ML19274G108
| ML19274G108 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 03/30/1979 |
| From: | Frederick E, Miller D METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908290653 | |
| Download: ML19274G108 (40) | |
Text
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j UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
In the Matter of:
2 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW I
of Donald R. Miller, Auxiliary Operator A I
Edward Frederick, Control Room Operator, Nuclear s
64 S
Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10 Middletown, Pennsylvania In March 30, 1979 12 (Date of Intarview) 13 July 3, 1979 (Date Transcript Typea) 15
~'"*h;e Nuncer(s))
16l t
17l 18l 19 20 21l NRC PERSONNEL:
22l Larry L. Jackson f
Conald Kirkpatrick 23 s
246 f
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MILLER:... tank to be regenerated. The resins were clogged in that 2;
line for approximately eleven hours. They were working on unclogging 3
l them.
It was just sit there, a process of shooting it with air and 4I water and trying to push them through.
It was at least an hour before 5
the job, and at the time of the trip, myself, shift foreman Fred Scheimann 61 and Hal Farst, another auxiliary operator "A", were standing there dis-7 cussing the problem we were having with this.
The first thing, we 8
heard something that sounded like the pumps stopped.
I'm saying that, 9f I guess now, because it I've seen the other report and it says that the 10 condensate pump definitely stopped and thinking back over it I can 11 believe that that's what I heard now.
We came down the ladder from l
where I was and went around to look at the condensate polisher panel 13 and I lost all flow, all condensate flow through the polisher.
- Well, I
then, they announced the turbine tripped and directly after that the 15 reactor tripped.
So, first thing I did was go ahead and shut down five 16 of those polisher units.
Normal procedure, is when we trip the turbine 17l or trip the reactor, we're going to lose feed pumps and booster pumps.
t 18f Under normal situations of coming right back up we only use two polishers, 19!
and that's the position I had to be into later and that's the position i
I went to.
When I went to the panels I noticed that my outlet valves 21 on LD? polisher vessels had failed shut.
So I just isolated the other 12l:
five and left +.r>e two lined up and ready to go, went up to the control 23 ronm to see if there was ar,yt N g else or what was going to be coming 24 on next.
And then making the last double et,-?ch as I started to go 25f l
f 2002 218 I
2 l'
j between the condensate AP.A condensate booster pump and the panel, the 2!
l line there shook about 2 1/2 to 3 feet.
Well, I turned around and went 31
{
back around behind the panel and up the steps to the control room.
4 When I got up to the control room, they said is the polisher lined up 5
were ready to go?
I said yes, it's lined up the way we should be in 6
this situation. And they said OK, and we stood there a few minutes and 7
they sent me down to check, just to double check and make sure everything was allright.
So I went back down and discovered a valve leaking, the suction valve in the two-way booster pump.
I called the control room 10 and told them the situation, took the chain lock off, broke it off, and 11 started closing that suction valve.
A few minutes later I got help 12' from two other operators to get it shut.
So we isolated that pump and 13 eliminated that problem. We went back up stairs, and they said we 14 still didn't have any condensate flow.
I said the bypass opened around 15!
the polishers because that thing had failed shut and nobody knew for 16 sure.
Well, they hit the button, somebody up there said they hit the 17 button and it didn't go shut. And they sent us down to check it manually 18!
and we got down there and the handwheel was missing but we did get it 19!
open manually.
The handle wasn't on, but it was laying there and we 20 got it on and got it open.
Well, after that sequence of events, we 21 went back upstairs and it was just a matter of running here or there 22 for odd jobs.
I got sent to the primary side just to check the pres-23 surizer level, which the reading got was 300 inches in the pressurizer 24 was what I read on the indication dial in makeup valve alley.
The rest 25 l
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of it was, that must--I don't even know how far into it, you know, how 2
much time lag we're talking about, or how much time was involved in 3
this I don't really have any idea.
And then, from then on it was just 4
double check other things.
5 6
JACKSON:
Did you have any procedure to check this or anything, or do 7
you know these things that you're supposed to do?
8 9
MILLER:
Yes.
Certain things you know from operating systems, you know 10 what has to be done.
For a emergency situation like that, I think a 11 check list would be just in the road.
As far as, you know, it's great U
that when you're finished you can maybe look at it and say, well, I 13 didn't get this one.
I don't see where the time is, you have that 14 time, you know, that to do right at the time.
You wouldn't be able to 15l carry it with you all the time.
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17l JACKSON:
At the time you didn't assume you had an emergency, right?
18 19 MILLER:
Well, I knew we had an emergency limit.
20 21f JACKSON:
In the sense...
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I 1l MILLER:
Well, in the sense that we had with emergency of the problem 2'
we have now.
I never dreamed of anything like...
3 4l JACKSON:
Yea, you assumed you had a trip...
5 6
MILLER:
Right.
I just went back to the normal situations when the 7
8 JACKSON:
In tha past, have you been on shift when the turbine trip has 10 occurred?
11 12 MILLER:
Yes.
13 14 JACKSON:
You followed the same steps, basically?
15f 16 MILLER:
Yes.
I haven't always been at the polisher, but that's one of 17 the systems I supposedly know a little bit more about than a lot of 18 other people because I've spent a lot of time there when they were 19 getting it squared away in the first place.
But, any time we come back 20' up or go down we take those polishers off in water and you always leave 21 two on, unless you're going to shut down completely.
You still leave 22I two on until you're completely down. The vacuum's broken, so I just 23 left two of them lined up normally.
24 25 2002 221 i
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JACKSON:
From the control room stand point, did you feel like the in-2!
structions you were getting there were making sense?
3 4
MILLER:
Knowing the situation and what they were going 'through up 5
there, and the information they were asking for. I think definitely the 6
questions they were asking, you know, the things we ran around and 7
checked like that pressurizer level, for some reason they didn't think 8
the one we had I guess was right, and they double. checked the indicator.
9 I believe that everything they did was valid as far as what they sent 10 us to check.
I think I was involved mostly on the secondary side of the plant that night, and what was going on on the primary side of the plant, I really have no idea.
13 14 JACKSON:
Who were you getting your inetructions from?
15 16}
MILLER:
I got the trip to make to the primary sida to check that level l
17 came from the shift supervisor. Most of my other stuff came from the 18f two control room operators.
19f i
20 JACKSON:
And you don't have anybody under you, I guess.
21 22 MILLER:
No.
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l JACKSON:
One of the questions that Dick suggested, the hardware needed 2;
but not available, the hardware needed was the wheel that you found.
3 4
MILLER:
The handle was laying there, yea.
It shouldn't have been off.
5 It was an electrically operated valve, I don't know why'it wouldn't 6
open anyway.
Unless there's a great-you know, sometimes we run into 7
problems with that type of valve; that, if you don't have an equalizing 8
pressure across the valve, ycu have to break it off the seat before the 9
electrical operator it will take hold, which I don't know if there's 10 any way of correcting that problem.
11 12 JACKSON:
H6w long did you stay on? Or did you stay over that morning?
13 14 MILLER:
Yes.
I was on the Island I would say, oh, et least eleven 15l o, clock.
16' 17 JACKSON 2 Working, or had you just gone to the control area?
18{
19I MILLER:
We were, I'd say we actually worked until nine o' clock.
- Then, i
20' with the site emergency and that, it was a matter of, well--when the 21 emergency was declared, that was seven o' clock, we went to the, to our 22 normally ECS area.
And then, they'd just take an operator as they 23 needed.
For the first couple hours we were used pretty much because we 24 had a good idea of where we were.
And then after that you know they 2002 223 I
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just kept filtering jobs and then they just started taking the people 2'
that were just coming in, giving the guise that were there all night 3
the benefit of the break.
4l 8
5 JACKSON:
So the emergeny procedure, and I'm not too familiar with it, 6l you were sent to your control point.
7 8
MILLER:
Right.
9 JACKSON:
And then from there you were assigned tasks until about nine 11 o' clock.
12, 13 MILLER:
Right.
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JACKSON:
And then you started the process of checking up.
16 17 MILLER:
No. From nine o' clock we were used basically from ECS all the 18 time.
They sere always taking operators.
But the last two hours I was 19!
still there available until eleven o' clock, but I just wasn't used for i
20 anything from say nine to eleven.
And then, from eleven to one-thirty 21 was the time I actually started getting processed and the radiation 22 checks until they monitored the cars that were at the 500 substation 23 and everything, until we were finally cleared to go home, it was one-thirty.
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l JACKSON:
OK. And when did you come back on?
2!
3 MILLER:
Eleven o' clock that night.
4 5
JACKSON:
At what pnint did you first become aware that there might be 61 radioactive hazards? When they gave the site emergency.
When they 7
announced tne site emergency, was the first indication I had of any-8 thing ~like that. What time was that?
9 10 MILLER:
I think it was 6:40, somewhere right around 7:00 give or take 11' fifteen or twenty minutes, somewhere.
12 JACKSON:
Did you get any information at that point other than the 14; alarm did anybody...?... Did they give you some explanation?
15 16' MILLER:
No, they gave the alarm.
It's the first site emergency 17 I've been involved with except tests, and the only thing that I got out ISf of it right away was that they declared a site emergency, the alarm was 19 sited, sounded, ana they said evacuate the Auxiliary Building.
So 20!
right away I figured it was some kind of airborne radiation in the Aux 21 Building because that's usually why, or the only reason why.
22 23 JACKSON:
You were in the turbine building...?
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MILLER:
I was in the turbine buil, ding.
2 JACKSON:
You didn't get an explanation at that point?
4 5
MILLER:
Not at that point.
6 7
JACKSON:
What, from your knowledge of the polishers, did you make any 8
recommendations to anybody about things they ought to try to do?
9 10 MILLER:
You mean at the time or over the past couple...?
11 12 JACKSON:
Over the past couple days.
13 14 MILLER:
Not in the last couple days or months even.
A lot of things l
15l seemed to be squared away.
The only thing I'found out now that was I 16 was definitely misinformed on was on the outlet valves on, the vessels 17 themselves.
There's an air override on them that you leave to put in 18, the open position and I thought that this would prevent them from 19 closing, Well, it will prevent them from closing electrically though i
20 not with a loss of air.
So a change I could see, I'm not exactly, you 21 know, enough engineering knowledge to know exactly what should be done 22 if they should be made failed open or fail as is or whatever.
Just 23 thinking about it myself, I can see I'd like to see that those valves 24l were failed as is in the future.
That way, with the loss of a pump, or 25j i
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even a situation where I believe they must have got, that's something I 2
missed.
Somewhere in the course of the night in all that havoc of 3
running around doing different jobs, I met a guy at the instrument air 4
compressors and the receiving tanks and we drained water out of one of 5
the tanks in particular for about seven minutes.
So somehow or another 6
the water burst there was water in the air systems too. That's what 7
caused them valves to fail shut.
But I'm pretty sure that happened 8
after the trip from, well, just going by the computer reports and 9
thinking back now on what I actually heard. But if those valves were 10 failed as is, I don't think we'd have got quite in the problem we did 11 because of one that was shut, because it was not in service, would have 12 stayed that way and the other eight would have stayed in service the 13 way they were, and we'd have still gotten water flow through the one 14l condensate pump and the two booster pumps still running.
15 16 JACKSON:
What have you been doing the last two nights? This is the...
17 18!
MILLER:
The last night, or--that's the night it happened; and last 19f night, I would have been- "ednesday morning is when it happened; Thursday 20 morning was last night and this is Friday.
21.
22 JACKSON:
Right.
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MILLER:
I do know where I'm at.
Last night when we came in, we came 2
in the North gate and we didn't know what to expect anywhere.
Then 3
they sent us to the observation center.
There we got on coveralls and 4
got an ID. Well they just got us together and got us clearance to get 5
on the Island.
Then, we went to our respective control rooms.
Up 6
there, we were told that we were to wear respirators everywhere but in 7
the control building or in the control room, and we just did little odd 8
jobs here and there. We picked up all the Scott Airpacks that were 9
laying around that were contaminated or not, and brought them out to 10 where they could get all new air bottles on them. And then one of the 11 Aux operators, Terry Daugherty, went in the primary side. For approxi-12 mately fifteen minutes he was in and out.
There we were wearing double 13 rubber suits and the Scott Airpacks and everything.
So with the three 14 "A" operators we had to make four trips.
I was the fortunate one, I 15 went the last two times. But, for some reason or another the radiation 16' levels really fell off from the time the guy in the middle went until 17 the time I went in.
Allright. The guy that went in first, they claimed, 18 well, his dosimetry read approximately 350 to 400 mR in the fifteen 19l minutes he was in there.
The second guys read about 500.
In the two 1
20 trips I made, I got 90.
The radiation levels considerably fell off, 21 but basically that's what we done all last night.
22 23 JACKSON:
What did you say? You went into the primary side it was into 24' the Aux Building?
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MILLER:
Yea, the Auxiliary Building.
3 JACKSON:
That would be a good thing to clarify. Well, when we get this 4
transcribed you can look at it, and see if there is anything you want 5
to change.
Can you think of anything else~?
6 7
KIRKPATRICK:
Well, he answered earlier when he started describing what 8
happened.that he noticed a pipe move.
9 10 JACKSON:
Oh, yea, I was gonna follow up on that.
11 12 KIRKPATRICK:
Do you have any idea why?
13 14 MILLER:
The only thing I can see is the..
i 15i 16f JACKSON:
Like a water hammer.
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18i MILLER:
That's what I thoroughly believe...
19l 20 JACKSON:
What size pipe are you talking about?
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22l MILLER:
Twenty-four inch diameter.
That's why I politely turned 23 around and walked behind the panel.
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JACKSON:
Yea, I guess so.
2 3
MILLER:
It's a condensate suction line.
I've seen them move a little 41 I
bit before, you know, in start up and change of speeds, and expand and 5
contract, but nothing like that.
6 7
JACKSON:
And this was a sudden move?
8 9
MILLER:
Uh huh.
I only know of it going one time, but I wasn't going 10 to stay around and watch, either.
11 1
JACKSON:
Try to put it all together, and the fact that you saw that 13 could be iinportant.
14 f
15 MILLER:
I would guess that happened within the first five to ten 16 minutes of the trip, that that actually happened.
17 18 JACKSON:
OK. That helps too, to have a place aad a time.
19 20 MILLER:
'cause I hadn't gotten away from the panel yet.
I was still 21 checking the stuff there.
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JACKSON:
If you don't think of anything else... turn it off. End of 2'
interview with Don Miller. 01:24 hours. 30 March 79, we're interviewing 3
Ed Frederick. Ed, would you just state your name and job function?
4 5
FREDERICK:
Ed Frederick, Control Room Operator.
6 7
JACKSON:
And you were on duty the night of th1s, the event started?
8 FREDERICK:
Yes.
10 11!
JACKSON:
Can you begin just by telling us, uh, where you were, say U
from like an hour before the event.
Just start describing your impres-13 sions.
14, l
15l FREDERICK:
I spent all my time in the control room.
16!
17 JACKSON:
Right.
18 19 FREDERICK:
During the hour before I was just doing a normal check 20 which we do during shifts. Keeping my eye on the meters and I probably 21 spent some time with the computer jus' about all the time I was up 22' there.
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l JACKSON:
An hour before, were things essentially normal?
2 3
FREDERICK:
Essentially normal yes.
The only abnormal thing I could 4
consider was something that hadn't happened in the last few days or 5
that I would consider unexplained at this point were the alarms I 6
received on the 2A auxiliary transformer and voltage low.
We were 7
reading the alarm responses and trying to figure out what was giving us 8
that alarm for some time before all this occurred.
Whether or not it's 9
related or not I can't tell you but that's what we were doing at that 10 time.
It wasn't an intense research effort, it was just another alarm.
11 JACKSON:
Sure.
13 14l FREDERICK:
We were wondering what was causing it.
We weren't seeing i
15 any effects in the plant. It looked to us to be a spurious alarm.
16i 17 JACKSON:
The alarm was voltage low. It was the, uh, I'm 18{
having trouble remembering the panel now, I forgot what - I think it 19f was panel 16 and it's the first group of alarms called 2A auxiliary 20I transformer and voltaga loss, we hadn't lost. As a matter of fact the 21 alarm response was still sitting up there open. I saw it a few minutes 22 ago. And we were to figure out what was giving us the alarm.
We were 23 reading through the to try to figure out what was giving us the 24 alarm.
We saw none of the observations we were supposed to be seeing, 25l 2002 232
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so we figured it was spurious.
However, now that T. think back on what 2.
j I saw, the initial alarms in the, uh, as thing started to happen that 3
may be significant in that the only thing that effects the condensate 4
pumps is the electrical fault.
They know how, if not somebody must 5
look into that? (Very quiet) 6 7
JACKSON:
OK, can you just kind of recall the sequence of events then, 8
from...?
9 10 FREDERICK:
Allrignt, a few minutes before everything happened there 11 was two of us in there normally, the other guy is Craig.
He was at the 12 computer console taking readings.
I was sitting in a high chair, the 13 chair at the diamond panel which was in the center of the center console 14 and controls the rods.
I was at the diamond rod control panel and at 15!
the time I was facing the make-up system, which was on the left, because i
16 what we have been doing for the last several weeks is constantly changing 17 our make up tank inventory to compensate for leakage that we had through 18f the relief valve on the' prest izer.
We have to keep swapping water 19 back and forth to maintain rod position.
So that',, it became a routine 20 operation te monitor the make up system levels and things that affect 21 the water So that's what I was doing at the time.
And uh, so 22 when the initial alarms occurred, I saw, ( saw Craig's reaction first, 23 because he was off to my left and I could see him out of the corner of 24 my eye.
The first thing he said was, something happened and he pointed 25 I
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at the panel. And that's the point I started reading the alarms.
And 2,,
he, I can tell you what I saw for the next couple minutes but I don't
?
know what he did next.
I read, I saw lots of alarms but I know where 4
to look and I started reading the few that I thought were important.
5 The first ones I read were the condensate pump trip, and turbine trip.
6l And I looked at the ICS panel and I saw alarms flashing, so I started 7
monitoring the ICS, I awa t read the alarms, because I know the ICS. I 8
looked at the ICS controllers, 'cause I wanted to verif, that we were i
9 progressing through a turbine run back, loss of turbine ICS run back.
At that time, Bill Zewe, the shift supervisor, was to my left behind me and he said you just lost the reactor, which made me change then to the reactor trip.
Up to this point, we were in a routine emergency pro-13 cccure.
We were reacting to a loss of the turbine and a loss of the 14 reactor.
i 15j 16)
JACKSON:
And have you been through these before?
17 la{
FREDERICK:
Yes.
i 19{
i 20 JALKSON:
You've had this occur when you've been on shift.
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18 1l FREDERICK:
Yes.
Nothing at this point looked abnormal.
We were 2
questioning, that was in my mind, what caused it, but it wasn't important 3
at the time to figure out what was causing it. We had to react to what 4
was happening.
So I went to the make up system, because the next thing 5
you have to do is to preserve the pressurizer level.
6 JACKSON:
Right.
8 9
FREDERICK:
Allright now, we had already, Craig had already closed 10 NEV376 which is the letdown isolation valve, and he told me that. So I 11 knew it was shut.
I, somewhere between the time I read the ICS alarms 12:
and realized we had a trip, I put the pressurizer spray valve in auto-13 matic and I turned all the heaters on automatic.
Previously, they were 14 in manual because of the water inventory control, and we were spraying 15 the pressurizer manually and I knew that the, uh, we had discussed this i
16!
before.
We said if we have a trip, we have to put automatic immediately.
17 1
JACKSON:
Uh huh.
19 20 FREDERICK:
So that system will respond the way it's supposed to.
So I 21 did'that and I'm sure that wasn't very long.
OK, so at the make up 22 system, on that was Fred Scheimann who was a foreman, he went to the 23 pressurizer instrumertation and started monitoring it.
It is important 24l to have someone call out the pressure; is it going down, is it going i
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up? He was doing that.
I believe he was zerced in on pressure and 2l' temperature, RCS temperature and pressurizer pressure.
So, at this 3
time pressure was going down and pressurizer level was going down and 4l he was saying that.
So, the emergency procedure says start up the'make c~
up pump. Craig, I believe, tried to start it, the make up pump, "A" 6
make-up pump, and it didn't start, I think he tried several times.
And 7
then, uh, he couldn't start it and he saw me coming.
While he was 8
still there I reached over and hit it and it started.
That was probably 9
several attempts to start, and I only tried once and it went.
He 10 immediately went into the secondary plant 'cause he knew I was on 11' primary, and he went to B station which was what you have to have.
You 12 have to have somebody at the--this was the way we drilled it anyway--some-13 body at the pressurizer, somebody cn make-up, somebody on feedwater and 14j sor cody watching the whole thing. Zewe, I believe, was standing back 15ll watching the whole thing letting us know if we were going the wrong 16l way.
So, uh, the next thing I remember clearly is that the make up--that, 17 uh, I had it, the A and B make up pumps running.
The pressurizer level 18 was coming down rapidly enough that I opened up the MEV 16, A or B, I 19 think it might be B. They're manual valves for high 29 pressure injection and the control I opened it up to 21 get more water to the primary system
.r the water I felt it wasn't 22l going fast enough.
Uh, it seemed like almost right away, the pressur-23 izer level was, I never saw it climbing up I looked over the pressurizer 24 again, after not having seen it for a couple seconds, and it was at 380 25' I
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2002 236
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1l inches and still going up.
Said to Fred, the guy at the pressurizer 2
station, the pressurizer is almost full, which was unbelievable to me 3
at the time.
It was too fast, so I, I backed off on the throttle 4
valve.
Now, t..at's the first screwy thing that happened, when the 5
pressurizer went full.
It was full but not, I mean it must have been 6
full of water but then the'next confusing thing was the system was not 7
reacting like it was solid.
We weren't seeing pressure spikes.
So, I 8
don't, I don't know if anyone concluded that there was a steam bubble 9
some place else, because things were happening so fast. But we knew 10 then that we weren't solid.
And uh, at that time, Craig was somewhere 11 there anyway, and while all this was going on Craig said, "We're not 12 feeding, we're not feeding generators, the steam generators".
And 1
this, this is how it's been now for several minutes with no feed to the 14 steam generators.
He had already at that time taken manual control of 15 the automatic emergency feed valves and he was, he was leaning on the 16 manual open controls. Even though they already indicated open, he was 17 trying to open them manually because he, he didn't know why we weren't 18 getting feed through there.
His reaction, was something's wrong.
19 He said the pumps are running, all 20 three pumps are running, the emergency feed pumps, but we don't have 21 any flow.
He says it's either going down or it is down.
And it was 22 he said, "What are these doing shut," or something 23 like that, wondering why they were shut.
And it was the EFB 12 "A"
+
24 "B".
They are manually operated valves and they were shut.
They are 25j 2002 237 f
21 l'
isolation valves for tne emergency feed He im-2 mediately opened them and, uh, I can't say that we saw all the normal 3
things that we should have'seen. We should have seen rapid cooling, but 4'
we didn't.
5 6
JACKSON:
Are those valves that you said you thought shut--are they 7
normally open?
8 9
FREDERICK:
They are.
Now, they were covered by caution tags, I believe.
10 There was a caution tag on the MEV 16"B" that says it's shut because the operator's panel which is the that's located directly above, 12 on the panel directly above EFB 12 "A" + "B", a caution tag was partially 13 covering the valves-probably why they didn't see them either. Of 14 course, he didn't have to look for them, maybe, but he should have 15 assumed that they were open.
And, uh, so that may be why we didn't 16 notice they were shut earlier in the shift, when we may, you know, when 17 we started to scan the panel and stuff, vou don't notice things.
We 18f didn't notice that.
But the, uh, we ope'ied them immediately--that's 19 all I can say.
We must have started to feed again, because we heard 20!
the vibration of the You can hear the water..
t 21l Now, the shift was caused by no emergency feed and Ts, would probably f
22 cause an abnormally rapid rise in the pressurizer level, as far as I 23 can see, though I didn't recognize that at the time.
24 25~
2002 238 t
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JACKSON: Were you fellas essentially making the decisions on what do 2
you yourselves, or was the shift supervisor giving you guidance?
3 4
FREDERICK:
Up until this moment, where the ES occurred and the, uh, we 5
found the problem with the emergency feed, we were carrying out the 6
emergency procedure, we were checking and double checking each other, 7
and making sure that each step that we could remember was taken, and 8
there was someone in the control room.
Somebody came in, I don't know 9
who it was, and I told him to get the procedure out, back us up, and 10 read it to make sure we had done everything
. I know later on 11 Ken Bryan, he's a supervisor from Unit 1, he got there pretty quick, 12 and he didn't do anything, but he went behind us to make sure we had 13 done everything, but that was several minutes later.
Up until that 14 moment, we were doing everything by memory.
Like I say, it was a 15 ri.utine reaction to a turbine reactor trip. The ES and emergency feeder 16 are what changed everything, and we started talking to each other about 17 something's wrong, you know, where do we go from here? Bill Zewe and 18{
myself and Craig It was what you call but 19f the decision that came out came out quick 20' they were asking questions on what we were doing about it, but the 21 sequence of events from here is really complicated as far as I can try 22 and remember.
23 24 25
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i JACKSON:
OK, but at that point, which was what, maybe eight-ten minutes 2.
after the trip?
3 4
FREDERICK:
I have absolutely no idea.
Pesple have asked me how long 5
things take, and I've said, you know, a minute, three minutes and then I find out it was just a few seconds There was only a few times that I looked at the clock dur
.g the whole five or six hours I O
was in there.
9 10 JACKSON:
Basically the, uh, you did have somebody within a fairly 11 short time looking at the emergency procedures. Were they talking out 12 loud to you saying did you do this, how was that?
13 14 FREDERICK:
No. I was a licensing person.
It might have been Ken Bryan I
15!
or it might have been Bill Zewe doing it.
The book's right there on 16!
the desk.
17 18{
JACKSON:
Uh huh.
19f 20 FREDERICK:
And, uh, there was na reason for him to...
21f 22.
JACKSON:
He was just following behind to see that...
23 24!
1 25!
2002 240 i
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FREDERICK:
Yea.
Like, I know there was a manual reactor trip recorded.
2' Someone pushed the manual reactor trip button.
That's one of the 3
emergency procedures--that was the reason.
I had verified the trip on 4[
the... when Bill Zewe said over my shoulder that he lost the reactor.
Sf l
I looked at the rods at an immediate range level and the diamond control 6
panel.
By those indications, I knew that the reactor had tripped..
7 to manual trip.
I had verified that each individual rod had 8
9 JACKSON:
When you got to the point where you decidad there were some 101 unusual things happening, uh, how, basically, did you proceed from 11 there. You said you started to have discussions.
Did you there to get 12 any additional input, or...?
13 14 FREDERICK:
We were afraid of going solid, having an unusual pressure 15l spike.
I believe we took normal control of the ES to prevent going' 16I solid.
We had to establish a pressurizer level.
That was one of the 17 things that we wanted to do, but, uh, that was one road when we started 18!
going down and we decided that wasn't working.
So we increased the 19 letdown. We, uh, verified the path to the bleed tank. We thought maybe 20 our letdown path was blocked. That's why we pulled up so fast.
We, uh, 21 tried several things to try and stop the pressure level and an instrument 22 foreman showed up I don't know how long 23{
that was.
We said we don't believe the pressurizer level instrument.
24f It says we're solid, but we're not reacting that way.
It must be 25f i
l 2002 241
25 1
wrong.
He did whatever he does to check it, asked us questions about how it--did it go up? Did it go up smoothly? Did it peg out? Did it 3
go...up fast-slow? Then he went to the computer and verified some 4
things and he said that's the actual level--full.
Si l
6 JACKSON:
How about, how about towards the quarter to seven or so when 7
Gary Miller got here ang the Site Emergency was initiated.
Can you 8
give me some oackground as to what led to that?
9 10 FREDERICK:
All this time, you know, we had no idea what the radiation 11 was. And, uh, we had things that were abnormal.
The pressure was 12' going cown, the pressurizer level was up, and the T w s high.
That's, h
13 those things are in a match; the pressurizer level, and T being high h
1 matches, but pressure being low--that doesn't match. So, we began to 15 worry about the reactor coolant pumps, as the pressure was getting to 16i the point where we weren't allowed to run 'em.
17 18 JACKSON:
Right.
19 20 FREDERICK:
We broke out an operating curve.
Actually we secured two 21l pumps, because we thought we were below what the net positive suction 22 head for the pumps.
And then we had somebody draw the curve and we 23 verified that we were actually getting very close so we turned off the 24 other two.
At the time we turned them off, they weren't even acting 25 2002 242 1,
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26 1
like they should've anyway.
We had two pumps running, you know, and 2'
only showing a 60 percent flow in one loop.
We should have had 80 3
percent, 95 percent flow in one loop, 'cause we secured the "B" pumps, 4
I think, first.
The other one should have been full flow, but it 5
wasn't.
The flow meter was trending down and bouncing, so it seemed 6
like we were losing flow to the pumps, so we turned them off.
Somewhere 7
along the line, though--I don't know how much time elapsed--we tried to 8
start the pump again, because we were in a position then we weren't 9
having natural circulation flow without the reactor coolant pumps 10 going. And steam generator level and, uh, emergency feed coming 1
in should h;ve been able to establish cooling.
We should have seen Th at least on scale or TC.
We should have seen something changing the 13 temperature.
We had r.nthing that showed us that we had natural circu-14!
lation flow through the generators.
So, we would have to start the 15 pump.
I think we attempted to start the 1"A" pump, er It 16l indicated a start, got a red light but, un, the amps moved and it came 17 back down near zero.
What I saw was that the amps went up, the red 18l light came on, but I never saw any flow indication for normal amps.
We 19 had a man verify the amps at the local panel.
Went down to the hooked 20' up the ammeter on the 500 volt station, thinking maybe that our ammecer 21 was screwed up. At this point we started distrusting the i';strument's.
22 23 JACKSON:
Uh huh.
24 25 2002 243 i
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27 1
FREDERICK:
That was it.
It was just a little bit off the 2
peg but that's hardly anything t..*e.
So, we figured it must not be 3
right and turned it off.
Because when we actually did jag that pump--it 4
pushed the water because afterwards we got a lot of radiation alarms.
5 Why they turned on he pump and gave us all those radiation levels, I 6
don't know.
I mean these are radiation monitors in the Aux Building.
7 Something happened there that I don't understand.
8 9
JACKSON:
The first radiation alarms you saw were in the Aux Bldg?
101 FREDERICK:
Right. Were the Aux Bldg.
I don't know which ones they were.
13 14 JACKSON:
Yea.
But after, this occurred after you tried.
15j 16 FREDERICK:
At the time, we were feeding the steam generator and jogging 17 the reactor coolant pump.
Those were the things that we were doing, 18 that we were changing.
And that's when we got the alarm.
19l l
20f JACKSON:
Who made a decision to...when you received the site emergency?
l 21l 22 FREDERICK:
Bill Zewe and myself.
23 24 25 i
2002 244 I
28 1.
JACKSON:
Bill Zewe, the shift supervisor?
2 3
FREDERICK:
Yea, and who else he was talking to? Yea, he was the shift 4
supervisor. You know, I didn't exactly initiate the site emergency. I 5
said to Bill, we have those radiation monitors.
We should call unit 6
one and tell them to secure that release.
And he agreed. At the time, 7
he wasn't thinking site emergency.
He had local emergency. We were 8
deciding whether or not we had a site emergency.
But then, uh, you know, you come to the point where you make a decision, okay, this is a 10 site emergency. And I called Unit 1 on the ring phone and told them to 11 immediately secure the release. That was the action I took as far as 12 initiating the site emergency.
Then I went back to the,'anel.
I was 13 concerned with releasing to the river during site emergency.
That's 14!
one thing, I don't know why, I keyed on that, but that was important.
I 15j And I verified that they stopped that release; it was only seconds 16l later. I watched the light go out and we have an indication on that 17 release valve.
And I waited for it to shut.
18{
id{
JACKSON:
They were making a release?
20 21
~ FREDERICK:
Yes.
22 23 JACKSON:
The alarms you saw in the Aux Building, were they area alarms 24 or were they?
25!
l 2002 245 l
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29 1!
l FREDERICK:
Liquid monitors. That's what doesn't make any sense.
T5n 2j l
first ones that we saw were intermediate closed.
The other ones, 3
they're all on route there. I just saw 'em all lined up.
You know, 4
there's decay heat
, there's letdown, all those, they're all in 5
the same panei.
I didn't look specifically at the area alarms.
It was 6
the liquid monitors that surprised me.
7 8
JACKSON:
From the site emergency, do you have then, additional proce-9 dures that you follow or?
10 11 FREDERICK:
My job is to continue operating the plant. So Fred, r..yself 12 and Craig were involved and still working on the plant.
The only thing 13 shifted is priorities to establishing the emergency plan, and I don't 14 know what happened there.
15i lb JACKSON:
OK. Your job doesn't involve that.
Generally, we've been 17 talking about the kind of sequence of events.
Another thing that we 10f.
want to get a little bit of feeling about was--I asked you a couple 19!
questions about who was making decisions.
How about your instructions?
20' Don Miller said he got most of his instructions from CR0's during that 21' period? Were you interacting with the Auxiliary Operators?
22 23 24l 25l i
2002 246 1
30 1
j FREDERICK:
Yea, but I think most of the orders in the control room 2
I were from me.
They may not have initiated with me.
The only thino I 3
know is that we always discuss things before we did them.
We, uh, 4
Bill, and Fred, and Craig, and myself, and then iater on Ken Bryan and 5
Mike Ross showed up, and we were talking about things before we would 6
do them.
And as reports came in, at least two of us would analyze them 7
before we took any action.
The operators that were called in were 8
generally called by me or Fred.
If I put somebody on a job, I would specifically tell them that they could come to the control room to make 10' their report.
If not, they were supposed to call.
11 12 JACKSON:
Generally, were people responding... ?
13 14 FREDERICK:
Yea.
We had one, that's one of the things I'm really happy 15j about, we had some really fine responsive stuff that we needed immedi-16 ately.
17 18 JACKSON:
Did they volunteer information to you?
19{
20 FREDERICK:
Yes.
Some of the information we got from the Aux Building 21!
from Terry Daugherty, was invaluable.
Even when he spotted the high 22 sump level in the reactor building.
And he, very early reported that 23 an RM-14 near the Fuel Handling Building access to Unit 1 was in alarm, 24 that's a very low range instrument.
25l t
[
2002 247 I
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31 1
l JACKSON:
Uh huh,.
2' 3
FREDERICK:
Ano it did have a low level alone and he made a gamma y
l survey with an E-520 at that point, and levels less than.1 mR and he 5
r@ceted a it.
We.saw--an unexplained reason for the raise in radiation 6
there, but ha Wrifir4 t. hat it was very, very low.
And we did not take 7
any action on that.
So reten Ine that were coming in frequently.
8 JACKSON: When did he report to you, if you remea,0er t ma, "eport the 10 level of the reactor building sump was high? Do you recall thatJr 11 12 FREDERICK: We were pretty far, by far I mean 45 minutes to an hour 13 into it.
He was, uh, I had given him serious jobs. That wasn't the job 14I I assigned him, but he went behind a panel, I guess, and saw that 15 himself and reported it.
What he was doing at the time was, uh--I 16 don't know what he was assigned to do...
17 18 JACKSON:
Time wise though, this was between 4 a.m. and 7, so it was 19l well before the...
20i 21' FREDERICK:
Oh, yes.
Like I said, this was 45 minutes to an hour into 22 it something like that.
He had already been working feverishly on the 23 secondary side on the hot well
, which was another problem there.
24 25j l
2002 248 i
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32 1
l But Craig was in charge of the secondary plant and I remember things 2
that they were shouting back and forth.
I remember they were shouting, 3
but I don't know what they were shouting.
4l 5
JACKSON:
Did you at any time make recommendations to supervisors 6
that--sounds like to me like you fellas were doing this pretty well 7
respecting, kind of discussing the and feeding back, but do 8
you remember making recommendations and things that you felt needed to be done?
10 11 FREDERICK:
Yea, but now I don't remember the specifics.
The recom-12 mendation to bypass the ECS was--I originated that. It's tough to 13 remember all.
I remember talking to Mike Ross about several ideas that
- c' c
I had and he went into the back room with them. At that point there 15' were lay of people there. I talked to John Flint about a couple ideas 16 when I stoppd hS.
I have to remember where we were in o'~ar to tell 17 you where I wanted to go.
181 l
19!
JACKSON:
But do you have any communications od'or un' the control l
20 room and the auxiliary operator. As (.RO, you don't get inVMyeo ir 21 communications offsite, or do you?
i 22 23 FREDERICK:
Who?
24 25 i
l 2002 249 l
33 1
1 JACKSON:
For example, ho called Gary Miller?
Is that something that 2
you did or...?
3 4
FREDERICK:' Oh, Gary Miller.
5 6
JACKSON:
Somebody called him at 6 or 6:30.
7 8
FREDERICK:
I have no idea how long it was before people started arriving.
9 People that were offsite started arriving before, and I wasn't aware of 10 when they were arriving.
I know that some of the first people to 11 arrive were, uh, Ken Bryan and Mike Ross.
Kunder I think was called 12 almost right away.
He lives pretty close to the plant.
But, uh, the 13 original notifications must have started with Bill, and Mike Ross.
14 15 JACKSON:
Mike Ross was on Unit 1 at the time.
16 17 FREDERICK:
Yea, I think he was in Unit 1 somewhere.
And, uh, I remember 18{
the conversation on the phone.
Bill was talking to Zewe and he said 19 that he wanted him to come over there and tell him a few ideas which 20 was after the full pressurizer and stuff like that where we had a few 21 minutes to think, and we wanted to know as many ideas as we could get.
22 So Mike came over.
23 M
251 I
2002 250 i
34 1.
JACKSON:
How long did you continue to work that morning? Did you, you 2
know, you didn't go on at you normal shift. 'iow long did you stay in 3
the control room?
4 5
FREDERICK:
About 4:00 in the afternoon I went home.
6 7
JACKSON:
Were you relieved in the control room before that?
8 9
FREDERICK: When we had enough people, we put a CR0 on each panel.
In 10 other words, there was a man on the make up system, a man on the feed-water station, a man on the electrical, and a man on the back panel.
12 There were actually two or three men.
There was actually a foreman on 13 the radiation panel all by himself, Don Miller. McGovern was there.
14 Each one had a,...as each person came in we assigned them to a different 15 panel.
I stayed at the make up system, and, Craig and I and ired 16 Scheimann still stayed at the make up system.
17 18 JACKSON: Who was making those assignments?
19 20 FREDERICK:
The guys come in, they know what to do.
One guy was helping 21f us down feed and looking at the radiation monitor...I don't know if...somebod:'
22 told him to do it or not.
I asked Hugh to man the back panels but I 23 don't know when he arrived but on the back panels we wasted a lot of 24 25 i
I 2002 251
35 1.
time over working around just to look at a valve or put on a pump i
2 that's all. I went ahead to the back part of the ES actuation..by the 3
containment isolation shows the position of all containment isolation 4
valves.
5 61 l
JACKSON:
Do you know if you were getting any useful information off 7
your data and when the Geiger-Mueller alarms went off?
8 i
9f MILLER:
That's probably off the board.
10 11 JACKSON:
When...what did I start to ask you? I forgot at this time. Do you have any questions. Yes. I would like to know if you can recall y
13 when the general emergency was declared? And what was that based on?
14i l
15l MILLER:
I don't know. Did someone declared it...was that on the dome 16 monitor or what?
17 18{
JACKSON:
That's what.... yea that's what was trying to get out.
19l 20 MILLER:
Okay I think it would was based on dome monitor but I'm not 21 sure. I didn't... it happened when Miller was communicating all the 22 radiation information as far as I know. And that happened before he got 23 there...I don't know.
Once the people started showing up that took up 24 responsibility, you know, we just kept hoping we might...
25l 2002 252 f
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36 1:
i JACKSCN:
When did you come back on shift? You went home at 4:00 or 2
so.
31 4'
l MILLER:
I came back in at 11:00 p.m.
SI 6i JACKSON:
Sack into wi. ;....to your own office.
Was that...did you have 7
extra petple last night available?
8 MILLER:
Yep.
10 11 JACKSON:
Okay.
121 i
5 13 MILLER:
There were extra people there today.
14 15 JACKSON:
So you were...the teams were the last night trying to...
16' 17 MILLER:
No that's not... there were fresh CR0s on the panel when I got 18{
there that had just been there a few hours so I, you know, I tried to 1Nf add up the radiation problem that we had in the Aux Building were 20 significant as far as I could tell we were going in and coming out back 21{
up.
And but we needed some information on whether or not there really 22 was water in the Aux Building basement. We suspected that 23 The...there was a question as to why the activity was as high as it 24 was, you know.
Where was the water coming from? And somewhere back 25 i
2002 253 i
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l 37 1
there...we lost power in the third But up until that 2
time no one had noticed that the demin water seal pumps were all closed, 3
and those seal pumps provide cooling water to all of the radwaste pumps 4
that we have it meant that if any pump that was lined up for recirc or 5
lined up to provide any transfer before this accident was probably 6
leaking out through the seals.
That's why I recommended to Bill that 7
we go ahead and verify that's happening or try to start it 8
to stop it only as a possibility. But Don Miller, allright, 9
planned the route through the auxiliary building to do and several 10 jobs.
One was to energize those pumps and the boric acid pumps and the 11 decay heat pumps, sump pumps, decay heat pit sump pumps and twp other 12 pumps that we felt we were going to be vital, neutralizing tank pumps, 13 the aux building sump tank pump and sump pumps. We figured we only have 14 a limited amount of time in there let's go for the most important stuff 15 and not overload the bus.
Once we have a bus we re energize we'll just 16l have what we need.
So we planned to one; energize those pumps; two, go 17 over to the radwaste panel and start the seal water system and then 18 exit the building. A quick check on the dosimeter, if we were less than 19l 1 R, we were going to go to the basement to see what the water situation 20 was. In other words, run down steps, is there water, where's it coming 21.
from, and what's the condition of the decay heat pumps? Are pits 22' filled with water or what? Okay, so we did that we went in and we each 23 assigned ourselves various panels to but, then when the 24 main breaker tripped, we could energize the whc,le system simultaneously.
2sl 2002 254 i
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At the radwaste panel while he was starting the seal waste: system I 2
just took a glance at some of the gases down cnd I verified that the 3
waste gas compressor was running and took off pressures and stuff so we 4'
left immediately. When'we got to the HP area and I read my dosimeter 5
and it had hardly moved at all.
All this time I had a teletector with 6
me, and I had not monitored anything over 2 R which was surprising 7
because we were at 15 to 30 R.
This is why we were hurting so much.
8 JACKSON:
Yah Don mentioned that when...it sounds like the same entry.
10 11.
MILLER:
We...I was surprised at this point, I was affraid that our 12' instruments were reading off that's why I read high range dosimeter and 13 that was functional with the teletector I verified 14!
on the zero to two ranges was...on the two range it was to near the 15 peg, in zero to fifty range it was down around two. So I could be 16 pretty sure we weren't seeing any mistakes.
So I said let's go down-17 stairs and take a look.
So I extended the teletector down the hall and 18 there was nothing there and we went down the steps. I left him on the 19f upper platform where he could see me with the teletector; he extended 20 it down to where I was. There was water on the floor around the bottom 21 of the steps someone had gotten a roll of plastic down there... big 22 sheets of plastic.
So the water was underneath the plastic.
So, I
?3 24 i
25 2002 255 i
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39 l!
don't know when that was done, it might have been done the day before.
i 2
But the water on the floor was coming out of the pump seal... turbine 3
water pump seals. The water on the floor was river water.
4 5
JACKSON:
Um-hum.
6 7
MILLER:
And I looked at the south decay heat pit and it was dry, I 8
looked at the north one and it was a couple inches of water.
9 10 JACKSON:
Allright, excuse me.
11 121 MILLER:
And that water was coming directly over to our pumps right 13 down the hole. That was probably river water too. The rest of the floor 14 was damp.
This was surpris..ig to me. I got up and read my dosimeter 15l again and still showed hardly any increase.
We reported 16' this up to Zewe and we didn't understand where the radiation went.
I 17 think that's when they decided that it must be coming out the make-up 18 tank, little pumps we were going in at the wrong time.
A lot of what 19l we were seeing in the aux building all those high radiation levels and 20l stuff were becoming confusing. Why was everything still pegged up high 21 if we were not...that's as far as I got in the investigation cf it.
22 23 JACKSON:
Okay. Well that could be helpful though to have that infor-24 matior. when we try to fit it all together.
25j 2002 256
40 1.
MILLER: We were back after that.
2l 3
i JACKSON:
Okay can you think of anything else that's occurred that 4
maybe we ought to try to record? I'm sure there will be others questions 5
at other times.
6i 7
MILLER:
I would like to see the final sequence of events.
8 JACKSON:
Yah. I think that's what we hope just by getting everybody's 10 impressions and...
11 12:
MILLER:
I would like to make a suggestion.
If there is anybody who is 13 going to suggest changing things in the future so that something like 14l this would be better understood or more easily followed or to reconstruct 15 which are really important to us even during what was happening if we 16!
could have tape recorders or video tape available in the control room, 17 I guess little tape recorders like these, we could pull it out of a 18{
desk drawer and try to set it on a desk they can hear us we could maybe 19 re-establish the sequence...
20l i
21 TAPE ENDED ABRUPTLY.
22 23 24 25l 2002 257 I
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