ML19305A538
| ML19305A538 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/26/1979 |
| From: | Creswell J, Donaldson D, Sinclair J NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTOR & AUDITOR (OIA) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908300202 | |
| Download: ML19305A538 (63) | |
Text
l UNZTED STATES OF AMERICA l;
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION l
l I
In the Matter of:
2l IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW I
31 of Richard W. Bensel, Engineer 3 i
Phillip Warren, Engineer 1 4!
Si 6i 7
6[
Trailer #203 9}
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10l Middletown, Pennsylvania 11 May 7, 1979 12!
(Date or Interview) 13l' June 26. 1979 (Date Transcript Typeo) 14i 156 and.15.'
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(Tape Numoer(s))
16) 17l 18!
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21i i
NRC' PERSONNEL:
h 22l Dale E. Donaldson James S. Creswell i
23!
John R. Sinclair 24' i
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i SINCLAIR:
The following interview is being conducted simultaneously with Mr. Ronald Philip Warren, Engineer, Senior 1, Metropolitan Edison and Mr. Richard William 8ensel, Metropolitan Edison, Engineer 3 at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Facility.
The time is 3:41 p.m.
Eastern Daylight Time.
Today's date is May 7, 1979.
Place of the g!
,, I interview is Trailer 203 which is located immediately outside the el South Gate of the Three Mile Island site.
The' individuals present for I
the interview will be interviewers Mr. Dale E. Donaldson, Radiation 8l Specialist, Region I, and Mr. James S. Creswell, Reactor Inspector, 91 I
Region III.
Operating the tape recorder will be Mr. John R. Sinclair 101 l
an investigator with the Office of Inspector and Auditor, Nuclear 11:
Regulatory Commission.
Prior to the interview being recorded Mr.
12; i
Bensel and Mr. Warren were provided a copy of the document explaining 13l their rights concerning information to be obtained regarding the incident at Three Mile Island.
In addition, both Mr. Bensel and Mr.
15!
Warren were appriced of the purpose of the investigation, its scope 16i t
and the authority by which Congress authorized the Nuclear Regulatory 171 Commission to conduct the investigation.
On the second page of the 181 advisement document, Mr. Bensel and Mr. Warren have answered three 19!
questions.
The questions that Mr. 8ensel and Mr. Warren replied will 201 now be recorded as part of the interview.
Mr. Warren do you understand 21!
the above.
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WARREN:
Yes.
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l lj SINCLAIR: Do we have oermission to tape the interview.
I 2l WARREN:
Yes.
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5l SINCLAIR: Do you want a copy of the tape or transcript.
I 6i WARREN:
Yes.
7 a!
SINCLAIR:
Thank you.
Mr. Bensel do you understand the above.
9l 10l BEN 5EL:
Yes.
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SINCLAIR: Do we have your permission to tape the interview.
141 BENSEL:
Yes.
15i 16i SINCLAIR: 00 you want a copy of the tape or transcript.
17',-
ISj BENSEL:
Yes.
191 20!
6 SINCLAIR:
All right at this time we will start off by asking Mr.
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Warren to briefly supply us some background information regarding his 22 l
experience and training in the nuclear industry.
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3 WARREN:
Prior to my employment at Metropolitan Edison, which was y
2l September of 1977, I was employed at the Newport News Shipbuilding and 3
Orydock Company in Newport News, Virginia as a ship test engineer.
I was in that position for approximately six months and I was employed 5!
by Newport News for a total of about five and a half years.
Since c ming to Metropolitan Edison I started out as a mechanical engineer 6
working part-time in Unit 1 and part-time in Unit 2. In the summer of 7
78, I was appointed as lead mechanical engineer for Unit 2.
8 9f l
CRESWELL:
Thank you.
Mr. Bensel?
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I BENSEL:
My nuclear experience started with Metropolitan Edison at 12!
I Three Mile Island in July of '73.
My first employment since graduating 131 I
from college.
My training primarily consisted of Unit 1 hot functional 14!
testing on shift with the shift test engineers, three week course at 15i Penn State University in reactor theory, operations, health physics, simulator training with B&W, and several other company related courses.
17!
The time spent I've been here I was hired as Engineer 1 and presently ISI i
Engineer 3 and made lead electrical engineer of Unit 2 and was that 191 from about a year and a half ago.
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SINCLAIR: At this time we'll turn the interview over to Mr. Donaldson.
22l 23 DONALDSON: We'll say our name before we speak so the girls that are 24l typing the transcripts know who is speaking.
If you remember to do 25i 853 085 1
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4 lj it, it would help her, if you don't, don't worry about it.
Let me ask 2)I offhand are either of you licensed operators.
31 4j BENSEL:
No.
I was scheduled to go up for a license training starting in July f tnis year.
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DONALDION:
Thank you.
What we are looking for in a period of interest f r our investigation is from approximately 0400 on the 28th through 8
midnight on the 30th, and we are looking at actions that Metropolitan gy Edison took in that regard.
Now we've talked to a number of other people.
The reason you're here is because we found where you fit in I
the organization at that time.
And I think the easiest thing to do to 12j make sure that we get clear answers from some of the questions I have, 13) we'll start with some specifics and when I get those answers then we'll maybe back up and if you have anything else to offer you can i
15i discuss the general chronology of what you did and where you went, maybe some other knowledge of some other events we may want to clarify.
17!
Now I understand that the two of you, your first major assignment on 18i that morning was making notifications.
191 20l WARREN:
Yes 21l 6
22 DONALDSON: Why don't we start with Mr. Warren and why don't you go 23 through the sequenct of notifications that you made.
Primarily what I 24 am looking for if you can remember are the agencies that you did make 251 l,
853 086
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l 1l and difficulties that you may have encountered in trying to contact 2
the agencies.
I 3l 4l WARREN:
I arrived here at work about 6:50 and probably about 6:45.
S' Anyway I just got to my office and I heard that a site emergency had been announced.
I heard it over the page.
From my office I walked up 6i 7,
to the control room, which is probably about a five minute walk.
When I g t up there Dick was already up there, he was on the phone, and it 8
was explained to me that they had a site emergency and that there was g
a Possibility that we had. fuel damage and that we had to make the 10 i
notifications, to the various agencies in accordance with the emergency I
plan.
Dick wouldn't have had time to make them all himself so they 12; wanted me to, assist him, in making the phone calls.
So I would imagine I probably started making the first notification around 7:00 141 o' clock. 'The first person I called were the State Police, I believe.
i 15i I gct ahold of them and basically what I told everybody that I called 16;:
was that we had a turbine trip and a reactor trip, we had possible 171 I
fuel damage, we hadn't had any releases to the public and we had 18(
declared a site emergency at the site. So I contacted the State Police.
191 I asked them if they could provide police officers at the gate to help 20 direct traffic in case there was problems with traffic building up.
21!
After that I called, I believe, I started calling our management and I tried to get Jack Herbein, Vice President, who is the person we are 23 suppose to call and I was unable to get a hold of him. Then I tried to 24 get Sandy Boyer who is hanager-Operations and I was unable to get 25) 853 087 i
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llj ahold of him. Finally I got ahold of Dick Klingeman who was is Manager 2
of Engineering for Generation Division of Metropolitan Edison Company.
3 I told him basically the same story and told him I wasn't able to get ahold of Mr. Herbein.
After that I believe I called the RAPP Team, 4
sj that's ERDA, I believe.
61 DONALDSON:
Now, its 00E.
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8 WARREN:
They are the ones that got Philadelphia Electric. That was i
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their answering service.
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DONALDSON:
I believe that was Radiation Management Corporation.
13 WARREN:
Okay, then it was Radiation Management.
That's RAPP, okay.
That's who I called then.
Anyway I got Philadelphia Electric and told 15j them that we had site emergency.
They said that they would try to get 16l ahold of somebody and passed that word on.
Then from that, who else 17 did I call?
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191 l
BEi4SEL:
In the Emergency Plan there is essentially a flow chart of 20 organizations that we call.
Essentially we just started at the top of 21l that and worked our way down.
So for us to actually try to remember 22 who we called specifically each point in time is a little bit difficult.
23 But we did contact everybody on that chart.
2 41 s
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i WARREN:
The other person that I called was, I forgot it now.
I can't y
2 remember who the fourth person was.
I called four agencies as I 3
recall before the general emergency was declared.
Then when the 4j general emergency was declared I made the same notifications over 5:
again - that we had a general emergency.
About the only problem that I had was when we called the State Police.
When I called the State 6l Police the second time George Kunder, who's my boss, had asked me to request a helicopter to fly over the site. The State Police were 8
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reluctant at first to let us have a helicopter. Then George came in and I told him of the State Police's reluctance with me.
George 10!
I talked to them and they finally said they would send a helicopter.
111 12!
CREiWELL:
Excuse me.
What would made them reluctant?
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141 WARREN:
One, they didn't know who I was, so I told them that.
Second 15i reason they didn't understand why we needed a helicopter and they aid 16i they didn't have a helicopter immediately available.
I told them that 17!
i we had an emergency here.
They just were still reluctant.
I don't 18{
know, maybe they thought I was giving them a crank call or something.
19{
But that did get straightened out and about the same.
After George 20t spoke to them, they said they would send a helicopter.
I'll try to 21!
think of who was the fourth one.
Maybe if Dick spoke I'd go on...
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O BENSEL:
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The first people I tried to call was either Dauphin County 2j Civil Defense or State Civil Defense.
I did get through, but I was I
3j either put on hold or they tried to transfer me to another line and that just kind of died.
So I went to the next person down the list on Sf the Civil Defense side and I had problems getting through to the;n.
I 6l did finally get through to Civil Defense organizations.
After that I called the NRC.
Due to the time of morning it was, I got the answering 7
service add explained to her what had happened.
Basically that the 8
turbine tripped followed by a reactor trip, possibility of fuel damage 91 I
and it appeared that we had a primary to secondary leak in the 8 steam 10l generator.
1 11 12!
i DONALOSON: What did she reply to you after she had taken the message.
131 14i i
BENSEL:
She just wanted to get the information down and she was 15j trying to beep the Duty Officer.
I think she finally got through to him, but he was in transit and that's when the message finally got 17l to the NRC.
Eventually I know I got through to the Pennsylvania 18{
Department of Radiological Health and I am not sure at what time in 191 the morning it was, but we did have an open line established with them.
While very early into the incident, it probably wasn't long 21l
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after the general emergency was declared.
As soon as the general 22' emergency was declared we went through the list and called everybody 23 again.
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i DONALDSON:
Do you recall on the first notification or first contact y
2 with the Bureau of Radiation Health who you reached?
3 BENSEL:
4 I think I had a secretary and was transferred to a guy, I i
- d. 6 can't think of his name.
6:
00NALDSON:
Could that have been Mr. Dornsife.
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BENSEL:
That's a possibility, I can't remember.
91 101 I
DONALDSON:
By what time would you say the notifications had been 11!
complete?
In other words, you went through once, you went through the list a second time.
When were the notifications?
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l BENSEL:
I would say 8:00 o' clock, for the second time around.
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WARREN:
It was before 8:00 o' clock.
It was about a quarter of eight, 17l because that is when the NRC returned our phone calls and we established 18(
an open line with the NRC, Region I.
I remember who the fourth people 19i I tried to call was American Nuclear Insurer. I wasn't able to get 20i them while the site emergency was on.
Nobody answered.
I got them 21 after I called them back about the general emergency.
I got the 22 secretary and she told me that there was nobody in the office and that 23 she would relay the message and tell them to call back when somebody 24 came in.
I believe they called back around 9:00 o' clock or 9:30.
The 25!
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nly people on the list that didn't contact was the Hershey Medical i
2j Center and that was because we had no injuries.
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4j BENSEL:
The other people on the list that I did talk to the ERDA RAPP Team.
I think that is one of those there.
After the site emergency, 5
6l we did request that they send a team to assist.
I am not sure if their team ever got here but.it was requested.
7 8
i DONALDSON:
Now the request, I want to get this straight, the request g
for RAPP's assistance came from you, is that correct?
11l BENSEL:
Yes.
That was after the general emergency was declared.
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DONALDSON:
Did they indicate whether or not they intended to respond.
i 15i BENSEL:
Yes, they said they would dispatch a team.
lo,;i 17l DONALDSON:
Do you have or did you make logs or notes of who you spoke 18f with?
19!
20i BENSEL: We made a log of who we spoke with and we sent that to the 21, GPU personnel man, Gary Brockman, who was putting the report together.
22' I think our initial list, unfortunately we didn't make a xerox copy of 23 it - it got lost somewhere in the mail on the Island.
We tried to 2y recreate it from the status board up in the control room.
I think Jim 25l P
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Seelinger has a copy of that.
That did not include all phone calls 2j that were made.
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4j DONALDSON:
But your other original list did?
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BENSEL:
Yes.
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WARREN:
One thing that we didn't have on the list was the peoples g
names, because a lot of the times we spoke to secretaries.
So we put i
g down the times and the organizations that we called.
We didn't put i
down the individuals names because it was a little hectic up there anyway.
i 13-BENSEL:
One other organization that we called that doesn't show on l
there and that's the Yorkhaven Power Station.
As soon as we had an
- 15; estimation of what the first bell (Containment dome?) site calculated dose was, we called the York Haven several times getting them to turn 17l t
on their radiation monitors,since'they are actually down wind of the 18f plant for the wind at the time.
We kept calling.them back asking them 191 if they had any readings.
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21 DONALDSON:
You say there were calls being placed to York Haven to j
continually check on the readings?
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12 BENSEL:
Yes there were.
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DONALDSON:
3 Do you know whether York Haven ever reported any readings?
4I, 5f If they did, I don't remember any readings of any significance, BENSEL:
gj I know the first fence line reading that Dick Dubiel gave from a monitoring team on site was something like 0.1 mr, wasn't it Ron?
8 WARREN:
Yes.
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101 DONALDSON:
Do you have a standard prepared format which you follow 11!
for certain agencies when you give an initial notification?
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WARREN:
I don't understand the question.
14) 15l DONALDSON:
Do you have a prepared message format.
In other words, is 16i there a certain wording that you give the individuals?
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18i BENSEL: We really don't have a prepared format as such.
Maybe something 191 l
that should be developed.
But basically what we did, we identified 201 ourselves, say we are from Metropolitan Edison TMI Unit 2, we declared 21 a site emergency, we had whatever the conditions were at the plant, 22' and we knew what expected offsite dose was and the direction the wind 23 l
was coming from.
We would give that information.
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1l DONALDSON:
Let me interrupt to see if this looks familiar.
I am 2
referring now to the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station annex to the Pennsylvania plant for the implementation of protective action guide.
3:
That's a mouth full.
There is a standard format, questions that the 4
5l State normally asks or expects to receive information or answers to in that plan.
You can take a look at it and just kind of get a feel 6
y whether or not it looks familar and they are for each major type of accident.
g ei BENSEL: That does look familiar and if we had that information and they asked for it we would give it to them.
For example, I can't 11!
remember if we saici that we had safety injection actuate or not when 12{
l we called people.
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15li DONALDSON:
Do you recall whether or not they asked whether the Reactor Building was isolated?
17l BENSEL:
No I don't 18l 191 WARREN:
I don't either.
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BENSEL: We essentially made the phone calls.
After the calls were 22 made other people were comaunicating with these agencies, probably 23 more than we were.
Particularly the health physics type people arid 24 i
that information I am sure got relayed on to those organizations.
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don't know that for a fact though.
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!lj DONALDSON:
When you contacted the various agencies, if you got someone 2j ther than a secretary, let's say you got someone in charge, did you 3
give them a name of someone they were to work their communications i
4j through, so they knew who to recontact?
l Sj WARREN:
For myself. I never got anybody like that.
6 7i BENSEL: We did this, we told them to call back on the outside line g
and that we would call them as conditions changed.
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10l DONALDSON:
Then, what I am hearing you say, in terms of initial notification, you would provide a very basic notification and if the i
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individual asked specific questions you would try to answer those questions?
15 BENSEL: Yes, that's essentially what we did and the time frame that we are making the initial notifications, we essentially had just arrived on the site.
I got here and on my way to the Unit 2 control room, or 181 either on my way or just after I got to the Unit 2 control room the 191 site emergency was declared.
So I didn't really have time to get any 20l l
detailed information from anybody.
So we almost had to rely on the' 21I information that the superintendent in charge could give us in two 22l minutes and use that to notify the people initially.
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15 DONALDSON:
You mentioned you were on site when the site emergency was 1
declared. Is that correct?
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BENSEL:
Yes.
4l Si DONALDSON: Do you recall whether or not an announcement was made over 6
the page the standard announcement that's made?
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8 BENSEL:
Yes I heard the announcement.
I was in Unit 2, I don't know g
if it was audible in Unit 1 or not.
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l WARREN: My office is in Unit 1 and that's where I heard it.
It came 12!
over the page.
It was the standard announcement and they had the standard siren go off.
15i DONALDSON:
Subsequently, when they rolled over ?-om a site to a 16i general emergency, did they remake the announcement?
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181 BENSEL:
I remember declaring the general emergency and I heard the 19!
announcement in the Unit 2 control room.
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DONALDSON:
From the time that you completed your notifications I
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assume you then took other duties or was assigned other duties?
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WARREN:
My duty was maintaining an open line with the NRC, Reg. ion I.
2i I was on that until about 10:00 o' clock, I believe.
That's when they I
3t evacuated the Unit 2 control room, all people but people directly t
associated with operations and so I evacuated over to Unit 1.
I don't Sj know who picked up that open line with the NRC, except that when I was over at Unit 1, probably about 10:30 or 11:00 o' clock, the Region I 6
team arrived onsite.
They were up in Unit 1 and reestablished the 7
1 ne, guess.
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DONALDSON:
And what did you do?
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BENSEL:
I maintained essentially a line open with the Department of 12 1' Radiological Health, as needed.
Essentially all I would do is when we had information to relay onto them, the health physics people would t
come in and talk to them or they had a geestion for us, I would relay 15i the' question.
And I probably also made some other miscellaneous phone I
calls in there and I vaguely remember answering some questions relative 17l I
to equipment at the plant.
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19f DONALDSON: Were either of you who were manning open lines trying to 20 maintain logs or records of the discussions that were taking place?
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22 WARREN:
No.
Basically the people on the status boards keeping any 23 l
type records like that.
The health phsyics people should have been 24 keeping records of radiation readings and stuff like that, that was 25; i
being relayed on.
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i 17 lj DONALDSON:
00 you recall Gary Miller ever making an announcement or a 4
2j direction that certain people would begin logging everything they i
3l happened to hear.
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.I WARREN:
I don't.
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BENSELL I don't remember that either.
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at DONALDSON:
What I was icoking for is other than a specific number of 9!,
radiation reading, a lot of times there are little discussions that go 10l I
on between people or questions that may have been asked over the phone 11!
l that may or may not have been answered.
To your knowledge there was 12!
i no one logging or recording these discussions or thought processes 13) that were going on?
I 141 15l WARREN:
No. To my knowledge I don't know of any.
I didn't personally 16i and I didn't see anybody else...
17l 18j BENSEL:
Again to the best of my knowledge the answer to that is no.
i DONALDSON:
So you maintained the phone line with the State.
Did you 21!
also evacuate when the control room was cleared of non-essential 22 personnel?
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18 lj BENSEL:
Yes, Ron and I both evacuated to the Unit 1 control room.
2l 3l OONALDSON:
And what duties did you assume at that time?
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Sf BENSEL:
Basically, it was standing in hot standby.
I really wasn't doing too much of anything at the time and probably within a half hour 6
to an hour I evacuated the site.
7, 8l WARREN:
I manned the open line to the, to Margaret Reilly, the State g
i epartment of Health, I believe.
10 11!
DONALDSON:
And that...?
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131 WARREN:
That was all I did, I just maintained that line open and that 14!
if there was any information that came through, either the person had 15!
the information would give it to me or they'd talked to Margaret 16i Reilly or one of the staffers themselves.
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l 18f 00NALOSON:
Were you making any attempt to keeping logs or keep records, slips of paper and any kind of an area where you could get to them?
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WARREN:
No.
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DONALDSON:
Dick, you were now evacuating the site and where were you 24!
located?
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l 19 yj BENSEL:
Initially when I got evacuated I found out that I had to go i
2j to the 500 KV substation to be frisked and that took a time period of i
3l probably two hours, it seemed like.
41 si DONALDSON:
When you arrived at the 500 KV substation do you recall who was doing the frisking?
6 7\\
al BENSEL:
Charlie Hartman and Rick Barley were frisking some of the i
people as well as two health physics technicians, essentially using 91 l
available people.
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DONALDSON:
You don't recall who the health physics technicians might 12!
I have been?
13i 14 BENSEL:
They were both female.
I do remember that much.
15:
16i DONALDSON:
You only have two female technicians?
17) 18l BENSEL:
I don't know their names.
(Laughter) 19 20!
l DONALDSON:
That would be Espy and Pelen, I believe.
21i 22f BENSEL:
That's okay.
(Laughter) 23 1
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20 DONALDSON:
Were you found to have any contamination on your person li 2
when you were checked?
I 31 4l BENSEL:
No. I was not.
Sf gj DONALDSON:
Do you know if anyone there was found to be contaminated?
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BENSEL:
Yes, there were some people found contaminated.
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DONALDSON:
Could you describe what happened to those people, what I
they did to them?
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i 12j BENSEL:
I'll let Ron Warren talk because he was involved.
(Laughter) 14i WARREN:
They evacuated me about., I believe it was around 1:00 or 1:30, when the Unit 1 control room required the use of respirators.
They ran out of respirator.
So they told me I could leave and go over to the Observation Center.
When I got over to the Observation Center 181 I was told that I should go to the 500 KV substation to be frisked.
19i l
So I went down there and the two femele health physics technicians 20!
l were the ones doing the frisking.
As soon as I put one of my hands up 21l under the frisker it pegged it.
So she frisked me a little bit more and I had it on my jacket, in my hair.
So she told me to go into the 23 substation, that I was to get rid of my clothes and that they had 24 white paper coveralls for people to wear and I went in there.
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l 7j washed my head the best I could under a sink using the regular hand s ap.
It was kind of rough on the head, especially if you don't have 2
any ar e me aug erb Anpay I got R W off and Gen I just 3
stripped my clothes and put the white coveralls on.
Then there were SI about four or five other people in there with me at the time. We were all frisking each other to make sure that we didn't have anything on 6
to'take out. We were clean when we went out of there.
Then the girl 7
health physics technicians, frisked us once more and then one of the girls went over and frisked my car and couldn't find anything.
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10' DONALDSON:
Did anyone record your name?
12l
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WARREN:
I don't believe so.
I can't remember.
I was a little bit 13l upset at the time.
14:
i 15i 00NALDSON:
How upset?
16i I
17(
WARREN:
Pardon?
18l 19l l
00NALDSON:
How?
20l 21!
WARREN:
That I was crapped up and I hadn't been anywhere.
22 23 DONALDSON:
Did anyone discuss with you what the possible source could 2 41 l
have been? Whether you should have any additional, schedule yourself 2Sl for a body count or a nose swipe should be taken?
853 103 i
P
I i
(
22 WARREN:
Nobody discussed anything.
l I
2!
SINCLAIR:
We are going to break to change the tape.
The time is 4:12 3
p.m.
4 I l SINCLAIR:
The time is 4:12 p.m., we are continuing the interview with 6
Mr. Warren and Mr. Bensel.
7 I
8!
CRESWELL:
You mentioned about the meter pegging.
Do you happen to 9
recall what scale it was on?
10 11!
WARREN:
No I don't.
I assumed it was on the lowest scale.
That 12!
would be greater than 500 counts I think.
13 14!
CRESWELL: What kind of device was it?
16i l
WARREN:
It was the RM-4.
17';
18f CRESWELL:
An Eberline?
19j 20 DONALDSON:
The RM14?
21l 22 WARREN:
That's the one with the... ?
23; 24 2si 853 104 i
I,
i p
23 llj CRESWELL:. Beige box?
2!
WARREN:
Right.
3 4j CRESWELL:
Scintillation probe?
5 I
6i WARREN:
That's the one.
7 DONALDSON:
So you were frisked and you were contaminated.
You washed g
in a sink with hand soap and you self-frisked afterwards and found the g
contamination had been removed.
Did you then look for an HP foreman or supervisor in the area to try to find out what you should do from that point on? Did it occur to you to do that?
12 i
13l t
WARREN:
No, it never occurred to me to do that.
In fact the only 141 thing that did occur to me was I wanted to go home and take another 15i shower.
After I had been frisked the second time I asked the health 16!
physics technician what I should do, if anything She said well you can 17i i
leave now.
I kind of felt stupid standing around in white coveralls 181 anyway.
So I jumped in my car and drove home, and took a shower, then 19l I came back.
I had been told later on that the contamination what I 20l l
had on me, came through the ventilation systems. It must have been 21l fairly shortlived stuff because three days later I went back...
22 well I was talking to one of the other fellows that had been contaminated 23[
l himself and he told me he had already up his clothes.
So I thought 24 I
they had been sent to one of these nuclear laundries and laundered.
2Si i
853 105 i
kt
I 24 i
i 7l So I went back to get mine and here they were still in the same bag.
2f They had never been touched.
Frisked the clothes again and there was n thing on them. I know for a fact that jacket had a lot of stuff on 3
i t.
4l 5
DONALDSON:
When was your dosimeter picked up?
61 7
l WARREN:
My dosimeter, I didn't have one that day.
We had racks right a!
outside the Auxiliary Building in the HP control point there.
I don't
'f i
know if you are familiar with where that is.
The day before I had 10f been in the Reactor Building and I had taken all my dosimeters and the ni i
neutron dosimeter and I stuck them up in that rack.
When I came in 12!
13j that day, I went straight up to the control room when I heard there was a site emergency.
After I made the initial batch of phone es'ls I f
14i f
got kind of worried about getting my dosimeter and so I went back down 15i to the rack, which was right downstairs... it wasn't very far...
16I and when I got down there, one of the operators was putting on a respirator.
I asked him if I could get in there and get my dosimeter.
18i He said, "No not unless you have a respirator on."
He said, "This is 191 the only one and I got it."
So I said "What am I suppose to do?" and 20l he said "Nothing I guess.
You know you just can't get it."
He said 21' "You can't get in there.d 22 DONALDSON:
Did you have your TLD on?
24' l
25!
t C33 106 l
l j
25 i
WARREN: Well that's what I meant, my TLD.
I didn't have either a yj dosimeter or a TLD at the time.
2 31 i
DONALDSON: Is that normal procedure for you to be able to enter the site without your TLD? Or you have to go the Health Physics chemical I
6:
area to pick it up, is that correct?
1 i
7l WARREN:
Yes sir, that's normal procedure.
9l I
BENSEL:
There is only two places we can keep our TLDs.
One was a 101 rack in security processing building and the other, if we made frequent 11}
I trips into the areas in Unit 2 where they are required, we just kept 12:
them on the racks down at the Health Physics area.
Mine was also down there, but I was more fortunate.
I got mine before Ron got his.
141 Somebody else went down and picked up his and he got mine.
He looked 15i for Ron's but he didn't see it. So I was a little bit more fortunate 16j that I did get mine picked up.
18l DONALDSON:
Then was the frisking, cleaning and going home, coming 191 back and picking up your clothes about all the followup that was done 20; in terms of your contamination?
21, i
22' WARREN:
Yes sir.
23 i
24l 25!
853 107 t
l I
i
l l
26 l
lj DONALDSON: Were you subsequently requested or told to have a whole 2
body count?
3 i
4j
. ARREN:
.lo I wasn't.
W i
sl I
DONALDSON:
Have you had a whole body count?
6i 7
WARREN:
No I haven't.
g 9
DONALDSON:
Have you had any other samples, nose swipes, urine samples?
10 11.
WARREN:
No I haven't gotten anything.
13 DONALDSON:
Dick, you were over at the Observation Center, you evacuated, what did you do that day?
You were not contaminated, what were your duties?
16i 17:l BENSEL:
The rest of the afternoon in the Observation Center I assisted 18{
I over there as I could, but just mainly helped to organize a couple 19!
thingr, there were a million people running around, reporters bugging 20j i
people trying to get them to make statements about things they didn't 21l know anything about.
Finally one reporter, the guy that runs the 22; i
Observation Center eventt. ally had me go out and start talking to her 23l and that's how I unfortunately got interviewed by Newsweek and made it 24i i
sound like somebody important, and really I wasn't. But that's beside 25i a
853 108
i 27 lj the point.
Then later in the evening George Kunder was also at the 2
Observation Center, he requested I come back on the Island with him.
I 3i i
DONALDSON:
All right, now you then returned to the Island in the 4l evening? Let's go back to Ron, and you went home, took another shower, 5
Came back. What did you do?
g i
7!
I WARREN:
I sat in the Observation Center until about 5:00 or 5:30.
0\\
i There wasn't anything going on that I could see so I went home.
9l i
10l DONALDSON:
Ron went home.
Dick you're back in the plant.
Who did 11!
i you report to?
12!
I 13i j
BENSEL:
George Kunder and I both went up into the Unit 2 control room at the same time.
What I did that evening, wasn't anything real 15!
significant, otherwise I would remember.
16i 17l CRESWELL:
Did George want you to come back in for specific ssons?
18j 19f i
BENSEL:
I think George just wanted me to come back in so he had 20!
somebody there to help support the control room and help research our 21l l
controls for a pump or something like that if they had a problem 22l getting a pump started.
Things of that nature.
To assist with any 23 unforseen circumstances that would come up that I could render some help or assistance.
I probably did some of that, but I just don't 25; remember off the top of my head what it was.
053 109 i
l 1
1 l
28 i
DONALDSON:
At any time when you returned to the site were you asked or requested or directed to perform any kind of surveillance or maintenance activities or repair activities anywhere in the plant?
4I BENSEL:
You mean that night?
I don't remember.
I' don't think we put any jumpers in anything that night, but I know we did before too much O!
7I,'
longer after that.
Sj DONALDSON: Where were these jumpers installed?
9l 10l BENSEL:
There is actually several places.
They all eventually got 11j logged in the jumper and lifted lead book.
They really weren't per se 12 i
done by work request procedure or anything like that.
Just simply 131 i
because that's the type of thing that had to be done at the time.
For 1 41 l
example, most of the starting interlocks for reactor coolant pumps got 15!
jumpered out.
16l 1l DONALDSON:
Whers were these jumpers? Where was this operation made, 18(
in the control room?
19l 20i BENSEL:
No this was made in the switchgear room 305 elevation in the
- 21!
Turbine Building.
I 22 23 DONALDSON:
Do you recall whether or not when you went into that area 24I sto perform that work whether or not the area was either contaminated 251 l
or what the radiation levels were?
l 853 110 e
i
j.
t i
?
{
29 BENS ~L:
Radiation levels weren't high although we were required to 14 wear respirators.
2 l
3}
DONALDSON:
4 Could you go through the sequence of what happened from Sj the time they decided that they wanted to put the jumpers in? Who gave y u the orders to do it? Who specified, if anyone, the protective 6
clothing that you were to have? Who briefed you before the operation?
7 8
BENSEL: Perhaps, an example of that, jumpers may not.
reactor g
10; coolant pump motor jumpers... may not be the best example.
I could I
give a couple of other examples that may be better.
11!
12f DONALDSON:
Go ahead, please do.
14l BENSEL:
Okay, for example in two areas, I think it was Thursday 15j night, that I worked on particularly, one was we had to shut off all 16i the sumo pumps in the plant, and the water levels were coming up in 17!
the batteries, the batteries inverter room, in the base of the control 18!
tower, I was concerned about that.
So that area got sandbagged and 19!
the floor drains got sandbagged so water wouldn't back up in there.
201 And that area, health physics had already made a survey and the levels 21l weren't high.
So I just essentially had rubber boots and paper coveralls r
22f on and took a dose rate instrument with me.
23 l
24i 25!
O 7
ili u )L J
!1i 8
30 DONALDSON: Who specified the clothing you were wearing?
l 2'
BENSEL:
Well, at that point health physics was specifying all that 3
type stuff.
I 5l 1
DONALDSON:
Do you recall who specifically you had your discussions 6
with and your briefing before performing the work.
7 8
BENSEL:
No I don't.
The other one that I did which, I think it was 9-the same night, we went into the Auxiliary Building to turn off the 10' breakers for any load inside containment that we thought we didn't 11!
need.
I think this was Thursday night, altnough it may have been 12 Friday night.
It's a little long now, the dates get a little sketchy.
13.
We wanted to turn off breakers for any equipment in the Reactor Building 14 that we knew we didn't have to operate for the simple reason that we 15i i
didn't want to do somethirg or start something, or have something 161
[
energized that could trigger another hydrogen explosion. And for that 171 l
health physics specified take normal clothes off, put on paper coveralls, 18l a set of cotton coveralls, complete rubber suit, two pairs of boots,
{
IS!
j cotton gloves, two pairs of rubber gloves and Scott air pack, plus an 20f Health Physics technician went along with us with a teletector.
2 18 DONALDSON:
You had an Health Physics technician accompany you on that 23 job?
24) l 25 l
853 112 i'
s
i 31 BENSEL:
Yes.
li l
2!
l DONALDSON:
Are you respirator qualified?
31 4l BENSEL:
Yes I am.
Si 61 00NALDSON:
After your work, was anyone logging dosimeter readings 7
when you came out or anyone keeping an eye on your 1xposure?
8 4
91 BENSEL.
The health physics technician with us was doing that.
Exposure 10 for the twenty minutes, or whatever it was that we were in there, was 11!
i approximately 45 mr.
Him reading his own dosimeter and...
12 13!
00NALDSON:
You say him reading his own.
Did you read yours when you 4
14i came out?
15; e
16i BENSEL:
Yes, I did.
17!
18i i
DONALDSON:
How did your dosimeter compare with that 45 mr that he 19i j
read?
20l i
21f BENSEL:
My self reading the dosimeter, I think, was maybe 30 to 40 mr I
22l different from the time when I went in.
23l 24j 25!
CJJ ll3 OF7 0
k i
l"
[
32 i
i g
DONALDSON:
For any of the maintenance type activities that you'were y
requested to perform, did you perform any of these actions without health physics instructions prior to.
..?
Or did you ever do any on your own, specify your own protective clothing, provide your own monitoring?
6{
BENSEL:
No, I did not.
7l l
8l DONALDSON:
Lets switch over now to Ron. Ron, do you have anything to 9l offer here, I guess you were home, came back?
11l WARREN:
I came back the following day.
Well, we got put on 12 hour1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> 12!
l shifts after that.
How long would you like me to go after this?
131 14j DONALDSON:
Well it would be the 29th we are talking about now.
When 15i you arrived on the 29th who did you report to?
16i 17i f
WARREN: When I arrived on the 29th I reported to the Observation 181 Center.
A couple of the other engineers were over there including the 19i engineer that was the lead engineer on our shift.
He requested, I 20i believe it was myself, Jack Walton and himself, to go back over to the 21!
j site.
22' f
23 BENSEL:
I want to interrupt jus, to give a little background on what 24i we did.
-25 853 114
l
{
33 I
y Essentially Thursday morning nearly all the engineers reported to work and we broke the engineers into two duty sections, 12 on, 12 off type rotation.
Essentially got the engineers organized so that we all 31 I
wouldn't be here at the same time.
From that point on, w'e pretty much 4l kept log books of the jobs that we did.
I am not sure where they ended up at on the initial days.
Ivan Porter may have them somewhere.
,,bl 7
00NALDSON:
Ron, now you reported back over to the site: Who did you I
report on the site?
9i i
I 10 WARREN:
I reported up to the Unit 2 control room and I was already with Ivan Porter, who was the engineering lead for that shift.
12!,
13 DONALDSON:
Did you perform aiy mechanical maintenance type activities 14i in the plant similar to the t:rpe of activities that Dick performed?
15i 16i WARREN
- The next couple of Cays the two biggest jcbs that we worked 17 on was on filling up the BWS" (Borated Water Storage Tank) and lining 18l up a water source to get to :he BWST which was actually outside the 19i plant.
When we were doing tnat we wore respirators out there.
The 201 i
other one was getting the hydrogen recombiner hooked up and into 21l operation.
22f 23 1
j DONALDSON:
Did you actually work on the hydrogen recombiner in that j
24j area?
25l E
853 115 1
i r
j.
[
34 WARREN:
Yes I did.
1; 2!
DONALDSON:
Again, the same question for you that I directed to Dick.
3!
Who specified the protective clothing? Did you have health physics l
coverage for these operations?
Si i
6i WARREN:
It was RWP (Radiation Work Permit) on the hydrogen recombiner on the area up there and that was what I got on, I got my name put on that along with the maintenance people.
So health physics did, specify the protective clothing that we wore.
Basically we wore 10l coveralls with the rubber boots, white gloves, rubber gloves and 11; respirators.
12!
i 131 DONALDSON:
You are saying that now on the 29th that an RWP was written 14!
for work on the hydrogen recombiner?
15!
16i WARREN:
I don't remember if one was written on the 29th, but there 17!
was one on the 30th.
That was the first day that I was up there.
18!
19i j
DONALDS0t!:
At any time did you perform any actions or manipulations 20l in the confines of the plant without first having been briefed on the 2' 'l radiological conditions in the area and the precautions that you were 22 to observe?
23 24I 053 116 i
L.
l I
j 35 yj WARREN:
No.
I was told what the conditions in the area were and what precautions... they were listed on the RWP.
2 I
31 DONALDSON:
By whom were you briefed?
I sj WARREN:
By health physics technicians.
O!
7 DONALDSON:
Do either of you know or receive any briefings of radio-8 logical conditions prior to your orders by Mr. Dubiel?
9!
10l WARREN:
No. I did not.
Ilj 12j i
BENSEL:
No. I did not either.
131 14i DONALDSON: What I would like to pursue now is something'under the 151 l
emergency organization.
There is a group called the Emergency Repair 16i Party.
Are either of you gentlemen designated as members of the 17 Emergency Repair Party.
181 19l 8 TINSEL:
No, we are not.
20!
21!
DONALDSON:
Are you aware of who the super or repair party team leader 22!
is according to the plan.
23 t
24i 25j l
053 117 i
o
'a o
{
36 i
y BENSEL:
He is either the shift maintenance foreman or he is the supervisor of maintenance.
2 i
3 00NALDSON: Were either of these gentlemen coordinating or commanding and controlling all the repair or maintainence type activities that 5
i
,1 were going on in the plant?
el 7'
WARREN:
For mechanical maitenance they were.
That was either the supervisor of maintenance or the shift foreman.
H 10l BENSE_L: Yes, they were.
11!
1 12!
i DONALDSON:
After being in the plant and performing your work did you 13l l
subsequently have any whole body counts? Did you have any urine 141 samples? Were these samplings taken or any doses assessed?
15l 16!
BENSEL:
No, I was not.
In a way I was somewhat surprised in that the 17 electrical maintenance foreman that went in to the Auxiliary Building 18t with me the first night, he was requested to go for a whole body 191 count, although his TLD reading may have been much higher than mine.
20!
Cause he had possibly made a few other trips into there too, so, I 21 think...
22I 23 DONALDSON:
This question is for either one of you. When was your TLD 24 (Thermoluminescent Dosimeter) pulled and read the first time?
25j i
053 118 i
I
I 37 i
WARREN:
My TLD was never pulled and read the first time because I had to get a replacement TLD when I came on on the 29th.
2 DONALDSON:
I have a question there.
Do you know whether or not for 41 the period in which you didn't have a TLD an exposure was determined 31 l
and given to you for that period.
61 7!
WARREN:
I don't know except they did have an exposure on the computer 81 printout.
Okay, I did check that I was interested to see what they 9{
put down.
I don't know how they arrived at the number.
10i 11!
DONALDSON:
Do you recall what that number was?
12!
i 131
(
WARREN:
I think it was 100 mr for March.
141 15i 00NALDSON:
Do you know if that was reconstructed for the period when 16l j
your TLD was not accessible? That day of the 28th, or... ?
17l i
18l' WARREN:
No, I don't.
19f 201 DONALDSON:
Dick, the same question.
21, 22 BENSEL: My TLD... I am trying to think when the first time it was 23l read after the incident occurred.
Probably around the 30th I would 24 guess because they started collecting them every night and they did i
25!
853 119 t
w o
j.
l 38 I
read the TLDs daily.
So I had pretty much confidence in what I saw on f
the computer printout myself.
31 l
DONALDSON:
This is going to be somewhat of a subjective question, but l
I think it is important.
Do you feel that the control of your access to radiation areas, contaminated areas, that there was control over 6i your entries?
8!
WARREN:
Yes I do.
I never worried about it and I thought there was control to the areas.
That the high radiation areas because.
There
'10 were some areas that it was impossible for people to get into.
So I 11l l
didn't feel that there wasn't any control.
It is hard to say, on 12!
March 28th, if there was control or not.
Things weren't the best 13 organized up there.
Although starting on March 29th they were back to 141 pretty much the same radiological procedures that we had always lived 15i i
under.
I didn't personally see a big change from the way we had 16i operated up to March 28th.
The only day that I can think there might 17l l
have been lack o'f controls was on the 28th.
That was... I think it 18l was understandable.
19f 201 BENSEL On the 28th when I came back in, any entry into the Auxiliary 21 Building did require complete dress, Scott air packs, and also iespirators 22 were required from the processing center in.
And they were required 23 l
everywhere except in the control room.
24l i
25l l
853 120 t
I l.
i
t 39
(
DONALDSON:
Did either bf you have, if you were in Scott packs, did l!
i either of you have any difficulty with operability of any of the Scott 2:
packs you used?
41 BENSEL:
No.
When I was in the Scott air pack, I'had no difficulty Sl whatsoever.
6-7 WARREN:
I was never in a Scott pack.
I only wore respirators where I 81 had to go.
9l i
10' DONALDSON:
Then for the rest of the period now we got you both the 11!
j 29th back in the plant, conducting maintanence type activities.
Did 12!
that pretty much carry you through the 30th continuing those kind of 131 activities?
14l 15!
BENSEL:
At that point in time we were pretty much working maintenance 16!
j activities, assisting operations where they asked for our help.
17; Probably around the 30th, April 1st, in that time frame, probably when i
18i the procedure efforts started, I really don't remember the actual date 19i when the procedure started, but I think it would ha"e been about the 20i j
30th.
I know the first night I was the port chairman or the port vice 21 chairman for the back shift and I reached the point of exhaustion.
I 22 had too many hours in and didn't get a whole lot accomplished. So it would have been about the 29th or 30th.
24j 25i er m,
121
8 l
l I
l 40 DONALDSON:
What I wculd like you to do again subjectively...I realize it is hard to come up with the factual comparison... just give me your evaluation of the way things occurred during the actual emergency in comparison with the way things normally took place during
_[
drills that you have been following.
6i BENSEL:
I think, during the actual emergency what I saw in the Unit 2 71 control room, I really feel everybody pretty much did their job and what was expected of them.
Thinking back on it, I would say that we probably functioned better than we sometimes do for practice drills 10 that we run for the NRC and the different groups.
Thing that upset me 11!
the most was some of the initial difficulty we had in contacting 12' l
people.
13l l
14j j
DONALDSON:,Unless you have something else you would like to offer in 15 i
regards to the emergency plan and its implementation, the area of i
16i j
health phsyics or notifications, I really don't have any questions.
171 I
I'll turn over to Jim the operation end.
I'll thank you now and I am 18 going to bail out of the room.
I have another interview shortly and
~
19I i
thank you.
If you think of anything again in 'he emergency planning 20l area that you might have done or saw going on that may be of interest 21 to us.
You can contact us here.
We would appreciate the information.
I 22l Thank you.
2 31 1
24l l
25i I
853 122 t
L M
i I
41 CRESWELL:
Ron, I would like to go back to the time that you were in the substation after you left the plant.
Were there any other people I
over there that you noticed that were contaminated or there were indications that they were contaminated.
4) 5l l
WARREN:
Yes.
There were about four or.five people.
61 7
CRESWELL:
Four or five people?
Si l
WARREN:
Right.
They were all in the substation with myself scrubbing 101 down and putting on white suits.
lli 121 CRESWELL:
Can you identify any of these individuals?
13 141 WARREN:
Sam Jules, Larry Eberly, and or.
Willie... I don't know 15i his last name.
16!
171 i
BENSEL:
Harold Wilson?
18I 19i WARREN:
Maybe.
The one they called Willie.
They are the only ones I 20 knew of.
21l CRESWELL:
Had they come from the same general area that you had or 2
somewhere else?
24 25!
Or7 117 UJJ ILJ i
l 1
t i
i p
l I
t 42 I
i WARREN: Well Sam had.
Sam had been in the Turbine Building.
I had been in the two control room.
He had been up in the control room and I
then down in the Unit 1 Turbine Building.
3l, 4!
5:j CRESWELL:
Were they collecting, when I say they, the health physics people, collecting TLDs and dosimeters at that point in time?
7f l
WARREN:
I really don't know.
81 9l CRESWELL: Were they ever going with scrubbing type operations with 10i soap and so forth?
11!
12 WARREN:
Yes they were.
13l i
14i CRESWELL:
I would like to go back to the time when you gentlemen 15i first went up to the control room and get your observations and what 16i you saw when you first entered the control room.
17!
18{
. BENSEL:
Maybe it's even better to go back a little bit farther than 19l that to set the mode.
I essentially got called at 6:00 in the morning 20!
by one of the nuclear engineers that was on shift in Unit 1 at the 21!
time where he was essentially performing zero power physics testing.
22' He said that they would like me to come in.
They had a turbine trip 23
-followed a reactor trip in Unit 2 which could maybe assist in the 241 l
recovery.
And I thought well is this going to be another long day.
I 25j i
853 124 i
1 I
a
l l
43 really didn't realize what the situation was.
And then when I entered the control room, apparently it was around that time that all the 2!
monitors for inside the Reactor Building and some in the Auxiliary i
3!'
Building really started shooting up scale.
Some turmoil going on and 4i S;
essentially no longer than I got in there before I could even really i
6:l get briefed on what had happened.
A si;e emergency was declared and I I
tried to get as much information from George Kunder as I could in 7l order to be somewhat effective in making the phone calls.
Maybe Ron a!
can take it from here and give his initial impression.
9}
i 10t WARREN: When I walked up there like you say, I saw Dick sitting at i
11!
l the desk and he had started, he was already making phone calls.
The 12i people that I thought would normally take command in that situation.
13 Which were the superintendents and the operations supervisor, they 14!
were the people that were actually up there.
They were the people 15 that were evaluating what had happened, along with the shift supervisor.
16i So to me, other than the fact we had a site emergency, it didn't 17l appear that much out of the ordinary.
The site emergency made it way 18i out of the ordinary.
191 20i BENSEL:
Yea, and when tney said that there was primary to secondary 21f leak in the B steam generator I really couldn't figure in my own mind i
22 what had caused that to happen, but initially I wasn't all concerned 23 about that.
241 l
2Si 833 125
I i
44 l
CRESWELL:
Who seemed to be the individual in charge in the control g
room when you got there?
3l WARREN:
I would say Gary Miller.
4:;
5 BENSEL:
I am not sure Gary was there yet at the time I walked in.
I i
would say it would have either been George Kunder, George is really the one that relayed the information on to me, and directly assisting 8}
l him was Mike Ross, Unit 1 supervisor of operations and of course the 91 shift supervisor.
101 I
11l CRESWELL:
Was that Bill Zewe?
12l l
13l l
BENSEL:
Yes.
14!
I 15j CRESUELL:
And basically who was giving the orders that certain things 16i be done? Let me ask you first Dick, since you were in there.
17!
i 18j i
BENSEL:
I think I would have to say probably George Kunder because he 19i l
is the one that had told them to make the announcement that there was 20:
j a site emergency, as I understood it.
I kind of came in the back and^
21{;
I really didn't have time to look and see who was running the show I
22l that close.
23 24 25l 053 126
i l
r I
45 j
CRESWELL:
What about you Ron, did you see who was giving the instructions and so forth when you got there?
I 31 s
WARREN:
After listening to Dick I think I agree with him.
I would 4
4) i say it was George. George was the one who told me to help Dick man St the phone.
He seemed to be the person in charge.
In fact, I might 6i have been wrong.
Maybe George might have been the person in charge when I got up there.
Gary, I guess maybe got up there shortly after I did, but when he did get up there it appeared to me he took command of 91 l
the situation.
10l lit BENSEL:
I feel that Gary Miller definitely did take over, take command 12; l
of the situation.
131 14!
l CRESWELL:
If I can take you back to the time you walked in the control 15i room, could you give me an idea of how many people were there?
16l 17l WARREN:
I would say, between 20 or 30.
18l 19l BENSEL:
I would say between 15 and 20.
20i 2'!
-)
CRESWELL:
Okay.
22l l
231 1
Time is 4:43 p.m.
We are going to break to start a second tape.
24j 25j i
853 127 t
46 e
l y
CRESWELL: With Mr. Bensel and Mr. Warren.
2l CRESWELL:
We were just up to discussing how many people were in the control room... an estimate of how many people were in the control
[
room. Would you give me an idea where the people in charge were St I
located in the control room?
Si 7
WARREN: They were either l'ocated out by the panels or back in the l
Shift Supervisor's office.
9l 10!
BENSEL: At this point in time, they also pulled out maps of the area 11!
so they could map the plumes and stuff, so that is also somewhat of a 12!
focal point.
That was on a table off to the side.
13 l
14:
CRESWELL: What about the operators? Where were they located?
ISi 16l j
BENSEL: The operators were located in front of the consoles, primarily.
17!
18I CRESWELL: Do you remember what operators were at what panels?
19l 20 BENSEL: I do know Ed Frederick and Craig Faust were in front of the 21 consoles I know Hugh McGovern was up there later in the day, but I'm 22 not sure if he was really there or not, back there or not.
He would 23 have been on the oncoming shift.
24 25l 853 128
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i
{
47 i
CRESWELL: Were Frederick and Faust the ones that were doing most of the manipulations in the control room?
i 3;
I BENSEL: Yes, they were.
But again for about the first hour to hour 41 and a half, we really didn't see too much. Well, talking time frame O!
quarters, 7:00 to 1:00, we really didn't see too much, who was doing what out in the control room because we were primarily tied up on the i
7\\
phones.
0}
91 l
WARREN: As far ar, I can tell, they were primarily the ones doing the 101 operations at that time.
I don't have anything to add to that.
Like 11; Dick said, at the time, I wasn't looking around seeing who was, at 12!
(
which exact place and which panel that, each person was manning.
I 13!
remember seeing Ed Frederick and Craig Faust out there.
14) f 15j CRESWELL: Which telephones were you using?
I mean, where would they 16l be in the relationship to, let's say, the front panels?
17l 18i WARREN: When we started making the phone calls, we were using two of 191' the telephones in the Shift Supervisor's office.
When we got the 20l phone call from the NRC, I started talking to the NRC from the Shift l
21l Supervisor's office.
But then they had several questions about what 22lI the plant status was exactly at that time, and running back and forth 231 between the gauges, telling them what pressures and temperatures were, 24i' I went and I picked up one of the phones right out in middle of the 25!
i 053 129 f
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f 48 i
control room where the CR0's (Chief Reactor Operator's) desk is.
I pretty much stood out there for the remaining time I up in the Unit 2 control room.
4l Sl CRESWELL:
What sort of temperatures and pressures were they interested i
i in?
Si 7
WARREN:
They were interested in, reactor coolant temperatures, steam generator level, reactor coolant pressures.
Pretty much the standard type of indications.
10l 1 11 l
CRESWELL:
Do you recollect who you were talking to in Region I at 12l that time?
13 l
14!
WARREN:
The only person I recollected I talked to was Don Haverkamp, 15!
because I personally knew him.
The other people all identified themselves 16i on the phone at one time or anothee, but I can't recall their names.
17{
Mostly I have never heard of those people before.
18i 19!
CRESWFLI.:
Ron, in your capacity of Lead Mechanical Engineer, and this 20l l
is under normal operating conditions, say before the event.
What 21'!
would be your responsibility in areas you would be 'nvolved in?
22l 23' WARREN:
Pretty much I was responsible for the mechanical design j
2 46 l
changes that took place in the plant, the plant improvements, so to 25l t
853 130 i
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y
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speak.
When GPU had left the Island after startup testing, there was numerous conditions in the plant that we didn't think were satisfactory, but that they had considered and plant betterment items at the time.
So we were in the process of evaluating design changes to the plant to
~
hope to make the plant a more efficient unit.
In addition, I was Sl l
assigned as Port Vice Chairman, in the absence of the Port Chairman.
61 I sat in and chaired the Plant Operations Review Committee and that prett'y much had to do with reviewing nuclear safety related procedures and the design changes that were nuclear safety related.
Another area j
9j was that a lot of times there was maintenance procedures or operating 106 l
procedures which were mechanical in nature, somewhat like flushes or 11; things of that nature.
We usually either wrote those procedures or if 12!
l somebody else wrote them, we reviewed them prior to submitting them to 13) the Plant Operations Review Committee for approval.
They're pretty 141 much the type of jobs that we were responsible for here onsite.
I i
15; guess I should point out that a lot of the things that we did here 16i onsite, it wasn't like we were the only review either.
We did have an 17l engineering staff back in Reading and they did some of the engineering 18f l
and they also had final approval.
Especially on nuclear safety related 19 type items, so, we did have that backup.
20l 2
CRESWELL:
Ron, some of these improvements that you were discussing, 29 reactor problems you discovered during testing, could you go into some 23 of those areas?
24!
25!
t C(' J J l ]7 }
'7
50 j
l WARREN:
There were several of them.
One of the improvements that we were working on at the time of the accident was, and this is minor, I
was with the condensor exhaust radiation monitor.
We had a lot of 3i problems with the radiation monitor pump failing and it was probably 4!
.i due to moisture in the lines. And the carbon vane pumps just aren't si very reliable in that type of environment. But what we were planning Gl on doing wa to reroute the piping so that the pump was valved out, so l
to speak.
We would use the normal vaccum in the condensor to provide 81 the driving force for the air.
i 10!
CRESWELL:
Vacuum drive?
11!
12l j
WARREN: Right.
And through the monitor and out the exhaust.
That was 13!
one of the design changes.
We did several modifications on our heater 141 drain pumps.
Most of the changes I should point out are in the secondary side.
That was the part of the plant that we had the most problem 161 with.
17!
i 18r CRESWELL:
If we could get into the area of some of the safety related 19j stuff 20l l
2'!1 BENSEL:
I think a lot of the safety related stuff in the plant was 22l l
really adequate for the codes and Reg Guides when the plant was built.
23l i
For example, the electrical area, one major item that we had for the 24 first refueling I'd been working on was degraded grids safety for the 25l t
853 132 i
0 51 I
i g
safety related buses.
Another one auxiliary transformers were too high impedence and we'll have eventially have to make some type of I
modification there.
Again, that was something that we really hadn't 31 as a first refueling item.
And in other big areas, like shutdown l
outside the cable room, that would be an extensive modification for 51 I
the first refueling.
61 71 CRESWELL:
Shutdown outside the control room?
8 9I BENSEL:
No.
Outside the cable spreading room.
Essentially, the 101 instrumentation and controls that we've been using for shutdown outside 11:
i the control room.
The cable, the interfacing cables for a lot of that 12!
l equipment, goes through the cable spreading room.
So, therefore, they 131 would be inoperable if fire was in the cable spreading room which 14) where the remote shutdown panel is.
That was a future modification.
15i Another, like refueling items, is small break LOCA vents. That was 16i ours, that was mechanical in nature.
We were gonna put cavitating 171' venturies in the lines, and...
ISI 19i CRESWELL: Could you go into a little detail?
We're talking about say 20l t
the makeup pump...
21l 22 BEN 3EL: This is in the makeup pump ahead of the MEV 16 valves.
231 24j 25j 053 l33 l
l
I j
52
\\
y CRESWELL:
Why would you want to put those venturies in?
2, BENSEL:
That would limit the flow into the lines.
4j CRESWELL: What would you gain by doing that?
6 BENSEL: Well, that would prevent injecting large amounts of cold water into the reactor if you had a small break LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident).
9l l
CRESWELL:
Is this a problem?
10l 1
1 11 j
WARREN:
You would also be using all four high pressure injection 12t nozzles instead of just two.
It is primarily to help limit single 13i failure of one makeup pump for one diesel for mitigating the consquences 14!
l of a small break LOCA.
15i 16i CRESWELL:
What kind of failure are we talking about?
17 18; l
WARREN:
I have to think back on this.
Essentially, the small break 191 l
LOCA, we'd have to use all four high pressure injection lines. And the 20!
way that it would be done right now if we would have, let's say, one 21l makeup pump fail and not have two makeup pumps running, we'd have to 22 go down and manually open one of the cross-connect valves.
And essentially, 23 the cavitating venturities in the cross connect piping would eliminate 24l i
that type of operator accident having to take place.
25l i
853 134 l
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53 i
CRESWELL:
With all that cool water going into the system, too much i
cold water?
2!
I 31 WARREN:
I think that is also a secondary factor.
4l i
Si CRESWELL:
What was the primary reason for the venturities?
Is this 61 l
cavitating venturity... is it a flow restriction device of some sort?
I 91 i
WARREN:
Yeah.
101 11; l
CRESWELL:
Why would you want to restrict the flow?
12l l
131 i
WARREN: Well, I think that would probably be primarily to prevent 14!
l
. runout of one makeup pump.
15j 16i j
CRESWELL:
What would happen if you ran out a pump?
17[
i 18l WARREN: Well, one it could trip on overload, or it could selfdestruct 19i i
itself.
20]
I 2
CRESWELL:
What were some of the other things, some of the other problems?
Safety Related?
2*
853 135 25 i
l 54 l'
WARREN: We had leakage, numerous leaks like we had some instrumentation 2l for our 3 steam generator that had continually leaked.
It leaked a 3
lot on startups.
4 Sj CRESWELL:
What kind of instrumentation are you talking about?
.I 6
WARREN: We had an instrumentation program.
The B steam generator was 7
~
g instrumented with excelerometers and strain gauges to look into reasons for tube degradation in the steam generator itself.
And they felt g
10l that by putting these various probes in there that they'd be able to determine flow characteristics that might give them an insite into what was causing tube leakage, especially around the support plates.
And that had been a problem with, a generic type problem, I guess, with B&W steam generators.
14!
15i CRESWELL:
You spoke of excelerometers, that would measure motion.
I What would be the cause of the motion?
17!
181 f
WARREN:
The flow through the tubes.
191 20l CRESWELL:
Okay, just a normal operation?
21.
22 WARREN:
Right.
Just normal operational flow.
The program had put 23 the instrumentation in durin(t the startup prcgram and then it was 24l determined to leave the instrumentation in until the first refueling.
25;l i
853 136 i
k
{.
l l
55 l
lj Fortunately, we didn't have any leaks after the startup program ended.
i 2
We had like one trip before March 28th and during the subsequent 3l startup there was no leaks on those instrument fittings.
Another t
4j place where we had leaks that we didn't do some correction... this t
5; is in the mechanical area... was on the steam generator level 6l instrumentation.
The isolation valves leaked and we replaced, they 7
were gasketed body to bonnets and we took seal welded body bonnets 8
valves and replaced them.
91 BENSEL:
That was... pressurizer level; you said steam generator 10 level?
g i
12!
WARREN:
If I said steam generator, I was nervous.
13 I
14!
Y **
"9 15 16!
WARREN: Right.
181
.C.R E. 9.WELL:The lines that tap off the steam generator isolation valve 39, was leaking?
l 21,'
WARREN:
Yes.
I'm trying to think some of the other places in, like the reactor building, where we had eroblems.
24l 25I i
i 4
853 137 l
56 lj BENSEL: We were really in pretty good shape.
2!
3 WARREN:
This isn't really nuclear safety related, but it did appear 4f that we might have had a problem with the reactor building evaporative Sj coolers.
We were in the process of looking into that when this accident occurred.
It appeared, like part of the problem, (well it wasn't 6
7f appearance) part of the problem was due to a faulty recorder, the recorder was out of calibration.
8 9l BENSEL:
10 We said that temperatures in the reactor building were really 11!
9 12{
VARREN:
Right.
So that decreased the reactor building temperatures significantly so that it was pretty far below our technical specifi-cations.
15:
But if you had extrapolated those temperatures out for the 1
hot sun during the neak summer months, there was a chance the temperatures might have built up to where they were c. lose to the technical specifica-tions limits again.
19l BENSEL: Which would have meant like shutting the plant down in the l
summer.
21l 22 WARREN:
Right.
23 24f 2s!
853 138
l t
(
57 1.
CRESWELL:
It is my understanding that the safety valves and/or pcwer 2t operated relief valves might have been leaking some?
I 3l t
4f WARREN:
We had a minor leak on one of the code safety valves.
We had 5l ur spare valve that if we had of had a chance to shut down, we were gonna go in there and check it out.
I had never done anything further 6
than'that.
I knew about the leak, but as far as getting in there to 7
do anything, we just hadn't had the opportunity.
The electromatic, g
though, I don't believe that we had any leakage or any problems.
That g
would be news to me.
I didn't know that.
11; CRESWELL:
What about the block valves? Did they see work pretty 12l good?
145 i
WARREN:
The block valve? The other valve that we did have problems 15j 16l with, and this was during the startup (and I don't know if this is worth bring up) but it was with RCV 3, (Reactor Coolant Valves) we did have separated discs from the stem and we replaced that valve.
That valve worked satisfactory after that.
19i I
20 CRESWELL:
What would have happened with the separated discs?
22 BENSEL:
No spray flow.
23 24 25l 853 139 i
i o
I
,f 58 i
y WARREN:
We essentially had lost spray flow through the block valve and spray valve. And that valve... we had problems with the limit torque operator on it several times, early in the startup. We more or less completely rebuilt the operator and since then we haven't had any trouble with it.
Si 6!
i CRESWELL:
What about the history on reactor coolant drain tanks?
Is 7l it pretty good?
9 WARREN:
As far as I know we never had any problems.
10l ll{
BENSEL:
I think that was the first rupture disc we do.
12l i
13l WARREN:
That's right.
That was back like in, I believe it was in 14!
February or March of '78 that we blew a rupture disc on that tank.
15i 16!
BENSEL:
I didn't remember that.
17l 181 WARREN:
We did blow one rupture disc.
It was replaced and after that 191 I don' t remember any problems with that.
But he's right.
There was 20!
one rupture disc that was blown at that time.
21i 22 BENSEL:
I don't remember.
I remember Unit 1's blowing.
23 2 41 i
i 25l Cu, 140 l
t i
i
o
(
59 WARREN:
No.
But there was one in Unit 2.
1, 2
CRESWELL:
Okay. At this time I'd like to ask you if you'd like to 3
4 make any comments of any nature about the NRC or anything you believe imp rtant.
5 I
6i BENSEL:
It's my personal feelings.
I think that tt; NRC made news 7
releases that they weren't notifled as to what was going til three g
days after the event or something like that, and I dor't think they g
"U Y
Y 101 because I felt that the day'it happened that information was passed on to the NRC and also before noon the day of the event there were at least five NRC inspectors onsite of which I know two of those went to the Unit 2 control room and should have been there to the best of my 141 15l knowledge.
I was offsite when the hydrogen explosion took place, and I just feel it's a little upsetting that some of that type stuff got i
out to the general public.
But that doesn't upset me nearly as bad as 17l l
the fact of what the news media did to the whole thing.
I can go on 18i and on.
I feel that some of the things both Herbein and Denton said 191 in their press releases were somewhat pre-mature.
For example, Friday 20' when the evacuation took place.
In retrospect everybody to has come 21:
out and said there really wasn't a need for that evacuation to take 22 place.
But yet that gets second or third billing in the newspapers.
23 It really just makes us look even worse.
Just like then the other 24l weekend, the big thing coming over the news that I didn't even know 25i l
853 141 t
o l
I
(
60 l
1 about, my mother called me the next morning, was the probability the i
2j reactor coolant system was going to blowup.
Then two weeks later that i
31 came out as being a a technical error.
Yet, we were the ones that 4j were accused of being technically incompetent.
5 l
CRESWELL:
Any other comments you would like to make?
6i i
T BENSEL:
On the positive side of thing's, I feel that'when on shift 8
working with the procedures, the NRC people I worked with are very g
c perative.
After the first night, they really tried to work with us 10 as a whole, I think everybody has really tried to help everybody else 1
out.
Except it's obvious that the general public and the news media need to be educated because they really cidn't know really, they g
didn't have the foggiest ideas of what was going on here.
I 15i WARREN:
In a lot of ways I share Dick's sentiments exactly.
I felt I
that, the people that were up there, I think, generally did try to 17!
help, that was on the positive side.
Now on tne...
18l 19l 2 01
'CRESWELL:
Now, when you say people who were on, what people are you i
talking about?
22 WARREN:
I think that the maintenance people, the NRC, everybody that 23 was up in the control room.
24 25!
853 142 I
d
e l
i 61 I
1!
BENSEL:, Tom Novak, Frank Gasius (Sp. ?) those type of people.
The I&E people, the operations people.
2l 3l WARREN:
I feel that, the people who were up there, they did the best 4
5 they could at the time.
On the negative side, I got family and relatives 6
that don't live around here and,.the press releases scared the devil
.,l out of them. I got phone calls, all during the middle of the night, o
and everything, wondering if I was alive or dead.
To me that's a g
little bit upsetting.
I don't think, the press in on their eagerness g
to present the entire picture, and I don't think that they were eager 10f present the entire picture.
I think they were eager to sensationalize.
I think that they subjected a lot of innocent people to a lot of harm.
I'll never forgive them for that, being blunt.
I was proud to be here i
and if it ever happened again, I'd stay here again.
14) 151 BENSEL:
I don't think any of us thought twice about coming in.
i 17j CRESWELL:
There's one thing that comes to my mind digressing.
Since 18{
you're involved in the electrical area, did the subject of power 19l operated relief valve indication ever come up?
2 01 i
21f BENSEL:
Power operated reif ef valves...
22 23 CRESWELL:
EMOV, I'm sorry.
I mean electromatic...
24l 2s!
g33 143 I
I i
i
I a
62 1!
BENSEL:
Electromatic relief valve.
Yeah, I was just getting ready to 2
elaborate.
First ESF (Emergency Safeguard Feature) acutation we had i
3j in Unit 2 happened roughly a year before this.
We were doing a surveil-t 4l lance procedure for reactor building isolation and cooling at which gj time the alternate sources for vital buses tripped off on an ES signal 6
which we subsequently changed.
But that, in turn, caused the' inverter 7
for the one vital bus to fail which, in turn caused the pressure switch for the electromatic relief valve to tell the electromatic 8l relief valve to open.
A we blew the RCS (Reactor Coolant System) down g
10l due to that.
Fortunately the operator that was on was quick enough.
]
He ran upstairs and got th'e breaker reclosed again right away, and l
everything recovered.
As a result of that the indicating light that's up in the control room now was installed to give the operator indication that the valve received the signal to open.
Subsequent to that there are limit switches mounted on the electromatic relief valve that 15i really tells y~ou whether the solenoid has been asked to operate...
the power solenoid been asked to operate. We're going to change the 17l I
indication to that which we didn't do because it required running a 18i new cable.
That really wouldn't have provided positive indication as 19!
to whether the valve was open or shut.
It may be slightly more positive than what we had.
21 22 l
CRESWELL:
Thank you gentlemen.
I'm going to turn it back over to Mr.
231
-Sinclair.
24 853 144 25 i
)
c 63 f
SINCLAIR:
Thank you Mr. Bensel'and Mr. Warren.
We're gonna conclude 1
I 1
this interview.
The time is 5:08 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 7, 2
1979.
3 4
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