ML19305A537
| ML19305A537 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/23/1979 |
| From: | Essig T, Shackleton O NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908300174 | |
| Download: ML19305A537 (30) | |
Text
i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION t
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M In the Matter of:
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IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 31 of 41 James E. Cline Division Manager, t!uclear Environmental Services Si 61 i
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Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 101 Middletown, Pennsylvania 11!
May 7, 1979 12!
(Date or Interview) 13)
June 23,1979 14I (Date Transcript Typec) 155 15{
(Tape Numoer(s))
16I 17' 18l 19l 20l 7
i 21 NRC PERSONNEL:
22l Larry L. Jackson, Radiation Specialist 23!
Thomas E. Essig, Chief. Environmental and Special Projects Section Owen C. Shackleton, Investigator 25j i,
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SHACKLETON:
This is an interview of Mr. James E. Cline, Mr. Cline is 2
a Division Manager, Nuclear Environmental Services, for the Science 3
Application, Incorporated, located in Rockville, Maryland.
The time is M
now 9:47 a.m., May 7, 1979. Present to conduct this interview from the i
SI U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Mr. Larry L. Jackson. Mr. Jackson 6i is a Radiation Specialist assigned to Region II. Also present is Mr.
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Thomas H.
ig. Mr. Essig is the Chief, Environmental and Special 8
Projects Section of Region III.
My name is Owen C. Shackleton. I am an 9f Investigator assigned to Region V.
This ir.terview is being conducted 101 in Trailer Number 203, which is parked just outside the south security 11f gate of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Station operated by the i
121 Metropolitian Edison Company.
Just prior to beginning this interview 13 on tape, I gave to Mr. Cline a two page document prepared by the US 14; Nuclear Regulatory Commission setting forth the purpose and scope of 15!
this investigation and explaining and identifiying the authority granted 16!
to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Congress to conduct this t
17f type of an investigation.
Also set forth are the rights that Mr. Cline 18t has to refuse to be interviewed or to refuse to submit a signed statement.
19i On the second page and the last page of this document, are three questions 20f which Mr. Cline answered in writing. To maka it a matter of record, I'm 21l now going to ask Mr. Cline to please respond orally to these questions.
Mr. Cline did you understand the text of the two page document that I'm 22 23 refering to?
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CLINE:
Yes I did.
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SHACXLETON:
And do we have your permission to tape this interview?
4 5
CLINE:
Yes.
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SHACXLETON:
And do you want a copy of this tape?
8 9l CLINE:
No, I do not.
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SHACXLETON:
Allright sir. And now Mr. Cline, for the benefit of the i
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many persons who will be interested in hearing your testimony, would 13 you please give us some background information concerning your own 14!
personal background in the nuclear field and identifying the purpose 15i and type of work performed by your corporation.
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17l CLINE:
I have a Doctorate in Nuclear Physics, granted by the University i
ISf of Michigan.
For the first 16 years of my working career, I worked for igj the Idaho Nuclear Energy Laboratory, at the time the National Resctor 20lj Testing Station in the field of gamma ray spectrometry, working with a 21l Mr. Russell Heath.
For the past 6 years I've been with Science Appli-22l cations Incorporated first in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and for the past 5 1
23 years in Rockville, Maryland. We operate a counting laboratory and a 24 chemistry laboratory.
We have been under contract to the Electric 25i
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853 148 r
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Power Research Institute investigating seven plants for the release of i
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radio iodine into the environment, making inplant measurements as well 3
as environmental measurements, and laboratory counting.
We have a 4
mobile laboratory that we have taken to these sites for the measurements.
Si It contains two gamma ray spectrometers and various air sampling I
61 apparatus. We have been under contract, in addition to the 21ectric 7
Power Research Institute, been under contract to some 10 utilities to 8l do various portions of their counting and radiochemical separations.
9j The people who are involved in our measurements are people who have 10f been involved in these programs.
11 12 SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much.
And now I'll turn the questioning 13 over to Mr. Essig.
e 14i 15i ESSIG:
Dr. Cline, when did you arrive on the on the Three Mile Island, 16j when did your company's measurement's van arrive on the Three Mile 17 Island site, following the event of March 28th?
18l 19l CLINE: We arrived on Friday, is that the 30th?
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21j ESSIG:
Yes.
22 CLINE:
At approximately 8:00 p.m..
We were....had our electric power 23 24 and ready to go at approximately 10 or 11 p.m..
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iu ESSIG: Were you a normal contractor to Metropolitan Edison Company in i
2 the sense that you had a contract established prior to the event of 3
3/28 or was this something that was set up following the event of 3/28?
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CLINE:
This was ret up following the event of 3/28, however, Three 6l Mile Island Unit 1 was in our EPRI program in the radio iodine studies.
7 We had made measurements here for approximately 2 years during that 8
program.
et 10' ESSIG:
I see. The samples you were asked to count by the Metropolitan lli Edison Company, could you describe during the first couple of days of I
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your counting the types of samples that you were counting, such as, if i
131 they were liquid samples, and if liquid, from what. source, or charcoal 14 samples, whether they were inplant samples or offsite samples, that 15i type of thing?
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17j CLINE:
Most of the samples that we counted during the first two days 18j were liquids. We counted a few charcoal samples that had been drawn 19l from inplant measurements, mostly the Aux Building.
The liquid samples, 20 the ones of principle interest were the industrial waste treatment i
21l system samples and the IWFS samples, discharged to the river as I 22 understand it.
The east dike samples,...those were the principle ones, 23 I'd have to look in my records to know the others, but those were the i
24; major ones.
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ESSIG:
Coah!
a state to the best of your recollection what the 2
i minimum detectable activity was for iodine 131 for those IWTS and IWFS I
3l samples that you counted?
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CLINE: We got liter bottles and 500 milliliter bottles of this liquid 7
6 and our minimum detectable limit at that time was about 2 x 10 microcuries 7
per cc.
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ESSIG:
And are the liter and 500 ml bottles both of which in your 10 normal counting geometry as far as the calibration is concerned?
lli 12l CLINE:
We have calibrations for those geometries, yes.
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ESSIG:
Were you given any samples to count during your first few days l
151 onsite which required you to, which were not samples that you were 16' calibrated for the normal counting geometry?
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CLINE:
Yes and no. Some samples came in gallon bottles for which we 18j 19i weren't calibrated, but we were able to transfer the liquid into bottles 20 which we were calibrated for, so it didn't amount to a s'erious problem.
21l 22 ESSIG:
Were there any samples that you were asked to count which 23 although the sample configuration may have had a normal counting geometry, 24 because of the activity on the sample that you had to count it at a 25 greater distance that you were normally calibrated for?
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11 CLINE:
No, no. We're calibrated for distances clear on out to 50 t
2' centimeters.
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ESSIG:
I see.
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Gi CLINE:
We didn't see any at that time in the liquid samples.
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JACKSON:
Okay. Dr. Cline, did you experience any problems with getting 9
samples bottles, say a 500 ml bottle that was only half full or three 101 quarters full?
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CLINE:
Occasionally.
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JACKSON:
Did you make corrections for, or dilute it up to full, or i
15j make any estimates of how that effected your geometry?
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i 17j CLINE:
We diluted it so that it was a full bottle.
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19l JACKSON:
Were there any other noticable problems such as settling of 20l solids in some of these industrial waste treatment samples?
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22l CLINE:
There was settling of some solids on the bottom but the principle activity was iodine.
Iodine is not noted for its settling in the 23 l
24j bottom of containers and the bottles were shaken before we started the I
25j count.
So I don't anticipate that there was a particular problem in it.
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JACKSON:
Thank you.
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3 ESSIG:
Did you experience any problems with the background activity 4
during the first couple days of counting?
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CLINE:
The Xenon level varied continuously to a great degree, but it 7
did not influence our ability to count radioactive iodine.
81 9l ESSIG:
So you, in other words, had to take no corrective actions then i
10; as far as background other than what you would normally, normal background, i
11l corrections that you would make.
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I 13; CLINE:
No, no sir we didn't.
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15 ESSIG:
I believe that's probably all the questions that I have for Dr.
16 Cline unless Larry, you have, you have some?
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18j JACKSON:
I did have one more question relating to filter counting.
19l Oid you count charcoal filters that related to this first three days do 20f y u recall?
21.
22f CLINE:
Not from the first three days, no.
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i ll JACKSON:
What about subsequent, just for the record, what about sub-2 sequent-days? Did...in the hot filters, were there any perforations, 3{
like were the filters purged or, in any manner, to try to get down 4j xenon levels before the filters were counted, anything of this nature?
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6l CLINE:
I can't answer that question, I don't know whether they were 7
purged or not. Again, the hot filters did not influence our ability to 8
count the iodine. The xenon is easily absorbed on pieces of cadmium and gl it does not affect the iodine counting at all.
Or, it should not and 10l did not in our cars.
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12l JACKSON:
I've got no further questions.
I 13l 14j ESSIG:
Okay, and as I said earlier, I don't have any further questions i
15j either, primarily because as Dr. Cline has indicated, arrival time on 16; site and being set up to count...the first samples were counted on the 17 31st which is really beyond the scope...although the samples had been ig; collected prior on the 30th the results were not available for transmittal 19j to the Metropolitian Edison Company until the 31st and so its really 201 bey nd the time window of this investigation. So I have no further 21l questions, i
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SprACXLETON:
Okay Dr. Cline, the only thing I can think of is you 2:
might be able to assist the industry end with your extensive background 3l and work experience. From you observations, if you have any comments 4f that you would like to make as recommendations to other licensees that 5l are operating nuclear power plants, anything you've observed here that Gi you think...if you can thirik of some recommendations to improve the 1
7 situation or to make it easier to handle an incident like this in your 8
field, this would be a good time for you to make those comments.
We gj would appreciate it.
10i 11 CLINE:
Oh, I could make lots of comments like that, but I don't think I
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that this is the appropriate place.
I'm really not prepared to go into 13 that detail.
I 14i 15; SHACKLETON: Allright, fine.
On behalf of the Commission, we thank you 16j for coming in this mJrning.
Any further questions gentlemen? We'll 17l conclude this interview at this time then. The time is now 10 a.m.,
6 18j Eastern Daylight Time, May 7, 1979.
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