ML19308C473
| ML19308C473 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 08/22/1979 |
| From: | Schamberger R NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE |
| To: | Deal L ENERGY, DEPT. OF |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001240631 | |
| Download: ML19308C473 (6) | |
Text
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August 22, 1979
'.r. L. Joe Deal
- d. S. Depart ent of Energy
" ail Station E-201 Washington, D. C.
20545
Dear Mr. Deal:
Enclosed are two copics of the file memorandum which we prepared basec upon our interview with you.
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If you believe there are any substantial inaccuracies or omissions in the enclosed nenorandum that require correction, or if there is an inportant natter with which you would like to supplerent the recent inter-view, please inform us in writing within ten days and we will include your response in our files together with the enclosed memorancum.
If you do not have specific additions or corrections, please sign and return one copy of the memorandum to indicate that you have received and reviewed it.
We appreciate your help and cooperation in the Special Inquiry.'
Sincerely,
/ s/
Robert D. Scnamberger NRC/TMI Special Inquiry Group
Enclosures:
As stated
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Aug 2 21979 MEMORANDUM OF INTERVIEW On July 31, 1979, Robert Schamberger and Frederick Herr, NRC/TMI Special Inquiry Group, interviewed Mr. L. Joe Deal (phone 353-4093), Chief, Environmental Pro-tection and Public Safety Branch, and Mr. Ed Patterson, Chief, Occupational Safety Branch. U.S. Department of Energy.
The interview took place in Mr.
Deal's of fice in Room G-154, DOE Building, Germantown, Maryland.
The interview began at 1:00 p.m. and lasted about 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br />.
The purpose of the interview was to discuss the DOE Command Post operation at the Capitol City Airport.
Prior to the interview, Mr. Deal and Mr. Patterson were given copies of the Special Inquiry Group Witness Notification.
Mr. Patterson was sent to TMI by the DOE Emergency Action Coordinating Team (EACT) on Wednesday evening, March 28, 1979.
EACT had decided about 5:00 p.m.
that day that because there were already two DOE groups on-site (Brookhaven RAP team, and Andrews Air Force Base AMS Team) and each group was responding to 'a i
request for assistance from a different organization (BNL asked by the State, AMS asked by NRC), someone from DOE Headquarters should 30 to the site to coor-dinate their activities. Patterson arrived on-site at about 11:00 p.m. Wednes-day.
At that time, Patterson and AMS were operating out of the airport mana-ger's office at the Capitol City Airport.
BNL was operating out of the Department of Environmental Resources in Harrisburg.
l Thursday morning Patterson met with the BNL team in Harrisburg and agreed to set up a DOE Command Post at the State hangar at the Capitol City Airport. Herb Hahn, from the Andrews AMS Team, made arrangements for use of the state hangar.
Telephone service was provided to the hangar on Thursday.
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2 On Thursday the decision was made to replace the BNL team with a team fron Bettis (Pittsburgh Naval Reactors).
This decision was based on the fact that the BNL team had arrived on-site Wednesday without extra clothing or other necessities and were tired from working around the clock since they arrived.
The Bettis team drove to Harrisburg from Pittsburgh and arrived at the Airport between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. on Thursday.
The decision was made at that time that Bettis would continue to work for the state as had BNL, but that the Battis team j
would be located at the Airport, not in downtown Harrisburg as had BNL. This decision was made to avoid the interruptions which would have resulted from being located at the DER offices in Harrisburg.
The BNL team departed Harrisburg on Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday, Patterson contacted Marv Dickerson at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory regarding the LLL-ARAC (Airborne Release Advisory Capability).
NOTE:
Per DOE Emergency Operations Center Chronology, J. Deal departed German-town, Md., at 2:00 p.m.,
Thursday for the site.
On Friday evening the BNL team flew back to TML and DOE Headquarters called in j
the RAP teams from the Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories.
The Oak Ridge and Argonne teams were assigned to work for NRC at the trailer city located at the TMI site to do ground measurements.
On Friday evening, a meeting was held at the Capitol City Airport at the sugges-tion of DOE to discuss DOE's concern that there were so many organizations on-site performing overlapping duties.
This meeting was unrelated to Harold l
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3 Denton's arrival on-site on Friday af ternoon.
NRC and state representatives were invited to the meeting and FDA and EPA also attended.
During the meeting DOE suggested that all monitoring agencies pool their data. Also, Thomas Gerusky, Director, Bureau of Radiation Protection, informally requested DOE to coordinate all radiological monitoring data from all organizations.
It was agreed at that meeting that daily meetings would be held, which all agencies were encouraged to attend, to coordinate that day's results and the next day's schedule.
All monitoring data was to be posted on a map in the Comma-i Post.
Deal noted that all Federal monitoring agencies except FDA, were located at the airport, but, FDA came to the coordinating meetings each evening.
Deal stated that while Gerusky had informally requested DOE to perform a coordinating role on Friday, March 30, this request was formalized in a memo from Gerusky to Deal dated April 6, 1979.
On Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m., Leo Higgenbotham, in the NRC Incident Response Center, called Joe Deal asking what Contingency Plans DOE had in the event the Command Post became unusuable.
Higgenbotham also requested that NRC people on-site be included in DOE's plans.
Following this call, Deal called General Bratton at DOE Headquarters and requested that he send Roy Lounsbury to the site to put together a contingency plan.
Lounsbury went to the site Saturday and prepared a contingency plan to move the Command Post to Carlisle, Pa.
At 6:00 p.m. Saturday, Lounsbury and Deal met with representatives from NRC, the Pennsyl-vania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) and the Bureau of Radiation Protection in the PEMA offices in Harrisburg. The purpose of the meeting was to inform the state what DOE was doing in regard to contingency planning so the state would not get the impression something important was happening they did not know about. Minutes of this meeting were pr: vided to us.
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0 Deal noted that DOE had a substantial reserve capability should they have needed 1
it at TMI or elsewhere. He noted that DOE could have doubled its response within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> by calling in more Naval reactors capabilities and the RAF teams on the west coast.
Airborne capability reserves could have been made available although DOE probably would have had to call on military aircraft and crews.
The only reserve DOE didn't have was in the area of communications.
DOE had only 100 walkie-talkie radios and had to call on the U.S. Forest Service in
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Boise, Idaho, to provide a radio network on-site.
The DOE communications system, located in Las Vegas, Nevada, was called for on Friday, March 30.
Delivery of this system to the site was delayed for 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> by the United Airlines strike then in effect. DOE had their repeater network set up on Sunday, April 1.
Deal said DOE had virtually no contact with the media et the Capitol City Air-Deal noted that he was verbally advised on several occasions, once by Roy port.
Lounsbury, to keep a low profile and not talk to the media.
Deal said he had problems finding out what was going on inside the plant to determine what might be happening outside the plant. He relied largely on the DOE people with NRC--Oak Ridge and Argonne RAP teams--to feed. information back to DOE. On Tuesday, April' 3,1979, DOE called in Mr. Hap Lamons from EG6G, Nevada, to coordinate with Harold Denton and feed information back to DOE.
DOE had no problems providing services to both the state and NRC.
A formal communications system was never set up whereby all information went through Deal e
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5 at the Command Post. Deal said BNL, under the leadership of Bob Freiss, was responsible for all RAP teams and had people stationed in BRP in Harrisburg and with NRC on-site.
DOE operations at TM1 were terminated on April 20, 1979, except for the Environ-mental Monitoring Lab in New York, which is participating in the long-term monitoring program being coordinated by EPA.
Deal noted that several changes are being discussed within DOE in regard to their response to radiological incidents. These include:
1.
The need to review the procedures for calling out DOE's resources.
2.
The need to update IRAP.
3.
The need for a wider range of sensitivity of instrumentation for airborne act ivities.
4.
The need for more TLD's of high sensitivity to assess population dose.
5.
The need to exercise the different response groups together so they will know how to respond together when required, such as at TMI.
6.
The need to pre-plan at each reactor site for direct reading instrumenta-tion, site terrain charts, local meteorological sources and similar things.
Kits could be pre-planned and pre-located near reactor sites.
7.
The need to get monitoring data to the people responsible for making deci-sions in a form useful to them.
DOE had a feeling during the incident that their information was not being put into a form decision makers could use, primarily because BRP did not have the capability to process monitoring results for this purpose.
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