ML19309G254
| ML19309G254 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/03/1979 |
| From: | Dornsife W, Gerusky T, Reilly M PENNSYLVANIA, COMMONWEALTH OF |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8005050476 | |
| Download: ML19309G254 (59) | |
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9 8005050f7f
,4 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
[
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I
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In the Matter of:
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IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW t
31 of Mr. Thomas M. Gerusky Director of the Bureau of Radiation Protection 4!
Ms. Margaret A. Reilly Si Chief, Division of Environmental Radiation 6i Mr. William P. Dornsife Nuclear Engineer 71 Department of Environmental Resources si l
Trailer #203 Si NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10l Middletown, Pennsylvania 11; May 3, 1979 12; (Date or Interview) 131 June 22, 1979 (Oate Transcrip: Typed) it r
105 and 106 15i (Tape Numoer(s))
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NRC PERSONNEL:
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Owen C. Shackleton i
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Dale E. Donaldson l
Thomas H. Essig 24 25l i
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l 1l SHACKLETON:
This is a meeting being conducted at the Department of Environ-2 mental Resources, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The time is now 12:11 p.m., May 3, 1979.
The meeting is being conducted in 3
1y the office of Mr. Thomas M. Gerusky.
Mr. Gerusky is present for this g
meeting and is the Eirector of the Bureau of Radiation Protection.
Also J
present is Margaret A.
Reilly.
Ms. Reilly is the Chief, Division of el q
Environmental Radiation.
Also present is Mr. William P. Dornsi'fe.
Mr.
rnsife is a Nuclear Engineer with the Department of Environmental Resources.
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Present from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Mr. Dale E. Donaldson.
91 Mr. Donaldson is a Radiation Specialist assigned to Region I.
Also present 10j 11:!
is Mr. Thomas H. Essig.
Mr. Essig is the Chief, Environmental and Special Project Section, Region III.
My name is Owen C. Shackleton.
I am an-12; investigator assigned to Region V.
Please begin your conference.
131 14!
DONALDSON:
What our intent is or purpose or charter for the investigation is to primarily look at the licensee's actions and the adequacy of those 16i actions.
And the time frame specified for our particular portion of the 17!
investigation is March 28 through midnignt on March 30.
So what we are 181 hoping to accomplish, at least, by having some discussion with you, to 191 discuss, prior to the incident, the state and nature of coordination that 201 existed between yourself and Metropolitan Edison, and then trace through 21 l
some of the early notification sequences, the type of information that was 22' relayed back and forth; and then discuss certain of the licensees actions 23l l
in light of information that you may have provided or certain actions that 24i l
you may have accomplished in support of their response.
I guess probably 25l r
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the best thing we can do is start with a discussion, a general discussion of the scope and nature of the coordination between the State of Pennsylvania, Bureau of Radiological Health, and Metropolitan Edison.
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g GERUSKY:
It's Bureau of Radiation Protection.
Maggie, why don't you...
el 6i REILLY:
You mean with respect to...
i 8;
DONALDSON:
With respect to emergency planning, ahead of time.
10i REILLY:
Okay. Reilly.
With respec't to the emergency plan we have a document 11!
called Pa.
PIPAG (Plan for Implementation of Protective Action Guides) 12l which originated in 1973, which was for some years the base document regarding 13l emergency planning for reactors annexed to that or site specific annexes 14!
for the various operating reactors.
In 1977, in light of changes in Federal 15:
guidance, particularly the EPA dose projection PHE type guidance, we rewrote 16; f
the plan.
Specifically, sort of targeted at the Susquehanna Station, which 17!
was then in its mid phases of developing'its emergency plan.
We've been 18i attempting to get around to the other facilities which are in operation and l
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l gradually update them as to the revised plan.
Insofar as Throa Mile was l
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concerr;ed, the changes regarding the notification and the PAb:, ad informa-21!
tion protocol, Three Mile had adopted them.
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00NALDSON:
I wonder if you could discuss the nature of any meetings or 241 routine meetings or discussions that would take place in the prior planning 25!
area?
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REILLY:
Let's see, probably the last fairly large meeting we had with them was, I think, last April. We got update. with Isoplex and the site map.
3,'
It was a great effort to have a consistent area map among all of the parti-I cipating agencies.
And that would have been April of '78, roughly.
It was 4l g
around this time of year.
Si DONALDSON:
As par't of their training and coordination program, do they 1
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periodically invite you to the site to attend either their emergency director 3l training or drills or anything of that nature?
101 REILLY:
Whenever they're having a drill they invite us down, in addition a
to whatever it is we do out here, we haven't had anyone...
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13 GERUSKY:
Yes, Bill was down.
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15; REILLY:
Were you down there the last time they had a drill?
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00RNSIFE:
Yes I was.
Also at that last meeting, Maggie, the last meeting 1Si we had down there, all the locals, the civil defense directors and the l
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local fire chiefs and policemen were there and they were going through 1
20t essentially what everybody in the organization does.
I thought it was a 21f very good meeting.
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l 23l REILLY:
They also gave Dornsife and I some briefings as to their meteoro-l 241 l
logical techniques in establishing which family of curves they want to use 25l for the various weather conditions.
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4 DONALDSON:
As of March 28th, were there any outstanding items or out-standing information that the facility had agreed to provide to you that 2
had not yet been provided?
3 4!
REILLY:
Not to my knowledge.
Sf 51 DONALDSON:
Then all the issues were fairly well resolved.
7 8j REILLY:
Yeah.
In general, we've gotten pretty good cooperation from them.
g 101 DONALDSON:
Bill, do you remember whether - was Kevin Malloy or anybody from State Council Civil Defense at that big meeting?
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00RNSIFE:
Yeah, there were quite a few.
But Kevin wasn't there, I don't w
think.
Some people from the State Council were there.
Lamison was there.
I don't know all the names.
16i 17!
REILLY:
I don't know if Craig was there or not.
There was a fair flock of 18!
us...
going through TMI airport there.
191 i
20; DORNSIFE:
Lancaster County was represented with the Civil Defense Director.
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REILLY: Yeah.
Connors was there.
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5 00RNSIFE: A lot of local fire chiefs and policemen were there.
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4I 5:l 00RNSIFE:
Yeah, two people from State Police.
6i DONALDSON:
7; Tom, do you have any questions regarding the preplanning area?
Si ESSIG:
No, I don't have any questions regarding the preplanning area.
I would like to, at the appropriate time, would like to get into the initial sample analyses performed by the State by the Commonwealth.
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l GERUSKY:
We use State, that's all right.
131 141 ESSIG:
OK.
16i REILLY:
It's easier to say early in the morning.
17l 18I DONALDSON:
Why don't we move on into the morning of the 28th, and I 19i believe, Bill, you were the one who received the initial call from State l
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i Council, from local Civil Defense.
Why don't you just pick it up and 21!
describe what took place that morning.
22l 23 DORNSIFE: About 5 after 7:00, I received a call from Clarence Deller, who l
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was the Civil Defense Duty Officer.
I was the designated Bureau Duty 25l I
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i lj Officer at the time.
They have a list of our names and phone numbers.
l 2j It's updated monthly.
It rotates.
I got a call about 7:05 saying that i
3l "Three Mile has declared a site emergency.
Call back to the control room Unit 2."
I.mmediately after that I called Maggie Reilly and wanted to make gj sure, to see if there was any phone numbers we had directly to the control room.
We didn't.
She didn't tell me we had any - I guess we did have one et to the control room.
81 REILLY:
I just rattled off the switchboaru...
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00RNSIFE:
So, I called back through the switchboard and I guess Maggie 11!
went ahead and called Tom to tell him to get somebody to get in to take 12!
over the office.
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REILLY:
The first person I called was Milloy.
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DORNSIFE:
Okay. Well I called back to the plant immediately after hanging 17; up with Maggie, which was about a minute later, and I got the switchboard.
18i The switchboard operator had difficulty connecting me with the control 191 room.
She could get the control room, but she couldn't get us together.
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- 21l, So finally after a cauple of minutes I told her, "why don't you have them call me back at my home." So I gave her the number and about a minute 22 j
later someone from the control roca called me back.
I forget, I don't know 23l l
whether he even told me his name.
I guess it was the shift supervisor, 241 I
whoever was on duty at the time.
Things sounded very confused at the 25l i
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7 plant.
You could hear a lot of noise in the background.
I started asking 7
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questions about what had happened.
They gave me a little bit of blurb, but 3{
I didn't write anything down.
This is just from memory.
I believe he told i
me that the plant was...it was a transiect, the plant was shut down, the reactor had scrammed.
The system was being cooled normally.
The safeguards systems had worked.
There was a slight pressure in the containment.
At bl the time they didn't relate anything concerning the relief valve sticking.
i That problem--they didn't say anything about anything being carried over to 8\\
the auxiliary building at that time.
But they did tell me that there was no releases offsite.
They had teams out and they couldn't find anything offsite.
So I guess I asked a few questions additionally, what I thought was appropriate.
I don't really recall but I satisfied myself that the 12; I
conditions were stable.
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ESSIG:
Excuse me, just for a second, Bill.
You indicated that they had 15!
told you at that time, this was shortly after 7:00 in the morning, that they had not found anything offsite.
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ISI 00RNSIFE: Right.
They definitely had teams out, they could not find anything 191 offsite.
201 21!
ESSIG: Okay, sorry.
Go ahead.
23 00RNSIFE:
Then I heard in the background, an anncuncement- " evacuate the 2 41 l
fuel handling and auxiliary building."
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8 lj REILLY:
It really makes you feel good. (laughter) i 2!
f 3j DORNSIFE:
All along I'd been waiting for somebody to tell me it was a i
drill.
When I heard that I figured "oh-oh this is the biggy." Then, the 4j 5'
shift supervisor apparently put on a health physics type, and he--again told me they had teams out, they had no readings offsite.
Right after the el announcement.he said to me, "I have to go, I really have to go now."
Very gj confused and very upset. "I really have to go now; I'll call you back" and he hung up.
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10t DONALDSON:
This was about what time?
11l 121 00RNSIFE:
This was about...
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REILLY:
A quarter after seven.
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i DORNSIFE:
Well, in that time frame, quarter after--twenty after, about IT twenty after, I'd say.
He hung up.
So I figured, at that point I knew 18i 191.
people were coming into the office.
I figured there was no reason to try and call him back so I just took off and headed for the office.
Oh no, I'm 20!
sorry, I called into the office after the plant hung up on me and I told l
21; one of the secretaries who was there--I told her, the first person who 22l l
comes in to get them to call back to the plant immediately.
And just 23 1
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briefly told her that there was a problem there, but not to alarm her l
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neediessly, because at that point it didn't seem...the situation seemed to 25!
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be under control, at least from what they were telling me.
Except, of course, you had an uneasy feeling about the announcement to evacuate the 2
3; fuel handling and auxiliary building...
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Donaldson:
I believe, are there not, some standard formats in which initial g;
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notifications are to be provided to you?
7l 00RNSIFE:
Yes, there are.
In the emergency plan there is a check-off list, kind of.
i 10j DONALDSON:
That's in the State's PIPAG, or in the State..
11; 12 REILLY:
It's in the annex to the...
131 14!
00RNSIFE:
It's in the procedures part.
15i 16i DONALDSON:
The annex to the Three Mile Island emergency plan?
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l 181" 00RNSIFE:
Yeah.
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00NALDSON:
Then that information was or was not nrovided in that format?
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DORNSIFE:
The way I recall the format, it was not absolutely-someone i
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reading down the whole list-no.
It was somewhat disjointed.
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10 DONALDSON:
In looking at that format, is there critical information on 2j that format that may have been able to have been provided that wasn't PI *id*d?
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DORNSIFE:
No, I don't believe so.
The format is pretty general.
It talks Si about a little bit of plant status, you know.
I don't really think it 01 j
would have made much difference.
I got essentially the information I Would'Ve gotten through the checklist by what they told me ad with the questions I asked.
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REILLY:
The format in the plan, it's a family of formats actually, that 11.
are based on design basis accidents and on anticipated transients.
For 121 instance, a LOCA or a loss of AC, or a loss of load, or a fuel rod ejection, 131 things like that, things that have a recognized beginning, and they're essentially developed out of SAR information.
15; 16i DONALDSON:
Bill, the time you received that call did they give you a 17';
generic classification of the type of event that they thought that they 18i might have had?
191 20l 00RNSIFE:
I believe they told me it was a transient, and that compli-21 cations had occurred in addition to the normal transient.
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DONALDSON:
They did not mention anything such as a steam generator tube 24 rupture?
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DORNSIFE:
At that time--no.
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i REILLY:
3 We eventually knew that fairly early.
4j DORNSIFE:
Well, we can get to that later.
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6l DONALDSON:
Okay. Why don't we proceed from that point and pick up, j
whoever has something to offer from that point.
91 REILLY:
Okay.
At that point I got into the office about 7:30, thereabouts.
lui Gerusky was already here and on the phone with the plant.
And it was around that point that they rolled over from a site to a general.
Okay.
I Meanwhile the rest of our people were coming in.
Fairly early in this 13!
thing I contacted the Department of Agriculture because we always perceive 146 that there is a good chance of having a dairy problem with a ceactor accident.
15i We were disappointed with this one. We didn't really...it continues to 16i blow my mind.
Let's see... we got the map out--all that good stuff.
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GERUSKY:
No, wait a minutes. Let's stop. I was the first one in the 19i office after the call from Margaret.
And the secretary gave me the infor-20:
l mat' ion that Bill had called and that I was supposed to call the Island 21l right away which is our normal procedure anyway.
The first person into the 22' I
office calls the Island, calls the reactor control room.
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DONALDSON:
There is a number, I believe you have a number that's a direct 2j line dial into it.
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g GERUSKY:
I called 944-7259.
I don't know why.
I've got it written down.
I have no idea why I dialed that number unless that was the number Bill g
gave.
This is the notes I took as I was getting involved.
ci 7l 00RNSIFE:
I didn't have the plan at home with me.
In hindsight, I guess 8t we should have.
That was our plan originally, to do that, but we never got around to it, yet.
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GERUSKY:
You're supposed to have the plan at home with you.
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131 00RNSIFE:
Yeah, well, no one ever gave it to me.
I think there was probably 14i only about a five minute lapse in co wunications with the control room, if 15:
even that long.
16i 17l GERUSKY:
Well, I b.elieve I was in the office a' bout 7:25 and made the call 181 back to the control room.
They told me that it was a site emergency, that 19i there was a steam generator primary to secondary leak and it was isolated; 20!
that there was a general...at that point they went from site to general I
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i emergency.
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DONALDSON: Tom, do you remember who you were talking with?
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GERUSKY:
It was a health physics type, and it may have been...
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REILLY:
Dubiel, 'r Landry?
3t 4i GERUSKY:
I think it was Dubiel but I didn't write the name down.
Maggie j
came in right about that time and picked up the phone also, I believe.
You et were on the extension weren't you?
8!
REILLY:
Yeah, I remember being out there.
10l GERUSKY:
And went and got the map out.
They then said they were going 22) from a site to a general emergency, that they had failed fuel.
The dome 12l monitor was reading 800 R per hour in the reactor building and they had 13' onsite teams out checking.
They told me the wind was out of 30 degrees in 14!
a south-westernly direction.
The high pressure injection initiated; some 15i loss of core coolant; failed fuel; a high radiation area.
And in the 16i meantime someone was working on a prediction of dose offsite, based upon the 800 R per hour reading on the dome monitor.
They predicted 10 R/hr 181 noble gas, was sure at Goldsboro, based upon the dome monitor and a leak 191 rate of.2 of a percent per day in the containment.
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DONALDSON:
That 10 R, was that a time dependent or was that a course of 22l' accident projection.
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GERUSKY:
That was an accident...that was a 10 R/hr.
We then contacted g
Civil Defense.
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REILLY:
PEMA (Pa. Emergency Management Agency) i i
Si GERUSKY:
And I think you contacted the State Council of-Civil Defense, to inform them at our direction--well, I was feeding the information to Margaret--
to inform them, that this is where the wind was b}owing and that to be 8j prepared to evacuate on the west side of the river.
In the meantime I i
requested them to try to get their teams somehow to Goldsboro, and they 101 said that the State Police helicopter was there and that they would get one 22) of their teams up in the air and over Goldsboro.
We stayed on the phone i
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with them.
13 {'
They found no radiation levels onsite or in Goldsboro that would indicate any kind of a leak.
% therefore, we then notified the 10 Civil Defense to hold tight.
Th;, was all before 8:00.
From that point 15, on, wc maintained an open line te the Unit 2 control room, and a variety or 16i people were on the phone including--Bill was on mainly I believe.
You were IT on the phone with them, and here are your notes Bill.
18l lh 00RNSIFE:
The next notes we have is, about 8:30, somebody came down, I 20l 1
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think it was Mittendorf, who is the Deputy Secretary of Environmental i
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Protection, Tom's boss, came down and said that they wanted somebody to go 22!'
over to the Lt. Governor's office and brief him and to take part in the 23 press conference.
So I could volunteer since I probably knew more about 24I the plant status than anybody at that point.
So right before I left I 25!
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yl called back to the plant and said I need a real good briefing on what 2
happened and what the status is, because I have to go over and brief the Governor.
So I got Gary Miller on the phone.
Gary was the station super.
g And he told me that the plant was shut, that there was a turbine trip, and i
there was a violation of tech specs also.
I guess he meant by that, I m
guess he was t. liking about the aux feedwater, but he didn't say that.
He On just said there was a violation of tech specs.
He said that the defense 7l posts dose rates were less than 1 millirem per hour; there was a primary to secondary leak; the B steam generator was iso' lated; there was failed fuel; i
9f they may have temporarily lost reactor coolant circulation; the dome j
monitor reading was 600 R/hr; there was I lb. pressure in the reactor 11, building, one pound above atmospheric; that the boron concentration in the 12!
primary was 100 PPM, and they suspected there was a negative feedback from 13) the secondary to the primary.
They got some secondary side water back into 14!
the primary when the pressure was reduced in the primary.
High pressure 15:
injection had initiated and they were using high pressure injection to keep 16i the core covered.
And they may have had a bubble in the primary; they 17i depressurized.
Than I went over to brief the Lt. Governor.
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19i DONALDSON:
At this time did they discuss any releases or any possibility 20l l
for releases, at any time in the future?
21l 22 00RNSIFE:
I just asked for plant status.
I guess after that we were in 23 constant communication.
I'm sure that was..... Miller just briefed me on 24t i
the plant status--what had happened, what initiated the transient and what 25l l
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y the status was now.
We knew there were no releases occurring at that time, nothing measured offsite.
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DONALDSON:
I believe at about 10:00 or 10:30 is when they received some j
first offsite results indicating that there may be some levels of iodine.
_f Does that correspond w'ith your recollection?
Of I
REILLY:
That' about right.
They had taken some airborne iodine samples 8l on the vest shore and also some, I remember one value south of the obser-9!
vation building.
The estimates that they had from the field estimating i
101 techniques suggested iodine 131 concentrations to the order of 10'O mC per cc.
And they wanted to verify this because this was getting into a rather 12 ',
I interesting inhalation pathway hazard, although not an acute problem.
They 131 wanted us to verify their estimate using our counting equipment. in that 141 their backgrounds were steadily going to pot.
Arrangemerits for this were 15j made between myself and Dick Dubiel.
And Met Ed was going to chopper the 16i cartridge to the heliport at Holy Spirit Hospital and we would send a 171 runner over to get it.
I think I must of spent the greater part of 3/4 of ISj an hour trying to get through to whoever at the hospital was in authority 19' to tell them, "there is a helicopter coming with the sample-not to worry."
201 So finally we. straightened that out and we ran the sample, and the con-
-10 centration we observed in that was to the order of 10 gg,,,
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DONALDSON:
What was the minimum detectable amount on the counting system?
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SHACKLETON:
W'll break the tape at this time and Maggie can come back on it and respond to that question on the other side.
The time is now 12:39 p.m.,
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i 5/3/79.
31 4f 5;!.
SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the conference taking place at the j
Department of Environmental Resources.
The time is now 12:43 p.m., May 3, el i
1979.
7!
i aj DONALDSON:
I think whan the tape ran out, I itad asked you if you could 9l recall the MDA, minimum detectable activity, for the...
11!
i REILLY:
I don't think it was reported, this would not have been a routine 12!
sample from the standpoint that...I have no knowledge of what the volume 13}
8 was on it.
Our usual MDA, say for 3 x 10 cc sample, which is about what 14!
we collect on a weekly 1 cfm sample, our MDA on that is about 4 x 10"I4.
15i That would be a routine sample, but I don't know what it would have been 16; for this one.
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DONALDSON:
I v nder if you could discuss a little more, the rationale or 19t the thought process that went back and forth regarding that high sample, 20t i
and whether or not you decided to initiate any actions or recommend any 21l further studies on the part of the licensee.
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REILLY:
Okay. Well, they were continuing to take air samples and looking 241
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for airborne iodines.
Based on that number--the conflict between their 25!
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18 yf field estimate and our lab estimate, I very quickly came to the conclusion 2j that it's harder to do a decent job of estimating airborne iodines in the environment than I thought.
I don't recall that I told them to keep sampling.
3 That is something that I assumed that they would do because that's part of their routine.
I also decided at that time--we have a sampler down at the l
5 bservation building and I decided we were going to let that keep running 6
until whatever it was that may be coming was over so at least we would have one historical sample.
Our field guy was all hot-to-trot to go out and 81 change the TLDs, and I kind of wish I would have told him to go out and I
change them that day, but I thought I'd let them in place to.
Somewhere in 101 there I called AG, Department of Agricultural, to alert them to the fact 12!
that something funny had gone on or would go on, and that we would get back to them about sampling rational, depending on how the situation developed.
Somewhere in there too, around the time I was trying to tell Holy Hilton 14I that i helicopter was coming, we got a call frem... I don't know--did we 15i call Mineholt or did he call us?
I dcn't remember but...
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17l GERUSKY:
He called us.
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19l REI'_LY:
The RAP (Radiological Assitance Plan) gang at Brookhaven called 20!
l and said " Hey, do you want us?"
I said, "I'm not sure yet, we'll call you 21; j
back." Of course, I was thinking, well you know it would really be ducky..thei r 22i j
ET was like four hours anyway.
I thought, well, by that time things may 2 31 l
l well be over.
Then later on we decided, well you know, we will drag them 24[
down.
They got here around suppertime, I guess.
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DONALDSON:
Maggie, do you remember that the result, cartridge result was available, made av;.ilable to Met Ed at the site?
2!
3 REILLY:
I don't remember, it would have been late morning.
5' DONALDSON:
Before noon sometime, at any rate.
7 REILLY:
Yeah, I believe so. I couldn't swear to it.
9' DONALDSON:
Do you know if...
101 11l REILLY:
Sometimes I think the only way I'm gonna remember any detail on 12!
this is to time regress me under hypnosis.
You'd get all the parentheticals, 13 too.
14!
15i ESSIG:
Maggi,e are you pretty sure it was late in the morning hours, as 16i opposed to middle afternoon or that...?
e 17 18(
REILLY:
It could have been early afternoon.
19i i
20; GERUSKY:
No, it was late morning, because I was here when the decision was t
21 made.
You were here.
I think you were here when we got the information 22 over the--well, we got it while I was here anyway, and after that I went to i
l 23 l
the Governor's Office in the morning so..
I 24' 25!
s i
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i
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20 l
gj DORNSIFE: I can tell you exactly when it was.
2:
i DONALDSON:
All right.
3l 4!
00RNSIFE:
I was on my way to the press conference, and you called me right g
-8 before I left and told me that they had found 10 of iodine in Goldsboro.
7I DONALDSON:
OK.
8 i
00RNSIFE:
10!
~
That was about eleven.
11f 12l OONALDSON: And so it was on its way out.
7 131 00RNSIFE: Yeah, i' fact everybody got mad at me over there, because I just 141 l
got it on the way over--before I went up there and I didn't tell anybody 15i about it.
We knew there were small releases.
I told the Lt. Governor and 16i everybody that there was nothing detectable offsite.
And I told the press 17l l
that they'd found a little bit of iodine...
18i 19i GERUSKY: We heard you on the radio.
20l 21j REILLY:
22; Could hear Bill shouting on the r:dio esentually.
I 23 DONALDSON:
Do you recall whether or not, when the result of your counting 24 of that sample had returned and you passed it on to someone at the site, 25!
t I
i.
j l
l 21 li whether or not there were any discussions that centered around a correction 2
factor that should be applied to future readings in order to get a handle...
3 REILLY:
We didn't discuss it, but I sort of punched and filed it, but it 4
5 w uld be hard to really settle on a correction I think, because it would Gi depend on whether you've got--what kind of background your counting this 7i thing in.
And it would also kind of indicate too that noble gases love g{
charcoal too.
So--and that's going to vary all over the place, whether i
you're seeing iodine that's falling out or iodine that's admixed in a plume g.
10}
i 11; I
DONALDSON:
Now this was sort of a one time thing, or what through the 12t continual sampling that Metropolitan Edison was doing, were additional samples varied to you or somewhere else?
15!
REILLY:
think there was, I almost think there was a second sample.
16i e
17l DONALDSON:
I think what I'm really trying to get to is, was there a..
18{
19!
20:
I REILLY:
We did set up a routine.
21[
2Nl ObNALOSON:Was there any method used to ensure that the general components 23 of the release had not shifted?
24l 25l i
I
6 6
l I'
22 i
1f REILLY:
No.
s 2;
DONALDSON:
3 In other words, that some point down the pike all of a sudden the iodine went up and noble gases went down?
Si GERUSKY:
No, we were--
Si 7l REILLY:
No, we..well go ahead.
91 i
GERUSKY:
We were concerned that the first indications that came in showed 10t 11!
no iodine and that they were finding radiation levels but no iodine.
And then they got one sample in Middletown, and it was the only one that I know 12!
l of that was a high iodine.
And all their other samples were low, but they 13J said they were having problees because of the xenon in the filter, and in 141 actually counting that.
And so we said "get it up here in a hurry and we'll cross check it," because you krow that's important, and so that's 16i what happened.
I don't believe that at any additional time we got any 17!
indication of iodine from their sampling program...that there was any 18i iodine being released.
As a matter of fact, I think that t'he information was that all of their iodine numbers were negative from that point on.
20!
i 21f DONALDSON:
I guess what I am hearir.g you say then, is that from that 22 point there, you were not made aware that there were any high environmental 23 samples that would even indicate the possibility that iodine were present, 241 so there was no need to cross check at any future time?
25l l
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l 23 I.
lj GERUSKY:
No, No.
We did not have available to us the portable equipment.
2 We assumed that they were continuing to run samples.
When we asked B N L I
3}
to come, we told them that we didn't have portable equipment for iodine monitoring and they said that they did and they would be out checking it.
gj So when the B N L team came in, that's one of the first things they did, was to run iodine in the environment and couldn't find anything.
6 7l 0 NALDSON:
Approximately what is the time...
8 9i GERUSKY: Later in the afternoon; 6:00, 7:00 in the evening; first evening, 10,;
still no iodines.
11!
12; DONALDSON:
Then, at the time that you had cross checked the sample the you believe came from Middletown, you felt comfortable, through the discussions with Metropolitan Edision.
16l GERUSKY:
17;j Yes, because all the rest of their samples were reading negative t
This is the only one that was high.
I believe what probably was 181 l
happening was that they weren't in the plume except for that one time.
19!
They were reading shine.
20l 21l 00RNSIFE:
I think one of the reasons we thought it was a temporary iodine 22 problems was that's when they were venting the steam directly through the 23 atmospheric relief dump valve... It's about that time.
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24 GERUSKY:
Yeah,that's true too.
i 2!
DORNSIFE:
And they regained condenser vacuum later that afternoon.
So 3,
there was some correlat' ion that you would expect to have some iodine when 5
they were venting the steam directly in to the atmosphere.
I Si DONALDSON:
I guess that's what I wanted to clarify.
You would have expected 7
8l iodine.
Yet everything indicated that it wasn't there, and after you'd 1
cross checked, our understandings are, that was their approach from then 91 on.
They continued to air sample, however...
10-11!
l GERUSKY:
And we forgot that you guys were also there about that time, that 12; NRC was there, and that airborne samples were being taken by NRC.
You got there before they indicated any releases offsite.
141 15; DONALDSON:
Tom did you, I think you have some questions that you probably 161 want to pursue in that area.
1-181 ESSIG:
I just wanted to come back to one area that you had mentioned 191 earlier, Tom, regarding the measurements made in Goldsboro at, I believe it 20t was between 7:30 and 8:00.
Did they have a team over at that time? Or was 21:
that just a prediction of what would be in Goldsboro?
22 23' REILLY:
That 10 R per hour was just a prediction based on the dome monitor.
24i i
25!
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4 I
1 J
i
l 25 iy GERUSKY:
T W they sent a team over with a helicopter.
^:
i 2l ESSIG:
The team was at some later time then, and not between 7:30 and 3
8:00.
4!
l 5l l
GERUSKY:
Yes, a helicopter was there onsite.
They said, "OK, we'll get 6,
someone in the helicopter to Goldsboro right away."
And that was 10 to 15 minutes later that We got the word that there was nothing in Goldsboro.
Nothing was detectable in Goldsboro or anyplace...
10!
ESSIG:
"Nothing" meaning.just the direct radiation...
1 11 12 GERUSKY: No radiation detected... direct radiation.
131 14!
t ESSIG:
But no air samples taken at that time?
15i 16i GERUSKY: Not in the helicopter.
I don't recall whether we got air sampling 17l or not.
18j 191' REILLY:
If there had been any elemental iodine to speak of, I think that 20i we would have it in milk, which we started sampling like the 30th or before.
21l The 29th, I think, is the first milk sample, we would have seen it.
22 23 ESSIG: Yeah, but we are still talking about the 28th right now.
24 25!
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I 1
26 j
REILLY: Yeah, but if a good slug went out, sufficient to be a isolation hazard, you would have seen it in milk the next day, certainly.
Because milk peak only comes two days later.
3 4l ESSIG: Yeah, right.
5
'l 6i EILLY: So...the thing that kept driving me crazy was that I could never 7
imagine a reactor accident where you could read noble gases with a geiger counter 'and not have an iodine problem.
That just dumbfounded me, and it 9l still has me in its clutches.
Something else I might want to inject here.
101 This is just sort of along the lines ofr folk humor, or whatever. I was on 11!
I the phone talking to Dubiel trying to arrange this, choppering the sample 12!
up here.
He was on another line talking to the guards saying "I want you 13 guys to understand there is a helico7ter coming with Herbein on it.
I just 14!
i want you to understand not to shoot it down. (laughter)
I don't have any 15i identification on it, but there's a chopper coming with Herbein on it."
16i They wanted to tweek their security people, anyway.
171 18i ESSIG: I just wanted to, would like to go over just once more the first 19:'
sample that they collected which had, in their estimation, positive iodine 20t concentrations.
Was that the same sample that ended up being ferried up to 21!
you for counting?
22 23 GERUSKY: I believe it was.
2a 25f t
I I.
s
i l
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27 y
REILLY:
Yes, the Goldsboro sample came up.
I almo,st think we might have done a second one.
2 3
ESSIG: This was somewhere in the range of 8:00 to 9:00 in the morning, on I
the 28th?
5!
i 6i REILLY: THeir sample was from early in the morning on the 28th.
That was 7l I
from Goldsboro.
They reported it to the order of 10 They ferried it up
-8 81 here and got up it here, like maybe 10 something, maybe 11:00.
10 ESSIG:
And you had, then analyzed it?
11l 12 i
REILLY: And we took it over to the lab and GeLi(ed) it and got the informa-13l l
tion back.
14:
15i ESSIG: OK, and that was back to them by early afternoon, I would think.
16i i
17 REILLY: Yeah, I would think. (Don't trust a Fed with flammables.)
181 19!
ESSIG: OK, and then I guess we said there may have been one other sample 20j which they had asked you....
l 22 REILLY: I aimost think there were two because somebody eventually said they 23 wanted them back.
I don't know if it was I&E or the facility that wanted 24 i
the physical samples back. I don't know if they ever came and got them.
25!
I c
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)
I I
i' 28 ESSIG: OK.
1 I
2; l
REILLY: But the number that sticks in my mind, is that that first testimony 3
,4.
of theirs was off by a factor of 100.
And I began to consider whether it was wise to use that system for this sort of thing.
I was playing for the 5,
future.
c.
7 ESSIG: OK.
Now as time went on then, did you--I know you were doing some 8
of your own monitoring around the sight, because I had seen...
10 REILLY: Yeah, around late morning or noonish, Copenhaver and Ursiala went out and with some routine survey equipment, sort of went out with the idea that there might be some particulates falling out from this, began to get the notion that it was nobles because you got the same numbers inside the cars as outside the car.
Plus, one of the instruments they were using is a 15li Cutiepie and we've decided you don't use Cutieples for the stuff, because 16i pretty soon the chamber got loaded with nobles, we think, because it just 17 kept reading 2-1/2 mr/ hour, 2-1/2 mr/hr.
181 i
19i ESSIG:
You did notice that then on any particular instrument or did you 20!
i notice that on several?
I 21 I
22 i
REILL(:
It was with the Cutiepie that we got this and they said that--one 23 of our problems is that we don't have any radio communications.
The guys 24 had to come back and spill their data.
And they assumed it was conta-25j j
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29 1l minated, meaning it had loaded up with plume.
The xenon was on the ground a few times, I 3.hink.
2 l
3 ESSIG: Yes.
q Si REILLY: No reason that expect it otherwise.
bl I
7l I
ESSIG: OK, then, as these survey teams were-your two people that you 8\\
mentioned, the two fellows that were out--were they both in the same vehicle?
9l i
Or were they in separate ones, separate vehicles.
101 11; REILLY:
Uh hum. Same vehicle 12l l
13J ESSIG:
And they were, early on, were...
f 15i REILLY: Essentially were down, were going down at the east side.
I remember 16; data from points along 283.
17}
18j And these data then that they were gathering, we.re you in turn ESSIG:
making these available to Met Ed? Or were you just...I'm just wondering 20; I
what kind of interchange of data might have been taking place here?
21!
22 REILLY: I couldn't say whether we threw them back at them or not.
They 23 were shifting data to us routinely.
25!
I
{
l 30 ESSIG: OK, are you aware Bill....?
1 2!
l 00RNSIFE: I don't think we were giving them, early on, any of our data.
3 WEr were just...
I Si REILLY: We only had that one...
ei 7
l 00RNSIFE:
They were giving us their data and we were getting some of our 81 own.
I don't think we were giving them..at least the direct gamma reading 91 i
certainly on.....
10' 11!
ESSIG:
I was aware of this.
I was aware of one, I think, one particular 12l I
survey which the licensee did have in their log but it was not until the 13l 30th.
It was made between 2100 and about 2330 in the day, late in the day, 14!
and were surveys, these are just direct radiation measurements again, at 15 the airport, Route 83, near exit 14, exit 16, and in Y0rkhaven, like.02 16!
+.
mr/ hour.
And these were in the licensee survey sheets.
It was noted in i
17I their DER.
So I presume that meant they got them from you folks.
181 19I REILLY:
Yeah.
20f 21!
i ESSIG: But I was just interested, if there were any other similar measure-I 22 ments that you had maybe supplied them.
From what I hear you saying it 23
(
doesn't sound like there might have been too many.
24i 25j i
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L
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k 31 00RNSIFE:
Not early on, anyway.
g i
2' 3
ESSIG: At least when we say early on, we are talking about the first three days.
4 5
DORNSIFE:
I'm talking the first day.
bl 7
ESSIG: OK, the first day. Were you aaare of any, Bill, that might have been supplis;d in the second or third day, I mean, other than the ones that 9!
i I just...?
l 11 00RNSIFE: On the second day I spent most of the day at the site.
The third I
day, last Friday, it just went to hell.
13) 14!
REILLY: We might as well have left for Hawaii.
15i 16!
DORNSIFE:
I don't know... Thursday, that we may have been issuing them, I 17' don't know.
I wasn't here most of the day... It was relatively calm Thursday, IS{
now that I think back.
Everything was over.
19l 20i j
REILLY:
Thursday was a non-day.
21!
i I
22' 00RNSIFE-Little bit of stuff coming out, but no major flaps.
23 24 2Si i
l 1.
t
,\\
I 32 ESSIG:
7 Dale, did you have something to pick up on?
2\\
3l DONALDSON: What I would like to talk about briefly would be any notifi-cations or advance warning of any liquid or gaseous effluent releases that 5!
the licensee had planned to make.
6i REILLY: Oh, that's what happened Thursday.
Thursday was water day.
About, somewhere in the early afternoon of Thursday, Dick Dubiel called and said we nave some sumps in the industrial waste system which have noble 9!
10l; gas.
It a four hundred thousand gallon inventory and it's got noble gases e
dissolved in it.
The concentration of these noble gases in water when 11!
i admixed with the blowdown from the mechanical draft cooling tower ought to 12!
be less than what the proposed MPC is going to be for the new Tech Specs.
l There currently are no MPCs for xenon for nobles in water.
Part of their 14:
i problem was that it was going to go out from a system that is not considered 15; part of the radwaste system.
And it has no cleanup capability on it safe 16i for removing oil and things like that.
So they said it's going to be lower 17 than the...this proposed MPC, does it give you any heartache?
I said no.
18l l
So about, I guess, 10% of the way into the discharge, the Commission, I 19l guess it was the I&E who said; " hey, you can't do this.
You have to get 20!
something more formal from the State." Then water quality got into it.
21f Also the Governor's office, I guess, got into it somehow.
I got the drift 22 somehow that somewhere along the line, I really didn't have knowledge of 23 it, that the Governor had proclaimed that he was going to approve every 24 planned discharge. We were getting to an NPDES permit problem from the 251 e
i I
i 33 1.
standpoint that this stuff was not going out through a routine pipe.
It 2
was beginning to get to be evening by then Dick Bordman, who is one of the 3
front office people; here, called the downstreet newsers, and it's very hard explaining to people; " hey there's some water coming with noble gases
~
5 dissolved in it, but probably there won't be any nobles gases in it by the time you get it.
And even if you do, it doesn't mean anything." We spent
" I, an enormous amount of time and energy trying to explain things to people in 7
gj high places, or people down the pike, or whatever...it was just draining.
i 9l l
00RNSIFE: Maggie, let me add something, I was down at the site when this 10l I
was all occurring and Marshall Beare was in the observation center, and he 11 I
said to me, I believe it was him, somebody out there said, "we want to dump 12t some noble gases.
Does the State have a problem with that? So I called, I la, believe I talked to Maggie.
And I just happen to, I just happened to...to 14) recall...it's covered under NRC Tech Specs, so I talked to Phil Stohr about i
15i it.
16i 1
e 17l REILLY:
But it wasn't covered under Tech Specs.
18i 19i 00RNSIFE:
20 Well that was my thought, I talked to Phil Stohr about it.
Phil came in and Phil said, "you know, if you are going to dump sometn;..; that's 21l not within Tech Specs you ought to get a temporary waiver, writeup a license 22 l
amendment or something.
Get something from Headquarters before you do 23 that."
So now, whether he initiated the later flap about closing it down i
24 L
once it started, I don't know.
E 251 I
t 0
8
9 34 REILLY:
1 About 10% of it was gone when, evidentally somebody at the site threw the brakes on it.
And then lets see something I. wanted to say...
2l, 3l ESSIG: Excuse me; that was 10% of the four hundred thousand gallons?
5 REILLY: Yeach, about that, and the site kept telling us, "we need the 61 i
space, we need the space." I'm trying to resolve things with water quality upstatrs, meanwhile thinking, "why are we messing around with dumb water with nobles in it when we could have a much more horrendous problem out at the stack?" Loved it...the utility kept telling us that we need the space.
We need, we want to have some place to dump all this water that's all over ll!
the aux building floor. We need someplace 4to put stuff.
We need the 12{
j volume.
Any minute now, it's going to over-flow and it's going to go out 131 the storm drain and you'll have it from an unmonitored point, bla,bla,bla.....F ina 141 around midnight,everything got squared away.
A press release was written 15i saying, "the Governor had authorized the discharge of this stuff."
I think 16!
it well on to the next day before they actually starting discharging anything 17l i
from it.
So I began to wonder about some of the..." hey, we need an instant 18 decision" sort of thing was coming up.
19i i
20l i
DONALDSON:
Then they did not initiate any dumping of the IWTS before they 21l had contacted someone in the Commonwealth?
t 22 23 REILLY: Right.
They--the thing was, they were so hysterical about needing 24i t
the space.
When finally word came down you can dump or whatever they 25l j
didn't come back saying that we're starting to dump for a very long time.
i f
j t
l 35 l
1l DONALDSON: Donaldson:
Did they at all discuss the ramifications of not 2.
being able to dump?
In particular, what I am concerned about is, they had water in the auxiliary building, and did they at all discuss how making 3
room for that auxiliary building water would be important to reducing Sj releases out of the plant stack?
i 6j REILLY:
j Yeah, they wanted some place to put all this water that was slopping all over the place.
I'm not sure that it was aux building water, but they g
needed the space.
That was the bottom line. "We need the space.
We just g
want to get rid of this..."
Do you have a different idea, Bill?
t 101 111 1
00RNSIFE: I think you are getting days mixed up.
It was at least Saturday 12l
[
night, because the trailers were already there when the flap came up 131 about, "either let us dump or its going to overflow into the storm sewers."
i 14!
That's when they knew there was iodine in it, cesium and everything else.
15:
That's when they finally found there was other stuff in it.
I don't 16; recall ever being, needing it, for space to dump any aux building water in.
17l There never any intention....
18i 19i i
REILLY: --Wait.
They needed space to put whatever it was they were generating.
20{
2 11 00RNSIFE: They weren't generating.
It was just accumulating there in a 22'l noncontaminated building.
It kept accumulating, and it was eventually 23 going to run over if wasn't discharged, at least under some controls, 24 l
anyway.
It wasn't until Saturday until a panic call came, "Either let us 25i l
n
t I
36 7;
dump now or its going to go over the storm sewer.
And then it was hours and days before they finally did discharge.
It wasn't really that critical.
2 l
3 REILLY: O k.
At 1430 on the 29th, Gerusky and Bordman had a conference call with the Health Department regarding the nitwit from Niosh.
Then Gerusky 5
and Dornsife went to a briefing.
Then Dubiel called and said he has four 6,i hundred thousand gallons in a sump in the IW system; would like to treat and dump and make space for overflow from rad waste system.
Concentration O!
-4 in the sump was about 10 nobles gases, xenon-133 and 135.
Concentration 9J is less than a new MPC to be used in a new Tech Specs Number had been 10(
l generated by onsite NRC van.
The number was--the concentration was later 11;
.g I
revised downward to 10 If not dumped, it would soon overflow and go out 12!
storm sewer anyway.
They wanted to dump at 200 gallons per minute to river.
That should have been to the... blowdown to the cooling tower at 14!
55,000 gallons a minute.
Asked if it gave me any trouble.
I asked NRC 15i onsite opinion.
D'dn't upset them either.
This tank is not identified in 16i the Tech Specs as a discharge route anyway.
The sump is not normally a rad 17l collector.
Collects turbine building drains and showers and such.
1Si 19l DONALDSON:
The impression I'm getting from seeing that, is that they have 20) requested to dump this normally nonradioactive water to make room for 21l storage of...
22 23 REILLY:
From the radwaste system.
24l 25I l
l l
i
E l
1 37
^
f y
DONALDSON:
While ch is radioactive in order to control radioactive water and have somewhere to put it.
2 3l REILLY:
Yeah.
4!
5 00NALOSON:
Now, what I was wondering about is, inthese discussions did ei the fact that they had to have somewhere to put this radioactive water, was' it discussed in the context that, if we can get this water contained, we Si may be able to cut down our releases?
91 10l REILLY: I don't remember that connotation at all.
It was more on the lines 11!.
we need space to put this other water.
12!
13l SHACKLETON: We will cut the tape at this time and go to another cassette.
1 41 The time is 1:11 p.m., May 3, 1979.
15i 16i j
SHACKLETON: This is a continuation of the conference at the Department of 17!
Environmental Resources.
The time is now 1:13 p.m., May 3, 1979.
18i 19I ESSIG:
Maggie, there is one question I wanted to get to before we leave 20 the liquid releases, and I guess it is more for my own education rather 21.
than anything else.
I am curious as to, does the State NDDES permit contain, i
22I does it address the discharge of radioactive materials at all?
I mean, I'm 23 wondering why the licensee was even telling --
24l i
25i I
h t
n
el i
38 l
REILLY: I don't, I don't speak NPDES too well.
1 i
2!
ESSIG: Okay.
3 4l[
REILLY: Yeah, but there is evidently something similar that dictates that n
if y u discharge some agent from other than its normal pathway, you are 6
stepping outside of some framework or other, and you have to notify down-
/
stream users.
9 ESSIG: Okay.
I was I was just trying to establish why Met Ed was even bothering to call...to request...
12!
l REILLY: Yeah. There is a State permit regarding discharge of radioactive 131 materials dowa there.
14!
15i DONALDSON:
Tom, I also think there is a stipulation in their response 16 procedures for liquid releases.
So I think it might have been involved there also.
ISj l
191 l
REILLY:
Yeah.
20 21l ESSIG:
Ok.
22' 23 DONALDSON: Maggie, I'd like to go and turn from liquid releases now to 24 gaseous releases.
And again, what we are primarily interested in are any 25j I
i I
d.
l l
1 l
l l
39 I
{
notifications you mcv lave had that related to any planned releases of 2
gaseous effluents-prior notification, in other words, before the release took place.
3 4
REILLY: Not to me, anyway.
I have the everlasting recollection of being advised that the"e was an uncontrolled release going on on Friday morning, 61 which is all part of the " Black Friday Syndrome," and the notification there had been a chopper reading of 1.2 R/hr 600 feet over the vent.
And other little nefarious things that went on that morning, that almost erased whatever real information it was you were getting from the site.
11 DONALDSON:
Bill, do you recall any discussions or any involvement with 12, any of the buildup in the waste gas decay tanks and any planned releases 13 14;i that wer to be made, any notifications you might have received before those releases were accomplished?
15i 16!
DORNSIFE: Dornsife:
I said I wasn't really in the office for a lot of the 17i l
time on Wednesday and Thursday.
I don't recall getting any information on 18j controlled or uncontrolled releases or that there was going to be any.
191 20!
l DONALDSON:
Well, maybe we will address that same question to Tom when he 21l comes back in the room.
See if he has any information on that.. 0k let me 22 look at my notes and see.
23j i
24l 25l i
l 40 REILLY: OK.
I have a note here, from Don Mcdonald.
I'm trying to establish 1
what the date is.
This would have been Thursday.
To the effect of xenon-2 i
133 and 135 being vented to the atmosphere, and that survey results by Met 3
4j Ed were being relayed to our. Bureau over our open line.
This would have been Thursday, because it leads to the water too.
They were not planning m
.I to go...no actions are planned to bring the reactor into cold shutdown el status over the weekend.
Now we were seeing...they are starting to have background troubles ourselves around then and in our lab uptown.
We're seeing nobles.
And the Feds were coming.
BETTIS (Westinghouse) was here, i
BNL was here, DOE Regional Coordinator from Chicago with a support group 10i l
and equipment from Argonne and Oak Ridge was here, ARMS (Aerial Radiological 11!
Monitoring System) was here, EPA, Las Vegas was here and the FDA were here.
I The invasion had begun.
l2t i
14!
DONALDSON: As of what time, Maggie?
16 17l I don't have a time on here, but it would have been late on Thursday.
REILLY:
That's who all at least was here then.
That does not say they had arrived 18i then.
Brookhaven had been there the day before.
19l 20l DONALDSON:
Tom, we were talking about prior notification to your Agency in 21 l
j relation to any planned releases of gaseous materials.
Are you aware of 22 any prior notification you had, or plans that would have related to planned j
23I gaseous releases during the 28th through the 30th?
j i
24 25i l
i l
r I
1 41 GERUSKY: No.
The information that we got after the first release was that It it could happen again, but not that it would happen again, or when it would 2}
hcppen again.
And I doubt--as a matter o. #act, that may have been a 3l statement made by Met Ed to the prress rather than to us.
5 DONALDSON:
But the cause of that first release and then the implication 01 that it may happen again, what was your understanding of the cause?
7 l
8l GERUSKY:
Oh boy... I don't recall, to be honest with you.
I don't remember g
what they...I don't know if they said at the time what the reason was.
11!.
I DONALDSON:
But to your knowledge, if there were planned releases over 12 which the licensee had control, you were not apprised of any intended releases before they occurred?
15i GERUSKY: No, and the information that we had was that it was automatic, not 16i i
planned.
There is a difference between something where there is a pressure 17l j
valve that has to go or else the thing would blow up.
They don' t automa'tically 13!
turn it on and turn it off.
The pressure valve pops open at a certain 19l pressure and they don't have any control over it.
So it may have been...we 20l!
had a dispute between us and Met Ed and NRC, I guess, the first day concerning 21l l
whether it was a planned release or an unplanned release.
In any case, it 22' was an uncontrolled release.
That was the important thing.
23 24 25l i
l
i.
t I
42 l
yj DONALDSON:
Then, to your knowledge, what I am hearing you say is, that to.
y ur knowledge there were no planned releases?
2 3j GERUSKY: There were expected releases but not planned releases.
5l
,i DONALDSON: Not planned?'
O!
7 DONALDSON: Thank you.
I appreciate that distinction.
8 9l GERUSKY: Sorry I have been away.
Smokin' Joe Califano just announced to 101 the press that the cancer rates were double from his first estimate of the 11!
l dose in the vicinity of the plant.
12; 13 REILLY: Cancer rates or dose rates.
14!
15i GERUSKY: The Cancer rates and dose ratet were doubled.
And I had to answer 16i a few telephone calls from the media.
171 l
181 REILLY: I want'to thank that bastard.
(laughter) 19i 20' GERUSKY:
He now estimates 3,500 person-rems to the population, and I told 21 the press it would probably go to 5.000 by Monday.
23 REILLY: And who knows what it is anyway?
24}
25i i
{
.l-e i
43 l
GERUSKY:
And nobody really knows.
1!
2!
l 3j DONALDSON:
I would like to go back to some areas of coordination, one in par'ticular.
From reviewing the licensee's procedures, it appears that 4
5l there is an understanding or at least a provision for coordinating any i
6l press releases with your Agency before those press releases are made.
And the procedures also specifies that the press releases are made by procedure through the station superintendent or the shift superintendent.
I wonder 8
if you could comment on the fulfillment of that understanding.
g 10l i
GERUSKY: After the first two hours of the accident, I don't think we were 11!
12j then operating under the emergency procedures any more, as established by I
the two groups.
And that's because statements were being made in Harrisburg 13l by the Governor's office, the Lt. Governor's offic,e and the press was 14!
clamoring for statements from Met Ed.
And it was attempted to control--not 15!
control, but to hve only a few parties make statements.
But it was impossible, 16i and especially it became exceedingly impossible once NRC Headquarters got 17I involved.
And that really became impossible.
So there was no way to run 18{
the emergency plan the way we had designed it for press releases and so 19!
forth, from this office and at the Governor's level.
20l 21l l
DONALDSON: Were there any discussions in the first two hours of the need 22 for press releases and how they were going to be handled?
23 l
24l i
25i i
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i
\\
I 1
.b t
44 GERUSKY: Once the Governor's office took over we didn't have any control any more over the procedures.
L k
DORNSIFE: Before I went over to the Lt. Governor's office, we tried to call Blaine Fabian.
~
o 61 GERUSKY: That's right.
/
8{
00RNSIFE:...To get, I think it was at the plant's request, wasn't it?
9{
i 10f i
GERUSKY:
Yes.
11!
12!
i DORNSIFE:...To get sone information from him, because we were--I was 131 i
trying to get information on what had happened.
He got on the line and he 1M didn't knew anything technical, what occurred or what...His information was 15i kind of useless for what I wanted to dc.
So that is when I called back to 16i the plant and said I have to talk with somebody who is aware of what happened 17}
and what the status is.
And that was when I got Gary Miller on the phone, 181 the ste. tion superintendent.
19 20:
I DONALDSON:
On Friday afternoon, early morning of... late morning Friday or 21!
or early afternoon, a protective action recommendation was made by the I
22l State.
Did the licensee provide information upon which that recommendation 23' was made, or did you request information from the licensee in order to come 24 up with some sort of recommendation, since it had been three days into the 25i i
event?
I I
i t
. i
I l
l 45 lj What action, what interplay occurred between yourself and the licensee?
2 REILLY:
OK.
In the morning of Black Friday, I was talking to--I believe 3
it was Hartman, at the site--it was either Hartman or Landry.
And I'had just gotten the word that the things had gotten really weird, that there g
was a recommendation coming out for ten mile evacuation all around, and the 6
guy on the other end said something " expletive deleted." The whole protec-7 tive action thing was pulled off with no consultation with us at all.
8 Zero.
g 10 DONALDSON:
Did the plant make any recommendations regarding protective actions throughout the course of the first three days?
12l i
13l GERUSKY: Yes.
14!
15i REILLY:
Early on Wednesday morning, they were suggesting that there may be 16i a problem on the west shore between Goldsboro and Yorkhaven on the 10 R/hr 17l business.
181 1
19l l
GERUSKY: I am sorry.
There was also a recommendation, apparently coming 20' from the plant to Civil Defense directly on Friday morning saying that they 21 l
had found a 1200 mR/hr reading at 600 feet above the plant, and that they 22 were recommending evacuation of five miles arcund the plant.
They contacted 23 the State, yes, they contacted the State Council of Civil Defense from the 24 plant.
t
!i
{
46 REILLY: There were two calls.
25 GERUSKY:
And there was a call, I believe--this can be checked, please
.31 check it with the State Council of Civil Defense.
But the call that stirred up the State Council of Civil Defense more was a prior call from NRC Head-quarters where they recommended evacuation around the plant.
Specifically I don't remember what the...
7)
I 8l DORNSIFE:
I talked to Civil Defense people in the last couple of weeks, and they told me exactly what each of the various players said.
Jim Floyd, i
the shift superintendent, called Civil Defense in a very excited voice and 1 11 l
said to Civil Defense, "we have an uncontrolled release.
We are evacuating 121 l
people from the site.
Standby.
We may have to tell you to evacuate downwind.'
13}
That is what he said to Civil Defense.
Then...
14!
15!
DONALDSON:
What day was this?
16i 17I l
DORNSIFE: This was Friday morning.
And I am not sure whether before or 18{
after, I believe it was after Floyd called, Dr. Collins from Headquarters 191 called and said, "we are recommending that you evacuate.
There has been 20 an uncontrolled release and we are recommending..." This is on tape up 21.
there.
Now, I am not sure this is exactly what he said, but this was the 22 gist of it. "We are recominending that you evacuate downwind,...we recommend 23!
l that you evacuate out to ten miles.
There has been an uncontrolled release."
l 24 At this point Civil Defense getting these two bits of information, they 25!
i
,1
l
[
47 1!
thought the plume had gone up.
They didn't know what to do.
Henderson was saying Garner was calling him and asking what to do and wha' is going on, 2l and Henderson...
31 4
i GERUSKY: Yeah, but they then did call us.
S 6
7{
00RNSIFE: Yeah, ok. Then, about 10 minutes later or 15 minutes later' Dr.
Collins called back to Civil Defense and said, "Do you realize, the Come.issioners 8
are recommending that you do this.
It is not only me, but the Commissioners g
are recommending that you evacuate.
111 REILLY: Meanwhile, Civil Defense called over for a hearing.
13 00RNSIFE: Civil Defense called over here and said...
14!
15';
GERUSKY: Craig Williamson called here.
16i 17 1
0]RNSIFE: "We're getting this from Headquarters and the plant.
What do you 18{
l say, what is your evaluation? And we said that, "we don't think its real, 191 but we will get back to you and let you know." And about that time it was 20 coming in over the radio, and the media had gotten it already and they were 21l saying. " prepare to evacuate." And at that point all the phones in the 4
22I building went dead.
So when we find out it was not real, we got word from 23 the plant that the readings were going down, and our team was on the way 24j down--we had sent a team out just befo.e that happened--and they were on 25i i
I e
j L
l I
48 1
the way down.
And they were confirming that the levels offsite were not 2
any higher than they were the previous day.
We tried to turn off Civil 3f Defense and tell them that it was not a general emergency that they thought 4j it was, with evacuation required...
l 5;
CERUSKY:
It was too late.
Gj 7
00RNSIFE: The phones were dead and Tom went over to the Governor's offices 8
g; and tried to get the Governor to tell them not to evacuate, and I we".t over to Civil Defense to try to get them.
We literally walked over there.
11l REILLY: In the meantime, I think we had a heated discussion on the telephone 12t with Doc.
13 14I 00RNSIFE: Yes, before I left for Civil Defense 16l DONALDSON:
Let me try to go back now and make sure I understand the sequence 17!
I correct here.
Sometime on late morning of-early morning of Friday, Jim 18i l
Floyd, the shift superintendent, contacted what is now PEMA?
191 20!
REILLY:
Yes, Civil Defense.
21 4
22 i
DONALDSON: And stated stated that they had an uncontrolled release, that 23 they may recommend evacuation, and to standby.
24 25!
r I
l f
49 I
00RNSIFE:
He said that they were, evacuating this site.
1 I
2' l
DONALDSON:
And that they were evacuating from this site.
3 4l ESSIG: And that was Henderson, specifically, that was contacted?
5 I
00RNSIFE: The duty officer.
7j 8l REILLY:
It's recorded.
There was a second call also, by a more clam 9li i
voice.
I don't remember who it was, I got this from Lamison.
There was a 101 second call just talking about this 1.2 R/hr' thing There were two Met Ed lli calls that came in almost simultaneously over there.
I 13)
DONALDSON:
So Met Ed provided some initial information as to their actions.
14!
l That is, they had an uncontrolled release, that they were evacuating the island, that they may have to, or may at some future time, recommend evacuation 16!
of offsite areas.
I assume that they were continuing to follow the problem 17; and were going to get back with additional information?
18J 19I l
REILLY: Yeah.
Yeah. We by this time had an open line with them.
Or we 20(
j continued to have an open line with them.
21' 22 DONALDSON:
So you were essentially following offsite doses all this time?
23 24 25 l
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f.
e
I
.l s
50 i
1{
REILLY:
Yeah.
2!
00RNSIFE:
3 After...and the readings in the plume, which were coming back i
4f down again very shortly.
Si
_l REILLY: The thing to bear in mind with that 1.2 R/hr thing, the weather et
{
that morning was essentially calm.
Whatever it was not going to...it was
/
sort of suggestive of a short duration, fairly rich thing that was just g
squatted over the plant.
g I
10l 00RNSIFE: Another thing, when I was down at the site the previous day, 11; I
there were readings well in excess of 1.2 R/hr at the plant vent.
There 12j i
were two 3 R readings at the plant vent so I couldn't get too upset about a 13l 1.2 R/hr reading.
It was less than almost the continuous readings were the previous 2 days.
15:
16i ESSIG:
I believe, Bill, though, that those were...at least one of those 17!
I that I saw...the 3 R/hr was beta plus gamma, and it was about 400 gamma 18l only, I believe.
And it was about 15 feet above the plant then.
Whereas 191 the 1.2 R/hr was about 300 feet.
It was at an elevation of 600 feet, which 20j would put it at about 300 feet, rcughly, above the plant.
21{
I 22' 00RNSIFE: I just, you know...seeing similar readings the previous day at 23 the vent.
24 25j l
.[
i i
51 ilj ESSIG: We get dose rate readings at a maximum on this side of the river of 2
14 mR/hr on Friday with a cutiepie reading.
3; 4j DONALDSON:
All right, so.we have a subsequent call made outside of the gf.
State and outside of the licensee, who seem to support that recommendation,
.I and from there, that recommendation was perceived as being a valid recom-el mendation and essentially, in the eyes of a number of people, began to swing into action.
I think subsequently, that the situation was put in g
some kind of perspective because that evacuation did not occur.
Is that I
correct?
101 11; I
REILLY:
Uh hum. But there was an awful lot of grief around here for people 12!
I not a party to the plan interferring with it.
13}
14!
DONALDSON:
I believe that later in the day, there was a recommendation 154 made which was much less expansive than total evacuation.
I believe that 16; was for evacuation of pregnant women and preschool children from certain 17l' areas around the plant. Did that recommendation come from any information 1Si that the plant had provided? Was that recommendation based on anything 19 that the plant had given you-for an analysis, or anything of that nature?
20 In line with the agreements that you have for--
21!
22 REILLY: Again, this is analogous to the original 10 mile evacuation situation.
23l l
That recommendation was made without consulation with us or with the plant, to the best of my knowledge.
That was made elsewhere.
25
?
I, i
1
7 I
I
[
52 I
00RNSIFE:
Tom was over in the Governor's oft,ce when that recommendation y
2!
came in fr m Chairman Hendrie.
He called the Governor's office later that m rriing and apologized for the fiasco with the earlier reading.
And Tom 3
g could relate it a bit better,he was over there.
This is what he has told me.
Then Chairman Henorie said, "If I had pregnant women and children in 5
the area, I would move them out of a five mile radius.
Of 7
REILLY:
But then he was never confronted with the mother who says, "what the difference between my five year old and my six 9 ear old?"
9I 10l DONALDSON:
Then, in terms of any protective actions that were ultimately lli implemented, the licensee, under your agreements for inter-coordination, 12; i
did not provide any information or recommendations that resulted in those 13) actions being implemented?
14!
I 15!
REILLY: Correct.
Nothing had changed.
1Gi 17l l
DONALDSON:
I might ask, had yourself or anyone else in your organizatio_n lSt and the site, had discussions concerning course of accident, potential for additional releases? Had the licensee perceived the situation far enough 20l down the road to discuss whether or not in the future any actions might be 21l
}
recommended?
22j 23I
[
REILLY: I don't think we discussed it but we were certainly thinking about 24f it.
Because the accident, as best I can perceive, it something that was 25!
{
l
\\
J
I i
53 l
1l never quite noodied out, in terms of scenarios, at all.
We looked on it as 2l a dynamic and changing situation and things cc.did very well have gone to l
p t in the next 20 minutes or the next hour, and you take it as it comes.
31 l
4l I
DONALDSON: Being the Agency that by, I guess, by State Law--
S; 6i REILLY:
By default.
7 8
DONALDSON: --Is charged with actual accident assessment and technological 9l; review of the particular event, would you say that the licensee did or did t
10t not meet the agreements and understandings that you had reached with him, 11!
in terms of providing of information and receiving assistance and providing 12!
I assistance.
13.
14i REILLY: I don't really have any great complaints with them.
I think, in 15!
essence, they upheld their end of the bargain.
16i 17 DONALDSON: Did you have any difficulties in the area of communication, them 18{
not providing information that was requested?
Any at all?
191l 20!'
REILLY:
Not too my knowledge.
We had sort of a generic communication 21 problem, being so dependent on telephones. We perceived that before the 22 accident, but all alternatives cost scratch, which I think we'll probably 23 be getting now.
24l l
25l i
6' F
/
il l
P 54 I
7l DONALDSON:
Then, from your viewpoint and the agreements that had reached 2
during the course of the incident, those agreements had in fact been met by i
3j the licensee?
i 4l
_i REILLY': Correct.
l Si DONALDSON:
Tom, I don't have anything further unless you do, or anyone g
8l else has any comments they'd care to make?
9!
00RNSIFE:
10i I would just like to add so:aething.
From Wednesday evening, when we got word that they had turned the reactor coolant pump bac'k on, and I
we knew NRC's I&E was onsite, and into Thursaay, up until black Friday 12',
morning, we were getting information that the situation was improving.
We knew that there was a release still occurring, but we knew where it was 14i coming.
It was essentially from water that was in the aux Building.
And 15, we knew that the releases were decreasing. And we were being appraised that 164 i
the situation was improving.
And this is not only from Met Ed but also 171 from the I&E people in the control room.
In fact, I think Chick Gallina 181 said in the press conference, "the crisis is over."
It was their assesment 19' onsite.
And Friday when Headquarters reared their ugly head and got involved, 20!
the crisis started all over again.
21i 2d REILLY: Let's hear it for the boys from Bethesda' 23 24i l
25l f
l i
l l
55 i
gj DONALDSON:
Let me just clarify something.
The statement that the crisis was over, you say things were improving.
Did the offsite surveys and 2
reports that you were receiving from the plant and from any other source, 3
indicate that, in fact, the quantity of material being released had, in fact, decreased or was decreasing, and that in fact the conditions were g
improving?
,.et 7
00RNSIFE:
Definitely.
They were definitely improving. The releases were going down and the dose rate offsite was continually decreasing.
91 10 DONALDSON: Then there was no communication problem.
You felt that you knew 11!
l what was going on, and what the licensee was doing throughout the period of 12!
interest, the 28th through the 30th?
14 REILLY:
Yeach.
15i 16i j
00RNSIFE:
Yeah, I don't know.
I see no problem with it.
17!
I 18l REILLY:
I remember being apprised that they were going to put plastic down 19i j
en the water on the floor in the aux. building.
They were going to try to 20l cut that as a source term.
21 22' 00RNSIFE:
The only problem that we had, occasionally we had an open line 23 l
i and I believe at some point it was shifted from Unit 1--Unit 2 control room 1
24i l
to Unit I control room after, I believe after the first morning or the 25j i
i first day.
I l
1 l
r
f ot I
56
!.lj REILLY: Yeah, there is a note in here.
2 DORNSIFE:
3 There was nobody manning the phone down there, so if you needed to ask a question, it was difficult sometime to raise somebody.
You had to g
call the outside line to get somebody to pick up the phone.
They weren't m nni,ng the phone,down there continuousl.
We were.
After--early on that 6
morning, we were, we had a the secretary on the line all the time.
I guess
,l
/
that continued for days, and just to take the information they were giving 8J i
to us.
But if we weren't asking a question, there was nobody down there to immediately pick up the phone and talk to.
10J l
lli I
ESSIG:
Let's come back to this 1.2 R/hr of 300 feet or so above containment.
12{
(
Since that seemed that--a lot of actions were keyed to that, that seemed to 131 be a trigger in itself.
To your knowledge, were there, at any time, around 14!
that t'.ae, which would be early Friday morning were there any offsite 151 radiation levels which either you were aware of that the licensee had made, or that you, yourselves had made, which suggested that everything was 17!
starting to increase to support such a number? Did you find any support for 181 that number on the ground?
19i 20' 00RNSIFE:
Yeah.
We spotted--I think had Tom said we had found a 14 millirem offsite with our team.
22lI 23i ESSIG: Okay.
I heard him...
24i I
I 25i l
f
~
57 yj 00RNSIFE: After that occurred.
I 2;
i ESSIG:
Okay.
I heard him say that.
But I guess I didn't appreciate when 3j he said that really was a --
Si I
DORNSIFE: That was as a result of that release.
Up to that point, they
.oi were elevated right offsite, but I believe in Middletown there were fairly 8
9l ESSIG: Okay.
10l 11j 00RNSIFE: They were essentially almost at background a couple of miles away 121 l
from the plant.
They were very much lower than they were the previous two 131 days, than background, or the continuous readings, gamma readings offsite.
141 i
15i ESSIG: Okay.
I would just like to come back to one other point, then, just 16l to summarize my impression of what data might have been fed back to the 17l licensee for their use in their decision-making process.
We've discussed 18i it all, but I just want to come back to it briefly.
It's my impression 191 that there was definitely 1, and possibly 2 iodine samples that the licensee--
201 l
charcoal samples, air samples--the licensee had collected offsite, which 21!
may have been analyzed by you people, 1 and possibly 2.
And aside from 22 th5t., there may have been a few direct radiation measurements which you 23 might have fed back to the licensee during that three-day period.
- But, 24 l
aside from that, as I understand it, you are not aware of any other measure-25l l
ments which may have been fed back by you folks to the licensee, to Met Ed?
I
.?
L J
D I
1 58 l
00RNSIFE:
No, I am not aware of any, but I don't think there was any, you 7
2l know... We had never anticipated giving them our readings.
We were the nes that were supposed to be getting all the readings and making the 3
decisions.
Si ESSIG: Yes.
I understand.
Right.
et i
71 00RNSIFE: So, we felt no reason to give them all our data.
I am not sure what they would have done with it, anyway.
10l l
ESSIG: Right.
11!
12 I
DONALDSON: Do you want to continue or is that the --
13) 14!
ESSIG: I'm done.
15i 16i GERUSKY: I'm done.
17l 18 SHACKLETON: Okay.
This will be the conclusion of this conference.
The 19l time is now 1:42 p.m., May 3, 1979.
20f 1
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