AT&T people on that were doing all kinds of special patching in and various other things were going on, on the phone that I had never heard of but they were doing all kinds of things.
In order to establish the phone links seem like I was talking to people y
all over the country trying to establish the communications.
Let see H
anyway at best as I can recall the plant supervision type people that 16i were in the control room were Gary Miller, Station Superintendent and 17!
we had Shift Supervisors Joe Chwastyk and Bill Zewe there was Unit 1 Operations Superintencent Mike Ross and Unit 2 Superintendent of Technical Support George Kunder.
21l 22l-MARTIN:
Were they in the control room when you first arrived?
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HIGGINS:
I believe, several of them were not, all of those people l
2' were I believe.
I don't remember exactly I believe at that point i
3l Gary Miller was in the control room who was the station superintendent.
I 41 Si MARTIN: Who was supervising operations at this point?
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HIGGINS:
The there were obviously several levels of supervision all 8j in the control room which you normally don't have.
We had the station gg superintendent, operations superintendent, shift supervisors and 10 perators and so on there were very many people and basically what was 11j done and the way it was done through the most of the afternoon was 12' that people, the supervisor types, upper level supervision, gathered 13l into the shift supervisor's office and discussed the plant conditions, g
the situation of the various systems and what courses of a.ction they wanted to take.
It was many many meetings of this type of which 15 Gary Miller was generally in charge and making the decisions based on g;
recommendations of the various people that were there as the recommendation g
of the shift supervisor input from operators from health physics people that is from the Unit 2 and also from the emergency control g
center which was being run from Unit 1 control room.
Also there was 20j 21j input from B&W people and there was a Lee Rogers have you talked to Lee of B&W?
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9 11 MARTIN:
I don't know, i
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l 31 HUNTER:
He is scheduled for an interview.
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Sf HIGGINS:
Okay he was the B&W man and he had a considerable input 6
throughout the first day with recommendations from B&W as far as i
7 actions to be taken and plant conditions that sort of thing.
There 8
was also phone communications with different people later on in the g
day B&W had established communications with their people in there home I believe in Lynchburg later on in the day towards the later afternoon 10 7{
communications were established between Jack Herbein over in observation I
center and the people at that point Jack seem to be making more the decisions than the in plant people as they had through most of the day 13 and in general I would say that the plant personnel the plant management and the operators were all acting in basically a calm manner and fairly professionally I believe.
However there was some certainly some uncertainty among the plant people as to where to go.
The plant 17; was in a very unique situation.
They didn't know how to get out of it they tried everything throughout the day to recover the pressurizer 191 level to get rid of the bubbles that they knew they had in the loops 20!
steam bubbles at this point they felt and perhaps some noncondensibles 21f so they really didn't know and they tried various thing trying to i
recover and return the plant to a normal situation and most of which 23l l
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through out the day proved unsuccessful.
Everything they tried and 2f they were very frustrated trying to recover the plant and return it to I
3 a normal situation.
Later on in the day when Jack Herbein started to 4l essentially take control of things from the observation center things 5l appeared to get more organized and I think it was probably the result i
6i of having someone that was slightly removed from the entire problem 7l able to sit down and logically sort through the information make good i
g decisions as to which direction the plant should be taken and what g
things should be done and it appeared at the time that the plant 10j started to make real progress towards returning the plant to a final scable situation.
I 12l MARTIN:
Jim when you first arrived in the control room how many 13 people were there?
15i HIGGINS:
I really can't picture the control room at that time there 16 were it was quite crowded it was fairly crowded especially since they g
had evacuated out of the control room even at the point it was people quite a few people in the control room and just.. go ahead.
20l MARTIN:
Would you characteristic most of these people as operator i
type?
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HIGGINS:
Yes.
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3 MARTIN: Or supervision?
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5 HIGGINS:
About half and half.
6 MARTIN:
Bout half and half?
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MARTIN:
g Were the panel obstructed could the operators actually manipulating 10l the controls see all there alarms see all there panels?
11l HIGGINS:
Yes.
l 131 MARTIN:
What kind of evolutions going on when you arrived?
15' HIGGINS:
I really can't at this point make a picture in my mind at 16,;
all of the control room as it was at the moment that I arrived what I 17f I
have to describe to you is what I can remember happening throughout 18t the day and there were operations associated with steaming or not 19!
steaming the steam generators feeding the steam generators manipulation i
on the-lot of manipulation with adjusting makeup flow manipulations 21; i
with the pressurizer heaters and with the block valve in the eletromatic 22l l
and the pressurizer vent valve going on through out the day.
Certainly 231 I
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rlj a lot of alarms that the plant had regular annunciator alarms and also l
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radiation monitoring panel alarms that probably constituted the majority I
3 of the actual operations on the control boards, those types of things.
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MARTIN:
'A t kinds of decisions were made in the Shift Supervisor's 6l office and later acted on by the operators? Do you remember some of 7l them, give us a sequence of these events?
8 HIGGINS:
Well, I could do that by going through my notes. Use that g
10 type of thing? Some of these may be out of order.
11l HUNTER:
Let me ask one question.
You commented before, then we'll go n.
You commented before that you obtained or attempted to obtain a 13
.j plant status when you first came onsite.
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HIGGINS:
Yes.
17l HUNTER:
18l What was the plant status, describe what the plant status that you found, at that time, your understanding of the status even if it is different today.
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21 Higgins:
I'll give you this right out of my notes from the first day.
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When I first arrived on the plant, the first sequence of events that I 23l l
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got was from, and now my notes were again kind of sketchy but I'll 2
give you what I have from there and what I believe it to be.
I believe l
31 this was from Greg Hitzright after our arrival in the Unit 1 control l
4 room which would have been sometime around 10:30 and at that point he Sj said that initially what they had was a problem with the polisher and i
6j the condensate system causing a condensate pump, booster pump and feed
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pump trip.
As a result of this they as a final end result of the 8
sequence, they had SFAS, which is a actuation of the engineer safety gj features, or I believe a safety features actuation system and they, at that point I was told that the reactor tripped on low pressure and the 10 i
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SFAS occurred on low low pressure.
Okay? And that they also had a tube rupture in the B steam generator and that the auxiliary building was isolated.
That was Unit 2 and that was very brief because he was involved with operations at this point in Unit 1.
I found out that Unit I was in hot shutdown 532 degrees 2155 psig.
Shortly, thereafter, 15 I talked with, in more detail, with Bubba Marshall, who is an operator l
and he told me that he had, about an hour before that, been in the 1,/ ;
Unit 2 control room, he gave me the conditions in Unit 2 as of what he knew as of 9:30.
He told me that as of 9:30 the plant was at 1500 psi, about 550 degrees, that the B steam generator was isolated, the A I
steam generator was being used for cooldown.
He said that the incident 21; 22l had been initiated by a loss of feed which resulted in a turbine trip and initial run back of the reactor for about 8 seconds and then a 23j 24!
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Ob4
i 14 1l reactor trip on high pressure.
At that point the electromatic relief 2
lifted to the reactor coolant drain tank, the rupture disc on reactor i
3l coolant drain tank blew and that resulted in a buildup in pressure in 4j containment.
He told me that containment isolation was not received 5l with the initial accident but was gotten later.
At that time containment l
Si pressure was about 2.8 pounds, he told me.
Those, that set of conditions 7
was what I called into the Region the first chance I had, which I 8
don't remember what time it was, but that description there was the gj first description that I called into the Region.
Okay.
Anything else n that?
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HUNTER:
No.
Then apparently your're going into the control room and 12 13{
y u'll pick up some of your activities?
14i HIGGINS:
Right.
15i 16i HUNTER:
On decision making process.
18 HIGGINS:
Right, and through out that, okay.
Fine.
Let me go into that... Okay, there were a lot of discussions at this point later on r
in the day.
I'll pick up around 11:00-12:00.
There was a lot of 21l discussion with B&W personnel and plant personnel and with myself and 22 also with Walt Baunack when he arrived later as to running the reactor i
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lj coolant pumps.
At this point +. hey were reluctant to run tra reactor i
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coolant pumps because they felt shey would blow the seals on the 3;
reactor coolant pumps as they said, and that would create a very large 1
4i loss of coolant, and, therefore, they didn't want to attempt that.
l 5l They had attempted it earlier in the day and they said that when they 1
6j did atteapt it they had run essentially. unloaded when they looked at 7
the amperage that they were not pumping any water, either noncondensables gj or steam and that was certainely backed up by looking at some of the g
temperatt.re parameters they nad.
So that, that type of thing was discussed.
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HUNTER:
You indicated, Hunter speaking; you indicated that they made the decisions at that time not to (run) the pump again.
13 14i HIGGINS:
That's correct.
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HUNTER:
At that time, okay.
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18l HIGGINS:
Yes.
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20j And, what they were trying to do, there, they knew that they had very 21;;
high temperatures in both hot legs and low temperatures in both cold i
legs, so they felt that there were steam bubbles or noncondensable 24!
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1l buobles in the not legs.
They felt that somehow that they, and they 2{
also had pressurizer level.. t of site on the high end, the pressurizer 3
iadicated full and they believed that indication.
What they were 4j trying to do was somehow recover pressurizsr level, get rid of the 5
bubbles in the hot legs and reinitiate flow in the loops.
Okay? They 6
were, throughout it, they were concerned about maintaining the core cover and maintaining adequate core cooling.
That came up in discussion 7
a 1 t in the control room.
There were more than one time when they 8l went through and they made a decision on what course of action to g
take, they said, does anybody here feel that the core is uncovered, is there any concern among anybody that we're not taking the right action 11!
I as far as maintaining core coverage?
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131 HUNTER:
And that question, Hunter speaking, and that question came 14!
from Gary Miller or did it come from everybody?
1:_::
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j Higgins:
Gary Miller made that statement at least once, I can recall 17; that.
Yes. Later in tne afternoon is when I specifically remember him 18i making that statement.
There was a lot of discussion as of what 19!
course of action to take in order to recover the loops and get the 20!
bubble back in the pressurizer.
They were having difficulity with 21i letdown so there was a lot of discussion about how to get more letdown 22l flow at various times during the day.
B&W, they ended up, it was, as 23l 24i 25 e
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17 lj I said before, a lot, through a lot of this period, a lot of people 2l were in masks and communications were somewhat difficult.
People did l
3l take off mask periodically in order to improve communications when the M
frustration built up to such a point that and they had important 5
things they had to ciscuss in the shift supervisor's office, took the
!y masks off and held them right there.
Both face to face communications 7
and communications over the phone and I did the same thing sometime g
when I was trying to communicate back to the Region and I was just g
unable to make myself understood or understand back what they were 10j trying to tell me over the phone.
As I said earlier, also, the communications if were bad and not only had we lost communication at time, but there were quite a few times when I was trying to teli the Region what was going on in the plant, types of management decisions that were being made and the people that I was talking to either didn't understand because they had shifted off four times and they weren't, the people 15i that were picking the phones back up weren't getting briefed as to
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17l what happened before.
There was a lot of problem with that and also with background noise in the Region and Headquarters, people trying to talk to the person while they were tr; ing to talk to me in the control room.
That was happening continually even while I was pulling my mask 21;j off in a contaminated area, trying to talk to people on the phones, very frustrating.
Getting back to some of the other management type 22j j
decisions, the, a lot of the decision as to how best to recover and 23!
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get rid of the bubble in the leg, a lot of the input for this type of 2
decision was made by the B&W people and it was difficult at times to i
3 comp'etely follow what actions they were taking.
4 gj MARTIN:
Was this 8&W Lynchburg or B&W representative who was on site?
l Gi 7
HIGGINS:
The representative on site, but he was getting input from 8l Lynchburg and I don't know h6w much input he was getting from Lynchburg.
g I have the impression that most of it was coming from directly from 10-the personnel on site and I'm not sure that they were getting that much from Lynchburg, but they may have been.
l 12t 13l MAR TIN:
How soon after you arrived did the B&W man have contact with Lynchburg?
15; HIGGINS:
I don't know what time the link was established.
They were g;
17l talking to Lynchburg back around, I believe behind the back panel with 1
the phone back there so I don't know what time that was established.
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I believe that they had that when I arrived, I'm not sure.
There were two B&W reps there, I only know the name of one, Lee Rogers.
21 This is Jim Cresswell speaking.
Was the other one John Flint?
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894 069 25 1
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HIGGINS:
I don't know his name.
Okay.
The other types of decisions 2i that were discussed and made were, was controlling primary pressure i
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and whether or not to take primary pressure high and try and control i
4j it high on the electromatic relief or the pressurizer vent or to take 5
pressure low and try to get on the decay heat removal system.
There g
was a lot of discussion about getting the plant low er.ough to go on 7
the heat removal system at one time that day; they aid try te take pressure down in order to initiate decay heat removal system.
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91 MARTIN:
Who made that decision to go that route?
11l H_IGGINS: Well, all decisions were made sort of as a, with the input of all people that were present and the final decision was made by 13 g
Gary Miller.
He was in charge and he was making the decision but he 1m 15; was getting input from all people present as I discussed, that is, the Shift Supervisors and the B&W people and Operations Superintendent, and so forth.
17!
18l MARTIN: Were there ever phone contacts made before the decisions were 19; finalized?
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21 HIGGINS:
Later on, as I can best recall, the phone contacts did not 22' I
start to really come into play as far as decision making until late in 23l t
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lj the afternoon when Jack Herbein started to do that and at that point 2!
when that began that, it appeared that the process became much more l
3 orderly.
Lets see... There was a lot of, there was discussion upon i
4j reducing pressure in order to get down when they could get on the 5l decay heat system, there was a lot of discussion about the core flood i
6f tanks in order to, they want to lower pressure and they felt that when 7l they got down around 600 pounds where the core flood tanks could inject they wanted to go ahead and let them inject ano that would, 8
provide an addition source of makeup water for core cooling and insuring g
e core was covered and Oey GougM dat wouM also ghe 2em 10i positive indication that the core was covered and when the core flood tanks, when the pressure drops 600 pounds and the core flood tank levels dropped very slightly and didn't inject any more they felt that at that point that the core was covered.
There was continued discussion 141 also about the mode of cooldown whether to draw vaccum into the condensor 1
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whether to use the atmospheric relief valves, this type of thing.
There was concern in when the pressure was being maintained high and l
171 the plant was cycling the block valve to the, the electromatic relief valve in order to control pressure.
There was a lot of concern about 19!
the block valve failing because of continued cycling and that, at 20l that, shortly after that the decision was made not to cycle that 21l anymore but to leave it closed and to use the pressurizer vent valve I
for pressure control and then also, this to reduce pressure, that was 23l 241 J
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l 21 part of the consideration in reducing pressure so they didn't have to 1;
2f do that.
There were a lot of periperial things happening thoughout 3
this, away from the main problem in recovering the loops in the pressurizer i
4j and so forth, and there were, as I said, Shift Supervisors and Operations Superintendents in this type of thing and they were attacking a lot of 5
these periperial problems throughout the day.
Just one example comes 6
to mind is that there was loss of power to various instrumentation at 7
j one point, tiiey lost the entire area radiation monitoring panels would g
I be energized and they lost various powers and that was regaining after g
i a half hour or so.
There were a lot of peripheral problems like this 101 ll;!
coming and going which added to the overall level of confusion..
I'm I
just looking through here to see if I, some more of the examples of 12!
the type of things you're asking about.
When the decision was made to forgo the effort to reduce pressure and get on the decay heat removal l
system, partially it was because they weren't able to reduce pressure 15i low enough, but they also at that point...
16i 17 MARTIN:
What did they attribute that to? What, when they were unable 18!
to get below, I think it was 450 pounds, 191 20 HIGGINS:
They attributed that to being at saturation conditions and they had to, they felt, they had to cool down and reduce pressure 22f l
together at that point in order to get any lower and.
The, sometime, 23l t
24i 894 072 25!
i i
f 22 1{
okay, this was around 5:00, around 6:00, 5:45, 6:00 they decideJ, 2
after discussions with Herbein on the phone, Herbein felt that there 3
was some concern that, whether the core was covered or not and the 4j plant people were not sure why he had this concern.
They did not have 5l the concern, but he did over the phone, and he wanted them to take 6i pressure back up tr around 2000 plus pcunds and by filling the pressurizer 7{
solid and what he wanted to do was take the pressure back up, insure positively by increasing pressure that any steam bubbles that existed g
in tne system in the core were collapsed and the plant people initially g
10j did not agree with that but he wanted them to do that.
At this point decisions were being made by him, by Herbein, via the phone.
l 12!
MARTIN:
This was around 4:00, 5:00?
131 14!
HIGGINS:
This was around 6:00, 5:45, 6:00.
5:45-6:00 was when they 15!
finally decided to increase pressure back up after discussions on the phone with him for some time.
So they did that at this point they 17!
were also drawing the vacuum in the condensor and trying to steam the 18!
A steam generator for cooldown.
Okay.
I guess those are the only examples I can find now for the type of things you're asking, the 20!
types of decisions that were made by the people and who they were made 21!
I by.
22l 83k 073 23 24 25l t
l 23 i
1 Hunter speaking.
When you came on, into the plant cooler, the Unit 2 2!
were already in respirators and did you get an indication from the 1
3 people, Gary Miller, or any of the management in the control room of the radiation problem and where it was coming from?
5 6
HIGGINS:
All the people at that point felt that it was coming from 7
the auxiliary building frcm the water that had been pumped out of the g
reactor building sump into the auxiliary building and it had overflowed g
the sumps in the auxiliary building and then was being transmitted 10l through the ventilation systems somehow causing activity levels everywhere to go up because after I arrived in the Unit 2 control room I heard g
that Unit 1 control rocm had to get a mask also.
So therefore, they felt that it was just going throughout the plant and they believed the source to be from the auxiliary building, Unit 2.
15, Hunter speaking again.
At any time during the daytime did, during the morning, did you get involved in any discussions concerning containment isolation?
18i 191 HIGGINS:
Yes, I did.
20 21:
At the point it was isolated and any changes that occurred at that 22}
j time?
23l i
24i 25!
894 0/4 l
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I
{
24 1;
HIGGINS:
The discussions that I had, I found out that containment was 2
not isolated additionally when the event occurred and that is why the auxiliary building sump pumps pumped to the auxiliary building.
I was 3l 4f told that containment was isolated later on but was not able to obtain Sj any definitive information as to exactly when that occurred.
I did 6
monitor the pressure containment throughout the late morning and early 7j afternoon to see what the pressure was and how it was dropping.
8 Did, Hunter speaking, did you note the pressure spike on the reactor g
building pressure?
10 i
11' HIGGINS:
No, I didn't.
No.
But the information I can give you on that is I was not aware of that at all, I guess, it is probably pretty indicative about the type, the level of activity that was going on in the control room.
There was so much going on, so many various different things that any given thing could easily have been missed by me or the 16i 17; other people, and actually, to give a further example, the first time that I realized that the spike had been there was on Friday.
And, on 18]
Friday, people, I guess, were going over the charts and were looking 19f at that and I started, picked it up and started to discuss it with 20 plant management and came out and talked to Gary Miller about it and 21; at that point he said that, in discussing at that point, he realized that he had heard it and that he had recognized'it on Wednesday but 23 24'i 894 075 25!
{
f l
{
25 i
lj that was the first time he had thought of it since then, that he had i
2; completely forgotten about it in the whole rush cf events that occurred, i
3l and he stated at that point he remembered, clearly saying to the operators what was that, and looking over and the operators securing 5
the building spray pumps and it was at that point on Friday that I Sj believe, that plant management really realized that they had that 7
pressure spike.
8 HUNTER:
Okay.
Another area of interest is that during the decision g
making process, did you hear or were you aware of discussions concerning 10 g
the baron, the BWST being pumped into the containment and the water
]
level decreasing and they were reducing their inventory?
l 13i HIGGINS:
Yes, there were discussions as far as that and there was some concern about it.
It appeared that there was, I was not involved with too much from the plant as far as discussions on BWST, I did a l
lot of headquarters, NRC had a lot of questions about BWST levels, and 1,/ !
I I fed a lot of information on BWST levels versus time over the phones 18l to the NRC people in Washington and the Region.
20l l
HUNTER:
Okay. Were you involved or did, were you privy to any discussions 21:
concerning high pressure injection flow?
23l 241 894 076 25i i
i
[
f
l i
26 HIGGINS:
Yes.
1, I
2' Throttling the flow?
3 4,
HIGGINS:
Yes.
5 I
Gi HUNTER:
And the, in your stay in the control room?
8l HIGGINS:
In general, the plant was, flow was being varied considerably throughout the time that I was there and flow rates, I did pass makeup 10{
pump flow rates to the, again over the phone, to Washington at various i
1 11 12{
times during the day, looks like the first time I have anything in my notes on that is around noon, where two pumps, one pump, two pumps being run, one was 200 gpm, the second was 125 gpm and later on in the 141 day, I believe I have something in here as far as the calculation by 15i B&W, which determined for the core coming from Lynchburg, given the 16i amount of core decay heat that they had if makeup was the only source 17 of heat removal that they needed, 400 gpm I believe makeup flow they 18j had calculated.
19l 20i i
HUNTER:
Okay, lets take a break.
We're coming to the end of the 21!
j tape.
22' 23 894 077 241 25 l
t i
l l
{
27
(
1 MARSH:
Okay.
Time is 5:53.
I'd like break at this point and turn 2;
the tape.
I'm reading 697 on the meter.
31 6
4{
MARSH:
The time is 5:54.
I'm reading 698 on the meter.
Dorwin, I 5
think you were asking a question at the time we were interrupted.
I 6i HUNTER:
Okay.
I had just, we had just talked about discussion of 7
high pressure injection flow and you had indicated that at one point 8
B&W had calculated that if the injection flow that they had was all g
i the coolant that was being fed to the reactor, that it wasn't adequate 10j to remove decay heat.
11!
12'
(
HIGGINS:
I don't remember if that's exactly the case.
I believe that 131 l
they calculated a number that they felt that they, if they could 141 supply that much :nakeup then that would be adequate.
I can't find that right now.
i 17l HUNTER:
Okay.
In your particular location, you said you were watching 13!
reactor building for a substantial amount of time.
191 20l HIGGINS:
Off and on throughout the day.
21!
22 23 894 078 24l.
25l r
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28 1!
HUNTER:
Did that put you in the area of the injection flow indicators?
2 3
HIGGINS:
Yes.
4 5
HUNTER:
Did you look at those more frequently than just calling them I
in? Did you watch them throughout the day?
6i 7l HIGGINS:
I looked at them periodically throughout the day at times 8
when I wasn't calling them in.
Other than what I have in my notes for g
0j fl w rates I don't recall numbers, I have, sometime between 4:30 and 6:00, was when B&W made that calculation that they felt they needed about, excuse me, 400 gallons per minute letdown which would be correspondingly matched with 400 gpm makeup in order to match the heat from decay 13 heat.
14i 15i Okay.
Hunter speaking.
And 400 gallon per minute letdown, they're 16:
referring to taking the water out of the reactor coolant system through 17!
heat exchangers and then feeding back high pressure injection at 50 181 degrees, at whatever the temperature is.
19!
20l l
HIGGINS:
That's correct.
21l 22) 894 079 23 24l 25l i
i
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11 HUNTER:
Did you, were you privy to discussion about that particular 2
number, whether they could establish any letdown flow?
3 4{
HIGGINS:
They were having difficulty, they did not establish that 5
much letdown flow.
They were having difficulty throughout the day 6
with blockages in their letdown lines, in establishing adequate letdown.
i 7l HUNTER:
Could you amplify that particular item with difficulties with 8
g letdown flow-if you were involved in any of those discussions? Or 10j actually involved in any of the letdown, the numbers that they were y{
obtaining in the letdown?
i 12j HUNTER:
Do you follow me?
3 14; 9""" *
- "9 9E*
- 15 2:30.
See if I have any other ones.
12:15 letdown flow was 70 gpm.
17,'
They did find that as they reduced pressure from the higher values l
down to the lower ones that they lost some of their ability to let 18!
down.
And, they were trying, they spent efforts throughout the day I
trying to bypass various filters, and demineralizers, and so forth, in 20!
the letdown system.
A little more discussion on this, I hope this is 21l from the first day rince this isn't from my notes, its from my memory, 22l 23l.
It is possible that it could be from a couple days later on, but I 24l 2s) 894 080 t
i
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30 l
If believe that it was the first day.
Here's another letdown No. (at) 2 310 it was 120 gpm letdown.
There were discussions about, in the 3j auxiliary building where they had to go to bypass the various filters i
[
there, there were very high rad areas being measured up in the rarige 5
of greater than 100 R per hour and there was discussion about what the i
Gj NRC would consider, would consider a del ate overexposure to personnel 7
in order to go in and operate those particular valves and Don Neely g
was working with that, so he might, he can give you some more information on that I'm sure.
As far as sending personnel in to get deliberate g
f 10j verexposures to establish the additional letdown that they felt they needed.
That was part of the problem in recovering pressurizer level 11 in that they could not get adequate letdown in order to, well, there were two problems really, in that they had lost some of their heaters, 13 lost power to some of their heaters and they also weren't able to g
establish adequate letdown in order to redraw the bubble in the pressurizer.
15i 16l HUNTER:
This is the feeling you got from the management of the plant, the reason they couldn't reestablish the bubble?
191 HIGGINS:
Yes.
20!
i 21!
HUNTER:
Is this what th9y told you?
23 894 08I 24!
25!
r i
e f
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l 31 1,
HIGGINS:
Most, they were not talking directly to myself or Walt 2
3aunack throughout most of the day, but we sat in and participated the 3
meetings that they had.
The personnel were extremely throughout the 4
day.
All personnel involved, they were actively involved in decisions t
5' in the plants situation throughout the day, and it was, we tried to 6i impact as little as possible on plant management with extraneous 7j!
questions and this type of thing, if we felt we had a legitimate point g
to interject, a legitimate point we certainly made it right there but g
as far as making them go through additional explanation and what they were doing for our benefit, we didn't do that because that would have 10l 11l impacted directly on their ability to function in the situation they i
12f were in.
i 13l HUNTER:
I understand.
And during the discussions of letdown and 15i makeup did you, do you recall them discussing makeup and letdown balance, maintaining makeup more than letdown at all times, or matching 6i makeup and letdown at all times?
17 18i HIGGINS:
No, I don't.
20t HUNTER:
Anything along that line?
21l 22 23!
874 082 2 41 25{
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32 i
lj HIGGINS:
No, I don't.
I 21 3
Okay.
4!
5(
HIGGINS:
And there was, there was certainly, there was a lot of I
61 difficulity in reading ex = :tly what makeup and letdown were, because i
7l of problems with both the makeup and letdown instrumentation.
I don't g
remember specifically which instruments, but there were problem, g
problems in several of the instruments there and getting good readings ff f those.
10l 111 MARTIN:
Jim, at any time did you, did the impression that the, there were too many people in the control room and that thsy were interfering 3
with operations?
t 15l HIGGINS:
Not the first day.
I'd have to say that the number of people did not interfere, it was more the situation that existad that t
17l causing the problems rather than the nember 'af people causing the problem the first day.
Later on, several davs down, tha* was a problem in the number of people in the control room, str.rting about Friday, 20 j, l
that became a problem.
2 11 221 894 083 23 1
24l 25l f
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i
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33 11 MAF. TIN:
Who was giving orders to the operators to take action? Was 2
it still the Shift Supervisor or did Gary Miller assume that authority, I
3 ar someone elsa?
HIGGINS:
It wasn't clear cut in that one person was giving direction 5
6l to the operators as I recall, it may have bean in one case.
Mike I
7 Ross, in another case, Gary Miller in another case, Shift Supervisor.
g It was not a clear cut distinction that this is the person that gives the direct order to the operator to manipulate a particular valve and g
10l n!y this pers.on, that didn't exist.
i llh 12;f MARTIN:
In the control room were people assigned to specific panels I
to watch certain parameters or was it just if it got past a parameter 131 14!
and felt it was ou, of line yot then talked about it?
15i HIGGINS:
That was second, was probably closer to the actual situation lo,;:
than the first.
17!
t 18{
MARTIN:
How many people were actively involved in operation, manipulation of controls?
20}
21, HIGG .S:
22k Afraid I can't do any better than several.
i 23 l
24 894 084 25t l
4 h
i p'
n
i i
l 34 i
l 1;
MARTIN: Wera they getting information from the back panels, Jim?
l 2!
3l HIGGINS:
Yes.
l 4i S
MARTIN: Who was getting that information?
6i HIGGINS:
I believe there were at times operators going back there 7
8 also some B&W people were back operating the, getting direct readouts i
g off ". cme of the, some thermocouple bridges, RTD bridges and passing that information up front.
Although, throughout the day there was 10 ccnfusion among the g erators and also earlier on the, among some of y
the supervision as, to the indications that they were seeing on the temperatures, the reactor T hot and T cold, that type of thing.
The T averaga.
15; MARTIN:
What, we've heard several references now to problems with the I
T average indituron when it appeared to hang up at 570 degrees, was 17[
that ever resolved in their minds why it was hanging up there?
18!
19!
I didn't hear any discussion on that, and I think that it was probably too minor of a problerr for people to concern themselves with at that time.
It was it was a type of thing that, there were bigger system 22f l
type problems to worry about than that in general, the type of thing 23 24l 25 e
f
l l
I
{
35 I
l 11 also where it would have been nice to have done, is to have a nice, i
2 someone to take over in the corner and look at the charts analyze what 3l was going on, and come up with some good information as to perhaps i
4j what they had in there.
That just wasn't done to my knowledge because 5{
'it was, there was too much else going on.
61 7
MARTIN: Who made the decision to jag the pump in the A loop at, I gl guess it was around 8:00 that night?
9f 10f HIGGINS:
I left at 7:30.
I left the control room at 7:30.
Just when 11l they were getting ready to start the pump in the A loop and I left the 12{
control room at 7:30 and went to the Unit I control room, picked up 131 with Neely, I picked up Gallina, we went over to the observation 7,.
center, at that point we had been requested to go to the Capitol to 15; talk to the lieutenant governor about the situation and before we went 16; there Jack HerbSin wanted to talk to us and give us the latest updated status as he knew of and so we went to the observation center.
When 77 we arrived at the observation center, sometime getting on to 8:00, we g
were told that the reactor coolant pump in the A loop was running, by g
l Herbein.
20i 21!
MARTIN: When you arrived in the observation center, who was helping Herbein out there?
23l 24j 2s!
894 086 1
l
[
36 i
1l HIGGINS:
I'm not sure.
There were about half a dozen people in the i
2 back roca and there's, if you're familiar with the observation center i
3h the room all the way in the back where Jack Herbein was, he was in f
4j there by himself with prints and this type of thing, in the next gj larger room there were half a dozen people or so, in the main room it i
6i was jammed packed with people and there's a lot of confusion in the fj main room in the observation center.
There was some frisking being g
dare there, and when we left the plant that was the first time we were gj frisked, was out in the observation center at that point.
Don Neely f und that his pants were cantaminated.
At that point we, I believe 10t George Kunder was there, but I'm not sure, Unit 2 Superintendent g
Technical Suoport, I'm not sure about that, however.
Anyway, we discussed with Jack, the plant, the latest plant status and then 13 Gallina and I left with a state trooper to go to the Capitol.
15:
Hunter speaking again.
Excuse me Jim, you left the control room at 7:303 17!
i 18!
HIGGINS:
Yes.
19i i
20:
Were you relieved by another NRC IE inspector?
21:
22 22j 874 087 24l i
25:
i e
l
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i I
(
37 f
1l HIGGINS:
Walt Baunack stayed in the control room.
He had been there 2
since early in the afternoon with me.
As I said earlier, I don't 3l recall exactly when Walt arrived, but it, I believe, shortly in the 4
afternoon, after 12:00 and he was there all day.
When I left, he Sj remained.
61 7{
HUNTER:
Okay.
And would you, who asked to you to leave or how did gj the word come for you to leave?
9i HIGGINS:
10 Well, in the control room late in the afternoon, we had two calls from the Lieutenant Governor's office, one from a Mark 3
and also another one from Nate Our discussions with them were that, the discussion earlier about 5:35 with Nate 1
don't reca;l exactly what we said but later in the second one with
,4 A
Mark was around 7:15 p.m., and he expressed concern, he said
,s i
that he was calling for the Lt. Governor and he wanted to know basically what the situation in the plant was, stated that they were having very much difficulty getting good information finding out what was happening, what was going on, he did not ask for any technical details, he was not a technical person, but he did want to know what was going on onsite with the people and if we felt, he wanted our evaluation if the people were adequately handling the situation.
We told him that we 22[
felt they were, that the people were acting professionally and they t
24l gg}
(18 8 25 i
l I
38 r
i lt were beginning to get the situation under control.
The request, as I 2f recall, came from them for us to go to the Capitol and brief the Lt.
3 Governor on the situation in the plr t.
At that point the decision 4
was made and I can't remember who it was made by for the three of us sj to go; Gallina, Neely, and myself.
i 6l y
MARTIN: When you went out to see Mr. Herbein at the observation center, did you have any other discussions other than the reactor g
coolant pump had started and it was now running in the A loop?
r 9l 10l HIGGINS:
As I recall that was the only change, we asked him if there were any other changes and if he wanted to tell us anything else i
before we went and he said that was the only change from when we had
, 31 1
left the control room and that was all we discussed.
He was continually, 14; while we were there in his office, discussing over the phone plant status with the control room as he had been, while we were in the 16!
control room.
All these discussions took place on speaker pN aas and, as I said, we were there in the Shift Supervisor's office when they ISi took place, so we were privy to both ends of the conversation.
19!
20!
MARTIN:
Okay.
Did you see anyone during your stay it; the control 21 room pull out some steam tables and check to see if sr.turation conditions 22i j
existed anyplace in the plant using the temperatures, a, least were 23!
i displayed to them?
24j 2si 891 089 9
i i
{
39 11 HIGGINS:
No, I didn't.
I looked for them a couple of times and 2f couldn't find any but that was a quick check and it was*not exhaustive 3;
and they may have very well been there.
4l Sj MARTIN:
What do you think was the basis for their belief that the 1
61 core was still covered up until a time that Mr. Herbein urged them to 7
increase pressure and refill the primary system?
I recognize I'm 8
asking for your opinion.
S!
0:
HIGGINS:
Let me think about that for a minute and see if I can reconstruct i t.
Around 12:30, they went to the core flood tanks when the pressure i
dropped around 600 pounds in the core flood tanks came on.
Okay.
They, the pressure was around 600 pounds and the core flood tanks
{
injected slightly but they did not go in any more than that.
They felt that that was telling them that there was not a bubble in the 15 ;,
core, that it was solid water in there and that they, there were i
discussions about temperature versus pressure relationships.
But I 17; never did see any steam tables in~use myself, although, it appeared i
181 that people were using them from the discussions I had heard.
There 19i was a lot of problem, a lot of difficulties as far as doing that type of thing because of the unreliability of all the temperature instrumentation, 21:
1 people really didn't know what the temperature was where with the TC's 22l 23l very, very low, the TH's very, very high and not knowing exactly what i
1 24!
l Ohi 090 f
I I
i l
l 40 l
6 11 was in the core, because early on they did try and get thermocouple l
2l printouts but were unsuccessful, they were what they considered at i
3; that time, failed indications on the RTD's.
I 4j Sj Excuse me, Hunter speaking.
They got indications, failed indications I
6j on the traermacouples, were they getting them off the process computer?
7)
I gj HIGGINS:
Yes.
i 91 10; HUNTER:
And, do yau recall what kind of indication diey got, they got y;j question marks, or did they get bad data, or i
12' HIGGINS:
13 I didn't see the indications, I only heard, perpherally-short discussions on it...
15; HUNTER:
That they got bad data?
16;1 17!
HIGGINS:
That's right.
People said that, I heard statements that the 18!
core thermocouples had failed and I didn't pursue it any further.
I 20:
MARTIN:
Okay.
Did anyone raise the question that the core flood 21:
tanks are very similar to the pressurizer in that, they both indicated 22l l
relatively full although they had already admitted that there were 23l l
bubbles in the loops?
24l 25 r
i
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I
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41 If HIGGINS:
There was no comparison of the core flood tanks with the i
2:
pressurizer to my recollection.
l 3l t
4!
'kay.
Hunter speaking.
I have no further questions at this time.
Si I
MARTIN:
Jim, let me ask you one further thing.
You may have heard 6l i
7j some discussion once you got there of earlier events.
Do you remember g
any of that and any justification for actions that they took?
9I HIGGINS:
What do you mean by earlier?
10 u;
MARTIN:
Events that occurred before you arrived in Unit 2 control 13 14i HIGGINS:
Okay.
Yes, there was discussion of earlier events.
15 16; I
MARTIN:
Could you relate some of that to us?
17l 181 HIGGINS:
Well, there was discussion about the attempted start of the reactor coolant pump earlier, which I discussed already.
i 21{
Hunter speaking.
That was when they started the pump and ran it and 22I they had no current indicating that the pump was not pumping any i
liquid.
24{
2.J, 894 092 t
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42 l
1 HIGGINS:
A very low current.
2:
i 31 HUNTE:
A low current?
4l.
Sj HIGGINS:
And there was also, there were at times some discussions of 1
6j the original event in order to, and things that happened shortly after 7l that, in order to interpret what was going on in the plant, for example, the rupture, the rupture disc blown on the reactor coolant drain tank g
g' and where the water or the steam was going when they were venting out 10f f the pressurizer vent, the pressurizer electromatic relief, that l.d, type of thing.
12l l
HUNTER:
Any discussions on nuclear instrumentation that you recall?
13l t
14:
HIGGINS:
I heard no discussions on nuclear instrumentation that I can recall.
I do have, I have on entry in my notes on source range counts.
l 2:00 p.m., NI 1, 400 counts; NI 2, 60 counts.
That was one I took 17!
myself, but I heard no discussion among plant supervision on nuclear
_t instrumentation.
19f 20l i
Cresswell speaking.
Was there any discussion about the difference in 21i those count rates?
22 23 gg4 ggz
,a 241 25t t
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43 Ilj HIGGINS:
No.
I did not hear any.
I 2l l
3l Jim at this time, this is Tim Martin, they already knew they had airborne activity in the auxiliary building and you indicated that 4
g!
they believed that it came from the water that was pumped from the H
reactor building.
But how did it get out of the tanks in the auxiliary 6
building to the atmosphere? Was there any discussion of that aspect?
7 al HIGGINS:
I did not hear any discussion of t. hat aspect and that was g
one of the types of thing we were trying to find out as best we could 101 in addition to all of the other things that were going on and never i
did find out that first day.
12l i
13!
MARTIN:
Jim, were there any discussions about the problems they were 14!
having with the pressurizer heaters?
16i HIGGINS:
There were some discussions in that, that was one of the 17l peripheral things that wasn't, that was apparently handled by other ISI people outside of the main discussions and early on I had an indication 19!
that they had no pressurizer heaters available and later on they had 20:
got some of those back and I was not privy to any of the discussion 21!
that went on with that.
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23l 894 094 24j i
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1:
MARTIN:
J m, can you think of anything that we haven't asked you gj about, maybe would help our investigation that you would like to i
3j relate to us at this time?
4l Sj HIGGINS:
Let me just make one quick run through here and maybe there'd l
6i be something that could.
Let's see.
On pressurizer heaters, they did 7}
state early on, around 11:30, that they had no heaters available, the 1
8l pressurizer was full, they could not heat it up and draw a bubble g
because the pressurizer heaters were apparently grounded.
The people believed that B steam generator was very, what I'll do here is run 10!
1y through my notes and if there's topics we haven't discussed, I'll mention them and see if you want any elaboration, you can give them to me or do you think that wouldn't be worthwhile?
14; MARTIN:
No, please.
16; HIGGINS:
Okay.
People felt that the B steam generator was highly
,7 contaminated although, I was never able to establish from talking with people why they held that belief and they did feel that there was a
,9, 1 )
tube leak however, throughout the day there were 300 pounds maintained in the B steam generator even when 2000 pounds were in the primary, 21; there was no indication at all of any increasing level or pressure in 22l l
the B steam generator throughout the day.
Throughout the early morning 23l 24l SI 894 095 i
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[
[
45
!lj people believed that they did have some natural circulation flow even i
2l though the TH's were pegged high, and the TC's were down around 210 l
31 degrees.
4!
5l MARTIN: Were they able to justify that, Jim, on steam generator i
6j pressures?
7l 1
gl HIGGINS:
No.
It was just, it was a feeling that they did have natural 9
circulation flow albeit it small.
10l l
11j MARTIN:
Was the only indication they were using for the TH and TC the chart recorders or were they using back panel indications for that?
i 13!
HIGGINS:
My impression was that early they were using the chart recorders but that later on in the day they started to get readouts 15:
6l from the back panels.
There was discussions throughout the day of what the boron concentration was but never did get a good answer to that question.
I'll skip over some of numbers that we haven't discussed g
because I'm sure you have that on charts and graphs, that type of thing.
Early on, the plant in the early, very early afternoon, 12:00, 21;i 12: 45 to 1:00 they were still using the atmospheric release on the steam gen, the A steam generator for their mode of cooldown.
They were getting very little flow and very little cooldown from the atmospheric 24l 2sl 894 096 l
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46 l
1 release.
There was continued discussion certainly among the people in i
2l the control room and coming from the Emergency Control Center and l
3i phone calls coming in from state personnel about the continued releases i
4{
frcm the plant to offsite and efforts to reduce those.
I did some gl looking into their mode of cooldown in these atmospheric reliefs and i
6i in discussioc.; with the operators I found that the, they were feeding 7f the A steam generator with the condensate pump.
I asked George Kunder 8
and Gary Miller why they continued to feed the A steam generator from, with the condensate pump, from the condensor when, if the B steam g
10f generator was highly contaminated and certainly the condensor would y
also be contaminated.
At that point, they didn't, hadn't realized that the plant had shifted from a, from feeding the generators with the emergency feed pumps as they had earlier which was a pure supply of water to feeding from the condensor and when I informed that to them they went out and checked that with the operators and verified 15; that indeed they were feeding them with the condensate pump.
Shortly after that there was another call from the state.
The state was getting very militant about securing all venting from the p1 at, all releases.
Then there was a discussion with Mike Ross as to what 19!
i benefit the plant was getting from the cooldown from the atmospheric 20t l
reliefs.
Mike Ross felt that because of the lack of~ natural circulation 21i or the small amount of natural circulation in the low pressure in the, 22!
the very low pressure in the A steam generator, that is 50 pounds or 23l l
24l 25!
894 097
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47 lf less, that they were not getting much cooldown from that and therefore, gj Gary Miller said, well, we'll secure, at this point, they were controlling i
3f the atmospheric relief manually.
So they decided to secure that, that 4{
mode of cooldown using the atmospheric relief on the 'A' steam generator 5f and to my knowledge, they never did initiate it after that.
That 6
w uld have been around 1:15 when they secured that... They did attempt..
7j they were using in arder to collapse the bubbles in the hot legs, they g!
were using a method where, I was not able to get the exact lineup, but I
g; they were charing in with the charging pumps and trying to flush that 10 water through the hot leg the colder water through the hot leg and g
somehow up the spray line and into the pressurizer in order to reduce temperatures in the hot legs and get rid of the bubble.
That did work once in the A loop as indicated by dropping in the TH; however, not i
too long after that the bubble reformed in the A loop, and finally 14:
later on in the day they were able to finally recover it and get rid of the bubble in there and finally start the reactor coolant pump...
We didn't discuss drawing the vaccum in the condensor at all, that y
1/:
occurred around 2:45-3:00 by my notes.
They commenced to lineup to start to do their lineup to draw a vaccum into the condensor 19l about 3:00.
They had also at that point tried to sample the A steam 20l generator in order to determine whether or not they could cool down to 21!
the condensor by steaming the A steam generator.
They noted that the, 22l
[
after they did collapse the bubble in the A loop that the pressure in 23l 24 25' 894 098 I
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f
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1l the steam, in the A steam generator started to increase; therefore, 2
they felt they had indication of additional heat transfer and additional 3l matched circulation in the A loop.
i 4
5l MARTIN:
Approximately what time was that, Jim?
_l HIGGINS:
Around 3:00... Let's see.
I have very little in my notes 0,
about offsite radiation doses and that type of thing, but I do have I
one entry around 4:00 p.m. when they had the reading of 70 mr/hr at 8!
the north gate.
That's the north gate or the weather station and 100 9;
mr/hr at the service, the exterior service building.
This is, all the information the plant was getting on this was very confusing because originally there were very low levels being reported offsite then we 12l I
got these tremendously high values and then shortly after other readings 13l came and said those values were bad, and then we got other reports 14!
back, no those were good but they have the decreased down to less than 15i 1 mr/hr.
There was a lot of confusion associated with that.
Don 16i Neely did most of the following on those.
4:15 still working to get 17 condensor don't have it yet even though they had started back around, 18i l
3:15.
Most of the other things we discussed already.
Part of the 191 reason, throughout the afternoon they had tried for a long time to try 20:
21:f and establish a pressurizer level, they finally had coming on 5:00 or so, 5:30, in at that point Herbein started discussing taking the 22' pressurizer solid again and increasing pressure and that was part of 23 24!
25j 394 gg9 i
5
(
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1l the plants reluctance to do that.
But they did base on his recommendation.
2 At this time, I do have throughout here some BWST levels but I think l
31, you got that.
1 4l s
HUNTER:
Do you recall how they recovered pressurizer level? Hunter 6l speaking.
Were they using letdown?
7!
HIGGINS: They were using letdown and they did get more heaters later g
gl on in the day, that was the way that they did that.
i 10!
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11',
i 12l i
HIGGINS:
And, I guess that's about all that I have.
131 r
14!
}
CRESSWELLS:
You mentioned that you had, this is Jim Cresswell speaking, you mentioned that you had made some recommendations to operators.
lo,,!
17 HIGGINS:
We had some discussions throughout the afternoon as far as 18!
1.
when we felt that we had some input as far as what they were doing if
,9!
we had any ideas throughout this, we didn't make our statements known to, to Gary Miller or the people involved in the discussions.
Those 21t were either made in the meetings or separately to them on the side.
22' There were not, certainly I cannot recall any momentous recommendations 23 24 as!
894 100 i
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that we made but it was more on the order of comments or discussions i
2 or questions where we felt that we had some input.
I can remember 3
Walt Baunack certainly making a strong recommendation and that they i
4j think very hard about putting the decay.'. eat removal system on when gl they were trying to do.that.
I 6I 7
HUNTER:
One quick one.
Before you met with the state people and you g
had your meeting with Mr. Herbein in the visitors center, did he give gj you any advice?
10l y{
HIGGINS:
No.
l 12!
HUNTER:
That's all.
13i 141 HIGGINS:
Okay.
16; MARTIN:
Jim, I think that's all the questions.
We certainly appreciate 17' your time.
Thank you very much.
18i 19j Before we terminate, this is Marsh speaking, Jim, I notice you've been making reference notes through the whole which you have in a spiral 21 bound note book.
I'm sure you're aware of it but I would recommend to 22l safeguard those notes and because of the Freedom of Information Act 23l and being not sure how far this investigetion will proceed.
24,i 25!
gg4 101 6
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A
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1, HIGGINS:
You do have a copy of these already.
l 2!
I 3t Fine. Greg, do you have anthing? Okay.
At this time being 6:31 p.m.,
I
~4 we have a reading of 275 on the meter which, I believe, indicates 1275 feet.
End of the second side of the first cassette, we will terminate 5
6i this interview ending at this time.
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894 102 i
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