ML19305A526
| ML19305A526 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/05/1979 |
| From: | Potter T, Woodard K PLG, INC. (FORMERLY PICKARD, LOWE & GARRICK, INC.) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908300089 | |
| Download: ML19305A526 (71) | |
Text
1' UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
.I NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
1!
In the Matter of:
2 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW l
3f of i
4J Mr. Thomas Potter, Pickard, Lowe and Garrick i
Si Mr. Keith Woodard, Pickard, Lowe and Garrick i
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7l i
81 1
Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10, Middletown, Pennsylvania lli i
ttav 5, 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) i 13!
June 23, 1979 (Date Transcript Tyoea) 14!
143 and 144 15j (Tape Numoer(s))
16i 17l 18i
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V O
20f 21' NRC PERSONNEL:
2 ?.,
Thomas H. Essig, Chief, Environmental Inspector Projects Section 23 Robert flarsh, Investigator 24; 25 l
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MARSH:
The date is May 5,1979, time is 3:14 p.m., and this is Bob 21 Marsh, I'm an Investigator with the NRC Regulatory Commission, I am 3l assigned to the Chicago, Illinois Office.
Today we were at the Three 4f Mile Island site and we will be cantinuing interviews and this afternoon Sl we will be meeting with Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Keith Woodard of the l
6l firm Pickard, Lowe, and Garrick.
At this point I'd like the other 7l people present in the room to introduce themselves to spell there last t
81 name, and list their position.
9f 10l ESSIG:
My name is Thomas H. Essig, Chief, Environmental Inspector i
11 Projects Section, USNRC, RIII, Chicago.
12!
l 131 BEHRLE:
William H. Behrle, Project Engineer, Metropolitan Edison 14l Company i
15l 16; MARSH:
At this point, I will indicate that Mr. Behrle is sitting in 17 the room in capacity of the representative from Met Ed, sitting at the 181 request of Mr. Potter.
Mr. Potter and Mr. Woodard.
Gentlemen before 19l we start just to aid the girls in the transcription of these tapes I 20j know immediately that we are going to get into some pretty technical i
21l terms here, and I'm wondering that we could define and spell one or two 22 of them particularly if we are going to be using acronyms so that 23 later in the tape as these terms do come up the girl will know a head l
24 of time what they are instead of trying to define the X/Q in the middle 25j 857 117
s 2
1 of the tape.
If any come to mind besides (bang noise) X/Q I like to 2'
discuss them a bit at this time to aid them in the future.
Tom to you 3
want to take a shot of X/Q first.
4 l
Si ESSIG:
We will be using the term X/Q it is denoted by the Greek letter l
Ol X/Q and it stands for atmospheric dispersion, factor, or parameter and 7
it is normally in units of seconds per cubic meter.
8 9f MARSH:
As far as typing it, what should she use for a symbol for the i
10!
Greek letter, just an X?
11l 12l ESSIG:
She could use.a capital X, unless she happens to have the Greek 13 letter Chi, on here typewritter, probably capital X is the most commonly 14!
used, so it would be X/Q.
15l 16i MARSH:
Okay, any other terms come to mind, that we are going to get i
17i into? Acronyms, pieces of equipment.
18 191 POTTER:
Well, we may speak of a Pasquill defusion group, I believe it 20 is Pasquill it's a standard set of curves that were adopted by meter-21 ologists for describing atmospheric' dispersion.
We may also mention 22 sigma Y or sigma Z these are parts of the dispersion formula.
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MARSH:
That's s-i g-m-a for sigma they basically determine the spread 2!
of the plume.
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4 MARSH:
One other aid I failed to mention that I would like to incorporate 5
due to the number of people in the room.
If you are responding to a 6i question or asking a question, I'd like to preface it by mentioning 7
your name first before you respond.
How bout anything else in the way
~8
_of terms?
9 10j WODDARD:
Isopleth perhaps. What I see on the table in front of me lif there are what we call control room isopleth.
Isopleth is a line 3
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similar to a contour line on a typographic map except that the contours 1
13l that you see here are, denote lines of equal values of X/Q.
14!
15i MARSH:
Could you spell isopleth?
16I 17 WODDARD:
i-s-o p-1 e-t-h and this was Woodard speaking.
181 19l MARSH:
Anything else come to mind here? I guess as long as we are 20 sensitive to it as the pop up during the course of the conversation and 21l I'd like to define them.
t 22 23 MARSH:
Okay, I guess, ah Tom do you want to start, do you want a 24j background, or do you want to go right into the questions?
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POTTER:
We probat.ly could go into the background.
2 3
MARSH:
Gentlemen if you would, how about Mr. Woodard you first, just 4l to a fill out the record a little bit, could you give us,a little bit 5
of your background and your association with the Three Mile Island 6
situation here.
7 8
WOODARD:
Yes, I'm a Nuclear Engineer, I've been working at and with or 9
at Three Mile Island, and with Metropolitan Edison for I think about 10' the last 12 years, primarily on the Three Mile Island project and also 11; on other siting and safety analysis projects.
We have had as one of I
12l our prime responsibilities, the data reduction and to some extent the i
13l operation and calibration of the meterological tower.
This tower has
[
14 been used, has been fully operational during this accident and was 15 under our surveillance at the time.
36i 17 POTTER:
I am a Consulting Health Physicist, I've been with Pickard, 18 Lowe, and Garrick since May of 1973.
And during that period have been 19 involved with Three Mile Island licensing activitie3, kind of an on i
again and off again basis.
20j 21!
MARSH:
Couid I ask the relationship between Pickard, Lowe, and Garrick 22, 23 and the Threit Mile Island, are you under contract to GPU or under 24l let Ed, what is the relationship, do you know?
contract to 25
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WOODARD:
The meterological programs were under contract to the Metro-i 2l politan Edison.
3l 4l POTTER:
We have also performed work for GPU.
5 6l MARSH:
Okay.
7.
8.
POTTER:
Related to Three Mile Island.
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10' ESSIG:
Okay, Essig; could each of you gentlemen either separately or lli jointly state for the record when you arrived onsite following the 12l event at 0400, on 3/28?
13l 14j MARSH:
Maybe we can take.from the point when we received word, where 15j you were and how you got here.
16i i
WOODARD:
I think it would be best for Tom Potter since he was first to 17l 18f receive word.
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POTTER:
I was notified, I probably should back up. Our office was 20l 21 notified at approximately 8 a.m.
the morning, Wednesday morning March 22 28th.
The person rece;ving the call was Mike Schwa-tz, an Engineer in 23 our office.
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11 MARSH:
Excuse me, what is the location of your office?
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31 POTTER:
It's located in Washington, DC, downtown on 18th Street. Would 4i you like the address?
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6, MARSH:
Yes if you have it.
7 8
POTTER:
It's 1200 18th Stree Northwest.
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10' MARSH:
Okay, do you know who you received word, or who spoke to Mike?
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POTTER:
Yes, the caller was David Carl from Metropolitan Edison, Rep.
13 14 MARSH:
That's Carl?
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16l POTTER:
Right.
I 17!
POTTER:
Mike Schwartz is not involved in the environmental activities 18{
19j in our office. No one in that group was present in the office at the I
time.
However, Mike called me at home and I immediately called Dave 20 21 Carl in Reading. I think I talked to him, I should say shortly thereafter 22 it was before 8:30. We were informed by Dave Carl that they were inter-23 ested in receiving in addition to the normal readout of meterological 24l data in the control rooms, backup data, and evaluations of that metero-i 2sj
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if logical data from us. Through a system that we operate, the comput?-
2 ized system that lets us access the Met data, essentially as it is 3
collected.
I raised questions about what was going on this.... knowing 4l something about what was going helps decide how to evaluate the data.
5 And at the time it was not cartain.
So; I arrived r.; our office about Si 9:30 and at that time began to look around for tne people who normally I
7!
operate this program.
The two who do are Keith Woodard and Marc Abrams.
8 Keith was in Albuquerque and Marc sas, in Iowa, wasn't he?
9 10l WODDARD:
I think he was out of the office.
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POTTER:
Anyway he was out of the office. We have a te;minal.
We have 13 a computer terminal and we have a subcontractor that designed the 14 system in Rockville Maryland and with the assistance of people in the 15j subcontractor's office I was able to get some information. The raw Met 16; data at least.
17!
18f MARSH:
Meterological data?
19l 20l POTTER:
Right. We spent the rest of the day largely collecting and 21 gathering that data and putting it in a form and calculating the, some 221 X/Q values and later in the day transmitted them to Dave Carl by telecopy.
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MARSH:
I'm going to break for just a moment I noticed one over sight 2:
that I made during the introductory comments which I like to back up I
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and cover and ah my apologies for interrupting the train of thought 4
before we turn the tape on we had discussed a letter which you, both Si have in front of you and I do want to make that a matter of record I
6!
before we began the tape we discussed the contents of that letter which 7!
is the 2 page memo laying down the ground rules for the investigation 8
in the interview and giving some words to the purpose and goals that we 9'
will be able to achieve. At the rear of that paper, on the rear page of 10' that paper are three questions which I'd like to present to you people 11 you both have had a chance to read those we've asked you for a signature 12 on the second page but in order to fill out the record here on tape I'd 13 like to go over it again with you verbally, just briefly.
The questions 14j read:
(1) Do you understand the above, making reference to the two I
15!
Page letter?
Can I get a response?
16l 17 POTTER:
Yes.
I laj 19l WOODARD:
Yes.
i 20l 21 MARSH:
And (2) In both cases to we have your permission in taping the 22l interview?
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POTTER:
Yes.
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WOODARD:
Yes.
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MARSH:
And finally would you like a copy of the tape?
6 7
POTTER:
No.
S 9'
WOODARD:
Yes and we can share it.
10' f
lit MARSH:
Fine I will provide you with a copy at the actua. tape at the 12 completion of this interview and transcripts will be forth coming, i
13 after a delay of getting them typed.
Ah there is a fourth question not 14, listed at the end of the page but covered in the body, tais regards 15i your rights to have a representati've of Met Ed present, ah can I get a 16l request from you.
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18j POTTER:
Ah we'd like a representative.
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20i MARSH:
You would like one?
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POTTER:
Yes.
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WOODARD:
Yes.
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MARSH:
Okay, and then this is the reason why we have Mr. Behrle in the 4
room now and Bill will stay throught this one. Okay, and a' gain my 5l apologies for the interuption but I did want to make that a matter of 6l record before we got too far. Okay, so I think we have left off where 7
you had gotton some of the meterological data via the computer feed 8
team in Washington and spent most of the 28th analyzing that data.
9 10 POTTER:
That is correct. Our role was recognized at that time as a 11l backup for *.he operation that was being conducted from the Metropolitan i
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Edison office in Reading. The meterological data being used on the site t
13l were actually being taken from the recorders in the control room. Ah, 14j (pause) lets see, 15i i
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ESSIG:
Excuse me for just a second, Essig; could you, when you made 171 reference to that you were a backup in operations in Reading, could you 18l elaborate a little bit.
i 19l 20 POTTER:
On the operation in Reading?
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22l ESSIG:
Yeah, as_to what.
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POTTER:
No, I can't, except that I do know thi: fata was being collected 2
and actually was later sent to the site, I didn't know what was being 3l done with it at the time.
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ESSIG:
The data was being collected in the Reading as well as onsite?
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POTTER:
The data that we telecopied to Reading.
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ESSIG:
The data you telecopied.
10j 11!
POTTER:
Collected and later set to the site.
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13 MARSH:
With a question, you talked about the information being feed 14j via computer from the site to you?
15j 16 POTTER:
Right 17l MARSH:
Are these automatic pickoffs on these monitors or is it a 18j 19i manual, or is there a human interject into the system where by he has 20l to take readings and them feed them into the computer to you?
21 22 POTTER:
No to the last question.
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WOODARD:
I can elaborate briefly here, if you'd like?
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.3' MARSH:
Yes I do.
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WOODARD:
At the meterological tower there is a small mini computer 6!
which automatically samples, a every channel of instrumentation that we i
7 have there every ten seconds in these ten second detta it makes a 15 8;
minute average, there are 15 minute averages saved, there are four of 9!
those save each hour, and every four hours there is an automatic call 10!
for a telephone system at a computer in Rockville, Maryland.
This i
11l computer is, has a disc file and these four hours of data are put on 12 that disc. That disc is accessible from our office either for the last i
13 four hours of data or we can force a call at any time which would 14) collect the last 15 minutes of data.
15j 16i MARSH:
So if I understand it right, (This is Marsh speaking) you do 17l have the right to increase you pulling capability with the computer to 18; update and maintain a more current status on the intelligence that your 19 system is gathering?
l 20 21 WOODARD:
Yes, we do and also we can call directly to the site and get 22 the last 15 minutes, directly on telephone via 300 baud line.
Baud is 23 the description of the rate of data transfered.
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1 MARSH:
That's B-a-u-d?
2' 3
WOODARD:
Yes.
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MARSH: Was that done on this date on March 28th, was there increased 6
surveillance implemented?
7 8
WOODARD:
Ah, I'm not sure if we did any 300, but we definitely did 9
1200 baud access to the terminal in Rockville, to the computer in 10 Rockville.
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POTTER:
The listings of data that were subsequently sent to a Met Ed 13 later in the afternoon were via the 1200 baud acce.ss to the computer in 14!
Rockville, however, at times during the day we did make calls to the 15i site computer, via the 300 baud access line to check instantaneous 16 values or acquire last average values I should say.
17' i
181 MARSH:
Do we know that the pickoff points are being sampled or do you 19f want to go into that as far as the spread of their net and what parameters 1
20j are being measures?
21; 221 WOODARD: We'll have to go into that, yes.
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ESSIG:
I have one question which was just prompted by a remark that 2l you gentlemen made when you indicated that data were being sent from I
3l Met Ed.
As far as you know they were being sent to the corporate 4
office, and from that point on you don't what happened to them they may 5l have come to the site or they may have been retained in the corporate 6
office as far as you know?
7 8
POTTER:
That's correct as of the first day.
9 10 WOODARD:
Yes.
11.
12 ESSIG:
Okay so the Essig again; the first day, Potter you were based 13 primarily in your home office in Washington, DC, analyzing data coming 14 up with X/Q?
i 15l 16l POTTER:
Ah, yeah that's correct.
17 18, ESSIG:
Okay, could either of you gentlemen state exactly what kind of 19j data, when we say Met data, exactly wnat were you gs*. ting or receiving 20 on your end, in terms of wind speed and direction I presume the 1500 i
21l fo t temperatures, delta T perhaps?
22' WOODARD:
Probably be best.
Should I describe the system to you?
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ESSIG$ Yeah I think that, I, Essig, I think that,would be best.
- Yeah, 1
1 21 if you could.
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WOODARD:
Perhaps it would be best if we each take the questions as 5
they come, rather than to stay with one guy all the way down.
6{
7 ESSIG:
Okay, fine.
8 9
WOODARD:
The Met Tower that is currently installed, it's a 150 feet 10 high, it's instrumented at the 100 foot level with the redundent sensors 11 that sense wind speed, wind direction, and vertical temperature dif-12' ference or delta T. All six of these channels were operable and reading roughly the same we did do a surveillance check to make sure that there 13 14 was not some sort of a difference between the two redundent sensors.
15 From these readings, these are the only three parameters reciuired to 16j calculate X/Q.
I think that is pretty much what you needed there.
I 17 18l POTTER:
I will elaborate and mention that the raw data that were sent 19]
down did include hourly values of wind speed, wind direction, identified 20 by 22 1/2 degree wide sector, such as S for being out of the south and 21:
temperature difference between 150 and 33 feet, I believe, right.
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1 ESSIG: When you say hourly, do mean hourly average or the only once an 2'
hour or was this the average of the of the every ten second..........
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4 WOODARD:
This is the 15 minute average centered on the hour.
These 5
are the normal statistics required by Reg Guide 1.23.
6 7
ESSIG:
Okay. In terms of data transmittal could we go into that a i
8 little bit as'far as what is available onsite here, I believe there is, 9f and correct me if my understanding is not right, we have a read out in i
101 the control room a chart showing wind direction and delta T and wind 11!
speed. Well wind speed direction are on one chart and delta T is on 12 another. And, then, that is available then at how many points offsite.
13-or is it one point?
14i i
15h WOODARD: Well, on strip chart recordings, there, there, each control 16j room has separate strip chart recorders.
This is Woodard.
There is I
17l also a set of strip chart recorders on each of the redundent channels I
18i at the Met shack which is right below the tower. That's the same location 19l that the mini computer is located.
In terms of read out, anybody who 20j has a 300 baud terminal, standard Ascii terminal.
Asci, I'm not sure 21 what it stands for even.
t 22l 23 MARSH:
Ascii is the correct spelling.
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WOODARD:
It's a standard language that a is used in telecommunication 2.
between computers, anyone who has one of those can dial up the mini 3
computer at the site and get the last 15 minute average of the metero-4!
logical data.
This in fact was being done, and I may be getting a i
Si little head of myself but a, at some point in the first two or three, a l
Gi the first two days, the ARAC people contacted us and determined that we 7
did have that capability and from Friday on I believe they were accessing 8l it directly with a 300 baud terminal.
9' 10I ESSIG:
You, excuse me, useu the acronym ARAC. Could you state for the 11 record?
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I 13l WOODARD:
You know, I am sorry you asked me that.
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15 ESSIG:
It's the capital ARAC.
16 17 WOODARD:
Yes.
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ESSIG:
It's run by the Lawerence Livermore Laboratory.
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21j WOODARD:
Yes, yes it is. They operate a system which access of a 22' number of meterological towers around an area and determines the defusion 23 conditions on a broad scale, on a large area basis and, I'm sorry I 24 can't find ARAC (laugh) Do you remember where it is?
I'll just 25 I
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ESSIG:
Well, I think if we have the spelling of it, it's all in caps 2I ARAC.
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MARSH:
One other small point, Marsh speaking, in terms of your micro Si processor sampling maintaining data, averaging, and them transmitting 6
from the site to Washington DC. Do you happened to know does that micro 7
processor at this site also maintain a permanent memory or is it erased 8
after each cycle.
9 10 WOODARD:
The, this is Woodard, the mini computer is capable of storing 11' up to 3 days of data. The reasons for this is, if there is a loss of 12l communication the cata are not lost or if there is a loss of the central 13 computer the data are not lost at least for three days.
However, the 14 data base is not accessible by the 300 baud terminal other than the 1Si last 15 minute average.
i 16 17j ESSIG:
Just one question to fill that out, did you experience any i
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difficulties with loss of transmission or communication with your micro 19 processor during this event?
~
20i 21 WOODARD:
Ah, I think we went 33 days unti' we lost any hourly data.
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ESSIG:
That 33 days is since the event, starting with the event?
2 3
WOODARD:
Yes, since the event started.
As far as problems in communi-4l cations it was very difficult getting through to this area by a telephone, i
Sj However, we had people stationed 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day at the computer facility I
6i in Pockville to force continuous cai 5 nd we never went more than 7
about an hour or so without being able to get through, so even though 8
the linas were busy I think we didn't have any real problems getting 9
communication.
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ESSIG:
Could we move on to, say day number 2 or a.
121 13 MARSH:
I'll p'ickup on day number 1 you finished addressing our comments y
to Mr. Potter you indicated he spent most of the first day analysing 15) the data was coming in.
How did your day end?
16l POTTER:
That's correct, our day ended shortly after we telecopied the 17 I
igj data to Dave Carl, we asked Dave at that time if there was a n W to 1gj provide data, through the night and he indicated, that it woulu :,at be
.20 necessary.
21 ESSIG:
22 Do you recall about what time it was, that you telecopied to 23 24 25 1
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POTTER:
I can recall that it was approximately 5 that afternoon, that 2
evening.
3I 4
ESSIG:
So then the data that you telecopied with the X/Q values on a 5
hourly basis or?
6 7
POTTER:
The data, Potter again, we telecopied included the weather 8
da t.. on a hourly basis, wind speed, direction, and temperature difference.
9 And, also some X/Q values that were not calculated using the computerized 101 system but were calculated by hand, which explains the long time lapse.
I lli 12 MARSH:
Now your transmission would be on the first day would be, one 13 cumulative report at approximately 5:00 in the evening as opposed to 141 hourly inputs of instaneous so to speak reports?
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16i POTTER:
The report, Potter again, the report included hourly values.
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18l MARSH:
However, the report was forwarded on in one lump... after 19!
20 POTTER:
Exactly. I should elaborate, that my expertise in the area is 21 in on the tail end of thie, problem.......
It's what you do when you 22 get the X/Q.
That's where I feel comfortable, however, I do have some 23 familiarity with the, mathmatical models and was able to generate X/Q 24l 25 l
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values by hand.
The models were operable in the computer, however, my i
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limitations were in establishing the proper input parameters in editing I
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the files in the computerized system.
4l SI MARSH:
So the end'of the first day, Marsh speaking, you have loaded l
Gl your models you have the meat that you need to do your studits and that 7
and I assume you went into some of your studies the first day.
Si t
9 POTTER:
Actually not, as of the end of the first we had not had in-10l formation that, that releases had been made until about 2:00 in the 11!
afternoon when I over heard a radio broadcast.
1 12f 13 MARSH:
So then your initial response, say from the time of notification 14l through 2:00 in the afternoon you're doing more or less basic meterologi :al 15i work not really recognizing that releases may have been on your way and 16i the significane that you might associate with that event?
l 17!
I 181 POTTER:
Ah, that is correct, it was,....
6 19l i
20f WOODARD:
Perhaps this is, Woodard, we get a number of requests for Met i
21l data for a lot of different reasons usually they're, maybe several days 22 after some one had a reading on an environmental sample that was high 23 and wanted to know whether it was fall out from the Chinese bomb, or 24 for some other reason, wanted to know weather the wind was going that 25l I
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way, There are a lot of construction problems that involve meterology, I
2 so I think that when we first heard this request, I think we, most of 3
us thought that this was a routine type of thing and I think we did act 4!
fairly quickly to get the X/Q's out and thought that that was the end 5
of the problem.
6 7
MARSH:
Commencing at approximately 2:00, then when Mr. Potter, you 8
ind*cate that your did then hear over the radio that there had been 9
releases, how did that change your approach. What additional exercises 10 did you enter into?
11' 12{
POTTER:
Ah, I should back up a little bit, at about somewhere between 13 10:00 and 11:00 Bill Lowe in our office, came into the office to talk i
14j to me'and subsequently checked in on the work, at say couple hour i
15}
intervals thereafter, and informed me that he had word that they were, 16j that the station staff, at the Three Mile Island, had had a problem 17l with the reactor and were concerned that they may have had damaged 18j fuel.
However, he had had no indication of offsite releases at that 19l time.
That did add a sense of urgency to the problem, I shouldn't say 20l the work progressed in a more rapid rate but there was a good deal more t
21l anxiety involved and the radiobroadcast heightened that one more 22 level.
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I 1l WOODARD:
Perhaps now would be a good time if you'd like continuing to 2
take me to my first day, because it is very much involved with what Tom 3,
just said, Would you like to do it that way?
i 4!
5 MARSH:
Yes I would.
Gj 7
WOODARD:
Okay, I was, as Tom mentioned earlier this is Woodard, I was 8
in Alberqueque I was interupted from a meeting at about I can't remember 9f if Alberqueque is one hour or two hours later, I think it's two, probably 10 around 10:30 or so, by a call from the office in which I believed I 11, talked to you Tom about the calculation of X/Q's because normally i
.12l that's my function or the function of the meterologist in our office 13 Marc Abrams who was not there. Ah, I believe Marc was also on the phone 14i that day with you, any rate the two of us, advised Tom of the proper 15!
operation of the system and also some details on the X/Q model that was 16l in the computer.
I talked to the office at least 3 times during the 17j day, I talked to Bill Lowe, who did have some feeling of a sense of i
1Sj urgency, in the afternoon.
He wanted me to come to town immediately, 19l it's really hard to get out of Alberqueque after about 3 or 4 o' clock 20j in the afternoon, so I made plans to come home first plane in the 21.
morning.
That night I spent from about 7:00, Alberqueque time, until 22 mid-night, doing calculations and talking to our computer programmers 23 in Rockville, to get this system and the calculational programs in that 24 system, checked to assure that they were giving us the proper X/Q's at 25l
\\
t 857 139 i
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24
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)
11 the proper distances using the proper data sets, I did most of the 2'
calculations by hand and then confirmed that they were correct with the 3
fellow on the other end of telephone.
So by mid-night, the programmer 4:
~had everything he needed to check it out and by the next flight, the l
5 next n.orning we had established that the program was indeed giving the 6i X/Q values that we thought were proper for an accident situation, that 7
being the-center line X/Q's.
Okay, that takes me through the first 8
day.
9 10 ESSIG:
Excuse me go a head, I would just like to ask if I could come 1 11 back to one point we discussed earlier, I guess I'm not quite clear on I
12j it yet but I guess the question is for Mr. Potter.
The report that you 13 gave to Mr. Carl Met Ed at 5:00, approximately, the end of the first 14 day, that consisted of hourly summaries of wind direction and speed, 15 and it consisted of X/Q valves for each sector, but how many, where I'm 16j confused is how many X/Q values for each, you indicated each 22 1/2 17' degree sector did you have one set which was averaged over X hours or 18f was it done on a 2 hour2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> basis or.....
19 POTTER:
Ah, perhaps the best way to describe it would be, that for-20 21 each hour of the day beginning about 7:00 in the morning, probably 22 going up through about 3, I don't remember, but I can, I do have a copy 23 f the information, not with me, but I can provide a copy of it.
24 25 1
857 140 i
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1 ESSIG:
Okay, we'd appreciate it.
2 3
POTTER:
Okay, I included for each, a listing for each hour of the 4
speed, the direction and the temperature difference.
In addition, I Si included X/Q values for one hour, and I believe there were three distances.
I 6
I hesitate to specify what the distances were, I know one was close, 7
perhaps 800 meters, something like that, something approximating the 8'
site boundary, perhaps a little less than 800.
And the the greatest 9
distance I recall was 10,000 meters.
There was an intermediate one at i
10l a distance that I can't recall right now.
But there was a table of X/Q l
11.
values that applied, to each specific hour and these would be X/Q 12j values for one hour only such that there was no averaging over time.
13 And there was not a X/Q value listed along with each hour, there was a 14j X/Q value in a notation that this X/Q.value applied to hours 1, 3, 6, 7 I
15i etc.
In other words they were approximations or listed once for hours 16l that had similar meterological conditions.
But in a summary answer, 17 there were no X/Q values averaged over time.
18(
19l MARSH:
Just as a short editorial note for the sake of the person 20l typing this X/Q can be best depicted by capital X slash capital Q, that 21 may save some time.
22 23 f
24 25l 857 141 l
I f
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If ESSIG:
I think maybe at this point there is another question that 2
should be raised since we're on the subject of the calculation of X/Q.
3!
Could you describe the calculational model that was used and describe 4 1 in terms of released height used and were, for example are we talking 5
about say at the 800 meter distance or approximately 800 meters whatever 61 it was were we talking about something a X/Q value which was essentially 7
a based on a ground level release. since we're not really talking about 8
100 meter stack situation here?
91 1
10l POTTER:
My recollection is that the values of X/Q I provided were 11; based on ground level release model.
They were center line values 1
12!
rather than averaged over the width of a sector.
And they did not i
13l incorporate any correction for effects of mixing in the wake of the 14j building.
(Whi::per)
I don't blame you, because I got them out of i
15i turn.
16!
17 WOODARD:
That means they were very conservative numbers, they also did i
1 18j not include a the meander factor which occurs at low wind speeds and 19l has recently been adopted in a Reg Guide, a draft Reg Guide called i
20) 1.XXX.
So that these speed values of the first hours were probably 21f over predict the actual ratings in the flow.
22 23 24i i
s 25i 057 142
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27 j
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1{
ESSIG:
For the record, Mr. Potter indicated that by not including or 2
perhaps it was you that indicated by not including the fact of mixing I
3 and the wake of the building that makes the numbers conservative would 4!
be not including the meander factor also tend to make the X/Q values 1
5}
consertative.
I Gi 7
WOODARD:
Yes, they would make them conservative under these conditions 8
maybe by a factor of two or three.
9l 10(
ESSIG:
For the record do you have a feel for the conservatism introduced i
11; by not including the mixing and the wake of the building?
l 12t 13 POTTER:
Under the model of mixing, the wake mixing model we would have 141 used for that, the, the maximum overpredication would have been a 15; factor of 3.
And it could have been lower depending on meterological 16 conditions.
I 17l 18I WOODARD:
That factor would decrease as function of distance away from 19j the plant.
206 I
21j MARSH:
Yes.
+
22I 23 241 25!
857 143 i
28 1
Essia: Okay, Essig, I think at this point now we've covered the first 2
day for both you gentlemen.
And I think that it is established that i
3 the Met Ed has been supplied X/Q values as well as wind direction and 4
speed and delta T, temperature difference for the day approximately 5
from 7:00 in the morning to roughly three in the afternoon and that the 6-meterological model has been checked out that evening by Mr. Woodard.
7 8
WOODARD:
Perhaps I should add one point of clarification, in that 9
calculation the translation a from delta T, or vertical temperature 10 difference on the tower to Pasquill group was in accordance with the 11!
standard NRC practice of, that's outlined in Reg Guide of 1.23 for l
12!
classification into Pasquill defussion groups.
13 14 MARSH:
Gentlemen we are at a break point I am going to break for just 15l a minute and turn this ' ape over the time being 3:58 and with the t
16 reading of 680 on the meter. Alright the time is 3:59. We are resuming.
i 17l Meter still reads 682.
And as Mr. Potter has indicated during the i
18f break while I was changing the tape, there are one or two items that we 19l would like to discuss to round out the first dates and actions here.
1 20l Mr. Potter if you want to continue then.
21l l
22 POTTER:
Ok. Pctter again. I, after telecoping the data, I spoke with 23 Dave Carl again and asked what sort of services might be required 24 through the night.
He replied that we need not keep anybody working on 25j l
857 144
1 29 1
the problem through the night and reporting to him through the night.
2 However, I did give him my home telephone number and he later called me 3
at home about 9:00 in the evening and we did discuss the data and the 4
interpretation and use of the data that I had provided by telecopy.
5 That rounds out the first day.
6 7
ESSIG:
Essig.
Now I think we could probably go into the second day, 8
we're finished with that then we'll discuss the third day as best as 9
you recall.
10 POTTER:
I think I'll discuss my second day first.
Mark Abrams was 11l 12 back in our office on the second day.
I'm not sure.
13 14; WOODARD:
He came in at 10 or so in the morning.
15j l
16j POTTER:
However, I knew that at least Mark would be there the second i
17 day also, Bill Lowe was in our office the second day and I checked, I 18[
had had another business committment with GPU in Mountain Lakes scheduled 19j for Thursday, and after discussions with Bill Lowe on the morning of 20 the 28th, excuse me on the morning of the 29th, went ahead, and went to 21!
Mountain Lakes on this other matter not related to the incident.
So my 22 involvement on the second day was virtually nil.
23 l
24 25j l
837 145 i
t
30 1l WOODARD:
This~is Woodard:
My second day started in Albuquerque on an 2i airplane and as I recall I arrived into the Washington sometime in the I
3 late morning.
At that time Mark Abrams, our meterologist, had already 4l been in contact with Dave Carl again, was making the proper calculations 5
with the computer of X/Q and at that time was having the computer 6
output. typed and telecopied to Dave Carl on a fifteen minute basis.
7 I'm sorry.. well, not every fifteen minutes, but the data were reduced 8
into fifteen minute intervals.
I also believe that the center line X 9
over Q as computed by the computer was included.
But I'm not 100 10 percent sure of that.
Those same, that same setup of weather data 1 11 except on a hourly basis has continued every day since t.:e accident.
l 12l My role on the second day was pretty much to make sure what was being l
13 calculated in the computer and sent to Met Ed was proper.
I then 14, started getting involved in other problems with the plant not related i
15!
to meterology.
And this was strictly as a backup, backup just answering 16i questions and things that people.in GPU had.
17 l
18 MARSH:
This is Marsh.
Can you expand on that a little bit more, other 196 types of things you were tasked with or requested to assist?
20 21:
WOODARD:
On Thursday I really I can't recall anything of any ir..portance 22 that occurred.
The meterology was the primary responsibility that I 23 knew that I had.
I think Friday is the day when things started happening 24 on a more frequent basis.
25l r
i 857 146 I
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31 1
MARSH:
Keith, do you have anymore you want to go into on Thursday?
2l l
3!
ESSIG:
Does that pretty much conclude Thursday then?
4l 5
WOODARD:
There's one thing that may have happened Thursday that's sort 6
of related to... we have the ability, we have a CRT, Cathode Ray 7
Tube, TV tube that we can make plots from the computer calculations.
I 8
believe that I started making plots of where the plume might go, 9
sometime late on Thursday.
I was at our computer facility making sure 10 that these things were operable and that the programs were functioning 11l correctly, but it was not until Friday that I transmitted some of this i
12l type of information to GPU and Met Ed.
i 131 1
14 ESSIG:
Ok. Essig.
If that concludes Thurday can we move onto Friday 15i for both you gentle' men?
16l 17 POTTER:
Potter again. I think I'll go first again because my involvement 18j again was quite limited on Friday.
In fact, I can't recall that'I 19 actually did anything related to the accident on Friday and my greater l
20-involvement again resumed again the following day.
21!
22 23 2?
2s!
857 147 i
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t 32 1!
ESSIG:
Mr. Potter can you state (Essig) could you state for the record 2
when you actually came on site then, you were apparently based in your 3
office for the three days that were covering here for the investigation, i
4 when did you actually come on site?
5 6
POTTER:
I received a phone call from Keith Woodard at 5 o' clock Saturday 7
morning.
And arrived on site at about 9 o' clock Saturday morning.
8 9
ESSIG:
i see.
10 111 WOODARD:
And he didn't get to go home for 10 days later. This is 12.
-Woodard.
One thing that did happen that affected both of us on Thursday 13 was that Bill Lowe who we both work for directly as a member of the I
141 GOR 8 did leave for the site from our office around noon or 1 o' clock t
15j and I believe arrived here around 4.
16l l
17l ESSIG:
Excuse me, as a member of the what?
18l 19 WOODARD:
General office review board.
201 ESSIG:
GORB.
21 22 23 WOODARD:
Yes.
He instructed us to be available through the night to 24j provide any backup we could in any areas that we're familiar with.
25l Both of us spent a considerable' amount of experience calculating I
{
I 857 148 f
f
33 1
doses things related to meterology and also releases.
So we were on 2
standby that night and as I said I was working with the computers that 3!
night and now I'll start my time on Friday I think.
If Tom's pretty 4
much finished. We had frequent contacts with. Bill Lowe during Friday by 5
phone by frequent I really don't know whether it was two or three 6l something on that order.. Informing us that there was a situation here 7
that needed possibly needed our backup.
I also started receiving calls 8
from GPU Headquarters.
We were in touch with Dave Carl on the meterological 9
front a number of times and that correspondence was primarily through 10 Mark Abrams in our office and it was primarily related to getting 1 11 meterological data to Dave.
At as indicated 1 p.m. in my notes here.
12l I translated to, by telecopier to GPU an indication of the types of.
13i plots that we can make as to where the plume might go.
These are very 14; similar to the types of plots or isopleths which I defined earlier 15!
that are located in a control room and I see on a table before me here 16i the, what are probably one of the three to six copies that we provided i
17l to the control room in the earlier days of licensing and startup in 18t March 1974. What we were making sure that our client knew was that we 19l had the capability to do this these plots on an hourly basis using real 20:
time meterology.
That, there a few of these were translated, or trans-I mitted to GPU and there was some discussion that we go to the site to 21 22; be able to provide these first hand.
However, there was no CRT or I
23 device for plotting these onsite and since they had a similar type of I
24 thing in the control room, I think the decision was made that we stay 25:
l 857 149
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34 I
1 where we were because we could make the plots down there.
We did have i
2!
adequate communications.
It took several dials to get through but we 3
were capable of communicating.
We did not go to the site on Friday 4'
after considerable amount of discussion.
I got other questions on 5
Friday related to dose calculations.
Apparently there was some concern 6
about, I don't know if they had a containment sample yet, but there was 7
concern as to what would happen if a substantial portion of that were 8
to get intc the atmosphere.
I can recall making some estimates based 9l on TID 14844 which is a document that defines the amounts of fission i
10 products that might be available in the containment if a release were 11l to occur.
I think there was, so there was some thinking going on how l
12!
as to what, how bad could it be and this sort of thing.
The word from 13 the site later in the day turned into a condensible problem, a non-con-l 14j densible problem with noncondensibles, which I believe had been determined 15l to be hydrogen the previous evening.
I remember being requested to try 16i to estimate how much hydrogen there was in the containment.
I had done 17-a computerized analysis a number of years earlier to determine the 18l feasibility of purging a containment to release the hydrogen prior to 19 its reaching a level that might be, that might burn.
And so on the 20j basis of balancing meterology and diffusion I had worked up a scheme i
21 which would allow purging under a controlled method.
And so I was 22 doing backup thinking in that area, and had been requested to make an 23 estimate of hydrogen analysis.. of the amount of hydrogen primarily 2g through t6 radiolysis, and this was in the containment not in the 25l 857 150 i
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'l reactor vessel.
So the meterologist and I stayed in the office and 2
walked downtown Washington all night Friday night doing calculations 3l with the computer in contact with both Met Ed and Bill Lowe who was I 4l believe in the control room at that time. We were asked to give them 5
update of the meterological sitilation as we saw it.
Mark Abrams is a 6l meterologist.
He was providing forecast information as to when the 7
wind might change direction or change speed or in someway change.
We 8
also, on Friday, I believe Saturday morning, either Friday night or 9
Saturday morning, we talked to the ARAC people as I mentioned earlier 10' and gave them, well, before we gave them the direct access dialing 11l capability into the site computer we were providing them and Dave Carl 12' was providing them, I'm not sure who, but the same data was being that 13 we were working up for Dave Carl was being provided to the ARC people.
I 141 I'm kind of skipping through a lot of different things here, but there I
15i were a lot of things happening and I, at one point during the night to 3
assist me in the hyarogen buildup calculation I talked to Peter Vieniarz, ul whose an engineer in our west coast office.
I 181 19j MARSH:
Can I ask you to spell his last name?
I
~
20' 21 WOODARD:
Yes, VIENIARZ.
He's a nuclear engineer who has recently 22I worked on containment venting schemes by pressurizing, and reducing 23 hydrogen concentrations by pressurizing containment and venting.
So he 24 25 f
1 857 151 i
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36 i
I was involved in these calculations as well.
That very much takes us 2
up through midnight on Friday as Tom said, Bill Lowe instructed me to 3
give him (Potter) a call early Saturday morning and that he should go 4
to the site and assist in any dose calculations and things like that 5
they needed there.
I was to remain in Washington with Mark Abrams to 6!
provide backup in the area of the computerized plots and things that we 7
could do at that location.
8 9
ESSIG:
f.ould you state and I don't know if you stated it earlier, if 10 you did I didn't notice when ap9roximately Bill Lowe arrived on the 11' site?
12l 13 WOODARD:
It would have had to been sometime in the middle of the 14 afternoon on Thursday.
15i 16i ESSIG:
On Thursday, the 29th?
17 18j WOODARD:
Yes.
19l 20l MARSH:
And what about Mr. Abrams?
21 22l 23 24
(
25!
857
!52 r
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37 i
. II WOODARD:
Mr. Abrams has not been to the site since the accident.
His 2
major function as a meterologist in our office in related to this 3
incident is to provide a surveillance of the instruments by remote 4
means.
He does that every morning.
Its a standard part of his job.
5 He does it for three other sites as well as TMI.
Ok 7
ESSIG:
You've indicated that your primary contact with Met Ed has been 8
Dave Carl of the corporate office. Was there anybody onsite other than 9f Bill Lowe that you may have been interfacing with, with respect to 10l atmospheric dispersion, the Met data?
I 11l 12!
WOODARD:
Beth Good, I believe was involved at the site in terms of the 13 environmental monitoring.
I think, I don't think that I spoke with her i
14!
in the first two or three days.
15j 16l POTTER:
I don't believe I did either.
i 171 1
18l WOODARD:
I think Tom's involvment there was after he got here on 19l Saturday morning.
He was involved with the meterology and the releases.
20!
21{
ESSIG:
You indicated, Mr. Woodard, that your meterologist in the 22 office as a matter of routine, checked the Met Tower remotely for this 23 site as well as several others that you're responsible for each morning.
24f Did you at an.y time as far as, maybe you're not the right person to ask 25j l
857 153 l
1
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38 l
1 but since you're here I'll ask you as opposed to your meterologist, had 2'
any problems then noted with the operation of the Met Tower say prior 3
to the event and I believe you already stated that for the first 33 4
days following the event you've experienced no problems with the Met 5 l Tower. Were there any problems, say in the week or two or three pre-6i ceeding the event that you noted any problems with the Met Tower?
7 8
WOODARD:
I think that we were all a bit relieved that this was the one 9
that had the work because really its been working great all along, at 10 least for the last nine months, maybe a year.
It's really has been a llt good system. I think we had better than 98 percent data recovery or 12, something like that, which is very good.
A lot of times we have to 13 fight to keep 90.
And I might add, that I did not describe earlier is 14, that this tower is maintained by Met Ed personnel.
We arrange the 15 calibration as an independent consultant. We arrange that a calibration 16f person from another company come in and do the calibration semiannually 17l in accordance, with the technical specifications but all their main-l 18j tenance is done by the instrument shop here on the island.
19l l
ESSIG:
20l Could you describe that calibration procedure and do you recall 21 when the last calibration had been done?
22 23 WOODARD:
The last calibration was done in the fall.
I can't tell you 24 the exact month,-but Tech Specs require to be done every six months but 25j n more then a month overlap or something like that.
The procedure i
857 154
i 39 lj involves using a number of NBS calibrated instruments.
The voltmeters, 2
there is a resistance, a decade resistance box, current measuring I
3 device.
There's a standard torque meter projecting bearings on the 4!
anemometers and direction veins.
About seven different instrument.:,
5 all that have to be calibrated in accordance with NBS registration 6
certificates.
There's also an ice bath, calibrated ice bath that is 7
involved for checking the delta T.
The cups and veins that are changed 8
and sent back to the manufacturer to insure that they are in proper 9
condition.
10l Ilt MARSH:
Marsh speaking.
You mentioned that it was calibrated in the 12 fall.
Are you in calibration now and was it in calibration at the time 13 of the event?
14i 15i WOODARD:
Yes. At the time of the event it was well within the technical 16l specification calibration period.
It was scheduled to be calibrated I 17 believe on April 14 or sometime arotnd in that time frame.
It was 18j required by the tech specs to be calibrated before I think was April 19l 29th.
The meterologist at the NRC, Jim Ferabendl and I-discussed the 20l adviseability of calibrating at this time primarily because we didn't 21.
want someone to drop a wrench on an instrumerit that is working fine and 22 there was no reason believe that it was out of calibration, so he and I 23 decided, well, I shouldn't say that we decided.
I think I should say 24 that we agreed that it wouldn't be advisible, so I advised Met Ed
-25l i
i l
857 155 l
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40 i
1 licensing and I oelieve he advised the NRC licensing people and between 2l the two of them the directive was issued by the NRC telling us not to
}
3 calibrate it in accordance with the tech specs at this time on the 4
basis of other studies that it seem to be providing proper information.
S' 6l ESSIG: OK. Could you state for the record what the anemometer monitor 7
what the minimum, I believe the term is minimum starting speed..
8 1
9l WOODARD:
Yes, this is a..
i 10 11' ESSIG:
state the model of..
12 131 WOODARD:
Yes, its a teledyne series 50 system which is a good one.
It 14 has a start speed I believe of a half a mile an hour on the anemometer.
15j I can't tell you exactly the response of the directions vain, but I 16!
think its something like seven tenths of a mile an hour at 30 dagree 17 angles from the wind or something like that. But the specification and 18 most importance is I believe is the threshold on the a mometer or the 19i wind speed monitoring instru: cent.
20 ESSIG:
21.
I'm just looking at my, I had put together some notes just to 22 make sure I covered all the territory I wanted to cover with you. Were 23 at any time, during the first three days were either one of you gentlemen 24 called upon to help evaluate a number of the offsite survey data.
25 857 156
41 lj There were an awful lot of data that were gathered.
It was portable i
2' instruments, ion chambers, a lot of survey data in terms of exposure 31 rate, mR per hour, both by walking survey around the island, vehicles, 4i helicopters were either of you gentlemen called upon to help evaluate 5
those data?
6 7
POTTER:
Not within the first three days, a;
9 WOODARD:
Cartainly since then.
To a very large degree.
101 11, ESSIG:
Ok. The licensee has a, Met Ed has a procedure, out of their 12' emergency plan implementing procedures numbered 1670.4 and its titled 13 Radiological Dose Calculations.
Are you gentlemen, were you ever 1 41 called upon to review this procedure in terms of its overall adequacy 15; for use in offsite dose calculations?
i 16i i
17 WOODARD: Was that part of the emergency...?
18j 19l POTTER:
I can speak for myself on this, only on this.
I was not.
20 i
21 ESSIG:
It, procedure basically goes into the use of the isopleths such 22 as as the one we have laying on the table in from of us.
It tells the 23 individual in the control room and the emergency control station (ECS) 24 how to use the wind direction data, what stability to use, because I 25i i
1 057 157
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[
42 1
understand there are three of these isopleths, three different sets, 2
one for stable, one for unstable, one for neutral. I happen to have two of them here, one for unstaple and the stable. Well, let me just ask a 4f question or two regarding this particular procedure.
The method as I 5
understand it, was employed at the time during the first three days to 6
determine which isopleths to use, was the, in section 4.3.3 of this 7
procedure, where it instructs the individual to measure the average 8
extremes of the wind direction range for the previous 20 minute period.
9f And, then it goes on to say each chart line represents 10 degrees of a 10}
total-wind direction extremes of the 20 minute period is termed wind l
11:
range.
And it says if the wind range is less that 45 degrees use the 12 stable isopleth that between 45 and 75, use neutral and if it is greater i
13{
than 75 use, the unstable.
And based on the interviews that we've had t
14l so far it's my understanding that that this technique was used to i
15]
determine which overlay to use and my question to you since you haven't 161 reviewed this and I guess maybe I'd be hitting you rather cold with it 5
17l then, but can you tell me if the two techniques for determining stability, 18j trie other one being the delta T between 150 and 50 feet on the Met 19l tower, if there substantally equalivant?
20I I
21; WOODARD:
What has just been shown to me, by Mr. Essig looks to me to t
22 be a procedure that was in part, prepared from information that I have 23l probably supplied to Met Ed, maybe far back as, probably before 1974.
24 There are two methods indicated here for determining stability.
One of 25l l
857 158 1
i
43 1
thEm is the wind direction range and the other one is the delta T as l
2 indicated by Mr. Essig. There is a lot of background that maybe I 3l should provide here, on this particular site.
In 1970, I was involved 4
and responsible for conducting a defusion test, involving a gas tracer i
51 sulfurhexafluoride or SF6, where we made releases of known quantities i
6I of this substance and measured them, measured the amount of concentration
~
1 7
of that substance downwind at a number of locations around the site.
8 The reason we did this was that at that time we felt the meterological 9
concentrations factors or X/Q's that had been supplied for safety 10!
evaluation by the NRC were extremely conservative.
The reason we 1
11l thought that they were conservative was that we had noticed a lot of 12 wind meander on the instruments in the meteroloigcal monitoring program 13 for a number of years.
These tests were conducted with the Unit 1 l
14!
building structures in place, prior to the operation of Unit 1. They 15 indicated that the X/Q values used, that the NRC, had used or the NRC 16i had proposed to use, were conservative by as much as a factor of some-i 17j thing like more than 50.
So we had a large background of information 18; about the site as to what happens in the river valley during very low 19i wind speed stable conditions.
Now at the time that this procedure that 20j I see in front of me was given to a Met Ed the NRC in Reg Guide 1.23, i
21 has two schemes for determining defusion group.
One being the wind 22 meander, I'm sorry the wind range method, which is indicated in this 23 procedure and the other one being delta T.
I think that we considered 2
24 either one to be acceptable, however, we thought the one involving wind 25 I
j I
l 837 159 l
f
-i i
4 9
44 i
lll direction range was the more realistic, not as conservative.
And our l
2{
basis for that was the defusion test and the fact that the Reg Guides 3f did acknowledge this particular method and it exists in "Meterology and 4l Atomic Energy" which is a standard text on meterological conditions.
5l And in that document a fellow by the name of Dr. Slade purposed these 6
wind range categories and they the san:e as the ones used in the procedure.
7 That was an awlfully long answer to it, I think a rather....
8 9l MARSH:
Now you say that the foundation of this still goes back to your i
101 comments based on 1974 information when Unit I was up and constructed i
~
11..
but Unit 2 was not yet functional?
12.
13}
WOODARD:
Yes, the......
14 t
15, MARSH:
Did you recall the degree of construction. Were the cooling i
16j towers up? And what would be the degree of impact on the validity of 17 this data, once the Unit 2 was put up and you've got those additional 18 towers in there?
19 20 WOODARD:
les the, the additional towers would act to make things even 21 m re defused, or they enhance the turbulence of the site so that these 22l factors as applied to the standard defusion equation used for accidents 23 24 i
25l l
037 160 i
.J
s
)
45 i
1 which really do not assume any cooling tower existance at all.
The 1!
l 2
cooling towers make things even more.... they increase the defusion of 31 anything that is released.
4.
i 5!
MARSH: Okay, then in laymans terms, with the addition of the additional l
6l defussion offered by those. towers make this, would it be more beneficial 71 or would it be....?
8 9l WOODARO:
It's unrelated to the selection of defussion class, I guess I i
10l would have to say.......
i 11!
12 MARSH: Well what about.....?
13 14i W000ARD:
I'm sorry I,.I think I know,.....
i 15i 16 MARSH: What about the correctness of the data if you would use this 17 procedure would it still be on the conservative side or would it be 18{
mo're on the optimistic side?
191 20 WOODARD:
OKay, one thing that's related is, obviously the place where 21l you've monitored the data that you're using or the wind direction 22 fluxuation that you're using to look up the stability class they.
The 23 Met tower is located as far as we can get it inside the dike, actually 24 25-l 857 161 i
i
l 46 If it's outside the dike bd tt's on high land.
It is as far as we can 2
get it to be on the island and to be reasonabily representative of 3
conditions on the islar.d, We believe that its location is far enough I
4 away so as, not to be sigM 'icantly effected by cooling towers.
5 6-MARSH:
So therefore, in the long run, if I understand you right, the 7
addition of Unit 2 and any of the structures that when with it should 8
have no long range er ah.........?
9 10 WOODARD:
No the, we'd advised Met Ed that the conditiens of this 11{
proc.7Wre would not change with the addition of Unit 2.
Both containments I
12{
are the same height and within the same area, therefore, the building 13 lake correction that goes into the standard NRC equations, doesn't 14) change.
Therefore, you can use the same defusion for both reactors and 15i for the control room isopleths interchangeably.
16 I
17!
ESSIG:
Going back, can we go back to the first day when Mr. Potter 18l indicated that he had made hand calculations, I believe of X/Q based on 19' the Met data that was being received in your office.
I guess the 20 question is really directed at Mr. Woodard, because you have refered to 2 11 then later having, I believe on the 30th having the CRT displayer of 22 X/Q values that is, I presume then a computer calculation it is not 23 some,..... maybe it seems like a silly question but, it's not some hand i
24 25!
1 i
l 857 162 i
i 47 1
calculation which has to be entered it is a computer generated calcu-i 2l lation and the whole data, the isopleths that are plotted they're all I
31 based on the computer calculation of the defusion......?
4 i
Si WOODARD:
Yes, this is Woodard, there is some basic, there is a table 6
in the computer that has tp be set up first, and it asks all the standard 7
questions about the building areas, heights, exit volocities, if it's a 8
stack.
None of the calculations we made early, assume that the release 9
is from the stack we do not know where the release was from so we 10!
assume it was at ground level, in the building leaks.
So as soon as I
11}
you set up the table its like a input deck of cards to a normal computer uj run except you do it on line instead of by cards.
Soon as you have 13 that the computer does the rest.
14; 15 ESSIG:
Did the computer calculations then, the actually metodology 16l used differ significantly from what Mr. Potter was using earlier in his 17l hand calculations?
18 WOODARD:
,gl
. They differed only, well,.....
if he had not.ncluded 20 building lake, the differed in that respect.
And then that would low, 2
the computer calculations made after Thursday would have been a little 1 wer in X/Q.
22 23 24
- S 837 163 i
48 l
1 ESSIG:
It would have been realistic estimate then?
2!
3 WOODARD:
Yes.
4l t
Si MARSH:
Okay, if were at a break point, I'm going to terminate this 6!
tape the t.ime being 4:39,. reading 288, which would be 1288 on the 7
meter.
8 9
MARSH:
The time is 4:46 p.m., and we will resume with the interview of 10-Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Keith Woodard at this time.
Thomas you were llj still discussing some matters here regarding - I think we were on 12l Saturday, when we quit.
13 14j ESSIG: We were discussing the procedure used by Met Ed for offsite
~15l dose calculations, Procedure, Emergency Procedure 1670.4.
And I guess 16i one other question I have in the use of that procedure, is that we've t
17l referred in this discussion so far, we referred to these and.naybe we 18 should describe for the record what it is we're looking at, that we 19l have a X/Q a set of X/Q isopleths. Which are X/Q values plotted as a 20[
function of the width of the, these are estimates of the dispersion 21 from the point of release in the downwind direction and I have two sets 22 here.
There are two transparencies.
One is for when the meteorlogical 23 conditions are stable and the other when they are unstable.
Now, my 24 question is, I think we have already touched on this a little bit, but 25j j
857 164
I l
49 l
l 1
I would just like to clarify the point somewhat.
These isopleths were 2'
generated some time ago, in March of 74, and they were used as I understand 3
it, during the activities following the event here on the 28th of 4l March, and they were used to estimate off-site concentrations, initially.
5 And my question is, are either of you gentlemen aware of any comparisions Gi that might have been made between, say the X/Q values, Mr. Potter that 7
you provided to Med Ed late in the day on Thursday, with the values 8j that were used by the people in the Control Room.
In other words, were 9-the people in the Control Room...do you have any knowlede of whether 10!
the people in the Control Room were, specifically in the Emergency l
1 11 Control Station in Unit 1, if they were using the proper isopleths and, 12 if so, are the isopleths - did these particular ones provide a fairly 13 good indication of the actual atmospheric dispersion that was - for f
14j that time period?
151
-16l POTTER:
I didn't have first hand indication that the values we were 17 providing from our office were being used as a check, so to speak, in 13 the first three days.
If you're interested in going beyond the three i
19j day period, I could elaborate.
20!
ESSIG:
21 Yes, if you would, if you could elaborate just a little bit.
22 POTTER:
- 0. K.
On Saturday morning, I arrived on the site around 9 23 24
'c1 ck and got in contact with Sid Porter another consultant to Metro-politan Edison.
And my understanding of my role at that stage, was to l
l 837 165 i
I
i 50 i
1) be prepared to do some dose assessments should further releases be 2f made.
As it happened, during that period - or during the - now let's 6
3 see - there was some period of orientation, so to speak, with the 4
situation, discussio'ns with Sid Porter and so on.
And then I went over 5
to the Unit 1 Control Room, where the ECS was located.
And essentially 6
was on' standby there in anticipation of any releases that might occur.
7 While I was there, I began to inspect, or began to consider, or began 8
to evaluate previous releases.
And also began to check - I did check 9I in Unit 1, the strip chart recorders - I did check whether the strip i
10l chart recorders were in agreement with the data we were providing.
And 11!
found that they were in good agreement.
I did that on a spot check 126 basis - a few hours.
I did have some of the data that we had been 13 providing.
And it was when I arrived on site that I did in fact learn 14 that the data were being distributed fairly - fairly widely around the 15l site.
I also noted that the Control Room isopleths were being used by 161 the ECS personnel and did note that for the condition that existed at i
17 the time I checked, they were using the proper isopleth.
This would 18!
have been I think, evening, no, maybe it must have been mid-afternoon, 19j mid-afternoon on Saturday.
They were using the proper isopleth and I 20j did a X/Q calculation for a certain distance at that isopleth and 21 determined that the isopleth was coirect.
So I did perform those 22 checks.
They were informal checks.
I did not document them in any 23 way.
I think that answers your question.
24 25{
857 166 f
v
i 51 1-ESSIG:
Do you - if I understand you correctly, then you felt comfortable 2{
with the methodology that had been used by Med Ed during the first i
3i three days to estimate the X/Q values?
41 5
POTTER:
Yes, it appeared that they were following the right procedure.
I 61 I was unaware the formal procedure that existed, but it appeared that 7
they were doing the calculations correctly.
8 9
ESSIG: We mentioned earlier, the ARAC, the people from Lawrence Livermore.
101 Do you have or any of.your gentlemens' knowledge, did they during - say 11 the first three days that we're focusing on here - I don't recall now 12 what day you'd indicated that, that they got their live hook-up so that 3
13 they could get the - receive the data directly.
The question I have i
14l is, do you know if at any time during the first three days, they had 15 provided input to the - to Met Ed which could be used - or to you 16l people, as Met Ed's representatives?
17 l
181 WOODARD:
I don't know.
I'll have to check with Tom.
Did you have' any 1gl contact with any ARAC people the first three days?
20l l
21 POTTER:
No.
I did not.
22 23 2'
l 857
!67 25j i
'l l
l
52 1
WOODARD:
I had contact with RAC people on Friday afternoon.
I believe 2
that's the first request we had for data and we updated them all night I
31 long about once an hour, or once every two hours, through Friday night.
4 Sometime on Saturday afternoon, I guess'that we decided, gee, there's 5
no reason why, they can't call in and get the data directly.
And so we 6
gave them the numbers and.the proper procedure at that time.
Sorry, I 7l think you had a two part question -
8 9
ESSIG:
Yes. And the other part of the question was, once they received 10 the Met data, then they perform certain calculations.
Which I think 11}
you said earlier, they had the capability to perform a little more -
12l r
13l WOODARD:
Yes.
141 15l ESSIG:
Broader based diffusion estimates.
16!
17 WOODARD:
Yes.
18f ig ESSIG:
Did they make any available to you?
20 WOODARD:
They have not, and I don't know to what extent they may have 21 to Med Ed.
I did discuss with them roughly what they were doing with 22 23 the data, but no exchange of information, other than that took place.
24j i
25 I
i 1
857 168 9
l l
i
~
53 1!
ESSIG:
- 0. K.
I 2!
3 ESSIG:
Getting back to the Met tower itself once again.
That is not 4
a, as I understand, it's not a part of the safety related equipment and 5
is it - do you know is it tied into emergency power, if we lost outside 61 power, would we lose Met data capability?
7 8
WOODARD:
To my knowledge, it's not any - in any way related or powered 9
by emergency power.
And there is no battery backup or anything like 10 that at the Met tower. We use - there are other sources of meteorology 11; in the area that we've considered as backup - like the airport.
I 12!
13 ESSIG:
0.K.
We've already established that the Met tower was operational 14 during the three day period that we're examining.
But just more of a 15j background question, more than anything else.
16i 17 WOODARD:
I feel that I ought to make a comment here on these isopleths.
I 18[
19l ESSIG:
Yes.
20 WOODARD:
21 If these were used to make dose estimates and I really am not 22 aware - I was not involved in their use at all throughout the accident.
23 These are primarily designed to give you a X/Q, that you can use to calculate a dose at any off site location provided that you have a 2q 25l t
l l
857 169 i
l 54 1l source term or a Q.
You can't get X without Q.
X is the concentration l
2 at some off site location.
The basic use of this type of isopleth, is 3
to really get an idea of the width of the plume, and perhaps some 4l relative indication of how the dose might fall off with distance.
5 Having said that, I - I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think in 6l this accident, it would have been very difficult to make a dose estimate, i
7 Cause you really don't know what Q is and you would have to assume a Q.
8 And if you did that, and you were wrong, you would get a very wrong gj dose.
So, and we've known about this limitation for long time.
And 10 it's well established that that limitation exists.
So the primary use, 11' I think, of this type of information, is one of relative width of the 12l plume and to some extent where it might go downwind overlaying on the 13 map.
r 14!
15j POTTER:
I can elaborate on that.
It was being used - the isopleths 16 were being used constantly by the time I arrived in the Unit 1 Control 17 Room ECS on Saturday.
And that is precisely what they were being used 18j f r.
And I did not see any dose calculations being performed.
- However, ygf the isopleths were being used to locate or to direct survey teams for purp ses of measurement.
That was the major - that was the primary 20 uses.
2 22 23 2 41 25 037 170 l
i i
l l
l l
1{
ESSIG:
Now when you say direct survey teams would the width of the I
2 plume be used then to enable them to get an approximate - to know when 3
they would probably going out of the plume, so to speak.
4l 51 POTTER:
Right.
And distance downwind.
61 7
ESSIG:
In distance downwind.
8' i
9j WOODARD:
I might also add, that in the conditions that existed after 10I the accident, not very many plumes look like this.
I'm referring to i
11:
the low wine speed - the meandering conditions that existed on the - a i
12 good portion of the time during the first three days.
13l 6
14j ESSIG:
Yes.
I meant to ask you a question.
For a comment on that, i
15i that was one of the - was one of the things that did seem to be occurring 16i and I agree, and at low wind speeds - what the Met tower was telling us i
17i was in fact correct.
That the wind was, I guess I'm really asking, 18f rather than telling -
19l 20 WOODARD:
- 0. K.
21f ESSIG:
But the wind was actually meandering quite a bit.
In your 22 23 experience is that' quite typical at low wind speeds that -
24; 25!
i 1
657 171
l I.
l 56 l
1:
WOODARD:
Yes.
Especially at this site.
I might add that that tends l
2l to dilute the plume rather than to necessarily make it concentrated in 3
one particular area.
So to some extent, eventhough we would characterize 4l the meteorology as being extremely poor, it may have resulted in lower 5
offsite doses.
And that's one reason to use the wind direction range 61 as an indicator of stability.
Even the"gh you may have come up with a 7
highly unstable indication, where you might use B Pasquill stability.
8 It may give you a reasonable answer.
And it may even underpredict the 9f width of the plume.
10f 11j MARSH:
Is that historical with this site that you have a prevalent 12l meandering pattern then?
i 13l 14l WOODARD:
Yes.
The diffusion experiments in 1970, showed that very 15j definitely.
We had some tests where the diffused material had existed 16j at more than 180 arc.
And we plotted using these computer techniques, i
17l that I indicated earlier on the tape, we plotted some of the early 18j trajectories of plumes and they are all over the valley.
19 20j ESSIG:
Yes.
I see the plots you have there, and it looks like spagetti, i
21 And it gets worse. I have in my hand here, a data summary.
And I'd 22 just like to show it to you gentlemen, and see if you can tell me, 23 perhaps, one of the two of you were the author of this data summary.
24 25i I
i 857 172
I
{
57 1
And - because I don't recall at. t!.e moment exactly where I got it.
It 2
was in one of the files around the plant here somewhere.
And it's just 31 labeled as Meteorological Data from 0650 hours0.00752 days <br />0.181 hours <br />0.00107 weeks <br />2.47325e-4 months <br /> on 3/28 to 0126 hours0.00146 days <br />0.035 hours <br />2.083333e-4 weeks <br />4.7943e-5 months <br /> on 4l 3/31.
i 51 6
WOODARD:
Alright.
I think that I know.
Do you know Dave Karl's 7
handwriting?
8 9'
ESSIG:
No.
10 11l POTTER:
I'd like to interupt, because I do know.
I 12!
13 MARSH:
- 0. K.
Fine.
14i 15j POTTER:
I was shown this shortly after my arrival at the site, a copy 16 of this by Sid Porter.
And he described it as having been logged from 17l the Control Room charts.
I'm not sure if it was Unit 1 or Unit 2, i
18; however.
19 20 MARSH:
Those charts, regardless of whether it was Unit 1 or Unit 2, 21j would still be taking as their source, your meteorological tower?
i I
22 POTTER:
That's correct.
23 24!
i 25
~
857 173 F
,I
?
\\
t 58 I
i 1l ESSIG:
I just had one basic question on here.
Apparently, is this a i
2 standard numbering system, 1 through 16.
I'm used to seeing north, 31 northeast and so on.
Could you just elaborate? Do you know if direction 4
number 1 is north?
5 6
POTTER:
I always specify sector one as to the north or wind from the 7
south.
8 9
ESSIG:
Yes.
10 11l POTTER:
And that, my understanding is that is the convention used at I
12; this site.
All of our data has the direction whether it's from or to, i
13l specified.
I 14!
15i ESSIG:
- 0. K.
16l 17 WOODARD:
I'm going to have to argue with you Tom.
Just on the basis 18f of looking a't the data.
I hate to conjecture at a time like this, but 19 I think that it shows wind towards the east, 11% of the time.
Is that 20!
right? On the first day you have - my guess is it should have been i
i toward the west more - which 21 22 a
23 POTTER:
Right.
I could be wrong.
But that was my 24 25 l
I ' [ ~.7 j7 l
l Ls/
4 1 I
i
[
.I
i l.
l 59 i
I i
1.
WOODARD:
Let's put it this way. We wouldn't want to advise you one i
2{
way or the other right.now.
31 i
4 ESSIG:
- 0. K.
i 5'
6 WOODARD: We could get back to 7
8 POTTER:
I can specify that with regard the environmental monitoring 9'
data, sectors are numbered and one is in the north.
10l 11l ESSIG:
- 0. K.
12 13 WOODARD:
And then they go clockwise.
14!,
15l ESSIG:
0.K.
i 16i 17 POTTER:
That's right.
18i
+
19 ESSIG:
- 0. K.
Alright.
I believe that I am just about to the end of my 20 questions.
I think I covered everything that I had on my list.
Only i
21 just quickly, let me take a second here and scan the standard procedure.
22; I guess I would just like to make a comment.
We were talking earlier l
23l about source term - I had reviewed some of the early calculations with 24, the Met Ed nuclear engineers, who had made them, in fact, the initial 25j I
l 857 175 i
f I
f 60 1.
prediction, I believe was about - around 0715 on 3/28, predicted exposure 2
rate of 40 R/ hour in Goldsboro.
And that was based on this procedure, 3l which - well, one of the things that it does, is that it takes the HPR 4
214, the dome monitor, and takes the readi,ng on the dome monitor.
And 5l that should give you source term.
The only thing that's implicit in 6
the calculation though, is that it assumes a containment pressure 7
between about 50 and 60 psi.
And it was only around 2 at the time.
So 8
the leak rate 2/10(%) was - it wasn't even'close to 2/10(%).
So.that's g'
why I think in reviewing that calculation, what the procedure calls 10 calls for, is to make a prediction and an actual and compare the two 11' predicted either concentration or dose rate and then the actual and 12-then the original source term, which would be the value from the HPR 214 monitor.
13 And then take the ratio of the predicted, the actual and then make a correction factor.
And attempt to iterate the thing and g
me n n e s ur e em An e eve en e
scussions we 15 homed in, or Met Ed homed in on about third or fourth iteration.
But i
161 then, I believe the - that particular calculation was more or less abandoned.
They just took the actual measurements of exposure rate and were just backing running the calcualtion backwards and coming up with an apparent source term that gave these exposure rates.
And it's i
20l not clear to me at this time, what was done with that source term, other than just filling up the pages somewhere.
But since we were discussing the source term calculation, I just thought I'd elaborate a little bit on what-I already learned on through our interviews.
25 i
057 176 i
l I
1 I
l 61 i
l i
l{
WOODARD:
Alright.
There are a number of pertinent things that one i
2{
could say there - number one, at 7 o'-
sck in the morning, they weren't 3l making a release apparently.
And when the release did start, it wasn't 4l' going towards Goldsboro. And, I guess another thing that one has to be 5
very cautious about, is that when you take a sample, you just don't fly I
61 7l, through it in one puff - and look at one puff.
Meteorology is a series.
I mean difussion meterology in a dilution - difussion of something like 8
a gas is a puffy type of thing.
And these isopleths are designed to 9
really represent about a 15 minute average.
So if you don't stand and 10 sample for a reasonable period of time, you may be disillusioned into llI thinking you have a much higher or possibly a much lower dose.
l 12{
13 MARSH: Well, I got one or two questions.
One, we've been talking a 14) little over an hour and 6 half. Where we've been doing most of the 15!
asking and all that, I'd like to give both of you an opportunity if 16}
there's things you wanted to discuss - to bring out.
Still one facet i
17l of' what we're looking at is how do we profit by what we've been through?
ISj What lessons have we learned?
Is there anything you feel that you want 19f to bring up in the way of recommendations or problem areas that you did 201 encounter or i
21!
22 WOODARD:
I would like to say one thing about this procedure.
This is t
23j one that has just been shown to me here and that is that I think that I
24i the offsite emergency plan worked very well.
If they were able to I
25!
i 857 177 i
l l
i 62 1
1 iterate back and forth, as they did, to determine what really was 2
happening.
I've always been afraid that somebody might use these 3'
things, and cause an evacuation to appear, when it wasn't necessary at 41 all.
5 i
6i MARSH:
These things you are referring to are isopleths?
I 7
8l WOODARD:
Isopleths, yes.
So, 1 - I - from what - from the other 9
things I heard about emergency response also, I think that we should 10 feel good, at least.about that part of it.
11l l
12 :
MARSH:
Can I ask - did you have any inter-relationship with other 13l agencies? Were you approached by the State or any other agencies to 14j flow infor91 tion back and forth while you were here?
l 15i 16j WOODARD:
The NRC has also been calling me as the site computer.
I 17 didn't mention that, but that really didn't start until sometime into i
1Sf the second week out there.
The - I don't know - about a week 1ater.
ig Apparently they were receiving their data from the ARAC people or from 20j Met Ed dinctly.
Probably they have collected it themselves from the 1
21l Control Room strip charts.
Let's see - I don't think other than the 22 ARAC people - I haven't talked to any other agencies.
Maybe Tom has.
23 i
l 24l 25l G7 1,78 Ls,
l i
63 1!
POTTER:
-I know that Bob Bores from NRC, Region I, IE, was providing 2
our Met data to a number of parties in the inter-agency task force that 3
was located at Capitol City Airport throughout the early days of the 9
incident.
And in response to your previous question, I think that 5
there will be much to learn.
And a very large sifting job lies ahead 61 of us.
An evaluation job lies ahead of us, too, to make the best use 7
that we can of the experience.
8 9l WOODARD:
I have another comment related to the 40 R that was estimated.
I 10' But, I believe that is 40 R/ hour, thyroid dose.
Is that correct, or 11 was that a whole body estimate?
12:
13 MARSH:
I believe that was just a - that was just a nobel gas exposure i
141 rate in the plume.
It wasn't even to any specific organ.
It was just i
15i an exposure rate in air 16i 17 WOODARD:
I don't see how that would even - I don't see how they could 18f have gotten that with their procedure, because the worst accident that 19l really, was all the nobel gases being released to the containment.
And 20; I think we get about 12 to - about 12 R in two hours at the site boundary, t
21{
which is much closer than Goldsboro.
So, I would guess that that was 22 the thyroid dose and I shotild point out that - one thing that's happened 23 in this accident - there's been a lot of emphasis on whole body dose, 24 with the maximum being somewhere around 85 millirem or so.
We as 25l 057 179 i
l '
l 64 i
lj safety evaluators talk about doses, many, many times higher than this.
I 2
And so the 40 R/ hour should be related to something like a maximum of 3l say 150 R in rem to the thyroid in 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br />.
So that 40 R/ hour would 4
not be a suprising amount to get when you talk about thyroid dose.
I'm 5l afraid that a lot of people think that 40 R/ hour and I guess I heard a 6
10 R/ hour sorrewhere, was a whole body dose.
And maybe I'm all wrong, 7
but I'd like to think that they were after an iodine dose.
I 8l 9l ESSIG:
And I'll just comment that this was the individual's recall and i
10 we can verify this, by actually checking the calculations and we've 11!
asked for the recor-and so, we'll be doing that.
e 12{
13 WOODARD:
- 0. K.
But I do think that there's a lot of lessons to be 14 learned in tenas of the whole body dose versus thyroid dose.
15l 16l POTTER:
You mean in the sense that the iodine releases were not as i
17' high relative to nobel gases as we have anticipated.
Or have used as a i
18[
basis for licensing?
19l WOODARD:
Well, I'm i.ot sure.
I haven't checked the ratios.
But 20l 21 certainly, the yes - that's true.
The thyroid doses were extremely 1
low.
I think my maximum from inhalation is less than a couple of 22 millirem.
And from drinking milk it's about 5 millirem or so.
Which 23 24 are extremely low doses.
And certainly, I don't think, anything for 25 l,
t 1
857 180' i
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i 65 I
the public to be concerned about, but that's - we really have to, as
~
2l safety evaluators, we've been talking about having this plant designed 3
for a much higher release and still providing an emergency plan to i
4l respond to.
And I think in this case, the fact that they really did i
Si have a very big release to the containment, and not have it - and not l
Gi have to go through the evacuation procedure,.I think is a credit to the I
7l plan - Emergency Responie Plan.
There's another statement I'd like to 8
make concerning monitoring.
I made it once with relation to the Goldsboro 9
dose estimates, that you cannot just make an instantaneous sample of 10 something in the athmosphere.
You've got to stay in one place and 11 monitor.
Now I've seen, well, I been while I've been in Trailer City, 12, I would say at least four different helicopters and I don't think more 13 than one of them is related to Met Ed monitoring activities.
But from 14!
the other agencias, I've seen probably three; probably the State may 15i have one.
00E has one.
And I'm not sure whether NRC or anybody else.
16l The monitoring procedure that's being used, seems to require the hovering 17 of the helicopter right over the plant.
One of the things that we do ISf in safety analysis for nuclear plants is related to aircraft accidents.
19f And I just don't think it's a good idea to have a helicopter sitting 20j right over the plar.t.
But back to the sample and hold.
A helicopter i
21l can stay in one place and sample, but they are usually up in the air l
22 and not dovin at the ground where the dose is actually occurring.
And I 23 think that th we may be other survey teams that were out from other 24 agencies and Met Ed, who did not sample in a continuous fixed place.
25 i
i i
857 181
d
(
66 lj So that what happened was that the press got dose numbers that were 2:
instantaneous numbers.
In other words, if you were to hola a survey 3
meter up in the plume, you'd see the survey meter mayber swing from 1 4
millirem to.10 millirem.
The only number that would be reported would 5
be the high one.
The average maybe somewhere in between there.
And so 6
that I think that we should caution - that one not report only the peak 7
value.
That you try to stay as long as you can in one place to monitor 8
and report an average value.
9 10i ESSIG:
Just through in a comment here.
Were either one of you gentlemen I
11!.
involved in reviewing of the exposure rate which was measured at about I
12 8 o' clock on Friday morning, the 30th, so called black Friday, black, 13 by some people.
It had an exposure rate of 1.2 R per hour at an ele-14!
vation of about 600 feet?
l 15i 16; POTTER:
I've reviewed that data.
I've also looked at some of the 17 other earlier survey data.
And in fact, in that early period, I'm -
i 18{
well, in being sort of on standby on Saturday and Sunday to anticipate 19 or to evaluate releases as they occurred.
Releases were not occurring 20 very frequently at that time and were not very severe when they did 21;'
occur.
So I did go back over scme of that data to look at it and to 22 try and get a sense of it - or to try and interpret it.
And it was 23 extremely difficult to interpret.
And I think the monitoring team, 24l being at one location for only one moment is only a part of the problem..
i 2 51 857 182 i
-6 67 l!
I think, one can make a good case for some integrating instruments, in 2'
a case like this, or in a survey like this.
The second point that I 3
wanted to make, is an elaboration of Keith's.
The use of the helicopter 4j to measure the height of the release - the effective height of the l
5 release was, in my limited review of the data, not in that potential 6l was not very well used.
And I think that's another thing we want to 7
look at further.
For example, helicopter measurements at different 8
heights averaged over some period at some time minutes.
All of those 9l would be useful.
10 11!
WOODARD:
The 1.2 rad reading at the helicopter elevation of 600 feet 12 were 3 readings in one minute.
150 millirem and what was the other 13 one?
100 millirem and 1.2 R.
That would give you an idea of hour 14j puffie these things are.
Another thing, that - I know it was black 15 Friday and everything, but the plume apparently, from looking at ni 16 trajectory information was headed towards the West and I don't believe 17l that we had over a - at Goldsboro, more than a total integrated dose at about 30 millirem.
Is that accurate, Tom? So again it shows that if IS{
19j y u get right in the stack with your helicopter, you may see a 1.2 R 20l readi,g, but as soon as it's diffused a few hundred meters, it's no way near that.
But again it could be a puffie situation, where you're 21:
22 havinn t.orsts and you hit a burst.
Where as if you were to average it 23 ver a reasonable time period, you get entirely different numbers.
So, 24.
I guess my inclination would be to keep the helicopters at a wider 25j l
037 183 f
1
f 4
l 68 l
I l!
radius from the plant than right over the top of the stack.
And there 1
2 is also a question of dosimetry when your ceasuring a gamma plume.
You 3l may not be in the plume.
You may be well above it, in other words.
I 4l don't believe the plume was at 700 feet.
SI l
Gi ESSIG: What you're saying is that you may be seeing a shine where the I
~
71 plume is supposed to - actually measuring the plume itself?
8 i
gj WOODARD:
Right.
I would be elated if that plume were at 700 feet, i
10l because all of these dose calculations would be high by a factor of 11j maybe 50.
If you had a 700 foot plume.
Because these all assume that i
12{
it's at 10 feet ground level.
And that is very difficult to see how I
131 the plume could have been that high that soon.
l 14i 15 ESSIG:
That's perhaps a good point to be made.
16l 17l There's also the question of monitoring instrumentation.
I'm POTTER:
18j not sure - I do know that low range beta gamma, low range GM rate i
19f meters were being used in the helicopter.
At least the Met Ed helicopter, 20f f r at least a large part of the time.
And I think those data a'e r
l 2,!
valuable from the standpoint of providing trends and directions, and i
^
things like this.
But that it is a very difficult thing to try, as you 22 23 know I'm sure, Tom, to try and get any real sense of a dose rate, when 24 y u have a dose rate from those instrument readings.
25{
i L
837 184 i
l 69
{
1.
ESSIG:
Just a comment there.
Yesterday we did interview the gentlemen 2!
who actually performed the survey, the Met Ed individual.
And he 3
indicated as best as he could recall, that he used an Eberline R02 fon 4:
chamber.
And he was taking a window open measurement, which I believe 5
the instructions were to the survey surveyors to perform the window 6
open measurement, at least, and perhaps in addition on a number of 7
occasions, they were also asked to take the window closed measurement.
l 8{
But one of the things that you encounter to hear him describe what he 9I actually did, he stuck the instrument out the side of the helicopter, 10l which I understand the actual door at that side had been removed.
It 11l wasn't even there to - so they could stick the instrument out of the 12 side.
There were probably a lot of air currents buffeting the monitor 13l window, which as you know, when you do that, you can 14i f
15; POTTER:
Get any reading you want.
16i ESSIG:
Get any reading you want.
Right.
So, that measurement of 1.2 17, 18[
R/ hour is perhaps suspect on a number of - from a number of vir spoints.
19j Well, that's all the comment I had on that.
But a - I guess I have 20 just one - one comment on the line that Bob Marsh was pursuing.
We 21l have already established that the Met tower and data telemetry system 22 appeared to be operating as - with probably better than 98% data recovery, 23 and again, from a Monday morning quarterback point of view, would there have been a measurement or type of data reduction which might have 24l i
251 l
i i
857 185 r
I Q
f 70 t
l lf been - of which you can point to an say gee, I wish that I had that 2
capability or - or did the existing capability that was available at 3
the time of the first three days following the event, did that appear 4
adequate, in you judgement to make the particular calculations that you 5
wanted to make?
6i 7'
POTTERL Possibly.
- 0. K.
8 9l ESSIG:
Or would you prefer to have Met towers, at the various distances?
I 10l t
11 POTTER:
If I could comment first.
I thought the capability was great.
12!
What I regretted was not being able to use it very well, 13 14l WOODARD:
There were too many people out of town at the time.
But, we 15l do not operate our facility as an emergency.
We're not required to and 16j nobody has ever asked for it.
And I think the Control Room did a 17l magnificant job of doing what they had to do, without our direct support isj early in the game.
I'd have to make - I think - well, I've been on 19f this site when there have been two meteorological towers.
There used 20' to be one at the north end and south end of the island.
I don't really 21 think that there needed to be two - two towers.
I think the information 12 we got from this tower was very good.
I think what's needed most is 23 not in the area of meteorology, it's more in the area of some kind of I
24 an indication of releases.
And that's really Tom's area. [ LAUGHTER]
25 i
057 136 l
f 71
'l MARSH: Okeydoke.
I've got 5:28 on the clock and if no one else has anything else to add, we'll call this to a conclusion here. We very 2
much appreciate your time and'your recall, recognizing that it is a 3
4-Saturday.
And if no one else has anything else,-I'll terminate at this 5
time, then.
So to both of you, thank you very much.
61 I
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