ML19308B881
| ML19308B881 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 04/09/1979 |
| From: | Thornburgh D PENNSYLVANIA, COMMONWEALTH OF |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR PR-790409, NUDOCS 8001170488 | |
| Download: ML19308B881 (13) | |
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VIII FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASh GOVERMOR'S PRESS OFFICE 407'079 CONTACT: Paul Critchlow Press Secretary (717) 783-1116 f
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- TRANSCRIPTION PRESS CONFERENCE - THREE MILE ISLAND INCIDENT I
GOVERNOR DICK THORNBURGH APRIL 9, 1979 3:00 p.m.
Media Center 4
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GOVERNOR THORNBURGH'S STATEMENT:
"I have just concluded a meeting in my office with Lt. Gov. Scranton, Harold Denton, Robert Adamcik and other appropriate state officials. I have also been in contact yesterday and today with Chairman Hendrie of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"I am pleased to be able to announce this afternoon that, based on
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the information and advice given to me by these persons, I am lifting all my previous recommendations, advisories and directives.
"This means it is now considered safe for pregnant w_r--
and pre-school children to return to their homes within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island site.
"This means that sch001s in that area around the site may reopen tem =0rrow.
"This means that state of fices can return completely to business as usual.
"This means that I am ordering our Civil Defense and Emergency Prepared-ness forces to shift from a full alert status to an on-call status.
This does not mean that we will relax our vigil. We will continue to monitor the entire situation on a 24-hour basis.
"I am. also assured by our state DER and Health of ficials that there remains no threat to public health in.the milk or drinking water of central Pennrylvania.
"in my address to the people of Pennsylvania last Friday, I announced a
that Lt. Gov. Scranton would chair a Central Pennsylvania Recovery Committee.
That effort began almost immediately, and we will keep you apprised of its progress.
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. Three Mile Island "Also at my side today is an Individual to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude. Bob Adamcik is the Philadelphia-based regional director of the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration.
And, just as the White House designated Harold Denton to be the authoritative voice on technical matters at the plant site, so was Bob Adamcik designated to coordinate the overall federal support effort.
l "I must tell you that that effort, while extremely low-profile, was i
extremely effective. The 30 federal and volunteer agencies led by Mr. Adamcik provided assistance and advice on the whole range of matters related to emergency preparedness, and stood ready to assist if a large-scale evacuation had become necsssary. These agencies did so without fanfare, and in a spirit of total cooperation with state and local agencies.
"Just as I have commended Harold Denton for his help, I am pleased to commend Mr. Adamcik and his people for their effective support, and I thank the White House for sending them to us.
"We will now turn to Mr. Denton for a briefing on conditions at the plant -- after which Lt. Gov. Scranton, Mr. Denton, Mr. Ada.icik and j
myself will be availatle to answer your questions."
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ANSWERING QUESTIONS WITH THE GOVERNOR WERE:
Lt. Gov. William Scranton 3d 1
Robert Adamcik j
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. DENTON:
My advice to the Governor is based on the much improved situation at the plant over the past few days in a number of areas. I now think that the likelihood for an event or a release requiring special precautionary measures is very remote. While I'll do is walk through the five areas that we've paid special attention to and in just give you in summary form the situation to date.
Let me first start with the reactor core. The reactor is now producing about 4 megawatts total heat.
There's one -------that's running above 400 degress and it's running about 404 degrees. The first stages of the preferred plan are now being implemented, this is the phase that concerns degassing. We've taken the reactor pressure down to as low as 400 psi in a series of planned de-gassing measures. This has been very effective in removing from the primary coolant the dissolved hydrogen gases. We may attempt further steps to reduce gases.
The next step in the preferred plan would be to lower the temperature of the primary system. This step won't be taken for several more days, we're still looking at the natural circulation mode that we hope to place the core into.
I may remind you that the preferred plan involves cooling down the primary system to a benign state such that you're not relying on instrumentation inside the containment and you're not bringing contaminated water outside the cont'ainment. Let me mention next, the containment is still at a negative pressure.
It's doing it's job just the way it is intended. We pumped back into the containment the gases from the waste gas storage tanks.
I don't see a potential there for a release from the containment. Noble gases have continued to drop in terms of their off-site exposures as a result of the pump back that's going on.
The off-site exposures now along the river bank range from.1 to perhaps 1 mr per hour at the maximum. At the site that I'm at, dosimeters indicate a maximum dose of about 20 mr for the duration of the accident. Iodines are being brought under control.
The plant has decided to do both a replacement of the existing filters and the installation of a second filter bank. These filters are aboug a foot square and 6 inches high, and six feet long or so and weigh about 120 pounds each and there are almost 100 or these. So the operation to take out these filters, replace them with the new ones which were flown in from a plant in Washington will probably not be completed until tomorrow night. The insulation of a back up filter bank will take several more days. We're very encouraged by all of the engineering management support going into control of both noble gases and iodides. With regard to liquids there has not been any releases franthe plant in excess of those which would be permitted under normal operations.
In total, looking at the entire picture, looking at the fact that even if there were -------events with regard to the reactor core it would be 30 hours3.472222e-4 days <br />0.00833 hours <br />4.960317e-5 weeks <br />1.1415e-5 months <br /> or more before there would be any potential for any release.
I've come to the conclusion that the potential is suf ficiently small that I can give the governor the advice I have given him.
REPORTER:
Mr.
Denton,---------------it seems here the ------prcblem as far as the persons who have been evacuated is concerned is the risk of radiation. Are you now satisfied that there is no risk of radiation?
DENTON:
The releases from the plant are moving rapdily down toward those which would be permitted during normal operatio..
of the plant. Some of the pathways have already reached that level. The others haven't quite reached it, but there's no magic threshold about radiation, this level versus that level.
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PAGE 3 DENTON:
(con't) The total dosa for anyone drinking milk from the plant we calculate to be on the order 1 - 2 mr total. The maximum inhalation dose from breathing air containing iodine is on the order of 5-10 mr for the entire course of the accident.
The maximum off-site dose of the North Bridge, for anyone continuously present there over the course of accident remains less than 100 mr.
You talked the other day about making an overt move STAROBIN:
toward a cold shut-down. And you were going to wait for advantageous wind conditions among others. Let me ask you, what would be advantageous conditions, when will you make that move and what inherent risks are there with that?
DENTON:
At the time we were contemplating a move that might require activation of the emergency core cooling systems. The type of move we're talking about now 4
would be more of a phase in through the existing steam generator that's now being used to remove the heat from the core and would just be a change in the way that water is circulated inside the reactor vessel, So I no longer couple this type of change with the potential that I saw when we were going to go to activation of the safety systems.
REPORTER:
Mr. Denton, are you satisfied now after all this evaluation of the B & W plant that the core of the reactor is damaged to the extent that it would impede the natural circulation that that plant calls for.
DENTON:
We're reasonably satisfied. We haven't quite completed our evaluation. That's still going on.
I hope to have a firm handle on the natural circulation option by Friday. There are several other attractive looking options. All of which would minimize the release to the environment of the contaiminated water inside the containment.
AMIG:
Then you are planning on stayfng here?
DENTON:
I do that on a day by day basis and it looks like I'll be here at least through this week.
REPORTER:
Mr. Denton, as long as there are some emissions of radiation that are above naturally occuring background levels, are you saying that nevertheless it is safe to go back to that area within the five mile area?
DENTON:
The plant is permitted to release certain amounts of radioactivity during normal operation. What I'm saying le that the amounts that are now being released are rapidly dropping toward those and in some instances are at those that are permitted under normal operation.
I want to distinguish between those types of normal release and extremely ------times now that would be available for evacuation in the event of a complete walk away from cooling systems inside the core.
i REPORTER:
Mr. Denton, if I may follow up, we were made to understand that the reason that pregnant women and young children were kept away was not because of the imminence or the potential imminence of evacuation, but because of thier high susceptibility to low level doses of kadiation.
Are you saying that it is now safe for those high risk l
groups to be back there?
DENTON:
Yes, in my view it is.
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PAGE 4 REPORTER:
We were told the other day perhaps by you cr another NRC official that we would not be able to determine the effect of iodiae emissions on cows milk until they began to pasture. At that time the statement war that most cows in this area are eating stored feed.
What's changed that you can make a.
DENTON:
First off, the iodine releases from the plant have dropped steadily as a result of the actions taken to add chemicals to the water in the auxiliary building, some parts of the building have been sprayed with these chemicals to tie up the iodine. The filters will be all changed out by tomorrow night which will really cut back pn potential future releases. Probably even more importantly, the environmental samples sh6w dropping levels in iodine. I think the latest results show very few if any milk samples with detectable amounts of iodine in them. There's been a dramatic drop off in the iodine detected in the environment.
It's not entirely, you can't say it's been completely eliminated.
We are going to continue our sampling program and perhaps an occasional milk sample will still show iodine above detectable levels. But I want to emphasize that the maximum dose that we've calculated to date for anyone consuming milk at the concentrations that we've 4
discussed is on the order of 1-2 mr, which is within allowable limits.
REPORTER:
But the point you made the other day was that the iodine went into the grass and therefore there would be no way of knowing that effect until some future date.
Are we in the future now?
DENTON:
I think we now have a much better feel for the amounts of iodine being released from the plant. I less there is less than one tenth of a curie of iodine that went out yesterday and reactions that are being taken are going to drop those levels right down--- ---------- is 4
1 going to reduce it even more. Our own sampling of pasture grass indicates concentrations below detectable levels.
REPORTER:
Can you explain the details of why the federal government was encouraging that the antidote be distributed and 4
the state felt it should not be ----------?
f DENTON:
I guess I could leave that one to the state or I could discuss my view of the situation.
PLEASE PICK UP WITH PART TWO OF THE TRANSCRIPT.
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PART 2 PAGE 1A i
I DENTON:
We were involved in the preparation of the original document concerning the use of iodine blocking tablets. We would like iodine bl6cking tablets for ------ doses when large releases are likely to occur. The document concludes that when you i
are likely to be exposed to a ------ that would result in a thyroid does on the order of 10,000 millirems you should atte-to take the tablet 30" minutes in advance. T:ey are meant for puff releases from the plant not for continuous exposure.
i You can't block your thyroid for long durations without side-effects. So in my own view the situation and the potential for puff releases resulting in 10,000 millirems to the thyroid was sufficiently remote and I didn't see any advantage to taking the tablet. The tablets are not intended to be effective for routine exposure to very low levels of iodine.
REPORTER:
You said that you would have some decision on the.B and W cooling plant by Friday or so.
That is later than the original schedule.
Is there some new information you have.
DENTON:
No as I mentioned earlier we have turned on several states, review committees, I have sent some people here back to Bethesde to have more access to have m6re to our calculational capabilit; The core is being cooled perfectly adequately the way it is.
Everyday that goes by the -------level drops a little more. We obtain achieve more de-gassing of the primary coolant. There is no rush to move towards the five day or this ten day period.
And I want to be sure that he have looked at all the possibiliti J
before we agree to a change in the mode of cooling at from the present status. So what we are now doing is lowering the press; down, raising the pressure back up in an attempt to bring out of solution all the gases that we can that are in there and I think we have de-gasified the coolant down to a level of about 400 psi.
LIVIDGOOD:
Yesterday when the operator dropped the pressure in the primary coolant system down to around 400 psi you got some noise within the system and you got some pump vibration which I assume indicates that there is some gas bubbles.
DENTON:
Yes.
That is the type of criteria that we use to determine how low we can bring the pressure,. We have acoustic monitoring instrumentation on the plant. We watch levels, and remember when the indicators bring the plant down to 50 psi step. The Ic-your bring the pressure the more gas you can get involved into pressurizer space
. So you have to have a carefully plan:
program to bring down the pressurizer as low.as possible with the gas coming out of the solution so it can be exhausted into the containment.
LIVINGOOD:
Now today you are going back up to the 900 and 1000...
DENTON:
It appears to be most effective to cycle pressure back and forth to put back in the solution gases that may be hidden out in odd places of the primary system such as control rods and other to dissolve back in the water as much gases that are in there and lower pressure back down again so that you can evolve those gases by lowering pressure. We will probably go through several more pressure cycles like that between now and the time any othe.
change is made.
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PART 2 P ga 2A LIVINGOOD:
Does it make the gas easier to get to, easier to...
DENTON It puts the gas back in the solution at high pressures in case there is gas hidden out in crevices or pockets somewhere in the plant. Goes back in solution and if you lower,the pressure back down again it makes it easier to evolve those gases in the pressurizer space so they 'can be vented.
STAROBIN Governor throughout this entire week and a half how close did you ever come to issuing an evacuation (a) and bl what was your contact or relationship with members of the nuclear establishment, if you will, particularly those nuclear experts in Pittsburgh, your home town.
Did you have contact with them.
s GOVERNOR:
No.
My source of advice fof appraisal of the situation since his arrival a week ago Friday has been Harold Denten.
I think there may be some confusion about that because of speculation somewhere when I* directed immediately npon hearing of the accident at the site that all of the private and public sector input that we could get in state government from whatever source could help us get a fix on the situatic:
l and take the proper actions be accu 6ulated. Most of the private sector support that has come to the crew that is at the island now has been as a result of Mr. Denton assembline this all-star team of technicians at*the site and that includes as I understand, Westinghouse, GE, B&W various power companies and the like.
I have had no contact with them directly.
i STAROBIN:
inaudible GOVERNOR:
That is hard to say. I think from the very moment I heard of the accident on Wednesday morning, I began to realize that an evacuation was a potential. But that was designed really to get our response in order. And as time went on that response became more realistic and with the help of the federal and local people involved became less and less of a concern as to the mechanics.
But, obviously, like all of us has varying levels 9f perception of what the nature of the danger was. I don't think there was ever a point when we were poised on the edge of ordering an evacuation.
STAROBIN:
I remember the Sunday night directly after the Wednesday incident we were at the mansion, everybody,s temper was kind of short. At that time the hydrogen bubble was prominent in all of our consciousness', at that point what was your feeling about evacuating.
GOVERNOR:
No.
As I recall that was the night we gave the legislators a bri6fing. I think my temper wac on edge because I was tirt REPORTER:
We were made to understand that people over 60 are just as susceptible to Irc-level radiation as pregnant women and pre-school children. Is that true, and if it is true why wouldn't they have to leave.
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Part III Pags Ib I
GOVERNOR:
I don't know if it is true, I received no advice from any of our medical, environmental, or technical people to that effect.
'I just have to beg off on a definitive i
answer.
SCOTZIN:
Governor, you said you will continue the monitoring on a 24. hour basis. How long will this monitoring continue and who in the state will conduct it.
Are you equipped with the proper instruments?
4 GOVERNOR:
The DER people in concert with the appropriate federal agencies will continue the monitoring of radiation, obviously. Our emergency management people will continue to keep on the alert. We are not dismantling that apparatus. In other words, I think probably everybody who has been involved in this effort will continue to devote a substantial amount of time to keeping an eye on the situation. But obviously, with the advice and information that we have been furnished with in the last 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> we have seen fit to relax some of the advisories l
that we had in effect and I think that has an effect l
throughout the entire...
SCOTZIN:
thinking well beyond the total shutdown, months i
from now, will we keep our vigilance up?
GOVERNOR:
Well I have secured a* commitment from Chairman Hendrie that the NRC will undertake prompt inspection of all the nuclear facilities in Pennsylvania and report to me in a matter of weeks, as to what that ctatus is.
That I
will include the two units at TMI and we will in that sense be apprised by those people who have the responsibilit for licensing and regulating these facilities, as t'o what potential there may be for recurrence of any kind of 1
accident of this type, but the monitoring will be carried out in the normal course insofar as the state is concerned, by DER until we are satisfied that there is no further need for it.
I think again, we will exercise as much caution as we can.
REPORTER:
a disagreement between yourself and federal officials on this point as tc*whether TMI or any other plant should be allowed to operate again or continue to operate. What sort of recourse do you have?
GOVERNOR:
Well, I d>n't know that it is fruitful to speculate on that when we don't have any of the facts. I have not received the results of any of those requested inspections -
until I do -
REPORTER:
Is there any structure, or legal recourse that you have to demand or require that the plant even if it is a 1
political ---- ------
s GOVERNOR:
Well, we certainly have standing with regard to facilities within our Commonwealth to make known our views on it.
I There is no question about that and any licensing procedure or any procedure relating to facility, but I think we are well in advance of any adversary posture here until we have a determination of precisely the results of these inspections are.
REPORTER:
Governor, what is your posture on GPU's expressed intent to pass along their losses to -------------
GOVERNOR:
Well, that is a matter that is before the 'PUC.
At the present time I don't know that we have taken a position l
on that.
-I would like to see how that develops in terms
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1 PART III Page 2b (GOVERNOR CONTINUED) of how best to deal with a totally unprecedented event in terms of*its effect on levels of consumer charges and the financial status of the utility. It is a vexing' kind of a problem, but I as not prepared to state i
today any position we would have.
j JENSENs This may be for Mr. Adamcik, I am not sure. We have a long list here of preparations that were made in the event of an evacuation or a more serious tituation to help people in the area. Is there any program now in place to compensate the merchants and employees for losses that they incurred because even though there was no official evacuation, an estimated 200,000 took it on their own.
Is there any way those people can be helped f'.nancially or otherwise.
ADAMCIK:
Well, this is an area beyond the scope of the immediate evacuation planning. However, we stand ready to do every-thing we can, and have already made some contacts with federal agencies and the federal regional council, who can come in and provide the Governor and his staff with information on how to assess the economic impact, and perhaps to suggest some ways in shich he might work together to resolve that.
JENSEN:
In other words, you couldn't tell an individual what to do right now?
LT. GOV:
I think the posture that we are taking, and this will be part of the recovery effort, is first to make an assessment of exactly what kind of economic hardships central Pennsylvania has experienced. Before we have that, we coa't go to the federal government and say, this is what we need, and this is the first step in our recovery effort -
we are currently taking, trying to find out from the various business people involved in the area, what their problems have been, what their losses have been, and under what circumstances those losses have been incurred. So that when we have to go to the federal goveuxmnt and say this is what has happened, this is how we need relief, we can do it on a factual basis rather than trying to make it up out of thin air.
JENSEN:
Governor, who is on that central Pennsylvania Recovery Committee?
LT. GOV:
We are currently putting it together and the fir.al group has not been made up, but it will certainly be made up of the cabinet, myself, and of course, the cabinet officials, that are most immediate involved, Department of Health, DER, Commerce, etc., and over the next couple of days, I am sure you will hear an announcement fairly soon about the final determination of who is on that committee.
BRUTTO:
Will you make any effort to secure reimbursement for indivuduals who sustained a loss, if they were outside of that 5 mile area?
LT. GOV:
I don't know if that would come under, if there is a federal program that allows that, yes.
I think you run into problems of insurance. I think you run into problems of exactly what the plant is liable for, what the federal government is willing to assume and at this point, not knowing all the ins and outs of the federal government, I think it would be premature for me to make a judgement on that.
BRUTTO:
If the plant closed, it lost money, and perhaps the employees lost wages? Is there any way they can be reimbursed for that?
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PART III Paga 3b LT. GOV:
Perhaps, but we would have to look into that.
Bob, do you know...
GOV:
I think we can say that we are going to leave no stone unturned. As I indicated 11 my remarks on Friday night, that to secure the maximum amount of relief for an area that has suffered a totally unique kind of experience, and whatever there is in the way of assistance we are going to ------ our utmost efforts to see that those people who have suffered loss are dealt with appropriately.
LIVINGOOD:
For 11 days, pregnant women and mothern of small children have followed your advice, ------------ have stayed out of the area, but for two-and-a-half days prior to that, based on assurances that came from a lot of sources including,yourself, many of them remained in that area and I guess a lot of them understandably now have some concerns about what might be the long term effect to the fetus they carry snd to the small children they are rearing. What do you say to them at this point?
GOVERNOR:
Well, I am not medically or technically qualified to make an assessment on the health questions involved. I think that is something that they will have to regretably deal with with their own physicians or with testing and diagnostic facilities.that both we and the federal govern-ment will make available. With regard to the uncertainty wurrounding the situation during that two-and-a-half day period, I think that was probably the single biggest frustration, to me in trying to pass on every relevant bit of relieable information that we had to the public, only to find that as I told you in this room, I believe on Thursday night, we were being beset with all kinds of conflicting data and informati?n and the difficulty in separating it out was extremely troublesome. I think that clearly there is a concensus that improved data gathering and communications capability at the site of these types of plants is at the top of the list of needs that must be dealth with in the future and I for one would to that view without any question. The most important component of the decision making process is facts and until you have facts, you are left somewhat at ------ with regard to the propriety of decisions that l
have to be made.
I am sure that now that the facts are all known, or when they are all known, that there may be instances where judgements might have been made differently if those facts had been known at the present time.
But that was the only game in town..
RAMILL:
Governor Thornburgh, despite your advisory today, there may be some pregnant women and preschool age children leary of coming back into the area. Are you saying they have no worries whatsoever to be leary about coming into the area?
GOVERNOR:
No, I am saying precisely what we said when we advised them to leave. The advice that I am passing on today is based on the information recieved from Mr. Denton and the technical people factored into the expertise of our environmental and health people, that we no longer feel that it is necessary for them to absent that area.
REPORTER:
Governor, you said there, I think Mr. Denton said there was a possibility offsite of 1 mr an hour. Was that the figure you used?
DENTON:
I think that number, I tried to quote incremental values and total values and some of the values I quoted earlier were total kinds of numbers. For example, the maximum
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PART III Paga 4b (DENTON CONTINUED) exposed individual at the North Gate if someone had been there continuously present, would be less than 100 mr.
But the survey, the last survey of 8. hours showed levels from 1/100 to 2/100 mr per hour up and down the east and west banks of the Susquehanna.
The maximum concentration in the cloud measured by our
--- --helicopter in the past 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> is about 1 mr an hour -- but that is in the plume.
REPORTER:
What is normal background for the area do you know?
DENTON:
Normal background is a little larger than 1/100 mrs per hour.
WIGGINS:
Mr. Denton, in regard to the reactor, do you have any new, revised *------- for when you would hope to see it shut down, first part of the question, second part -- do you have any new figures on the radioactive levels inside that containment?
DENTON:
We are still attempting to bring it to a cold shutdown sate state with dispatch. There is noching magic about the ten days we picked. The first ptrt is the degassing phase that we have gone through. All that is going very well.
As soon as we can complet our evaluation of the best option for getting the reactor in a state whereby it is immune to manmade or equipment errors and where it doesn't involve pumping back outside the containment any contaminated water. That time period I am still trying to move toward completing our evaluation by Friday. Until that time we will continue removing heat from the reactor through the steam generator, the same mode that we have been in for several days, and continue to remove as much gas from the primary cooling system as we can.
The next step after degassing is to bring the temperature down to about 220, 23F0, the point at which you are not able to maintain steaming conditions in the steam generator. The preferred-plan calls for them filling the secondary side of the i
steam generator solid water. That would enable heat removal from the primary system, in a very efficient sort of manner, to bring the temperature of the reactor then down to perhaps 1600 through heat removal. And the fina. stage would be to either run the pumps at the temperature of 1600 or perhaps trip the pumps and l
go to a natural circulation mode at that time.
So our timetable is still relatively close to the ten days, but is not...I am not, I would say we are into the ten day period, but there is nothing magic about it and as long as everything is functioning the way it is, there is no pressure to move forward with extreme rapidity, but to make sure we have looked at all the options examined, all the possibilities. Someone mentioned the technical l
capabilities on the site I found,that the company is now bringing in my predecessor, Mr. Ben Rusche to take over 1
the task of long term -------- control.
JENSEN:
He is your predecessor?
DENTON:
Yes, in this job.
The company is bringing him in he is now...
JENSEN He left NRC to...
DENTON:
He left a year or two ago and went into private industry.
JENSEN:
Did you participate in the licensing of this plant?
DENTON:
Mr. Rusche?
JENSEN:
No, did you?
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PART III Page 5b DENTON:
I am sure I did. 'At the time before I took this job, I was responsible for environmental evaluations.
REPORTER:
Did you anticipate this?
DENTON:
No, sure didn't.
REPORTER:
Who does Mr. Rusche work for now?
DENTON:
He works for the energy research institute of South Carolina.
But I mentioned that just to illustrate the depth and competence of the industry, power company, individuals you have been incorporated into the recovery team of GPU.
s REPORTER:
What are the alternatives------ do you have any new ones?
DENTON:
Well, one that the staff is looking at is why tr_p the pumps to go to natural circulation, for example, as long as the pumps run why not continue to let the pumps run
original concept was that we tripped the pumps and go into natural circulation, but with the way things are performing there is the thought perhaps that is an unnecessary step and why not continue to run the pumps until they trip for some other reason and then we will go to natural circulation at that time.
CRITCHLOW:
Could we just have one or two more questions please?
BRUTTO:
Governor, is it within your power, to prevent the reactor from ------ power of the state, it down?
can you close GOVERNOR:
I don't know.
That is one of the things that we will be reassessing in the aftermath of this situation.
I have already expressed my view with respect to the burden that I feel is imposed on those who would make a case for reactivation of this facility.
PANYARD:
Could you respond, make scme type of response to the resignation of Mark Widoff, Consumer Advocate...
during that time he...
GOVERNOR:
He resigned some time ago.
PANYARD's Well, he -------made his official announcement today to the media, and at the time he said he was afraid the Actorney General
inaudible------------
GOVERNOR:
Well, we were faced with a situation I think by commen consent that was unprecedented -- Mr. Widoff, some time ago had submitted his resignation effective April 25, I directed the Attorney General to assume charge of coordinating all of the legal aspects of this matter.
Mr. Widoff, last week, announced an intention to take certain legal actions which I asked the Attorney General to review because of Mr. Widoff's impending departure from office.
That review was carried out by Attorney General Biester consisten with my directive that he be n
in charge of coordinating all of the legal response of this state to this totally unprecedented situation that l
we had to deal with.
So we are now of course left without a consumer advocate. We are looking for a succestor to Mr. Widoff.
In the meantime, those actions will be coordinated by the Attorney General.
l JENSEN:
Governro, he went further.
He said that he did net believe that Mr. Biester had the right to tell him what to do because he was responsible only to you and he told us
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e' PART III Page 6B JENSEN:
in effect that he*is going to continue in'a course which 3
you could only describe as insubordination or rebellion to Mr. Biester.
GOVERNOR:
Well, I think it is regretable that Mr. Widoff took certain actions without any notice to me, without any notice to the Attorney General, after I had asked the Attorney General to coordinate our overall legal response but I don't see any problem in that regard. His resignation j
takes effect in a couple of weeks, and we will go forward t
with whatever actions are necessary under the new consumer advocate. But those actions will be coordinated with our overall response as a state government to this totally unprecedented situation.
i REPORTER:
He said further that the staff would not cooperate with the Attorney General's Office and would not keep them advised...
GOVE RMOR:
I think that would be a mistake. I hope that is not ture.
AMIG:
Mr. Denton: one question, the Saturday of the bubble problem, and Met Ed said the crisis was over, you came back and said the crisis wouldn't be over until there was a complete shutdown. Do you still stand by that statement?
i DENTON:
Well at the time, I guess I used cold shutdown to be a blanket term to describe an activity that I now perceive to be multi-faceted. There are lots of different issues that remain at the plant. There continues to be a lot of radioactivity. But when I look at the entire spectrum across the board, from containment to noble gases, iodines, I consider the crisis over today with the, with regard to the status of the core.
CRITCHLOWs Thank you very much, t00 l
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j MARCH 30, 1979 l
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11:00 A.M.
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METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPN 4Y JOHN G. HERBEIN, VICE PRESIDENT - GENERATION i
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The highest of levels of radiation recorded, I think was 80 rems per hour.
I
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believe that maybe 10 or 15 people have to be decontaminated.
The numbers that were in the reactor at the time of the releases, I would estimate a number on the order of 100 to 150.
4 The decontamination is simply to take a shower and wash the radioactivity off your body.
Walter Creitz thanks people End i
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The steam which is associated with the steam generator may have been fed with
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water, previously contaminated, as a result of a leak in the generator.
The "B" generator, perhaps, it it's leaking contaminated, the steam system which perhaps vented radioactive steam. We've only found that out and terminated that same pump.
With a bigger breakdown, it's possible that higher levels of radiation could have been released.
I think the "B" steam generator was probably isolated before 10:00.
Possibly, the contaminated feed water being fed to the other generator which was then feeding in water with trace amounts of radioactivity and that in turn, turned to steam, again, I'm not certain that happened.
The other pathways are the ventilation system in the auxiliary building -- picking up some of the radioactive gasses and particulates being emitted fr: a the 3 to 4
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inches of water in the basement of the building.
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We've closed the ventilation system and that has raised it to a very high degree of internal exposure rates in the building which the generators will be involved in - in their activity.
No, I don't think they should go see a doctor -- I don't think we've had anything near that cause of concern and really that's in the place of the Bureau of Radiological Protection to make any recommendations.
I can tell you ti,at we didn't injure anybody in this accid 2nt, we didn't over-expose anybody and we certainly didn't kill a single soul and as I've indicated the levels of radiation ue've had off-site have been absolutely miniscule.
I guess that there are points whr.re there are no guarantees -- there is no guarantee that you won't be stru:k by a meteorite tonight.
l' You've asked a question, this is possible somehow, it is conceivable both kinds
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Question on failed fuel -- Again, that is difficult to estimate, I think 1%.
I flo, certainly it wasn't rushed into service -- we went through a very extensive and costly sequence of start-up and checks by the regulatory agency -- we did our best to do all the checks and tests according to a pre-scheduled time frame because we wanted to get it in-service -- but no, the unit was not placed in-service for getting particular tax breaks.
I think it's happened once and certainly it's conceivable it can happen again.
s Again, all our plans and procedures are based on being able to cope with this kind of event.
That is a possibility and I think that through our back-up systems, and we are certainly able of handling something far more serious.
0.K., I don't have an estimate of the cost and as far as the time it will be down certainly it will be down for a few weeks.
Yes, we will have to be decontaminated, the auxiliary building, we'll have to decon the reactor building.
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The problem to dispose the water in the reactor building -- I'm not certain; there are a couple methods available for this operation and this concentration --
would be to solidify it as it is and ship it off-site. There are areas that are being looked at by a team now on ways to dispose of this.
I don't know that we're prepared to saj that -- I know that we've got insurance coverage on these types of repairs an.1 decontamination.
Ad I've indicated, we've got reactor coolant pump running -- we're presently getting ready to shift to the decay hect system and possibly later today we can do that -- once we're on decay heat, the low pressure system is used to bring l
the plant to a final cooldown point.
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I think we're going to have the plant in cold shutdown sometime late tonight or tomorrow morning.
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I'd say that's possible.
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We think there is a leaking tube in the "B" steam generator and as soon as we saw that, we isolated that.
We don't think it is extensive.
I wouldn't guess, but maybe two or three tubes.
CRETTZ If it is, you must remember that Mr. Herbein indicated that there might be one or two of the controls used which might be damaged.
There is 15,000 in the main i
i HERBEIN Again, a depressurization of the reactor coolant system when an electromatic relief valve didn't recede at the appropriate pressure. When that occurred, the emergency injection system that came into play, we had to shut down our reactor coolant pump.
We did at that point get some basic levels in the hot leg. That may have contributed to some of the core problems we are experiencing.
l There was, we think, a minor leak on the B steaa generator and as soon c.s we H
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suspected that -- the "B" steam generator was isolated.
No, the first indications we had -- was that there were leaks in the "B;' steam generator -- this did occur following the transient scheduling.
I'm not aware of that; but by the authority by which you speak, I guess that's a possibility -- I was aware that there was leakage through the "B" steam gen-erator.
A very minimal amount of radiation has gotten int'a the atomsphere -- I'm satisfied with that.
We did not put it in operation in 1974 but, now, we would not have expected that this is as a routine occurance if we failed fuel in the sense that we believe we have, however, all our plans and emergency activities are based on being able to 4
appropriately deal with this kind of an event -- and we cid.
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CREITZ We certainly won't assume anything. We're going to check every possibility that
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could exist.
HERBEIf1 Again, the fuel primarily failed because of the lack of depressurization and the need to shut down our reactor coolant pump so that we wouldn't damage them and would have them available for subsequent circulation and decay heat.
flow, in the process of that depressurization it's possible that there was some steaming in the upper region core and then that lead to the failure.
There is a possibility that that occurred, yes.
We don't know the maximum temperature as measured.
f We're not certain of the length of time that the core was uncovered. Possibly i
long enought to fail the fuel. We don't know that.
I think yes, it was and I think that physicists of nuclear energy have been i
telling us for years that this type of accident certainly is possible.
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possible to have fuel failure but not possible is the hypothetical accident i
that you hear about when the entire core melts and diffuses molten raoioactivity into the air for miles around and kills several thousand people.
That's what we've been telling you is not possible.
What we've seen here is a fuel failure, something that is possible with an operating reactor today.
Nobody has ever said i
that this couldn't happen.
Safety systems were designed to take care of this kind of an accident as our safety system did.
I say that we don't have any China Syndrome possibility with the event's that occurred at Three Mile Island over the past few days.
I think that we've already clarified that it is not so much radiation that's l
getting out.
I think I've been over that-that it's a low level radiation that is being releast d.
l The normal yearly dosage t; ut you get is 200 millirems.
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Radiation is allowed to be released from the reactor stand in the course of normal operation. That's done on a daily basis at low level gas release or
.f low level liquid release in to the Susquehanna.
After careful monitoring analysis.
Also, our ventilation system system discharges trace amounts of
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radiation into the environment ca a daily basis.
At this point, because of
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failed fuel, we discharged more b,2n t' : 's amounts that we typically do.
At this point, if there are any, we really haven't identified them in depth.
Now there will be very careful study made of all the events leading up to the difficulties we've experienced over the past fuel days.
That report then in turn, will be reviewed extensively by a peer group.
Not to the best of my knowledge.
(Creitz added.. May I also partly respond to that.
If there would be any safety defects, ask the NRC.
I am sure that they would take action to see that these features are immediately corrected or the plant would be shut down.)
HER3EIN Nothing we can identify. There may be some safety problems, but to the best of our knowledge there has been none identified with our kind of reactor today.
We have not been able to identify that there were any problems as of today.
As I said, the electromatic relief valve went open, depressurized the reactor coolant system 1600 lbs., DPCS(?) then injected through 4 pts. through the make-up pump otherwise known as high pressure injection.
That was automatic.
I think no more levels thar..ve've seen over the past 48 hours5.555556e-4 days <br />0.0133 hours <br />7.936508e-5 weeks <br />1.8264e-5 months <br /> which is in my opinion very insignificant as we've related to the gentleman in here.
I think at this point, that's speculation that there is operator error involved specifically in shutting off the injection system concerned.
Is there operator error involved elsewhere? It may be that after we've dona our j
specific study and anlayzed very carefully the sequence of events, that there are some things that the operators could have done differently enn hence, you could term it an operator error.
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The temperature that we have on the primary plant right not is about 2800 and the pressure valve is about 700 lbs.
If we had a major fuel failure, probably the radiation levels that m're seeing would be perhaps a factor of 5 or maybe a factor of 10 higher.
There is some direct radiation of kinds coming from the reactor building, there is no escape of particulate or iodine or zenon from the from the reactor. building at this point.
The reactor building did seep (interrupted).
Yes, but the only exposure ther was to the workmen and our people on site.
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the reading that we had adjacent to the reactor building yesterday as en the order of possibly 15 mr's per hcur.
First of all, it's not a complete computer operation. The shutdown is by analog system. When pressure reaches a certain point, rods fall into the core and that stops sufficient chain reaction process. After that, the valves operate off of electrical signals.
The point the pressure reached at 2350 lbs., the electromatic k
valve opened and it remaine; open past its reclose point, about 2300 lbs.,
continued to blow reactor coolant doun into the drain tank and as was foreseen in its design, when the pressure in that drain tank reaches 40 lbs. the rupture just burst and the water then went out through the drain tank into the reactor building basement.
ho, I don't think that this generator is a lemon.
And as far as the 22 major safety problems, I really coulon't speak to that directly. He were evaluated in 1976, along with a number of other reactors and came out with a "3" rating, right in the middle. We had some inspection discrepancies and infractions just as other plants did.
We've also had incident reports where equipment has malfunctioned and we've made our prompt reports just like other reactors.
It might be 3 or 4.
flo, I wouldn't say that they were for safety pmblems.
We have some difficulty with our governor valve on the turbine, that's in the At one point, we dropped the control rods and had some condenser leak; again, J
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nothing that is out of the ordinary.
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Well, there wouldn't have been any fuel design - object that would - pressure system you are talking about.
Because it just wouldn't make sense f
to do that.
There was, yesterday, probably failure of our B steam generator.
Some of the reactor coolant got over into the secondary system, so there is
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a slight possibility that some sniall-amount of radioactive feedwater was fed into the boiler we were using at the time to vent off steam.
Yes, to the best of my knowledge, we were.
Yes, we were, but the pressure temperature limit has to do with the heat up-and cool down of the reactor and we don't really have that much of an influence on the level of power operation.
It has to do with the rate which we heat up and cool down.
I would say singularly, the fact that the electromatic leak valve remained o?en past its reclose test point and depressurized the reactor coolant system into the drain tank was probably an abnormal event, I feel that it was, fio, it's not a planned event, but it certainly is within the capability of the i
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system designed to handle it, it% not somethino that we do normally, however.'
the possibility of that exists in the course of operation, It did occur and we reacted as we would have and of course our system functioned as designed, I can't really speak to that, Because normally the steam venti.ng takes place in the condenser, and there wouldn't be any need to prevent radioactive. (interrupted),
Hell, the radiation is not at a harmful level and as soon as we found that there was the slightest chance that we were venting radioactive steam, we stopped the venting of steam, so we didn't absolutely need to do that, There were other means available to remove steam before and we did it that way, flo, there is no continued nuclear reaction going on inside the nuclear reactor, Of course, there is decay heat that exists in the pellets and that of course is j
the reason we keep water on top of the fuel, w
Well, I don't think it certainly is possible to pass iodine through the cow's milk pathway that rapidly.
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In laymen's terms, the average person in the U.S. gets on the order of 200 millirems of radiation in a year, that comes-from the sun, that comes from the beer you drink, from the television you watch, these kinds of activities. We probably, if there has been any exposure at all, haven't given anyo..a more than an additional millirem an hour.
If we have exposed anyone, and I'm not sure that we have, off-site.
Certainly, some of our workers have received exposure.
I don't think we've exposed people off-site.
(You have been mon.itoring?)
Yes, we have.
As I said, 200 is what you get in a year, I would be willing to say that no l
member of the public to date has gotten more than 10.
Understand, that certainly will be considered in our reports.
I don't know how we're going to get rid of it in the primary building area, but that's not.the source of leaking radiation at the present time. The source
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of leaking radiation is coming from our auxiliary building in water that has accumulated on the floor.
We are presently pumping that out. That will be contained in tanks.
Once that is accomplished, then the radiation level leak should stop.
flo, radiation is not escaping its primary containment walls.
The levels that we've seen are really three-fold, one reading under 1 rem per hour, another reading about 10 rems per hour, and finally there is an indication that we feel is an error reading at 80 rems per hour. We think that is up in the dome of l
the reactor.
That's exposed to moisture and we don't think that's that accurate at the present time.
The depth of the level is not escaping the reactor 7
building.
We are able to take readings and we don't see any increase of radiation level significant outside that reactor building.
l flo, we don't have to vent steam anymore.
We were venting off steam from 11 t
o' clock till (reporter interrupted).
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lle're not actually certain at this point, that radiation did come off in the
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decay heat.
We assumed that that's when it passed in. Because of that assumption, that's why we stopped venting steam.
I suspect that we will have some minor releases continuing through the day and that possibly by tomorrow there won't be any further need for that.
First of all, the drain doesn't dump directly into the Susquehanna River. With regards to notifying the Civil Defense Troops, we've been in contact with D,auphin County Civil Defense who are responsible for the immediate environment around Three Mile Island. With regard to Lancaster and York, not we're not in communi-cation with them directly, however, I feel that Civil Defense network has a communication set up between them. Any need for communication would take place through those grounds.
The reactor doesn't drain directly to the river.
It's a very complex processing system that all liquids go through before they are released to the river.
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Fuel failure means, simply, that long slender rods that house the uranium on the outside pellet -- may have been brec.-hed.
The rods are made of an alloy of plutonium. The pellets overheat and then in turn, But, sufficient products contained within uranium outside pellet are released into the water that flows over them.
You say they melted dewn.
Perhaps is percent or 1 percent of the rods in the core may have experienced some melting of the rods, that's true.
That's a think that we worried about, certainly.
But I would point out that the emergency injection system did function and we suffered some fuel failure and yes, we had some minor releases of low level radiation, but there was nothing that was catastrophic or unplanned for.
There is no concern at this point, I don't feel, about food being contaminated.
That's something we are going to watch. just as in the bomb fallout two years ago.
But at this point we don't see that the levels are significant enough j
to.cause concern.
However, Tom Gerusky is the one who is the one who is k
closely monitoring that and he'll be here.
1 HE'.3 E I'l Eleven o' clock was the first indication that we had off-site indications.
One of the things that we did, Mayor, was to work very closely with the civil k
defense and Environmental Resources for protective action. At that, pre-agreed, pre-approved plans, that our full communication will be with those people.
Civil Defense will then be responsible for any executive action that might be required as part of this plan.
~REITZ We understand, sir. Technically, we had the people available and trained to handle the emergency.
I think it's obvious from the number of people that are in this room handling many of your concerns, many things that are presented to us, was extremely difficult. We are not obviously geared up to handle a press crowd of this size and we do also apologize for the fact that some of you were not able to get some of the information as quickly as possible.
-E RS E I.'l He have discovered yet this morning, some additional that radiation was being released into the ventilation system in our auxiliary building.
Hopefully, some of those paths will be terminated before the day is over.
(HOU?)By taking technical action with pumps and fuel water systems. With regard to this, k
to the degree of radiation exposure or the off-site level, that does bear it when certain evolutions are carried out in plants, the ventilation system picks up the radiation and then discharges it through the plant vents and so we have varying levels.
Sometimes the levels on-site have been up to 20 or 30 milli-remkins (millirens) per hour. We've received some readings off-site that have been on the crder of 5 to 7 millirems per hour. Again, these are relatively small exposure rates. However, we are concerned about any amount.
I think we've seen 5 to 7 millirems approximately 2 or 3 miles from the site.
Again, the radiation levels do not stay for any period of time.
This morning, when I checked about 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> ago, we had sorae small amounts of radiation on-site.
However, the site boundary values and the rnonitoring points off-site did not indicate at that time of any releases that weren't processed in the program.
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And it was to become a Then, I think around 11 o' clock
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yesterday we began to pick up the first traces of radioactivity off the site.
Of course, there was evidence at the time of, a small amount of radioactive iodine in the environment, and we to_ok samples and had them analyzed by the Department of Environmental Resources, Bureau of Radiological Protection in Harrisburg and they got very much lower indications of iodine being released to the environment than we think.
and in fact, not too much above background.
There was no delay. We were carrying out normal plant procedures, as I indicated, up until close to 7 o' clock when we began to see radiation levels
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increasing in the auxiliary building and the reactor building.
And then, according to plan and procedure, we went ahead and instituted our site emer-gency. And at that point, made notifications and began calcclations to determ ne that potential exposure to the surrounding public.
No, not really.
For that valve to open and to relieve high pressure content as
[ a relief valve does in any good system, is not that uncommon an occurrance an
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went into the reactor coolant drain tank.
Well, I think the thing that may be abnormal, if you will, is that that valve didn't close at the point that it should have.
It continued to leak reactor coolant into the drain tank.
I People wi,ll eventually be able to walk in. He do have a large volume of water in the reactor building that is radioactive because there has been some fuel failure and it will have to be disposed of.
We're not exactly sure at this point how we're going to do that.
One of the things we do want to do, of course, is to minimize the radiation exposure and it will probably take a few days for some of that radiation to decay off that's in that water.
l CREITZ May I make a comment on that. When a general emergency is declared, an emer-gency in fact does not exist.
It's an indication that there should be concern and when we got to that level, that's a part of nur emergency specification of having a certain radiation level in the containment building, we did take steps k
to notify all the appropriate people.
And sir, if we did not get to you as I.\\
timely as we should have, we're sorry about it and that's all I can say.
unique. The same occurrence did happen two or three times on our first k
reactor in 1974.
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I said two or three times that we actually discharged pressurizer contents into the reactor coolant drain tank.
Two or three times.
Following that, depressurization, we saw that the pressure in the primary -
system was getting close to the point that the reactor coolant pump could no longer function.
So we didn't want to damage the pump by running it at lower suction pressure than we should. So the reactor coolant pumps were shut down and we relied then on the Emergency Core Cooling System to remove heat from the core.
At this point, we had experienced some fuel failure, and in turn, of course, fission products did excape into the reactor coolant. That reactor coolant, as I indicated, transferred into the reactor coolant drain tank.
That tank overflowed into the reactor building basement. The basement is normally pumped to a nearby building when there is water level in the sump and that k
is what occurred.
Some of that water got into the auxiliary building which was radioactive from the fuel failure that we've experienced.
In turn, radiation in the coolant in the auxiliary building was picked up by the plant exhaust fan, that's a mobile ventilation fan that moves air from the building, so there were some trace amounts of radioactivity, a noble gas, discharged through the plant vent. Additionally, when we saw the indications in the reactor boilding that there were radiation levels, we sent monitoring teams out to the plant perimeter to check for radiation levels and, of course, we found nothing at that point. We then continued to watch indications in the reactor building of radiation levels and, based on very conservative calcula-tions, thought there may be some relation to causes. He asked for a helicopter.
The state police provided one promptly and we dispatched an operator to the
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West shore to take a radiation level reading.
It was at that point that we found nothing. This was, must have been, about 8 o' clock.
By that time, because of this reading in the reactor building, we had declared a general emergency.
He decided that was the prudent thing to do, based on this indi-
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cation that we.had, even though of the three indications that we had, this was (l
the highest.
CREITZ One additional comment, we certainly do want to keep you people informed of
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what's happening, and we will continue to attempt doing that.
However, major emphasis right now is placed on working at the plant and making these deter-minations.
Between ourselves and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I'm sure that you people will te properly informed.
It' you are not at any time, let us know.
At this time, Jack, I suggest we open it up for questions.
I believe we can comment on that, Jack.
iERBEIN I wouldn't say that an operator did shut down one of the core cooling systems, or a particular component, and that in turn caused the fuel damage, I don't think we can say that at this point.
It's a very complex set of circumstances that were involved, and we're really not prepared to say that there was any single eveit that caused the fuel element failure.
tio, I'm not ruling out human error, That's certainly a possibility.
I think we're coordinating information, but certainly we've got no obligation
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to check each other's statements.
(Are you saying they're - NRC - wrong?)
CREITZ tio. flo.
I'm not saying they're wrong, but again that is proof that we respect them for making their own evaluations.
We want to find out exactly what happened, whatever it was, and we're going to made every extended effort to accomplish that.
HEREEIN Yes, yesterday, yesterday morning about 4 o' clock, the plant tripped due to loss of feedwater on the secondary side, The feed water pump tripped because of valve closure. We're not certain at this point why the suction valve on the feed pump closed, When those feedwater pumps tripped, which brings high pressure to the reactor cooling system, the reactor shuts itself down at high pressure as it's supposed to, at that time our electromatic relief valve designed to open on high pressure, opened and discharged some of the reactor coclant into the receiving reactor coolant drain tank.
That tank in turn 4
pressurized and ruptured and thereby allowed reactor coolant to escape into k
the reactor building. That's really, at this point, nothing that's terribly J
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