ML19305A522
| ML19305A522 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/04/1979 |
| From: | Rogers L BABCOCK & WILCOX CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908300067 | |
| Download: ML19305A522 (77) | |
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i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA h
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
i d
In the Matter of:
2!
IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3
of Leland Rogers, Site Manager, B&ll 4
Si l
Si 7i 8i l
Trailer #203 9!
NRC Investigation Site i
TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10!
Middletown, Pennsylvania ll!
l May 4, 1979 12' (Date of Interview) 13l June 25, 1979 (Date Transcript Typea) 141 117,~118 and 119 ISI (Tape Numcer(s))
16i i
17 18 19l 20f l
t 21; (l
i NRC PERSONNEL:
D 22l Mark E. Resner 0
j Thomas Tinothy Martin p
23!
James S. Cresswell Dorain Ray Hunter 24I t
25i 855 117 L
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o et i
gj The following interview of Mr. Leland C. Rogers, is being conducted on 1
May 4, 1979, 9:30 a.m.,
EDT.
Mr. Rogers is a site manager employed by 2,
The interview is being conducted in trailer 203 1
4i south gate TMI nuclear facility.
The individuals present at this interview are Mr. Thomas Timothy Martin.
Mr. Martin is an inspector 5
specialist, excuse me an inspection specialist with the US NRC in 6
Region I.
Also present Mr. James S. Cres kall.
Mr. Cresswell is a l
reactor inspector with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region 81' III.
Also present Mr. Dorwin Ray Hunter.
Mr. Hunter is an inspection 9l specialist with the US NRC Region III.
Moderating this interview is 10' Mark E. Resner.
I am an investigator with the Office of Inspector and 11; Auditor, USNRC.
Prior to taking this interview Mr. Rogers was provided 12l l
with a two page document advising him of the purpose, scope and authority 13l to conduct this investigation.
On the second page of this document 14!
Mr. Rogers has signed and dated indicating he understands what the
- 15i, document states.
In addition Mr. Rogers has answered three questions 16; which I will state for the record.
(1) Do you understand the above?
171 i
Mr. Rogers has checked that he has understood the questions.
Is that 18!
l correct Mr. Rogers?
19 201 ROGERS:
Yes I
22' RESNER:
(2) Do we have your permission to tape the interview Mr.
23 Rogers has also checked yes, is that correct Mr. Rogers?
24l 25l t
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855 118 I
-l l,
2 lj ROGERS:
Yes.
l 2!
l RESNER:
(3) You want a copy of the tape? Mr. Rogers has checked yes 3;
4l he does wish a copy of the tape.
Is that correct Mr. Rogers?
5 ROGERS:
Yes.
6 i
7l RESNER:
Okay we will see you are provided with a copy of the tape.
8 At this point in time I would like to ask Mr. Rogers if he will give g
us a brief resume of his experience in the nuclear industry.
lli ROGERS:
Nuclear industry experience began in June 1955 when I was in 12!
I the Navy Nuclear Power Program assigned to the Idaho Falls Operations.
13' I remained there for approximately 2 years.
Went to Portsmouth Naval 14!
Shipyard Commissioning of the USS Swordfish and I was there until 15; approximately March of 1959.
And I went to USS Scuplin in Pascagoula I remained on the Sculpin until October of 1962.
At that time I went ITl to Nuclear Power School in Braingridge Md as an instructor and remained 18i there until February 1966.
Was assigned to the USS Tonosa until I 19 believe it was tne summer of 1969 I got out of the Navy in mid-20l i
February 1970.
And I went to work for Westinghouse Nuclear Energy 21l Systems Pittsburgh.
While there I was assigned to field service 22' operation with refueling startups, hot functional testing, construction 23 functional testing, and all the testing and operations associated with 2 41 bringing several of the Westinghouse plants into operation.
I left 25!
855 119
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1:
Westinghouse in October of 1972 and was hired by B&W.
Since that i'
2 time, the fall of 1972, I have been assigned to TMI.
Initially as the 31 temporary site manager for the startup operations on Unit 1.
Only had i
4j that job about 2 months until a permanent manager was assigned.
That 5
was March of 1973 until June of 1974 when I was then given the job as 6
manager to complete the startup testing of Unit 1.
Remained at TMI since that time as service manager to the customer providing continuing 7
perating service function task to Unit 1, preparation for startup 8
gj testing of Unit 2, insuring procedures are being written, and various tasks assigned by the customer.
Then was assigned as startup manager, 10, I
startup site operations manager, for B&W for the Unit 2 operations 111 which began around January 1977. And I remained in that roll since.
13 RESNER-Thank you very much Mr. Rogers.
I now turn the questioning 14!
I over to Mr. Cresswell.
151 16l CRESSWELL:
This is Jim Cresswell speaking.
Lee could you briefly describe to us what your relationship is with B&W presently in your 18{
function and your relationship to Metropolitan?
19i 20i l
ROGERS:
You mean assignnments:
21i 22 CRE.SSWELL: Your assignments, your reportability, your responsibility.
23 24 25j t
I 855 120
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?
7l ROGERS:
As of today or for the past few days anyway B&W was reorganized
~
into a separate group for recovery of TMI-2 and they provide assistance 2
f TMI-l when necessary.
That particular organization is just beira 3
formulated, so the reporting path is not clearly defined at this 4
p int.
I believe I will report to Jim Finney as a line manager in Si Lynchburgh and he will report to George Kolench who is the task manager 6
for this B&W assigned organization.
8 CRESSWELL:
If we can go say into March 1979 how would the responsibilities l
been organized at that time?
10!
illi ROGERS:
I was then reporting to Bill Spangler as the startup service 12!
l manager in B&W Nuclear Services.
131 i
The people on site were performing tasks for the NSS startup and for 14' the contract services reporting through me to Bill Spangler.
15l 16i CRESSWELL:
Did you report to anyone at Met Ed Co?
17i i
181 ROGERS:
Yes, I had a service contractor provide a specific task as 191 requested by Met Ed.
And reported in this area to Gary Miller, station 20l manager.
211 4
22l CRESSWELL: Would Gary give you, for instance tasks to perform, or 23 directions in what your work would be at that site?
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855 121
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ROGERS:
Yes.
Generally it would be a written task letter which would l
2!
be transmitted between organizations to describe what those tasks were 3
and what the expense was and maybe the length of time.
But it was not 4;
necessarily a complete detailed task description.
But it did outline, 5l at least in general forms what it was.
So we had a written comm:
cation describing those tasks.
5 l
7 CRESSWELL:
Mr. Miller would document his request to you in memos?
8 9l I
ROGERS:
Yes.
10l l
lit I
CRESSWELL:
It is also my understanding that you supervised some 12!
people here at the site is that correct?
14!
i ROGERS:
Yes.
154 16l CRESSWELL:
17l Could you name those people briefly and what you do in directing their activities?
181 19!
ROGERS:
At the end of March I had several engineers that were still 201 i
engaged in the close off work relating to the NSS contract with the 21l customer.
Those particular people were Greg Shidel, who was the site 22l engineer working directly under me; Stan Mangee, Bill Pitka, and in 23 another administrative function I had John Flint and John Putnam 24i l
reporting to me administratively; but they were under specific tasks 2 51 r
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'855 122 l
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6 1,
with the GPU organization on completion of the unit 2 startup report 2
to be filed with the NRC.
3 CRESSWELL:
Those two individuals including Mr. Flint would have 4
5l received other direction than from you?
I 6l ROGERS: Mostly only administrative, I was a B&W manager on site but 7
in relation to the tasks they ware doing they were assigned by the GPU 8
gl organization for specific tasks which had been an ongoing task for the duration of the startup.
So it was a long term type task.
10 i
11!
CRESSWELL:
Normally who would be directing the activities from the I
GPU side.
13l i
14!
ROGERS:
Some GFU management individual and that had been changing 15:
thorugh the past several months as the startup came to completion and they reorganized several times.
181 CRESSWELL:
Lee, I would like to go back to the March 28, the time of 15!
the event.
Do you recall about what time you arrived onsite on March 28?
21l 22l l
ROGERS:
Yes.
I arrived on site sometime shortly after 7:00.
I was 23, at the north gate.
And that was a bit earlier than usual.
I received 24!
j a call about 6:00 ir the morning that the plant had suffered a turbine-25j 855 123 l
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If reactor trip. We were briefed.
People around that call were Gary 2
Miller from Met Ed, Jack Herbein from Met Ed, George Kunder from the 3!
control room and myself.
We were briefed on the --.
4l CRESSWELL:
You were at home?
5 Si ROGERS:
Yes I was at home.
7 8
ROGERS:
We were then briefed on the then as known at that time, of i
91 the turbine-reactor trip transient at the plant we'd gone through.
'de 10l were informed what the operating plant conditions were and the parameters t
llj l
were at that time.
So I left significantly earlier than usual.
12l I usually do not leave home until about 7:30, get here abou'. 3:00 I left a little earlier, I think.
The call lasted from about 6 to 6:25, 14) 6:30, somewhere around there.
I didn't really note the time.
It was 15i approximately one half hour conference call.
17 :
CRESSWELL:
What was the nature of the discussions that took place 181 during that conversation.
191 20j l
R0GERS:
Basically George Hunter in the control room was letting us 21l know he was operating at that time out of the shift supervisors office 22!
i near the control room.
He was telling us what had occurred and what 23l l
the plant conditions were and as a group we were' discussing what we 24 thought what ought to be attempted in trying to get the plant to a 25!
855 124 i
1 8
1.
stable condition because it was quite apparent it was not a normal trip at that point.
The reactor coolant pumps were off and they had 2
an indication of the drain tank rupture disk having failed and water 3
4l in containment at that time from that event.
That has happened at 5l this site in the post on unit one several years ago.
It has. happened at other B&W plants, so there are certain things that we know to exist because of that type of event and ---.
7 8
CRESSWELL:
What would be some of the types of things noted?
gj l
10:
ROGERS:
The first thing you'd note is that you would have some pressure in the reactor containment building, you'd have some temperature 12!
indication above normal, at some of the temperature indicators in the 13}
building.
You would also expect to have some radiation alarms in the 14l l
intermediate cooling letdown coolers area which are normally set on 151 very low level; those are designed to be detecting any tube leaks in i
the coolers.
So we have them understandably set very low.
Even 171 though we did not talk about radiation condition.at the time that is 18i something that you would normally expect to have happen in the it did 191 happen that is exactly the condition existing.
The fact that the 20j plant was not in the normal post trip condition was that t'he reactor 21 coolant pumps having been turned off and pressurizer essentially full 22\\
of water and not able to get a bubble back in the pressurizer as the 23 operators would normally have been able to do so. We are also informed, 24 I
because of the moisture in the building, we expected that we had lost 25!
l 855 125 i
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9 a significant amount of pressurizer heaters which would have complicated trying to get pressurizer bubble and pressurizer normal operations 7
1
- 9" 3
4l CRESSWELL:
These symptoms that you went through before the high 5
building reactor building pressure, the radiation level on the intermediate cooling water loop or ---
8 l
ROGERS:
I would say higher than normal.
I wouldn't say high, because 91 high is ----
10l 11l CRESSWELL:
Ok.
High is relative.
What are the symptoms would you 12l have noted prior,
at beyond that which you have mentioned.
What 13 about sump levels? Would you have any. observation on that?
l 15l ROGERS:
You would expect to find water in the sumps, yes.
Obviously, 16j i
because of the energy release and they're going to condense that 17!
i water; the reactor ~ containment atmosphere is cool enough to cool the ISl steam that would be coming out of the drain tank.
19i i
20 CRESSWELL:
Would it be a fair characterization to say that because 21 these other events occurred, these symptoms would be taken as something 22 that had already been experienced, that you would expect under say 23 less adverse conditions.
24 25l I
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855 126
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10 ROGERS:
7; Yes, and from what I have been able to detect now in looking back everything really existed as one would have expected at that 2
time, about six o' clock.
Yes, that is essentially what we would have 3
expected.
CRESSWELL: Was the high sump level discussed 5
6i ROGERS:
No, we did not discuss that at all at that point.
Mainly, we 7
were more interested in getting the reactor coolant system in a more 8l normal operating condition.
Post trip 91 10 CRESSWELL:
Okay.
So during the discussion, did George initiate the telephone call or do you have any feeling for who initiated this 12' conference call?
13 14!
ROGERS:
I, well we did'nt discuss it at the time later on.
Gary 15!
Miller and I talked it over.
He had stated that he was talking to George earlier and felt there was a lot of information we needed to 17!
l get some more heads together.
So he either himself initiated it or 18(
had George initiate the call.
I can't be sure of that but it was at 19l Gary Miller's request that the conference call was made.
20 21
+
CRESSWELL:
You mentioned that Mr. Herbein was a party to the conversation.
I 22 Do you remember what his comments were?
23 24 25j i
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lf ROGERS:
Specifically, no.
I could'nt recall even my own comments.'
2 But questioning norm *al activity on a conference call likr this you I
find 3
ut what was going on in the control room and you start asking questions to more clarify it in your mind.
And I am sure that, Jack 4
5 has always operated that way, and I'm sure that was what he was doing at that time.
The thing that was not clear was whether or, to me at 6i least, was Whether or not the blowing to the reactor containment was 7
under control.
In other words whether or not the source or the cause 8
of the drain tank rupture failure had been corrected.
Some time g
during that call, that is one thing I do know that I did.
I initiated 10' my question to whether or not the block valve on the pressurizer automatic relief line had been shut.
George replied that he did not know, but he dispatched s.mebody to find out at that time.
And the answer came back, I could hear the answer in the back ground; Yes the 14 block valve is shut.
That was,some time during the lengthy conversations.
15i Not knowing why, I would not have asked what time it was when I got 16l that question. We were satisfied at that point that we were not going 171 to contribute to more blowdown to the containment; which is a concern 18f of course, always, for additional cleanup later on.
At that time not 19!
knowing what the extent of the cleanup was really going to be.
20-21 CRESSWELL:
You mentioned, I believe, that the fact that the reactor 22 coolant pump had tripped was known at that time.
What sort of discussions 23 went on about that item?
24 25}
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855 128 i
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12 ilj ROGERS:
As George described the operators were getting indications of 2l very unstable flow in the reactor coolant system.
Current readings i
3l f r the reactor coolant pump motors, a random reading, was oscillating i
4j all over and the initial action had been to secure the 2 pumps in the B loop.
I maybe wrong here, but we secured two of the pumps in one of 5
the loops as he described it and that seemed to satisfy the conditions b
y for a period of time within the same conditions compared in the other 1
And the operators followed their normal operating precedure to 8
secure the pumps when you have these conditions existing, the unstable i
9l pump operations.
111 i
CRESSWELL:
You mentioned readings for the pumps.
What kind of readings?
12 13 i
ROGERS:
The current readings for the motors on the control panels 14j that the operator has right in front of him above the pump control 15l center.
And then the oscillations of flow indications are also right 16I on the console right in front of the reactor coolant system flow.
17l l
Direct system reading which is displayed for him.
18!
19i CRESSWELL:
Did you make any recommendations to the staff at during 20f that conversation?
21f i
22l ROGERS:
As a group discussion we all arrived at the conclusion that 23 to try to reestablish reactor coolant system flow was obviously a step 24 that had to be made.
Then, of course, we probably, I have to say' 25l f
9 l
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l 855 129:
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9 13 14 pr bably, because I am not sure of the words.
We discussed what was 2
needed to make sure we had the reactor coolant system conditions able 3
to operate at pump pressures etc.
I know that one of the conclusions 4.
f that conference call was that yes they would try to re establish fl w in the system.
I believe about that time it was decided it was 5
kay maybe we all had better start heading towards the sight.
They 6
1 had some particular operations and they should attempt to do and that 7
we should get to the site and see what was going on.
Then I got ready g
and came to the site.
g 10' CRESSWELL:
Did you at that point call Lynchburgh?
12 i
ROGERS:
No, not at the point.
131 141 CRESSWELL:
So as soon as the telephone call was over with within a 15i short period of time you drove to the site.
16i e
17l 5
ROGERS:
Yes, I drove to the site; didn't even get my cup of coffee.
181 l
Before I left home I arrived at the sight shortly after 7:00.
Time-19i wise it would be difficult for me to say exactly, but I do know it was 20 sometime shortly after 7 when I got there.
And the security forces 21 were directing all the traffic down route 441 instead of coming through r
- 22lI, the gate.
The gate was closed.
23 24 25 855 130 I
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CRESSWELL: Which gate?
2.
ROGERS:
The north gate. So I pulled up to the security guard and 3
asked him what was the problem.
And he said we're in a site emergency 4
and please report over to the visitors center.
I said I am from B&W; 5
Lee Rogers and one of the guards popped out of the office that knows me pretty well. And he said:
"Okay let Lee through.
I don't know whether they had any orders to do so but he knew it was okay for me to case in at least.
9l i
That was my first mistake.
My second mistake was that I tried to get 10l l
into the inner security fence and they let me through that one too.
111 l
But before I got to the second security fence down by the unit 2 121 i
turbine building I stopped in my office, which is in the building 13 directly across from the reactor building, and took my brief case in 141 i
and got my hard hat--.
- 15i, 16i CRESSWELL:
Is that the trailer?
l 17!
18l ROGERS:
No, it is the temporary steel building, green building that's 19 directly opposite Unit 2 reactor building.
I got my hard hat and I 20f went out to security gate.
The guard at that point again said you 21 can't go in Lee.
We can't let anybody in.
And he had his walkie-I 22' talkie and I asked to call control room and get clearance to let 23 me in.
That took a few minutes of course.
So after that was cleared 24 I went on to the turbine building and got into the control room.
The 1
25' t
i 855 13'.
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e 15 time was somewhere between 7:00-7:30 time frame that I guess that I would have to say I got into the control room.
50 actually it was before 7:30, because I initiated a call to Lynchburgh at 7:30 from the 3
instrumentation office adjacent to the control room.
I got into the c ntrol room and took sweep around looking at the plant parameters and 5
asked a few questions about what was going on.
And felt I would try to call the Lynchburgh office even though knowing at 7:30 my chances were pretty slim of getting anybody down there.
I did get the guard at the front desk at the Lynchburgh office.
He said the switchboard 9l was not operating yet; nobody was in to answer the phones yet.
So I went back into the control room at 7:45 11*
12 CRESSWELL:
Excuse me, Lee, did you leave a message with the guard?
13!
i 14!
ROGERS:
No.
At 7:45 I know that some of the people in the nuclear 15i service section reported in to work.
So I went back and called again 16i l
which is only 15 minutes later.
I got Bill Spangler at that time and 17) told him we had had a turbine trip, subsequent reactor trip, had drain 181 tank rupture disc blown, and had had some problems with one reactor 19l coolant pump and they had been secured.
And I also said we also had a 20!
i release of high-level activity into the containment building.
The 21l monitors were at that point reading such a figure that it was hard to 22'I determine exactly what we had but we did have some high-level low 23 l
activity in the building.
That was about a quarter of 8.
24l
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'855 132 i
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l gj CRESSWELL:
That was the reactor building?
2 ROGERS:
Yes.
3 4
i CRESSWELL: What about the Aux building?
S 6
ROGERS:
I didn't know whether we had any problems with the Aux building 7
at that time.
Of course as I went through the control room myself I g
looked at the indications and I did not get an awful lot of information g.
from other people, but that was the obvious ones that I had that I could report back.
I told Spangler then that I'd try to get my handle
,1!
J.
I 12-on what is going on and get back with each other later on.
13 CRESSWELL:
What was the nature of your conversation with Spangler?
141 l
What sort of things did you say?
15i 16l ROGERS:
I just gave him what information we had, what the plant conditions were, and that as sucn as I could find out what more was 18t going on I would get back to him.
19) 20!
CRESSWELL:
Did you for instance mention that there was a site emergen,cy 21 that had been declared?
22 23 ROGERS:
Oh Yes.
Yes, that we had emergency conditions existing.
I 24 knew there was a site emergency at that point obviously because of the 25
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17 ilj difficulty in trying to get in and that was probably the only thing I 2j knew at that time.
31 CRESSWELL:
You gave some equipment status?
Li ke the pump---
4 5
ROGERS:
Yes.
6 7'
CRESSWELL:
I am not trying to put words.into your mouth 8
9
- ** Y **
10' 11!
l CRESSWELL:
Did he ask you any questions?
121 i
13-ROGERS:
Probably, but I don't remember what they are 15!
CRESSWELL:
How long do you estimate you talked with Mr. Spangler?
\\
17!
I ROGERS:
It was a very short call.
I did not feel that I wanted to be 18l out of touch.
I was making that call from the instrumentation shop 19j because the control room phone traffic was unbearably heavv at that 20l point.
I couldn't get a phone to use.
21jl 22 RESNER:
At this time we will take a break to change the tape.
The 23 time is now 9:59 a.m. EDT.
This is the continuation of the interview 24l l
of Mr. Leland C. Rogers, the time is now 10:00 a.m. EDT.
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855 134
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1l CRESSWELL:
This is Cresswell speaking again, Lee, I would like to go f
back'to the time where you first started up to the control room.
As I 2
3 remember there is a flight of steps up to the control room and you 4
could go through a door and you passed by some windows where the shift 5
supervisor's office is; some windows that you can look into the control r m and if y u make an entrance in say on the left side of the control 6
room.
Do you remember passing by the window there where the shift 7
supervisor's office is located?
8 Si ROGERS:
I know I passed by the window because in my route that morning 10 I tried to take the elevator in the turbine building and it did not arrive fast enough for me so I went up the steps adjacent to the elevator level which brought me up to the high pressure end of the turbine.
14j l
15i CRESSWELL:
Okay you entered through the turbine --
16i 17 ROGERS:
The turbine operating floor then into - through the fire j
door, into the control tower, at that point, which brings you right 19!
out at the windows of the shift supervisors.
And then I went left and 20l i
into the door of the control room.
21l 22 CRESSWELL:
Did you recall what you saw as you came throu'gh the fire 23 door looking into the control room?
The number of people the ---?
24 25l
[855135 kt i
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ROGERS:
No.
I am sure I was more interested in getting into the 7
2 control room myself than trying to see what was going on through the window.
In other words I didn't pay any attention to it.
3 4
CRESSWELL: What was foremost in your mind? What type of information 5
g.
did you want when you walked into the control room?
7 ROGERS: Well the only information I possessed at the time I walked g
into the control room was what I knew at the end of the 6:00 to 6:30 9'
conference call.
And it was obvious because of the site emergency that something had changed.
And I wanted to try to find out as quickly as I could what that was.
That is when I found out that we had a high l
radiation levels of the reactor building itself.
In fact they I asked 131 14{:
them whether or not they tried to run the reactor coolant pump.
And they said, yes they had and it had only been on for a short period of 15i time but they had the same indications-in fact it was running about 16i 100-110 amps of current which is essentially an uncoupled motor condition.
17 It is the kind of current received when running the motor uncoupled, 18l so your conclusion there is it wasn't pumping any fluid in that mode.
19 20!
CRESSWELL:
When you say uncoupled well that could be like a shaft 21 broken or just a coupling?
22 23 ROGERS:
Correct.
It could be just running no load or more properly, 24 turned is the no-load condition.
Generally, when we see something 25i 855 136
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1.
like that, when the Unit is uncoupled and you are running the motor to i
2 check out whether you're coupling up to the pump again during some 3
maintenance or outage period.
4 CRESSWELL:
Do you recall who the individuals were that you talked to 5
when you went into the control room?
6 I
7l ROGERS:
Bill Zewe was'the shift supervisor. I noticed him. I don't 8
g, know whether I - yes, I think I probably asked him whether or not to pump had been run.
Most likely I asked him, being the individual who i
would know conditions occurring.
Gary Miller was there and I exchanged 111 I
a hello with him and told him I was there for any kind of discussions 12!
that he needed. And I am not too sure any other individual, by name, that I spoke to.
More than likely I did but I can't recall.
141 r
15i
[C] What was Gary doing at the time?
17i CRESSWELL: What was Gary doirg at the time?
18}
19i i
ROGERS:
He was getting all kinds of data fed into him.
Plant conditions, 20!
station positions, and etc.
I really wasn't paying much attention to 21!
the information flow in that area at all at that time.
I was more or 22 less trying to find out for myself where we were so that I could let 23 Lynchburgh know just in a brief summary.
24i 1
25l 855 137 l
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CRESSWELL: Where was Gary in the control room?
7 i
2l ROGERS:
Physically, he was behind the desks portion of the control 3
room.
1 Si CRESSWELL:
That is the three desks group?
bl 7
ROGERS:
It separates the operating part essentially where they have g
9i the separation of keeping the operators away from other people in the i
control room.
10j 11!
CRESSWELL:
Do you recollect who was with Gary at that point?
12' 13 ROGERS:
No I do not.
14) 1 15j CRESSWELL:
If I can go back, you asked Bill Zewe if the pump was 16i running?
17l l
18 ROGERS:
Yes, if they had tried to run the pt.mp.
191 l
20l CRESSWELL:
You told Gary Miller that you were there if he needed any 21!
i help.
What is the next thing you did in the control room?
22 23 ROGERS:
I looked at the plant parameters to see if there was anything 24!
{
I could determine of what conditions were, and I noted the activity 25i levels in the containment.
4
22 f
1l CRESSWELL: What were they at that time?
2, 3f ROGERS:
Numbers I would not be able to tell you.
Most of them were i
in alarm as I looked at them and that of course was a significant 4
Sj change fr m n rmal.
That was the impressive part of it.
I 61 CRESSWELL:
Okay, so what other parameters did you look at beside th'e 7
radiation levels? The radiation monitors.
9 ROGERS:
I looked to see what t?e steam generators levels were and I saw that we had some level indications.
I looked to see what the 1 11 temperatures in the loops were and they were. numberwise.
I would not 12!
be able to tell you what I saw that morning.
There were abnormal conditions.
The THs were not indicating on the panel at all on either 14{
i loop.
Of course, I would have expected that anyway with no flow.
I 1Si would have expected abnormal temperature indications.
So it did not 16i necessarily surprise me seeing that the temperatures were abnormal.
171 181 CRESSWELL:
From the information' that you looked at, what did you think was happening inside the reactor coolant system?
21 ROGERS: Well, I guess as I looked at it I would have guessed that 22 with no flow conditions obvious, the high pressure injection was 23 operating although I can't say for sure whether it was operating or 2a not.
I really did not look at those indications.
2s 855 139 I
h
{
23 CRESSWELL:
But you said was operating ---?
y 2
ROGERS:
I said I would have guessed it was operating.
I can't be 3
4, sure I saw whether it was or not I don't know.
Si CRESSWELL:
That is not one of the things you checked out?
6 7
ROGERS:
No. I did not.
The pressurizer was obviously in a very poor 8
condition.
It was at or near full condition indications.
And that is 9lg when I got another report that we did not have many heaters left.
Which obviously made it difficult to get the try and get a bubble back in.
I think I probably passed that on to Bill Spangler too, that we 12{
t had lost a lot of heaters because of the rupture disc failure.
131 14.
l CRESSWELL:
Would you go into that?
15i 15j ROGERS:
Yes. The high moisture content.n the reactor containment 17 has, in the past, grounded out some electrical equipment and the 18 cables for the pressurizer heaters were known to be some of those 3
191 l
cables that were susceptible to high humidity. And it was quite apparent 20 that we did not have heaters a lot of the heaters that we wanted.
And 21 i
that we had more than likely lost the heaters because of the high I
22l humidity in the containment.
23 24 2Sl i
=
l 855 140' I
{
24 i.
CRESSWELL:
Can you recall while you are looking at these parameters 7
n the control board what the operators were doing?
2.
31 ROGERS: Well, I had one man stationed back at the radiation monitoring panel feeding inf rmation to somebody in the control room who, at that 5
time, was recording everything that was being said.
At least from the operators.
7 8
CRESSWELL:
Which radiation monitor, just the one ---?
g 10 ROGERS:
This is the whole area of radiation monitoring communication in the back of the panel.
As the operators stands looking into the 12l fore part panel, the second panel back is all red monitoring indications.
They had a man standing right in front of the indications on the steps 14!
so that he can read off the indication.
15i 16 l
CRESSWELL:
But he is actually in the front of the control room.
When 17!
l you say the back panel there are two sets of panels, in the walk 18l space.
19{
20f t
ROGERS:
Between the two sets of panels.
211 22 CRESSWELL:
He is reading the information off and giving it to an 23 operator out in front of the panels?
24 l
25i l
l 3
l
'"'855 141 i
I
(
25
{
g ROGERS:
Yes.
Then I don't know who he is passing those words on to.
i But he was stationed at that point.
There was another operator stationed 2
3I ver at the boiling water storage tank, the decay heat portion of the l
back panel to provide level indications of the tanks and so on associated there with the high pressure injection operation.
There was another g
operator over the a feeds section of the main control panel.
There's 6{
another operator over at the."eeds section of the main control panel ---
Another operator standing very ose to the reactor coolant pump pressurizers area which is the
- section of the panel.
There were several other foremen and supers sory types of men in operations in the control room.
It did not register with me at the time-what they were were supplemental help over from Unit 1, I found out afterwards.
12 l
The atmosphere in the control room was that information was being 13l passed from person to person as a normal transient-type operatior.;
141 normally goes into it at least - - things I have seen in the control
/
15!
room before.
16i 17i CRESSWELL:
By that you mean people were reacting normally to what was 18j going on?
19I i
20l ROGERS:
Yes.
Normal control room controlled operations.
21 22 CRESSWELL:
Do you remember who some of the individuals from Unit 1 23l were?
24!
25!
l i
855 142 '
x 4
1
t l
26 1
. ROGERS:
No, I don't I really don't.
As long as I have been here, all 1,
these people are so familiar to me I don't bother to pay attention to 2
who they are. I see them all everyday and they are totally familiary 3l faces.
5 CRESSWELL:
Do you recall what reactor coolant system pressure was at 6
this time?
/
81 i
ROGERS:
No. I think it was I think it was down around 1300-1500 lbs 9
category but I am not sure.
11, CRESSWELL:
So we are getting back to the period of time about when you would have gone over the instrument to make the call at 7:45 is that correct?
14!
15j ROGERS:
Yes.
16l 17 i
CRESSWELL:
You looke'd at the parameters and so forth and you made the
-181 call to Spangler, at B&W?
19f 20i ROGERS:
Yes.
21 I
22l CRESSWELL:
So what happened after you got off the telephone call?
23 24 25j l
i i
855 143 i
i L
27 RCGERS:
I came back to the control room.
Time-wise I don't know exactly but I would guess that within a few minutes Gary Miller said let's retire to the shift supervisor's office and sit down and caucas.
3l I do know that sometime between the time that I called Lynchburgh and
_l the time that we had that caucas, Miller set somebody on the task of 9
6l identifying te everyone that we had an emergency condition existing because of the activity levels in the building.
That was his basis for stating that we have got an emergency condition here and better notify all of the agencies that are required.
Get the book out and make sure that everybody that needs to be informed is informed.
That happened before wa ever had any caucas.
So that happened sometime 11' after that maybe five minutes of 8.
12, 13 i
CRESSWELL:
After you talked about to Spangler.
He announced this to 14!
the individuals in the control room?
1 15!
16!
RCGERS:
Yes.
He assigned someone to that task to identify the conditions 17l and notify all the people and were required by the procedure.
18i 19l CRESSWEM:
Then you mentioned that you had a caucas.
Gary called for 20i' a caucas, how did that take place? Where did you caucus?
21 22 ROGERS:
We went into the shift supervisor's office in the rear of the 23 Control Room and essentially up brain stormed all this.
This is where 241 we are; this is what we know to be existing; what can be do from this; 25j i
c 855 144 l
I I
1 28 1
p int; what should we do; let's see if we can get together some kind f plan.
Essentially the guidelines of the caucus.
2 31 CRESSWELL:
00 you recall who was in that caucas? Would it have been y u and Gray Miller and who else 5
i 6j ROGERS:
Joe Logan was there, Geroge Condor was there.
I think Jim 7
Sealinger the Unit 1 superintendent was there.
I am not sure because 8
he was in and out of the different caucuses and in the control room g
from time to time during the day.
Again it is knowing faces and not 101 l
trying to figure who they all are.
You don't need to do that at the ll!
time.
12f i
131 CRESSWELL:
Okay, so there was this brain storm session trying to come up with some sort of course of action.
Well during the process of 15 this brain sterming session what sort of things were discussed?
16l i
17l' ROGERS: Well, I think the thrust o'f this session was to try to get 18l the reactor coolant system te a some kind of operable condition.
It 191 wasn't totally clear to as exactly what the conditions in the RCS were 20l' at that point, as far as temperatures and distribution of those temperatures.
21, I believe that we decided at that point to again attempt reactor 22 coolant pump operations.
I know we did.
That is one of the major 231
{
thrusts of that'first caucas.
That is, let us go see if we can get a 241 l
pump started again. And we talked over what we had seen before and 25i 855 145 t
.i I
j 29 what the people in the Control Room had seen before.
And thought, y
2j well it was worth the to try to try get a pump going. We had enough 3
system pressure to be able to operate a reactor coolant pump so that was not an operating concern of the pump at that point.
q t
Si CRESSWELL:
That is as far as net positure suction head?
6 7I ROGERS:
Yes I believe we are around the.13-15 lb category because g
that was not a question of significant pressure to run the pump.
I i
9l i
believe the first conclusion arrived at was to go out and try to run a 10' pump which was what we did.
Some of the steps that occured there were 11:,
i some of the pumps did not respond to the operator action to try to run 12!
'em.
13 i
14i CRESSWELL:
In what way did'nt they?
15i 16l
[
ROGERS:
I believe that we had trouble getting the lift, oil-lift 17!
l systems started and we would not have started the pump unless we went IS(
through the normal sequence to start the pump, and backup lube oil 19l system, backstop. We did try to run one pump in one loop that we were 20 successful at and we saw the essentially steady state running currents 21.
of 100 to 110 amps with little or no flow indication on the loop 22 indicators.
I don't believe we w any flow indication at all.
I 23 went over to the other loop and got the same thing.
About that time 24 it was quite obvious that everybody involved in this operation that 25!
i
- 855 146 i
a.
A
. {,
[
30 the lubes were filled with steam.
The temperature indications the 7
ump operating the way it was, we just concluded we had steam in the 2
I loops and there was no further sense in continuing attempting to put a 3
g reactor coolant pump on.
We just had to do something to get the steam out of loops.
To be able to run a pump later on.
The next step was S,j 6l to begin raising system pressure; try to collapse the steam.
Which I
7l was really a time related operation we had the system pressure up.
I say we but the control room the system pressure up.
9l l
CRESSWELL:
How did they do that Lee?
11j ROGERS:
Increased high pressure injection flow was the source of our 12l I
increasing the pressure.
And assuring that everything was closed off 131 l
that we knew that could be closed off.
14!
l 15!
l CRESSWELL:
That would be like let down?
16i 17 ROGERS:
No.
I am not too sure that we did anything with letdown at 18l the point.
I don't really know I don't know the condition of letdown.
19l I don't know whether we adjusted that at all.
The blocked valve on 20!
the pressurizer; the electromatic relief line was closed and we ran a 21 high pressure injection pressure up.
We were successful brought the 221 l
pressure up to normal operating conditions.
Then became a question of 23l how high will we go into pressure.
It was generally agre.ed that we 24l t
did not want to bump up against the code relief valve set pressures.
g }47 So we t. Nd to --- + I t t
l 31 CRESSWELL: What was the concern there Lee? g 2, 3! ROGERS: The concern was anytime you open a code release was that you run a change they may not close. We did not really want to use a code relief valve as an operating scheme. We prefered to choose using an electromagnetic line and block valve as the operator control function O-to maintain system pressure at approximately normal pressure. I think 7 we agreed that anywhere between 2000-2100 was an operating band that the man on the panel should attempt to maintain. And that is what we did for a significant period of time. 11! ( CRESSWELL: It took a significant period of time to repressure? 12' 13 i ROGERS: No pressure came up fairly nicely on that. I think we stayed 145 l at that--time became a very hard thing to go back and pick up. What 15j occurred at what time and how long it would take to do it. From 7:00 16i i that morning when I got on the site to 11 o' clock that night when I 17l l left, was the longest period of time that evci went so fast in my 181 l life. It became difficult for me to even try to figure out what time 19! i it was and I would look at the clock and would not believe we had 20t passed through that much time. The thing we are attempting to do here 21 was collapse the steam void we had and we felt that by staying at the 22 normal system pressure was out best chance to do that at that point. 23 24l 25 f i a s-. 855 148 k
32 l CRESSWELL: Did everybody feel that if you got the pressure up you could collapse the bubble. i 31 ROGERS: Initially we felt that that would happen. I don't know at 4l what time this happened. We hooked up or had the instrumentation people hook up instrumentation bridges to the RPS panel indications of our hot leg temperature RTDs so that we could read a resistance et:t on them and with a calibration sheet along side of them we could look at it and see approximately what the temperature indication was. Now Sl i when we first got that information back into the group of people, we 10-didn't believe that the RTDs were working correctly. We assumed that lli i they're in a steam phase and that they were not probably telling us 12l what exact temperatures were. They were at temperatures were over 13 700*. That kind of threw everybody off. That piece of information 14! that did not seem to be correct with where we thought we were. 15i 16l CRESSWELL: That would have indicated like superheated--? 17 18 ROGERS: Yes. Right. For temperatures to get that hot it would have l been superheated for where we were. We did not realize that was the 20 condition we had at the time. We stayed at the high pressure condition 21l for, as I see the charts now, about an hour and a half and did not i 22' feel we were getting anywhere. So we again caucused and decided at 23 that point, as a group, that maybe we should be trying to come down in i 24 pressure and float the core-flood tanks on the core, to insure in 25 ~ 855 149
i 33 i I anybodys mind that we had watered in the core. Even though at the i ti'me we all felt that there was water in the core. We had not really added up all of the things to tell us that we had uncovered the core 3l 4l' at that point, even though now it's obvious that it had been but --. 5 G} CRESSWELL: What indications did you have to determine you had water i in the core or at least some water in the core? 8 ROGERS: Well, before we depressurized, we didn't have any positive indications that we had always had water in the core. It was felt then as we brought our pressure down by opening up the block valve 111 line again and water into the reactor building, that we can bring 12! j our pressure back down and insure that we would have water in the 131 l core, because it we got down to the below approximate 600 pounds, the 14! core flood tanks would come on in the system, that the water would go 15i j into the core, no matter what. And if it was more or less a decision 16; that this is going to ensure that we've got water in the core area and 17 bring pressure on down in an attempt to get that indication and than 18j maybe float the core flood tanks as a water volume on the core until 19i we can get some water in these loops and get this thing operating in a 20l normal circulating fashion. ) 21l 1 22 CRESSWELL: When you say float the core flood tank water on the core, - 231 you mean discharge the water in the core area? i l 24 25i I I i 855 1.50
i l j 34 i 1l ROGERS: Yes, if we maintain system pressure down near what the core-fl d tank volume pressure was at then the core flood bank would 2 always pen up. The check valves would always open up and float water 3f on the core area. And even though we knew we had steam in the lines f the reactor coolant system piping, uh..... 5 l 6i CRESSWELL: Which lines? 7l 81 ROGERS: The hot legs and we alsc knew that the steam bubble was down 9l l as low as the pump impeller area. So we knew we had a large volume of 10! steam in both legs. That was concluded earlier when we got the running 111 indication off of the pumps. But the project I guess you'd have to 12; say was to insure that we had that core in a wet condition. Using the 13' f core flood tanks as a known source of water that we felt that we could 14! make sure that the core was flooded. As we came down in pressure and 15i reached the point where the check valves would close on the core, the 16i operator, who was standing at the back panel and core flood tank level indications, notified us that you have floated a little bit of 18i water in. And we expect that if the core had been voided that as we 191 got to a low enough pressure we would have had a large volume flow out 20i of flood tanks into the core area. And when we got very small volume 21f flow, everybody was then satisfied that the core was wet at the time 22 and the core flood tanks are now floating on core. 23 24 25l ~ 855 151
i { 35 I { CRESSWELL: Because they didn' t ----? 2! i i ROGERS: Because they didn't discharge, it was just a very small 31 4{i volume of as the pressure came down and a little bit of water came out 5;i and equalized and that was not enough to consider that we had flooded the core because the core was below that, at those nozzle of points. 6i We just felt that we were floating the core flood tank on the system. 8 CRESSWELL: So the water in core would have prevented the core flood tanks from discharging? 10i i n 11! ROGERS: Yes, right. 12! 13 CRESSWELL: Let's go back to the period and time. 14) 15; ROGERS: If we could get lower pressure unfortunately you would eventually 16; blow all your water out of the core flood tanks but the operator was 17! bringing pressure down real slow so that when we got to that point it 18i 19!, was a very small change of water. i 20f I CRESSWELL: You always consider it to be a hydraulic resistance with 21f the water in? 22 23 ROGERS: Yes, with the water'in it. 24l 25 i l 855 152-P
36 i l g CRESSWELL: Let's go back to tht period of time when the pumps were started. You know after you'd caucussed and the first decision was made. You must have tried to get some pumps on to provide forced flow through the core. When those puc.ps were, well first of all, you menti ned that you had some problems with some oil pressures, oil flow 5 I to the pumps? 61 7 ROGERS: Yeah, we couldn't get any indication that the lubricating systems had started. 10 t' CRESSWELL: What control panel? What did people think was the problem 11l l about that? 12! i 131 i ROGERS: Well, electrically we lost some of the electrical distribution 14j but a -- 15i 4 16l CRESSWELL: Was that to all the pumps? 17l 18( ROGERS: No. 19I 20i i CRESSWELL: Just the two? 21f 22 ROGERS: As I recall there was one pump that didn't. We couldn't get 23 the oil system started on it at that time and the other ones did. 24 25 t 855 153 i
37 i yj CRESSWELL: They started right off, i 2 ROGERS: Yeah. 3 4l CRESSWELL:- No problem with the interlocks or anything of that sort? 5 61 ROGERS: I don't re all that; they may have been but I don't necessarily recall that. 8 9 CRESSWELL: When the pump access started, you were drawing low current, did you see any changes in the reactor coolant system at all? i 12' ROGERS: Not myself, I didn't see anything because I was standing back 13 away from the panel itself trying to see the indications over people's 14 shoulders because you are staying out of the way of the' operator and 15j you don't see everything. You have to rely on what they are telling 16i l you at that point. They are there in front of the panel so they are 17) there were they have to be and I'm back were I have to be and it's out 18l of the way. 20! CRESSWELL: Did the operators make any observations at all? Did they 21 say anything at out loud when they started the pump? 22 23 ROGERS: I am not sure that I --- l 24l i 2s i '855 154' ~
I 38 This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Leland C. Rogers. The [ time now is 10:30 a.m. eastern daylight time. 3 CRESSWELL: At this point I would like to let Mr. Hunter ask a few questions. I know he is very interested in this particular sequence of time. 61 7 HUNTER: Leland, I would like to go back and talk about a couple of 8l l things and specific items. During the conference call, early in the 9' morning, with Gary Miller and Jack Herbein, George Kunder was in the . 10 l control room at the plant. During this particular conversation did 111 l you fellows get involved in discussing pressurizer levels specifically 12 with George? 13 14! ROGERS: I think that George told us that they had gone solid in the 15 pressurizer and essentially that is where he was at the time. 16l i 17l HUNTER: Can you give us your impression of that particular parameter 18! being awakened and finding that you had gone through a trip and also 19 that the pressurizer was solid? 20 21 ROGERS: Well, I guess, maybe the impression would be that with the 22 reactor coolant pumps off and post trip condition existing to have a 23 pressurizer solid was certainly not normal, but that was something we 24 had tc face and see what we could do about it, but I think George had 25l I l 855 155 t i
39 I I i already told us that he had lost a lot of his heaters and that he had 1l difficulty in using the pressurizer as a heat source in its own. 3t This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Leland C. Rogers. The time now is 10:30 a.m. eastern daylight time. 6 CRESSWELL: At this point I would like to let Mr. Hunter ask a few questions. I know he is very interested in this particular sequence of time. 9 10l HUNTER: Leland, I would like to go back and talk about a couple of 1 18. things and specific items. During the conference call, early in the 12 morning, with Gary Miller and Jack Herbein, George Kunder was in the 13 control room at the plant. During this particular conversation did 14! l you fellows get involved in discussing pressurizer levels specifically 15i with George? 16i i 17' ROGERS: I think that George told us that they had gone solid in the 181 } pressurizer and esseatially that is where he was at the time. 191 i 20' HUNTER: Can you give us your impression of that particular parameter 21 being awakened and finding that you had gone through a trip and also 22l that the pressurizer was solid? 23' 24 25! 855 156 i l i
.j i I t i 40 i ROGERS: Well, I guess, maybe the impression would be that with the reactor coolant pumps off and post trip condition existing to have a pressurizer solid was certainly not normal, but that was something we 3l had to face and see what we could do about it, but I think George had 4l l already told us that he had lost a lot of his heaters and that he had Sj l difficulty in using the pressurizer as a heat source in its own. 6l l 71 HUNTER: Ouring the conversation with George and the fellows, were you under the impression that they had any idea of what happened to the 9l l plant at that time following the trip and what the conditions were? 10 11! ROGERS: No, I don't think they had a good handle on what had occurred 12 at all. I guess the thing I was searching for when I ask whether or 13 : not the block valve for the electro magnetic relief line had been 14. closed was that that was a possible source of losing volume to containment I 15i j and somebody shculd have closed it. If it was not I wanted to find 16i out if it was closed or not. When I asked the question I was told it 17' i was closed. It kind of closed that thing off in my mind as being a 18f potential source of our real problem. 19! 20 HUNTER: Ok Lelar.d, in staying with the pressurizer level now, particularly, 2'~, when you got to the plant was that one of the, did you in fact go and 22 look at the pressurizer level at that time? 23 24 855 157 as I
.j 41 l ROGERS: I think I did. 1! i 2k HUNTER: The chart or... 3l 4! ROGERS: I think I looked at the level at that point. I don't remember Si j what it was though. el 7 HUNTER: Ok, I just to see 9l ROGERS: I am sure that I looked at and scanned all of the normal 10 plant parameters. I am trying to recall. What I saw is something 11! 'else. 12! 13l [ HUNTER: Another Item I want to ask about is back in the conference 14! call, we will talk about saturation pressure and whether that was 15j brought up at that time with George Kunder and discussing the fact 16i that the plant was at 1300 and 1400 pounds and with the specific 17{1 reactor coolant temperatures, did you fellows discuss that particular 18 item. 19f 20l ROGERS: I don't think so, no. Not that I recall. 21l i 22 HUNTER: Does his discussion between Gary and you and Jack Herbein, 23 did it take more of a general discussion rather than the specifics of 24 t.ie event? 25 \\, 855 158 f i e 42 l i i ROGERS: No, I think, I wouldn't say general. What I would say is it 1! j developed events that had occurred as George was relating them to us, 2, letting us know where the' plant was at that time and what he knew 3) l about how it got to where it was and what should we do from this point 41 on? 5' O! i HUNTER: Pressures, temperatures were pressurizer was solid that coolant pumps were off at that time and that is were you were sitting? 8 l 9 ROGERS: Yes. 10 11; j HUNTER: A question, at that time did the discussion of the fact that 12; the auxiliary feedpumps did not start at until 8 to 10 minutes after 13 l the event. Was that discussed in the conference call? Do you Recall? 14j 151 ROGERS: No, it was not. I think you mistated the question though. 16 The pumps did start. They started autematically and they did. 17! 181 HUNTER: I did? 19I 20j ROGERS: That was not entered in that discussion at all. 21 I 22l HUNTER: Oh, ok. 23l l 24 25; t 855 159
{ l 43 l 1l ROGERS: As a matter of fact, it wasn't until the next day hen I had i some of my people delogging the reactivitor charts that it became obvious that that was a contributing factor to some of the steps that 31 had occurred. It just wasn't known. I don't believe that anybody 4{ l said anything about that during the day at all. St l 6l HUNTER: Ok. The next question is and you've answered it, is that during your caucus meetings and you are in the control room later the 8 emergency feedwater failure to the 12 valves to open can provide water 9! l to the steam generators wasn't discussed? 10 11 ROGERS: No, as a matter of fact, most the time during the day there 12 was very very little discussion going back and finding out what happened 13l l where - we are in a condition now and let's get the next step done. 14! We were concerned with the plant itself as it is existing then and 15; j nothing more (looking forward?) 16i l 17! l HUNTER: Ok,. in establishing the plant conditions as they were did you 18j l and Georg~e and the others, since he was the man in on the scene and 191 you guys were probably quizzing him and listening to what he said 20I because he was there. Did you discuss the securing of the reactor 21 coolant pumps and the reason for securing the reactor coolant pumps? 22 23 ROGERS: No, not that I recall as a discussion. George went through 24 l what the operators had seen and their action to secure the pumps. It 25l l ' :855 160 i
t 44 I wasn't necessarily, why did you do that, it was just that they had [ already been done. 3 HUNTER: No, I am not asking that I am just asking the reasons why and the logic that he used to secure the pumps - loss of suction pressure g that type of logic that he used that was used to secure the pumps. 7 ROGERS: pirst, as I now recall, the reason the first two pumps were turned off, I better go back to make sure this comes out this way because the first two pumps were turned off because of the reactor coolant system pressure was down and he shouldn't have those four 11 pumps running in that condition. They secured the twa pumps in the 12[ 8 loop because of the temperature / pressure relationships. That's as 13' he said it at that time now. You made my memory come back a little. 14 r 15! HUNTER: We have a sequence and I don't mind doing that to try do it 16! and I am having trouble asking questions because I want to ask a 17 question to get your impression of a certain item. Don't worry about 18( f the times because that's -- we will fit the times in. If, in fact, he 19l says we reached an the net positive suction head limits and we secured 20 the first two pumps or whatever it was. That is what I was talking-21 l about. 22 23 ROGERS: No, I think as he said was we are at pressure temperature 24 violation for four pumps and we turned two pumps off. 25 i 855 161
45 l CRESSWELL: This is Jim S. Cresswell, again. Do you recall Mr. Kunder g [ making any mention to fuel pen compression limits also in that time limit. 3 4! i ROGERS: Yes, yes he did. I did hear that. g Si l CRESSWELL: What was that discussion? Il I 81 ROGERS: When the temperature or when the pressures had gone the way 9l they had - I don't recall how it got into this and how he developed it 10l l but He said, I think we have exceeded our fuel pen compression valves. 11! I think that is the way it came out - something like that yes. 121 13 l CRESSWELL: I have another question. When you entered the control 14! l room there was high activity in the reactor building indicated and 15i your discussions of the time period later you indicated that people 16i thought that the core was covered? i 18l l ROGERS: Yes. 19l 20' CRESSWELL: 21,l To what would people have contributed the high radiation levels? 22 23 ROGERS: I don't think we tried to go back at that point. I really 24 don't. I think everything - 'we were more concerned with getting the .25l 855 162 t
.j t i 46 plant under control as it was then and not necessarily trying to reconstruct anything, not to that point. We had high radiation levels. We had the plant parameters the way they were and even though we didn't understand all the indications as we had them. As the day went 4 on we got more understanding of them but the thrust of everybody's o: I thinking, I believe, was to get the plant stable first. I don't 6l believe we went back at all. 7 8 CRESSWELL: So you would more less ignore what caused the high radiation alarm? 101 1 11' ROGERS: Yeah, what caused it? Sure, We had it. We did:s' t want it to 12 get any worse, we didn't want it to get out of hand, we didn't want it 13 to get any place else. We knew we had it in containment and I believe, oh its pretty obvious in the early morning hours that we also had had 15! water in the auxiliary building and had problems there. I wasn't 16i j personally involved in helping Het Ed contain their radiation problems. 171 I was more instrested in stability of the plants. i 18f 19i l CRESSWELL: I understand that. Is it a fair characterization that 20 regarding the high radiation readings that the... say the release of 21! 22 that activity that the mechanism that caused that was unknown? 23 ROGERS: Yes, that true. I said that in when we actually brought the 24\\ l system pressure down delibrately by control action and we did not get 25i BSS M - 9 P s 6 t -v
i 'I 47 a large volume of water out of core flood tanks. I think we all, in our own minds, at that point felt that the core had never been uncovered. I really believe that we more or less all breathed a sigh of relief at 3 that point. The core is not uncovered and probably has not been. Not 4 really going any further backwards' and seeing that there was a time Si 6l! that there may have been. I don't think we asked ourselves that. 7l RESNER: For the record that was Mr. Cresswell asking that last series of questions. i 10l HUNTER: I wanted to cover again in the area you indicated that there ll! l was the bridces had been hooked up to the reactor protection system 121 resistance thermometers and that you had read temperatures greater 13 than 700 degrees Fahrenheit. Are you saying that the tempeatures were 14I i 701 or 2000? 15i 16i ROGERS: No, I think the calibration curves go only up to 710 degrees 17 or something like that. 18( l 19 HUNTER: Were they above that point? 20 21 ROGERS: The resistance was a little above that. 22 23 HUNTER: A little bit? 24 I
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5 i l 48 ROGERS: Yes. 2 HUNTER: Did you have any feel for what the temperatures might have 4l been, like 750 or maybe 800? i Si ,I CRESSWELL: I think he said, and you correct me if I am wrong Lee, el that they didn't believe those indications. 8 HUNTER: I heard him? I understand that. Jim I want to know what they were. 101 i 11 ROGERS: Yeah, I am not to sure just how high the calibration curves 12 go but it's only over a little of 700 degrees and the correspondence 13 resistence that we are reading was a little above the highest value 141 l that the calibration curve goes to. O! 16 HUNTER: Ok, that's what I want to make sure and another thing at this 17! same' time, did you in fact, or_ was discussed in the caucus did you 18( discuss the incore thermocouples and read in all of those? 19f 20i t ROGERS: Incore zone thermocouples? 21 22 HUNTER: Right. 23 24 9 25 i t 855 16a-3 t
l 49 1 CRESSWELL: I don't know if we did in caucus. In the general control room discussions and conversations, I overheard, "What are the incore thermocouples reading?", and because you had to go over and call it out to get it, whoever the operators were that did that, I am not sure, they reported it. They had a lot of them that were not printing l out and we weren't to sure of what it was saying to them at the point. 6i That's kind of conversation that I did overhear. Some of them are 71 reading pretty high and some of them are reading 600 and some degrees. A lot of them are not reading or not indicating and we don't know what 9L it means. I believe it was either Gary Miller or Kunder or one of 10t the other supervisors in there asked the IT (instrument technician) lli l operators to hook a bridge and read them out before the input to the 12' computer te see if you get a direct reading on them. 13. t 14! HUNTER: Leland, where do you go down and read tnose off a millivolt 15i bridge you know? 16l lill ROGER: I am'not sure. I think it's down in the relay room but it 18l could be --in the relay room is the most logical choice. 19! 20 HUNTER: After they had done that particular evolution, hook onto the 21l millivolt bridge onto the thermocouple were you aware of any thermocouple 22l readings that were provided to Gary Miller or yourself as giving you an indication of? 24 g}} }bb i l I
'l 50 i ROGERS: Yeah, we heard some numbers but they varied from 200 to 600 to one that reads extremely high. No one knew was sure what that was really meaning at that point. 4; HUNTER: O k. Si i CRESSWELL: Just a moment, an IT is an instrument technician. Go 7! ahead Dorwin. 8 g! HUNTER: Ok can you give us a feel for the time when you were made 101 l aware of the thermocouple readings or when you felt like they came up? 11.: 12 ROGERS: It was ir, the morning, that's all I can say. 13 14i j HUNTER: Ok, alright, that's fine. In the area of a reactor coolant 15i pressure you had a low pressure condition, OK, 1,350 pounds. Getting 16i back when this was the plant status when it was given to you. 17} 18( ) ROGERS: Yeah, right. 19 20t' HUNTER: During the morning in that time frame and the power operated 21. relief isolation valve had been closed, as indicated to you and by you 22 during your telephone conversation somebody had indicated it was 23 closed. Was there any discussion concerning a loss of coolant from 24 another source other than the power operated relief valve at that 25! BSS 167 i I i
l 51 g time; or a discussion as to why you could not maintain system pressure above the high pressure injection set point of 1,600 pounds? f 3 ROGERS: The control room also indicated that they though they had a gl leak in the "B" steam generator and consequently the "B" steam generator was bottled up as I got to the control room. I am not sure whether George in the conference call _ told us about the problems with the "B" steam generator suspected leakage. or not. I not sure whether that h'appened or not. I think, maybe, it had but its pretty hazy at this time. 10 11 HUNTER: Can you give us your input as far as the reactor system as 12! you understood it? After the conference call and even at eight or 13 seven when you came in at seven, almost eight o' clock? Your feelings 14i ( about reactor coolant system pressure still at the level at the level 15i j of 1200 to 1300 pounds throughout the morning from four o' clock right 16i on until seven o' clock and then yr" guys, caucus, decided to charge 17. the system pressure back up? IS{ 19! ROGERS: I am not sure what your question if that is a question, what 20 is means. 21 22l HUNTER: Ok, looking at the event, OK, generally the plant set at 23 saturation temperature pressure conditions for a long period of time 24 and trying to get a feel for any discussions or any questions of that 25 855 168 ~ i k
52 1 condition by you, by Gary Miller any discussions with Jack Herbein that we need to increase the pressure and get the plant above saturation pressure? 3 4 ROGERS: Not that I recall. I don't think we talked about saturation 5 pressure temperature conditions existing at all. 7' i HUNTER: Do you recall what you were keying on or what those fellow were keying on? What you keyed on were... you know you are the site operations manager, what did you key on? 10 lli l ROGERS: I frankly didn't have any idea of where the coolant system 12' temperatures were, what we were dealing with. On the panel indications 13 we were off scale on the TH. Our TC's were low. They were in a low 1M temperature range. I guess, maybe I am going back to the years and 1Si years of looking at regular reactor coolant systems conditions and 16 j figuring that when they don't have reactor coolant system flow by pump 17[1 our RTDs are not telling us anything about the conditions in the core. 18f I kind of forget that it's really telling me anything about core i 191 conditions because I don't have anything I can directly read the core 20{1 I am not directly looking at the core or a reactor vess'el area. Also 21! I guess I'd admit at this point thinking as long c we have no flow I 22lj wasn't necessarily believing any of the RTDs telling me system conditions. 23 That would be my impressions of my thoughts. 24j 25{ l 1 t' i 855 169
.i l 53 1 CRESSWELL: That's assuming no natural circulation? You said you don't believe the RTDs are representative core conditions? 2 i 3 ROGERS: Well, I have a B steam generator isolatea; I knew that that
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9 * ** 9 "9 9 * ** 5 ,i any flow indications obviously or natural circulation. It didn't look ol like we had after we recognized the we had steam in our loops, there i ,I' I was no indication that we could ever get flow, natural circulation or 8l otherwise until we had water back in that loop. So I guess I just 9i i totally discounted the fact that tho"e temperature indications were 10l l giving me anything I could use in analyzing where we were and what was 11! going on. 12l 13 CRESSWELL: Would that core have been hotter than they indicated? or 141 cooler? 16l ROGERS: It could have been either one. Your injection flow could 17 keep the core considerably cooler than the steam that you had. rapped 181 in the loops. You know you are putting colder water in than what you 19l had in there to start with. So you are sure that your high pressure 20! i injection flow is more than likely got the core in considerably safe 21i condition. Colder than what the conditions were when we got steam in 22 the loops. I just wouldn't rely upon my loop indications as telling 23 me anything about what other water in the system is unl'ss I could get e 24l t some kind of known circulation in there. 25! l l I l B55 170
o 54 RESNER: For the record TH is for temperature hot and TC is temperature i cold. 3 HUNTER: Looking back again I want to make sure that the emergency 4 feed water system and the comment before is that -- and I want to make sure that I follow is that, generally in the caucus and in your discussion that really wasn't picked up until the next day, if I understand you right. ROGERS: That's correct. 10 111 l HUNTER: OK. 12.' 13 l CRESSWELL: If you have a minute there Dorwin I would like to ask a 14! question. Could you go back and look at the day of the 28th and 15! discuss with us the contacts that you made personally with B&W? We 16i have already established that you had a discussion somewhere around 17 7:45 in the morning with Mr. Spangler. When was the next time you made 18j contact'with B&W in Lynchburg? -19i 20 ROGERS: They felt that I could talk easier to my guy Greg Schidell 21 offsite in the local area. It was a local call and so I didn't call 22l Lynchburg directly until later on in the day so any conversation that 23 I had with B&W peogle it was through Greg Schidell I used him as my 241 communications assistent because I could call directly out to_his home 25! I I )
55 in Harrisburg on a local line rather than trying to get a long distance line which were relatively impossible to try to break through. I alled Greg and talked to him. 3 t 41 i CRESSWELL: At home? Si i 6l ROGERS: At his home and feed him the information. The first time I talked to Greg I believe he was in the visitors center. He got shunted off to the visitors center right as he came in to work that morning. 9l I believe he called me from there to let me know that he was there and 10l available. Then we restablished at some point and time during the day 11l l later on with him at his home. I used that as a communication flow to 12l his home and let him talk to Lynchburg. He could make the long distance 131 l call a lot easier than I could. 141 15 CRESSWELL: Ok, so about what time would you have Mr. Schidell at 16i I home? 17 18l ROGERS: I don't know. I know that I talked to him about four or five 19l times during that day before I next called Lynchburg directly myself 20 but timewise I couldn't tell you. 21! t 22 CRESSWELL: About what time did you call Lynchburg yourself. 23l 24 25 l 855 172
\\ ES ROGERS: I can relate it to events better than time. 7 2; CRESSWELL: Ok, good, that's fine. 3 4j ROCERS: After Miller and Herbein had gone to see the governor or Bill 51 Scranton, I am not sure who they were called out to see. It was 61 either Governor Thornburg or Bill Scranton. They went'to see him. By the time they got back, shortly Ifter Miller got back into the control room Herbein had directed that we must take the plant back up to full 9l system pressure and even though the people in the control by that time had felt some measure of success we had got the A loop filled back with water again. We were hoping to get it with the B loop. We did 12l not feel we would get from what we've seen earlier in the morning, at 13 1 [ least, would not get the loops filled with water at high pressure. 14t Whatever the mechanism was, we know it occurred at a low pressure 15i condition and not a high pressure. So, we were hoping to get that 8 16: loop filled with water at that point when it was directed from the 17! visitors center that the plant must be taken back up to full system 18t i pressure. Around the 1,700 pounds in that escalation, I had a conversation 191 l with Herbein and suggested to him that our best move at this point was 20l to get a reactor coolant pump started in the loop and we could then 21l } maybe sweep the steam voids out of the B loop and the rest of the 22lI system. He said, fine, go ahead I talked to Miller and told him what 23l Herbein and I had discussed. My go ahead their was to contact Lynchburg 24 and get them on board with us, knowing that we're going to try and 1 25 start a reactor coolant pump. 855.173 i
57 l g RESNER: At this time we will take a break to change the tape. The time 10:58 a.m. eastern c'aylight time. This is a continuation of the i interview with Mr. Leland C. Rogers. The time now is 10:59 a.m. 3 eastern daylight time. 4;; 5l l CRESSWELL: Leland, I would like for you to go back to the time that 61 I you were talking to Mr. Herbein and making a_ suggestion to him about 71 gettin a reactor coolant pump started. 9l ROGERS: Yes, Jack and I had concluded our discussions with -- we will get in touch with Lynchburg and get them on board with us on starting 111 l the reactor cooling pump in A Loop. At that point in time when I got 12! off the phone with Jack I called Lynchburg and got through to them. 13' We started discussions then. We felt that it was the proper move to 14 i start a reactor cooling pump and they were agreeing with us. As I 15i find out later they were arriving at the situation about the same time 16i we were. Independent of each other. We didn't know that. It took 17l quite a period of time, and by that I'm saying they didn't say go i 18 ahead and start it. There was a discussion of give me all your plant 191 l parameters. So, tnerefore it took me a while to get all these pieces ?.01 i of information to them of where we were plantwise and they wanted us 21l j to verify our seal injection lineup, or seal return lineup and our 22 temperatures and so on in the nuclear servicing system and everything associated with running reactor coolant pump. After we arrived at 24! l that, OK, we got everything in a condition where we can run a pump. 25j i 855 174 l
l i 58 It was concluded that instead o,f going in and saying, let's run a pump let's give it a bump first to she what is going to occur a delibrate act of a' short run, let's say a 10 second run or something like that. l Similar to what you are doing when you are venting your reactor coolant 4! system, in order to give your pumps a bump just to sweep small sections 5l of the system. It was around 7:25 or 7:30, something like that, 61 somewhere around in there where we actually went ahead and started the 7 pump for that short bump. I left the phone off the hook in the supervisor's office and went out and observed the conditions. When they ran the l pump for that short bump and came back and reported to them what had 10t occurred, we had seen some indication that we had moved some water 11! i into the B Loop and the T RTD had taken a significant change downward. H 12! l They had to increase HP high pressure injection flow to make up the 131 collapsing of the voids, I guess, is the best way to say it. System 14I pressure did take a fairly severe transient during that first bump. 15l 16l l CRESSWELL: In what way? 17) 18f ROGERS: Downward. 19i 20I l CRESSWELL: What did you attribute that to? 21l 22 ROGERS: Collapsing of the the voids and the volume was changing the 23-system. The high pressure injection was on and there was an operator 24 calling out the flow rates of the high pressure injection system. 25j >,. 855 17-3 t i f
.l i I 59 Somebody else was call cat the systems pressures as the transient progressed. Pump was then tripped off and Miller said to me, how long y do I have to wait to get it to run again? I said, well normally 15 minutes That's a normal limit precaution we have on a pump motor. 4 Starting current overheats pretty well if you keep bumping them like 5 I that so we -- I just went back to my normal, wait 15 minutes. Plant 61 conditions were then being observed by the operators. At the time the 15 minutes time frame was up Miller wanted to get the pump on again. I was on the phone with Lynchburg and Lynchburg had not necessarily 9l i said go ahead and restart it, when Miller did. He ordered the operator 101 i to start the pump. Because of the lights flashing and the numbers 11! being called out the control room as the transient progressed. I i 12l realized that the pump had been started so I told Lynchburg that the 13 oe A pump had been started and it was running normal. We had flow j indications temperatures were starting to stabilize out. I think 15i everybody in the control room almost let out a big "oh boy." Because 16i all of a sudden we had something we could look at again. The operators 17I. were back into a condition where they knew what was going on. 18 19l CRESSWELL: Would you say that this is the first point in time were 20j they had a handle on what was going on in the reactor coolant system? 21 22) { ROGERS: The first time we could look at all the normal operator 23 parameters and know what was going on yes, that is true. 24 i i ...dSSTM ~ l l 1
60 l i l RESNER: For the record, the final question by Mr. Cresswell.
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I MARTIN: Tim Martin here, Mr. Rogers at any time during the period you 31 were in the No. 2 control room did anyone refer to the side panel 41 primary system temperatures that are on a recorder. If you walk into l the control room and you are facing the panels it's on a back panel to 6! the left. 7 8 ROGERS: You mean the multipoint recorder up to 800 ? I don't really l know I can't say for sure. 10l 11; MARTIN: Mr. Rogers to your knowledge who made the ultimate decision 12 l to repressurize at approximately 5:00 on the 28th? 13! f 14! ROGERS: That came from the visitor's center so I would say that was 15) either Jack Herbein or anybody else that was in there at that time. I 16i know Jack was the person to communicate it so I suppose it was Jack. 17 181 i MARTIN: At anytime during the day did anyone outside agency express 19l concern that the core was covered and ask that the temperatures both 20j thermocouple and T be considered real and that they in fact indicated H 21t l a superheated condition? 22l 23 ROGERS: Not to my knowledge. I am not going to say they did not but I don't know. 25 t 855 \\ll f l t
l 61 .CRESSWELL: Did anybody reporting to you such as John Flint advise you y; of that? l 3 ROGERS: I can't remember if he did. l 51 MARTIN: During you stay in the control room did you see anyone ever refer to Steam Tables to determine whether saturation conditions might exist, if those temperatures could be believed? 9 ROGERS: I looked at the steam tables a couple of times during the day 10 myself, I know other people were looking at them, I don't know now wny I was looking at them. honestly. I cannot relate to why I was looking 121 at the steam table, what I was putting it towards at the time. 13 14! MARTIN: Can you expand on the reasons for the decision to depressurize 15! approximately 1:00 or noon on the 28th. 16i 17 ROGERS: Yes, well expand on it, I think the overriding decision was 18i to insure that we had an known source of water that we could count on 19 being put into that core if the core indeed was not covered. The core 20 flood tanks would do that for us. If it was covered the core flood 21 tanks would tell us that it was covered. I know it was the reason why we did that. 23 r 24! 2s! 855. 0 8
l l t j 62 l y MARTIN _: What was the basis to distrust the HPI capability the high pressure injection capability in keeping the core covered. 3l ROGERS: I guess from an operator's standpoint even though you know the water is going into the system somewhere. At that point we were not all convinced that we had the water going into the core area it was no tal overriding convincing evidence that the HPI was putting I water into the core area. I think because we were unable to collapse 8l the steam voids in the reactor coolant system piping where all, more of a major, I guess, concern that the core has got to be covered. If i 10' it is not covered we want to make sure it is covered. Lets ensure 11. that it is and the only way we could definitely verify that we had 12( water at a level that would go into the core area was with the core 13 l flood tanks. 14! t 15! MARTIN: To your knowledge did anyone refer to the incore subpower 16i i monitors to see what they were doing during this period? 17;! 18f j ROGERS: Not to my knowledge. There were a lot of people, let me 19l amplify that this way. There were a lo; of people in the control room 20 that were doing constructive data collection etc. I am not discounting 21 what was going on I I am not verifying that it was. It is just one of 22 those things. I don't know if anybody looked at the SPND systems at 231 all during the day if they did. I would suspect just knowing John 2 45 Flint that he probably did. John is the kind of guy that'used the i 25! computer and SPND and things like that P l 855 179 I f
63 g 1 I{ RESNER: Excuse me, SPNDs 2 ROGERS: The incore nuclear detectors Self Powered Neution Detector. As a indication of at least conditions. He would be the kind of 4l person that would normally in his own mind develop something like that. John was in there from approximately 9:00 that morning on. I don't know all the things John did. John and I work well together we don't always ask each other what we are doing. 9 MARTIN: Understood. I am trying to understand the purpose of the j depressurization. Was it solely to have the core flood tanks inject 11! into the core' or was there also an additional desire to go on the low 12! pressure decay heat removal system. 13 14I j ROGERS: Well, at that time it was no way we could have gotten to the 15i decay heat but it was obvious step that would be accomplished later 16i on. We did not have any water in the loops. We were not going to be 17! l able to get the decay heat system to operate as a decay heat system 18 until we got water in the loeps so it was more or less okay we were 191 going to have to depressurize to go into decay heat anyway. If we go 201 down and depressurize now and put the core ficod tanks on and verify 21, that the core is indeed covered with water and float on the core flood 22} tanks we would be a step closer to going on decay heat. It is not a 23 deliberate, let us get down in pressure and get on decay heat type of 24 thing. It was the next step down the road, will be going to decay 25! l 855 180
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{I 64 i heat, sure, so we would be in an area where we will be able to go to it. No one in the control room was going to try to go into decay heat when we did not have water in the loops. 4! MARTIN: Mr. Rogers as far as I can determine, you contacted Lynchburgh ol about 7:45 a.m. and you also contacted them directly around 5:00 p.m. 61 i from my time scale, the other contacts that were made to Lynchburgh 71 were made through Mr. Shidell. Can you give me an idea when those occurred and what the purpose of those contacts were. 9' 10i ROGERS: Well, at one time Greg contacted me and said that we had 11l three people being chartered up here from Lynchburgh which were going 12 I 'to be able to help us in anyway possible during that day. Bob Twilley, 131 l Bob Winks and Joe Kelly. There are all systems people and systems 14! 15i components people that would be able to assist us anyway possible. Bob Winks is essentially control analysis engineer and I think at that 16i time Mr. Schidell notified me he said what do you think we ought to do i 17! with these guys when they get here? I said why don't you marshall 18{ them all over to one central location and keep them there until we can 191 find out what we can do. That particular conversation I know it was 201 i more people oriented then plant operating conditions. The intent was 21l of course was to get somebody up here who could help us ana?yze where 22I we were and where we going if they could possibly do so and there was 23 no easy access on and off the island at that time and I knew that, so 24 I figured it would b'e best to keep them located at some central place 2*i ] like Gregg Schidell's house or something. I l f 855 181
4 65 MARTIN: Mr. Rogers during the period that Mr. Miller was called away g someplace in the state government who was in control. 3 ROGERS: Who was the manager in control room for Met Ed? I 51 ,1 MARTIN: Affirmed. el 7 ROGERS: Okay, Mike Ross was the operations supervisor who I believe was the designated man in charge of the control room. 10 MARTIN: Were any changes made during that period of absence. 11' 12: ROGERS: No I don't think I can recall vividly that Gary stated as he 13 l left don't change anything until I get back unless you have to because 14] of an emergency. That was kind of a marching orders that Mike Ross 15l had. 16I i 17! j MARTIN: Did Mr. Herbein continue to contact control room from the 181 observation center during this perid of absence of Mr. Miller. 19l 20 ROGERS: No, Mr. Herbine was with Mr. Miller. 21 22i MARTIN: He was. Was there anyone in the observation center who was 23 maintaining contact during this period 24 25 ,I 855 182 i i l.
66 ROGERS: There may have been I don't know. I know the emergency control station over in Unit 1 Control room was in communication with the observation center in that regard as far as plant operations go I don't know of any communications or directions that were coming from them at all. No, I don't know. 5:l Gl MARTIN: What problems were experienced in Unit 2 control room relative to communications when you had to find yourselves in resp'rators? 9l ROGERS: Any communications is difficult in respirators. Except for a 10 few individuals who had the right resonant voice frequency it is very 11. difficult. I say that in somewhat lighter circumstances because Dick 12. Dubiel voice is one of those voices that is unbelievably tuned to the I 13\\ resonnance of the respirator face mask he had on. He was at one side 141 l of the control room speaking in conversation with someone standing 15i next to him and everybody in the control room could hear him. Something 16i I never realized was that critical but it certainly was. Yes respirator i 17 communication is less than desirable. 18l i 19l l MARTIN: We had reports that people had to temporarily remove their 20 masks to communicate in some cases because of difficulties in this 21f area, is that true? 22 23 ROGERS: I don't know of that it may have been but I don't know that. 24 25l t 855 183 i l
67 CRESSWELL: You, yourself did not have to do that? g i 2 3 ROGERS: No at least I don't know if they heard me or not but I was saying things through it. I presumed that they did. 5 MARTIN: Once unit 2 control room was evacuated around 10:30 in the a.m., approximately how many people were in the control room? 8 ROGERS: I don't know, I realize that, I remember that that occurred. I remember that the kind of order was all non necessary people will evacuate from the control room and I was requested to stay, beyond 11] that I really don't know how many people. A fairly large number of 12; maintenance people and maintenance supervisors and other kinds of 13 plant operating people that were in and out of the control room all 14! that morning long during the period of time there were very few of those people around they were being brought in as requested at that 16! time I would not know how many people. It was a large number change 17 of people were coming in and going back out of the control room but i 181 probably the number of operators remained relatively the same. Critical 19t operators. 20f i 21l i MARTIN: Mr. Rogers who was directing the operators to take action? 22l Was it the Shift Supervisor or...? 23 24l 25i t t 855 184
l I 68 ROGERS: The supervisor was for the operators, yes. Any of the other g y people in there were acting as a consultant so to speak. We would d sit down and decide what was proper action to take place, you know a i caucus type of arrangement, and the shift s'upervisor then be notified of what action to take. They carried out that action. l 6i CRESSWELL: Were there points at which Gary Miller directly gave orders to the operators? 9 ROGERS: Not that I recall, no I would say as far as the normal mode of doing business in the control room that continued all through that day as if there had been no incident at all. It was pretty much the 12 same kind of operation that you would always expect to see the shift 13 i supervisor was directing the operators in the control room and the 14i shift supervisor was getting his suggestions from the other people 15i that were there. Any kind of condition that was going to change where 16i we were or attempt to change where we were it was pretty much always a 17 caucus agreement everybody that was there was invited into the caucus 18f area, had input into what could go wrong, what is going to be the next 19l i step if this doesn't work, what should we expect to see if it does 20i i work? A pretty thorough type of caucusing really in light of conditions. 21l 22 CRESSWELL: I have before me a series of charts dated 4/27/79 they are 23 identified by a B&W mark they are further identified by a numbering 2 41 system RM l-1 thru 16, RM 2-1 thru 16, RM 3-1 thru 16, RM 4-1 thru 3, i 2sj t SSS *.- i I
r .j I 69 i y RM 5-1 thru ll, RM 6-1 thru 11, RM 7-1, RM 8-1 and RM 9-1. I would like to ask you at this time have you seen these charts before? 3i ROGERS: Yes, last night. 4 5 CRESSWELL: Is that the first time you have seen them? 6t 7 ROGERS: Let me say I have had them in my possession for' a week and a half but last night was the first night I really sat down and looked at them to see what they had in them. Because the fact that we had generated our own set of curves here at the Island and those were the ll! I curves we had been looking at up to this point. And when I was in 12! l Lynchburgh I got a copy of these I did not necessarily have the time 13l to digest them until last night. 14! i 15j CRESSWELL: Who in Lynchburgh gave you a copy of these? 16! i 17] l ROGERS: I am not sure, somebody in nuclear service asked me if I had 18l a copy and I said I did not th' ink I did so they gave them.to me. 19l 20 CRESSWELL: Do you know how these particular curves were generated? 21 22 ROGEPS: I believe the majority information in there came from the 23 reactimeter system data collection, which we transmitted to Lynchburgh 24 l in addition to making our own curves we sent data down there for them 25 I i \\ l 855 186' f
i 7o to go through a data reduction program of their own which I believe is i the source.of it. 2 3! CRESSWELL: Okay do you know what the purpose what purpose these 4; charts were used for? 6l ROGERS: Fcr them to have a set of information to look at. 7 The obvious answer to that. 8 i H CRESSWELL: That is all I have. 10I 11; i MARTIN: Mr. Rogers, Tim Martin here, to your knowledge did anyone 12! look at pressurizer temperature compare that to a steam table and 13 determine if saturation conditions existed there, and if so what was 14! l the result of that determination? 15i 16i i ROGERS: We had 350* in the pressurizer as I recall most of the day 17l1 and not able to change that reading much that is probably why I was 18f using the steam tables to find out what temperature we had to get to 191 l get a bubble back in the pressurizer and that I know was being looked 20[ j at for that particular thing. If we could get the temperature up in 21l the pressurizer we could get a bubble back in the pressurizer and get 22 things at least in one area under control and because we did not have 231 1 the heaters we just could not get the input to i'.. Each time we ran 2 41 HP injection through the pressurizer as a pressure control either i 25l I '855 187 l i i
71 gj going up or going down especially going down we just continued to keep, it cold. 2, The heaters we had available were just not getting anywhere. That was one point we recognized during the day. 3 4; CRESSWELL: How was the high pressure injection keeping the pressurizer 5 cold? 6,! 7 ROGERS: We are pumping water into the system we got the vent valve opened on the pressurizer. It is mostly high pressure injection that is going out to the pressurizer. 11l l CRESSWELL: Okay so what path did the high pressurizer injection water 12l take. 13 l 14! ROGERS: High pressure injection in the A Hot leg through the surge 15i line into the pressurizer and out the, I am sorry it does not go that 16l i 17f In the A cold leg, it would then get into the A hot leg from the way. top of the core and go out to the expansion surge line in the pressurizer i 18l out to the pressurizer top. 19l I 201 CRESSWELL: Let me see, how did it get in from the cold leg up the hot 21 leg. 23 ROGERS: Through the reactor vessel. 24 25l f '855 188 I l
s i 72 l CRESSWELL: Through the vessel huh, 2 HUNTER: Hunter speaking, Lee what I think what Jim wants you to indicate is the flow path of cold leg injection all the way out the 4,; j power operated relief valve. 5t 6 ROGERS: The four injection lines connected into each of the 4 cold legs. The flow path in a normal consideration would be into the cold leg, injection into the vessel which would then go through the annulus into the bottom of the core up to the core hrea and out the hot leg if 10J l we are going to flow path out through the pressurizer this is the flow lli l path it would take. If a piece of water took that path let us say 121' that the discussion went on in the control room at least several 13 times, maybe we were bypassing the core maybe we are not going through i 14l the core. Not knowing what we had and not understanding everything 15i that was available to us, there was a lot of discussion in that particular 16i l area. As we continued to the put high pressure injection cold water 17! into the system the water that was going through the core was still I 181 coming out at colder temperatures as a volume flow than going out 19j ~ through the surge line into the pressurizer keeping even the pressurizer 20 cold as we' continued to pump it through. That was colder than the 21( i temperatures we had in the loops up there in the steam bubbles. We 22 were, frankly, we were not sure what we had but we did know we... 23 24 25l 855 \\S9 i
-( 73 li This is the continuation of the interview of Mr. Leland C. Rogers. The time now is 11:28 a.m. 3 4l sl CRESSWELL: This is Ji'm Cresswell again. Lee, we were' talking about ,I the postulated flow paths that were discussed during the event regarding 6t what the path of high pressure injection water could have been to reach the pressurizer. If you would go back in detail discuss what the postulations were at that time. 9l i 10 ROGERS: Most of the discussion was that the flow path should have lli been, but we know that it is? That is the kind of development that 12; everybody, in their own minds was trying to figure out and is there 131 l something going on that we don't know about. Is there really a flow 14! i path in there that is not the normal flow path. Again because of the 15i little knowledge we had we knew we had no heaters so we could not do 16i ( much there. Everytime we did put HP injection in we were getting 17! l keeping the pressurizer temperatures low we were not thoroughly convinced 18( that as a group or maybe individually that maybe we were not bypassing 19{ the core in some form and getting through the pressurizer like that. 13 We really didn't have enough clear data, to us, to come up with a 21! conclusion that all that water was going through the core. 22 23 CRESSWELL: Well somebody must have postulated some sort of way to 24i bypass the core. Some path. 25l 855 190 ~ i
I i 74 I ROGERS: Well, they may have but I don't know that it ever happened 1l like that. All I can say is that I know there were discussions that I maybe we're bypassing the core I don't think anybody ever gave you 3! I what is broken or anything like that that kind of thing that may have 4! 5: provided those flow patterns. 61 CRESSWELL: For instance the... internal vent valves were never discussed 7 in this regard. 9l l ROGERS: Not that I can remember no. They may have. 10 11l CRESSWEl L: Okay you stated that the temperature measurements that 12 i were being taken were in the liquid normal liquid space of the pressurizer 131 l from resistance temperature detector. 14{ 15i ROGERS: Yes. 16i 17 CRESSWELL: If no one has any further questions then we will turn it IS{ back over to the moderator. 19) 20l R_ESNER: Thank you Jim. The time now is 11:32 a.m., EDT, we will 21l close this interview. 22 23 RESNER: This is Mark Resner this is going to be a continuation of the 24 interview of Mr. Rogers. The time now is 11:35 EDT. Mr. Rogers wants 25 to make some additional comments. 855 191 e
i .i l 75 \\ i ROGERS: I think when we started the interview a point was made that i maybe some recommendations could be asked. There are possibly a lot of recommendations if I had more time to think about it I might come up with them. A significant contribution in a post trip or post 4 incident could be obtained if we had a system in the control room like the aircraft industry inflight recording system..nich whenever a plant transient such as a turbine trip or reactor trip or either, it initiates a system which comes on line and records conversations and maybe even more detailed and complicated system a lot of parameters which need to be recorded for prosterity. Something that would be rather costly but 10l would be well worth it in the long run even though I don't want to have any more of the incidences, something like this on a normal plant trip would help for future training and operator understanding of what 13 did go on and maybe even psychological affects on some of the people. 14! As far as' communications, in the control room goes, one of the worst things that can occur in the middle of operators who are licensed and 16i j qualified in running a plant is interruptions by the outside agencies 171 over the telephone or radiophone'trying to find out what is going on 18! and trying to make decisions of how to go to the next step. My personal 191 l opinion is, the people offsite even if they are only two hundred yards 201 i across the river at the abaservation center don't have enough plant 21! data information available to them to be able to direct and make a 22' decision which the operator should then be carrying out. I don't 23 think it is the way something should be handled. I think it is by operating by remote control. You don't hava enough required information " 251 55 192 I I
e o 76 to make proper decisions which many times could complicate the operation and maybe in some cases cause severe damages. That is my opinion, but I think it is something that really has to be considered before people move in and try to. direct operations of a complicated system such as a reactor plant by remote control. It is just something that is too H deep and too complicated for anybody to attempt. Afterwards, the only el thing I wirl say about NRC is that in the days after this occurrence 8l there were too many NRC people onsite that did not kn0w t'le plant 1 systems, the plant operations and how they should be operated. They seriously inhibited proper information flow and proper guidance from the NRC because they did not understand the questions that they were lli asking, they did not understand the answers they got. An awful lot of 12{ time in my own personal case was devoted to answering people from the 13 j NRC's questions. By making sure I qualified the answers before I gave 14! the answer. I wanted to make sure the guy asking the question understood 15i what the answer meant. Just doing that takes a lot of time, I had to 16i make sure the person understood what information he was getting so 17 that it was required for him to have a lot more pieces of infcemation ISj fed.to him before I could tell him what the answer was to the basic 19! question. The NRC people should be here asking questions that understand 201 l what the question really is and what the answer means when they get 21{i it. 22 23 HUNTER: This is Hunter speaking thank you Mr. Rogers. That is good 24 information. Appreciate your time. 25j I.
e. p 4 77 RESNER: This interview is complete and the time now is 11:40 a.m. l,i i EDT. 3 4 5 _61 m 7 8 9 i 10 11 f j 12' 13 14, 15l -16i 17 18! l 19l -20 l 21 22 23
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