ML19274G133
| ML19274G133 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/03/1979 |
| From: | Dornsife W, Gerusky T, Reilly M PENNSYLVANIA, COMMONWEALTH OF |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908290724 | |
| Download: ML19274G133 (58) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
l 1!
In the Matter of:
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IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW I
3}
of fir. Thomas M. Gerusky Director of the Bureau of Radiation Protection 4
I Ms. Margaret A. Reilly Si Chief, Division of Environmental Radiation i
6j Mr. William P. Dorrisife Nuclear Engineer i
7l Department of Environmental Resources Sj Trailer #203 9l NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10l Middletown, Pennsylvania lli May 3, 1979 12l (0 ate or Interview; 131 June 22, 1979 (Date Transcript Typec) lai I
105 and 106 15]
(Tape Numoer(s))
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17:
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j NRC PERSONNEL:
221 Owen C. Shackleton 23-Dale E. Donaldson Thomas H. Essig 24 3
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2003 220 f
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1l SHACKLETON:
This is a meeting being conducted at the Department of Environ-I 2
mental Resources, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
3l The time is now 12:11 p.m., May 3, 1979.
The meeting is being conducted in i
4 the office of Mr. Thomas M. Gerusky.
Mr. Gerusky is prescnt for this meeting and is the Director of the Bureau of Radiation Protection.
Also 5
present is Margaret A.
Reilly.
Ms. Reilly is the Chief, Division of 6l Environmental Radiation.
Also present is Mr. William P. Dornsife.
Mr.
8l D rnsife is a Nuclear Engineer with the Department of Environmental Resources.
i Present from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Mr. Dale E. Donaldson.
9l I
Mr. Donaldson is a Radiation Specialist assigned to Region I.
Also present 10:
is Mr. Thomas H. Essig.
Mr. Essig is the Chief, Environmental and Special 11!
Project Section, Region III.
My name is Owen C. Shackleton.
I am an 12' I
investigator assigned to Region V.
Please begin your conference.
13) i 14!
DONALDSON: What our intent is or purpose or charter for the investigation is to primarily look at the licensee's actions and the adequacy of those 16i actions.
And the time frame specified for our particular portion of the 17;,
investigation is March 28 through midnight on March 30.
So what we are 18i hoping to accomplish, at least, by having some discussion with you, to discuss, prior to the incident, the state and nature of coordination that l
20!
existad between yourself and Metropolitan Edison, and then trace through some of the early notification sequences, the type of information that was i
22 relayed back and forth; and then discuss certain of the licensees actions 23 in light of information that you may have provided or certain actions that 24!
l you may have accomplished in support of their response.
I guess probably 25j 2003 221 I
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the best thing we can do is start with a discussion, a general discussion of the scope and nature of the coordination between the State of Pennsylvania, I
Bureau of Radiological Health, and Metropolitan Edison.
3t 4
GERUSKY:
It's Bureau of Radiation Protection.
Maggie, why don' t you...
6!
REILLY:
You mean with respect to...
8 DONALDSON:
With respect to emergency planning, ahead of time.
l 101 l
REILLY:
Okay. Reilly.
With respect to the emergency plan we have a document 11}
called Pa.
PIPAG (Plan for Implementation of Protective Action Guides) 12:
l which originated in 1973, which was for 11e years the base document regarding 131 emergency planning for reactors annexed to that or site specific annexes 14!
l for the various operating reactors.
In 1977, in light of changes in Federal 15i guidance, particularly the EPA dose projection PHE type guidance, we rewrote 16i the plan.
Specifically, sort of targeted a' the Susquehanna Station, which 17l was then in its mid phases of developing Tcc emergency plan. We've been 18l attempting to get around to the other faciities which are in operation and 191 gradually update them as to the revised plan.
Insofar as Three Mile was 20l l
concerned, the changes regarding the notification and the PAGs and informa-21; tion protocol, Three Mile had adopted them.
22 231 l
DONALDSON:
I wonder if you could discuss the nature of any meetings or 24i j
routine meetings or discussions that would take place in the prior planning 25 area?
2003 222
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i REILLY:
Let's see, probably the last fairly large meeting we had with them was, I think, last April. We got updated with Isoplex and the site map.
2 It was a great effort to have a consistent area map among all of the parti-cipating agencies.
And that would have been April of '78, roughly.
It was i
around this time of year.
I 6l 00NALDSON:
As part of their training and coordination program, do they 7
periodically invite you to the site to attend either their emergency director training or drills or anything of that nature?
i 10l REILLY:
Whenever they're having a drill they invite us down, in addition ll!
I to whatever it is we do out here, we haven' t had anyone...
12l 13 GERUSKY:
Yes, Bill was down.
14!
15i REILLY:
Were you down there the last time they had a drill?
17!
00RNSIFE:
Yes I was.
Also at that last meeting, Maggie, the last meeting 181 we had down there, all the locals, the civil defense directors and the 19!
local fire chiefs and policemen were there and they were going through 20!
i essentially what everybody in the organization does.
I thought it was a 21{
very good meeting.
22 23 REILLY:
They also gave Dornsife and I some briefings as to their meteoro-241 l
logical techniques in establishing which family of curves they want to use
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for the various weather conditions.
b 2003 223
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DONALDSON:
Ass of March 28th, were there any outstanding items or out-standing information that the facility had agreed to provi*de to ycu that 2
had not yet been provided?
3 4l sj REILLY_:
Not to my knowledge.
6!
DONALDSON:
Then all the issues were fairly well resolved.
7 I
8l REILLY:
Yeah.
In general, we've gotten pretty good cooperation from them.
9l t
101 1 11
~00NALDSON:
Bill, do you remember whether - was Kevin Malloy or anybody from State Council Civil Defense at that big meeting?
12!
i 131 s
t 00RNSIFE:
Yeah, there we.e quite a few.
But Kevin wasn't there, I don't 14!
think.
Some people from the State Council were there.
Lamison was there.
I don't know all the names.
16i 17!
REILLY:
I don't know if Craig was there or not.
There was a fair flock of 1Sl' us...
going through TMI airport there.
191 i
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DORNSIFE:
Lancaster County was represented with the Civil Defense Director.
21!
22 REILLY: Yeah.
Connors was there.
23 241 25 2003 224 I
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5 00RNSIFE: A lot of local fire chiefs and police.an were there.
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REILLY:
Some one was there from the State Police too, I believe.
3 41 i
5l 00RNSIFE.
Yeah, two people from State Police.
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DONALOSON:
Tom, do you have any questions regarding the preplanning area?
71 8
ESSIG:
No, I don't have any questions regarding the preplanning area.
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would like to, at the appropriate time, would like to get into the initial 101 sample analyses performed by the State by the Commonwealth.
n; 12 l
GERUSKY:
We use State, that's all right.
13l l
141 ESSIG:
OK.
15i i
16l REILLY:
It's easier to say early in the morning.
17I 18i DONALDSON:
Why don't we move on into the morning of the 28th, and I 191 believe, Bill, you were the one who received the initial call from State 20f Council, from local Civil Defense. Why don't you just pick it up and 21!
describe what took place that morning.
22 23 DORNSIFE: About 5 after 7:00, I received a call from Clarence Deller, who 24 was the Civil Defense Outy Officer.
I was the designated Bureau Du.ty 25l i
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Officer at the time.
They have a list of our naines, and phone numbers.
1 It's updated monthly.
It rotates.
I got a call about 7:05 saying that 2
"Three Mile has declared a site emergency.
Call back to the control room 3
4j Unit 2."
Immediately after that I called Maggie Reilly and wanted to make 5l sure, to see if there was any phone numbers we had directly to the control
,l room.
we didn t.
She didn't tell me we had any - I guess we did have one to the control room.
7 8
REILLY:
I just rattled off the switchboard....
91 10 00RNSIFE:
So, I called back through the switchboard and I guess Maggie I
went ahead and called Tom to tell him to get somebody to get in to take 12!
over the office.
13 14!
REILLY:
The first person I called was Malloy.
15i 16; l
00RNSIFE:
Okay.
Well I called back to the plant immediately after hanging 17l up with Maggie, which was about a minute later, and I got the switchboard.
18{
The switchboard operator had difficulty connecting me with the control 191 She could get the control room, but she couldn't get us together.
room.
201 21,l So finally after a couple of minutes I told her; "why don't you have them call me back at my home."
So I gave her the number and about a minute 22 later someone from the control room called me back.
I forget, I don't know 23 whether he even told me his name.
I guess it was the shift supervisor, 24 whoever was on duty at the time.
Things sounded very confused at the 25j i
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t 7j plant.
You could hear a lot of noise in the background.
I started asking 2
questions about what had happened.
They gave me a little bit of blurb, but I didn't write anything down.
This is just from memory.
I believe he told 3i i
4 me that the plant was...it was a transient, the plant was shut down, the f*eactor had scrammed.
The system was being cooled normally.
The safeguards 6l systems had worked.
There was a slight pressure in the containment.
At 7
the time they didn't relate anything concerning the relief valve sticking.
That problem--they didn't say anything about anything being carried over to 8
the auxiliary building at that time.
But they did tell me that there was no releases offsite.
They had teams out and they couldn't find anything offsite.
So I guess I asked a few questions additionally, what I thought was appropriate.
I don't really recall but I satisfied myself that the conditions were stable.
13 14!
ESSIG:
Excuse me, just for a second, Bill.
You indicated that ; hey had 15i told you at that time, this was shortly after 7:00 in the morning, that 16,i they had not found anything offsite.
18j 00RNSIFE: Right.
They definitely had teams out, they could not find anything 19!
offsite.
20 21!
ESSIG: Okay, sorry.
Go ahead.
22 23 00RNSIFE:
Then I heard in the background, an announcement- " evacuate the 24l fuel handling and auxiliary building."
25j I
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8 REILLY:
It really makes you feel good. (laughter) 1 2'
00RNSIFE:
All along I'd been waiting for somebody to tell me it was a 3
l drill.
4g When I heard that I figured "oh-oh this is the biggy." Then, the 5
shift supervisor apparently put on a health physics type, and he--again o,,i told me they had teams out, they had no readings offsite.
Right after the announcement he said to me, "I have to go, I really have to go now."
Very confused and very upset. "I really have to go now; I'll call you back" and 8
he hung up.
g 10l l
DONALDSON:
This was about what time?
lli 12t 00RNSIFE:
This was about...
13 14l REILLY:
A quarter after seven.
15j i
16i i
00RNSIFE:
Well, in that time frame, quarter after--twenty after, about 17)
I twenty after, I'd say.
He hung up.
So I figured, at that point I knew 18(
i people were coming into the office.
I figured there was no reason to try 19I and call him back so I just took off and headed for the office.
Oh no, I'm 20 sorry, I called into the office after the plant hung up on me and I told 21t t
one of the secretaries who was there--I told her, the first person who 22 comes in to get them to call back to the plant immediately.
And just 23 briefly told her that there was a problem there, but not to alarm her 24
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needlessly, because at that point it didn't seem...the situation seemed to 25!
2003 228
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be under control, at least from what they were telling me.
Except, of i
urse, you had an uneasy feeling about the announcement to evacuate the 2
fuel handling and auxiliary building...
3 4!
Donaldson:
I believe, are there not, some standard formats in which initial 5
notifications are to be provided to you?
6l 7
8
-00RNSIFE:
Yes, there are.
In the emergency plan there is a check-off list, kind of.
g 10 DONALDSON:
That's in the State's PIPAG, or in the State..
12' REILLY:
It's in the annex to the...
13 141 00RNSIFE:
It's in the procedures part.
151 16i DONALDSON:
The annex to the Three Mile Island emergency plan?
17l 18I OR"SIFE:
Yeah.
191 20l DONALDSON:
Then that information was or was not provided in that format?
21.
22 00RNSIFE:
The way I recall the format, it was not absolutely--someone 23 reading dcwn the whole list--no.
It was somewhat disjointed.
24l 25!
2003 229 p
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g 00NALDSON:
In looking at that format, is there critical information on 2
that format that may have been able to have been provided that wasn't provided?
3 4I 00RNSIFE:
No, I don't believe so.
The format is pretty general.
It talks 5!
i 6l about a little bit of plant status, you know.
I don't really think it g
would have made much difference.
I got essentially the information I Would've gotten through the checklist by what they told me and with the questions I asked.
i g
10j REILLY:
The format in the plan, it's a family of formats actually, that I
are based on design basis accidents and on anticipated transients.
For 12!
i instance, a LOCA or a loss of AC, or a loss of load, or a fuel rod ejection, 13) things like that, things that have a recognized beginning, and they're essentially developed out of SAR information.
i 15i 16 DONALDSON:
Bill, the time you received that call did they give you a 171 generic classification of the type of event that they thought that they 18(
m:ght have had?
191 20 DORNSIFE:
I believe they told me it was a transient, and that compli-211 cations had occurred in addition to the normal transient.
23 DONALDSON:
They did not mention anything such as a steam generator tube 24l rupture?
25l l
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2003 230
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00RNSIFE:
At that time--no.
y 2!
REILLY:
We eventually knew that fairly early.
3
{
4l 5l DORNSIFE: Well, we can get to that later.
I 6i 1
DONALDSON:
Okay.
Why don't we proceed from that point and pick up, 7
whoever has something to offer from that point.
g 9l REILLY:
Okay.
At that point I got into the office about 7:30, thereabouts.
Gerusky was already here and on the phone with the plant.
And it was 1 11 around that point that they rolled over from a site to a general.
Okay.
i Meanwhile the rest of our people were coming in.
Fairly early in this 131 l
thing I contacted the Department of Agriculture because we always perceive 144 l
that there is a good chance of having a dairy problem with a reactor accident.
15j We were disappointed with this one.
We didn't really...it continues to i
blow my mind.
Let's see... we got the map out--all that good stuff.
17 18j l
GERUSKY:
No, wait a minutes. Let's stop. I was the first one in the 19!
I office after the call from Margaret.
And the secretary gave me the infor-20' mation that Bill had called and that I was supposed to call the Island 21 right away which is our normal procedure anyway.
The first person into the 22 office calls the Island, calls the reactor control room.
23 24l 25i i
2003 231
12 DONALDSON:
1 There is a number, I believe you have a number that's a direct line dial into it.
2 3
GERUSKY:
I called 944-7259.
I don't know why.
I've got it written down.
t Sj I have no idea why I dialed that number unless that was the number Bill I
gave.
This is the notes I took as I was getting involved.
el 7
D RNSIFE:
I didn't have the plan at home with me.
In hindsight, I guess 8
we should have.
That was our plan originally, to do that, but we never got
,l around to it, yet.
10l 11!
GERUSKY:
You're supposed to have the plan at home with you.
12t i
131 00RNSIFE:
Yeah, well, no one ever gave it to me.
I think there was probably 141 i
only about a five minute lapse in communications with the control room, if 15i even that long.
161 17j l
GERUSKY:
Well, I b.elieve I was in the office about 7:25 and made the call
- 181, back to the control room.
They told me that it was a site emergency, that 19!
there was a steam generator primary to secondary leak ar.d it was isolated; 20t i
that there was a general...at that point they went from site to general 21I l
emergency.
22' 23 DONALDSON: Tom, do you remember who you were talking with?
24 25!
DO I
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13 GERUSKY:
It was a health physics type, and it may have been...
2 REILLY:
Dubie',, or Landry?
3 4{
GERUSKY:
SI I think it was Dubiel but I didn't write the name down.
Maggie I
came in right about that time and picked up the phone also, I believe.
You 61 were on the extension weren't you?
8 REILLY:
Yeah, I remember being out there.
10l GERUSKY:
And went and got the map out.
They then said they were going 11!
l from a site to a general emergency, that they had failed fuel.
The dome 12' monitor was reading 800 R per hour in the reactor building and they had 13 l
onsite teams out checking.
They told me the wind was out of 30 degrees in 14!
l a south-westernly direction.
The high pressure injection initiated; some 15i loss of core coolant; failed fuel; a high radiation area.
And in the 16i meantime someone was working on a prediction of dose offsite, based upon 17!
l the 800 R per hour reading on the dome monitor.
They predicted 10 R/hr 181 noble gas, was sure at Goldsboro, based upon t*, dome monitor and a leak 19!
rate of.2 of a percent per day in the containnient.
20j i
DONALDSON:
That 10 R, was that a tic.e dependent or was that a course of 22 accident projection.
23 24 2#-
l
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14 GERUSKY:
That was an accident...that was a 10 R/hr.
We then contacted y
Civil Defense.
2 3
REILLY:
PEMA (Pa. Emergency Management Agency)
I 51 GERUSKY:
And I think you contacted the State Council of Civil Defense, to inform them at our d
-.cion--well, I was feeding the information to fiargaret--
to inform them, that this is where the wind was blowing and that to be 0l prepared to evacuate on the west side of the river.
In the meantime I requested them to try to get their teams somehow to Goldsboro, and they i
said that the State Police helicopter was there and that they would get one 11(
I of their teams up in the air and over Goldsboro.
We stayed on the phone 12!
with them.
They found no radiation levels onsite or in Goldsboro that 13 would indicate any kind of a leak.
So therefore, we then notified the 1M Civil Defense to hold tight.
This was all before 8:00.
From that point r
15i on, we maintained an open line to the Unit 2 control room, and a variety of 16i people were on the phone including--Bill was on mainly I believe.
You were 17!
on the phone with them, and here are your notes Bill.
18i 19!
DORNSIFE:
The next notes we have i,, about 8:30, somebody came down, I 20!
think it was Mittendorf, who is the Deputy Secretary of Environmental 21l Protection, Tom's boss, came down and said that they wanted somebody to go 22' over to the Lt. Governor's office and brief him and to take pat in tha 23 press conference.
So I could volunteer since I probably knew more about 24l the plant status than anybody at that point.
So right before I left I 25j 4
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yl called back to the plant and said I need a real good briefing on what 2
happened and what the status is, because I have to go over and brief the i
Governor.
So I got Gary Miller on the phone.
Gary was the station super.
3 g
And he told me that the plant was shut, that there was a turbine trip, and there was a violation of tech specs also.
I guess he meant by that, I 5
guess he was talking about the aux feedwater, but he didn't say that.
He QJ just said there was a violation of tech spacs.
He said that the defense posts dose rates were less than 1 millirem per hour; there was a primary to g
i secondary leak; the B steam generator was isolated; there was fi.iled fuel; they may have temporarily lost reactor coolant circulation; the dome monitor reading was 600 R/hr; there was I lb. pressure in the reactor 11!
building, one pound above atmospheric; that the boron concentration in the 12!
primary was 100 PPM, and they suspected there was a negative feedback from the secondary to the primary.
They got some secondary side water back into 145 15; the primary when the pressure was reduced in the primary.
High pressure-injection had initiated and they were using high pressure injection to keep 16i i
the core covered.
And they may have had a bubble in the primary; they 17l1 depressurized.
Then I went over to brief the Lt. Governor.
18(
l 19i DONALDSON:
At this time did they discuss any releases or any possibility 20j l
for releases, at any time in the future?
21(
22 00RNSIFE:
I just asked for plant status.
I guess after that we were in 23l
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constant commraication.
I'm sure that was..... Miller just briefed me on 24!'
the plant status--what had happened, what initiated the transient and what QQO 9
1
i 16 l
y the status was now.
We knew there were no releases occurring at that time, nothing measured offsite.
3l t
DONALDSON:
I believe at about 10:00 or 10:30 is when they received some first offsite results indicating that there may be some levels of iodine.
o Does that correspond with your recollection?
01 7
REILLY:
That's about right.
They had taken some airborne iodine samples on the west shore and also some, I remember one value south of the obser-vation building.
The estimates that they had from the field estimating 10i technig'ues suggested iodine 131 concentrations to the order of 10~0 mC per 11:
And they wanted to verify this because this was getting into a rather i
cc.
12',
1 interesting inhalation pathway hazard, although not an acute problem.
They 13l wanted as to verify their estimate using our counting equipment. in that 14!
their backgrounds were steadily going to pot.
Arrangements for this were 15i made between myself and Dick Dubiel.
And Met Ed was going to chopper the 16i cartridge to the heliport at Holy Spirit Hospital and we would send a 17!
runner over to get it.
I think I must of spent the greater part of 3/4 of ISj an hour trying to get through to whoever at the hospital was in authority 19(
to tell them, "there is a helicopter coming with the sample--not to worry."
20!
So finally we straightened that out and we ran the sample, and the. con-r 21!
-10 centration we observed in that was to the order of 10 50...
22 23 DONALDSON:
What was the minimum detectable amount on the counting system?
24i 25 2k l
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17 SHACKLETON:
l W'll break the tape at this time and Maggie can come back on i
it and respond to that question on the other side.
The time is now 12:39 p.m.,
2 5/3/79.
3 4
SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the conference taking place at the 5
Department of Environmental Resources.
The time is now 12:43 p.m., May 3, 6
1979.
7 8
DONALDSON:
I think when the tape ran out, I had asked you if you could 9l recall the MDA, minimum detectable activity, for the...
101 1 11 I
REILLY:
I don't think it was reported, this would not have been a routine 121 sample from the standpoint that...I have no knowledge of what the volume 13 8
was on it.
Our usual MDA, say for 3 x 10 cc sample, which is about what we collect on a weekly 1 cfm sample, our MDA on that is about 4 x 10-I4 That would be a routine sample, but I don't know what it would have been 16i for this one.
i 17l t
18f DONALDSON:
I wonder if you could discuss a little more, tl.e rationale or 19l the thought process that went back and forth regarding that high sample, 20!
i and whetner or not you decided to initiate any actions or recommend any 21 further studies on the part of the licensee.
22 23 REILLY:
Okay. Well, they were continuing to take air samples and looking 24 for airborne iodines.
Based on that number--the conflict between their 25!
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2003 t
a
l 18 iy field estimate and our lab estimate, I very quickly came to the conclusion 2
that it's harder to do a decent job of estimating airborne iodines in the 1
envir nment than I thought.
I don't recall that I told them to keep sampling.
3 That is something that I assumed that they would do because that's part of their routine.
5 I also decided at that time--we have a sampler down at the bservation building and I decided we were going to let that keep running 6
until whatever it was that may be coming was over so at least we would have ne historical sample.
Our field guy was all hot-to-trot to go out and 8
change the TLDs, and. xind of wish I would have told him to go out and change them that day, but I thought I'd let them in place to.
Somewhere in 10' I
there I called AG, Department of Agricultural, to alert them to the fact i
11' that something funny had gone on or would go on, and that we would get back to them about sampling rational, depending on how the situation developed.
13 Somewhere in there too, arcund the time I was trying to tell Holy Hilton 14 that a helicopter was coming, we got a call from... I don't know--did we 151 call Mineholt or did he call us? I don't remember but..
16!
17l i
GERUSKY:
He called us.
18l 191 l
REILLY:
The RAP (Radiological Assitance Plan) gang at Brookhaven called 201 21l and said " Hey, do you want us?"
I said, "I'm not sure yet, we'll call you i
b.:k."
Of course, I was thinking, well you know it would really be ducky..th.c 22 ET was like four hours anyway.
I thought, well, by that time things may 23 well be over.
Then later on we decided, well you know, we will drag them 24 down.
They got here around suppertime, I guess.
a i,
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19 OONALDSON:
Maggie, do you remember that the result, cartridge result was available, made available to Met Ed at the site?
7 3
REILLY:
I don't remember, it would have been late morning.
4 i
Si DONALDSON:
Before noon sometime, at any rate.
6 7
REILLY:
Yeah, I believe so. I couldn't swear to it.
t 9
DONALDSON:
Do you know if...
I 11l REILLY:
Sometimes I think the only way I'm gonna remember any detail on 12' this is to time regress me under hypnosis.
You'd get all the parentheticals, 13 too.
141 15 ESSIG:
Maggi,e are you pretty sure it was late in the morning hours, as 16i opposed to middle afternoon or that...?
17 4
18(
REILLY:
It could have been early afternoon.
19f 20' GERUSKY:
No, it was late morning, because I was here when the decision was 21 made.
You were here.
I think you were here when we got the information 22.
over the--well, we got it v.'.ile I was here anyway, and after that I went to 23l the Governor's Office in the morning so..
i 24f 25i I
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20 7j 00RNSIFE: I can tell you exactly when it was.
2;l I
DONALDSON:
All right.
3 4
00RNSIFE:
g I was on my way to the press conference, and you called me right
-8 before I left and told me that they had found 10 of iodine in Goldsboro.
6 7
DONALDSON:
OK.
8 9
00RNSIFE:
That was about eleven.
10l lli DONALDSON: And so it was on its way out.
12!
13 00RNSIFE: Yeah, in fact everybody got mad at me over there, because I just got it on the way over--before I went up there and I didn't tell anybody
- 15i, about it.
We knew there were small releases.
I told the Lt. Governor and 16i everybody that there was nothing detectable offsite.
And I told the press 17 that they'd found a little bit of iodine...
18 19l GERUSKY: We heard you on the radio.
20l l
21!
REILLY:
Could hear Bill shouting on the radio eventually.
22 23 DONALDSON:
Do you recall whether or not, when the result of your counting 24 of that sample had returned and you passed it on to someone at the site, 25!
7QOb
l I
f 21 l'
waether or not there were any discussions that centered around a correction 2
factor that should be applied to future readings in order to get a handle...
3 3
REILLY:
4 We didn't discuss it, but I sort of punched and filed it, but it
~
5 w uld be hard to really settle on a correction I think, because it would 6i depend on whether you've got--what kind of background your counting this thing in.
And it would also kind of indicate too that noble gases love 7
charcoal too.
So--and that's going to vary all over the place, whether 8
you're seeing iodine that's falling out or iodine that's admixed in a plume g
with xenons.
I 11l l
DONALDSON:
Now this was sort of a one time thing, or what through the 12 '.
continual sampling that Metropolitan Edison was doing, were additional
,3 2
samples varied to you or somewhere else?
15i REILLY:
think there was, I almost think there was a second sample.
171 DONALDSON:
I think what I'm really trying to get to is, was there a..
18j 19l i
20:
REILLY: We did set up a routine.
21, 22l t
DONALDSON:
Was there any method used to ensure that the general components 23l1 of the release had not shifted?
2g 25i 700n3 1 0 i
h
22 REILLY:
No.
g I
2t DONALDSON:
3 In other words, that some point down the pike all of a sudden 4l the iodine went up and noble gases went down?
Si I
'iERUSKY:
No, we were--
61 7!
REILLY:
No, we..well go ahead, t
91 i
GERUSKY:
We were concerned that the first indications that came in showed 10' no iodine and that they were finding radiation levels but no iodine.
And then they got one sample in Middletown, and it was the only one that I know 12!
l of that was a high iodine.
And all their other samples were low, but they 13) said they were having problems because of the xenon in the filter, and in 14) actually counting that.
And so we said "get it up here in a hurry and 15i we'll cross check it," because you know that's important, and so that's what happened.
I don't believe that at any additional time we got any 17!
indication of iodine from their sampling program...that there was any i
18i iodine being released.
As a matter of fact, I think that the information 191 was that all of their iodine numbers we e negative fr.om that point on.
201 1
21!
DONALDSON:
I guess what I am hearing you say then, is that from that 22 point there, you were not made aware that there were any high environmental 23 samples that would even indicate the possibility that iodine were present, 24l so there was no need to cross check at any future time?
t KO I
1 l
-l I
j 23 1l GERUSKY:
No, No.
We did not have available to us the portable equipment.
2 We assumed that they were continuing to run samples.
When we asked B N L 3j to come, we told them that we didn't have portable equipment for iodine 4l monitoring and they said that they did and they would be out checking it.
S when the B N L team came in, that's one of the first things they did, Si i
g was to run iodine in the environment and couldn't find anything.
7j DONALDSON:
Approximately what is the time...
g 9l GERUSKY: Later in the afternoon; 6:00, 7:00 in the evening; first evening, still no iodines.
11!
12 13{i DONALDSON:
Then, at the time that you had cross checked the sample the you believe came fromMiddletown,youfeltcomfortable,throughthediscussiond 141 with Metropolitan Edision.
15i 16!
G_ERUSKY:
Yes, because all the rest of their samples were reading negative 17 I
This is the only one that was high.
I believe what probably was 181 l
happening was that they weren't in the plume except for that one time.
19!
They were reading shine.
20l i
21l DORNSIFE:
I think one of the reasons we thought it was a temporary iodine 22 problems was that's when they were venting the steam directly through the 2 31 l
atmospheric relief dump valve... It's about that time.
24l i
25j
} O' 7
2003 i
j 1
I 24 GERUSKY:
Yeah,tiat's true too.
y 2'
00RNSIFE:
And they regainec. O ndenser vacuum later that afternoon.
So 3
there was some correlation that you would expect to have some iodine when 4
they were venting the steam directly in to the atmosphere.
5 6i DONALDSON:
I guess that's what I wanted to clarify.
You would have expected 7
Yet everything indicated that it wasn't there, and after you'd cross checked, our understandings are, that was their approach from then 9l i
on.
They continued to air sample, however..
10' 11j GERUSKY:
And we forgot that you guys were also there about that time, that 12' NRC was there, and that airborne samples were being taken by NRC.
You got there before they indicated any releases offsite.
1 41 15i DONALDSON:
Tom did you, I think you have some questions that you probably 16i want to pursue in that area.
17 18!
ESSIG:
I just wanted to come back to one area that you had mentioned earlier, Tom, regarding the measurements made in Goldsboro at, I believe it 20!
I was between 7:30 and 8:00.
Did they have a team over at that time? Or was 21l that just a prediction of what would be in Goldsboro?
t 22 23 REILLY:
That 10 R per hour was just a prediction based on the dome monitor.
24l 2)i, k
7303 l
25 ly GERUSKY:
Then they sent a team over with a helicopter.
1 2
ESSIG:
The team was at some later time then, and not between 7:30 and 3l 8:00.
5 GERUSKY:
Yes, a helicopter was there onsite.
They said, "0K, we'll get 6,i someone in the helicopter to Goldsboro right away."
And that was 10 to 15 7;
minutes later that we got the word that there was nothing in Goldsboro.
Nothing was detectable in Goldsboro or anyplace...
10!
ESSIG:
"Nothing" meaning just the direct radiation...
11{
i 12!
GERUSKY: No radiation detected... direct radiation.
13 l
14:
ESSIG:
But no air samples taken at that time?
15j 16i t
GERUSKY: Not in the helicopter.
I don't recall whether we got air sampling 17l l
or not.
18{
19i REILLY:
If there had been any elemental iodine to speak of, I think that 20!
21l we would have it in milk, which we started sampling like the 30th or before.
The 29th, I think, is the first milk sample, we would have seen it.
t 22 23 ESSIG: Yeah, but we are still talking about the 28th right now.
24 25l f
l 200,3 2A5 i
l t
26 I
y REILLY: Yeah, but if a good slug went out, sufficient to be a isolation j
hazard, you would have seen it in milk the next day, certainly.
Because i
3l milk peak only comes two days later.
4l 5
6l REILLY: So...the thing that kept driving me crazy was that I could never imagine a reactor accident where you could read noble gases with a geiger counter and not have an iodine problem.
That just dumbfcunded me, and it still has me in its clutches.
Something else I might want to inject here.
This is jus' sort of along the lines oft folk humor, or whatever. I was on i
the phone talking to Dubiel trying to arrange this, choppering the sample
- 12t, t
up here.
He was on another line talking to the guards saying "I want you 13j 3
guys to understand there is a helicopter coming with Herbein on it.
I just 14!
want you to understand not to shoot it down. (laughter)
I don't have any 15i identification on it, but there's a chopper coming with Herbein on it."
16i l
They wanted to tweek their security people, anyway.
17 18l ESSIG: I just wanted to, would like to go over just once more the first 191' sample that they collected which had, in their estimation, positive iodine 20!
l concentrations.
Was that the same sample that ended up being ferried up to 21!
you for counting?
22 23 GERUSKY: I believe it was.
24 i
25j c
'l O
,qu a a
l 4
'l
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27 i
REILLY:
Yes, the Goldsboro sample came up.
I almost think we might have done a second one.
2 I
3t ESSIG: This was somewhere in the range of 8:00 to 9:00 in the morning, on i
the 28th?
5{
j 6i REILLY: THeir sample was from early in the morning on the 28th.
That was from Goldsboro.
They reported it to the order of 10 They ferried it up
-8 8}
i here and got up it here, like maybe 10 something, maybe 11:00.
9I l
10' ESSIG:
And you had, then analyzed it?
12!
REILLY: And we took it over to the lab and GeLi(ed) it and got the informa-tion back.
14!
15i ESSIG: OK, and that was back to them by early afternoon, I would think.
16i 17 l
REILLY: Yeah, I would think. (Don't trust a Fed with flammables.)
ISj 19!
ESSIG: OK, and then I guess we said there may have been one other sample 20; which they had asked you....
21,I 22l REILLY: I almost think there were two because somebody eventually said they 23 wanted them back.
I don't know if it was I&E or the facility that wanted 24i j
the physical samples back. I don't know if they ever came and got them.
25I yg2 c
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I 28 y
ESSIG: OK.
I 2;
REILLY:
3 But the number that sticks in my mind, is that that first testimony 4
of theirs was off by a factor of 100.
And I began to consider whethei it was wise to use that system for this sort of thing.
I was playing for the future.
Si 7\\
ESSIG: O K.
Now as time went on then, did you--I know you were doing some 8
of your own monitoring around the sight, because I had seen...
i 91 101 REILLY: Yeah, around late morning or noonish, Copenhaver and Ursiola went 11,'
out and with some routine survey equipment, sort of went out with the idea 12l that there might be some particulates falling out from this, began to get 13}
the notion that it was nobles because you got the same numbers inside the 14 '.
l cars as outside the car.
Plus, one of the instruments they were using is a 15, Cutiepie and we've decided you don't use Cutiepies for the stuff, because 16i l
pretty soon the chamber got loaded with nobles, we think, because it just 17!
kept reading 2-1/2 mr/ hour, 2-1/2 mr/hr.
181 19i ESSIG:
You did notice that then on any particular instrument or did you 20) notice that on several?
21' I
22 REILLY:
It was with the Cutiepie that we got this and they said that--one 23 of our problems is that we don't have any radio communications.
The guys 24 had to come back and spill their data.
And they assumed it was conta-25j l
^ Oh
[
I
.i 29 i
1 minated, meaning it had loaded up with plume.
The xenon was on the ground a few times, I think.
2 l
3 ESSIG: Yes.
4l I
Si REILLY: No reason that expect it otherwise.
6 7
ESSIG: OK, then, as these survey teams were-your two people that you 8
mentioned, the two fellows that were out--were they both in the same vehicle?
gl i
Or were they in separate ones, separate vehicles.
10i l
11; i
REILLY:
Uh hum. Same vehicle 121 i
13l ESSIG:
And they were, early on, were...
15i REILLY: Essentially were down, were going down at the east side.
I remember i
data from points along 283.
17l 18i l
ESSIG:
And these data then that they were gathering, were you in turn 19l making these available to Met Ed? Or were you just...I'm just wondering 20; l
what kind of interchange of d'ata might have been taking place here?
21\\
22 REILLY: I couldn't say whether we threw them back at them or not.
They 23 were shifting data to us routinely.
24 I
i 25j 2 0 0" Q h i
I
I 30 ESSIG: OK, are you aware Bill....?
y 2I
{
DORNSIFE: I don't think we were giving them, early on, any of our data.
3l WEr were just...
l 5l 6l REILLY: We only had that one...
7 00RNSIFE:
They were giving us their data and we were getting some of our I don't think we were giving them..at least the direct gamma reading own.
certainly on.....
10l i
11 ESSIG:
I was aware of this.
I was aware of one, I think, one particular 12l i
survey which the licensee did have in their log but it was not until the 13l 30th.
It was made between 2l00 and about 2330 in the cay, la+e in the day, i
and were surveys, these are just direct radiation measurements again, at 15i the airport, Route 83, near exit 14, exit 16, and in Y0rkhaven, like.02 16i l
mr/ hour.
And these were in the licensee survey sheets.
It was noted in 17l t
their DER.
So I presume that meant they got them from you folks.
18l 191' REILLY:
Yeah.
20 21 ESSIG: But I was just interested, if "
! were any other similar measure-22 ments that you had maybe supplied th<:.a.
rom what I hear you saying it 23 j
doesn't sound like there might have been too many.
24!
l 25l i
950 l
$%b i
i
h 31 i
7l DORNSIFE:
Not early on, anyway.
I 2;
ESSIG: At least when we say early on, we are talking about the first three 3
days.
i 51
,l DORNSIFE:
I'm talking the first day.
OL i
7 Y'
Y " "
9 81 I
been supplied in the second or third day, I mean, other than the ones that 9)
I just...?
10i l
11 DORNSIFE: On the second day I spent most of the day at the site.
The third day, last Friday, it just went to hell.
I 14l l
REILLY: We might as well have left for Hawaii.
15j 16I 00RNSIFE:
I don't know... Thursday, that we may have been issuing them, I 17l1 don't know.
I wasn't here most of the Jay... It was relatively calm Thursday, IS{
now that I think back.
Everything was over.
19l 20l l
REILLY:
Thursday was a non-day.
21' 22, DORNSIFE:
Little bit of stuff coming out, but no major flaps.
23 1
24l t
25i i
}',00 e
32 ESSIG:
Dale, did you have something to pick up on?
g i
2 DONALDSON: What I would like to talk about briefly would be any notifi-31 cations or advance warning of any liquid or gaseous effluent releases that the licensee had planned to make.
5 61 REILLY: Oh, that's what happened Thursday.
Thursday was water day.
II J
About, somewhere in the early afternoon of Thursday, Dick Dubiel called and 9
said we have some sumps in the industrial waste system which have noble 9
gas.
It a four hundred thousand gallon inventory and it's got noble gases dissolved in it.
The concentration of these noble gases in water when i
admixed with the blowdown from the mechanical draft cooling tower ought to 12!
j be lets than what the proposed MPC is going to be for the new Tech Specs.
13, There currently are no MPCs for xenon for nooles in water.
Part of their 14!
problem was that it was going to go out from a system that is not considered 15, part of the radwaste system.
And it has no cleanup capability on it safe 15!
for removing oil and things like that.
So they said it's going to be lower t
17l than the...this proposed MPC, does it give you any heartache?
I said no.
181 So about, I guess, 10% of the way into the discharge, the Commission, I 191 guess it was the I&E who said; " hey, you can't do this.
You have to get 20!
something more formal from the State." Then water quality got into it.
21;l Also he Governor's office, I guess, got into it somehow.
I got the drift 22 somehow that somewhere along the line, I really didn't have knowledge of 23 it, that the Governor had proclaimed that he was going to approve every 24 planned discharge.
We were getting to an NPDES permit problem from the 25!
i l
7003 N l
-l l
{
33 y,
standpoint that this stuff was not going out through a routine pipe.
It 2
was beginning to get to be evening by then Dick Bordman, who is one of the 3
fr nt office pecple; here, called the downstreet newsers, and it's very 4,
hard explaining to people; " hey there's some water coming with noble gases dissolved i 5
n it, but probably there won't be any nobles gases in it by the time n u i,a i. And even if you do, it doesn't mean anything." We spent t
6 an <,normous amount of time and energy trying to explain things to people in high places, or people down the pike, or whatever... it was just draining.
8 9
00RNSIFE: Maggie, let me add something, I was down at the site when this was all occurring and Marshall Beare was in the observation center, and he I
said to me, I belie'.e it was him, somebody out there said, "we want to dump 12l some noble gases.
Does the State have a problem with that?
So I called, I believe I talked to Maggie.
And I just happen to, I just happened to...to
{
recall...it's covered under NRC Tech Specs, so I talked to Phil Stohr about i t.
16i 17l REILLY:
But it wasn't covered under Tech Specs.
181 19f 00RNSIFE: Well that was my thought, I talked to Phil Stohr about it.
Phil came in and Phil said, "you know, if you are going to dump scmething that's 21{
not within Tech Specs you ought to get a temporary waiver, writeup a license 22{
j amendmeat or something.
Get sometning from Headquarters before you do 23 that."
So now, whether he initiated the later flap about closing it down 24 once it started, I don't know.
25l 1
30 5
I
\\
I, 34 I
REILLY:
About 10% of it was gone when, evidentally somebody at the site threw the brakes on it.
And then lets see something I wanted to say...
2 I
3i ESSIG: Excuse me; that was 10% of the four hundred thousand gallons?
S' REILLY: Yeach, about that, and the site kept telling us, "we need the space, we need the space." I'm trying to resolve things with water quality 71 upstatrs, meanwhile thinking, "why are we cessing around with dumb water with nobles in it when we could have a much more horrendous problem out at I
the stack?" Loved it...the utility kept telling us that we need the space.
101 We need, we want to have some place to dump all this water that's all over 11',
the aux building floor. We need someplace to put stuff.
We need the 12l
[
volume.
Any minute now, it's going to over-flow and it's going to go out 131 the storm drain and you'll have it from an unmonitored point, bla,bla,bla.....f ina 14!
around midnight,everything got squared away.
A press release was written 15i saying, "the Governor had authorized the discharge of this stuff."
I think 16j j
it well on to the next day before they actually starting discharging anything 17!
from it.
So I began to wonder about some of the..." hey, we need an instant 1 81 l
decision" sort of thing was coming up.
191 l
20l t
DONALDSON:
Then they did not initiate any dumping of the IWTS before they 21i had contacted someone in the Commonwealth?
22 23 REILLY: Right.
They--the thing was, they were so hysterical about needing 24i the space.
When finally word came down you can dump or whatever they 25!
didn't come back saying that we're starting to dump for a very long time.
I
I i
i
(
35 l
DONALD 50N: Donaldson:
Did they at all discuss the ramifications of not 1
2f being able to dump?
In particular, what I am concerned about is, they had water in the auxiliary building, and did they at all discuss how making 3
room for that auxiliary building water would be important to reducing releases out of the plant stack?
5 61 REILLY: Yeah, they wanted some place to put all this water that was slopping all over the place.
I'm not sure that it was aux building water, but they i
81 needed the space.
That was the bottom line. "We need the space.
We just 9!
I want to get rid of this..."
Do you have a different idea, Bill?
10j 11!
00RNSIFE: I think you are getting days mixed up.
It was at least Saturday 12(
l night, because the trailers were already there when the flap came up 131 about, "either let us dump or its going to overflow into the storm sewers."
i 14!
That's when they knew there was iodine in it, cesium and everything else.
15; That's when they finally found there was other stuff in it.
I don't 16; recall ever being, needing it, for space to dump any aux building water in.
r 17!
There ne'ver any intention....
18l 191 REILLY: --Wait.
They needed space to put whatever it was they were generating.
20!
21!
00RNSIFE: They weren't generating.
It was just accumulating there in a 1
22' noncontaminated building.
It kept accumulating, and it was eventually 23 going to run over if wasn't discharged, at least under some controls, 24!
anyway.
It wasn't until Saturday until a panic call came, "Either let us 25i l
')SS oc' L
' l l
I I
36 j
1l dump now or its going to go over the storm sewer.
And then it was hours 2
and days before they finally did discharge.
It wasn't really that critical.
3 REILQ: Ok.
At 1430 on the 29th, Gerusky and Bordman had a conference call 4j 5{
with the Health Department regarding the nitwit from Niosh.
Then Gerusky
~
and Dornsife went to a briefing.
Then Dubiel called and said he has four 6
hundred thousand gallons in a sump in the IW system; would like to treat 8l art dump and make space for overflow from rad waste system.
Concentration
~4 in the sump was about 10 nobles gases, xenon-133 and 135.
Concentration is less than a new MPC to be used in a new Tech Specs Number had been 10l generated by onsite NRC van.
The number was--the concentration was later 11;
-6 I
revised downward to 10 If not dumped, it would soon overflow and go out 12!
storm sewer anyway.
They wanted to dump at 200 gallons per minute to 131 river.
That should have been to the... blowdown to the cooling tower at 14; 55,000 gallons a minute.
Asked if it gave me any trouble.
I asked NRC 15; onsite opinion.
Didn't upset them either.
This tank is not identified in 16i the Tech Specs as a discharge route anyway.
The sump is not normally a rad collector.
Collects turbine building drains and showers and such.
181 191 DONALDSON:
The impression I'm getting from seeing that, is that they have 20l requested to dump this normally nonradioactive water to make room for i
21!
i storage of...
22 23 REILLY:
From the radwaste system.
24l 25 i
156 WO i
I e
l I
37 00NALDSON:
While ch is radioactive in order to control radioactive water 1,
and have somewhere to put it.
2 I
31 REILLY:
Yeah.
4l l
5 I
DONALDSON:
Now, what I was wondering about is, inthese discussions did 61 the fact that they had to have somewhere to put this radioactive water, was' 7\\
it discussed in the context that, if we can get this water contained, we may be able to cut down our releases?
91 i
10i I
REILLY: I don't remember that connotation at all.
It was more on the lines lli we need space to put this other water.
I 13l SHACKLETON: We will cut the tape at this time and go to another cassette.
14!
The time is 1:11 p.m., May 3, 1979.
15i 16i l
SHACKLETON: This is a continuation of the conference at the Department of 17!
Environmental Resources.
The time is now 1:13 p.m., May 3, 1979.
18i 19!
ESSIG:
Maggie, there is one question I wanted to get to before we leave 20l l
the liquid releases, and I guess it is more for my own education rather 21l 1
than anything else.
I am curious as to, does the State NDDES permit contain, 22l' does it address the discharge of radioactive materials at all?
I mean, I'm 23 wondering why the licensee was even telling --
24l I
c.nh I
i I
t 38 REILLY: I don't, I don't speak NPDES too well.
1 2
ESSIG: Okay.
3t I
4l REILLY: Yeah, but there is evidently something similar that dictates that
-)
if y u discharge some agent from other than its normal pathway, you are 6
stepping outside of some framework or other, and you have to notify down-stream users.
9f ESSIG: Okay.
I was I was just trying to establish why Met Ed was even 10j bothering to call...to request...
lit l
12l t
REILLY: Yeah. There is a State permit regarding discharge of radioactive 13) materials down there.
14) 151 DONALDSON:
Tom, I also think there is a stipulation in their response i
procedures for liquid releases.
So I think it might have been involved IT there also.
ISj 191 REILLY:
Yeah.
20l1 21l ESSIG:
O k.
22i 23 DONALDSON: Maggie, I'd like to go and turn from liquid releases now to l
24 gaseous releases.
And again, what we are primarily interested in are any 25i 7# b 3
~,.,
t
1 I
(
39 i
j notifications you may have had that related to any planned releases of l
gaseous effluents-prior notification, in other words, before the release I
g took place.
4 REILLY: Not to me, anyway.
I have the everlasting recollection of being advised that there was an uncontrolled release going on on Friday morning, which is all part of the " Black Friday Syndrome," and the notification there had been a chopper reading of 1.2 R/hr 600 feet over the vent.
And other little nefarious things that went on that morning, that almost erased whatever real information it was you were getting from the site.
i 10l l
lli DONALDSON:
Bill, do you recall any discussions or any involvement wi+:.
12, any of the buildup in the waste gas decay tanks and any planned r_ieases 14l; that wer to be made, any notifications you might have received before those I
releases were accomplished?
15i 16i 00RNSIFE: Dornsife:
I said I wasn't really in the office for a lot of the 17i time on Wednesday and Thursday.
I don't recall getting any information on i
18[
controlled or uncontrolled releases or that there was going to be any.
191 l
20' l
Of'ALDSON: Well, maybe we will address that same question to Tom when he 21l i
comes back in the room.
See if he has any information on that.. 0k let mr.
22l look at my notes and see.
23j l
24 1
1 3
l 2003 I
s I
t
.I'
.i l
40 yf REILLY: OK.
I have a note here, from Don Mcdonald.
I'm trying to establish what the date is.
This would have been Thursday.
To the effect of xenon-2 133 and 135 being vented to the atmosphere, and t.iat survey results by Met 3
g Ed were being relayed to our Bureau over our open line.
This would have Sj been Thursday, because it leads to the water too.
They were not planning
,1 to go...no actions are planned to bring the reactor into cold shutdown el status over the weekend.
Now we were seeing...they are starting to have background troubles ourselves around then and in our lab uptown.
We're seeing nobles.
And the Feds were coming.
BETTIS (Westinghouse) was here, i
9I BNL was here, DOE Regional Coordinator from Chicago with a support group 10!
and equipment from Argonne and Oak Ridge was here, ARMS (Aerial Radiological lit l
Monitoring System) was here, EPA, Las Vegas was here and the FDA were here.
12!
The invasion had begun.
13 141 DONALDSON: As of what time, Maggie?
15i 16i REILLY:
I don't have a time on here, but it would have been late on Thursday.
17l!
That's who all at least was here then.
That does not say they had arrived 18i then.
Brookhaven had been there the day before.
19j 20!
l DONALDSON:
Tom, we were talking about prior notification to your Agency in 21t j
relation to any planned releases of gaseous materials.
Are you aware of 22 any prior notification you had, or plans that would have related to planned 23l l
gaseous releases during the 28th through the 30th?
24l 25j 7@b
.i
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41 GERUSKY: No.
The information that we got after the first release was that 1!
2 it could happen again, but not that it would happen again, or wheri it would happen again.
And I doubt--as a matter of fact, that may have be:n a 3
4l statement made by Met Ed to the prress rather than to us.
5 DONALDSON:
6i But the cause of that first release and then the implication that it may happen again, what was your understanding of the cause?
7 8l 1
GERUSKY:
9l Oh boy... I don't recall, to be honest with you.
I don't remember 1
what they...I don't know if they said at the time what the reason was.
i 101 11!
DONALDSON:
But to your knowledge, if there were planned releases over which the licensee had control, you were not apprised of any intended releases before they occurred?
141 i
15i GERUSKY: No, and the information that we had was that it was automatic, not 16i planned.
There is a difference between something where there is a pressure 17!
j valve that has to go or else the thing would blow up.
They don't automa'tically 18!
turn it on and turn it off.
The pressure valve pops open at a certain 191 pressure and they don't have any control over it.
So it may have been...we 20j 21; had a dispute between us and Met Ed and NRC, I guess, the first day concerning whether it was a planned release or an unplanned release.
In any case, it 22 was an uncontrolled release.
That was the important thing.
23 2 4,.
25l f
l i
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42 I
yj DONALDSON:
Then, to your knowledge, what I am hearing you say is, that to y ur knowledge there were no planned releases?
2 3l GERUSKY: There were expected releases but not planned releases.
4 5
DONALDSON: Not planned?
61 7
DONALDSON: Thank you.
I appreciate that distinction.
9l i
10l
-GERUSKY: Sorry I have been away.
Smokin' Joe Califano just announced to the press that the cancer rates were double from his first estimate of the 11!
dose in the vicinity of the plant.
12!
13 i
REILLY: Cancer rates or dose rates.
141 15i GERUSKY: The Cancer rates and dose rates were doubled.
And I had to answer 16i a few telephone calls from the media.
17l 181 i
REILLY: I want to thank that bastard.
(laughter) 19!
20l l
GERUSKY:
He now estimates 3,500 person-rems to the population. and I told 2 11 the press it would probably go to 5,000 by Monday.
22l 23l REILLY: And who knows what it is anyway?
24!
25i I
i lO 10D
- f
.l 43 l
GERUSKY:
And nobody really knows.
1!
I 2!
l 3
DONALDSON:
I would like to go back to some areas of coordination, one in particular.
From reviewing the licensee's procedures, it appears that Sj there is an understanding or at least a provision for cor-dinating any press releases with your Agency before those press relt.es are made.
And 6i the procedures also specifies that the press releases are made by procedure i
through the station superintendent or the shift superintendent.
I wonder 81 if you could comment on the fulfillment of that understanding.
9l 10l GERUSKY: After the first two hours of the accident, I don't think we were 11!
then operating under the emerge my procedures any more, as established by l
the two groups.
And that's because statements were being made in Harrisburg 131 by the Governor's office, the Lt. Governor's offic,e.'nd the press was 14; clamoring for statements from Met Ed.
And it was attempted to control--not 15:
control, but to have only a few parties make statements.
But it was impossible, 161 and especially it became exceedingly impossible once NRC Headquarters got 17!
involved.
And that really became impossible.
So there was no way to run 181 the emergency plan the way we had designed it for press releases and se i
19?
I forth, frem this office and at the Governor's level.
20!
21l
}
DONALDSON:
Were there any discussions in the first two hours of the need 2 23 for press releases and how they were going to be handled?
23 24l 25f i
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44 4
GERUSKY: Once the Governor's office took over we didn't have any contro' any more over the procedures.
l 3l, 1
00RNSIFE: Before I went over to the Lt. Governor's office, we tried to call 41 l
Blaine Fabian.
~
51 6l 7j GERUSKY: That's right.
i 8
DORNSIFE:...To get, I think it was at the plant's request, wasn't it?
10 GERUSKY:
Yes.
i 11!
12!
j 00RNSIFE:...To get some information from him, because we were--I was 13}
i trying to get information on what had happened.
He got on the line and he 14) didn't know anything technical, what occurred or what...His information was 151 kind of useless for what I wanted to do.
So that is when I called back to 16i j
the plant and said I have to talk with somebo/y who is aware of what happened 171 and what the status is.
And that was when I got Gary Miller on the phone, 18 the station superintendent.
19l 20?
l DONALDSON:
On Friday afternoon, early morning of... late morning Friday or 21l or early afternoon, a protective action recommeadation was made by the 22!
j State.
Did the licensee provide information upon which that recommendation 23' was made, or did you request information from the licensee in order to come 241 up with some sort of recommendation, since it had been three days into the 2Si i
event?
A l
l'
I 45 i
1 What action, what interplay occurred between yourself and the licensee?
2 REILLY:
OK.
In the morning of Black Friday, I was talking to--I believe 31 l
4l it was Hartman, at the site--it was either Hartman or Landry.
And I had g
just gotten the word that the things had gotten really weird, that there -
6 was a recommendation coming out for ten mile evacuation all around, and the guy on the other end said something " expletive deleted." The whole protec-7 tive action thing was pulled off with no consultation with us at all.
g Zero.
g 10' DONALDSON:
Did the plant make any recommendations regarding protective actions throughout the course of the first three days?
12j i
13{
GERUSKY: Yes.
14!
t 15j REILLY:
Early on Wednesday morning, they were suggesting that there may be a problem on the west shore between Goldsboro and Yorkhaven on the 10 R/hr 17!
business.
181 191 GERUSKY: I am sorry.
There was also a recommendation, apparently coming 20 from the plant to Civil Defense directly on Friday morning saying that they 21, had found a 1200 mR/hr reading at 600 feet above the plant, and that they 22 were recommending evacuation of five miles around the plant.
They contacted 23 the State, yes, they contacted the State Council of Civil Defense from the 24 plant.
25j 10g i
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I 46 i
i REILLY: There were two calls.
1l l
2l GERUSKY:
And there was a call, I believe--this can be chicked, please check it with the State Council of Civil Defense.
But '.Pa call that stirred 4
up the State Council of Civil Defense more was a prior call from NRC Head-i 5!
quarters where they recommended evacuation around the plant.
Specifically 6l I don't remember what the...
71 8j 00RNSIFE.
I talked to Civil Defense people in the last couple of weeks, and they told me exactly what each of the various players said.
Jim Floyd, 10l 1
the shift superintendent, called Civil Defense in a very excited voice and 11l i
said to Civil Defense, "we have an uncontrolled release.
We are evacuating 12!
people from the site.
Standby.
We may have to tell you to evacuate downwind.'
13 That is what he said to Civil Defense.
Then...
14 15j DONALDSON:
What day was this?
16!
17 l
00RNSIFE: This was Friday morning.
And I am not sure whether before or 18l after, I believe it was after Floyd called, Dr. Collins from Headquarters r
19:
called and said, "we are reccmmending that you evacuate.
There has been 20 an uncontrolled release and we are recommending..." This is on tape up 21 i
there.
Now, I am not sure this is exactly what he said, but this was the 22 gist of it. "We are recommending that you evacuate downwind,
...we recommend 2 31 j
that you evacuate out to ten miles.
There has been an uncontrolled release."
24l At this point Civil Defense getting these two bits of information, they 25\\
l
<n 3' 03 i
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t
I t
f 47 1
thought the plume had gone up.
They didn't know what to do.
Henderson was 2.
saying Garner was calling him and asking what to do and what is going on, 3f and Henderson...
4 GERUSKY: Yeah, but they then did call us.
5 6i 7l 00RNSIFE: Yeah, ok. Then, about 10 minutes later or 15 minutes later, Dr.
Collins called back to Civil Defense and said, "Do you realize, the Commissioners 8
are recommending that you do this.
It is not only me, but the Commissioners g
are recommending that you evacuate.
101 I
11!
I REILLY: Meanwhile, Civil Defense called over for a hearing.
i 12 13 00RNSIFE: Civil Defense called over here and said...
14l 15; GERUSKY: Craig Williamson called here.
i 17l 00RNSIFE: "We're getting this from Headquarters and the plant.
What do you 18(
say, what is your evaluation? And we said that, "we don't think its real, 19!
but we will get back to you and let you know." And about that time it was 20i coming in over the radio, and the media had gotten it already and they were 21 saying. " prepare to evacuate." And at that point all the phones in the 6
22 building went dead.
So when we find out it was not real, we got word from 23 the plant that the readings were going down, and our team was on the way 24 down--we had sent a team out just before that happened--and they were on 25j
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the way down.
And they were confirming that the levels offsite were not any higher than they were the previous day. We tried to turn off Civil 2) 3 Defense and tell them that it was not a general emergency that they thought 4l it was, with evacuation required...
5l GERUSKY:
It was too late.
Si 7{
00RNSIFE: The phones were dead and Tom went over to the Governor's offices g
and tried to get the Governor to tell them not to evacuate, and I went over g
to Civil Defense to try to get them.
We literally walked over there.
10l I
11!
I REILLY: In the meantime, I think we had a heated discussion on the telephone 12(
with Doc.
13l 14i 00RNSIFE: Yes, before I left for Civil Defense 15i 16!
DONALDSON:
Let me try to go back now and make sure I understand the sequence 17!
i correct here.
Sometime on late morning of-early morning of Friday, Jim 18t l
Floyd, the shift superintendent, contacted what is now PEMA?
19t 20!
REILLY:
Yes, Civil Defense.
22l DONALDSON: And stated stated that they had an uncontrolled release, that i
23l
'they may recommend evacuation, and to standby.
t 2h 25!
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i
49 00RNSIFE:
He said that they were evacuating this site.
7 I
2' l
DONALDSON:
And that they were evacuating from this site.
3 4l ESSIG:
And that was Henderson, specifically, that was contacted?
5 I
6i 00RNSIFE: The duty officer.
71 8
REILLY:
It's recorded.
There was a second call also, by a more clam g
l voice.
I don't remember who it was, I got this from Lamison.
There was a 101 I
second call just talking about this 1.2 R/hr thing.
T: ere were two Met Ed 11l l
calls that came in almost simultaneously over there.
12!
131 DONALDSON:
So Met Ed provided some initial information as to their actions.
14)
That is, they had an uncontrolled release, that they were evacuating the 15i island, that they may have to, or may at some future time, recommend evacuation 16i of offsita areas.
I assume that they were continuing to follow the problem 17j and were going to get back with additional information?
18l 19l REILLY: Yeah.
Yeah.
We by this time had an open line with them.
Or we i
20!
l continued to have an open line with them.
21!
l l
22' DONALDSON:
So you were essentially following offsite doses all this time?
23 24 25l f
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I
f-l i
i 50 REILLY:
Yeah.
11 2
00RNSIFE:
3 After...and the readings in the plume, which were coming back 4j down again very shortly.
Si REILLY:
6 The thing to bear in mind with that 1.2 R/hr thing, the weather that morning was essentially calm.
Whatever it was not going to...it was sort of suggestive of a short duration, fairly rich thing that was just g
squatted over the plant.
g i
10i 00RNSIFE:
Another thing, when I was down at the sits the previous day, there were readings well in excess of 1.2 R/hr at the plant vent.
There 121 i
were two 3 R readings at the plant vent so I couldn't get too upset about a 13) l.2 R/hr reading.
It was less than almost the continuous readings were the 14!
previous 2 days.
16i ESSIG:
I believe, Bill, ttaugh, that those were...at least one of those 17!
that I saw...the 3 R/k" Q beta plus gamma, and it was about 400 gamma 18!
only, I believe.
And it was about 15 feet above the plant then.
Whereas 19i
~
the 1.2 R/hr was about 300 feet.
It was at an elevation of 600 feet, which i
20!
21;l would put it at about 300 feet, roughly, above the plant.
22 DORNSIFE: I just, you know...seeing similar readings the previous day at 23t I
the vent.
24 25'1 q]O a
G Uiu L
r 51 k
ESSIG:
l!
We got dose rate readings at a maximum on this side of the river of 2
14 mR/hr on Friday with a cutiepie reading.
I 31 1
DONALDSON:
All right, so we have a subsequent call made outside of the State and outside of the licensee, who seem to support that recommendation, si and from there, that recommendation was perceived as being a valid recom-mendation and essentially, in the eyes of a number of people, began to I
sw'ing into action.
I think subsequently, that the situation was put in 81 i
some kind of perspective because that evacuation did not occur.
Is that I
correct?
101 11; REILLY:
Uh hum. But there was an awful lot of grief around here for people i
12!
I not a party to the plan interferring with it.
13) i 14' DONALDSON:
I believe that later in the day, there was a recommendation 15i made which was much less expansive than total evacuation.
I believe that 16i l
was for evacuation of pregnant women and preschool children from certain 17!
areas around the plant. Did that recommendation come from any information 181 that the plant had provided? Was that recommendation based on anything 19j that the plant had given you for an analysis, or anything of that nature?
201 l
In line with the agreements that you have for--
21!
22 j
REILLY: Again, this is analoae"e to the original 10 mile evacuation situation.
2 31
[
That recommendation was made <ithout consulation with us or with the plant, 24!
l to the best of my knowledge.
L1at was made elsewhere.
25l I
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I I
52 00RNSIFE:
Tom was over in the Governor's office when that recommendation g
1 came in from C%.wr Hendrie.
He called the Governor's office later that 2
m rning and apologized for the fiasco with the earlier reading.
And Tom 3
could relate it a bit better,he was over there.
This is what he has told me.
Then Chairman Hendrie said,,"If I had pregnant women and children in i
the area, I would move them out of a five mile radius.
el 7l l
REILLY:
But then he was never confronted with the mother who says, "what 8l the difference between my five year old and my six year old?"
9l 101 l
DONALDSON:
Then, in terms of any protective actions that were ultimately 11:
implemented, the licensee, under your agreements for inter coordination, 12!
did not provide any information or recommandations tnat resulted in those 131 actions being implemented?
i 14!
15i REILLY: Correct.
Nothing had changed.
16i 17!
DONALDSON:
I might ask, had yourself or anyone else in your orga1ization 181 and the site, had discussions concerning course of accident, pottntial for 19l additional releases? Had the licensee perceived the sit;4 tion far enough 201 l
down the road to discuss whether or not in the future any actions might be 21{
recommended?
22 231 l
REILLY: I don't think we discu.
'd it but we were certainly thinking about 2ai i t.
Because the accident, as best I can perceive, it something that was 25!
i L.
Nu}
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I I
.[
l 33 y
never quite noodied out, in terms of scenarios, at all.
We looked on it as a dynamic and changing situation and things could very well have gone to 2:
p t in the next 20 minutes or the next hour, and you take it as it comes.
3 4l, 5l DONALDSON: Being the Agency that by, I guess, by State Law--
l 6i g
REILLY:
By default.
I i
8l l
DONALDSON: --Is charged with actual accident assessment and technological l
I review of the particular event, would you say that the licensee did or did 10t not meet the ' agreements and understandings that you had reached with him, 11!
in terms of providing of information and receiving assistance and providing 12!
assistance.
13l 14!
REILLY: I don't really have any great complaints with them.
I think, in 15; essence, they upheld their end of the bargain.
16i 17 DONALDSON: Did you have any difficulties in the area of communication, them l
18(
not providing information that was requested?
Any at all?
19j 20:
REILLY:
Not too my knowledge.
We had sort of a generic communication 21 problem, being so dependent on telephones.
We perceived that before the 22l l
accident, but all alternatives cost scraten, which I think we'll probably 23l l
be getting now.
24l 25l f
b
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i
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f 54 l
gj DONALDSON:
Then, from your viewpoint and the agreements that had reached during the course of the incident, those agreements had in fact been met by i
1 the licensee?
3 4!
REILLY: Correct.
S:i I
Gi DONALDSON-Tom, I don't have anything further unless you do, or anyone 7
else has any comments they'd care to make?
g i
9!
l DORNSIFE:
I would just like to add something.
From Wednesday evening, 101 I
when we got word that they had turned the reactor coolant pump back on, and 11!
we knew NRC's I&E was onsite, and into Thursday, up until black Friday 12l morning, we were getting information that the situation was improving.
We knew that there was a release still occurring, but we knew where it was 14!
coming.
It was essentially from water that was in the aux Building.
And 15.
we knew that the releases were decreasing. And we were being appraised that 16:
the situation was improving.
And this is not only from Met Ed but also 17 frcm the I&E people in the control room.
In fact, I think Chick Gallina 18!
said in the press conference, "the crisis is over."
It was their assesment 19t onsite.
And Friday when Headquarters reared their ugly head and got involved, 20!
the crisis started all over again.
21!
l 22' l
REILLY: Let's hear it for the boys from Bethesda' I
23 I
I 24l l
25j Q] k l
295 i
i
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55 i
DONALDSON:
Let me just clarify something.
The statement that the crisis y
was over, you say things were improving.
Did the offsite surveys and reports that you were receiving from the plant and from any other source, 3
indicate that, in fact, the quantity of material being released had, in fact, decreased or was decreasing, and that in fact the Conditions were improving?
6 7
i DORNSIFE:
Definitely.
They were definitely improving. The releases were 8!
going down and the dose rate offsite was continually decreasing.
9l 10l DONALDSON: Then there was no communication problem.
You felt that you knew 11:
what was going on, and what the licensee was Joing throughout the period of 12!
interest, the 28th through the 30th?
?
14:
REILLY:
Yeach.
15L 16i DORNSIFE:
Yeah, I don't know.
I see no problem with it.
17!
I 18l REILLY:
I remember being apprised that they were going to put plastic down 19l on the water on the floor in the aux. building.
They were going to try to 20f j
cut that as a source term.
21l 22lI 00RNSIFE:
The only problem that we had, occasionally we had an open line 23l and I believe at some point it was shifted from Unit 1--Unit 2 control room 24i l
to Unit 1 control room after, I believe after the first morning or the 2 51 first day.
g t
6
l t
56 i
1l REILLY: Yeah, there is a note in he'e.
I 2!
00RNSIFE:
3 There was nobody manning the phone down there, so if you needed to ask a question, it was difficult sometime to raise somebody.
You had to gj call the outside line to get somebody to pick up the phone.
They weren't manning the phone down there continuously.
We were.
Af ter--early on.that 6
morning, we were, we had a the secretary ;n the line all the time.
I guess
,I
/
8l that continued for days, and just to take the information they were giving to us.
But if we weren't asking a question, there was nobody down there to i
immediately pick up the phone and talk to.
103 l
ll; i
ESSIG:
Let's come back to this 1.2 R/hr of 300 feet or so above containment.
12!
i Since that seemed that--a lot of actions were keyed to that, that seemed to 131 be a trigger in itself.
To your knowledge, were there, at any time, around 14!
that time, which would be early Friday morning were there any offsite 15i radiation levels which either you were aware of that the licensee had made, 16i or that you, yourselves had made, which suggested that everything was i
starting to increase to support such a number? Did you find any support for IS!
that number on the ground?
19i 20' 00RNSIFE:
Yeah.
We spotted--I think had Tom said we had found a 14 millirem 21l offsite with our team.
i 22I 23 I
j ESSIG: Okay.
I heard him...
I 24j 25i i
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I
.j
.i f,
57 I
y' 00RNSIFE: After that occurred.
l 2l ESSIG:
Okay.
I heard him say that.
But I guess I didn't appreciate when 3
he said that really was a --
l 3!
I DORNSIFE: That was as a result of that release.
Up to that point, they el were elevated right offsite, but I believe in Middletown there were fairly I
low on Friday morning before that release occurred.
8!
9!
ESSIG: Okay.
10l 1 11 00RNSIFE: They were essentially almost at background a couple of miles away from the plant.
They were very much lower than they were the previous two 131 days, than background, or the continuous readings, gamma readings offsite.
15i ESSIG: Okay.
I would just like to come back to one other point, then, just 16i l
to summarize my impression of what data might have been fed back to the 171 licensee for their use in their decision-making process.
We've discussed 18i it all, but I just want to come back to it briefly.
It's my impression 19' that there was definitely 1, and possibly 2 iodine samples that the licensee--
20f I
21l charcoal samples, air samples--the licensee had collected offsite, which may have been analyzed by you people, 1 and possibly 2.
And aside from 1
22l that, there may have been a few direct radiation measurements which you 23l
[
might have fed back to the licensee during that three-day period.
- But, 24i i
aside from that, as I understand it, you are not aware of any other measure-25l mants which may have been fed back by you folks to the licensee, to Met Ed
}
- c. c'.h L-
.f i
f 58 1l 00RNSIFE:
No, I am not aware of any, but I don't think there was any, you know... We had never anticipated giving them our readings.
We were the ones that were supposed to be getting all the readings and making the 3
I decisions.
41 51 ESSIG: Yes.
I understand.
Right.
e:
l 7!
i DORNSIFE: So, we felt no reason to give them all our data.
I am not sure 8;
what they would have done with it, anyway.
i 9l 10; I
ESSIG: Right.
111 l
12' l
00NALDSON:
131
- Do you want to continue or is that the --
14i ESSIG: I'm done.
15!
16i GERUSKY: I'm done.
17!
I 18l SHACKLETON: Okay.
This will be the conclusion of this conference.
The 19!
time is now 1:42 p.m., May 3, 1979.
20 21l 22l I
231 1
241 25l
- ll6 l
2@,3 i
.