ML19274G083
| ML19274G083 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 04/22/1979 |
| From: | Hitz G METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908290515 | |
| Download: ML19274G083 (19) | |
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i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA I
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION l
~
d In the Matter of:
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IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW i
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of Mr. Gregory R. Hit:
l Shift Supervisor in Operations 4
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Trailer #203 9l NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10j Middletown, Pennsylvania 11!
April 22, 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) l 13!
July 2, 1979 (Date Transcript Typec) 14,I 54 15i (Tape Number (s))
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[L 21 NRC PERSONNEL:
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Mr. Dorwin R. Hunter, Inspection Specialist 23!
Mr. Owen C. Shackleton, Investigator i
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SHACKLETON:
The time is new 4:37 p.m. The date is April 22, 1979.
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This is an interview of Mr. Gregory R. Ritz.
Mr. Hitz is a Shift i
3l Supervisor in Operations for the Metropolitan Edison Company, employed 4
at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.
This interview is 5l taking place in Trailer # 203, locatec at Three Mile Island just i
6l utside the south gate.
Present to conduct this interview is Mr.
7j Darwin R. Hunter.
Mr. Hunter is an Inspection Specialist, and would I
gj you give the rest of your employment 9l HUNTER:
10 Performance Appraisal Branch, Region III, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
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SHACKLETON:
Thank you.
Mr. Hitz, we would appreciate for those that will be listening to the tape, that you give your background regarding 13 your experience in the nuclear industry, bringing us up to date to 9"*
15 16; HITZ:
I started here at Three Mile Island in 1969, in 0-taber, in the training program we had set up down here, a 42 week traini^g program.
18l I was an Aux Operator at the time, went through the 42 week training program.
At the end of that 42 week training program, I became a Centrol Rocm Operator through advancements that we have.
I was a 21!
Control Rocm Operator until about 1975 or 1976, and I became a Shift 22j Foreman at that time.
I was a Shift Foreman until 1977, at which time 23l i
became a Shift Supervisor.
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SHACXLETON:
I want it to be made part of the record, that prior to gj this interview, we provided to Mr. Hitz the document from the U.S.
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Nuclear Regulatory Cammission, explaining the purpose and icope of y
this investigation and authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, g
and Mr. Hitz's rights as to whether or not he would have uo participate 61 in an interview, and explaining to him that he does have the right to 7
deny being interviewed or to have his interview tape recorded.
I would like, at this time, Mr. Hitz to ask you the questions, in which g
you responded in writing, as being willing to comply and have you g
answer orally for the record on the tape.
Did you understand all the information provided in the document?
i 12l HITZ:
Yes, I did.
14' SHACXLETON:
And, do we have your permission to tape this interview?
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16' HITZ:
Yes, you do.
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18l SHACXLETON: Ana, would you like a copy of the tape?
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HITZ:
Yes, I would.
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SHACKLETON:
Would you prefer a copy of the tape itself or a transcript?
23 24 HITZ:
Yes, the tape.
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SHACKLETON:
You would like a eape.
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HITZ:
Right.
41 5l SHACKLETON:
Ok.
We will, when we make a transcript of this interview, l
Gl we will put the text of the document into the tape.
And now I'll turn 7l the interview over to Mr. Hunter for questioning.
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I HUNTER: Ok, Greg, can you start at the time you came on site the g
10 morning of the 28th, as cest as you recollect, and ycur initial assignment, 11l and then we'll start from there.
I 12i HITZ: I came on site about 6:10, 6:15 in the morning of March 28th.
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And my original assignment was to be the Shift Supervisor in Unit 1, r
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a a
me.
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e cker room, 15 I was called by the Shift Supervisor in Unit 1 and told to report to a
the Unit I control room, that Brian Mehler had been called out earlier, 1/;
and that Brian was in Unit 2 and there was no need for me to go to Unit 2.
So I reported to the control room in Unit 1.
At tnis time the Shift Supervisor of Unit 1 told me that they were experiencing 21;l problem down there, that the turbine had tripped, the reactor had tripped, and they were into a trip recovery type program down there.
Approximately a quarter to seven, six fifty-five maybe, one of the HP 23 techs announced over the page system that the letdown sample that they 24 were drawing from Unit 2 was reading 600 R, I believe he said.
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4 SHACKLETON:
Excuse me, would you explain that that's R per hour.
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l 3j HITZ:
Yes, R per hour.
I 41 SHACKLETON:
Thank you.
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HITZ:
Right.
At this time I turned to the Control Room Operators 7
that were in the control room.
We were in the middle of a shift g
turnover at this time, and I had two shifts in the control room at g
this time.
My oncoming shift - D shift, and the shift that was there 10 at night,11 to 7 shif t, which was A shift.
I turned to the CR0s and told them to break out the isopleths and maps in order to get ready 13l for a site emergency.
At this time we declared a site emergency.
A 1
14l site emerger.cy was declared.
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l HUNTER: Alright, and the fellows who reported to you that the samples were reading 600 R, do you remember who that was, 600 R per hour?
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HITZ:
It was I picked it up on the page, ok.
The guy was hollering for the control room, and his tone of voice was such that he 20l l
was excited.
And I knew that something definitely was
. you know, 21l when people page like that, I always like to know what's going on.
So 22 I picked up the page and asked him what his problem was and he said 23 "the sample lines are reading 600 R per hour in the fuel handling 24 building. You got to understand that the sample lines from Unit 2 run i
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from Unit 2 through, the model room, which is a room between the fuel 2l handling building and Unit I and Unit 2, and in through the fuel 1
3; handling building in Unit 1, and then into the sample room, in the I
y Unit i sample room.
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I 6j HUNTER:
Ok, and what did that indicate to you at that time?
i 7l HITZ:
At that time, my first impression was failed fuel in the primary 8
system.
The same time I picked up the phone, I believe somebody was g
also on the page from Unit 2, and also heara the conversation.
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don't knew who that was, though.
And I'm sure, at that time, that g
a message got to the pecple in the control room at Unit 2.
We have a hot line, a telephone you can just pick up and it automatically rings in the opposite control room.
I picked up that phone and talked over to the paople in Unit 2 and told them that I had received that message 15!
and that we were creaking out the iscpleths and' the maps and getting 10!
17l ready to set up to do their backup calculations, if, in fact, they needed that.
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HUNTER: The site emergency, then, was a parallel emergency, both units 20, l
declared site emergency at that time?
21l 22 HITZ:
Well, the Unit 2 declared a site emergency. The unit 1 control 23!
room then automatically goes into the backup phase, which they do the 24j backup calculations and support the Unit 2 control room, or the affected 15l 2001 340 i
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unit in anyway that we can.
If the emergency, say, for example, would 2
have been in Unit i, Unit 2 would have been my back up, and they would i
3 have done backup calculations supporting me, making sure what I was i
4l doing was correct.
HUNTER:
Certainly.
What was the status of Unit 1 at that time?
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HITZ:
Unit I was we were doing control rod drop tests at the 8) time.
Let me explain that.
We had just got done with refueling g
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, w ere e a m ve some of de o M fuel elements out 101 and replaced them with new fuel elements and had just gone through a rather lengthy shutdown.
And when you do a refueling operation such as this you have physics testing that you have to do and coefficients 1*[
that you have to measure, and you want to get the reactivity worth of the rods.
We were doing rod drop, we were pulling control rod groups 15; and then dropping them and measuring the reactivity insertion rate of these rods at that time.
17i 181 HUNTER:
As I understand it, in preparation for a normal startup, 19!
l that's when you finish your 20:
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f HITZ:
That's correct.
That's part of the evolution that you do in 22 order to get yourself backup.
23l 24If HUNTER:
Ok, the first site emergency was initiated, and what was the4 25!
next step then, that you were involved in.
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HITZ:
I was in the Unit 1 control room at the time, so my function 2
was to get the information, as much as I could, from Unit 2 and do 3
backup calculations for them - run offsite dose calculations, onsite 4;
dose calculations, we notified the civil defense, tried to make sure 5l that the people in Unit 2 had anything that they needed, if there was i
6i any help that they needed, onsite teams, offsite teams, so fsrth and 7f so on.
We were strictly a backup.
8 HUNTER:
Who were you communicating with at that time?
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i HITZ:
I communicated with Mike Ross in Unit 2.
Mike Ross is. - Unit 1 Supervi_sor of Ops.
He was in Unit 2 at the time. Most of the time when I talked, I either talked to Mike Ross or I talked to Jim Seelinger.
13i Now, eventually, Jim Seelinger ended in the Unit 1 control room.
He j
took charge cf the Unit I control room. You have to understand that everybody has a specific assignment in a site general or general l
emergency, and the assignment of the Unit 1 Supervisor superintendent 1,/ l is to report to the unaffected control room, ok, which of course, Unit i
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I was the unaffected control room.
And he then takes charge of running the backup calculations.
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21; HUNTER:
What was the status of Unit 1 control room at that time? The 22 number of people and any radiation levels.
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HITZ:
Radiation levels were minimal:.5 mR.,.5 millirem per hour, in 25; that ballpark, Nothing over background. Status of people: we had t
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i 1l approximately six control room operators, we had two shift supervisors, 2:
. we had two shift foreman, and I had several, I'd say five aux operators i
3l that were located right in the control room, so if I needed something 4j I can take that aux operator and tell him to go here or go there.
And 5
we had three other people that were doing the dose calculations.
I Gi HUNTER: Was the control room under an isolated ventilation system at 7
that time?
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9l 10j HITZ:
No, sir, not at that time, that particular time.
11l HUNTER:
Later on, did the control, did you isolate the ventilation?
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HITZ:
Yes.
We went into a recirc mode.
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HUNTER:
What was the situation, as far as radiation, at that time?
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17l; Was there any problem in Unit 1 at all?
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HITZ:
Wo, not at that time.
Latar on in the day.
I don't know 19i what you want for time periods but later on in the morning, maybe around noontime, due to the wind shifts, we started the ventilation.
The way the ventilation was sat up, we started to get inleakage into 22!
the control room, and we did periodic times have to wear respirators 23 in the control room.
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l HUNTER:
It was periodic?
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HITZ:
It wasn't long at all.
One of the problems was, once you get I
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into the respirator you have to get a sample to say that the air is l
3l good enough to get out of the respirator.
The problem is to get the 4
man going around taking all the air samples to count your particular i
Sj sample.
So there were times when we were in respirators and really I
6l didnt't need to be on, but did not know that fact until the particular i
7 sample was counted.
HUNTER:
Your control room ventilation was in recirc rather than g
10l p sitive supply system?
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HITZ:
Yes, it goes into a recirc mode.
13 HUNTER:
Did you get any further involved in Unit 2 than that, than 14:
being the backup to Unit 2, durir.g anytime during the day.
161 17l HITZ:
Later on, approximately 1 o' clock, I went to the Unit 2 control room and one of the health physics people and myself.
Carl 18!
Meyers took a tour into the Unit 2 auxiliary building.
19 20j 21;j HUNTER:
Would you explain that?
22 HITZ-We went down into the auxiliary building to try and determine 23l
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if there was a leak down there.
Wa had heard before this that there 24l was a lot of water, but they were all unconfirmed reports.
So I have 25l l
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not received each person is capable of receiving 3 rens per 2j quarter.
And during the refueling outage in Unit 1, I had not in that 3
particular quarter picked up an unusual, or my quarterly limit.
So I 4j suggested that since I had such a low quarterly limit, or a low quarterly Sj accumulation, that I and another person go into the building and 1
assess what was going on down there, if we could see (a) did we have a 6l, 7,
leak (b) could I determine where there was water on the floor, and if i
g there was, could I do something about it.
Well, there wasn't a whole g;
lot I could do because the radiation levels were significant.
Down 10l around the rad waste panel they were aoout 10 R/ hour.
I tried to pump some of the water down.
Everywhere there was a floor drain, there was standing water.
And I tried to go the rad waste panel I did get the rad waste panel and tried to start a couple of pumps but they wouldn't start.
And the time I was alloted in the star.d in that 14, area, I couldn't troubleshoot a whole lot I could just take a quick scan of the board and get back out.
17; HUNTER:
You were not able to pump any water?
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HITZ:
No, I did not pump any water.
20' 21, HUNTER:
You were able to access that the water was there.
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23l HITZ:
Yes, that's true.
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11 HUNTER: Was just out of the floor drain or was it actually quite a bit i
2j of water?
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i 4j HITZ:
No, there was a significant amount but it was all situated 5!
where there were floor drains. In other words, if you were away from 6
the floor drain and walked down the hall, it would not be standing in 7l the middle of the hall but only in that floor drain area, in the low reas of the hallways, where the drains are.
I did go in and look at 8
the auxiliary building sump.
I wanted to see, were my floor drains 91 clogged, was the sump full.
The sump was full right to the too.
We 10 have an auxilliary sump tank, and then we have an open sump underneath
,1 the sump tank, and that open sump was full to the top.
I 13l HUNTER:
And then you weren't able to do much.
Then, what did you do, 14!
did you go back?
16; HITZ:
Yes, we left the area.
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18; HUNTER:
Did you then go back to Unit 2 control rocm or did you go 19i back to Unit I?
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HITZ; I went back to Unit 2 control room, undressed and went back to 22; the Unit 1 control room.
I took a shower and then went up to the Unit 23 1 control room, and spent the rest of the day up there.
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HUNTER:
Are you licensed on Unit 2?
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3l HITZ:
Yes, I am.
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HUNTER:
And you're licensed on Unit l?
sj 7l HITZ:
Yes, I am.
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HUNTER:
It appears that your contact with Unit 2 was indirect and in gj i
10l support of Unit 2.
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HITZ:
That's correct.
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HUNTER:
Is there any except for the tour of the auxiliary building, was there time you got involved in trying to assess.any of the leakace 15:
or the gas release problems?
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HITZ:
I became the Outy Shift Supervisor in Unit 2 on Friday.
181 191 HUNTER:
Ok.
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HITZ:
That's a later day.
22l 23 HUNTER:
We'll pick that up.
Ok, can you think of any assignment that 2?'
l you had during the day from Unit 1 for Unit 2 that you feel is significant, 25l 1
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that would point us towards looking into it an area that needs to be, 2[
or a person that you contacted who was involved in a specific issue i
3 that we should be involved in, that we should discuss the issue with?
4j The gentlemen you mentioned that you were talking with Si HITZ:
Michael Ross.
6 7f HUNTER:
Ross and Seelinger.
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HITZ:
And also Bill Zewe, the Shift Supervisor.
10j 11; HUNTER:
We will in fact contact these people.
We have them on our 13l!
list.
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i HITZ:
I'm sure that you do (laughtar).
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1 16-HUNTER:
I have no further questions.
Do you have any other comments, 17;!
or would you like to indicate any problems that you saw that would 1S[
help to be reviewtid, or where a problem exists that you felt needed to be further reviewed by an outside group?
20l 21 HITZ:
No, not at this time.
I've been doing a lot of thinking.
Of 22l' course, if I do come up something, I'll definitely come back and talk 23 to you, but right now 24 1
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I 14 HUNTER:
It's a few days late.
We're running late, and if you do 1l 2
think of something make sure you do get a hold of us.
There may oe 3
something that you come up with later that, we should have talked about i t.
4 I wanted to pinpoint you in each of the positions that you were 5:
in, where you were located during the event and if we come back and 6
talk with you again, it will be to get some more details, so don't be surprised about that.
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HITZ:
If I ever think of somet'ing, I'll let you know.
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10 SHACKLETON:
Excuse me Mr. Hunter, do you want to go ahead?
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HUNTER:
No.
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SHACKLETON:
One of the things we were interested in, Mr. Hitz, s
whether or not - you 've been here quite a while and you have good j
experience -- do you feel that there's any possibility on the part of 17; anyone or group of people, that may have commited any criminal acts in 18; the plant to help contribute to this incident?
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201 HITZ:
You mean sabotage?
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22 SHACKLETON:
Right.
Someone could have deliberately done something to i
23 the valves, or anything else that would have made it so difficult to 241 l
overcome this incident.
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15 11 HITZ:
Absolutely not.
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SHACKLETON:
Do you have any recommendations that you could make for i
4l the industry, from your experience here, that might help other plant 5
perators?
61 7l UITZ:
Yes, I do.
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SHACKLETON:
Because, that's our prime interest, is safety.
g 10l HITZ:
Tne bypass valve around the polisher units, ok - that should be quick acting air operated valve.
The problem is, of course, is the feed putrps tripped because it didn't have enough water.
It lost 13 i suction pressure.
The pump needs to be able to pump water, and if it doesn't have it it trips, and that's what happened.
And the reason it happened is the polisher valves went closed, to the best of my recollec-tion.
The information I've been able to gather -- we got water in the 17l lines and the polisher valves went closed.
If you had fast acting, air operated bypass valve, or fast acting motor operated, you could 191 bypass the polishers and, of course, the pumps sould not starve for 20l 1
water.
That's the key to the whole thing.
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SHACKLETON:
As far as the actions of all the various agencies, including 23 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, do you have any constructive criticisms 24 l
that you could make of what you witnessed?
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1l HITZ:
Tell me what you mean by that.
I 2l SHACXLETON:
Well, what I mean by that - I know that a lot of people 3l d
came here because of the significance of the incident.
And there were i
Sj many different agencies on the site.
And you people were trying to I
6j get the plant into a safe condition.
Did you have any problems with
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anybody getting in your way or interfering with your operation?
8 HITZ:
There were times,.
There's a lot of people trying to help g
and there's no doubt about it.
Everyt'ody here is concerned f.or what's 0
going on and for each other.
But thare were times when it got out of hand and I had to become very vocal.
Being a shift supervisor, I run that control room, ok.
And there were times when I had to make n re 13i that people understood just how it was and how I wanted that control 146 room, and I had to become vocal sometimes and chase people away.
But everybody that's up there is trying to do one thing, and that's help.
It's just where they should be helping..
It's nice to have all that help, but when people start talking in their little groups, then they 18l got to talk louder because that group's not talking -- everybody's 191 talking louder and louder.
And the next thing you know, it's like a 20!
great big circus.
It gets real noisy.
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22l SHACKLETON:
Are you referring to the noise in the control room?
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i 24l HITZ:
Sometmes you have to move them people out.
I've become involved 25[
i with some terrific people - NRC people, GPU people, engineers, and I
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1 they're doing nothing but helping.
I have nothing but guod to say gi about the people.
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4i HUNTER:
When you had been down to the auxiliary building for the 5]
survey and you came back to the Unit 2 control room, I assume you l
6l undressed, took a shower, and made it back to the Unit 2 control room.
t 7j What was the situation in the Unit 2 control room, the numbers of i
8l pe ple and the noise level?
I 9l HITZ:
The noise level was down because everyone was in respirators.
10; if It makes it significantly quiet.
People, I'd say fifty to seventy-five people there.
I 13l HUNTER:
The reason those people were there?
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I 15 HITZ:
They were running the ECS, they were running the Control Rocm.
The control room operators were up at the panel.
The shift foreman
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and shift supervisor was at the panel.
The engineers were back doing 18i their plotting.
The superintendent, they were all in the background, 19!
so to speak, back away from the console.
The console itself, was not 20r what I would call overly crowded.
Overly crowded, to me, was --
2 11 Saturday or Sunday following the incident, we had the reactor coolant 22l l
pump running, and the reactor coolant pump tripped.
Overly crowded is 23 when you see a wave of people coming towards you to help you, right.
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- 0. K.
It was not that type of condition.
There were a lot of people 25l 2001 352 i
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1 but everyone was involved in their little portion of trying to get 2f control, or keep control.
I 3l HUNTER:
Ok, Greg, you mentioned the bypass valve on the polisher.
4l 5l What about the auxiliary feedwater system, the emergency feedwater i
6 system?
1 7
HITZ:
Are you referring to the valves that were closed? The system 81 gl 1s normally lined up.
We do a surveillance once a month to check the valves lineups.
These are motor operated valves, and they're to be i
open. Maybe you can put a signal tone that when the pump gets a signal 12l to start, the valves open.
That's possible.
Anything is possible.
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This system -- the pumps started ok.
The valves were closed, kept the 13l 14!
water from going to'the steam generators.
But I - you can only j
design so many things.
I don't see anything wrong with the emergency la feedwater system.
We did a surveillance, those valves were signed off lot as being open on the surveillance.
Why they were closed, if they were closed, I don't know that.
But there's nothing wrong with that emergency 18!
feedwater system.
It works.
I've seen it work several times.
I've 19:
had loss of feed trips before up there, and the emergency feedwater system does exactly what is supposed to do, and it does a fine job.
21j 22' HUNTER:
Ok, any other questions or any other cornments?
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HITZ:
No I don't have any.
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SHACKLETON:
I just want reiterate our thanks to you, Greg, and appreciation 3
4f that we may have to contact you again and clarify points because we-gj are almost a month into the time frame.
And there is a lot of conflict 6
in times and we are trying to straightan cut exactly what happened.
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We thank you very much for your presence here, and we'll bring this interview to a conclusion.
The time is now 5:03 p.m., 4/22/79.
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