ML19305A525
| ML19305A525 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/05/1979 |
| From: | Neely D NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908300082 | |
| Download: ML19305A525 (18) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION i
1 In the Matter of:
2l IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW i
3l of 41 Mr. Donald R. Neely
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Radiation Specialist Si 6l 7
8l Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10j Middletown, Pennsylvania 11!
I May 5, 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) i 131 June 14, 1979 (Oate Transcript Typed) 14I l
142 15!
(Tape Number (s))
I 16!
17:
18f 19f 20l oh NRC PERSONNEL:
22l:
Mr. Thomas T. Martin, Inspecti)n Specialist 23'I Owen C. Shackleton, Investigator
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SHACKLETON: The time is now 1:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 5, 2i j
1979. This is an interview of Mr. Donald R. Neely.
Mr. Neely is a 3
Radiation Specialist assigned to Region I, the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory 4!
Commission.
And from the beginning of the incident at Three Mile t
f Island Nuclear Power Plant on March 28, 1979, he has had a great dea'l to do with the surveillance being provided by the Nuclear Regulatory 7
Commission in his field of radiation protection.
Present to conduct 8I this interview is Mr. Thomas T. Martin.
Mr. Martin is an Inspection 9
Specialist, Performance Appraisal Branch, Inspection and Enforcement, 10 Reactor Construction and Inspection. My name is Owen C.' Shackleton.
I 11
, am an investigator assigned to Region V.
This interview is being 12l conducted in trailer 203, parked just outside the south gate of the 13 Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant operated by the Metropolitan Edison 14l Company.
I will now turn the interview over to Mr. Martin.
15i 16l
. MARTIN:
I am interested in period of time that you were in Unit 2 17 control room on March 28th, with Jim Higgins, and trying to understand I
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what was going on there relative to operations, and who was in command, 19 and what evolutions were going on.
Do you have any feel for what time 20!
you arrvied in Unit 2?
21f 22 NEELY:
Yes.
We, on March 28, 1979, we arrived at the site about 10 23 after 10:00 in the morning and within 45 minutes we were in the Unit 2 24,
. control room.
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2 1
MARTIN:
When you arrived in the control room of Unit 2, what were 2
conditions there?
31 1
4 NEELY:
Conditions in the control room appeared to be in a confusing 5
state, quite a few people in there, personnel, lot of traffic throug'h 6i the control room, with people in. protective clothing going in and out, 7
lot of discussions going on trying to make operational corrections and 8
this different type of things going on.
9f 10 MARTIN: What was the noise level?
11 12' NEELY:
Noise level was very high.
13 r
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MARTIN:
Can you give me an approximate number of people that were in 15!
the control room?
16j I
17j NEELY:
I would estimate in excess of 20 people.
That being in the 18!
supervisor's office the offices off to the side and'actually the control l
191 room itself.
i 20 21(
MARTIN: Who was in command at that time? Who was controlling the 22-operations?
23 24 NEELY:
It was Gary Miller, the plant manager.
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857 190 i
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1 MARTIN: Where did you station yourself once you got into the control I
room?
3 4!
NEELY:
I...we had debriefed with, if I remember correctly, Mr. Miller, i
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myself and Higgins.
Jim Higgins, inspector.
6 7
MARTIN: Where did you station yourself after this debriefing?
8 9
NEELY:
Out in the control room area itself, as far as,...where the 10; phones were hooked up for the offsite monitoring teams were radioing I
11l them.
12l 13 MARTIN:
When did you get in touch with Region 1 directly?
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15 NEELY:
I got in touch with Region 1 first of all in the Unit 1 control 16l
. room which we had went in there on our initial arrival and established 17 communications with Region 1, as far as health physics.
18f 19l MARTIN:
Okay, but when you got into Unit 2 control room did you ever I
20 establish phone link to Region 1?
21:
4 22-NEELY:
I, myself, did not, but it was established.
23 24 MARTIN:
From the time of about 10:55 when you arrived in the control l
251 room, what evolutions were going on?
I am interested in operational f
evolutions, those associated with the operating of equipment in the l
plant itself.
857 191 i
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NEELY:
Lets see, could you repeat that question again?
2 3
MARTIN:
I am interested in those things associated with the operation 4!
l of the primary system and its support systems. If you've got any in-formation relative to those systems, I'd like to hear about it.
6 7
NEELY:
I'd...at this time I don't recall any since my main objective 0
was to determine the radiation safety conditions in the plant and I 9
was,...made contact with Dick Dubiel'who was the radiation protection 10' manager in the control room.
11l 12l MARTIN:
Did you assist Jim Higgins in any way in gathering the opera-t 13 tional information?
14 15 NEELY:
No I did not.
It was,...he was doing his part of the inspection 16:
and investigation and I was doing mine.
17 18 MARTIN:
Now, did you look at any parameters, off instrumentation in 19f Unit 2 control room?
l 201 I
21 NEELY:
Yeah, I looked at the dome monitor.
l 22l 23 MARTIN:
And this is on one of the back panels between...
241 l
NEELY:
Its behind, its the far panel behind the control panel.
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MARTIN:
Did you look at any oti.ar indicators?
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NEELY:
Process monitors.
Area monitors.
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Si l
MARTIN:
Could you describe what you found on those?
Si 7l NEELY: Many of those, the process monitors were off scale.
The ARMS j
8l for fuel handling building and other various ARMS were reading signi-9f ficantly high.
i 10' 111 MARTIN:
Did you get any information relative to the status in the 12 auxiliary building itself?
13 i
14 NEELY:
The status I had that there was,...and this was probably some-t 15!
where around an hour so so later, if I remember correctly,... that 16!
there was water on the floor in certain areas of the basement areas of 17 the aux building.
That there had been water pumped over from the Unit, 18l containment sump.
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20l MARTIN:
This would be elevation 281? At lowest level?
21.
22 NEELY:
Yes.
23 24-MARTIN:
In the aux building?
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6 lj NEELY:
Yes.
21 3I, MARTIN:
Do you remember any specifics, like whether the descriptions 41 l
of the sump levels or...?
5l l
Of NEELY:
Numbers that were-told to me were 4 inches deep.
In some 7
places a foot deep.
And it was in a location of tank room.
In what 8
tank room, I don't, can't remember.
9 10f MARTIN:
Do you remember any discussion about inability to start pumps 11 down at that lower level, from the...?
12 13 NEELY:
Yes.
14 15l
~ MARTIN:
... waste disposal panel, I believe it was?
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17l NEELY:
Yes, there was the, I can't recall whether it was the first day 18l or the second day I heard that, but they could not get the sump pumps 19f running.
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MARTIN:
Do you know where those controls are? Which panels? And what 22 elevation they are located? That floor or is it one floor above?
23 24 NEELY:
I, myself I was not familiar with the building so I could l
25j not...
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MARTIN:
Did you ever make the tour into the auxiliary building or...?
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3 NEELY:
No, I did not.
Radiation levels were were significantly high 4!
j and everybody going in was supposed to be wearing airpacks.
Supplied Si j
air packs.
Gj 7l MARTIN:
Now you were actually in Unit 2 control room, did you ever get i
0 down to the Chem lab or the levels immediately below the the control 9
room?
101 i
11 NEELY:
No. I did not.
At various times during the day we were off and 12 on mask in the control room.
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14 MARTIN:
You have a feel for what times you went into masks and came 15i out of them?
16i 17 NEELY:
It seems like...it was probably within the first 3 hours3.472222e-5 days <br />8.333333e-4 hours <br />4.960317e-6 weeks <br />1.1415e-6 months <br /> the 18 first time we wore masks in the control room.
And I think we were on 19l masks pretty much the whole time in the Unit 2 control room at until 20!
about, it, was probably 3 or 4 o' clock in the afternoon on the first 21:l day.
I 22-23 MARTIN:
How long did you stay in Unit 2 control room?
l 2 41 25 NEELY:
I stayed in the Unit 2 control room til approximately 6 o' clock
.I on March 28.
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8 1l MARTIN:
Had the number of people in Unit 2 control room changed during 2
this period of time from about 11 o' clock on? I know we had an evacuation 3
of the control room.
Did many people actually leave?
4f l
5I NEELY:
No, they did not.
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7 MARTIN:
Were most people involved in something there or were they just 8
watching?
Si 10 NEELY:
They were, there were various types from Health Physics personnel 11 to Babcock and Wilcox personnel.
Supervisory, the actual on-shift, 12 operations personnel and I don't know who the rest of them were in 13 there.
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l 15i MARTIN:
What were the Babcock and Wilc'ox people doing?
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i 17l NEELY:
They were advising the licensee on what their feelings are of IS{
what had happened and were making recommendations as to different 19 operational' corrections.
20l 21 MARTIN:
Do you know the names of those B&W people?
22l 23 NEELY:
No, I do not.
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MARTIN:
How many were there?
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3 NEELY:
There were two.
I talked to them myself but I did not take 4l their names down.
Apparently they'd been here, they were already on site during, I guess, startup.
6i MARTIN:
Where were they stationing themselves in the control room?
8 9f NEELY:
They were moving anywhere in the control to the panels and to 10:
the to the supervisor':, office anywhere they felt like it because they lif were directly involved in the recovery operation.
12f 13 MART:N:
Did you see them patching into panels and attempting to get 14 readings from indicators in the plant? Or were they just using the 15l front panel indications and the back panel indications that were installed 16i
. in the plant?
17!
181 NEELY:
I can't really, I didn't notice them doing...
19l 20f MARTIN:
OK, you didn't see them hook up thermolcouples,...
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22 NEELY:
No 23 l
24l MARTIN:
Millivolt boxes? or bridges for the RTD's, then?
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j NEELY:
No. My main discussions with them were trying to determine 2l l
whether they thought the core had in fact been uncovered.
31 4l MARTIN:
Let me pursue that. What was the substance of that conversation c
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and what kind of questions were they asking or vice versa, were you 6'
asking.of them?
7 8
NEELY: Well, due to the air concentrations that were out in the aux ~
building and the fuel handling building, I was questioning as to whether 10 the fuel had been uncovered, due to that this would be a result of such 11 a sit.dation happening.
And for 2 days they denied that the fuel had la'N eve'r been uncovered.
13 14l MARTIN:
What was the status of the ventila. tion in the aux building 15 during this period?
16!
l 17l NEELY:
Ventilation in aux and fuel building were all on.
181 19i MARTIN:
That would direct the flow through filters before it goes up 20f the stack?
21l 22 NEELY:
That's correct.
23l 24 MARTIN:
Was there at any t me, do you know, that the ventilation i
25l system was shut down?
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I,...apparently there was some time there, that I can recal' NEELY:
2
j somebody talking about it being down. In fact, also, the people from 31 j
the State of Pennsylvania was pushing to have the ventilation shut 4!
down.
i Si 6
MARTIN:
But you don't have any idea when that might have occurred?
7!
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NEELY:
No, I don't.
10 MARTIN:
Did you hear any discussion relative to securing the atmospheric 11!
steam dump that was being used during that afternoon?
I 12l 13 NEELY:
No, I did not.
i 14l 15i MARTidi Did you note ary changes in the area radiation monitors, or 16f other radiation monitori you were looking at during this period that i
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Weuld indicate a concer tration of radionuclides in the particular part 18i of the building? or;..
19l 20 NEELY:
No, they...mos; of them were already pretty well off scale.
21 And, the people had al *eady, I guess, by late in the afternoon, deter-22 mined that the offgassing was a result of the water on the floor down 23 i
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25 357 199 I
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l in the aux buildings, and subsequently this is being drawn over to the fuel building, handling building, into Unit 1.
At that time I had 3
questioned it myself but didn't have factual information to believe 4I that the source could be coming from somewhere else.
I just didn't think that much could be offgassing off the water.
6!
7 MARTIN: When does the control room ventilation system shift to a i
0 recirc model 9i l
10 NEELY:
The control room ventilation?
I am not familiar it.
lli D
MARTIN: You never heard a report that said that it'had shifted to 13 recirc made based upon...
14) 15!
NEELY:
No. I even questioned the control room ventilation, as'to what 16!
. condition it was in, because the door leaving the control room was I
17l constantly being left open by personnel entering and exiting.
So 18f whether, ventilation with the filter system would not be effective 19!
based on that.
20t f
21 3
MARTIN:
Once personnel were in respirators, did they have any problems I
22 with communications?
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13 li NEELY:
Yes, it was very hard to communicate. These masks were not 2
equipped with talking devices.
They in fact, if you wanted to, for 3
instance, if we wanted to talk to the plant manager or the shift super-4 visor, we would have to go in the, to the or talk on the phone in the 51 shift supervisor's office.
You woul'd have to, in fact many peop1e at
~
6 times would remove their masks so they could talk on the phone.
7 0
MARTIN:
Later on in the day they were having a lot of problems with 9
maintaining adequate let-down flow, and some licensees, I think, expressed 10 some concern of the tolerance by NRC of them deliberately over exposing 11 their people to have valves operated. Were you involved at all in those 12I conversations?
13 14!
NEELY:
No I was not. To get involvea in those you just about had to I
151 stand in their way and get in on the conversation.
And many times we'd 16!
find people coming back out of the aux building areas after an entry 1
17j had been made.
So it was hard to stay on top of the different people 18I that were being sent out into the aux buildings to make these valve 19 lineups or what other activities they were doing to support the opera-20 tion of the plant.
2 11 22 MARTIN:
To your knowledge was exposure of personnel a factor in decisions 23 and options that were being considered?
?
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1l NEELY:
Definitely.
In the one specific instance, I requested to the 2'I licensee that they change out the vent samples and, for the station 3l vent, so that they could get some, and put fresh cartridge in so they
~4!
j could get a baseline for determining what actual concentrations were 5
being emitted from the vent.
And I was informed that they could pic'k 6'
anywhere from 500 millirems to 700 millirems per hour just to change 7
the samples and they were concerned about the exposure people received.
8 So, subsequently I think it was at least 20 hours2.314815e-4 days <br />0.00556 hours <br />3.306878e-5 weeks <br />7.61e-6 months <br /> or more before a 9l sample was ever, the charcoal cartridge was ever changed out.
10' 11' MARTIN: We'd had an earlier report that one of the operators went down 12!
to sample the reactor building itself. When he manipulated the valves I
13!
he got water coming out the lines, which should have been an air-filled 14 line. Did you get a similar report or did you hear anything about that?
15i 16l
. NEELY:
No I did not.
17 18l MARTIN:
Was the reactor building air sampler worki,ng, to your knowledge?
19i 20 NEELY:
No the building was isolated.
21 22f MARTIN: -When you say building was isolated...
23 24 NEELY:
Containment.
They were not drawing any samples off of the 25 containment, i
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15 1}
MARTIN:
Was this based upon some decision they'd made to isolate that 2
system or was it, because a containment isolation signal had been 31 j
generated and all valves were shut?
41 NEELY:
That, I think, is the basis for it since they had total. iso-Gl lation.
They did not want to breach integrity.
7' 8
MARTIN:
Don, my charter right now is,... addresses the first 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br /> 9
of the event. Is there any area that we haven't discussed today that 10l you feel that I should be aware that might assist me in an analysis of 11 what went on in that first 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br />? Something that you might have 12 knowledge of?
13 14 NEELY:
From an operational aspect, I'd have to go back for another 15!
. interview. I can't think of anything right now.
16i 17l MARTIN:
Is there any specific concern that you would like to express 18 to me or something that you feel that I should look into, to better 19f understand this event from an operational standpoint?
20i 21!
NEELY:
No. One thing from an operational standpoint is why the control
- 22l room is supposed to have an atmosphere to, not hazardous to personnel, 23 to handle these emergency conditions did not exist in that, in either 24l control room.
Filter systems are supposed to eliminate airborne radio-i 25j nuclides or other gaseous type systems or emitters.
And the ventilation f
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was carried over from Unit 2 to Unit 1 and the fresh air supplies 2
picked it up and took it into, supposedly the Unit 1 control room.
3l Unit I control room actually had higher concentrations of reactor 4
material in the air than Unit 2. It's not factual but rumor has it that 5
the ventilation in Unit 1 is tied into the area of the ventilation o'f OI the sample hood area for Unit 1.
7 8l MARTIN:
Okay, that's good.
I'll look into that.
Thank you very much.
9 Is there any other thing that you can think of that might assist me in 10 this investigation?
11!
12!
NEELY:
You just want it strictly for, operational?
13 ;
14I MARTIN:
Since our Health Physics counterparts will also have an op-15i portunity to tape your, if you got some points to make please do so and 16l
. I'll indicate to them that they should listen to this part of the tape.
17l i
18{
That's, that's all I have as far as what I can think of right now for 19l the operations.
It's been a while, since me and Mike again my charter 20i was to determine the radio;ogical conditions of the plant.
We did have 21!
a lot of involvement with phone calls from outside sources which', other 22 th-n NRC, which at times hindered our investigation efforts.
23 24 MARTIN:
Did you have to respond to any of those?
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1 11 NEELY:
Yes, we did. That was the State of Pennsylvania, the Lieutenant 2'
j Governor's Office.
31 MARTIN:
What was the thrust of his conversation with you?
5 61 NEELY:
They wanted to know the con,ditions in the plant and what kind 7
of releases were being made offsite.
8 9f MARTIN:
Was this the,...I think you made a trip up to the State House.
10 11f NEELY:
I was scheduled, I was requested to, but due to the fact that, 12-from the gaseous isotopes, the short-lived isotopes that were occuring 13 in the building, the clothing I was wearing attracted that type of 14 material and I couldn't be released to go to that, that debriefing.'
15i 16 MARTIN:
Okay Don, I have no further questions.
I'll turn this back 17l over to Mr. Shackelton.
18l 19l SHACKLETON:
Thank you, Tim.
Don, we thank you again for coming, 20j sitting for an interview after a long day's work and as you understand 21l we may ask to have you come again.
And if there is anything comes to I
4 22l mind, please give Tim or myself a call regarding these questions.
23 24l NEELY:
I surely will.
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i SHACKLETON:
And we'll terminate this interview at this time.
It is 2!,
now 1:29 p.m. eastern daylight time, May 5,1979.
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