ML19308B880
| ML19308B880 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 03/30/1979 |
| From: | Herbein J METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001170487 | |
| Download: ML19308B880 (13) | |
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NEW BRIEFING TRANSCRIPT MARCH 30, 1979 11:00 A.M.
AMERICAN LEGION HALL
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by METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY JOHN G. HERBEIN, VICE PRESIDENT - GENERATION
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LL 8001170
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f Good Morning.
I have with me here Jack lierbein, Vice President 4 Generation for Metropolitan Edison Company, for an update briefing on the Three Mile Island situation.
JOHN G. HERBEIN:
I just came frcm the plant.
The temperature is dout 280 degrees; pressure about 1,000 pounds.
That's relatively the same condition that we had yesterby.
This morning between 7:30 and probably a quarter after 8:00, we did have to vent one of our tanks that contained radioactive gas into the auxiliary building to prevent further pressure increase in order to allow i
us to continue with the normal cooling cycle that we presently have on the core.
At that time there was an aircraft flying over the island that was able to measure the radioactivity that was released from the plant.
At that time he saw airborne Icvels I thEnl around 300 to 350 MR per hour.
These are the saac level of readings that we have been getting over the Inst several days.
I'also understand that earlier this corning Civil Defense network placed some countias on an alert, I think Dauphin, Lebanon, Lancaster Cosnty.
(Reporter - four)
So while we agree that certainly is the Civil Defense perogative to take those kinds of steps we don't see that there's any immediate emergency
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or need for evacuation at this point.
We think the
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plant is proceeding with shutdown procedures which we 4
instituted several days ago, we're taking our time, we want to make each move deliberately and in a welE thought out fashion.
We're trying to get organi:ei, get the team set up that will eventually take the plant all the way to the cold condition then begin the c'can up process.
REPORTER:
Mr Herbein, this community is being warned at 1 cast that people should stay indoors, their windows sho.:.1d be kept shut.
Are you saying that that's necessary?
IIERBEIN:
I'm saying that the Civil Defense network has chosen as a result of the advise of the State Bureau of Radielog-ical Protection (Health) to tell the inhabitants of Middletown to keep their windows and doors shut..wly that's certainly within their perogative.
I just :ame from the site.
I was at the Observation Center this morning.
We don't have our windows and deers closed.
Now I'm not minimizing or disagreeing with the guidance that the state is giving.
I think that's fine and I think that it's up to each individual tq naie the decision on whether they need to follow that guida ce.
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REPORTER:
Did you expect what happened this morning to happen?
9 HERBEIN:
We didn't warn the Civil Defense peopic, no, we didn't see that the levels that would be emitted from the auxiliary building would be that different than what we've been experiencing for the last two days-REPORTER:
But they were!!
HERBEIN:
Well I don't really know that they were.
We've seen levels as high, on site, and I've told people this 80 MR per hour in the vicinity of the service building.
This level, that was measured by the aircraft, you have to understand was in the Not sure how many...... plume high over the site.
thousand feet elevation.
REPORTER:
But did the NRC know that you were going have to do this also? Did you notify them first?
REREEIN:
The NRC has been working close with us.
They are aware of the plant conditions.
We got people right in the control room from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
We have phone communication back to their various offices.
REPORTER:
Did the NRC know you were going to have to vent?
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HEREEIN:
I would assume since they are in close proxinity and contact with our people that they knew that.
.2 PORTER:
If this was planned, how long ahead was it planned?
How long before this stuff actually vented did you know you were going to vent this stuff?
HERBEIN:
I think we recognized and have recognized over the last 24-48 hours that we were going to have to vent our makeup tank gas space.
REPORTER:
Did the NRC know...
Has any fuel at any time been uncovered by water?
HEREEIN:
We suspect that the fuel failure has been caused by some of the fuel being uncovered momentarily, that's true.
REPORTER:
Did this mean that the top of the elements will be deformed in some way you would not be abic to remove them by routine measures?
RERBEIN:
We suspect that's the case, yes sir.
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REPORTER:
Will you have to cut a hole in the Ca11andria just now?
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HERBEIN:
No, we don't feel that we have to cut a hole in the Ca11andria at this point.
Our plan is of course to get the plant to cold shutdown conditions and then remove the some 150,000 gallons of water in the base
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of the reactor building.
They'll have to be processed, shipped off site or contained on site in accordance with regulations.
From that point then we'll be able to proceed with the reactor disassembly and inspection, the ultimate for replacement.
REPORTER:
Can you unbolt the top head of the reactor and recove it?
HERBEIN:
We're not sure at this point naturally that radiation levels are high and that may have to be done with some remote cooling.
REPORTER:
Is there any truth in the reports in the media that there wcs a valve.... that started this off.
HERBEIN:
Pardon me.
REPORTER:
How many pumps and how many cooling circuits do you have working -- in power?
HERBEIN:
We have one principle cooling circuit right now that's the reactor cooling pump.
REPORTER:
Mr Herbein, will you give us the bottom line?
Do you
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have this situation under control, can you assure the people of this community that they are not getting extra radiation? Are they safe?
HERBEIN:
I think number one:
they're safe.
I think number two:
any extra radiation as you call it that they're getting is certainly miniscule and it's the kind of extra radiation you get when you get a dental x-ray or a chest x-ray, and probably it's a mere fraction of that.
Yes, the situation is under control and, yes, we kno.w what we're doing; and shortly the plant will be in a more stable condition than it is now.
It's been in the same degree of stability for the past 48 hours5.555556e-4 days <br />0.0133 hours <br />7.936508e-5 weeks <br />1.8264e-5 months <br />.
REPORTER:
Do you know......
REPORTER:
Do you anticipate having to do this same kind of thing again?
HERBEIN:
I suspect that we will probably have to vent gas from the same tank that we did this corning again, yes.
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REPORTER:
How many times? How long is this going to go on?
HERBEIN:
I suspect that venting and rcleases from our auxiliary building will probably take place for the next three to four," five days.
REPORTER:
One of the first reports of uncontrolled release of radiation--where did that report come from?
HERBEIN:
I'm not sure where that report came from.
It was controlled, we made a positive movement to open a valve to relieve gas pressure, when the pressure subsided, we closed the valve.
REPORW R:
What time was the site emergency issued this morning, in fact was it (unintelligible)
HERBEIN:
I don't think a site emergency was initiated this morning.
We actually opened the valve about 7:30 a.m.,
the majority of the release took place between 7:30 and a little after 8:00 a.m.
REPORTER:
Mr. Herbein, (unintelligible) millirems that the plane detected this morning the highest 1cvel of radiation that has been seen off site since 4:00 a.m. two days ago?
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HERBE;N:
I think it's probably one of the higher icvels that been seen off site.
Of course, that was seen in the air.
REPORTER:
But, when was there a higher level?
HERBEIN:
I really can't speak to that.
I don't believe there was a higher level.
REPORTER:
Sir, both the Governor's office and Civil Defense have both said that they got the announcement of the uncon-trolled reaction from officials of your Company fyom the plant.
We have checked that through and the Governor's office says that they were told by your Company that it was an uncontrolled reaction.
REPORTER:
They sited 1200 millirems, not 300.
REPORTER:
So did the NRC.
They said that their information was that they're 1200 above cpnpression.
REPORTER:
Let him answer that.
HERBEIN:
I guess there are apparently conflicting readings.
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Somebody has indicated 1200 FR from the aircraft and of course I've stated that I heard 350.
I don't really have the resolution of the difference of 1200 versus 350.
PIPORTER:
hhy not?
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REPORTER:
But shouldn't you sir, you're here to tell us...
(unintelligible)...
IERBEIN:
I'm here to tell_you...I'm here to tell you the information that I have to the best of my ability.
If you have other sources that conflict, I'm sorry.
REPORTEk.
What about the Governor's office and Civil Defense saying it was an uncontrolled reaction?
REPORTER:
'inu never answered that question. The Governor's office is saying that this occurred while you were transferring water, contaminated water, from one storage tank to another.
The pressure built up, that a release valve opened and released an uncontrolled release into the air, that the readings over the plant was 1200 and on the ground readings were 30, 25 and 20 in the vicinity of the plant down... (interrupted-unintelligible).
IERBEIN:
25 and 20 in the vicinity of the plant are correct.
I hadn't heard the number 1200.
You are correct there was a transfer of water it was not uncontrolled.
A relief valve did open.
A relief valve opened but
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the valve went into a contained tank, so that in turn was not controlled.
That's what that valve is there for.
That's what that valve is there for to relieve pressure.
Now, one of the things that we did in order to stabilize the situation was purposely open a plant vent when we did that a certain amount of gas pressure went from 80 pounds down to 60 poundn, and
, that was a controlled action.
As a result of that, some gas was released to the auxiliary building.
It was picked up by the ventilation system (and) it was deposited into the atmosphere. Now, I understand that at the time we did have a plane over the plant and that he measured it, as I indicated 350. Now somebody else has said that a reading of 1200 was taken.
I won't dispute that.
I've given you my number.
I've told you the story as I understand.
REPORTER:
" Would you please reply sir, to the Governor's office saying that it was your Company that called and said it was uncontrolled.
Civil Denfense says the same thing.
IERBEIN:
I have no response on the fact that our control room people called and indicated it was uncontrolled.
I don't know, perhaps they did.
REPORTER:
At what time did this happen?
HERBEIN:
As I indicated this took place between 7:30 - 8:00 a.m.
REPORTER:.
The Governor's office says that it started at 6:40.
We were just briefed they said that the NRC told them it was started at 6:40.
Can you account for that discrepancy and continued until 9:00 HERBEIN:
No I can't dis...,
I can't I just talked to the control room a few minutes before I left here and the times I'm giving you are what I got from them.
REPORTER:
Sir, what about the discharEe of contaminated water?
Can you clear that up? What kind of water was it?
Was it an unusual discharge?
HERBEIN:
It was some sump water that collected yesterday in our industrial waste building which is on the west portion of Three Mile Island that was sampled and analyzed, and it was released and it was not in excess of any of the release regulation.
REPORTER:
Was there an~y Xenon in the water, sir? We have a
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report there was Xenon in the water.
R HERBEIN:
I can't speak to that but...
REPORTER:
How about iodine...
HERBEIN:
The release that was made, there may have been Xenon.
But Xenon can be released to water if within acceptable limits.
The release that was made yesterday was within the limits that were acceptable, and was...
REPORTER:
We weren't told about that though for ten hours.
How can you (unintelligible...)
HERBEIN:
I don't know why we need to, we need to tell you cach and every thing that we do specifically when we make...
(reporters interrupted) t I
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REPCRTER:
Mr. Herbein, if these are safe operations...
REPORTER:
Mr. Herbein,, don't y'ou feel a responsibility to a milli people living around your plant to keep.them informed of on every facet of this operation?
HEPBEIN:
We certainly feel responsible to the people who live around the plant.
who live around the plant have to recognize is thatOn we have to get on with our jobs.
We have a difficult job to do.
We'd like to get on with it, and every person informed is a very difficultkeeping each do.
We want to Inform the regulatory agenciesthing to want to get our command structures set up.
We to get our communications established We want with the press and meeting with a lot of inte I personally e
groups.
We need to get on with our job.
REPORTER:
j But tnere is a panic situation out there right l
because the people weren't informed this morning now HERBEIN:
I'm here today to case the level of panic and concer j
and tell you L
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REPORTER:
(Interrupted - unintelligible)
REPORTER:
Would you let him finish what he started to say?
HERBEIN:
I'd like to tell you that se don't believe that the Middletown area or of any of the areas that s Three Mile Island (TMI).
n to get in and to do our jobs.We do need to be permitted the cold condition and then get on with theWe get the plant in cleanups.
There will be some periodic releases as we go about the procedures which we have to accomplish P2 PORTER:
(Unintelligible)...within a mile of that plant
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i would really like to know myself what were those
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and I of cumulative amounts I have. releases, what kind of cum g--
say with the weather or something?Why can't this be done
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There are measurable amounts.
in particular places and decide for themselves wh e
type of precautions they prefer to-do?
a pq HERBEIN:
I First of all the amounts are sporadic.
amounts very difficult to measure.
There are small
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teams out that consist of our own people who,workiWe've got monit with it at the regulatory commission--we've got ng people.
These kinds of es,timates that they reach--
state anything of where people need to take protective action--they'll be notified.
I under...
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REPORTER:
We would like to know how much thought, sir I
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mean... (unintelligible)...
HERBEIN:
I've ind,icated that the levels and if somebody would stand at one spot he won't get a constant _
source of radiation.
These are small pockets that are being (measured) off site.
The wind rapidly defuses them and exposures that someone gets from these things is minimum.
REPORTER:
You said yesterday the cold shutdown would be done by this morning.
Now you're saying it's going to be five days.
What happened?
IERBEIN:
I suspected yesterday that the cold shutdown would be completed by today.
And no it probably, er yes, it will probably not be completed for the next five days...
REPOR.5R:
Why?'
IERBEIN:
We do have at present five fuel assemblies with temperatures reading in excess of the average fuel assembly temperatures.
Five fuel assemblies are readir.g about 500 degrees and the other 172 are reading around 300 degrees.
Before we shift to the
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next level of cooling we want to make certain we understand the condition of the fuel.
REPORTER:
Well sir, doesn't that mean that the temperature went up because ye.;terday it was told to us that it was 280... (unint elligible)
IERBEIN:
No, the 280 degrees is the water temperature. The water temperature is different than the fuel temperature.
280 degrees is water that's
.actually cooling the fuel.
REPORTER:
Is there any nuclear reaction going on in there right now?
IERBEIN:
The nuclear reaction that's going on right now is the decayed heat that's contained within the uranium l
dioxide pellets.
There is no actual fission l
reaction that's taking place right now.
1 REPORTER:
Mr. Herbein, does this mean that there is a specific design problem with this specific kind of plant where water pressure reacts the plant?
i IERBEIN:
I don't feel there is a design problem with this specific k
kind of plant.
That has to be studied.
We want the time
' to go through the full sequence of events which occurred leading up to the incident which we are presently--we are involved in.
Once that analysis has been done, if we determine that there are design defects with the plant, -
certainly those design defects will be corrected before that plant started up.
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REPORTER:
Exactly what kind of leakage is it?
Can you tell us is it ah...
HEREEIN:
It's nobl,e gas Xenon 133.
REPCRTER: '
Let's give us,a little step by step on just what happened, and the most important thing here is what happened this morning.
Take us through that so that we may all understand it.
HERBEIN:
Simply stated we monitored the water level inventory-- -
in the primary plant, with the surge tank known as the pressurizer, and as that level b.egan to increase...
REPORTER:
Start again slowly.
HEREEIN:
Blaine do you want to set up the screen with...
REPORT 3R:
Before you do that, did you expect the level to go this high?...
1[ENBEIN:
We didn't expect that these IcVels would be really going to be that much different than what we experienced over the last 48 hours5.555556e-4 days <br />0.0133 hours <br />7.936508e-5 weeks <br />1.8264e-5 months <br />.
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REPORTER:
Were you surprised by this? By this level?
REREEIN:
I'm surprised at the 1200 number, yes..
REPORTER:
Were you surprised by the 300?
1[ERSEIN:
I wasn't surprised by the 350.
REPORTER:
Fh. }!cCabe from the NRC s' aid the let down systen is not working as well as they like it to.
He indicated to us that there is some kind of a problem that was not expected.
Now are you experiencing all kinds of surprises in the emergency system...
HERBEIN:
No, this isn't an energency system, this is a normal system and we are experiencing with the let down -
system--that's correct. And it's those difficulties which led to the pressure build up' in the cake up tank which subsequently had to be relieved.
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REFORTER:
Would you say, sir, that a lot of what has gone in the
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1ast day and a half has caught the Company by surprise...
HERBEIN:
I think as soon as we were into an incident of this scope and magnitude that we were bound to run into many operational technical kinds of prob 1ces thtt aren't normally experienced.
I think we're going to see this kind of thing, I think, over the next few days we're going to see more incidents of similar nature.
There's nothing we can't take care of properly.- That's a fact - - - --
statement.
We can take care of the kinds of incidents or problems with systems that we're going to experience over the next several days, I'm confident of that.
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REPORTER:
Would you say that with regard to the action situation the Governor has over-reacted at the moment?
HEREEIN:
I can't speak about the governor over-reacting.
I can tell you that we're going to run'into technical difficulties with the systems associated with the support of the reactor' coolant and coci down effort, and as we run into those difficulties we're going to have to improvise and take protective measures just as we did this morning--nothing that we're not going to be able to handle.
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REFORTER:
Has Civil Defense over-reacted?
HEREEIN:
Again I can't speak to the degree that these support agencies over-react.
REPORTER:
Would you be doing what they're doing?
HERBEIS:
I would not have declared the evacuation alert that they did this morning.
REPORTER:
Why is that core not cooling? Why does it remain constant?
You told us yesterday that you expect it to be cool today.
Now you're saying Friday.
Why?
HERBEIN:
At this point we understand a little better the, as I said, _ the fuel assembly temperatures and the cenditions that exist in the core it does appear to us that there is a gas bubble above the fuel assemblies in the 4
reactor.
It does appear to us that the fuel assemblics are covered and that we're slowly removing the heat from the fuel.
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.C REPORTER:
Did you have any sort of me.it down at the Three Mile Island reactor?
IERBEIN:
I believe, that we failed some fuel and, yes, I believe we did melt some fuel.
I believe we had some celt down,
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yes. hhen you say melt down as opposed to fuel failure it's difficult, I think, to quite understand what you mean. As I indicated I believe some of the uranium pellets actually perforated the clad so that some of the fission products contained in those pellets and some of the gas contained in those rods actually was released into the coolant.
Now whether the fuel actually melted, we don't know that.
REPORTER:
But you suspect that, don't you?
IERBEIN:
I suspect that we perforated the clad.
I don't know that the fuel has melted into a glob.
I think in the five fuel assemblies that had the high temperature we may have some swagging of the rods-touching.
Now that's different then fuel melt.
REPORTER:
Does that mean that heat is generated...
IERBEIN:
lleat is being generated in the fuel pellets, that's correct.
g REPORTER:
And that's what's causing chis build up of pressure.
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Is that right?
REPORTER:
hhat is the melting point of your on-site fuel?
IERBEIN:
About 5,000 degrees.
REPORTER:
(Unintelligible)
IERBEIN:
I'm not c ert about that.
REPORTER:
(Unintelligible IERBEIN:
Well, I think that Ralph Nader is going to have a lot of those kinds of questions.
We feel it's still a good plant; it's unfortunate that this incident occurred.
We're going to make a detailed investigation into all of the potential design difficulties that might exist' Those are going to be corrected before we restart that plant.
We feel the plant was a sound plant.
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REPORTER:
Mr. Herbein, that gas bubble could that be on tcp of f(
the bilge seeping water away rrom some...
HERBEIN:
I don't t;hink so just to briefly go through here on this chart...
l Mr. Herbein moved to another part of the roc = to explain chart so there was no further recording.
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