ML19308C542
| ML19308C542 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 08/16/1979 |
| From: | Hebdon F, Stolz J NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001280551 | |
| Download: ML19308C542 (63) | |
Text
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NUCLE AR REGUL ATORY COMMISSION
.I{
O' O
IN THE MATTER OF:
THREE MILE ISLAND INTERVIEW OF JOHN STOLZ o
P00RT0RGIN;1L Place - Bethesda, Maryland Date. Thursday, 16 August 1979 Pages 1 - 62 O
Telephone:
(202)347 3700 f
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.
OfficialReporters 444 North Capitol Street Washington, D.C. 20001 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE DAILY 8001280 1 [ /
CR6487 1
i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
- - - - - - - - - - - - -X O
=
4 In the Matter of:
5 THREE MILE ISLAND 6
- - - - - - - - - - - - -X 7
INTERVIEW OF JOHN STOLZ 8
9 Room 426 Arlington Road Building l
l 10 '
6935 Arlington Road Bethesda, Maryland 11 Thursday, 16 August 1979 12 9:15 a.m.
13 BEFORE:
14 FRED HEBDON WILLIAM PARLER 15 i
16 17 18 1'
19 20 21 (2) u 23 24 Ace Federd Reporters, Inc.
25 l
l
CR 6487 2
MELTZER 1
PROCEEDINGS 2
(9:15 a.m.)
3 Whereupon, 4
JOHN STOLZ 5
was called as a witness and, having been first duly sworn, 6
was examined and testified as follows:
7 EXAMINATION 8
BY MR. HEBDON:
9 Have you read and do you understand the witness 10 notification I just gave you?
i
'l l A.
I have.
12 !
G Do you have any questions or comments concerning it?
O ia a-no.
14 G
Thank you.
I 15 l Would you please state your name?
16 l A.
John F. Stolz.
l
!7 G
What is your current occupation?
c!
A.
I'm a branch chief with the Division of Project 19 Management.
E G
What was your position in late 1977?
21 A
The same.
22 G
How many people reported to you?
23 A
At that time there were eight project managers --
24 G
To whom did you report?
N <a! Reporters, Inc.
T 25 A.
-- one licensing assistant and two secretaries.
mte 2 3
I G
To whom did you report?
2 A
Dominic Vassallo.
3 0
Would you describe your employment history, including 4
positions held in the NRC?
5 A
Beginning with tha NRC employment, I have been I
6 employed with the Commission since October of 1969.
I have 7
been branch chief since 1972.
My principal assignments have 8
been in boiling water reactors up to about 1976.
At that time 9
I was responsible for the project management of not only 10 boiling water reactors, but pressurized water reactors as II well.
2' G
When you first became a branch chief in '72, that I3 was in a Division of Project Management branch?
Id A
That's correct.
I 15 G
At that time was there a distinction or an attempt
..I
'" l to separate BWRs from PWRs in the assignment of cases to I7l licensing branches?
.., i A
Yes, at that time tne volume of case work was such J
j 1? lI jl that we had specialties in assignments.
My branch was respon-n
~J sible for boiling water reactors.
Other branches were respon-21 sible for pressurized water reactors, and among those even 22 by vendors.
i 23 G
At what time did that distinction or that attempt to separate the plants cease?
. r ai emanen, ix.
25 A
To the best of my memory, it ceased approximately i
mte 3 4
1 1976.
2 g
Do you know the reasons why it was abandoned?
3 A
The casework on boiling water reactors started 4
falling off to the extent that it was no longer feasible to 5
just dedicate branches to review boiling water reactors.
6 G
Do you know if there was still an attempt to segre-7 gate the applications of olants from different vendors?
l 8
A No, the segregation idea by vendor was given up.
9 G
At about the same time?
10 A
At about the same time, yes.
11 What was the reason for doing that?
12 '
A Again, the applications were such that one couldn't
()
13 predict that far ahead the cases that would arrive relating to 14 a particular vendor.
In other words, at any point in time I
15 l you might have --
16 l MR. HEBDON:
Off the record.
I i
L7j (Discussion off the record.)
4 MR. PARLER:
The record should note that at approxi-3g 19 mately 9:25 there was a recess in the proceeding for me to 20 L respond to a telephone call from a Mr. Rich Mallory of the 21 NRC's Office of the General Counsel.
I spoke to Mr. Mallory
)
22 briefly and he asked to speak to Mr. Stolz.
Mr. Stolz was 23 givenithe message and spoke to Mr. Mallory.
He is back in the 24 room where the deposition is being taken.
301;ral Reporters, Inc, 25 Now I ask you, Mr. Stolz,.are you ready to proceed
mte 4 5
1 with the deposition?
2 THE WITNESS:
Yes, I am.
3 BY MR. HEBDON:
O 4
g I believe when we recessed we were discussing your 5
employment history.
Would you describe your employment 6
history prior to coming to the NRC?
7 A
Just prior to coming to the Nuclear Regulatory 8
Commission, I was employed since 1954 with the North American 9
Aviation Department of Atomic Energy Department, which subse-10 quently became Atomic International, eventually Atomics i
Il l International of Rockwell.
My employment with that organiza-12 '
tion for a period of 16 years involved the design and construc-()
13 tion of nuclear-related facilities ranging from research 14 reactors to hot cells to prototype plants such as Hallam and 15 Piqua, which were designed and built during the 1950s.
16 In addition, while I was working for Atomics I
17 International I was involved as a group leader supervising
'l
'0 !
four supervised units engaged in designing the support faci-I l
19 lities for the compact reactor program, so-called SNAP program, M
the purpose of which was to provide compact power sources for 21 space vehicles.
This happened during the 1960s, the early 60s.
()
22 I was still employed with the Rockwell organization, l
23 leaving Atomics International in 1967 to work for what even-24 tually became Information Systems Division from -- I was
'j "al Reporters, tric.
25 involved with various types of system engineering, employing l
t
mte 5 6
1 computer systems for approximately three years.
These assign-2 ments involved maintenance and operations research on the 3
California aqueduct system, systems planning on transportation O
v 4
systems in trans-oceanic cargo shipments, computerized 5,
control of utility plants in the Philadelphia Electric System, 6
and many proposals centering around water resources transpor-7-
tation.
8 G
What was your employment history prior to that I
9l period of time?
i 10 !
A Immediately prior to my employment with North l
'l I American Aviation, I was employed as a structural designer, 12 starting in about 1951, with a consulting firm called Devenco
()
13 in New York -- D-e-v-e-n-c-o, in New York City.
The assignment, i
14 specific assignment, involved the structural design on the 15 1 first nuclear submarines, the Nautilus and the Sea Wolf.
16 G
And prior to that?
i I7 A
Prior to that, from 1946 up to that period, I was 13 h involved -- I was employed with a variety of consulting 190 engineering firms in the role of a structural designer, ranging t'
t 20 ;
on assignments fron moveable bridges to building design; and 21 also included in that period was employment with a Great Lakes 22 steel corporation as a sales service engineer regarding the 23 design and installation of their lightweight steel buildings.
24 I was also employed during that period, for approxi-w e s won m inc.
25 mately a year, with the New York Life Insurance Company in
mte 6 7
I the construction of luxury apartment complexes in New York City, 2
G And prior to 1946?
3 A.
1946, for three years I was in the Air Force, and 4
then prior to that I was an instructor in the Department of 5
Civil Engineering at the City College of New York.
Prior to 6
that I was taking my undergraduate work.
7 G
What is your educational background?
8 A
I hold a bachelor's degree in civil engineering 9
from the City College of New York, which I received in 1942.
10 I have a master's degree in civil engineering from the i
II f University of Southern California, which I received in 1966.
I 12 I have also taken innumerable extension courses related to 13 nuclear power, steam power plants, computers, computer 14 programming, related more or less *o aty job assignments that 15 happened to be given at the time.
16 l G
Prior to March 28, 1979, prior to the TMI accident, t
Ul what knowledge did you have concerning the incident that
'i occurred at Davis-Besse on September 24, 19777 19 A.
I was aware of the reports prepared by the Inspection I!
M
& Enforcement, Region 3, related to that incident.
That was 21 the principal source of my information.
My project manager 22 who was assigned to the Davis-Besse project, Leon Engle, also 23 received notification verbally on September 26th, 1977, from 24 I&E, and on the following day from the utility, regarding the e e neponers, inc.
25 general nature of the. incident.
mtc 7 8
1 There was also a meeting with NRR -- that's the 2
Nuclear Reactor Regulatory group -- Toledo Edison, Inspection 3
& Enforcement, Babcock & Wilcox, Bechtel, at the plant site, O
4 Friday, September 30th.
I did not attend that meeting.
5 Mr. Engle did.
l I
6' There was also a briefing which was given the follow-7 ing Monday, October 3rd, which involved just NRR and I&E at 8
Bethesda, to essentially brief the Director of DSS, Roger Mattson, 9
Dominic Vassallo, myself, on what the nature of the problem 10 was.
Inspection & Enforcement had representatives there, II including Karl Seyfrit, who was Assistant Director in I&E 12 l headquarters.
()
13 U,p to this point and following it, Inspection &
14 Enforcement was responsible for managing the review of the 15 l circumstances of the accident and the follow-up action involved 16 with the utility.
As it turned out, they felt they had good I7 command of the situation.
NRR interest was one of trying to i
U get in early in the event I&E wanted our assistance, in the I
event there was some licensing action to be taken, or in the 20 event there was some special technical assistance that was 21 needed from NRR.
O) 22 s.
It was the judgment of the IE.E representative, 23 after hearing the facts stated and the status provided at the 24 time of the meeting held on October 3rd, that they did not need
- +wa neponen, snc.
25 NRR assistance in terms of assigning lead responsibility to
mto 8 9
1 NRR for managing the review of the event.
2 G
Who was the I&E representative that you referred to?
3 A
Karl Seyfrit.
That's K-a-r-1 S-e-y-f-r-i-t.
4 G
What was your responsibility or function with 5
respect to this information?
6 A
My responsibility was to make sure that the respon-7 sible reviewers that would normally be affected by the circum-8 stances of the event were alerted, that the project manager 9
was indeed follo..ing up with them, Inspection & Enforcement 10 people and the utility, to try to gain an understanding of 11 l what happened, realizing, of course, that the responsibility I2 was still-with the Inspection & Enforcement group, but none-()
13 theless trying to gain an understanding, so that in the event 14 we had to pursue the review on our own, that we would have at 15 l least have a head start on the situation.
I 16 G
The reviewers that you mentioned, though, would be i
i7 interested in this event or impacted by this event, were those i
7; the reviewers assigned to Davis-Besse or were those the 19 h reviewers who had areas of expertise in this particular area?
20 A
These would be the reviewers assigned to Davis Besse 21 who had been -- these were the reviewers who had been assigned
()
22 to Davis-Besse during the licensing review.
23 G
So it was just the specific reviewers assigned to i
1 24 Davis-Besse, not the reviewers in similar -- in the same
- 4 r al Peporters, Inc.
25 technical areas but assigned to different plants.?
i
mto 9 10 1
A That's correct.
2 G
What significance did you attribute to this 3
incident --
4 MR. PARLER:
At that time, Mr. Stolz.
5 BY MR. HEBDON:
6 G
At that time.
Again, all these questions are based I
7 on what you can recall of your perceptions at that time.
8 (Witness refers to notes.)
A The first concern we have on any incident of this 9l i
10 l type is whether or not safety limits were exceeded.
And I
Il during the first week, reviewing the circumstances, it wasn't 12 '
clear to me that we, notwithstanding the implications of what
()
13 happened -- nonetheless, it wasn't clear to me that safety 14 limits had been exceeded.
And this, of course, is the heart 15 of an investigation by any review group, especially Inspection I6 l
& Enforcement..
i 17 However, it was also clear from hearing the circum-13] stances of the situation that there were several failures, 19 l!
concurrent failures.
One, of course, was the f ailure of the 20 power-operated relief valve; and the second was the failure 21 of the speed control on the Terry turbine which was powering 22 the auxiliary feedwater pump.
Both of these problems required 23 operator action to correct.
They did not correct themselves.
24 Both of these problems.resulted in -- in one case
..re nwonm. inc.
25 loss of primary system pressure; and the other case, loss of
mto 10 11 1
water in the steam generator, in the case of the auxiliary 2
feed pump failure, speed control failure.
3 G
You mentioned that initially you weren't certain 4
that safety limits had not been exceeded.
Did you eventually 5
decide whether or not safety limits had been exceeded?
I 6i A
The final report from Inspection & Enforcement t
7 indicates that indeed they conclude there were no safety 8
limits exceeded.
9 G
Did you agree with that conclusion?
M A
Based on the facts, yes.
II G
All right.
12 A
But again, I have to remind you that no one asked 13 me to agree.
14 !
G If you had been asked to agree, would you agree?
15 f A
I would agree, yes.
16 l MR. PARLER:
You would have agreed with the conclu-i l
i7 sions in the final Inspection & Enforcement report, which d
suggested that there were no safety limits exceeded?
.c i
I9 ll A
Right.
'l Dl BY MR. HEBDON:
j 71 G
Did you have any other concerns as a resu1t of this
~
(
22 incident, other than the question of the equipment malfunction 23 and the question of whether or not the safety limits had been 24 exceeded?
. al Reporters, Inc.
25 A
It became apparent to me, reviewing the record at
,e
l mte 11 12 1
that time, that a good deal of reliance had been placed on 2
operator action to bring the plant under control, and I had to 3
conclude that the operators did a good job at that time.
It O
4 appeared from the record that they understood the plant very 5
well.
They watched several parameters that were involved with 6,
the incident and exercised their judgment accordingly as to 7
what actions they took.
8 And I be1Leve the chart prepared by Leon Engle, 9
which essentially is a summary of the I&E report and the 10 information provided by the applicant, indicates that.
I think 11 I going beyond that point is a matter of speculation in terms of I
12 l how much worse could this get, and in order to address that
()
13 type of question you have to hypothesize additional failures, la mechanical failures, electrical failures or operator failures.
I 15 G
Did you hypothesize the possibility of the plant 16 l being at a higher power level when the accident occurred?
17 A
No.
.3 You mentioned that Mr. Engle, who worked for you, 19 l went to the site to review the incident.
Why did he go?
20 A
Engle was advj;ed by the principal reviewer, 21 Ger Mazetis, M-a-z-e-t-i-s, that there was going to be a
)
22 meeting held that Friday, September 30th.
And it was clear 23 that arrangements had been made for several other reviewers 24 to meet at the site with Inspection & Enforcement.
And when
%S neponm. inc.
25 we found that out, we thought it advisable for Leon to go
mte 12 13 1
along to be informed first-hand of what was going on and what 2
the investigation looked like.
3 G
So then it was your understanding that the meeting O
4 was arranged through the Division of System Safety?
5 i A
Yes.
6 G
Why were they taking the lead on arranging this 7
meeting?
8 A
I don't know.
9 G
Do you know who initiated the arrangements for the 10 l meeting?
l II A
I don't know that either.
I2 G
Was it normal practice for them to set up a meeting O
i3 euch es this fo11 ewing en incidene2 14 A
No, normally meetings at the site are called by the 15 group who had lead responsibility.
If I&E wanted to hold a 16 meeting at the site and wanted to have NRR people there to 17 assist them, they would have asked for our assistance.
- 3 l Normally, if the responsibility for this review is assigned to I9 l NRR, the project manager should set up this type of meeting.
20 He should contact the utility, he should contact I&E and bring 21 in the involved reviewers to the meeting.
'this procedure was 22 not followed at this particular time.
23 G
And you have no idea why that procedure wasn't 24 followed?
- .2.ra6 Reporters, Inc.
25 A
No, I don't.
mto 13 14 I
BY MR. PARLER:
2 0
Mr. Stolz,. the procedure that you have just described 3
to the best of your recollection, is there any management type 4
document that prescribes the procedures to be followed under 5
such circumstances?
6 A
The Licensing Project Managers Handbook generally _
7 describes the duties and modes of project management, and this e-1 8
feature is included in that.
i 9l i
10 l u:
12 O
i3 14 i
15 I
16 ;
17 I
18 19 l 1
4 20 j 21 22 23 I
24
-m s neponen, inc.
25 d
L
9487 02 01 15 kap MM I
BY MR. HEBDON:
2 O
Did Mr. Engle express any concerns to you that the 3
trip was either premature or unnecessary?
4 MR. PARLER:
I gue ss on that regard you're talking 5
about the trip to Ohio, is that right?
6 BY MR. HEBDON:
7 0
Yes, the trip to Davis-Be sse.
8 A
Well, let me answer it this way.
During the days 9
preceeding the meeting, Inspection and Enforcement and the 10 licensee were spending a lot of time trying to organize the 11
._.ts, and they felt they n.eeded time to collect the story 12 together.
And we felt they deserved that times 13 nonetheless, we f elt the event was an important one, and
()
14 Leon may have f elt that the situation was being pressed 15 somewhat by DSS while I&E was still trying to collect the 16 f actual story.
17 So in that sense, he may have f elt that we may have bean 18 a little early in meeting with the utility and the 19 inspection group that Friday instead of waiting a little 20 longer to collect a cleaner record.
21 Q
Did you forward his concerns to anyone else?
Did 22 you discuss those concerns with anyone other than Mr. Engle?
23 A
I discussed the matter with Mr. Vassallo in general
()
24 terms indicating that -- the history of the transient and 25 the eff ects still needed to be collected, and that there was l
l l
16 e487 02 02 kap MM i
a possibility that NRR would be asked to assume lead 2
responsibility in the review of this matter.
And in that g-)
sense we were anxious.to ge t on board as soon as possible.
3 V
4 But nonethele ss we f elt it was important to not add to 5
confusion and let the inspection group collect the story 6
before we moved in.
7 0
What did he say as a result of this discussion?
8 A
I have no specific recollection of his comment, but 9
I recall generally that he agreed with our approach.
Any 10 e ven t --
.i l Q
The approach being to go ahead and let --
12 A
-- let the inspection group collect a record of the 13 event and come up with their assessmant before we moved in.
()
14 Nonetheless, when we discovered that DSS people were going 15 out to the meeting on Friday, _ September 30th, it wa s pretty 16 clear that we ought to send Leon Engle along.
17 Q
Did you recommend to Mr. Vassallo that possibly 18 some contact be made with the people in DSS who had set up 19 the meeting, to recommend tha t it be postponed?
20 A
No.
21 Q
Now, is there any reason why such a recommendation 22 wasn't made?
23 A
It appeared to me, based on the information I
({}
24 received from Leon Engle, that arrangements had already been 25 made for the meeting, and we discovered this on Thursday,
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17 B487 02 03 kap MM i
the day before the meeting.
2 Therefore, it didn't seem appropriate to call off these 3
arrangements, for whatever value they produced.
4 0
Do you know if the. trip report was prepared as a 5
result of this meeting?
6 A
I have never seen a formal trip report that was 7
placed in the public document room as we normally do when we 8
notice a meeting and follow it up with minutes of a meeting, 9
both of which go into the public document room.
10 0
Was the meeting noticed?
11 A
No.
12 0
Do you know why a notice of the meeting or trip 13 report was not prepared?
()
14 A
This deals with he procedure that I referred to 15 earlier.
When the project manager sets up a meeting, all of 16 these things are taken care of.
When someone else se.ts up a 17 meeting, it depends on the individual, whether he in f act 18 notices the meeting, follows it up with meeting minutes, 19 gets the meeting minutes. into the public document room, gets 20 them distributed, et cetera.
21 In this case I understand that there obviously were seme 22 meeting notes.taken and it may have been in-house summaries 23 of these notes were handed to various people.
I'm sur c they
()
24 were, but I have never seen them.
And as far as I know 25 there were no minutes published that went out to the public.
J
B487 02 04 kap MM i
0 You mentioned that you know that there were minutes 2
taken and that there were possibly summaries of these 3
minutes prepared.
How do you know that?
4 A
I talked to Jerry Mazetes, asking him if he had 5
ever published mee ting minutes and he told me no.
But he 6
told me that he did have none thele ss some summary of his 7
meeting and I understand there is a summary.
But I haven't 8
seen it.
9 0
When did you talk with Mr. Mazetes, before or af ter 10 the TMI accident?
.11 A
Af te r.
12 0
And as I understand it, then, you have never seen 13 the trip report or meeting summary that Mr. Mazetes
()
14 prepared in a rough draft form?
15 A
No.
16 0
Do you know of anyone else.who prepared notes or 17 possibly a rough draf t trip report as a result of this 18 mee ting ?
19 A
No, I don't.
20 0
Did you talk with or meet with representatives of 21 the u tility?
22 MR. PARLER:
About this?
23 BY MR. HEBDON:
(])
24 0
About this particular incident?
25 A
I didn't, no.
19 B487 02 05 kap MM i
0 Other than Mr. Engle's meeting --
2 A
Other than Mr. Engle's meeting, that Friday, 3
September 30th, and the telephone conversations that he held
.)
4 with the utility representatives prior to the meeting?
5 0
During the week prior?
6 A
During the week prior to the meeting and possibly 7
following the meeting, but I have no direct knowledge of 8
t ha t.
9 Q
Other than Mr. Engle's contact with the utility.
3 you know about no other contacts with representatives of the 11 u tili ty?
12 A
Not f rom Projec t Managemen t.
13 0
Do you know of any ;ontacts with them from anyone
()
14 else?
15 A
There may have been.
I don' t know of any.
16 0
You don't know of any, though.
Did you talk with 17 or meet with any representatives of I&E concerning this 18 incident?
19 A
The last meeting I had was October 3rd.
20 0
The October 3rd meeting where Mr. Mazetes briefed 21 everyone?
22 A
Mazetes brief ed everyone and it was at that meeting 23 that I&E felt they had collected enough f acts that they
()
24 could proceed on their own without requiring a transf er of 25 lead responsibility to NRR.
/
20 9487 02 06 kap MM I
O You mentioned earlier that you recieved the I&E 2
inspection report that was developed as a result of this 3
particular incident.
4 A
Yes.
5 Q
Why did you receive it?
6 A
(ref erring to documents)
Davis-Besse was still 7
assigned to my branch up to the end of October 1798 and we 8
routinely ge t all inspection repor.ts until we transf er --
9 Q
So it's part of the normal distribution, then, for 10 you to get that report?
11 A
Tha t's right.
- 2 0
Did you review it?
13 A
I read it.
()
14 0
What were your conclusions as a result of reading 15 that report?
'6 A
My conclusions were that no saf ety limits were 1
17 exceeded as a result of the event.
18 Q
Are those the only conclusions that you reached?
19 A
That was the principal conclusion.
20 0
What were the others?
21 A
(ref erring to documents)
I think I would have to 22 say that the comments I made on the record earlier are the 23
-- apply here also.
As a ma tter of f act, the inspection
(])
24 report essentially defined the record of the event which 25 generally ma tched my earlier understanding.- And so the i
21
@487 02 07 kap MM 1
concerns I voiced earlier, at that time still applied when I 2
read the re port.
3 0
These concerns related to equipment malf unctions?
4 A
Yes.
Multi-equipment malf unc tions.
5 0
Were your concerns related to the specific 6
malf unctions that occurred, or to the f act that there was
?
7 more than one equipment raalfunction?
8 A
The fact tha t there was more than one.
9 0
Why was this a concern?
10 A
Because it relates to the way we evaluate plants.
11 We normally don't evaluate safety systems, for example, 12 a ssuming more than one single f ailure.
13 0
So then, would it be saf e to say that this
()
particular incident violated the single f ailure criteria?
14 15 A
Not specifically in this instance, because the 16 power operated relief valve is not a -- was not, and still 17 is not a safety-related device, but it clearly nonetheless 18 showed that f ailure of that device to close was the cause of 19 a small break, of an equivalent small break.
20 The only saf ety-related item here was the f ailure of the 21 aux f eed pump to get up to speed.
And so one therefore 22 wonders how many other effects or failures one might take on 23 the systems before you run into trouble.
()
24 0
If the PORV had b.een saf ety-related, would this 25 then have violated the single f ailure criteria or the 4
22 G487 02 08 kap MM i
assumptions of the single f ailure criteria?
2 A
Yes, i t wo uld ha ve.
3 0
Would that have been a concern to you?
4 A
Oh, yes.
5 0
Do you know of any other instances where incidents 6
have occurred, where multiple f ailures have occurred during 7
the incident that. might indica te or might violate the 8
assumptions of the single f ailure criteria?
9 A
I can probably think of one, but I can't right now.
10 0
So then, to your mind there's at least one and 11 possibly more other examples of incidents where the 12 assumptions of the single f ailure criteria have been 13 violated?
()
14 A
(Nods affirmatively.)
15 0
What did you do about these concerns with respect 16 to the multiple f ailure problem?
17 A
No thing.
18 0
Is there any reason why you didn't do anything 19 about it?
20 A
Primarily because the responsibility for this 21 review was being handled by Inspection and Enforcement.
22 Q
Did you have any reason to believe that they shared 23 your concern?
(])
24 A
Yes, I did.
I think I had a good deal of 25 confidence in the capability of the inspectors who were
23 B487 02 09 kap MM 1
a ssigned to Davi s-Be sse I they were quite aware of the need 2
for capable operators:
and I am sure that they understood 3
the issues in.the case at least as well as I did.
And it 4
was this confidence that they were going to take specific 5
actions with regard to Davis-Besse to assure that the 6
likelihood of this thing repeating itself wouldn't happen.
7 0
Did you have any specific knowledge that they 8
shared your concern about the specific issue of multiple 9
failures?
10 A
No.
II O
Did you f eel that this concern r Sout multiple 12 f ailures had any generic implications or implications to the 13 way the licensing process was run?
()
14 A
At the time, no.
15 0
At any later time?
16 A
I do now.
17 Q
Is this a result of the TMI accident or some 18 o the r --
19 A
Primarily due to the Three Mile Island -- as a 20 result of the Three Mile Island accident.
21 Q
Just to make sure I understand completely what 22 you're saying, your concerns here were associated with the 23 fact that in this particular incident there was a multiple
()
24 failure, that although it wasn't specifically involving two 25 safety-related systems it did involve a multiple f ailure.
24
'6487 02 10 kap MM i
Were you concerned because of the f ac t that this incident 2
occurred on this specific plant, or were you concerned about 3
the more general issue of the fact that our licensing review 4
says only a single failure?
5 A
I believe that I was primarily concerned on the 6
specific plan t.
7 0
I see.
So you didn't expand this to the point of 8
having any thoughts about recommending that possibly the 9
single f ailure criteria was not a valid assumption to use in 10 the licensing process?
11 A
No.
12 0
Do you now f eel that possibly the single f ailure 13 criteria is not a valid basis to be used in the licensing
()
14 process?
15 A
I think what I'm going to say is a matter of 16 opinion.
17 0
Obviously.
18 A
I f eel that we should still retain the principle of 19 a single failure in our evaluation of safety. systems, but 20 that one should look at the record of f ailures f rom 21 licensing event reports and when, in the collegial review or 22 evaluation of a number gf people, it appears that there is a 23 strong likelihood f or a f ailure of a piece of saf ety 24 equipment, that one should assume that that safety equipment j
(])
25 does not operate and then apply the single f ailure on top of l
25 4487 02 11 1
kap MM 1
that.
2 In that way you wi.ll be. reflecting the so-called problem 3
areas that crop up repeatedly in the operation of plants, 4
then reflect that condition in your review.
Now, the result 5
of that will wind up either coming up with corrective 6
actions -- ei ther operator actions or if necessary, design 7
corrections to make the saf ety system -- to make the saf ety 6
f unc tion do what it's supposed to do.
Implicit in all of 9
this is the f act that you have got to wait for something to 10 happen in order to make this approach succeed.
11 But I think we have a pretty good record at this time on 12 what areas seem to be problem areas.
For example, it 13 a ppears to me af ter reading -- particularly reading the
()
14 NUREG 0560, which was the staff report on the generic 15 assessment of f eedwater transients, published in May of '79, 16 that speed control problems on turbine driven aux f.eeds are 17 in f act a problem.
And so if you would apply the suggestion 18 I've made, one would assume that didn't f unction and then 19 you would evaluate your system based on that and that would 20 suggest what you had to do, whether you had to take operator 21 action or if it was beyond the scope of operator action --
22 t ha t it implied you would have to make design repair.
23 Q
Did you ref er all or part of this report to anyone?
()
24 A
Which report?
25 0
I'm sorry.
The I&E inspection report.
26 6487 02 12 kap MM i
A I usually send every copy of the report I get to 2
Mr. Engle, the project manager assigned to the case.
3 0
Other than Mr. Engle, did you refer the report to C)s 4
anyone?
5 A
No.
6 0
Did you receive the Toledo Edison report concerning 7
the incident?
8 A
Which report was that?
9 Q
They pre pared a report initially on -- a licensing 10 event, and then a more extensive supplement to the licensing 11 e ven t re por t.
12 MR. PARLER:
Do you have a date of that readily 13 available?
()
14 MR. HEBDON:
I can get it if it would make it 15 easier for you.
16 THE WITNESS:
You may be talking about a report 17 f rom Toledo Edison dated November 14th, which was sent to 18 Mr. James Keppler, Director of Region Three.
19 BY MR. HEBDON:
20 0
What is the subject line?
21 A
(ref erring to notes)
The subject of that was 22 supplement to report of occurrence NP-32-77-16.
23 Q
Yes, tha t's i t.
That's the report I'm referring
()
24 to.
You did, then, receive a copy of that report.
25 A
I'm not sure that I did.
I've seen it because Leon i
27 G487 02 13 kap MM i
Engle got a copy from the I&E files and he gave me a copy.
2 I am not sure that I received this particular report.
3 0
Okay.
4 MR. PARLER:
Approximately when did he give you a 5
copy of it?
In recent months?
6 THE WITNESS:
Yes, this week.
7 MR. PARLER:
Thank you.
8 BY MR. HEBDON:
9 0
In order to refresh your memory, one of the things 10 t ha t I have recovered from the files is a letter signed by
(
.Il you, forwarding that particular re port, the Toledo Edison 12 re por t, to a Mr. Vartorella, who had requested some V
13 information concerning that particular incident.
Do you
()
14 recall that particular memo?
(Handing document to witness) 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
()
24 25 O
e-9,-
w
G487 03 01 28 kap MM i
A Well, obviously I received the report, but I didn't 2
remember the memo.
3 0
Okay.
Do you recall if you reviewed the report 4
from Toledo Edison at all?
5 A
No.
6 O
No, you don't recall?
7 A
No, I don't recall reviewing it.
8 0
All right.
9 MR. PARLER:
Fred, for purposes of the record, did 10 you give the date of that memo?
11 MR. HEBDON:
The date of the memo to Mr. Vartorella 12 was December 19, 1977.
13 BY MR. HEBDON:
()
14 C
Would it have been normal for you to receive the 15 Toledo Edison re port?
16 MR. PARLER:
Reports such as the Toledo Edison 17 re por t.
18 THE WITNESS:
Yes.
I think my earlier remark is 19 that I just didn't recall having received it.
Obviously I 20 received it.
21 BY MR. HEBDON:
22 0
I see.
Did you see or discuss any other reports 23 that were produced as a result of the investigation or
()
24 analyses of this incident?
25 A
No.
6487 03 02 29 kap MM 1
0 To your knowledge, were any other investigations or 2
analyses of the incident performed?
3 A
Not to my knowledge.
4 0
Were there any other B&W plants under licensing 5
review by your branch.
6 A
(referring to document)
Yes, there was.
There was 7
a standard design prepared by the Flouor Pioneer Company, 8
entitled BOPSSAR/BSAR-205.
This was a standard balance of 9
plant design, incorporating an approved B&W reactor design.
10 The dSAR-205 type.
11 0
How did you f actor the experience gained at 12 Davis-Besse into the licensing review of that particular 13 standard plan?
()
14 A
I can't answer that question directly.
15 0
Can you answer it indirectly?
16 A
I'm not even sure I can do that, because I'm really 17
-- if I did that I would be speaking on behalf of the 18 reviewers who are responsible for reviewing the balance of 19
> ant design aff ecting the f eedwater system.
20 0
Well then, you personally didn't do anything to 21 f actor the experience at Davis-Besse into the review of that 22 design?
23 A
No.
()
24 Q
No, meaning that's a true statement?
25 A
That's a tr.ue statement.
u-r
A 6487 03 03 30 kap MM i
0 To your knowledge, did anyone else do anything to 2
f actor the lessons learned or the insights gained at 3
Davis-Besse into the licensing review of that f acility?
4 A
Wha t insights are you suggesting?
5 0
Any of the insights that you or anyone else gained 6
as a result of reviewing that incident.
7 A
No.
They were not f actored in.
8 0
Was that a normal practice --
9 BY MR. PARLER:
10 0
They were not f actored in by you?
11 A
Let me correct the statement.
To my knowledge, the 12 reviewers did not consider the Davis-Besse considerations of 13 the September 24th incident in their review of BOPSSAR,
()
14 balance of plant design.
15 BY MR. HEBDON:
16 0
Would you consider it to be common practice to not 17 include experience gained as a result of an incident in the 18 licensing review of a facility or of similar facilities?
19 A
Usually -- usually the experience gained from the 20 operation of other plants are f actored into the design when 21 it a ppears that -- when it appears that the same designs or 22 f ailure. of the same type of designs could be a safety 23 problem.
()
24 Usually, it manif ests itself in coming up with changes 25 to the review criteria.
And this normally has to be
~
B487 03 04 31 kap MM i
reflected in the formal -- formalized in a branch technical 2
position or a regulatory guide.
But, one doesn't have to 3
wait for that.
The reviewer still has the opportunity to 4
reflect his own considerations into the questions that are 5
being asked.
6 I have to answer.your question saying that the staff --
7 MR. HEBDON:
Excuse me, can we go off the record 8
for just a second?
9 (Discussion off the record.)
10 MR. HEBDON:
Okay, le t's go back on the record.
11 BY MR. HEBDON:
12 0
I think we were talking about how experience that 13 was gained at Davis-Besse would be included in a licensing
()
14 review of the BOPSSAR/BSAR.
You mentioned, I believe, 15 something to the ef f ect that if there had been a major 16 safety concern it would have been included.
Were there any i
17 significant concerns as a result of the Davis-Besse incident 18 that you f eel should've been included, or should have been 19 added to the licensing process?
20 A
In hindsight following Three Mile Island 2 21 incident, clearly there should have been.
22 Q
What would those issues have been?
23 A
The issues would have related to what really are
()
24 the recommendations of the Lessons Learned Task Force from 25 the Three Mil.' Island review, which were outlined in l
_=
=
s487 03 05 32 kap !St i
2 Q
Approximately what percentage of the 3
recommendations that were made as a result of that NUREG, in 4
your opinion, could have be7n made as a result of an 5
analysis of the incident that occurred at Davis-Besse?
And 6
I realize this is your opinion and it would be a rough 7
estimate.
8 A
I would say that nearly all of the recommendations 9
would apply.
10 0
Nearly all of the recommendations, then, that were 11 made as a result of the Lessons Learned analysis of the TMI 12 accident could have been made as a result of the analysis of 13 the Davis-Besse incident.
()
14 A
Yes.
The only ones that would not have come out as 15 a result of the Davis-Be sse incident probably would have 16 been those that related to containment isolation, ones 17 related to recombiners.
18 0
Do you know --
19 A
I'm not through yet.
20 0
I'm sorry.
21 MR. PARLER:
Take your time.
22 THE WITNESS:
(referring to document)
-- the one s 23 related to integrity of systems outside of containment
()
24 likely to contain radioactivity, one relating to plant 25 shielding of spaces for post-accident operations, the
6487 03 06 33 kap MM i
recommendation related to post-accident sampling 2
capabi11ty, increased range of radiation monitors, improved 3
in-plant iodant instrumenta tion.
4 BY MR. HEBDON:
5 0
These are all recommendations that you f. eel would 6
not have come f rom Davis-Be sse?
7 A
Would not have come out of the Davis-Besse incident 8
because the radiological consequences of the Davis-Be sse 9
incident were rather minimal.
10 0
So then, I think you could basically describe these 11 recommendations as the recommendations.that pertained to the 12 post-accident phase or the recovery phase of the experiences 13 gained at TMI, rather than the actual initiating event and O
i4 the ections thet hennenee immedieteiv fe.110 wino the 15 incident.
16 A
To put it another way, the recommendations that 17 could have come out of the Davis-Be sse evaluation would have i
18 been the recommendations pertaining to the power operated 19 relief valves and the opera tion of the auxiliary f eedwater 20 systems, and operator actions connected thereto.
21 0
W hy, in your opinion, weren't these 1essons learned 22 a s.t he. re sul t of the Davis-Besse incident?
23 A
I just have to speculate on that, j
24 0
A11 right.
O 25 A
I have to assume that if the consequences of the
$487 03 07 34 kap MM i
Davis-Be sse incident were serious -- that is, if we had 2
grossly exceeded some safety limit, that would have prompted s
3 a formal review of the ground rules of how we are looking at (G
4 this type of plant and ti problems associated with it.
I 5
think it is because we did not, in fact, exceed safety 6
limits, the underlying problems a ssociated with reaching 7
saturation pressure due to depressurization and f ailure of 8
the power operated relief valve and problems associated with 9
the aux f eed systems, probably didn't come out as strongly 10 as they should have.
11 0
So tha t it seems that what you are trying to say, 12 then, is that the depth of analysis was dependent more on 13 the actual consequences of the particular incident than on
()
14 t he potential severity of a particular incidents is that a 15 fair statement?
16 A
No, I think the question you asked me -- you asked 17 me to speculate on why people didn't evaluate the 18 Davis-Besse incident in terms, I presume, of what happened 19 at Three Mile Island.
20 MR. PARLER:
He asked you for your best opinion on 21 the subject and I believe your reply was -- that your reply 22 would be it would involve some speculation on your part.
23 BY MR. HEBDON:
()
24 0
Yes, obviously it would have to be speculation 25 because what we're asking is, why wasn't something done?
l j
@487 03 08 35 kap MM l
A I am saying that if the consequences of the 2
Davi s-Besse incident had been such that saf ety limits were 3
exceeded, I would say this would have been a motivation 4
toward ge tting our review into this whole problem -- ge tting 5
more into depth on our review regarding this whole problem.
6 0
Now, but you're saying, though, that this raising 7
of concerns was based on the actual consequences of this 8
particular -- of the Davis-Besse incident; is that correct?
9 A
I'm speculating.
10 0
You're speculating?
11 A
Right.
12 0
But t ha t speculation is based on the actual 13 consequences of the Davis-8 esse incident?
()
14 A
Tha t's true.
15 0
Was there any effort or any consideration given to 16 the potential consequences of the Davis-Besse incident?
If, 17 for example, the incidant had been initiated f rom a much 18 higher power level or a much higher power history, '< hat 19 would have ha ppened?
Was there any sort of speculation in 20 that area?
21 A
I'm not aware of any.
22 O
All right.
23 A
The only thing that I'm aware of related to your
(])
24 question -- and this came af ter the Three Mile Island 2 25 incident -- was a memorandum f rom Tom Novak to the reactor
6487 03 09 36 kap MM i
systems branch members, dated January 10, 1978 --
2 MR. PARLER:
Excuse me, I believe you meant that 3
came af ter the Davis-Be sse incidents is that right?
4 THE WITNESS:
This came af ter the Davis-Besse 5
incident, but i t al so -- bu t I say I became aware of it 6
af ter the Three Mile Island 2 incident.
7 MR. PARLER:
I'm sorry.
I wasn't listening 8
carefully.
9 THE WITNESS:
And in this memorandum, Tom Novak was 10 cautioning his branch about the ef f ec t of having a loop seal
.Il in the pressurizer surge line which could give an erroneous 12 reading to the pressurizer level, in the event there was 13 voiding in the system.
()
14 BY MR. HEBDON:
15 0
I believe that's what's come to be known as the 16 Novak-Israel memo?
17 A
Probably, because it has on the bo ttom of the 18 memorandum that Sandy Israel is the contact.
This is the 19 only post-Davis-Besse -- this is the only post-Davis-Besse 20 concern that I'm aware of.
21 0
Okay.
Thank you.
22 MR. PARLER:
Earlier in this discussion, the word 23 consequences of the Davis-Besse event -- the word
()
24 consequences was used several times.
Again, for clarity of 25 the record, is it correct to understand that the
6487 03 10 37 kap MM 1
consequences that you are talking about would be exceeding 2
saf ety limits and not necessarily consequences in the risk 3
to the public sense, in the event of an accident?
4 THE WITNESS:
It sounds like they both seem to be 5
the same.
When we say we exceed a saf ety 1.imit, one assumes 6
that there is a potential f or a risk to the public.
If you 7
say that you are not exceeding safety limit, one implies 8
that you haven't -- you haven't aff ected the public in any 9
way.
10 BY MR. HEBDON:
11 0
Let me pursue that just a li ttle.
You are saying 12 t ha t if you do no t --
13 A
I'm not sure where you are going on this one.
()
14 MR. PARLER:
I am just interested in being sure 15 t ha t the record reflects what is intended.
I t i s my 16 understanding, f rom what you have said, that the 17 significance of the Davis-Besse event of September the 24th, 18 1977, may have been diff erent had saf ety limits been 19 violated.
20 THE WITNESS:
Yes.
21 MR. PARLER:
Is it also correct that you could have 22 a situation where saf ety limits are violated without having 23 radiation discharged to the public so that there is a threat
()
24 to the health and safety of the public?
25 THE WITNESS:
That's true.
4487 03 11 38 kap MM i
MR. PARLER:
That's the point I want to clarify, 2
sir.
3 THE WITNESS:
Tha t's true.
)
4 BY MR. HEBDON:
5 0
I'd like to go the other way around on that.
Is 6
i t, in your opinion, true that there can be an increase in 7
risk to the public without exceeding a safety limit?
8 A
Yes, in the sense that if you increased the 9
likelihood of a chain of f ailures to occur, even though they 10 don't occur the f act that there is an increase in likelihood 11 of that chain of events to occur based upon performance of 12 certain pieces of equipaent, in that sense you are 13 increasing the risk of exceeding saf e ty limits.
And in some
()
14 sense you are increasing the risk of operation and to the 15 public.
16 0
Did you f eel that that risk of operation to the 17 public was increased during the Davis-Besse incident?
l 18 A
At the time of the incident, based on the record 19 f rom I&E I guess the answer is no.
20 Q
Subsequent to that?
21 A
Subsequent to that, based on the Three Mile Island 22 2 event, I would say that the answer had to be yes.
23 0
All right.
I would like to go back for a moment
()
24 and ask a couple of questions related to the actual response 25 of you and Mr. Engle shortly following the incident that l
l
6487 03 12 39 kap MM i
o ccurred at Davis-Besse.
2 W ro, in your opinion, should have coordinated the 3
investigation of this event?
4 A
The present rules are that when a plant, for 5
operating plants, all events that happen at those plants are 6
investigated by the Inspection & Enforcement division.
7 0
In your mind, are there clear lines of authority 8
for conducting such investigations?
9 A
Yes, the re a re.
10 0
It appears to me tha t the investigation of the 11 Davis-Besse incident was rather f ragmented and somewhat M
12 unc oordina ted.
The SS was conducting their review and in Y
13 their meetings at the site I&E had something -- their
()
14 investigation going on.
What was your opinion at the time 15 of the level of coordination and the level of coherence of 16 the investigation that was being conducted following that 17 incident?
18 19 20 21 22 23
()
24 25
CR 6487 MELTZER t-4 mte 1 1
A As I indicated earlier, I didn't really understand 2
the details of how the reviewers and DSS arranged the meeting 3
Friday, September 30th, with I&E.
But aside from that, the O
4 way an investigation is supposed to proceed is that the Inspec-5 tion & Enforcement Division cunducts the investigation, they 6
handle all the coordination, they have their own technical 7
support that's available to them to evaluate what they hear 8
and understand.
They at any time can ask for assistance and 9
guidance from any other part of NRC, and they do.
And when 10 they feel that the situation has reached a point where the l
Il results of the review are likely to affect licensing -- that 12 i is, change the technical specifications or affect the license
()
13 in any way -- they will usually ask for -- that the responsi-14 bility for the lead -- the lead responsibility -- that doesn't 15 mean they wouldn't participate, but the lead responsibility be i
16 shifted to NRR.
1 17 I think during the course of the Davis-Besse review 4
M Inspection & Enforcement bore the responsibility and in fact i
19 i
carried it out and assumed it right to the end, including their 20 final recommendation that the plant proceed to startup and 21 power again.
(
22 It is understandable that there would be a strong 23 interest on the part of NRR technical reviewers in what happened, 24 try to get a handle on the circumstances behind the incident,
%ral Reporters, Inc.
25 whether any safety limits were excee,ded.
And in so doing, it i
/
mte 2 41 1
appears to cause a lot of confusion, because people are talking 2
across channels, they are going directly to I&E, they are 3
probably talking directly to the utility representatives.
4 Normally, the organized way to handle that would be to funnel 5
technical r9 view actions to the project manager so the project 6
manager maintains control over the situation.
7 I think in the case of Davis-Besse Leon Engle was 8
understandable upset because things seemed to be going on and 9
he wasn't completely aware of everything that was going on at 10 the time, during that first week following the incident.
11 l G
Did he express those concerns to you?
l 12 !
A Yes, he did.
()
i 13 g
could you describe how and what the concerns were 14 and how he expressed them?
15 A
I think the principal concern was, we had experienced 16 from time to time assumption of lead responsibility ori operat-i7 ing plants.
And what normally happens is, when we get this 28 responsibility we have to move very quickly to try to resolve 19 i any problems that would affect the operation of the plant.
20 He was primarily concerned that we get involved with the 21 details of the event, so in the event we would be assigned
()
22 lead responsibility, that we would have some advanced knowledge 23 of the circumstances, to minimize the time needed in our 24 substantive evaluation.
%<al Reporters, Inc.
25 I think his main problem was one of trying to collect
mte 3 42 1
the facts in an organized manner, and my suggestion to him was 2
to let the inspectors go at their job, get the facts, and let 3
them collect the story for us.
O 4
G Did you express these concerns to anyone else, the 5
concerns that had been raised to you by Mr. Engle?
6 A
I can't recall if I did.
7 MR. PARLER:
At what level in the organization 8
would a decision have been made to transfer the lead respon-9 sibility for the Davis-Besse matter from I&E to NRR?
10 THE WITNESS:
That is usually handled at the assistant 11 1 director level.
The assistant director from I&E will write a l
i 12 !
letter to the assistant director of NRR asking for a transfer
(
13 of lead responsibility on a particular issue.
14 c MR. PARLER:
Who authorized the startup of operation 15 of Davis-Besse after the September 24,
'77, event?
16 THE WITNESS:
Inspection & Enforcement.
17 MR. PARLER:
Is that done after Inspection &
18 j Enforcement consults with NRR, or was that done in this 19 particular circumstance?
20 THE WITNESS:
Not that I know of.
In their judgment, 21 judgment involved with allowing Davis-Besse to resume operation 13
\\_/
22 was based on the Inspection & Enforcement evaluation.
23 BY MR. HEBDON:
24 Was there any consultation with NRR prior to making ee Reporters, Inc.
25 that decision?
mto 4 43 1
A Not to my knowledge.
2 MR. PARLER:
Was that authorization from I&E to 3
Davis-Besse to resume operation given, to your knowledge, 4
after NRR had received the I&E inspection report?
5 THE WITNESS:
Which inspection report are you talking 6
about?
7 MR. PARLER:
I don't have the number, but the one 8
that we have been discussing, the inspection report which 9
reflects I&E's investigation of the September 24,
'77, 10 Davis-Besse event.
11 i MR. HEBDON:
Excuse me.
Could we go off the record i
12 !
just a moment.
13 (Discussion off the record.)
i 14 l MR. HEBDON:
Back on the record.
+
15 THE WITNESS:
Just to clear the record, there was --
16 earlier we mentioned a letter, obviously one I did get a copy 17 of, which was from the licensee to Keppler, dated November 14th, t
- 8 where they expanded on their report on the occurrence.
But on 19 l November 22, 1977, there was an inspection report from 20 '
Gaston Fiorelli, Chief of Reactor Operations in Nuclear 21 Support Branch, to Toledo Edison regarding the September 24th, A
22 1977, event.
23 There was nothing in this report that I read that 24 noted any noncompliance items regarding this event.
And in la; tal Reporters, Inc.
25 fact, my notes show that on October 7, 1977, NRC gave approval --
i mte 5 44 1
by NRC I mean the I&E -- gave approval for the licensee to 2
proceed with startup.
3 MR. PARLER:
So the approval for the licensee to O
4 proceed with startup was given on October 7, 1977, and the 5
final report of I&E on the Davis-Besse event that we have 6
been talking about was not issued until November 22, 1977; 7
is my understanding correct?
8 THE WITNESS:
That's right.
9 BY MR. HEBDON:
10 g
Okay.
I would like to go on and ask some questions i
11 I relating to some of the specific aspects of the incident.
And 12 what I would like you to try to do is to recall what you knew
()
13 prior to the TMI accident.
I realize that's rather difricult 14 to separate out what you knew then from what you have learned 15 since then.
16 l First of all, did you realize that steam formed in 17 the reactor coolant system during the transient?
18 MR. PARLER:
He's talking about the Davis-Besse.
19 BY MR. HEBDON:
20 G
The Davis-Besse incident.
21 A
I realize that based on the review of the record of
()
22 the accident, yes.
23 G
For the record, the record to which you are referring 24 is a graph that was prepared by Leon Engle that he has provided
,.eu re neponus, Inc.
25 to us.
What significance did you assign to that fact?
v
mts 6 45 1
A At the time, the only significance that I assigned 2
to it was that, given those circumstances, an operator could 3
bring the plant to a ccld shutdown without causing any a
4 violation of safety.
5 G
So it didn't raise any concerns in your mind that 6
there was boiling in the primary?
7 A
Not at that time, no.
8 G
Did that become a concern at any subsequent time?-
9 A
Obviously, after the Three Mile Island 2 incident, 10 which involved at least four operator errors, in addition to Il the mechanical error, this became the predominant problem.
12 it became clear as a result of the Three Mile Island incident 13 that you do need operator skills to cope with a situation Id like this.
i 15 I think, going bad to the Davis-Besse incident, we 16 were generally impressed, based on what I heard from the U
-inspectors, what I read in the record, from conversation with 5
Leon Engle, that the operators at Davis-Besse did a good job, I9 they understood the system.
4 20 i G
All right.
Did you realize that steam formation in 21 the reactor coolant system caused pressurizer level to increase 22 while a leak continued?
23 A
Yes, it's clear from that chart t' hat's exactly what 24 happened.
- *!?'ai Reporters, Inc.
25 G
Did you realize that at the time?
mte 7 46 1
A I think I did, yes.
2 g
Did that raise any concerns in your mind?
3 A
Again, no, because the operator actions that were O
4 taken -- and I have to surmise this from reading the record --
5 were not based only on pressurizer level.
He was watching 6lj his pressure.
He was watching his temperature.
And they 7
were aware of saturation -- approaching saturation conditions.
8 And my understanding is that he considered all of these things 9
in taking subsequent actions.
10 0
Was there any concern in your mind that possibly a 11 less competent or a less qualified operator might not include 12 ;
all of those factors in assessing the incident?
I
()
13 A
Yes, that occurred to me.
14 G
Did that raise any concern in your mind?
l 15 ll A
To the extent, if I had to alert -- if I had the 16 l responsibility of alerting other operators in other plants of i
17 l this problem, I probably would have focused on that point.
I
- 8 assume that the notification of other B&W plants was going to 19 l be -- would have been handled through Inspection & Enforcement.
20 ['!
G Did you know for a fact that there would be any 21 effort to notify any of the other plants?
()
22 A
I had no direct knowledge of that, no.
23 G
You just assumed that that would happen?
24 A
Right.
w yai omonen, Inc.
25 O
Do you know if in fact any notification was made to
mte 9 47 1
the other plants?
2 A.
Not directly, no.
3 G
Indirectly, do you know?
4 A.
No.
5l G
So you don't know if any of the other plants were 6l ever told?
7 A.
Right.
8 G
You mentioned something, I believe, to the effect 9
that if it had been your responsibility to notify the operators 10 at other plants.
Did you feel that it was not your responsi-11 1 bility to notify the operators at other plants?
12 l A.
No, it is not my responsibility.
13 G
You didn't feel that you had any general responsi-14 !
bility to raise any concern that had come -- that had developed i
15 in your mind that might possibly have not been raised by other 16 j people?
17 A.
I was convinced that the concerns that I had were
- D l more than shared by the Region 3 inspectors, who had a good 19 deal of technical capability, understanding, and that any 1
I 20 actions that were necessary could have been well handled by 21 the I&E group.
22 I think what you are suggesting here is that in my 23 narrow role, in some respect, in project management, that one 24 should usurp in some respects the responsibilities and duties
-M n s: Reporters, Inc.
25 that are assigned to other divisions.
I think you have to
mte 9 48 1
rely on the capabilities of other good people, particularly 2
when it is your understanding the.t these people understand 3
the problem, have clearly spelled it out in their reports, 4
at least in the inspection reports I received, and take 5
appropriate actions to inform the people of this problem.
6l I'm not clear.
The problem I have is I'm not clear.
l 7
Had I followed the record of downstream actions on the part 8
of I&E, they may very well have informed these other utilities.
9 There are inferences based on the post-Three Mile Island 10 discussions in the press that people have been informed, but t
II !
not in a well-advertised way.
So the impact of this thing 12 l didn't hit other utilities as it might have.
13 But I think had I -- you know, in retrospect, I 14 think if it were my responsibility, I probably would have i
I 15 flagged this problem in a bulletin.
Possibly there has been 16 one issued.
I'm not aware of it.
17 (L
Did you have any specific reason to believe that iS the I&E inspectors shared your concerns about the operator I9 actions in this particular case and the operators' indication, is 20 or is that just based on your assumption of what you feel they 21 should have known?
22 A.
That's just based on my assumption based on the 23 same -- on having knowledge of the same set of facts.
After i
24 all, it was really -- I'm relying -- my knowledge of this whole
- N; eat Reporters, Inc.
25 situation is based on their facts.
So ' hey certainly had the
mte 10 49 1
same facts I had to arrive at a conclusion.
2 O
But you had no specific discussions with anyone?
3 A
Nc, sir.
O 4
'G You didn't see any memos that specifically indicated 5;
that they shared your concern about the fact that pressurizer 6,
level increased as a result of steam formation or that type 7
of thing?
8 A
That's right.
9 MR. PARLER:
Mr. Engle's graph to which reference 10 has been made on several occasions this morning, when was that 11 l prepared, do you recall?
12 THE WITNESS:
That was prepared the weekend following
()
13 Mr. Engle's trip to the Davis-Besse site.
That is, the visit 14 was made on the 30th of September and Leon worked over that i
15 weekend to prepare this graph, which was used at the Monday 16 morning briefing held in NRR and -- held between NRR and I&E 17
.on October 3rd.
i 13 '
MR. PARLER:
That's the briefing either in l
19 Dr. Mattson's office or --
b 20 THE WITNESS:
No, it was in the Phillips Building, 21 down on the first floor.
(
22 MR. PARLER:
Well, wherever it was, Dr. Mattson and 23 Karl Seyfrit and others attended that meeting, I think you've 24 said?
,.e we seponers, ine, e
25 THE WITNESS:
That's true.
L
mte 11 50 I
MR. PARLER:
And this graph was discussed with them, 2
to the best of your recollection?
3 THE WITNESS:
This graph was used as a way of J
4 displaying the incident history, yes.
5 !
BY MR. HEBDON:
i 6l G
Do you recall if during that meeting there was any 7
specific notice made by anyone of the fact that pressurizer 8
level increased due to void formation in the primary?
9l A
There may have been.
I can't speak to that.
I have to assume that that was the case, based on the Novak memo.
11 G
By the Novak memo, you mean the January 10th memo?
I2 A
The January 10th memo.
Obviously it made an O
n impression.
l I# I G
All right.
Did you realize that the operators 15 secured the high-pressure injection system before they iden-6 tified or ' isolated the leak?
7 1
A Yes.
l 0l G
You did realize that at the time?
19 l A
Yes.
^O G
Did that -- did you consider that to be proper 2I operator action?
O v
22 A
I had to consider that the operator knew what he 23 was doing, in the sense that he had -- he subsequently made i
24 use of the makeup pumps to take care of the pressurizer level rot Reporters, Inc.
25 when it started fluctuating downward again.
mte 12 51 I
G At what point did it start fluctuating downward 2
again?
The graph is available here if you want to refer to
. 3 it.
O 4
A.
The graph doesn't show this.
5 G
Doesn't show what?
6 (Witness referring to document.)
7 A.
I think I must preface my remark here that this is 8
again just speculation on my part, because I didn't talk to 9
the operator; the inspectors did.
I didn't really have 10 first-hand information of what was in the operator's mind.
ll i It would appear to me, again, that in hindsight he should have I2 left the HPSI pumps on.
But -- let me get some facts.
s 13 l G
What particular fact are you looking for?
I might Id be able to help you.
15 A.
I was trying to determine what the pressurizer level
'6 i was when he shut the HPSI pumps down.
l j
G It's on that particular graph.
You can see that at I
.,i'
- l about two and a half minutes on the graph, pressurizer level lo hits a minimum.
It comes back up until about four and a half 0
minutes, about five minutes.
Just before t?
t, that line 21 (Indicating), that line right here is where the high-pressure 22 injection pumps are turned off.
So it's just shortly before 23 pressurizer level peaks, then comes back down.
24 Then at six minutes, it turns, it comes back up 1
i wrat Reponm, anc.
25 again.
mte 13 52 1
A What was the pressurizer level at that point?
It 2
looked like it was normal or darn near it.
3 G
At this point?
C) 4 A
Yes.
5 G
In fact it was a bit above normal.
6, A
Okay.
Again, I have to assume that the operator l
7 felt that he did not need the HPI to maintain the water inven-8 tory.
But I have no direct knowledge as to what he was 9
thinking about at the time he turned them off, e-4 10 G
All right.
11 !
i 12 C^)
i3 14 15 16 17 l l
19 l i
20 ;
i 2 's O
~
22 23
'1 l
24 41' rat Reporters, Inc.
25
53
@487 05 01 mgcMM i
MR. PARLER:
For clarification of the record, 2
Fred, when you ref erred to the various points on the chart, 3
did your earlier comment about the -- did the chart make the 4
substantive point you were making when you resorted to the 5
chart for f urther explanation for all of us that are here 6
now, or is there something else you would like to say in 7
that regard.
8 MR. HEBDON:
No, I don't think so.
I think that 9
pre tty well made the point I was trying to make.
10 MR. PARLER:
All right.
Il THE WITNESS:
Let me -- in hindsight, let me refe-12 to page 44 of Exhibit A to the letter that was sent to the 13 region from the licensee on November 14.
()
14 BY MR. HEBDON:
15 0
This is the supplement to --
16 A
This is the supplement to the reportable 17 occurrence, and this record on page 44 shows that following 18 shutdown of the HPI pumps tha t the licensee, the operator 19 also tripped the reactor coolant pumps which are shown on 20 Mr. Eng te's c hart.
21 Q
Yes?
22 A
But he also took actions -- he closed the block 23 valve to the pressurizer relief valve which is shown on the
()
24 chart, and he also took actions to start the reactor coolent 25 makeup pump.
He restarted the HPSI pump again.
Then he
54 6487 05 02 mgcMM i
shut down the HPSI pump.
In other words, there are a number 2
of sequences where he played with the HPI pcmp, and he 3
played wi+-
the reactor coolant makeup pump.
And so in 4
trying tv deduce what was in his mind when he shut off the 5
pump fn the first place, it's possible he had in his mind 6
that he had all of these other things available to him and 7
tha t he had complete control of the cooling inventory.
8 0
But at the time, and granted this is in hindsight, 9
but at the time, did it bother you at all that ha was doing 10 all of this playing around with the system while he had --
11 and in the course of doing this playing around, he shut off 12 the high pressure injection pumps while he still had a 13 system that was at saturation pressure with pressure still
()
14 going down and a leak still in progre ss, because he shut off 15 the high pre ssure injection pumps at four and a half minutes 16 into the transient and didn't find the PORV problem until 17 later than 20 minutes into the problem?
So did it bother 18 you at all that here was an operator that you have said was 19 very qu&lified and appeared to be very competent who, in 20 this particular incident, was shu tting off the safety 21 injection system while he still had a leak in progress that 22 he didn't even know about, or apparently didn't even know l
l 23 about, and while he still had a system that was at
()
24 saturation pre ssure?
25 A
Yes, that bothered me, but on the other hand if
55 6487 05 03 mgcMM i
you look at the record, you can see that the reactor 2
pressure fluctuated around the saturation pressure curve, 3
and from that, it appears that based on the actions he took 4
regarding the reactor coolant pumps that he was able to 5
minimize any void formation in the reactor core by those 6
actions.
7 Well, again, what you're asking me to do is to 8
speculate on what he had in mind shutting off the HPSI 9
pumps, when it's pre tty clear when you look at the record 10 that he was able to maintain the bubble formation under 11 control by use of other devices.
12 O
Well, I'm interested in what leads you to the 13 conclusion that he maintains the bubble control, the bubble
()
14 f ormation under control.
15 A
Well, if you look at the reactor pressure curve, 16 it oscillates around that saturation curve beginning at 17 approximately five and a half minutes following the reactor 18 trip all the way up to --
19 0
It continues all the way up to about 50 minutes in 20 the problem and still holding about around the satura tion 21 pressure.
22 A
Yes.
23 0
But how does that indicate that there aren't
(])
24 bubbles forming?
The pre ssure in the system will stay at 25 the saturation pressure as long as there's any water at all
56 0487 05 04 mgcMM 1
lef t in the primary system.
2 A
He also, as I mentioned earlier, he initiated the 3
reactor coolant letdown and makeup pumps, and as you know,
[}
4 letdown system will take down any of the gasses that happen 5
to be in the coolant.
6 0
But it also takes coolant out of the system.
7 A
Ch, yes, but you're f eeding it back in through the 8
makeup pump.
9 O
But the makeup pump is very low capacity, and he's 10 sti.11 got a LOCA going on.
11 A
He had a relatively low -- after 20 minutes, he --
12 let me ge t my f ac ts straight.
13 (The witness referred to his notes.)
()
14 Yes.
Yes.
About a minute -- less than a minute after 15 he tripped the reactor coolant pumps, and it doesn't show up 16 on this chart that Leon has he reestablished reactor coolant 17 letdown flow.
18 Q
Do you consider that to be an advisable action in 19 the middle of a LOCA?
20 A
Under these circumstances there was no problem 21 with that.
22 0
Why?
23 A
Because he wanted to -- he wanted to start
(_)
24 removing any of the gasses that happened to be in the 25 primary cocolant system.
l I
57 6487 05 05 mgcMM 1
O But if you've got a LOCA going on where you're 2
losing coolant f rom the primary and you have just shut off 3
the high pressure injection pumps --
4 A
Let me ask you a question on this on.
It's no t 5
clear that the operator fully realized he had a LOCA going.
6 0
I think that's exactly the concern that I ha ve.
7 Didn't that bother you that here he is taking these actions 8
which are counterproductive because of the f act that he 9
didn*'t realize that he had a LOCA going on?
Didn't tha t 10 bother you at all?
11 A
That aspect of it bothered me.
It is not clear 12 t ha t -- it's not clear why he waited 20 minutes to turn the 13 block valve and isolate the PORV, but notwithstanding. that,
()
14 I see nothing worong with him proceeding with initiating the 15 reactor coolant letdown flow and using makeup to provide 16 water to the primary coolant system.
17 O
Do you have any f eel for the capacity of the 18 makeup pump and whether or not that makeup pump could have 19 kept up with normal letdown flow in addition 'to the flow 20 that was going out the PORV7 21 A
I don't have precise numbes.
22 Q
Do you have a feel for the orders of magnitude?
23 Do you think -- do you think that --
()
24 A
I would think that in considering the low power l
25 level that this plant was in the beginning, I would think l
58 9487 05 06 mgcMM 1
that the decay heat involved here that the makeup pumps 2
could have kept up with them.
3 0
What I am ref erring to is not the decay heat 4
problem but just the physical quanitity of water involved.
5 You have got a plant that is somewhere around.1100 or 1200 6
pounds pressure blowing water and/or steam out of the PORV.
7 You have got water going out the letdown system f rom.just a 8
simple mass balance, water balance problem if it's your 9
perception that the makeup pumps have sufficient ca paci ty 10 that they could have kept up with those two losses.
11 A
What did we lose?
We lost 11,000 gallons of 12 water.
Right?
13 0
Something on that order in 20 minutes.
()
14 A
And that was over a period of 20 minutes, so we're 15 talking something in the order of 50 gpm.
16 0
Lost 11,000 gallons in 20 minutes is 500 gpm.
17 A
Right.
18 0
500 gallons per minute.
19 A
Okay.
20 Q.
Now that's disregarding.the loss f rom the 21 letdown.
That doesn't include the letdown flow.
Now do you 22 have any f eel for the capacity of one or two makeup pumps?
23 I think he turned two on, as it turned out.
()
24 A
Well, that might be --
25 Q
Do you think there are more or;less than 500 t
59
- 6487 05 07 mgcMM i
gallons per minute?
2 A
Probably less than 500 gallons per minute.
3 0
So then he was probably not making up f or the
{)
4 water he was losing.
He wasn't even making up for the PORV, 5
let along the le tdown.
6 A
But then he did restart his HPI pump again.
7 0
I think he did, e ven tually.
8 A
No, he -- he did eventually, af ter he closed the 9
block valve.
10 Q
That's af ter he finally realized he had a LOCA?
11 A
Right.
12 0
And that, if you look at the graph at about time 13 36, pressure level decreases at an extremely rapid rate.
Do
()
14 you have any idea what's causing that?
Do you have a theory 15 as to why the pressurizer level goes down suddently at time 16 36?
17 A
Well, it's pre tty clear.
It appears as if the 18 temperature of the water in the loop dropped suddenly, and 19 it obviously looked like there may have been a shrinkage in 20 the primary coolant system.
21 Q
Well, the drop in the temperature, though, occurs 22 af ter the pre ssurizer level has gone down.
In f act, at the 23
. time that the pressurizer level goes down so suddenly, the
()
24 temperature in the loop is going up.
25 A
Yes.
Well --
@487 05 08 60 mgcMM 1
Q Might I propose as a possible reason for the 2
pressurizer level going down so rapidly the f act that at 3
t ha t point the pressure in the system began to increase
)
4 above the saturation pressure, and at that point in time the 5
bubbles that had been formed in the pr '. mary began to 6
collapse, and that's what caused the s'Jdden outrush of water 7
f rom the pre ssurizer was an a ttempt to fill in the voids, so 8
to speak?
9 A
Well, that's a possibility, assuming that that 10 chart is correct.
11 0
Well, let's go on.
12 MR. PARLER:
iihere did Mr. Engle get the data f rom 13 for that chart?
()
14 MR. HEBDON:
For this graph, this is reactimeter 15 da ta which is su pposedly quite accurate.
I t's da ta t ha t is 16 used for physics testing for the plant.
17 THE WITNESS:
Right.
18 BY MR. HEBDON:
19 Q
Did you ever discuss this incident or any of the 20 issues raised by this incident with Joseph Kelley or Bert or 21 Dunn or any other employee of B&W7 22 A
No.
23 Q
Were you aware of their concerns about the
()
24 September 24, 1977 incident at Davis-Besse?
25 A
No, I don't know those people.
l
61 6487 05 09 mgcMM 1
Q Do you know of any other precursor events that are 2
relevant to the accident at the TMI?
3 A
Can you expand on that question a li ttle more?
4 0
Well, precursor event is an event that provides 5
some forewarning --
6 A
I understand the definition of a precursor, but 7
I'm trying to understand what you are referring to in terms 8
of an event.
9 Q
Any other incidents?
I think we have used a 10 little bit broader definition than some people might of what 11 constitutes a precursor, but any other incidents that 12 occurred that were indicative of problems that have come to 13 light as a result of TMI, any memos or letters that people
()
14 wrote or concerns that people raised that were indicative of 15 problems that have since come to the foreground as a result 16 of TMI?
17 A
Well, that's what I was wondering -- whether you 18 were leading to.
I'm aware again, af ter the Three Mile 19 Island incident happened, tha t the number of memoranda were 20 brought to light regarding the considerations of small 21 breaks and specifically the Mikelson memorandum dated back 22 in January of. '78.
23 Q
Were there any other memos that you were aware of?
()
24 A
But again I only became aware of these memos 25 following the Three Mile Island 2 incident.. No, I'm not u
62
@487 05 10 mgcMM i
aware of any others.
2 Q
Any others other than Mikelson?
3 A
Right.
{)
4 0
Do you have any additional information that might 5
be relevant to our inquiry into the events surround the 6
accident at TMI?
7 A
I don't believe so.
8 0
All right.
Do you have any other questions or any 9
other comments to add?
10 A
No.
11 MR. HEBDON:
Do you have anything additional?
12 MR. PARLER:
No, except tha t if you don't have 13 anything on behalf of the Special Inquiry Group, I thank
()
14 Mr. Stolz for his coming here and for his testimony.
15 MR. HEBDON:
And if no one else has any additional p
16 questions, that ends the interview.
Thank you very much.
17 (Whereupon, a t 11: 40 a.m.,
the hearing was 18 concluded.)
19 20 21 22 23
()
24 25 4
-