ML19249B090
| ML19249B090 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/30/1979 |
| From: | Mark Resner, Shackleton O, Sinclair J NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTOR & AUDITOR (OIA) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908290635 | |
| Download: ML19249B090 (37) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION I!
In the Matter of:
21 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW i
3l of
' Sl Earl D. Showaiter Nuclear Engineer, Unit 2 Si t
Ei l
7 8
Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10; Middletown, Pennsylvania 11 May 2,1979 12.
(Date of Interview) 13 June 30, 1979 (Date Transcript Typec) 15l 90 (Tape NumDer(s))
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i 17l 18f 19
[
20 21j NRC PERSONNEL:
'22h Larry L. Jackson, Radiation Specialist 23lf Jahr. R. Sinclair, Investigator i
24) l Mark E. Resner, Investigator 25 l
Owen C. Shackleton, Investigator gg4 I
l
1l SHACKLETON:
This is an interview of Mr. Earl D. Showalter. The time is 2'
l now 12:30 a.m., May 2, 1979.
This interview is being conducted at this 31 j
hour, inasmuch as Mr. Showalter came in to the NRC trailer after coming 4'
off from a late duty shift.
The interview is being conducted in Trailer i
- 203, which is parked just outside the south security gate at the Three 6l Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.
Present to conduct this interview is Mr. Larry L. Jackson.
Mr. Jackson is a Radiation Specialist from 0
Region II of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Also present for 9
this interview is Mr. John R. Sinclair.
Mr. Sinclair is an Investigator 10 in the Office of Inspector and Auditor, Headquarters, U.S. Nuclear 11!
Regulatory Commission.
In addition, Mr. Mark E. Resner, an Investigator 12 with the Office of Inspector and Auditor, Headquarters, US Nuclear 13 Regulatory Commission, is present.
My name is Owen C. Shackleton.
I.
14 am an Investigator from Region V of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
I 15 Just prior to going on tape, I presented to Mr. Showalter an advisement 16{
document consisting of two pages, which outlines the scope and purpose 17 of this investigation and the authority granted by Congress so that the 18{
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission could conduct this type of 19 an investigation.
It also sets forth Mr. Showalter's rights to refuse 20I to be interviewed or to give a signed statement.
On the second and i
21 last page of this document are three questions.
Mr. Showalter, in 22 writing, affirmatively answered all three questions, and for the record 23 I am going to ask Mr. Showalter these questions orally.
Mr. Showalter, 24l did you understand the darument that I am referring to?
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2 it SHOWALTER:
Yes I did.
2l 3l SHACKLETON:
And do we have your permission to tape this interview?
4:
5 SHOWALTER:
Yes, you do.
6l SHACKLETON:
And would you like a copy of the tape or the transcript?
8 9
SHOWALTER:
I would like a transcript of this tape.
10 11 SHACKLETON:
All right sir, we will see that that's provided to you.
12 And now, Mr. Showalter, for the interest of those parties who will be 13 listening to this tape, could you please briefly give us an outline of 14, your experience in the nuclear industry?
15l 1
i 16i SHOWALTER:
I graduated from Penn State University at the Capital 17 Campus here at Middletown in 1974 with a Bachelor of Engineering Tech-18 nology degree in Electrical Engineering.
I came to work promptly then 19l at Met Ed in June of '74 and began work at TMI-Three Mile Island Nuclear 20 Power Plant-on about July 4th of that year.
I took up duties in industrial 21l waste first, and within a month was assigned to the Unit i radioactive 22 waste treatment systems.
I worked primarily in waste solidification 23 and evaporation of liquid waste and treatment of the liquid radioactive 24i waste there.
I worked in that position for several years, I picked up I
25!
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!li on-the-job training from Met Ed in basic nuclear physics and nuclear 2;
j reactor operations, spending one week at Penn State University on their 31 l
test reactor there, and also a week in Lynchburg, Virginia on the B&W 4l simulator.
I worked during these previous approximately five years with Met Ed in the Engineering Department, the Operations Department 61 and also in the Maintenance Department.
I, just prior to the accident, 7
had been moved the the Maintenance Department and the job that I held 0
just prior to that was the Unit 2 radioactive waste treatment systems 9
and I had started up the Unit 2 evaporator and also finished some of 10 the startup work on the Unit 2 liquid radwaste systems.
Now as I said,.
11, I was working in the maintenance department ju.t prior to the accident 12l and because of my background in radwaste, naturally, picked up there 13 after the accident.
14!
15 SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much. I'll turn the questioning over now to 16i Mr. Jackson, 17l l
18{
JACKSON:
Earl, could we start out with how you were notified and where 19!
you went on the morning of 3/28?
20l l
21{
SHOWALTER:
Okay, I wasn't notified at all of the incident until I 22 drove into the north gate at approximately 8:00 a.m. and was stopped 23 there by the security guard and told that there had been, I guess at 24 that time, a general emergency declared and that I should go back to 25l 894 144 i
4 l'
l the Observation Center.
I told the guard that I usually, during the drills, had worked in the ECS-I guess it stands for Emergency Control 3i i
Station-and they said, okay, to go to the guard shack and cal' *n and 4
get permission to enter the Island.
I did that, received permission and entered the Island, parked in the north parking Lot and went im-6 mediately to the'ECS and began taking small duties from Tcm Mulleavy who was in charge at the ECS.
8 I
JACKSON:
Okay, do you remember specifically any of the first things 10 you did, what these small duties were?
11{
12!
SHOWALTER:
I remember at, once or twice, standing in at the radio that i
13 was giving directions out to the off site monitoring teams, while the 14 fellow had to run and do some other duties, carrying a few messages 15 back and forth, and answering some general questions, answering phones, 16!
etc.
17 18f JACKSON:
Can you state what the radwaste conditions were that morning, 19!
or lead into that in some way when you picked up the responsibility for 20f monitoring radwaste and what you found.
I 21 22 SHOWALTER:
Okay, I Midn't actually get into the radwaste angle of 23 things, in general, until the second day, so I am not really familiar 24 with the exact conditions.
I know there was a certain amount of water 25 l
894 145 k
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1l inventory in both units at that time, that was of low level-low level 2t j
meaning sort of pre-accident activity levels-and by the time I came to 3
work I reckon there was already some of the hotter water on the Unit 2 4l auxiliary building floor. But I didn't get deeply involved until the Si second day.
61 JACKSON:
Okay, did you, in any of the first three days, did you make 0
any entries into the auxiliary building?
9 10' SHOWALTER:
Yes I did, and as I recall, the entry that I made was at 11 the end, I believe, of the second day, that I went in with Ed Fuhrer to 12 scope out the auxiliary building to try to get into what cubicles we 13 could and try to find out if there was any leaks, gross leaks let's 14 say, from the reactor coolant that could be secured or of this nature, 151 to try to cut down on the radwaste coming into the aux building and to 16l cut down on the iodine being released from the aux building.
17 18I JACKSON:
Did you have a feel for what the accumulation rate was in the 1
191 aux building at this time, from the liquid radwaste?
20f I
21 SHOWALTER:
You're talking about the leakage into the Aux Building.
22l 23 JACKSON:
Yes.
24 f
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SHOWALTER:
No, I don't think we had a good handle on leakage rates at 2!
l that time.
We knew that obviously, there was water on the fle
,y the 3l time I went in there-that was a well known fact. We were at that time 4
in the process transferring as much pre-accident waste.out of Unit 2 5'
towards Unit 1 to make room to get this water off the floor and into 6
tanks.
7 0
JACKSON:
Do you recall what waste was transferred over there by tank?
9 10!
SHOWALTER:
The first tanks that I know that they transferred were the 11 primary neutralizer waste storage tank--Dy tag number, that's WDL-T-8A 12 and B.
Those had pre-accident waste and was transferred over to Unit 1 13 and they then became free to bring the aux building sump waste over 14 into those tanks.
As part of our entry there on the evening of the 15 second day, we determined that the radiation level on the miscellaneous 16!
waste storage tank was approximately 300 mR, which indicate that it I
17 contained pretty much pre-accident waste in it and it therefore could 18(
be transferred to Unit 2. And on a later day we transferred miscellaneous 19l waste storage tank--that's tag number WDL-T-2 to Unit 1.
20 21i JACKSON:
Okay.
When you and Ed Fuhrer went into the auxiliary building, 22l you said you were just making a kind of general survey.
What areas did 1
23 you actually go into?
24 2s!
894 I47 I
6 1
1
7 1;
j SHOWALTER:
Okay, we entered on the 305 and came down the, I guess the 2
western north-south corridor towards the radwaste panel, radioactive 3
treatment control panel, and we checked some levels on that panel. We 4
went into the miscellaneous waste storage tank room.
We were trying to C*
check--one thing that we wanted to check was whether the rupture disk 6
for that tank had been blown and would have been, therefore, a release 7
point for waste gas.
As much as we could tell, the rupture disk had 8l not blown, it was not blown at that time.
We went from there to the make-up valve alley on the 305 level, and one of the things that the 10 control room asked me to check there was the position of MUV105. I lli checked that position and found it to be at least partially closed, and 12.
I opened it the rest of the way.
Ed Fuhrer was checking some radiation 13 levels also in the hallway with the meter.
I might point out that we, 14l each of us was carrying a meter. I was carrying a meter similar to a i
15 teletector, which is a very high range instrument, and Ed Fuhrer was 16l carrying a somewhat lower range instrument that had, 2R was its maximum, 17 two rem per hour was its maximum reading. And as I was coming into the 18 aux building, was about halfway into the aux building, my meter went 19l dead, meaning the battery was exhausted.
And perhaps at that point, in 20f retrospect, I should have turned around and left and went back and got 21 another meter, but we continued on.
So he had the low level meter and 22 I believe it was at that point that he stepped in front of the doorway 23 leading ir tc that make-up valve alley, his meter pegged out. He immediately 24 25!
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8 1l stepped back and I believe he received a pretty good dose at that 2'
doorway.
From there, we come out of that room and went to the basement 3
of the auxiliary building and noticed, of course, that there was a good 4
bit of water on the floor and there was plastic spread.out over this 5
water to try to prevent the degassing of iodine. - We checked also 6
closed, the valves--we checked that the valves were closed for the 7
reactor coolant evaporator.
These are the valves that tie direct from 8
the evaporator to the waste gas vent header.
We wanted to make sure that if there were any gas leaks out of the evaporator that taat wouldn't 10 be a source of gas going into the evaporator and escaping out of it.
11 Since we weren't using the evaporator there was no need for the valves 12 to be open.
I checked out the area back in the aux sump itself to see 13 if there was any abnormal things back in that area and then we continued 14 down the hallway in a south direction, went into the room where the 15 reactor coolant bleed tank waste transfer pumps-that WDL-P-5A and B-to 16 look and see if there was any gross leakage in there. I think Ed stuck 17l his head in the door and verified that there wasn't.
We went from 18l there out past the decay heat vaults, determined that the water was 19l very close to overflowing into the decay heat vaults.
We continued on 20l around the c~rner then and into the entrance way to the B and C Reactor o
i 21!
Coolant Bleed Tanks.
There again, at that doorway the meter that Ed 22 was carrying, pegged out 2R and we retreated back out of that area 23 since the water level was approaching a point of overflowing into the 24l decay heat vaults, we went back to the radwaste panel-pardon me, I 25l l
894 149 i
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j went back to the radwaste panel, Ed Fuhrer continued on a different 2!
l route.
At the radwaste panel, I turned on the aux sump pumps to pump 3l more water off the floor and into some of the tanks that we had available 4f to try to prevent any flooding into the decay heat vaults.
Ed Fuhrer 5
continueo on the 281 level and went back past the decay closed coolers, 61 and I am not sure whether or not he went into the room just south of, 7
the decay closed coolers.
He was again looking for any gross leakages 8
of water.
I might mention that one of the things that we noticed, of course, was that near the decay heat vaults the RR pumps, which are a booster pump that is used to help cool the reactor building, had bad i
11l packing leaks and we reported that, of course, when we left. Ed Fuhrer 12 then left the aux building after he had been back from the decay closed 13 area and called me from the HP control point and told me that he was 14f out of the building and I should come out too. I immediately left the
(
15 building, and as I was leaving the bell from my Scott air pack was 16!
ringing, indicating that I was down to less than five minutes of air.
17I And so we exited the area and returned to the control room to report on 18 our activities.
l 19l 20)
JACKSON:
Do you recall what exposure you had for your stay in there?
I 21{
22 SHOWALTER:
My low range dosimeter was pegged offscale, indicating 23 greater than 200 millirem.
My high range dosimeter showed less than 24 1R--I don't recall the exact thing that it read.
Subsequent to that, I 25j 894 150
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mean after that, the next day when I got the reading of the TLD, I 2
understood I received, as I recall, 170 mR.
On exiting the area and 3l l
coming up, both Ed and myself read his high range dosimeter and it showed approximately 3R, and of course that was immediate reason for alarm and we immediately reported that to our supervisor, Jim Seelinger, 6-and he sat down and debriefed us and, of course--how should I say, 7
reprimanded us for not coming out of the building when my high range meter failed its battery.
He immediately told Ed Fuhrer that he would need to leave the Island with me and take our TLDs to the Observation 10 Center and have them counted to,see what exposure both of us had received.
11 The thing that puzzled most of us, I guess, for a day or so was how Ed 12 and I had been so close together for at least 80% of the time that we 13 were in the aux building and yet he had received 3.lR on that entry and 14I I had received only 170 mR.
The only thing that I can correlate that I
15) to was that he had stepped in front of the doorway at the make-up valve 16l alley on the 305 levt, and that later was proven to be around a 1000R 17 per hour, and he had also stepped a little closer to the entrance to 18f the bleed tank room than I had.
19f 20 JACKSON:
Okay, were either one of you contaminated?
21 22 SHOWALTER:
No.
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11 t 1 JACKSON: Okay. Did you, during your tour, find out which tanks were 2 j overflowing? 31 4ll SHOWALTER: At the point I was in there, we were found no tanks that 5l were overflowing. At that point, when I first had entered into the 6 building, the aux sump pumps had been turned off so therefore the 7 auxiliary building sump tank was not overflowing at that time. As a 8 matter of fact, I think it read something like 3 foot, and everything 9 else, from what we could see, was normal other than the leakage from 10 the RR pumps near the decay heat vault. 11 12 JACKSON: Okay, do you have any idea now, did you have at that time or 13 in retrospect, do you have any idea what the flow path was for this 14: water, which obviously coming out of the reactor coolant system somewhere 15'I and getting into the auxiliary building. Do you have any idea what 16 flow path that might have been taking getting over there? 17 18 SHOWALTER: At that time, I guess we all felt that the water had come 19 out by way of the reactor building sump pumps and had been pumped out 20l to the aux building sump tank, overfilled that tark, and its over flow 21f had run into the aux sump and filled the aux semp, and then the aux 22 sump had sort of backed up into the floor drains in the 281 level of 23 the auxiliary building. In retrospect, in the recent days several 24 other paths have been established as possible paths and I guess we have 25j 894 152 i l
{ 12 i !ll sort of discounted the RB sump pump as being the source of the major 6 g, amount of activity, and the reason we have discounted that is that, 3t from the computer it was verified that the reactor building sump pumps 4 run for a shcrt period after 4:00 o' clock and then were secured and 5 that, as far as we know, they didn't run again. However, there is a 6 possibility, as determined by some other fellows doing research in 7 this, that we could have had the line filled with water and then at a later period, say after the fuel begin to fail, along about 7:00 to 8:00 o' clock, that a siphon was previously established, that the siphon 10 begin to flow through this same line from the RB sump pumps, and that 11 siphon wasn't stopped until we got reactor building isolation, at I 12f think about 9:30. So that's one possibility, and I guess a very creditable 13 one at this point. Another possibility would be that water came over 14 out of the--the reactor coolant drain tank overfilled and blew its 15! rupture disk'and there had been a lot of water and pressure in there 16 and that it might have come over by way of the waste disposal gas vent 17 header tie line out of the building and dumped into the vent header in 18l the aux building, and that the various liquid drainers would have i 19! drained it to the floor and it would also have been drained to the aux 20! building sump tank by way of the compressor, waste gas compressor air i 2 18 water separator high level dump valve. 22 3 1 23 24! bh4 ib) 25l l t i
l l 13 l l l' JACKSON: I don't remamber the valve numbers specifically, but on the 2l dischar. side of the reactor coolant drain tank pumps, there is a 3 valve that operates off the level... 4 5 SHOWALTER: Yes. 6 7 JACKSON: In the reactor coolant drain tank. Could that valve have, as the level went up in the tank, would that valve have gone full open, 9 allowing those pumps to be pumping to the reactor coolant bleed hold-up 10f tanks or... ? 11 12 SHOWALTER: I am not sure at this point in my mind, I don't think that 13, is an automatic valve. It is a valve that you jog open manually when 14 the level comes up in the tank, as I recall. Now, I may be wrong on I 15 that. I would have to check the electrical prints that determine how 16l that valve is controlled. 17 18 JACKSON: The piping and instrument diagram I looked at shows it getting 19i a signal from the level switch. I believe the system description says 20' it operates automatically. What wasn't clear to me, from the system 21 description, was whether or not that valve opened full open, or it 22 throttled, or what. 23! 24 394 154 25 i ?
14 i i 1l SHOWALTER: I am a little rusty too on that. I would just guess, and 2! let me state that as a guess, that that type of a level switch to the 3 valve is like a low level interlock, and when the level drops too low 4 in the tank, it closes the valve. 5 6 JACKSON: True. 7 8 SHOWALTER: And the reason for this would be that you don't want too 9 small of an inventory of water in the tank, otherwise you won't have 10 adequate cooling for quenching the steam when it comes into the tank. lli I, 12! JACKSON: Okay, you mentioned the possibility of getting water into the 13 waste gas vent header from the line off the reactor coolant drain tank. 14 To your knowledge, was there any water collected in the waste gas 15l system during this time frame? 16! 17 SHOWALTER: It would be a little hard for me to prove or to say either 18 way as to whether there was or wasn't, in that if it had come in to the 191 waste gas header, there would have been no indication whether it was or 20{ not, and the waste gas compressor air water separator dump valve would 21l have just automatically opened, and maintaic, a level there and so 22l effectively dump the water to the aux building sump tank and you would 23 have had no indication anywhere of that. 24l 2sj 894 155 i I
f 15 1. JACKSON: Okay. Skipping over to the industrial waste treatment system, 21 l do you know when it was fi~rst discovered that contaminated water was 3l l going to the industrial waste treatment system? 4l l 5 SHOWALTER: No I don't. 61 7 JACKSON: Oksy. Do you know where the industrial waste treatment system 8 overflows to when the sump fills up out there? 9 10f SHOWALTER: There is no provision for overflow of that sump, other than 11 to simply flow out onto the ground and flow into various yard drainage 12f system that collects storm water. 13 14l JACKSON: Does that yard drainage system, does all of that go over to 15 what they call the East Dike? i 16l 17l SHOWALTER: Yes it does, the yard drainage and the roof drains lead to l 1SI the East Dike and exit the Island on the east side. 19f 20j JACKSON: Okay I am going to juinp back on the waste gas system here for 21 just a second. Are there any problems that you can recall that you had 22' with the waste gas system those first three days? 23 29 894 156 25l l t { I
i l 16 I l! l SHOWALTER: Well, from the instrumentation and so forth, it seemed that 2! l during this first three days there was some problems with the gas 31 l compressors adequately handling the gas that was vented from the make-up 4l tank into the vent header. In other words, the make-up tank would get Si j up high in pressure and we would open the vent valve into the waste gas 6i j vent header and the pressure in the vent header would go up and the 7 compressors just didn't seem to be handling the pressure that was 8 ccming into the waste gas vent header. In respect in looking back to o that now, I am wondering whether this wasn't due to a lot of water in 10 the header or something, that the compressor was not properly able to 11 handle both the gas and the water that was coming in. And then all of a 12 sudden, and I don't know the exact time of this, all of a sudden it 13 appeared that the gas compressors began to work and actually handle i 14l this venting of the make-up tank a little bit better. I 15i 16 JACKSON: Okay. Do you recall what the pressures were in the waste gas 17 decay tanks on any of these first three days? 18l 19! SHOWALTER-No I don't, and I guess we would just have to simply refer 20I to some af the paper work that might have been generated at various 21 times and to verify the pressure from that. I don't have the exact 22! pressures. 23 24) 894 lb/ 25:
{ 17 1! SHACKLETON: Gentlemen, we'll have to change the tape. The time is now 2 12:59 a.m., May 2, 1979, and we'll come back on in just a few minutes. 31 1 4f. SHACKLETON: This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Earl D. c' Showalter. Mr. Showalter is an Engineer II-Nuclear for the Metropolitan 6 Edison Company at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power facility. Gentlemen, 7 the date is still May 2, 1979, and please continue with the interview. 8 9 JACKSON: Okay, Earl, I am Loing to pick up where I left off. I am 10 going to pursue this waste gas decay tank just a second here to make 11l sure I am clear on that. What I was looking for on that previous 12 question is, it seems to me there was a peak pressure in the waste gas 13l decay tanks sometime during the first three days, and there was a 14l5 release, maybe the reliefs lifted or something, and the pressure came 15i down. I think I came on site on the 30th and those tanks were running 16l about 80 pounds, roughly in that range, in the two tanks. Are you 17 familiar with this, the pressure going up in those tanks and then, for 18 some reason, it came down to about 80--I say, when it went up, it went 19 to maybe a 100 pounds or so. 20l t 21l SHOWALTER: I am not familiar that it was actually up to 100 pounds. 22 Again, I guess I just have to look at some data that was gathered from 23 the decay tank pressures and 50 forth, from the various entries that 24l were made realizing, of course, that they were not the entries that 25l 894 158 i
l 1 { 18 l! were made, were not necessarily at a periodic time and you don't have a 2l> continuous flow of good data. But...my mind is a little rusty, I guess, 31 about a month ago. JACKSON: Okay do you know where any records like that are kept, or I what format-were they in a log? 7 8 SHOWALTER: No, they were--we had prior to the accident, we had a rather well defined log sheet that contained an awful lot of data. It 10' would have taken ten, fifteen minutes to collect all the data on the 11 typewritten pages of the log sheet. And in order to reduce the exposure, 12f we come out with a hand written type log sheet that included only what i 13 we considered to be vital information at the time, and this was a one 14 page type thing. Often times people going into the building, we requested 151 they stop by the panel and get those readings on that log sheet. 16 Those, I would have, I guess, some of those in our possession up at the 17 radwaste operations group, I am not sure I'd have all of them, though. 18j The radwaste log book that we started, didn't get started until I think 19f the 30th or slightly thereafter. 20l I 21 JACKSON: Okay. All right, we'll go on then. Were there any intentional 22 releases made from the Unit 2 waste gas system during those first three 23 days? 24l 894 159 2s
19 l l! SHOWALTER: Intentional? Not that I know of. 2f 3 JACKSON: Okay. I am going jump on to the filtration system here a 4 little bit. Were there any concerns, during the early stages, over the 5 adequacy of the filtration system? Was that in your area there? 6 SHOWALTER: No, I didn't get involved too much. If you're referring to 8 the filtration of the heating and ventilation systems-- 9 10 JACKSON: Right, right, excuse me for not being clear, but I am talking 11 about aux building filtration system this time. 12 13 SHOWALTER: No, I was not involved in that at all. 14! 15 JACKSON: Okay, now you were in the building though, looking for water 16! overflowing on the ficor. Were you concerned with iodine releases then t 17 or--? 18f l 19 SHOWALTER: Yes, we were concerned about the amount that was actually 2G going out of the plant and being released to the environment. Obviously, 21, if we could have found a leak that we could have isolated, we would 22 have isolated it. What I mean by, "could have", that it would have 23 been in a radiation level we could have safely, quickly entered, secured 24 and exited that area and not accumulated more than one or two rem. 25 894 160
20 l l{l This was the main purpose of the entry-to try to find any gross leakage 2l that we could identify to the control rooms as, " hey this is where the leak's coming from." 4 JACXSON: Are you familiar with the isolation of the ventilation system 6 that isolates off the monitors...you know like HPR-219 would shut down 7 the auxiliary building system. 8 9 SHOWALTER: Only vaguely familiar with this. 219 does trip most everything. I 10( l 11 JACKSON: Okay, am I getting a little bit out of your area on the 12 ventilation system here? 13 14! SHOWALTER: I would say that there are probably people that would be t 15 better qualified to answer the questions than I am. 16' 17 JACKSON: Okay, well there is one other thing that I would like you to 18{ just hit briefly. If you would, just for the record, would you make a 19l statement about what were some of the actions you all were taking with 20f regards to getting in temporary tankage, considering temporary filtration 21{ systems, this type thing. 22 23 b9k Ib 24, i 25j i i' e 1
f 21 I I l' SHOWALTER: Well, when we began to move the Unit 1, I mean Unit 2 2 pre accident water inventory to Unit 1, we quickly filled up the Unit 3 1 inventory space, and of course, we had to immediately begin to run 4' water into the Unit I reactor coolant bleed tank room cubicle floor. The way we did that is we plugged the floor drains, and since that sort of a bathtub shaped room in itself with those tanks in it, once the drains are plugged you can fill into the room several feet of water. O We've done that before. And once I realized we were doing that I im-9 mediately began to think in my mind, " hey, well, we've got to be able 10 to treat that water," and after some calls to our Reading staff, I 11' decided that the proper method for at least treating that water and 12 keeping Unit 1 from being involved any deeper in the problem of Unit 13 2, was to get in a system for demineralization and treatment of this 14 lower level water that we knew how to treat. This pre-accident waste 15 water, although huga in volume, was not something that we were unfamiliar 1 16! with. So I talked to Mike Buring at our Reading staff and after a few l 17l minutes of conversing with him on the phone, I made a list of a couple l 18{ of things and told him, "Here, I want you to call the Purchasing Department, 19l call these various vendors and have them get in here with equipment to 20' handle the Unit 1 water that we've sent them," the pre-accident water, 21 essentially. The vendors that I requested to get in was Capolupo and 22 Gundal Inc. with their portable demineralization systems--now that 23 actually is a company that is subcontracted by Epicore, so Met Ed 24 1 25j j 894 162 l [
( 22 i l 1l actually makes a contract with and Epicore and Epicore specifies the 2' type of resin to be used and gives instructions to Capolupo and Gundal, 3 who built the equipment, set up the equipment, operate the equipment, and treat the water for us. That has many advantages in that we can be 5 free and our men can be free to concentrate on other things while they 6, treat our water for us. Also, I ordered in a certain amount of tankage to take the water that they treated and hold it until Unit 1 would be 0 able to release it, because I knew that we probably be able to treat it 9 much faster than we could release it. So I ordered in some tankage to 10 take the effluent of their demineralization system. Also, I figured 11 that we would probably need to have room in the concentrated waste 12 storage tank--the concentrated waste storage tank, by the way, receives 13 concentrates from the evaporators. And so in order to rid both units of 14! pre-accident concentrated waste forms, I requested Mike Buring to get 15j Chemnuclear from South Carolina in here with their portable solidification i 16! system to solidify all the evaporators bottoms that we had and he did I 17 pretty well in scrambling together quite a group of vendors to support 18 us in those areas. At the same time, I guess I made some comments, and 191 this would have been maybe as late as the 30th, some comments to Rick 20f McGoey about tankage, and he, of course, saw the problem and so did 21 many other people. At the same time, GPU essentially gave some blanket 22 statements to some outside agencies to get us all the tanks he could 23 get us. And it wasn't long until, I guess, late on the day of the 30th 24 or something, we had more tankage than we knew what to do with. 25' 894 163
l 23 1! JACKSON: Yes, I was here when they started convoying in. 2! l 31 I SHACKLETON: Earl, to assist the young ladies that have to transcribe 4l this, if you can, can you spoll the names of those vendors: Capolupo i and Gundal and Epicore. It vill save some of our girls from going a 61 little bit hysteric trying to figure it out. 7' O SHOWALTER: Okay, I have a business card here from Capolupo and Gundal, 9 Inc., and they are located in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Mr. Richard 10 Capolupo, Vice President of the company, personally came to the site 11! here and has been involved ever since that time in helping to set up 12 equipment and to help us with our waste problems here. Epicore-I don't 13 know the exact spelling but I think that is Epicore. 14! 15l SHACKLETON: Thank you very much. 16l 17 JACKSON: Okay, I've got one other question that came to mind while you 18! were talking about processing waste. Was there, at any time, any of 19f the Unit 2 waste processed that might have been generated during the 20' incident? 21 22 SHOWALTER: We did our best effort to maintain separations of those 23 pre-accident waste with post-accident waste. Now, you are referring to 24 the period up to the 31st. 25 894 164 i i [
24 I*f JACKSON: Right. 2 SHOWALTER: As I recall, the water inventory situation in Unit 2, and I don't know the exact day of this-probably along about the 30th or 31st 5 was in rather bad situation, and so I think there was some water from Gi the Unit 2 miscellaneous waste holdup tank transferred to the Unit 1 7 miscellaneous waste holdup tank. And some of this was also drained 8 into the reactor coolant bleed tank floor. And so some of that, yes, 9 would have been treated by Capolupo and Gundal. Also, some of it was 10 evaporated by the Unit I reactor coolant evaporator, and those evaporator 11l bottoms were dumped, and I don't have the exact time of that, to one of 12l the concertrated waste storage tanks and that showed up a little bit as 13 higher than normal iodine levels, and that resulted in, I think about 14j the sixth and seventh cask that Chemnuclear was solidifying, having 15 higher than normal iodine levels. And of course, that resulted in those 16l two casks, when they were shipped towards South Carolina and we realized i 17l that they had higher than normal iodine levels, those two casks had to i 18i be returned to the site because of the Governor of South Carolina's 19! agreement that no Unit 2 waste would be buried in South Carolina. t 20! I 21 JACKSON: ~0kay, I think I am about out of questions right now. Is 22 there anything else, any general information-you don't have to restrict 23 yourself to just radwaste here, emergency organization, how well they 24, 2s! 894 165 l i t l
25 l l' l functioned, or health physics, was it adequate-any general area that 2 you might want to comment on for the record, that we might use later 3! on, we'd appreciate it. 4l c ] SHOWALTER: In general, I guess reflecting back over it, I think the 6i emergency plan run very well. I think most every department cooperated 7 and performed very well, considering the circumstances. There were 8 times in the control room during the first days that 1 wish there had been mere standard telephones between the control room and the Observation 'O Center, where many trailers and many consultants were coming in. I 11 didn't have as good a communications with Burns & Roe, who was beginning 12! to design some of the radwaste systems which are just now being installed. 13 So there was times wiien I would like to have had a little better communi-14 cations with some of the people off of the Island. But in general, I 15l think things were handled very well. 16 17l JACKSON: Okay. 18{ 19I SHACKLETON: Earl, just to clarify the record so no one has any questions 20 in their mind, earlier in the interview when Larry asked you regarding 21I your experiences in going through the auxiliary building and used the 22 achronym aux, and you are referring to the auxiliary building, correct? 23l 24l 2sj 874 166 P i i
{ 26 l l 11 i SHOWALTER: That is correct. i 2 3 SHACKLETON: And for the transcribers the abbreviation is Aux for 4 Auxiliary. You referred to some of the radiation levels that you and 5 your collegue were picking up ty your detection equipment, and the different measurements that you gave us all relate to radiation releases per hour, is that correct? 8 9 SHOWALTER: Yes. 10i 1 11l SHACKLETON: Okay, I just want to make that clear. I know that in your 12 terminology you leave that out, but those listening may question Nhether l 13 or not the releases were higher and I want to clarify that point. I 14 wish to thank you very much, on the part of the Commission, for coming 151 here and giving your time at this late hour. And I would ask of you 16l that if you think of anything further that could be helpful for the 17 safety of the industry, please give us a call, whether it's exactly in 18l your field or somewhere else. i 19! 20( SHOWALTER: Okay. 21 b9 lb i 22 23 l 24 25l 6 i' I u
{ 27 11 SHACKLETON: I would greatiy appreciate it. And with no further questions gl; then, Larry, we will terminate this interview. The time is now 1:19 l a.m. May 2, 1979. 4 3! i si 894 168 7 8; 9 10l t 11l l 12' 13 14l l 15j 16 17j 18{ 19l l 20' 21! 22 1 23 24! 25j I ) l i i}}