ML19308C560
| ML19308C560 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 10/30/1979 |
| From: | Frampton G, Ross M METROPOLITAN EDISON CO., NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001280589 | |
| Download: ML19308C560 (19) | |
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'fbr OR GlyJi NUCLE AR REGUL ATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
THREE MILE ISLAND SPECIAL INQUIRY DEPOSITIONS DEPOSITION OF MICHAEL ROSS i
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Place - Middletown, Pennsylvania Date -
Tuesday, 30 October 1979 Pages 1 - 18 j
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L. I Tel. phen :
(202)347 3700 i
ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.
OfficialReporters 444 North Capitol Street Washington, D.C. 20001 7
NATIONWIDE COVERAGE DAILY 8o01280.
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1 CR 7976 rea 10[30/79 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
3
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -X I
4 In the Matter of:
- 5 THREE MILE ISLAND SPECIAL INQUIRY DEPOSITION 6
X 7
8 DEPOSITION OF MICHAEL ROSS 9
Trailer #11 10 Three Mile Island Middletown, Penncylvania 11 Tuesday, 30 October 1979 12 3:35 p.m.
()
13 14 15 16 APPEARANCES:
17 GEORGE T. FRAMPTON, JR.,
ESQ., TMI/NRC Special Inquiry Group R. C. HAYNES, THI/NRC Special Inquiry Group 18 DENNIS P. ALLISON, TMI/NRC Special Inquiry Group CARLA DARISTA, TMI/NRC Special Inquiry Group 19 MATIAS F. TRAVIESO-DIAZ, ESQ., Shaw, Pittman, Potts &
20 Trowbridge, 1800 M Street, N. W.,
Washington, D. C.
on behalf of Metropolitan Edison Company 21 22 23
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Aco Federd Reporte,s, Inc.
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CONTENTS CR,7976 1
r( j 10730/79 2
WITNESS E N1INATION 3
Michael Ross 3
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5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Ace-Federd Reporters, Inc, 25 1
CR 7976 3
r:a 10/30/79 4
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PROCEEDINGS 2
MR. FRAMPTON:
This is a deposition being conducted 3
by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Special Inquiry 4
Group on Three Mile Island of Mr. Michael Ross at Three 5
Mile Island, Pennsylvania, on October 30, 1979.
6 Present in addition to Mr. Ross are Mr. Diaz, representing 7
Metropolitan Edison Company, and Mr. Haynes, Mr. Allison, 8
Miss Darista, and Mr. Frampton with the Special Inquiry 9
Group.
10 Ron, would you swear the witness, Mr. Ross.
11 Whereupon, 12 MICHEAL J. ROSS was called as a witness and, having been first duly sworn, 14 was examined and testified as follows:
15 MR. HAYNES:
Please state your full name for 16 the record.
17 THE WITNESS:
My full name is Michael J. Ross, 18 spelled R-o-s-s.
19 EXAMINATION 20 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
21 Q
Mr. Ross, before we s'arted, I showed you a one-page c
22 witness notification form which I think you read on a l
23 previous occasion when we interviewed you that sets forth s-)
24 the purpose of our group and this interview, your rights Am Fw.r3 c.,oners, inc.
25 in connection with it, and also alerts you to the fact that I
4 1
the transcript of this interview may eventually become public n
2 information?
3 Have you read that, and do you have any questions about it?
4 A
I have read it, and I don't have any questions.
f 5
0 As I told you before we started, we want to focus on 6
two very specific issues today, and we hope not to take too 7
much of your time in doing so.
8 The first relates to the readings that were taken of 9
in-core thermocouple temperatures on the morning of March 28.
10 I think you told us when we were here before that you recalled 11 learning of those readings, of a spectrum of readings, and you 12 recalled that it was told to you or you understood that they O
la were auestione81e or considered inconc1usive-14 Do you remember whether you were present when Mr. Porter, 15 Ivan Porter reported the readings that he had gotten to 16 Gary Miller?
17 A
I think I was in the general vicinity.
I think that's 18 how I got it.
I think there is some testimony on record that 19 I have beforc la this area, and what I recall is what I was 20 in the area and that's how I got the readings.
They weren't 21 reported directly to me.
They were reported to Gary.
22 O
You do remember hearing that there were some low 23 numbers and some numbers in the two thousands?
()
24 A
They were very scattered numbers; there were many Am-Federd Reporters, Inc.
25 numbers, one questionable, very low, some hundred degrees, i
5 I
some two hundred degrees, some high.
What I got out of it --
imU 2
and I didn't see the readings -- was that the readings were 3
so scattered that they couldn't be taken as a concrete 4
indication of what was going on.
5 Q
Do you remember having any discussion about that with 6
Gary Miller that day?
7 A
I don' t recall at this time any discussion.
I was 8
there in the area when the discussion was passed on.
9 Q
I wonder then whether there was any later or 10 subsequent discussion that you had with Mr. Miller about the 11 temperature readings or the reliability of them that you can 12 recall?
()
13 A
I don't recall any other access to the readings at 14 a later time right now or any discussions given to Gary 15 at least in my presence.
16 Q
Do you remember ever hearing that additional readings 17 had been taken that morning or seeing or hearing of any 18 additional numbers?
19 A
I think I recall additional readings being taken in 20 the morning, and I don't recall what the results were.
You 21 know, you're standing out there and they are kind of passed 22 around behind you, you hear them; but they weren't given 23 directly to me as such.
('%)
24 Q
Well, we know after the fact that instrument technicians Aa Feded Reporters, Iric.
25 did take readings on all or most of the thermocouple wires i
6 1
and entered them in a computer book which apparently was 2
brought back up into the control room.
My question is whether 3
you were aware that somebody brought in a book with some 4
more readings or whether you heard any additional numbers that 5
you can remember?
6 A
I was not aware of the book as such, and I didn't 7
hear a number later on.
I did hear something about taking 8
additional readings.
9 C
Did you hear whether the additional readings that were 10 taken were consistent or inconsistent with the previous 11 ones?
What do you remember about that?
12 A
Again, it's pretty long ago, but what I remember is
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13 they were pretty much the same thing, inconsistent.
14 Q
Do you remember who you would have heard chat from 15 or just general discussion?
l 16 A
The first time it was definitely Ivan Porter.
The 17 second time, I'm not sure at this time.
18 Q
Do you have any idea who you think it might have been?
19 A
No, it should have been Ivan I would have thought, 20 but I'm not sure.
21 Q
Do you recall any subsequent discussion about either 22 the first readings or the other readings that you may have 23 heard about?
Did you talk with anybody about what do these O)
(,
24 mean?
Do they confirm hot leg temperatures?
What's the Ace FederJ Coporters, Inc.
25 implication?
Anything like that that you can remember?
I 7
1 A
I did not, no.
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u, Q
Did you overhear anybody else talking about it?
3 A
They were discussed a couple times, and I can't 4
remember whether it was just the two times that I remember 5
or four times, but they were discussed.
7.nd each time in 6
the discussions, they were discounted.
7 Q
Do you remember why they were discounted -- that is, 8
if the high temperatures were discounted as having been due 9
to melting or equipment that was not qualified for higher 10 than normal temperatures, wouldn't that in itself have provided 11 some useful information to the people in the control room?
12 A
What I remember about them being discounted was the 7(,)
13 2act that they read such a wide difference.
That was one 14 thing.
The second thing is that in-core temperatures were 15 never used on a routine basis by anything we did, nor were 16 any of out people ever trained in their use.
As a result, 17 it was easy to discount them, I think, under the circumstances.
18 Q
Do you remember any inquiries being made for those 19 readings by people in the observation center or GPU or from the 20 NRC during that first day, outside inquiries for numbers or 21 readings?
22 A
I do not.
23 Q
None at all?
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24 Ace-Feder:: Reportert, Inc.
A None.
25 Q
Let me turn to the question of the pressure spike.
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1 You testified before that your best recollection was that the b,_
2 existence of a spike and the fact that the spray cane on was f
3 reported at some point late in the afternoon or early in the i
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4 evening to the group in the shift supervisor's office and 5
that you thought that was after Gary Miller and George Kunder 6
came back from the state house.
7 What do you remember about any discussion that occurred as 8
a result of that report?
9 A
It was very little discussion in reality, I was in 10 the control room when it happened.
II Q
Did you observe the spike itself?
Can you remember that?
12 A
Not really.
I think what triggered me to look is they
/3 sj 13 reported the building spray pumps running, and, of course, t
14 then I looked.
And we did look at the chart.
We did see 15 they had a 30 pound spike approximately, but it went away 16 very, very rapidly.
It was seconds rather than minutes that 17 it was there, very short period of time.
18 At the time, we had a thousand other things going on, and 19 we were going down.
We looked at it, Well, it's gone, and 20 nobody took to it nor did anybody actually start studying it.
21 There were many people there, and it was common knowledge that 22 it happened, but I don't think anybody ever sat down and 23 analyzed it at the time.
(j 24 0_
Do you remember reaching any conclusion about what had DFederd Reporte,s, Inc.
25 caused the spike?
9 1
A I think we reached a hurried conclusion saying that we CJ 2
thought the spike was caused by either a malfunction of some 3
kind, and we just went on taking care of business, whatever 4
clse had to be done.
5 Q
Do you remember whether any NRC people were part of 6
that discussian or observed this or were aware of it?
7 A
Well, I can't place a face or a name.
They were in 8
the control room all day, and they were with us all day.
But 9
I can't say so and so was available in the control room, and to he knew of it.
It was discussed openly in the control room 11 among ourselves, and we just went on to something else to 12 try and take care of what we had to take care of.
(
13 Q
Do you remember a later report, later in the afternoon, 14 somebody suggesting that the pressure spike had represented 15 an actual pressure surge of some kind in the building?
16 A
No, I do not.
17 Q
You don't remember anything like that that day?
18 A
No.
To my knowledge, we just never came back to it 19 till Friday or Saturday, whenever it was when we came back 20 to it.
21 Q
Do you remember when the original conversation about 22 it occurred shortly after the spike itself whether you had 23 any conversations with Gary Miller about what's that or 24 what may have caused it?
Ace Federd Repo,ters, Inc.
25 A
That's a little vague, but what I do remember is, I
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Gary was with me in the control room, and we were out there cs
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2 for another reason -- I'm not sure why, we were looking at 3
something.
We just started to get temperature indications 4
back, I believe, but something was going on that brought 5
us out to look at it.
And we did get a spike, the operators 6
did report the building spray pumps were running.
7 And Gary did ask me, he thought he heard something.
He B
said, Did you hear that or did you feel that?
Something 9
to that effect.
I'm not sure what that was.
And we just 10 kind of went right by it.
We looked at it and we told II Gary, it's not time to get nervous now.
We're going to have 12 to go on from where we are.
And that's what we did.
('y) 13 0
When you say this is no time to get nervous now?
s 14 A
Hearing things is what we were thinking.
15 Q
That you were imagining things?
16 A
Yes.
17 Q
Do you know whether he looked at the spike, pressure 18 spike, or discussed it with CROs?
I9 A
He was in the control room when we talkec about it 20 vaguely and whether he actually looked at the chart, I do 21 not know.
22 O
Do you remember having any subsequent discussion with 23 him about it?
O k/
24 A
No, I don't think we ever came back to it.
Just down
?ce Feder:;J Reporters, Iric.
25 the road, looking at getting forced cooling, that's where we i
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were headed.
,sU 2
Do you remember having any conversation with 0
3 Brian Mohler or Joe Chwastyk about the spike or about what 4
may have caused it at any time during that day?
A No.
I kind of feel that one of them was there, and 5
0 I can't remember which one when that happened.
But I 7
don't remember any separate discussions on it.
I'm not sure 8
which one was there.
It probably should have been Brian 9
was there.
10 Q
Brian Mehler?
A Yes.
12 But you don't have any particular recollection of Q
I3 dise:ussing it with him?
I4 A
No.
I remember discussing it with Bill Zewe is the only 15 guy.
16 MR. FRAMPTON:
Let's go off the record for a 17 minute.
18 (Discussion off the record.)
I9 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
Q Do you recall at about the time or shortly before 20 21 c.iary Miller and George Kunder went off to the state house that 22 you started to make efforts to redraw a bubble in the pressuri::er?
I'm showing you a chart that we're using 23 AV 24 just for working purposes that has a lot of plant-parameters Ace Feded Reporters. Inc.
25 on it, and at the top of the chart there is a graph that l
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shows pressurizer level.
On that graph, between about 2:00 0 7 2
or 2:30 and 6:30, the pressurizer level dips on three or 3
four occasions.
4 I wonder whether you recall whether there were attempts 5
being made.at that time to try to get a bubble back in the 6
pressurizer as a means of regaining that sort of control 7
over system pressure?
8 A
No.
That portion there is an area where I think all 9
we were trying to do is get the hot leg temperatures to come 10 back on-scale.
I think right around there we started to 11 see a change in temperatures.
And the only thing I recall 12 there is shifting out injection points, injecting heavily 13 to one loop and into another, hoping that maybe we could 14 enhance temperature coming back on-scale and refill a loop 15 is where we were headed.
We were going to try to refill the 16 loops and start a reactor coolant pump.
That's what we 17 were trying to do.
18 Q
Do you remember that Joe Chwastyk was in charge of 19 the console at that time?
20 A
He should have been in here about that time, that should 21 be in the afternoon sometime.
22 Q
Noon or 1:00 o' clock, something like that?
23 A
He would have been here.
He came in, I think, around
(^h s/
24 noon, 11:00 o' clock, sometime.
I don't remember for sure.
Am-Federd Reporters, Ir:c.
25 Q
Did he take over then as the --
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I A
Yes, he was relieving the shift supervisor at that time.
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2 O
But you don't recall whether he was making specific 3
attempts to redraw a bubble during that time?
4 A
No, I don't recall any specific attempts to draw a 5
bubble.
I recall specific attempts to bring the temperature 6
on-scale by varying high pressure inicction to one side or 7
to the other, not reducing it.
8 Q
Would starting pressurizer heaters or trying to 9
reduce the pressurizer level be part of that strategy for 10 any reason?
11 A
No.
12 MR. HAYNES:
You say in the afternoon you were trying to shift the injection of the water from one loop 14 to another to encourage circulation.
According to this 15 chart, I see that primarily you were depending on the B makeup 16 pump which feeds one of the two loops, specifically the B loop 17 if I recollect correctly at this time.
But to shift the 18 injection to the other loop, it would require a different 19 pump to come on, would it not?
20 THE WITNESS:
Yes, it would require a different 21 makeup pump.
22 MR. HAYNES:
It would require the C makeup pump.
i 23
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According to the graph that we've got here, I don't see any extended period of C makeup pump operation during this period Am-FWwel Roorters,1w.
25 of time.
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14 I
THE WITNESS:
I don't recall us trying on what we
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2' call a long period of trying.
It was the type of thing where 3
we just tried it for a short period of time.
4 tiR. HAYNES:
This was what, ten minutes?
5 THE WITNESS:
Time was a real problem that day, 6
as I'm sure you guys are aware.
One minute was like 20, 7
20 minutes was like one.
8 MR. HAYNES:
When I look at this graph, we have 9
several things that are plotted on here, including 10 pressurizer heaters, pressurizer level, makeup pumns.
I II see that there is a correlation between turning on an i
12 j extra two banks of heaters here with these level dips in the
,x
(_)
I3 pressurizer.
Id Do you know why the heaters in the pressurizers were being 15 turned on and off during the afternoon of the 28th?
16 THE WITNESS:
I don't recollect any specific 17 discussion about pressurizer heaters in the afternoon, not 18 until over here some place when we got a reactor coolant 19 pump.
And that's just what we did to draw a bubble.
I 20 don't recall specifically what they would be doing with 21 pressurizer heaters.
22 MR. HAYNES:
On the afternoon of the 20th, who was 23 the shift supervisor in charge of passing your orders on to 7s
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24 the operators in the control room?
Ace Feder:3 Reporters. Inc.
25 THE WITNESS:
It would be Joe Chwastyk in the i
15 1
afternoon.
O 2
MR. EAYNES:
From about noon, 12:00 o' clock?
3 THE WITNESS:
About noon, I'm not real sure.
4 MR. HAYNES:
Did he take his orders directly from l
5 you, or did he have conversations with your superiors in the 6
control room?
THE WITNESS:
We did both.
At times, Joe would 7
come into the think tank where were at, and he would enter 8
f 9
discussions.
And we'd come up with a plan of attack and go 10 from there, so it wouldn' t necessarily come directly from me.
11 At times it would come out of the group, this is what we're 12 going to do, that type of a thing.
()
13 MR. HAYNES:
Do you think he would have ever 14 received any operating orders directly from Mr. Miller that 15 you would not be aware of?
16 THE WITNESS:
It's possible, but the way we were 17 set up in there, it would be kind of remote, really.
It's i
18 possible that he came out and asked him to do something, but 19 the way we were working as a group, I think it would have come out of the tank in there where all of us were.
20 21 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
22 Q
After the decision was made at about 11:30 in the j
23 morning to depressurize the system, do you remember giving
()
24 or passing instructions to keep a steady flow rate of high Ace Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 pressure injection flow at a particular number in crder to I
16
()
provide enough water that would be sufficient for core cooling) 2 Keep it at "X"?
3 A
Yes, we had decided, in lieu of another number for 4
core cooling, would use the only number we knew.
And that 5
was around 400 gallons.
So we told them to maintain around 6
400 gallons.
7 Q
Around 400 GPM total?
8 A
Total.
9 Q
And that was from 11:00 or noon in the morning?
10 A
It may even have been earlier than that.
I don't l
know exactly when.
And the only reason we came up with 12 '
that number, it was based on a single pump being able to carry out a loss of coolant accident, protection.
Later 14 on in the day we did get a number of B&W and it turned out 15 to be 400 gallons a minute.
That's what we got over the 16 radio, on the phones from them.
17 Q
Is it your understanding that a flow rate of 400 was 18 kept throughout the afteroon when the system was 19 depressurized, in fact?
20 A
It is my understanding that a flow rate of about 400 21 gallons, I saw times of 360, 350.
22 MR. FRA!!PTON:
Let's go off the record for just 23 l
a minute.
s.
s.
24 kee Federal Reporters, Inc.
(Discussion off the record. )
25 MR. ALLISION:
Mr. Ross, in your previous testimony i
17 I
you have indicated that you arrived at the plant about
(~)
2 0600 in the morning; is that correct?
The morning of 3
March 28th.
4 THE WITNESS:
I arrived at the plant somewhere 5
between 5:30 and 6:00, that time frame.
That's at the site.
6 MR. ALLISON:
I should correct myself.
I got that 7
from the ILE report, not from your previous testimony.
What 8
time did you arrive in the Unit two control room?
9 THE WITNESS:
I'm not real sure of the time.
I kind 10 of think it was right around the time the electromatic II relief valve was closed, so somewhere around -- looking at 12 the reports, I know it's around 6:20 in the morning.
It was
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13 right in that area sometime.
I4 MR. ALLISON:
At that time, from about 6:00 a.m.
15 to 6:40 a.m.,
there was a conference call going on wherein 16 George Kunder was in the shift supervisor's office briefing 17 Herbein, Miller, and Rogers on the plant status.
Were you 18 aware of that conference call at the time that it was going 19 on?
20 THE WITNESS:
No.
I don't belive I was.
I 21 have never been asked that before, but I don't think I was.
22 MR. ALLISON:
Do you know whether the operators 23 were aware it was going on?
ll 24 THE WITNESS:
I can' t answer that.
I just kind of
- Ace-Federd Reporters, Inc.
25 walked in there and everything in front of you.
I'm not sure i
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they were aware that that was going on.
CR 7976 2
1 30/79 fir. ALLISON:
That's all I have.
3l MR. FRAMPTO11:
Okay.
I don't think we have 4
any further questions.
5 MR. DIAZ:
No questions.
6, MR. FRAMPTON:
Mr. Ross, thank you very much.
7 (Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m.,
the taking of the 8
deposition was concluded.)
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