ML19309G264
| ML19309G264 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 03/28/1979 |
| From: | Fabian B METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8005050485 | |
| Download: ML19309G264 (18) | |
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- sovs oso qqr REPORT OF INTERVIEW On August 28, 1979, Blaine F. Fabian, Manager of communications Services, Metropolitan Edison (Met-Ed) was interviewed by William Foster and Robert Chin. The interview was conducted at Met-Ed's corporate offices, 2800 Pottsville Pike, Reading, Pa., and lasted four hours. Mr. Fabian asked and was given permission to tape record the interview. A copy of the tapes were made available to the Special Inquiry Group.
Following is a summary of the highlights of Mr. Fabian's interview.
At the time of the TMI accident, the Communication Services Department consisted of a staff of 12, including clerical, administrative and professional personnel. A number of the professional personnel had been with Met-Ed a short period of time. Members of the staff had no formal crisis commun-ications training, although they were used to operating under pressure to meet deadlines. Nine of the staff members par-ticipated in answering media calls early in the morning of March 28. As the volume of media calls increased, individuals I
were recruited throughout the company to help out until Met-Ed i
had approximately 30 people taking calls from the media (see Attachment 1).
Herbein called Fabian at approximately 7:15 a.m. and the two of them drafted Met-Ed's initial public statement on the acci-dent (see Attachment 2).
Fabian would take notes and read
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2 sentences back to Herbein until agreement was reached on the final statement.
Fabian thought Herbein mentioned high rad-f ation levels in the containment building and radioactive water on the Aux. Building floor.
He did not include this information in the statement because it was preliminary and the purpose of the statement was to advise people there had been a problem with the plant and Met-Ed was working on it -- not to give a detailed description of the accident. Although Herbein called back shortly thereafter and advised of a general emergency, I
j Fabian did not include this in the statement because it was already drafted and agreed upon. Herbein gave no instructions on how to respond to media questions.
Fabian notified Bill Murray, GPU Vice President of Communications and made sure Walter Creitz, Met-Ed President knew a site emergency had been declared. This is normal procedure. Hg should have been advised much earlier than the Herbein call that there had been a reactor trip.
Fabian held a staff meeting at about 8:00 a.m. and advised of what he knew and passed out the statement.
About 8:20 a.m.
while discussing the need to put together background information on TMI, the media calls increased to the point Fabian released the staff to answer calls. He advised the staff to read
3 the statement and answer questions on background information. The staff was not directed to refuse media questions on plant status outside the prepared statement.
Fabian in a meeting with Creitz learned Creitz was advising govern-ment officials who inquired that there were off-site radiation readings. He thought Creitz got this information from Gary Miller.
He attempted to verify this with George Troffer who was advising on technical matters. Troffer was unable to confirm this in a 9:30 a.m.
conversation with Hiller (see Attachment 3) so Fabian continued to use his earlier statement.
Creitz and Fabian drafted Met-Ed's 10:00 a.m. statement and Troffer revised it (see Attachment 4/.
Fabian did not remember any discussions on including high radiation levels in the containment building.
Fabian did not include the general emergency declaration because it would have only scared people and the statement was not designed to go into detail. He did not remember a discussion on this point.
Fabian ac-knowledged he should have given this point more consideration.
At 11:45 a.m. Traffer notified Fabian and Creitz of off-site readings above background levels. Henry Robidoux, Vice President of Operations and Fabian put together the noon statement and Creitz approved it (see Attachment 5).
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4 Fabian requests Creitz to hold an afternoon press briefing and inaves a message with Herbein's secretary to this effect.
Herbein gets word back that not enough facts are known at this point. However, about 1:15 p.m. Herbein, who is at the Obser-vation Center and Creitz agree by phone there is no way for Herbein to avoid briefing the press outside on the lawn as he left to meet Lt. Governor Scranton.
About 2:00 p.m. Creitz a' Fabian's urging agrees to hold a press t
conference Thursday morning.
For a variety of reasons the Hershey Motor Lodge was selected as the location and the details were worked out by 4:30 p.m.
Shortly after this a series of discussions take place on the fea-sibility of Creitz appearing on the Today Show and Goos Morning America at the network's request.
Fabian, Creitz, Murray and Herman Dieckamp participate in the discussions and Creitz decides to appear. About 8:40 p.m. Creitz departs for the Observation Center to be briefed for the appearance.
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About 7:00 a.m. Thursday morning Fabian and Judy Botvin leave for Hershey to prepare for the news conference. Howard Seldomridge is left in charge at Reading.
Fabian advised earlier on Wednesday he called Karl Abraham and re-quested his participation in the press conference, but Abraham declined because NRC wanted to maintain its independence. Abraham
was asked to participate because Fabian felt the media would also have questions for the NRC to determine NRC's view of the situa-tion, which at that time he believed was the same as Met-Ed's.
Fabian thought Creitz advised the Governor's office of the press conference, but didn't think he asked them to participate. Met-Ed/ State interface was handled at the executive level.
Dick Hyde of Hill and Knowlton, Fabian and Murray discuss future media relationships. About 4:30 p.m. it is agreed to set up a news center at the Hershey Motor Lodge and hold subsequent press conferences at the American Legion Hall in Middletown.
The news center was operational by 11:30 a.m. Friday. The center had six phone lines, one of which was used solely for outgoing calls.
(See Attachment 1 for news center staff.)
Troffer was to get information from th.e plant and the Observation Center and pass it on to the staff. However, because personnel at these locations were busy dealing with the accident, information was very difficult to come by.
l The decision to have one spokesman was first discussed on Friday night between Creitz and Murray but nothing was resolved.
It was felt this might not be a bad idea becaus. information from different sources was leading to conflicting statements.
On Saturday, Murray had a conversation with individuals who Fabian assumed were White House rep-resentatives. Murray and Denton discuss this subject and Murray later
6 relates to Creitz that Denton had no problems with acting as sole spokesman and Creitz agrees to proceed in this manner.
Fabian said it was his understanding Met-Ed had the prerogative to con-tinue to make public statements if they disagreed with what NRC was saying.
After this decision, the news center would only confirm previous public statements made by Met-Ed and NRC.
Asked why the news center didn't give out Met-Ed's position on the bubble, Saturday, Fabian said it would have been of no use since Herbein said this at the earlier press conference and the press essentially called him a liar.
Fabian felt in view of Met-Ed's loss of credt-bility information of this nature would have only made the problem worse in the eyes of he public.
Fabian did say, however, if people in the news center were asked Met-Ed's position they would give the information but nothing was volunteered.
Fabian left Troffer in charge of the news center and instructed him to work closely with Hyde.
On Monday morning Fabian in the presence of Dieckamp and Murray was asked by Joe Fouchard if someone from Met-Ed had publicly stated the bubble was gone.
Fouchard, who was upset, advised Murray and Dieckamp NRC didn't agree with this.
Upon learning Troffer had made the state-ment, Fabian called Troffer and advised him such statements were to be made by NRC.
Fabian didn't think Fouchard asked Met-Ed to retract I
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7 the statement nor did he remember telling Troffer to have AP retract the story.
Fabian felt the media chose to believe NRC as opposed to Met-Ed.
This was particularly attributed to the lack of access Met-Ed communicators had to correct information.
He said the media could not comprehend how the utility could run the plant and not be aware'of every detail with respect to the accident.
Fabian felt Met-Ed would be faulted for 1) promising to return phone calls and then not being able to do so because the lines were tied up; 2) being the sole source of information early on while being virtually unaccessable; and 3) security personnel keeping the press away from trailers where experts were working on the accident. This left a bad impression with the press.
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PERSONS ASSISTING COMMUNICATIONS EFFORTS, TRAILER #1, TMI, MARCH 31 THROUGH
, APRIL.
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COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES - MET-ED Blaine Fabian (Managerial)
David Klucsik Donald Curry (Photographer)
Ray Hofmann CONSUMER SERVICES DEPARTMENT - MET-ED Weldom Spangler Richard Miller Gerald Parks TMI OBSERVATION CENTER William Gross GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES SERVICE CORP. - COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT Kenneth McKee John A. Dunn William B. Murray, Vice President JERSEY CENTRAL POWER & LIGHT CO. - COMMUNICATIONS' SERVICES DEPARTMENT Samuel Laird Ed Sharrat John cononico PENNSYLVANIAELECTRICCO.-COMMUNICATIONSSERVICESbEPARTMENT Sanford Polon William Stephens (Photographer)
James Johnson John Harrington TMI PLANT - SECRETARIAL Cecilia Korchnak
PERSONS HELPING ANSWER MEDIA CALLS AT'REACING DURING~FIRST SEVERAL DAYS OF
._ ACCIDENT, MARCH 28 THROUGH MARCH 31.
COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES DEPARTMENT iloward Seldomridge (later briefly at Hershey)
Judith Botvin David Klucsik (later to Hershey and TMI)
Donald Curry (later to Hershey and TMI)
Willard Vollertsen Forrest Miller Patti Seasholtz Kim Leibensperger Blaine F. Fabian (1st day only)
CONSUMER SERVICES DEPARTMENT Gerald Parks Nancy Henrich Robert Speiss Weldom Spangler Allen Steffy Dawn (Karabinos) Pennington Richard Miller Margaret Lee RATES DEPARTMENT Edmund Kolodziej Craig Neider Diane (Glass) Work PERSONNEL. DEPARTMENT Irvin Godboldte Deborah Reinert Judith Ibach John Wizeman GENERATION DIVISION Richard Klingaman George Troffer (later at Hershey)
John Hilbish Paul Christman Michael Buring.
Randee Sherman ADMINISTRATION Jack Guerin David Epple l
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PERSONS ASSISTING COMMUNICATIONS' EFFORTS ~AT' HERSHEY'FROM MARCH 30 THROUGH APRIL 20.
o COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES - MET-ED Blaine Fabian (Managerial & Traveling) ~""'
David Klucsik (moved to TMI later)
Donald Curry (moved to TMI later)
HILL & KNOWLTON Harold Piety Annette DeLorenzo Richard Hyde (half-time)
Gregg Venne (short time)
TMI OBSERVATION CENTER William R. Gross (moved to TMI later)
ADMINISTRATION - MET-ED Jack H. Thomas SECRETARIAL - LEBANON DIVISION OR TMI Janice Esworthyc Pat Noll Norma Hummel Dianne Dearment PENNSYLVANIA ELECTRIC CO.
William Stephens (Photographer)
Sanford Polon (moved to TMI later)
John Harrington (moved to TMI later)
JamesJohnson;(movedtoTMIlater)
JERSEY CENTRAL POWER & LIGHT CO.
Samuel Laird (moved to TMI later)
Ed Sherrat (moved to TMI later) e O
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P ATTAC10!Eh7 4 l(
e Initial Statement, 7:30 A.M., Parch 28, 1979 "The nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island Unit 2 was shutdova as prescribed when a malfunction related to a feedwater-pump occurred about 4:00 a.m., Wednesday (March 28). The entire unit was systematically shut down and will be out of service for about a week while equipment is checked and repairs made."
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d ATTACMENT E Transcript of phone call from Gary Miller at TMI about 9:30 A.M., March 28, 1979, to George Troffer, Reading, to assist in providing info for Met-Ed Communications Services staff by reporting on what he said to Lt. Governor Scranton.
MILLER:
. Lt. Governor - - I had no choice but to talk to him.
1 What I said and its probably not in very good verbage is that this morning very early we experienced a turbine trip.
Two problems were j
in the secondary plant not the nuclear plant. When the unit trips j
l from 100 percent, the reactor sometimes trips from 100 percent and it did. There was very high power. That's not a problem and not unexpected. When the reactor trips due to high pressure, its one of the parameters that normally trips the reactor.. At the same time it was in the reactor building and due to the high pressure we had some relief valve lift which released from the reactor coolant to the building floor. This was not a break or a leak or anything that was designed to
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release at a high pressure.
Obviously on all reactor presrure that doesn't occur. But it didn't on this one. That gave us fod! cation of reactor building radioactivity because of the reactor coolant being released to the floor of the building.
It's c,ot radioactivity in it.
In addition to this the plant obviously experienced a pressure and temperature change fairly fast.
I didn't say this to them -- I'm just saying it te the group. I was on the phone with a nuclear engineer over there so he knows about fuel pins.
I said yes we may have had some fuel pin leakage.
I don't know that right now.
That's part of small term assessment on this thing and that's economic.
He asked if I had any melting on fuel.
I said I don't have any indication of melted l
fuel, but I may have had some fuel pin leakage which is not abnormal in the industry. I didn't say any at the present but I did say that we had reactor coolant released in the building which was giving radioactivity on the monitor.
When we get that, I said our emergency plan mandates that when I see it in the reactor building I assume it's getting out.
Therefore, I go into the general emergency.
I fully gear-up like I already got an l
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_2 emergency in the public. That means that I put people on stations, I closed the gates, I get the State Police, I make all the phone calls and I say subsequent to doing everything in the plant we have had confirmation very rapidly the number 1.
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From the time the incident started we have had no release to the environment especially above background. We have had no indication of a millirem an hour that I know of.
We know where the wind is moving -- it is moving slowly to the west. We have people at the west site boundary. We had a helicopter fly over to Goldsboro. We had the meters taken out at York Haven -- if I have to go back I will. Never had any indication. We have been in communications with Molloy in the State for most of the i
day.
We had no action level by the plan for the public.
We do not expect any additional c.r any release. We are in the process of taking the plant to a cold shetdown to evaluate the situation and that evaluation is probably more economically damaging than any-thing else -- from the public standpoint.
Is Troffer there?
TROFFER: Yes.
MILLER:
I don't expect any effect on the public. That's what I had said to people.
I didn't have any time to think about it.
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TROFFER: That sounds good.
Did anybody have an overdose?
MILLER:
Nobody had one. Nobody had an overdose or an overexposure. We have surveyed all the areas internally and roped the appropriate areas off, We had nobody, as a result of the incident, that got any overexposure.
We have taken reactor coolant samples afterwards. We may have used up a lot of quarterly doses of some people. 'I had nothing at the time of the incident.
I may have had some exposures of people during the action l
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vs needed to take in the correction of this thing in the plant.
I have seme people that I'm not totally sure of but I don't believe that ve have anybody overexposed. And we didn't overexpose anybody at the
- L=e of the incident do to anything.
For example, I have a chemist foreman that went into a room to get a sample for me.
He may have gotten a fairly good dose.
I wouldn't expect that he exceeded his limit.
OK, George. When I come back and re-assess this thing I may find some doses higher taan I expect right now because I've had people doing things that must be done. I've got full dosimetry on anybody out there --
full body count rad everything else.
That's too much detail but that's
,ust so you knou, I will say I've had nobody overexposed.
And I will say that we will have to fully evaluate that as a result of the incident vhen we can collect all the people from this thing.
It will effect nobody inadvertently, George.
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TROFFER:
- o you know when we will be able to decide when people should come to vork -- I think we are thinking about the Observation Center over-crowding.
MILLER:
The best thing is that I am keeping them hgre now.
I guess I wanted
.a be dama sure I had total control of the cooldown before I worried about that.
I have had some people come to work.
I've got one guy i
in c*narge of the Observation Center.
i I believe that it's Gary Hahn.
I have had Shovlin bring in whoever he needed.
I've sent the contractors that didn't get there home.
TROFFER:
53 we did not do that. We did not call of the contractors and send then home.
MILLER:
I didn't call them off. There were some on-site but the ones that went
- s the center I probably sent home. We did send them home. We made that
C decision.
It's just been too hard to worry about them.
They probably vent home anyway.
I've been here since 7:00 in the morning and I've been up since 4:00 and I don,'t,think I'_11 worry about the economic
- ensequences of the contractors. To get them out of our way to be ionest with you.
If anybody was on-site I kept them to use them.
KLINGAMA.5:Ve did not send our people home though, right Gary.
MILLER:
!'ve got tl.em on hold at the Observation Center.
I put Gary Hahn in
- harge to be sure that they didn't go home or wander around like ~what isppened to me in August. I have brought on -those people that Shov11n reeds. Through him. I've got to go back and assess the people right zow.
Quite frankly, up to now its been Jack, Lee Rodgers and the plant --
I've haven' t had a shot at that.
Jim Seelinger's in charge of that and he's pretty aware af what we're doing.
I just talked to the State and I gave them the scenerio that I f
,'ust gave you, but not with that kind of detail.
So they're going to release something whether I like it or not probably.
I did talk to Maggie (DER) and Dornsife which I had known' personally.
I'm pretty sure I know them well enough that they will release something that will help.
I told Maggie that if she has any problems getting us she should call Jack's office and he'll talk to her.
I think you should tell Norene that she shouldn't treat Maggie as some6ne she doesn't know -- if she doesn't know her -- in case I need something.
She's probably going to get a lot of questions from ranagement over at the Governor's office.
TROFFIR:
- think we ought to go abaad cancel this Friday tour now.
l MILLER:
Ieah, I love that idea.
George, I'll tell you what.
I'm not sure that I'll be working here Friday!
Just kidding.
If there's anything else that you need I'll be in the Unit #2 Control Room.
You can get me through
- hat.
I think you ought to release something.
I think we should.
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KLINGAMAN:: think I better verify one thing. There are rumors going back and forth as to what we have.
My understanding is that what we have is a i;eneral emergency declared sometime this morning. And it's still an official general emergency.
MILLER:
The emergency was declared sometime around 7:00.
I guess I could be off a little bit.
I KLINQ!AN:Tes, I got a call around 7:15.
mLLER:
"~e did declare a general emergency here -- that's true.
TROFFER: Die sooner we back properly from a general to a site, the better.
MILLER:
~he reason we have not, and you're right George, is because to be honest vith you we've been testing the plant. We don't know where the hell the plant was going.
See the situation we're in is a delicate one because 1
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ve act'ually have plant integrity.
If we had a leak we'd be all right --
as far as we'd have a lot more economic consequences. We've been trying to figure out how to cool down in the most expeditous fashion vithout releasing and without damaging too much.
That's taking a pretty hard assessment.
I'll work on getting out of the emergency right ow.
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4 ATTACHMENT /
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We hs.i a turbine trip early this morning due to a feedwater problem in the seconda:
side of the plant (not a nuclear problem).
This caused the reactor to trip on high pressure, which was followed by the pressurizer refief valves relieving. which resulted in a radioactive water release in the reactor building.
Si e this radioactive coolant water was released inside the reactor building, this led : the emergency plan implementation.
Radiation monitoring teams have been dispt ched on site and off site to monitor for possible external radioactive releases. None has been found, and we do not expect any.
We a t presently bringing the plant down to an orderly cold shut-down condition, with no consequences to the public expected.
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J ATTACHMEiff F
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Statement ?recared For Answering Press Oueries As Of Noon, thrch 28, 1979 At 4:00 a.m. Wednesday, the reactor at TMI Unit 2 was auto =atically tripped and shut down due to a mechanical malfunction in the System.
All procedures dictated by state and regulatory authorities have bem followed, including the routine notification of state Civil Defense, Environmental., and police authorities.
In accordance with procedure, radiation levels are being monitored k and around the plant. At this time, there have been no recordings of any sipificant levels of radiation, and none are expected outside the plant. No evacuation of the local population is indteated at this time. The reactor is being cooled according to design by the react.or coolant system and should be cooled by the end of the day. There is no dange.r of a meltdown.
Unit 1 at TMI is presently out of operation for a routine refueling. The two units together produce about 1700 mw of ciectricity. There were no hjuries
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either to plant workers or to the public.
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