ML19309G271
| ML19309G271 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 10/03/1979 |
| From: | Dieckamp H GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES CORP. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8005050492 | |
| Download: ML19309G271 (84) | |
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THREE MILE ISLAND SPECIAL INQUIRY DEPOSITION s
DEPOSITION OF: HERMAN M. DIECX#dP i
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MIDDLETOWN, PA.
Octe.
WECNESDAY, CCTCSER 3, 1979 Pcges 1 - 84 l
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ACE -FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.
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.t4L Ner-h C:;:itel Street
. Washington, D.C. 20001
'NATICNWIDE COVERAGE. DAILY O
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UNITED STATES OF AlTRICA
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--__________________________________________x 2i BEFORE:
1 3i NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
THREE MILE ISLAND 4l SPECIAL INQUIRY GROUP l
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l 6l Oral Deposition of HERMAN M. DIECKAMP i
7 APPEARANCES:
I 8
GEORGE T. FRAMPTON, JR., ESQ.
For - Nuclear Regulatory Conmission 9l Special Inquiry Group 10 DAVID J. EVANS, ESQ.
U.S. NRC TMI Special Inquiry Group t
11 ;
l JAMES B. LIBE3 MAN General Counsel 12 13 ALSO PRESENT:
Hartmut Schierling, E.H.
James C. Snell ja.
l R. Lawrence Vandenberg 15 TAKEN AT:
16 Three Mile Island Wednesday, j7l Middletown, Pa.
, October 3, 1979 j
at 9:10 a.m.
18 I I
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_I _N _D..E.__X.
19
' WITNESS:
EXAMINED BY:
PAGE NUMBER 20 Herman M. Dieckamp Mr. Erampton 2
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HEPMAN M.
DIECIGMP, Sworn i
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MR. FPAMPTON:
This is the deposition of Mr.
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3 Herman Dieckamp being taken by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory i
4
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Commission's Soecial Incuiry Group on the accident at Three 4
5l Mile Island at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania on October 3, i
6l 1979.
7 Present in addition to Mr. Dieckamp are Mr.
1 8l James Liberman, representing GPU and Mr. Dieckamp.
In 9
addition, Mr. Vandenberg, Mr. Snell, Mr'.
Schierline, Mr.
10l Evans, and Mr. Frampton all of the Special Incuiry Group.
11 l BY MR. FRAMPTON:
12 0.
Mr. Dieckamp, I have shown you our witness 13 Notification Form that describes the purpose of this depo-14 sition, your rights in connection with it, and the fact'that 15l the transcript of the deposition may eventually in whole or 16 in part become public inforr.ation.
17 Have you read that and do you have any cuestions 18 about it?
i A
No.
I have read it and I have no problem with it 19 20 whatsoever.
21 0
We do have the benefit of prior public testimony
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i 22 that you have given,..which we have studied and we also have l
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the transcript as corrected by you of the deposition you l
23 24
- gave, I believe, in early Aueust to the President's Commission 25f Staff.
l me es ses=oon...e es=<.es. i.is oto u.66 o.a. we>=..ma,
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3 Ij We will attengt not to repeat matters that are
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covered in that other testimony just for th.e purpose of saying 3'
that we asked you the same questions.
We will try to focus
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on things that have not already been covered in prior testi-4-
5 many.
6j I would like to begin by asking you a series of i
7 questions concerning your activities on March 28th and the i
8!
four or five days after that.
9; I believe that you have testified before that you i
10j were in Harrisburg that morning and that you got a message 11 around 9 :00 o' clock in the morning about an incident at 12!
TMI-2 and that you shortly thereafter talked to Mr. Creit:
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13 and Mr. Arnold, is that right?
14 A
That is right.
15 0
Then you recall talking to either Mr. Arnold or 16 Mr. Creit: an hour or two later in the m'orning on that date?
17 A
That is right.
18 0
Based on what you learned from them in those 19 telephone conversations or any other conversations you had 20 that morning, what kind of an impression did you have about 21 the situation here?.
22 A
I couldn't say that the impressions I~ gained were 23, very clear in talking with Creitz and Arnold.
I guess I I
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24 learned of the shutdown of the plant, the actuation of the 25 emergency core cooling system, the radiation alarms, the esOMsCK STENCORAP* esc SERysCt. 1493 OLO WILL NOao. wvossisesNo. pt. 19610
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declaration of the site in general energencies, the off s
2 site radiation monitoring, the indicated levels of off site j
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activity releases, specifically at Goldsboro.
The indication or the impression from the plant that there had been fuel 4'
5l damage.
l 6'
I recall specifically having cuestioned the obser-1 I
7 vation conclusion about fuel damage and having questioned it 8!
on the basis of saying that, "Well, if the emergency core 9
cooling system was activated, isn't the design basis for the 10 emergency core cooling system to prevent that fuel failure?"
11 Therefore, I am not sure I know why we got failed fuel so I f
12 am nervous about that con.clusion.
If we got radiation, we I
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can't set that aside but at least I was concerned about what
-3 14 appeared to me to be the immediate inconsistency of those 15 things.
16 I really did not get a very strong feeling about 17 exactly where we were.
I didn't get the feeling of impending ja danger or the depth of problem that I ultimately became aware of.
l 19 I also, on that same morning, stood in on the 20 1
Bill Scranton press briefing in the State Capitol.
It must 21
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1 have been around 11:00 o' clock in th'e morning; at which 22 point I guess it was Bill Dornsisf who was giving a fair 23 j
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am unt of a run down of what he understood to be the status
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of things at the plant.
I don't know where Dornsisf got his 25 H
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1l information, but I guess my imnediate reaction at the tire I
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2l was that Dornsisf was terribly positive and I wasn't quite 3l sure in my own mind that there was a basis for being cuite
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as positive as he sounded.
5I 4
How did you come to go to that briefing?
i 6l A
Since I was in that complex there, I was in the i
7 North Office Building in a meeting with the Pennsylvania PUC, 8j I became aware of that briefing and I just decided to go up 9!
and listen in to see -- it was just another opportunity for 10l me to learn what was going on.
11,
G Nobody turned to you, I take it, and asked you i
12 i during the briefing what you knew about this?
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13 A
No.
I am not sure anybody even knew who I was.
14 It is a very small crowded kind of a little room and I just I
15l stood in the back and listened to the -- the reporters. were 16 all crowcad around the front' talking to *Dornsisf and Scranton.
17 I was probably kind of unobserved.
Not that I made any g7 c'.t 18i effort to be unobserved, but I didn't make any effort to push myself forward because I frankly had very little 39 information.
20,
0 Why do you say he was surprisingly ~ positive?
21 A
lBecause he was -- my impression was simply that I f
22 felt he was positive.
It was not that he was saying things 23 that I knew to be wrong, but that he was saying things that
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I didn't. feel that I would have been able to say with'quite 25 ascaseca ettwoonaesesc samvice, tais ota seeLL eoao. wroasissnee. ea. isseo n
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I that degree of positiveness, simply because of what I didn't 2l know rather than what I did know.
3:
I definitely had that kind of a feeling, you know, 4l a kind of a generali::ed feeling.
In a sense, I probably 4
5 learned -- Dornsisf's words were probably 90 percent of what 6l I knew at that time.
In a sense, I took his words also as i
7' being somewhat reassuring to me of the status of things even i
8l though I was a little nervous of whether he really knew things l
9 as well as they sounded when he made the statements.
10 0.
As you stood there, did you believe that the plant j
11l was shut down?
12l A.
Yes.
No, I was assured of that early on that the 13 plant had tripped, the rods had been inserted, the power
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14 level was down, and the plant was shut down.
13 hat I did not 15 know at that time and did not come to know a day or a day and 16 a half if not more, that the.energency '- th'e high pressure 17l injection system had been defeated or interrupted and thus 18 the very premise that I was dealing from that the inherent 19 plant system would prevent these kinds of occurrences had i
20 been contravened and had not been able to function. (sic) 21 Q.
As-of late morning, was Mr. Dornsisf saying or 22 did you note that the reactor coolant pumps were off or l
there was some problem with forced cooling?
l 23 l
l 24 A.
No, I don't have a recollection -- a specific 25,
knowledge of-whether the coolant pumps were turned off.
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I really did not become aware of that -- perhaps I was aware 2
of it.
I was aware that they had to have been off because I
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3i became aware late that sane evening after the plant had --
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4 after forced cooling had been re-estab31shed chat a limiting 5
factor had been in getting a coolant pump back into operation.
6 I guess I have to say in that sense I had to become i
7 !
aware that the pumps had been off and that the forcing action 8
had stopped.
95 0
I am interested in the reaction which you expressed 10,
and I believe it was over the telephone, to Mr. Arnold about i
11 the possibility of fuel failure.
I 12 '
The way I heard it, do you recall saying to him 13 in. substance, "That can't happen, that is why we have an 14 emergency core cooling system"?
15l A.
I don't know whether I said it that way or whether 16 I said that is inconsistent with the design -- the basis for 17 i the design criteria of the emergency core cooling system.
I am sure there is a substantive difference in the way you say gg that, but as I recall, when the suggestion -- I think both j9 Arn ld and Creitg were very direct with me in saying, "We 20 feel there are indications. failed fuel."
There is no-21 question that they said that.
22 s
23 My reaction to that was one of being somewhat l
i l O i reluctant to believe that on the basis of my understand'_ng 24 (Q
of the way.in which the emergency core cooling was supposed 25 women svenoonaa.ie samvies vais oto meu. noso. *vowissino..a.
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It is that state of mind I am really trying to get 3'
at.
r You have had very extensive experiences with.
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reactor opere.tions and reactor design.
I wonder if that is
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6; a fair reflection of a state of mind that we have these 1
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7l safety systems so it can't happen, it is impossible, that is 8'
not supposed to happen.
9, Is that a fair characterization of your thinking I
10 ;
about the safety systems that they made impossible, in effect, I
l 11 i some kind of fuel damage?
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12l A
Let me comment,about that.
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13 First of all, with respect to the background, I 14 have certainly had alot of background in nuclear power, but I 15 would not, at that time, have listed myself as one of the nation's experts in water reactors.
g 17 Alot of my experience has been in the breeder 18 reactor technology and that sort of thing.
There are alot of details of water reactors that I have come to know since 19
[ the accident that I didn't know on that day.
20 With respect to.the state.of mind thing, I would 21 have to say that philosophically, I haveLal; ways understood, i
22 23 y u know, the fundamental basis,of the reactor safety and the fundamental aspects of all the possible faults and 24 s_
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reliabilities and faultries and analysis and the maximum 25' a
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1l and credible accidents and all those things.
Certainly, O{
2i they never in my mind got even to the point of saying it y
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3 can't happen.
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4l At the same time, I have to say to you that i' deed n
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5l my reaction was one of having an initial reluctance to i
I 6l accept the observation of failed fuel on the basis that meant i
7l to me that the emergency cooling system had not functioned a
in the way in which it was supposed to have functioned.
That i
9' was the conclusion that I drew.
10 l I said I am reluctant to accept that unless we 11{
really know that is the case.
It implied that immediately 12 to me that says, " Hey, that means the emergency cooling j3,
system didn't work."
That is something that needs to be V
ja looked at,'that is something that needs to be checked, that is something that needs to be pursued.
15 I
16 0
I think that afternoon you met Mr. Herbein and i
Mr. Miller on the steps of the State House as they were 37 coming to brief the Lieutenant Governor, is that right?
18 A.
Yes.
j9 O
Was that by chance or design?
20 A.
No.
In talking to Creitz later in the morning, l
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and I don't recall exactly when, he told me that Herbein 22 had this date set with Scranton at 2:00 o' clock.
Since 23 our session with the PUC was over around lunch, 12:30 or 3
something like that, I decided that I will stick ~around and 25 i
.....................m
10 1
I will sit in on that session; again, wanting to learn more 2
and find out more.
3l I went to the Lieutenant Governor's office and got 1
4 there about 2:00 o' clock and stood around for awhile and'
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5f talked to a few of the guys and told them who I was and what I
6 I was there for.
Sometime before 2:30, and I don't know whether i
7 i
it was ten after 2:00 or somewhere in there, I was in'effect 8
9, disinvited.
I said, "Okay, this is your business.
I am not here to inject myself so if I am disinvited, I will leave."
10 ji Q.
By whom were you disinvited?
A.
Specifically, Ray Holtz.
I don't know what his 12 13 job is or whether he is still there.
I think he had pre-s viously been with the Governor's Energy Council, the Lieuten-ja ant Governor.
He came to me and said, "You know, we would 15 kind of like to keep this at a low key meeting, just among 16 the local folks."
- 37l, I said, " Ray, do I understand you are asking me 18 to leave?"
He said, "Yes."
I didn' t think it was appropriate 39 I
t argue with him so I left.
20 In a sense, I personally didn't have anything 21 specific to contribute to the conversation, but I was 22 e neerned that our guys would be careful about not glossing 23 t
walked out, I did indeed things over and what have you.
As '
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encounter -- and this was now by happenstance, I encountered MomeCR SithoemaPoseC St#v'CE. lets OLO aeILL moaO. wvoneesseme. pa. leeto
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Herbein, Miller, and George Kunder.
They were getting out 2
of the car and coming up the steps.
I stopped there and i
3l spoke with them for a couple of minutes because they were 4j late and 'I didn't want to hold them up.
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5 My first reaction was one of chagrin that those 6i three guys should all be absent from the plant, and I sort 7
of expressed that view to them.
I said, "My God, who is a
watching the store?"
We had some brief discussion to that 9l effect.
10 ;
I don't think I could swear to it, but my mind i
11,
tells me that I think I said something to them like, "Tell i
i 12 it like it is."
You know, it was just a rather brief encounter 13 because they were in a hurry to get there.
14 G
You didn't see them after they came out?
j3 A.
No, I did not.
16 G
Did you get any chance to talk with them about 17 !
their impressions about the status of the plant at that time?
18 A.
No, only very briefly and only to the extent in 39 that brief encounter they in no way reflected to me that l'
things were in some extreme. state of distress.
20
.I guess I can't.be clear in my mind about the 21 degree of which that was explicitly stated or the degree 22 1
to which I somewhat concluded that on the basis of their 23l l
(~N own decision for the three of them to absent themselves from 24 i
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25!
the plant.
I certainly didn't have conveyed to me at that i
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I point any indication of the level of difficulty that O(
,2i ultimately we all became aware of.
1 3l CL They didn't let you know or give you the impression that they might still have a continuing problem from an 5I operation's or shut down point of view?
6 A.
Well, I am very hazy on that.
I would not l
7 characterize it as their saying that everything was completely 8l under control.
I think in terms of their feeling of comfort l
9' that things were stable, I think I got that impression from 10 i, them.
11l When you get to the specifics of whether there 12l was a pump running at the time and the problem they were l
13 I having with re-establishing pressure, I am not sure the 14 exchange was anywhere near of sufficient depth to get that 15 kind of a real feeling on the status of things.
16 I didn't get that. kind of a mixed feeling until 17 after I.got back to New Jersey, and talking with Bob Arnold 18 on the phone and hearing from him that he and Herbein, after 19 Herbein returned from the Lieutenant Governor's office, that l
20 he and Herbein had sort of reached a position or,a judgment 21 that says, "Let's;just jam water in it until we take that
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l thing solid and get flow," and that they then achieved that
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22 23l by 7:00.or 8:00 o' clock in the morning.
24 I think I was talking to him in that time period h/'
25 with that sort of milestone having been reached.
esOselCK STENOGRAPMtC SERVICE. 1493 OLD MtLL DOAO. wv0MISS4NO. PA.
19610
i 13 1!
Again, I would say if I tried to recreate, I would O(
2I sort of -- in the business then of undarstanding the effort 4
l 3j that was necessary to re-establish force convection that I 1
4 became more cognizant of the exact or at least the degre'e of q
5' problems that they had been through during the day.
6; 4
Between 2:30 in the afternoon and whenever you 7l 1.alked to Mr. Arnold as you just described, did you have any 8
other conversations or status updates about the plant?
9!
A.
No.
I guess I can't reconstruct where all the time I
i What went.
I basically proceeded to go back to New Jersey.
10'l 11 I don't know right now, and I would have to consult records as to how I got back.
I don't know whether I flew back or 12,
I was driven back, I am not certain about that.
13 I might have been driven back.
Very likely I ja was driven back which in turn would contribute to the time 15 i
schedules involved.
16 0
Did you have any contact with media people or j7 with NRC people on Wednesday?
18 A.
No. -
39 G
.Did you have any participation in drafting any g
press releases or statements that would be read on the phone g
in response to the inquiries?
12 A.
No.
g I
/
0 On Thursday I believe you came back to the site 24 b'
f r the briefing of the Senators and Congressmen who came 25 wesesCir sigesoGa&puse ggeviCE. 148 3 04D hf t(L SQAD WYQtstgggNG, P4.
19610
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up here from Washington?
O 4
A Yes.
2
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3f G
Had you known you were-going to do that as of 4I Wednesday night, do you remember that?
i I
5l A
I don't know whether I got that Wednesday night or I
6 Thursday morning.
It seems to me I got to the site around i7i 1:30 or 2:00 o' clock.
I know I flew out so I suspect I got 3l that word Thursday morning.
9 G
Did you introduce Mr. Herbein or make a short i
10l introduct' ion?
A I made a few introductory comments and Herbein jj i
12i pr "ided a briefing.
Do you have a transcript of that?
i O
I don' t know whether we do.
I think one exists.
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s I personally have not seen it.
y l; A
A transcript of that exists because a fellow --
well, one of the things I was concerned about and what I g
j7f knew of this visit was whether or not the Lieutenant Governor's office was knowledgeable of this.
i I tried to make sure he was aware of this visit, 19 i t
i so if he chose, he could sit in on this discussion or briefing 20 t or what ha"e you.
He toured the plant, I think, around noo'n that day 1
but chose not to be present during this briefing with
/~N Senator Hart and other members of his subcommittee.
He did k(2:.
have a fellow by the name of Benesch attend for him.
25 l
MONICit sTENoonapesec stevtCE. tela OLD WILL *Oao. wvowisslees, pa-sesto 4
l 15 I
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j Benesch wanted to record it.
I personally said
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to Benesch, "Look Benesch, I am not sure we record the doings i
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of Senators without their approval.
I don't have any problem 4
in recording it, but I think you bette:: make sure Senator 5
Hart has no problem with it."
6 It turned out that he did not have a problem and l
7; as a result Benesch made a recording.
I 8
Benesch agreed to give a copy of the recording 9'
to Dick Vollmer.
He subsequently refused to give us a copy 10 so we were able to get a copy from Dick Vollmer.
There is' 11 a transcript.
It has got some rough spots in it because of 12 the quality of the recording and the like.
I think it is 0(
13 probably one of the better indicators of Jack Herbein's 14 specific state knowledge at that time and how he was express-15 ing it.
16 To me, I think alot of the tdne o'f that even 17 '
though it was in that kind of a session and in many subsequent 18 sessions, it was very difficult to main. control of any 19 tone.
Alot of the tone was, there is alot we don't know.
20 g
When you were at the site, did you discuss with l
21 Jack Herbein or,anyone.else the fact that there were small r
releases'being seen as a result of off gassing the primary 22 23 system and gas going through the auxiliary building?
Did
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24 that come up on. Thursday?
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25 L
T was aware that there was some continuing levels
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of releases and local radiation.
I was of.the impression O
2 that they were auite minimal, minor.
3 Probably the most significant specific thing that 4
I was not aware of was the high measurement by the helicopter 5
over the stack that afternoon.
6 Thursday afternoon?
7 A.
That is right.
I don't know whether Jack was aware of that 3
9 measurement because it was right at about 2:00 o' clock or 10 somewhere in that area.
I had this general feeling of 11 rather minor, you know, a few M. R. kind of environmental readings, but no indications of specific levels of release 12 as measured at that same time and no discussion or awareness 13 of the plant operations that were leading to those releases.
14 0
It appears that mid or late afternoon the people 15 in the Unit Two Control Room, at least, had correlated these 16 releases or peaks in the release to the venting of the make-17 up tank and so forth.
18 There wasn't any discussion of correlation between 39 an peration and a release that day?
20 A.
I certainly was, unaware of that.
21 4.
Did you then return to rarsipanny after the 22
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briefing ~of the Congressman?
23 i A.
Yes.
(L.
24 0
While you were.at the site on Thursday, did you 25 l
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17 I
have any contact with media people or with NRC people?
O 2l A.
Well, when I got to the Visitor's Center, I met
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3 Dick Vollmer.
I had known Dick Vollmer alot of years going
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4 back to Atomics International.
We spoke about the situation 5
and what he was going to be doing.
I think his anticipation l
6J and my understanding at the time was that he was going to lead I
7i an NRC investigation into, I guess at that time, I may have I
f 8
called it, an event rather than an accident.
9>
During the briefing with Senator Hart, I intro-10 duced Dick and asked whether he had anything he wanted to 11j say.
He said just a very few things like, "I j us t go t here, "
12 and what we are going to,do about an investigation.
13 I also met then while I was there, the first of ja our guys -- maybe not the first, but a number of the guys who were arriving for the purpose of the GPU, Met-Ed. inves-15 i
16 tigation.
Specifically, Bill. Lowe and "'om Cremins, and I am not sure how many others, but they were arriving that 17 afternoon to go into the plant to begin their investigation.
18 I think they remained there in the visitor's Center 39 for this briefing of Senator Hart; essentially for the reason 20 f expecting that Herbein's summary of things would be sort 21 of an'immediate opportunity for them to get a bit of an 22 overview status, starting point understanding where things 23 were.
24 CL As of that time, had you made any requests for 25 esOmeCM STENOsmapmeC SERVfCE. 14t3 OLD Webb #Cao, wv0MISSENG. 84 19410 0
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18 1 I assistance from other industrial groups outside of GPU?
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A well, to the extent that a fellow like Bill Lowe 3l was outside GPU, I would have to say no.
Bill Lowe is a 4
consultant who has worked for us for many years.
In tha't
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5 sense, he was an outside guy, but not in the sense of the 6
outside of what became the industrial advisory group.
7' G
Mr. Lowe, or his firm, has a standing contract 8
with GPU Service?
9 A
Yes.
to -
G Did you learn that evening from Mr. Arnold or 11 from other people that the analysis that was ongoing here 12 at the site revealed that, the problem was probably more 13 serious than you thought before?
14 A
I think it was in talking with Bob Arnold that 15 evening, Thursday evening, that I first became aware that 95 the high pressure injection system had Eaen defeated and i
37 '
that very likely the core had been uncovered to some degree.
pg In the course of that, I became aware of a next level of 19 awareness of the potential damage to the fuel.
I i
Beyond that, it was my impression at that time, 20 both from the visit Thursday afternoon and still also from 21 that conversation with Bob, that things were stable.
I thirk 22 it was my perception'of a growing awareness of a greater 23
)
24l level of p tential physical damage to the core materials s_< #
discharging, you now, with early recognition of the possibilitie
'~
25 MOmeCK STINOGaAPeelC SERVICS, let t OLD MILL 80AO. WTOMISSING. PA. Itete o
O
l 19 i
Il of cracked, popped glidings and the like, and getting to 2'
j the point of starved cooling and uncovering.being more 3l severe and the damage to the fuel, but still coming back then r
(
to, we have flow, we have forced confection, temperatures are 5 I in reasonable ranges, things seem to be stable.
6 I think it was also -- I know it was on that i
7l Thursday night that Bob said to me, "I have been thinking 8'
further about the kinds of things we are going to have to 9
do in terms of the investigation and organizing the investi-10l gation and so on, assistance in the ongoing operaticn.
I i
11 l have a number of thoughts about how to organize it and the i
12l kind of people we better bring into the job."
N 13 He said, "Do you want me to come in and see you
)
14 first thing in the morning?"
I said, "No, I think the best 15 thing for you to do is to go straight to the site and don't 16 bother to come in and talk to me about it.
Just go straight 17 to the site and begin talking with Jack Herbein to begin 18 implementing these things."
19 G
You'are speaking now of the investigation?
20 A
This was in the context at that point then of
. 21 investigation that I think by that point a growing awareness 22 that we'had more things that we were going to have to do than l
23 : just kind of quietly sit back and investigate.
There was O
g 24 a greater awareness that there were more problems that were A-
' s. s" 25, going to be required.,to support the ongoing operations and J
j MomeCK STEMOeRAPNsc SERV Cf. 1813 QLD MILL RO A D. WYCMISSING. P A.
lesto m
i 20 1l the like.
l 2
I don't know that that was specified in terms of
.(
~
3 specific activities, but --
4 G
What I am getting at is this:
Mr. Arnold at 'some
,(
5 point on Thursday night or Friday morning perceived a need 6
for, I think, what he called a more formal inquiry board 7
which would be people from the service company and some outsid e 8
people to look into what had happened.
9 Was there a distinction between that idea of his
~
10 and your now perceiving a need for outside people to help'you 11l with the recovery, with the ongoing problems?
12,
A I would charac.terize it this way:
On probably l
13 Wednesday night, Thursday, we identified a half a dozen s) 14 l fellows to be sort of an incident-accident investigation 15 inquiry group.
16 G
To reconstruct the events?
17 A
Yes, what happened.
18 By Thursday night they had grown to an awareness 19 of a greater need to provide additional levels of technical 20 support to the plant.
It was in that relationship that Bob 21 said he had' thoughts about. organization and people and tasks 22 division support.
He and I did not discuss that in detail.
t 23 I said, " Gee, I am sure you got to do that; just I
24 go straight to the site and begin doing it.
Don't bother
(-
f to check with me on that."
That is-what put him at the site l
25
,J as0*e CM STtN06papwic staveCE. Sala OLD MILL ROAD. WTOassagises, ma testo w
l 21 1
I!
early Friday morning.
(
2:
0.
And you began to work on calling more people?
d j
3l A.
No, let me go one more step.
i
{
Then comes Friday morning and there is the major 4
5 release that caused the significant upgrading of people's 6
awareness of the fact that things were not as stable as 7
previously perceived or assumed or characterized.
I guess 8
I became aware of that around 9:00 or 10 :00 in the morning, 9
roughtly.
I e
10 i G
How did you learn of that, do you remember?
l 11 '
A.
I think we started getting phone calls about news 12!
inquiries.
I am not clear on this, but I probably got a l
13 '
phone call from Bob Arnold early Friday morning or in that 14 time period that gave us kind of a status report on what --
is about this release and the implications of it.
16 It was at that point'that I then ' sort of officially 17 '
decided,that we were going to need more help, more smarts, la,
the best smarts we could get and began then to make inquiry 19 throughout the industry to get assistants to give us a hand.
I 20 As I began then to call people, it was still in 21 a very generalized kind of.a way.
I think by, that time I had become aware that we were faced, and again there is this 22 4
23 growing awareness, tiiat we had the probability of extensive 24 core damage from the evidences of uncovering.
I became more fw 23 keenly aware of the significance of some of.the hot spot asoaesCK STENOGNAPHIC SERWICE, 189 3 OLO tedLb SOAO. wv0 asis SING. P4.
t9810
~
l 22 i temperature indications as contrasted with the mixed mean O-1
(
2l outlook temperature and also aware of the presence of the 3
large quantity of non-condensible gas in the primary system.
i
(
4 As I began to talk to people, I said to them, 5
"Look, I think we need people who are system analysts, people 6
who understand the hydraulics and understand heat transfer."
7I I said, "I don't know exactly what we are going to have to i
8 do.
I just think we are going to need smarts in those areas.
9 Who do you got?
Who is a good guy?"
i 10 '
If I happened to know of somebody, I would say, il "Could so and so come to help pitch in and see what we've got 12 to do?"
It was not in a. clear knowledge tMat we were going
()
13 to do A, B, C, but rather a kind of a feeling that these 14 l were the areas of technology or the areas of different h
15 '
disciplines or phenomenon that we were going to have to deal 16 with.
i 17 G
Did you spend a good part of Friday calling 18 people yourself, or did you have other staff people doing 19 alot of that, do you remember?
20 A
I spent a good part of Friday and through virtually 21 all of Friday nighte I stayed overnight in the office.
22 calling people and talking occasionally with the site.
We 23f were having significant telephone problems with the site so I
24 we kind of worked out an arrangement that Arnold would try
()wJ l
25 i to call in and call back to Parsippany every hour or hour i
teON8CM STENOGR A P***C SERWtCE. 1419 000 WeLL 80 AD. WTOMitSBNG. Pa. togio 9
23 j
i 1i and a half as he would get a chance to give us an update.
O i
2 During Friday night, communications weren't too 3i bad at 2:00 o' clock in the morning.
I spent a fair amount of 4
time several times that night talking with Bill Lowe abo'ut 5
the business of the non-condensible gas, the hydrogen, the 6
way it was measured, the size of the problems with radiolytic 7li decomposition, the rates and all those kinds of things.
ai Having a certain back of the envelope awareness 9
of radiolytic decomposition of water because years ago I 10!
worked on solution reactors where you get alot of radiolytic I
11l decomposition....
I 12l I spent a fair fraction and I couldn't tell you i
I exactly whether it is a half or two-thirds of the time 13 34 j during Friday -- late Friday morning and Friday afternoon calling people.
Bud Cherry, one of the guys, pitched in.
15 He called several people, several organizations.
One of his 16 guys had worked at Electric Boat and he gave us a name of
{
37 a guy at Electric Boat and got access to some health-physics 18 people.
39 That went on, I would say, during the day Friday 20 and on into Saturday morning.
I think some of the initial 21 pe ple I contacted were EPI people and asked specibically 22
\\
for Levinson and Zebroski because I had gotten to know those g
l individuals quite well over the last few years and knew of 24 :
D their-capabilities.
25,
i t
MONICR STEMOSeamweC SEEVICE. 9483 OLO usLL 20a0. wvomissime. #4. 196t0
l 24 t
I 1'
Floyd Culler helped me identify people within j
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I
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2i Oak Ridge who could be useful to the radiation control or k
i 3l radiation waste problem.
He was a fellow by the name of 4
Bob Brooksbank who came as a result of that inquiry.
5 I talked with Bud Cherry, I talked with Philadelphi n 6
Electric and Public Service Electric and Gas relative to 1
7>
health-physics type people through Bud Cherry through Jim i
I 3
McConnell who made contact with Electric Boat.
I in turn 9
had to call a fellow in the Naval Reactor Branch by the name 10 of Miles in order to get Electric Boat to feel comfortable 11l to let a health-physics guy become available, et cetera.
i i
12 i It was that kind of a chain of communications that 13 we. had to go through to get that guy here.
(Js 14 l I talked to people at Bechtel, I talked to my 15,
former colleagues at AI and asked them for specific people.
I I
16 I think there is a list of ofganizations that I 17 '
specifically contacted that we gave to the NRC Inquiry Group.
18 I don't know whether you have that list or not.
MR. FRAMPTON:
Off the record.
19 l
(Discussion had off the record.)
20 THE WITNESS:
This started, you know, late Friday 21 22 morning, Friday afternoon, Friday. evening on through Saturday 23l and as late as Saturday evening and Saturday evening I 24 know specifically after getting to the site here I was still 25 calling people like Libarrando and Kauffman from EG&G or escessCIE STtancemapeesc SERVICE. tela OLO usLb eOAG. wvouessasso. Pa. veeso
I 25 1i fellows with a law program background and also I called Dale
{
j Myers at DOE and asked him to round up masses of foremost 3l experts in hydrogen because we need a hydrogen expert here.
a,I r(
Most of these people that I had contacted, a good fraction of 5
j them, arranged to arrive here late Saturday afternoon.
I 6l We had the first sort of formative meeting of the i
7 !
IAG -- what became the IAG down at Building 26, somewhere 0
around,and I don't know whether it was 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 9
o' clock in the afternoon, on Saturday.
10 BY MR. FRAMPTOM:
II 4
Let me stop you for a minute and ask you whether 12l by the end of Saturday ni-ght you had pretty much completed h
13 the process of calling people to get the major systems you 14 needed or whether that continued on into Sunday morning?'
15 A
No.
I think it ought to be characterized this With the exception of discussions 'with B&W Management 16 way:
17I and discussions with Westinghouse that occurred over the l
18 next two or three days, my efforts to aggregate additional 19 people into that group essentially stopped.
What happened l
20 then, was the group tended to self aggregate. additional 21 people,. guys like Levinson*and Zebroski and.Leavy, began 22 to bring in other people on their* own.
t 23 g
For areas that their colleagues perceived --
()
.'.That's right.
That group then grew from, you 24 A
s 25 know - 'I, guess personally I might relate to nucleating I
uomica stawoonapaic samvice. esis o6a wou. acao. wvomisso.a. pa. seeio
26 1
25 to 30 people.
That group then grew to something over a
( {)
.l 2
hundred in the next week and I think there were a few people 3i that also sort of added into that group by the NRC.
The i
(
4 specific guy that falls into that category is the instrument 5
guy.
6 0
Ackerman?
7, A
Ackerman.
I think he was brought in -- maybe 8
Vic Stello or someone called him and Ackerman kind of joined 9
that group.
j 1
l 10 In other words, it kind of became an amalgam of j
11 l people once the original nucleation and then it sort of self -
i 12 propagation and co-opting some of the NRC people.
()
13 G
Did you yourself identify areas where the best 14 people that you could get quickly would be NRC people?
Did 15 you request specific people from the NRC?
16 A
I would say there was only one --' I keep thinking i
17 ;
maybe two, and I can't think of what the second one was, but l
18 '
at least one specific case where I did not go after somebody 19 in the NRC because I knew he was the best guy.
When I went 4
20 after the fellows at EG&G because of their loft background, 21 they in turn said, " Gosh, we work for'the NRC and we are not 22ll sure' we want to give you a hand..We may have a conflict of 23l interest problem."
')
24 I said, "Well, I would hope that you can talk to d'
the NRC*and resolve that problem because we are both trying 25 l
i atomeC88 STtNCS A A PMIC SERVICE. 1493 OLO notLL moaO. w?Onassime, pa. tegeO 1
27 I
j to do the same job."
Indeed, that is what happened.
They 2l
(
talkeA to the NRC and then got back to me and said, "We've got it cleared and we will be there."
4 I felt kind of good about the way that worked out.
5 We didn't really end up with a hard barrier there that was 6
controlled by a conflict of interest question.
I guess I 7
didn't really relate'to anybody specific in the NRC.
After 8
I got here I began to realize that concurrent with this 9l formation of the IAG, the NRC fellows had their own network l
10l out that was accessing all kinds of organizations, vendors, i
11 j contractors, their national labs.
I guess over the next few 12l days we found that some of these organizations were fighting 13 themselves getting the.same or similar or slightly different i
l questions from the two sources, one from us and one from the 14 15 NRC and we had a little bit of confusion occassionally out in 16 some of these contractor shops in terms 'of who is calling 17 what shots.
18 Again, I think those things worked out.
They 19 were not really a critical problem other than a bit of a 20 very minor piece.of inefficiency, and that is a neutral word.
21 (L
I would like to go back for a minute to Friday 22 morning'and ask you whether yo0 had any conversations on
\\
23 Friday morning or ear'ly Friday a5ternoon with either NRC I
l 24}
people or state officials as a result of the evacuation plan.
v*'
25 A.
I don't recall any conversations with anybody in MomHCR STtteOdma*mec $ERVICE. 1483 OLD MILL 40a0. wrousesspeG. 74.
19410
28 I
Pennsylvania State Government on Friday.
I recall conversa-
\\'
2 tions on Friday afternoon with an aide to Governor Burn who 3!
was callina to keep Governor Burn informed.
Fe did have l
that contact, but I don't recall and I am virtually certain
(
4l 5ll that no direct contact between me and anybody in Pennsylvania 6
State Government.
l 7'
I don't have any recollection of any specific 8!
conversation with anybody in the NP.C on Friday.
I do clearly i
9!
recall on Saturday morning approaching noon or 11:30, 12:00 i
o' clock, somewhere in that general time period, getting three 10l 11 phone calls in rapid succession from Denton, Hendrie, and 12j Fatson all with the same. message.
They said, " Gee, we urge i
13 you guys to get busy and try and bring as many outside experts
( )s 14 as you can."
15 l I specifically recall talking to Jack Fatson and rattling off the longer list of people that we had already 16 17 made arrangements with.
I don't have quite the same recol-lection of the same degree of a longer listing in talking.
18 with Denton or Hendrie.
I may have, I may not have.
19 20 0
Did Mr.Hendrie tell you that Denton was going to l
come to the site?.
21 s
A No, I don' t have any remembrance of that.
22 t
23 O
Did Denton?
A No.
I think he told me, "I am here."
24,
-s
)
He was already here?
25ll
.... m.........m.,o.
..m...................
n
)
l 29 1l A.
Yes.
This was Saturday morning when I talked to O
2 him.
I probably learned about it in the newspaper or maybe
(
3l Bob Arnold or somebody told me Friday night that he had b
I.
4 arrived.
That would have come up late Friday afternoon.'
s 5
0 Do you recall any other subjects that you talked about with Harold Denton?
6, 7
A.
In that ti:ne period, Friday or Saturday?
0 Yes.
8l A.
Again, I am virtually certain I didn't talk to 9
10,
him on Friday and on Saturday.
I think the principle thrust 11 of it was, "Why don't you guys go to work and round up as many experts out of the industry as you can find to beef up 12 13 the support?"
I think that was the gest. of it.
I don't have a recollection of any other content 14 to that discussion.
15 0
Did you talk to either of them on the telephone 16 before you arrived at the site about whether the NRC was 37 g ing to get more involved in decision making.here with 18 respect to the operation of the plant?
39 A.
No.
I had that kind of a conversation with Denton 20 once I got here.
I don't recall -- not in terms of specific g
occassionsg but sort of an amorphous recollection of the g
tone because as far as I was concerned, and I think I g
radiated that to Denton and others, whether it was Stello, p()
i i
G/
Ross, or Mattson, that I didn't see us with any conflict in g
1
....o...,...............os.....................
30 I
terms of who is in charge.
I felt we were both faced with 7-~g
\\~ I-2 a " hell" of a tough job.
(
o
'3 In fact, I made specific pleas to sort of set 4
aside the normal adversary relationship between regulator 5'
and regulated.
I think I said, "Look, we got one job to do, 6
let's combine our resources to do this job."
7l I also told Denton that if the problem ever got 3i so bad that we as a company had to agree that it was beyond l
9 our resources to handle, there was not going to be any 10 !
problem in terms of who is in charge.
We weren't going to 11 '
be reluctant to ask them to bring in their resources or i
12 ;
what have you.
[J.
13 4
When you say their resources, you mean the NRC 14 resources?
15 A
The federal government or whoever.
I just felt 16l that we have got a problem here tl.at we have~ got to handle, 1
17l and this is not a time for some sort of dancing around the 18 daisy chain of who is in charge.
Who's responsible?
Who 19 j isn't responsible?
That wasn't the issue.
20 0
Did you feel that the NRC's technical assistance on the weekend and over the next week or 10 days was a very 21 significant input or would you say that the bulk or almost 22 l
all of the technical' expertise came from GPU and from the 23 other industry people who came in to help you?
(
24 A
I'would not say the latter.
. 25 l i
WomeCat stenoomapwee sEnveCE. 1413 oLO MtLL moAD. wrouessans, ca. testo e
i 31 I l I think that 's sort of what happened; the way I
("~)
i
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2' would characterize it, is that at the first meeting of the IAG
-(
3 I said to the fellows, "I think we got three or four major
(
4' problems."
I said, "One:
We have got to begin to bette' r N
5 understand the potential state of physical disarray or 1
6 coolability of the damaged core.
i 7'
Two:
We have got to understand what unique problem s
8 we may have associated with the cooling system at that point which 9;
contained a significant amount of non-condensible gas.
10 Three:
We have to figure out how we are going i
11 ;
to get from here to there; mainly something we are going i
I 12 l to construe is a confiden.t and reliable cold shut down.
(
13 "Four:
We have got a hell of a problem with V) 14 radioactive vaste."
On Saturday afternoon I outlined those four areas
- 3,
i 16j and I don't know if it was on a blackboard or a big white 1
37 i piece of paper.
I asked specific guys to take charge of i
l 18 specific pieces.
I think I asked Zebroski to take hold of the 19 damaged core thing.
I asked Levinson to take hold of the 20 heat transfer reliability.. I asked Warred Owen ~to -begin to g
2 v
~
1 k at the questions and the propedures and the path that 22 we were going to follow in getting from here to there.
f 23,
I asked Bob Brooksbank of Oak Ridge to kind of
)
24
\\r~!
take charge of the radioactive waste handling management 25
~\\
....c.. w......
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... m o.....
8..
l 32 I
problem.
I said to these guys, "Look, I don't know all of 2'
('-
you guys in great detail, and I don't know each of your i
3 i feelings of greatest knowledge, but I think you yourselves
\\ know where you can best contribute to these four areas. '
/
4 5
Conglomerate yourselves into the groups that are working on 6l these problems and go to work."
7 I said, "That is about as much as I can tell you 8
what to do."
I felt I picked four knowledgeable good. guys to 9!
provice leadership and I think they did just that.
10l I think that groun initially got started on what i
11 I would characterize as these major general problems.
12 It was my impression then in my immediate encounters 13 with Stello, Ross, and Mattson that they were, you know, concerned and aware of the same problems and were accessing 14 15 their own independent resources relative to those kinds of 16 problems.
I think I also felt that they were working alot of 17 nearer term problems in terms of detailed immediate contingency i
18 plans.
At that time, I was not as well plugged into the 19 group that Arnold and Herbein were working closely with.
And 20 I guess was immediately headed up by Bill Lowe and Tom 21 s
Cremins and later had Dick Wilson.added to it, which were the 22 23l sort of guys provididg the closer end support to the plant.
I was not paying as much attention to what they 24 were doing.
They were kind of being managed directly by 25,
l
..ex.w.co.....e m.a..... ao. u....................
33 I
Arnold and Herbein to support the operations on the short-O i
2
(
range basis, i
3 0
That is what came to be called the technical I
4 working group?
5 A
No, I don't think so.
I think that is what was 6
called the technical support group in the later organization.
7 If you look at the organization chart, that 8
body was headed up by Dick Wilson's technical support group, 9
but that started out, you see, as the hard core of guys from 10 what we had sent in as the initial investigation team, then 11l immediately fanned itself into a sort of round the clock I
12 l direct operations support function with. Bill Lowe, I think, I
()
13 handling one 12-hour shift and Tom Cremins handling the 14 other, or something like that; and Dick Wilson then arrived 15 and began to provide additional support to that.
16 g
When was the technical working group set up?
17 A
I will get to that.
Let me finish first.
18 My impression then with the NRC was that they 19 were working alot of these contingency problems.
They may 20 well have, in the first day or two, you know, then focusing 21 more specific on the immediate aspects of the plant; more 22 aligned with. what Bill Lowe and the Tom Cremins' group were 23 doing.
What became the IAG was working on these longer
()
24 term problems.
W 25 I would say that my impression is that everybody womeCM STth0G A&#M'C SSRvtCt. 1493 OLO WeLL mOAO. WTOMf SSING. PA 19610 h
34 i
/}
1I was sort of working like hell to learn as much as he could to (C(
2; understand as much as he could, to figure out as many uncer-l 3-tanties, contingencies, fallback positions, future problems,
(
s and the like.
5l In a sense, if we had a problem in that early I
6l period of the first few days, we didn't have a mechanism 7
in place for sorting out the priority of those problems and 8
for combining our resources, allocating our joint resources 9
to those problems.
There tended to be sort of a parallel, 10l not tightly coordinated effort on going there.
i 11 Again, on one hand that might sound critical, but i
12l on the other hand I've got to say to you that I think that
()
13 is sort of the inherent way in which the first time you are e_
t i
14 i faced with something like that is going to develop.
15 You say when did we lay on the technical group?
16l We established an organizational structu're on Wednesday, the 17 following Wednesday, which set forth an organization headed 18 by Bob Arnold with four segments under it.
The technical 19 support group under Dick Wilson.
The plant operations under 20 Herbein.
The radioactive waste management -- I am..not sure --
21 well, by.that time, we had the other guys brought in from 22 Commonwealth and Duke.
Frank Palmer stepped into that spot.
23l B'rooksbank was helping him.
24 Then we set up another group,with people from 25! Burns and Rowe to try 'and handle the emergency ad h'oc ^
^'
J l
MonsCat STtmOGmapMsC SEmWICE. 1483 OLD MeLL 90AO. wtOMessame, ma testO 0
l 35 i
~'S Il construction activities.
%l 2
,(
a When you say, "We set up this group," who 3
basically laid out the structure, was it you or you and
(
s 4
i others?
5!
A By Tuesday night, I had gotten to the point where 6
I felt that I had a sufficient awareness of the major blocks 7
of effort and their priorities that I felt that I was able 8
then to start talking about an organization to handle those, 9l hecause up to that time things were in a very ad hoc state.
i i
10 '
People were becoming somewhat restent because of the ad hoc i
11l unstructured aspect of it.
i
)
12 !
I guess it was Tuesday night that Denton, on his i
()
13 own, reached the conclusion that we needed extra support and 4
i 14 made the calls to arrange for Bill Lee and a couple of guys 15 from Commonwealth.
16 Wednesday morning Warren Owen and John McMillen 17 grabbed, ahold of me and said, "Look, we have got to organize 18 this thing."
We closeted ourselves and began to lay out 19 the organization structure that ultimately becane established.
20 There were certain dynamic interplays be. tween 21 myself and the other two guys.
Those got resolved down to 22 this organization of those four major elements, plus a techni-23 cal working group for the purpose of sort of providing a N
(15-
)
24 coordination form plus the identification was somewhat 25 separate.
The IAG group showing it plugging into the technical
....e..m o......e..... c.......t...u......................
36 i
l support group headed by Dick Wilson, and have them sort of x
2l be the backup longer hair technical assessment behind the q
3l technical support group of the organization itself.
r
'('
s I
4j G
Did you intend that the technical working group i
5 would serve as basically Arnold's senior staff?
6 A
Yes.
It was the mechanism whereby -- I am not 7
sure it ever worked in exactly the way in which it was con-t 8'
ceived, but I think as time went on the technical working 9
group and the Arnold staff meeting kind of fused together I
10 and its purpose though was to provide the form' for cross 11 i functional review and approval of major initiatives, major 12 strategies, major decisions, major what have you.
()
Like the business of what is our plan for getting 13 I
from where we were to getting to go to cold shutdown.
That 14 15 was a major piece of strategy with all of its procedures 16 and fallback positions related to it.
That got hammered out on Tuesday afternoon in a session that I personally led.
17 18 For example, if we were to make a change to that 19 plan, the technical working group was the mechanism whereby that change would get cross functional review to provide 20 your self assurance that all the affected aspects of the 21 operation participated.in that review and decision making 22 23 process.
.I also personally took the initiative to invite
()
24 c >.
l the NRC to be a directment of that technical working group and V*
25 l
MONICit STTMOestaPMic StewsCt. 9413 OLO hetLL 2040. wvoestagsmo, ea. 19410 D
37 I felt that was a I
had no problem with that whatsoever.
2 practical way to begin to better join our resources.
(
3 I think I also have to say that as soon as that organization structure was brought forth and I reviewed 'it
(
4 5l in detail with Harold Denton, I think it was around 2:00 o' clock in the afternoon on that Wednesday, from that time 6
I 7l forward, the NRC also said, " Gee, we now also have a specific 8
organization structure."
9 It seemed to me that our composite organization e
10 !
functioned a heck of alot more smoothly all of a sudden; t
whether it was less sort of competition, less regulator, 11 l i
12l regulatee, more of a combined composite approach to the 13 problem.
Alot of things seemed to just all of a sudden fall
()
in place with the establishment of that organizational 14 15 structure.
I don't know what other factors might have-16 contributed to the kind of maturing of the relationship 17 that occurred on that time scale, but that is how I recall it 18 19 happening.
20 4
Did you spend a good bit of your time Sunday and then the following days coordinating the IAG?
21 22 A
Ye8--
23 0
Were you'the main point of contact between all of these outside people and the GPU people, or did they f~'<)
24 N-mostly go directly to the people who were interested in the
'~
25 MOassCM STtescemapeesc SamvtCf. tela OLO MeLL moao. wvCM8seisse. Pa 18610
38 t
I I
same problems with GPU?
. (.
A In a sense I was, and in reality I wasn't.
2 3
Saturday night we kicked it off.
On Sunday the
(' >
group met and we started on a path of having Dick Wilson' 4
5 come in and brief these outside advisory group people on the t
6!
plant status and the problems we were dealing with and how J
7I we saw them.
8 That effort on Sunday afternoon got interrupted 9
by the great hydrogen bubble.
10l Sunday night the IAG met with the NRC people from 11 the site here.
The principle activity being the NRC people, 12 Denny Ross and Roger Mattson giving the IAG their view of h
\\m.j)
[
13 the state of things and their view of the critical problems.
14 that we faced.
15 Joe Hendrie sat in on that session on Sunday 16 night.
After that broke up there was a~little more time 17 that I, spent with some of the IAG members kind of refining 18 the activities and the thrust. of where they were trying to
}
19 '
go and whether the IAG could or could not effectively function 20 in an area that went as deep into procedures as contrasted 21 with the technical analysis.
I think there was a feeling i
22 that the IAG didn' t have the right kind of people to get as 23 i close as procedures as such.
That their role was better in
( p)a.
24 the sort of bigger picture analysis kind of an area.
s i
25 Somewhere along the line, I guess Sunday night if MoheCit STtmossaPMic StevlCE. tas s OLO usLL moa0. wvoulsesMG. PA.
teeto
- s a m__.
i 39 1
I haVe the timing right on this, Denton said, "My God, I 2!
didn't see anybody from B&W at the IAG."
I said, "I agree w
,4 l
3 with you.
I don't understand what happened.
I have a
~
I 4
(.'
committment from B&W to have people here."
5 I think what really happened to the B&W people, I
had 6l because they/other people on the site, whomever from B&W I
arrived just got co-opted into that activity on site.
I 7
i 8l then called back, and I guess it was probably Sunday night,
-9 to B&W and said, " Hey Goddamn it, you have got to have some-t 10!
body here, a higher level guy."
Monday morning John McMillen i
11 '
showed up.
12 During Monday. afternoon, the IAG spent alot of
)
13 time interacting with John McMillen and a couple of his senior s/
jaj guys sort of getting the B&if view of' where we were and what I
15 the problems were.
I l
16 Monday night we met with Roge'r Mattson a d Dennis 17 Ross, I think, for the purpose of reviewing the result of j
this first interaction between B&W and the IAG.
That ended 18,
1 39 up really -- it didn't end up achieving that.
It ended up l
i l
being alot of detail discussions as far as with Roger 20 1
Mattson on the subject of thermo couples and how ' they are-l 21 designed and what they look like and their measurements and l
22 i
23l that kind of thing. '
l N
Tuesday morning Denton and I don't know if it 24 was Denton and Mattson, or Denton, Mattson, and Stello, 25
-omen er
.....c...vic e..m oso -iu.o.a..vo-...
........ io e
l 40 I
confronted me with the proposition that you guys don't have O
i 2
a firm plan on how you are going to get from here to there.
3 I said, "I have to agree with you.
We will be back tonight
('
4 at 7:00 o' clock with a plan."
5 Tuesday afternoon I closeted myself with McMillen, 6'
Warren Owen, Bob Arnold, Dick Wilson and a couple more B&W 7
guys and we just hammered out point by point what is the plan i
8 for going from where we are to cold shutdown.
What is the 9
route we are going to take?
What is the step?
What is the 10 sequence?
What is the rationale?
What if this fails?
What 11 do we do next if this fails?
What do we do if the pump 12 fails?
What were the fallback positions to that plan?
13 It took us about six hours to hammer that out.
14 There was alot of reluctance to sign up for a plan.
There i
15 ; was the sort of feeling that we have got alot more analysis i
16 to do and I just hung in there with the ' things that if we had 17 to make,the decision right now, what would it be, because 18 that is what we were faced with.
That, of course, in turn 19 led to having in place in the control room, or at least to 20 a degree, having in place in the control room at all times 21 the fallback procedure.
l 22 We weren't in a. position anymore to be in the 23{ business.as usual prot:racted review and approval processes 24 because if God decided to turn the pump off, we had to D'
25 have somebody there who knew what to do, whether it was
. o.eii sve=oon...e 3:evies. i4 s oto =iu acao =vomiss**'s. ** issio j
i
- u. w.%
.o 41 i
p Il approved or not.
V 2f We put in place these procedures and their fall-(
3l back procedures, while at the same time the NRC undertook
(
i 4l to do their own review of that and comment on it, and if s
5 effect approve, if you will.
6l That plan then was reviewed in detail with Denton 7l and Stello, I think.
I don't know whether Roger was there a
8 or not on Tuesday evening.
i 9l Then it was on Wednesday morning we turned our i
1d attention to organization and Wednesday afternoon that 11 organization was put into place.
12l In between time, yes I was acting as a messenger 13 boy, I was acting as an interlocketer.
I did alot M cross 14 communicating with people at breakfast at the Holiday Inn, 15 hopping from table to table.
We indeed had this problem'of 16l trying to keep this group of people orga'nized an6 focusing i
17 ' on issues.
At the same time, developing a sense of priority 18 '
of what were the things we really had to do.
19 One of the problems that I had or felt I had with 20 some of the NRC guys was a tendency to say, "Why in.the hell 21 aren't you.doing this?
You can do that in threu days.
Why 22 in the hell aren't you doing this?
You can do -hat in four 23 day.
Why aren't you doing that?
You can do this in one day."
Oj 24 I wasn't quite sure what the priorities really (k/
25 ought to be.
I may have appeared a little reluctant on some t
momen stenoonaamic samv cs. uts o6e m66 moao. wvomissme. ca. iesto '
l L
[
42 I
of those items.
What I kind of felt was a need to sort out O[-
2f those priorities.
o 3
(Short recess.)
4 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
1 5'
S Mr. Dieckamp, just a couple of specific points 6
in the sequence of events that we jumped over that I want 7
to ask you about.
I 8l You spoke of a telephone call from Jack Wattson L
I 9!
at the White House on Saturday.
Do you recall whether you I
i 10 asked him or the White House for any support during that i
11 i phone call or at any other time?
12l A
No.
I think in that phone call he said to me that
()
13 he was the guy tagged with the responsibility to make whatever 14 I national resources available that existed.
i 15 I did not -- I don't think I made any specific i
16 requests.
17 Later when I heard of the President's visit on 18 Sunday, I did call him to make a specific request.
In that 19 specific request I specified three things.
I said, one:
20 I don't want any helicopter around the transmission lines 21 because they are absolutely vital and critical.
Two:
You 22 have got to control the. traffic so we don't jam up the i
l 23 ingress, egress to the plant.
Three:
I would like to have
()
24 you restrict the number of people in the party in the control 25 room to 15.
He-said, "We will absolutely do all of that."
S m
a
..-as l
I 43 I
1l I don't know whether the latter one was quite adhered to or mU 2
not in the sequence of events.
3l Do you know how and by whom the decision was j
(
4 made on Saturday morning that Met-Ed, GPU would get out 'f o
l 5;
the press briefing business?
l 6{
A.
Well, by that time I think I probably -- whether it 7l was Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon or just when it a'
was, I probably participated in that decision because it was 9
becoming apparent that there was alot of problems with the i
10 ;
press concentration on what they perceived as conflicting 11 l statements.
l 12l I also felt strongly that the press demands were 13 an excessive call on Jack Herbein's time and energies.
14 so I said I thought that we should withdraw from 15
-- I guess by that time it was also apparent that the NRC 16 was going to be having standup briefings *and I said we should 17 withdraw from the daily standup briefing.
That if we have 18 got something to say, perhaps we should put out once or twice j9 ' a day a brief written statement, but that we should try to minimize this opportunity for press concentration on appear-20 ances of conflict.
21 I just didn't feel that was serving any good 22 purpose so I felt that we should modify our approach.
23 3
Had you received any pressure or suggestions from
)
24 L/
the NRC or the White House prior to that decision being made 25 MOhaCR 97thoseaPM*C SteveCt. tot 3 OLD MSLL #0aO. wvowesesNG. pa. 19610
.a w-44 1i to take that step?
2l A.
No.
I never had any conversation about it from
(-
1 3j the NRC.
k 4f I did get a phone call from Jack Watson sayin',
g l
5'
" Hey, these conflicting press stories have got to stop."
6 I then told him, "We have already decided to cease i
7 the daily standup briefings which are the source of alot of Ia' that."
On one hand he told me the importance of not feeding 9
those conflicts but by that time we had already made our i
10l own decision as to what we felt was the proper thing to do.
I 11f G
I just want to put on the record a short discussion 12f we had during the break about how you went about calling people and identifying needs from outside your own organization 13 ja on Friday the 30th.
15l Is it fair to say that as of Friday you weren't able to identify alot of the specific needs that you had, but 16 rather called the people for gen.eral restraints and abilities?
17 A.
Yes.
The calls were not in relationship to 18 clearly defining specific tasks, but rather a feeling on my 39 j part that the tasks were of such a general magnitude and sort 20 f yet t be defined scope, that we needed people with strong 21 bacic backgrounds,.rather than narrow specialties.
22 g
When you arrived here on Saturday afternoon or 23 evening, I think you said that you had a meeting with Mr.
24
_)
h l
Denton and possible with Mr. Stello that night.
Do you 25 j
..............................m.................
45 1
recall such a meeting?
o 2f A
I am not clear on that.
I may well.have.
I don't
- (
i 3;
recall saying that I had one with them on Saturday.
l
(
4 4
I may be mistaken about that.
5i A
I may have had one, but I just don't relate.to it i
6i right now.
I 7'
G In the first meeting that you had with Denton and al Stello and that group, whether it was Saturday evening or 9I Sunday, what conversations did you have with them about what 10l the NRC's role was going to be in overseeing or possibly 11 vetoing any major plant actions?
12 A
I don't recall,any specific conversation about
()
13j that.
I don't recall any assertion from them as to what jaj their role was going to be.
I guess I didn't even conceive of it as an issue.
I had no trouble in my mind accepting 33 16 from the outset that this was an unusual situation.
j7 l We clearly were not talking in terms of operating i
18 in strict relationship to technical specs which were drawn up for a different set of conditions.
We understood completel:(
39 and just implicitly that this was a situation where we 20,
~
needed to be glued together.
21 g
S y u a.Ssumed then that the NRC would be in the 22 lo p and any major decision making?
23 A
Certainly that was my assumption.
I think I have
{~'/)
24 s.._
to say I can' t specify a cutoff level where the plant 25 MON *CM S?t40geapeseC SEWyaCE. 1413 QLD wtLL ocaO. wv0Messame. Pa. 104 0
___..m
.~
46 l
1i operated within its perceptions of its authorization versus
~
2 I where we would feel that there is an item of sufficient
(
I 3;
importance that we would have to ourselves take the initiative
([
4l to insure that we had the NPC on board and approving.
I' i
5{
think I have got to believe that interface between the 6
nickel and dine items and the more significant items that 7
had to develop with time was not clearly articulatable a;
at the outset.
9 0
Let me turn now to the question of the issue of l
10 :
whether unit two was improperly rushed into commercial 11 '
operation prior to the end of calendar, 1979 (sic) in order 12 to reali=e a certain fina.ncial tax or other benefits for the t
13 company.
As I said before we started, this is an issue 14 that has been raised in the press and in the public.
It is 15 an issue we are looking into.
I don't believe we have any 16 17j predisposition that we would like to try and get as many of the facts as we can and call the evidence one way or another 18 if we are able to do that at the end of our inquiry.
19 I know you have testified about this subject at 20 some length elsewhere.tnd I will try and not simply repeat 21 that.
22 i
Let me begin by asking ycu t.is:
I think you had 23,
said before that you were aware that any tax advantages that 24 d
might accrue to the company in 1978 did not necessarily 25
^
....c. m........e........... oto
,u.
d
u i
G 1l depend on the plant being declared into comr.ercial operation g
2, by the end of the year as you understood the perhaps rather t
3; vague tax criteria that were used, is that correct?
i 4
A.
I was aware or made aware of the tax case that
([
5i indicated prior precedent for allowing, and I d.on't know i
l 6l whether it is the tax credit or the accelerated depreciation 7l half year convention; based upon a condition of the plant i
8' being ready to operate, I think might have even been the 9
words in the ruling, as contrasted with depending upon some i
specific declaration of its being in commercial service.
10 i 11 g
Do you remember what the source of your awareness i
12l of this was?
A.
I think it was brought forth by the GPU controller 13 or his tax people who looked into this question..
34 0
Do you recall whether there were discussions about 15 i
the subject during the latter half of 1978-in which you 16 j7l participated?
A.
Yes, there were discussions.
la 1
0 Where do you recall that the people who talked 39 to you came down on this issue, if they did?
Did they say g
it is our opinion that we probably wouldn't have to actually
.. ?
go commercial according to the ex,isting criteria and rulings g
I or that we would?
What was communicated te you as the g
bottom line on this?
p],
g
'wt A.
It was my understanding that it was their judgment i
uomics stswoom.,=,e
,,,,c,,
,,,, 8 "ono wvouessimo. pa.
i,.,o
~
48 (3
- that plant had long since' ret the minimum criteria consistent I
(
)
l
'~1 2l with the tax codes.
i 3
0 By long sense, you mean some time in the spring k
4I of 1978?
f 5!
A I don't know whether it was exactly the spring.
6 It was at some point back towards the riddle of the year, 7{
1 ate in the spring, middle of the year.
I don't recall a 8
specific date, but long since meaning not last week or two i
9; weeks ago, but several months before that time period of the c
I 10 ;
discussion.
11 i G
Do you remember whether there was any concern that i
12 if the plant had apparently qualified in the spring that that 13 might be jeopardized by the down time over the summer to la replace the valves?
15 A
I don't recall that kind of a thing, specifically.
16 I do recall some discussion of the case where the plant had 17 only operated for the briefest period of time and then was 18 down for a significant length of time.
I think in that case 19 the tax treatment was disallowed.
That is my recollection.
20 There was, you know, a degree of judgment involved in terms 21 of what degree of operability is really required to justify i
22 or to qualify -for the various tax. treatments.
I don't think that is very specifically stated.
.23 It is sort of implied frem these rulings rather than being 24 25{
a statement of a specific set of criteria.
It is easily womica sis =ceampaic samvece, seis oLo usLk mono. wrowessimo. *a sesto A
1
"~ wa
=
1
.. w _ :
l
.I 49 1
measurable.
O' G
This is something you recall knowing during 1978?
(
2.j o
3l A.
Yes.
(
4 S
Do you recall whether there was any reconside' ration 5'
of the question of whether unit two would actually have to 6l go commercial before qualifying for the tax benefits in i
7 December of 1978?
8 A.
I don't have any recollection of a specific 9
reconsideration.
i 10 j MR. FRAMPTON:
Off the record.
l 11l (Discussion had off the record.)
i 12 I MR. FRAMPTOM:
I would like to have marked as 13 Exhibit 18 of this deposition a one-page memorandum with 1
14 an attachms t dated December 28, 1978 entitled Status of TMI, Number Two for Income Tax Purposes.
15l 16 (Whereupon, the memorandum en' titled Status of TMI 17 !
Number Two for Income Tax Purposes was marked as Exhibit 18 Number 18.)
39 BY MR. FRAMPTOM:
20 0
Mr. Dieckamp, that document indicates that it 21 was sent.to you among other people.
Do you recall getting
\\
the document and reading it?
22 l
A.
I don't hdve a specific recollection of this 23l l
)
24.l. document.
I do have this-recollection of scie uncertainty about the degree of readiness for operation if necessary to 25
.. e..r ~o......e
... c
- 6... u.
... m e..............
~.
r
_ =.
l 50 l
qualify and I gather --
I g
(
2!
O In late December?
i 3l A
Yes -- I gather this document brings forth a l
case where the tax treatment was cuestioned because of the
\\
4 5;
degree of operability at the plant.
6 4
Along the lines that you mentioned before?
7[
A Yes.
8 0
Do you recall if the specific subject that is 9'
covered by this memorandum was discussed by you in late i
10 l December with anyone?
i l
11 j A
The specific item in there that says something 12!
about two more tests need to be accomplished in order to do 13 something or the other?
14 G
Right.
15 A
I don't have a recollection of that.
16 0
I believe that unit two was resynchronized with 17 i the grid sometime in mid or late September of 1978, is that 18 correct?
19 A
Whatever that date is.
That ought to be a part of 20 record.
21 Approximately?
22 A
Yes.
23 G
Do you re' call any discussions after'that to the
(
effect that the tax advantages would be available or tax 24 i treatment would be available based on the continued operation 25.
t
-o u.c c m uo....-,e....... m. 6. =, u.....................
O
i 51 Il of the plant after the September resynchronization regardless
^
1
(
2l of whether it might have been available on the basis of the t
3j plant's operation back in March and April?
(.
4 A.
I don't have a recollection -- again, a specific 5j discussion that says here is a specific milestone that now i
6, does or does not enable the tax.
I rather have an impression 7
of kind of a general judgment relative to operability.
8 G
What was that general judgment?
9, A.
Well, in relationship to the other tax reference 10 which describes the degree of operability of that plant or 11 says -- I think it uses words to the effect of ready to 12l operate or something.
I
(
13 I guess what I'm saying is, I don't have any 14 impression of judgments having been made on the basis vf 15 specific milestones.
I would rather have impressions'of 16 people having been asked, does the plant seem to conform 17 with the kind of language in thi.s other ruling that says 18 basically ready to operate.
i I
- 9 j g
When you are talking about the other ruling, you I
are talking.about the revenue ruling?
20 A.
Yes.
The other. case, whatever you want to call 21 it or wliatever you should call it, 22 i
23 0
Do you recall whether there was any discussion of this subject at a mee. ting of the GPU or GPU Service Company
'24j
\\'
Board in December of 19787 25 i
won.c= en=o.....uc scavic e. in a oso -.u. aca o. wro-i...
...io t_
..,:u a :
z.=
52 1
A.
Yes.
Was Mr. Arnold there during that tire?
2 0
(
3 A
I think so, yes.
What do you recall about the conversation or
- 4 0
5 conversations on the subject at that meeting?
Who said what 6
to whom about this?
7 A
I can't reproduce that.
I think I have the impression that at that meeting there were statements or 8
discussions to the effect that Bob Arnold, who in looking at 9
these criteria -- I shouldn't use the word criteria, descrip-10 tions of ready to operate or operability felt that the plant 11 had already met those kin.ds of conditions.
l 12 13 0
Prior to that meeting?
14 A
Prior to that meeting, yes.
i Was he showed a revenue ruling or a list of 15 j
0 criteria to your recollection?
16 i
I don't have a recoll.ection of that having been A
17 an official piece of the meeting where somebody grabs this 18 i and gives it to Bob Arnold and says, "What about that?"
19 I have the imoression that oerhaps somewhere in 20 21 ] a side bar discussion this was reviewed with Bob.
1 But you do have a reco.llection of that happening, O
22 of his looking at some criteria and giving a judgment based 23 on his review?
"N 24 A.
Yes.
25 i I>
l
..s,.....~o..............., mom.u.................
....e l
I
wi _&,,
. x -
53 1
You know, having said in my opinion him not being g-]
C/
2 a tax lawyer, but in my opinion the operations of the plant q
3l are consistent with what is described here as operable or s
(
I 4
operability.
5!
G This December 28th memorandum, Exhibit Number 18, I
6I seems to reflect a slightly different outlook on that.
An t
7' outlook that suggests that in order to make sure of getting i
i 8j the desired tax treatrent you would want to make sure is go 9,
commercial in 1978.
Do you recall whether this surprised 10[
you or you took any particular notice of that?
11l A
I didn't take any particular note of that.
- Again, 12 !
I had this impression that the criteria -- again, I hate to i,
7S use the word criteria -- the description is alot more
(
)
13 s
i ja general than what that memorandum would suggest in terms of specificness of completion of specific tests.
15 16 0
Do you recall whether anyone else who was a j7 recipient of this memorandum of December 28th expressed jg any views about it to you or discussed it with you?
A Discussed what?
39 0
The memorandum or the views expressed in it.
20 A.
.I don' t recall a discussion of that memorandum.
21 g
,Do you recall the discussion of this point of 22
- . view, narely that it'still would probably have to go com-23
/ '\\
! mercial in order to make sure of getting the tax treatrent?
24
\\
n s
ar say that at some point in 25 me.ew sermooname scavies. sais oso u u. nomo. wvomssme.... i eio
.;,_, -u _.
54 j
I the discussion, it may well have been characterized as saying m
2 I if the plant is commercial, there will be little cuestion
(
~
3, about it.
I don't recall that as havine been stated as the t.
(
4f limiting necessary and sufficient condition.
5 OL Are you talking about a discussion at the board i
6!
meeting or a discussion at or about the time this memorandum i
7' was circulated?
I 8:
A.
Again, I don't recall any discussion at the time i
9-of that memorandum.
I recall the discussion at the time of 10l the board meeting and I recall the content there being the i
11l fairly broad characterizations necessary to qualify.
I 12 recall the judgment that, "Yes, we had met that level of 13
' qualifications."
I recall somewhere along the line of having been 14 sort of made aware of another ruling that tended to undercut 15 that by citing the example at the plant that operated only 16 l
17j for a short period of time.
I think in my mind that was a very exaggerated 18 case because that plant had operated for an extremely short 39 peri d of time at a very low power level.
20 I don't think that I' personally felt that I was 21 making the judgment as to whether we did or didn't meet 22 the tax _ criteria.
23 l
MR. LIBEPMAN:
I think by inadvertent, Mr.
24 l
v Frampton, you referred to the memorandum as saying it had t
25 MonaCit STggeognapweg gggyseg, gagg ggg gigg eggg, wygggggggg, pg
,gggg
.==.n a:.
i 55 I
a reference to commercial operation.
As I look at it, it
~ '
(
doesn't unless I am missing something.
It talks about passing 2
3 some test, but it doesn't talk about what has core to be I
k 4l known as the elusive term " commercial operation", correc't?
5l MR. FRAMPTON:
Yes, you are correct.
6l Let me pursue that a little bit.
7, BY MR. FRAMPTON:
I 8l 0
I understand that a nuclear power plant does not 9
have to go through the complete power essention test schedule j
10l required by the NRC and be qualified to operate at full 11 '
power rating in order to be declared commercially available, 12 1 is that your understanding?
I
)
13 A
Well, I think in general terms that is true.
One 14 I does not find in any regulations or any literature a state-i l
15 lI ment to the effect that those are the criteria for corrercial.
i 16l I must say that we were keenry aware that in the 17,
rate making process the question.of whether the plant was 18 or was not commercial was an important question and that we 19 took steps to try to, well in advance, describe to the commissions the purpose of the test program and the kinds of 20 21 things that would be accomplished.
The discipline or vigor with which they would be accomplished before we would declare 22 the plant commercial'because we felt we did not want to be 23
[V) in a position where someone would later say, "Well, you just 24 willy, nilly declared it commercial for rate making purposes."
25
..c.m.............e..m.ot.u...............,.
- a w
I 56 iIl We wanted to say, "No, it is a definite plan that 4
(
we will have gone through in order to declare it commercial."
2 i
3l I think it is also proper to say that this is probably the most expl'. cit that we have ever been in tha't 4
5 regard.
6!
0 In fact, GPU -- the GPU system had had a plant that 7I went commercial at 60 percent of its power, had it not?
i 8
A.
Yes.
9 0
But in the case of Three Mile Island, unit two, I
i 10 you had made some representations or had some communications 11 with the Public Utility Commission in Pennsylvania to the 12 effect that you would not declare the plant in commercial 13,
operation until you had completed the full test secuence 14 that you had mapped out and that the NRC recuires, isn't 15 that correct?
16 A.
I would have to let the lette'r stand on itself 17 in terms of its own merits, in terms of the specific degree 18 of committment.
I haven't looked at the letter in a few months 19 so I don't recall exactly what it says in terrs of that we 4
won't do this before that and if it says that, fine.
20 21 0,
What was your understanding --
l 22 A.
It was my understanding that it was our intention l
to conduct that program before declaring the plant commercial.
23 We felt that there was so much uncertainty on the 24 part of alot of parties about what was meant by commercial, 25 j
MO8elCM STf 404R4PHtC SERVICE. 146 9 Q40 MILL acaO, WTOe81SS144. pa. t9410
+
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57 I
what was the purpose of declaring it corrercial, what was k
f the impact of declarine it co d ercial, that we felt it was 3'
i in our interest to try to articulate all those factors to the commission so as to provide a basis.
khen we later went 5
in saying that the plant was commercial' and asking for a i
6 i
rate making treatment, that we could say, "Look, this has 7
been the program, this is what we said we were going to do 3!
and what we intended to do.
This is the degree to which we 1
9 have done that."
l 10 I
G Did you yourself regard this as a firm plan?
11 A.
I regarded it as a firm plan, but I also felt 12 free to exercise some judgment about that plan and I think 0(g 13 just a specific example of that is that we declared the plant i
14 l corrercial even though it had not -- you know, what was it?
l 15 I I think it was at 98 percent power when we declared it 16 commercial.
It had been at 100 percent for a rather brief i
17l period of time.
18 I felt free and comfortable in making the judement i
19 that that differential was not significant in terms of what 20 we were trying to demonstrate and accomplish.
21 O
Was.it your understanding that you had made some 22 kind of a committment-to the PCC in Pennsylvania, whether 23 that committment was revocable or not, to wait till you finished Q(~b i
24 l the testing program before declaring the unit in corrercial I
b.,
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25 t operation?
i me..c. eve co.....e.
v.cs. 34 3 oso -.a.o.o.
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A I am having trouble in terms of black and whiteness O-(
2f of committment.
3l I personally felt.and personally felt that it was i
4 in our best interest, to conduct the program in a way so 5l that there could be the least question about whether the plant 6l was qualified to be declared commercial.
I personally then 7,
felt that adherence to our prior statement of intention of Bf the plan was the best way to minimize any downstream arguments I
9l about whether it was or was not commercial.
I 10l Let me just say that I have trouble accepting 11 l the word committment when we indeed departed, but I don't I
12 '
think we departed in terms of the intent or the insignificance
/
\\
13,
of what we said we were< going to do.
We essentially adhered 14 to our plan.
15 a
would it be fair to say that representations were 16 '
made that that was your plan?
i 17 A.
Sure.
I guess, again, the letter speaks for it-18 self.
l 19 i 0
What conversations can you recall having with
(
20 Mr. Arnold in the second half of 1978 about the desirability 21 of going commercial before the end of the calendar year, 1
22 if any?
23 l A
I don't recall any exact dates or any exact 24,
subjects or things like that.
25.
I would have to say that I felt that we did have
~
......,,......................m...............
.. r_..
=
- -=
59 q
a schedule for taking the plant commercial.
I think we did l
b'
{
(
2! have a feeling that we wanted to achieve that milestone, 1
3' you know, relatively early on.
k 4
I am sure that there was some suggestion that'we 5i would like to accomplish that before the end of the year.
I 6i am also sure that in those conversations with Mr. Arnold I I
7f told him explicitly that the staff was not to depart from the 1
8' requirerents of the test program; in fact, they were not to 9{
depart from doing things in accordance with their own judotrent i
10 for the simple purpose of achieving the schedule.
11 O
When do you recall telling them that, as best as 12f you can place it?
13 A.
I am sure I had the same kind of conversation 14 with them two or three times over that time period of the fall and winter, which had the general content that says, 15 16
Yes, we want the schedule removed.
Yes, we want to ccmplete 17 the program.
By all means we should not sacrifice doing the 18 job right."
19 0
Why did you feel that it was necessary to say that to him?
20 l To make sure he. understood the' relative importance 21 A,
of conducting the program properly and safely in relation-22 i
I i
23 !
ship to schedule.
i' 24l I think one side of discussion about schedule only
%)
t, i
might not have conveyed the proper emphasis.
23 MonstCIE STtpsoonaposic ggeveCL tel3 000 with moao wvouttessee. Da sesso l
w-60 I
4 Did you have any belief or view or concern that
}
(
2l without that kind of caveat from you he might feel some 3l undue pressure to push ahead.with the test schedule?
t A
I had no reason for concern.
I felt it impor' tant 4
5 to make sure he didn't imply some pressure that I didn't 6
want to convey.
I felt it was important for ce to be 7:
explicit about tha t.
8i G
Do you recall any further about any discussions 9
with him on that subject or do you recall what his response 10,
was in any of these conversations?
11 i A
I don't know that there was any specific response.
12 There certainly was no ar.gument.
I think if anything, I
)
would characterize it as one of saying, "I understand."
13 14 i 4
Did you ever have any discussions with him about 15l the specifics of the time schedule in terms of whether it "
I 16 could be shortened, telescoped, or wheth'er any tests that you 17j had planned to do that were not required by the NRC could 18 be postponed?
19 A
No, to the contrary.
I at no time ever suggested 20 deletion of the test.
If anything, and again my memory --
21 you would have to look. at the record on this, I have a 22 recolAection of suggesting that the time at. power be reason-23 ably substantial in terms of the number of days, not just
)
24 the one hour or one minute, but that there be a reasonable
(
25 Period at power again so that it was not just a fleeting
l ac... w ~..u -
.....}
i 61 I
j accomplishment.
'N
~
2 I am unaware of how many days it had actually
(
i 3j been operating when we did declare it commercial.
- Again, k>
4 you can check the record on that.
t 5
Again, that was a matter of judgment as to how I
6:
many days you would be at full power.
What did we say in i
7 the letter to you?
Do you have that letter?
8l MR. LIBERMAN:
I furnished it to the gentleman.
9, THE WITNESS:
I think the letter said four days.
I 10 MR. FRAMPTON:
Off the record.
I 11j (Discussion had off the record.)
12 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
()
13 0
Do you recall any conversations with.Mr. Herbein 14 about the' desirability of ecing commercial before the end of 15 the year and the relationship between that desire and' the 16 test schedule?
l'7 A
I am not sure.
I think I might have talked with la Herbein once about the status of the test program and where 19 we were.
20 In general, these kinds of discussions were 21 dominantly with or through. Bob Arnold.
22 S
Do you have any recollection of saying to Mr.
Herbein in substance', "We would like to go commercial before 23 ;
()
24 the end of the year, but we don't want to rush it.
And if r
i 25 we don't make it, we don't make it"?
l esosseC K STgesognapwec staveCE. sata OLO astLL moso, wv0a.etssase, sa_ teeto
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62 1
I A.
I have no trouble saying that that is consistent
! O
(
2l with what my position was.
If I did say such a thing to 1
3' Herbein, that would not surprise me.
I don't recall a
(,
4 specific occassion of,having done that.
If Jack recalls"that, i
5 fine.
6' O.
In your own view, what were the major advantages.of 7,
going commercial before the end of the year or the major 8
reasons why it was desirable?
9 A.
Well, I don't know that in my own mind I attached c
10 extreme importance to it even though I think it was our 11 j general feeling that that would be the preferable case.
12l I saw in the trade off as involving the impact on 13 income if we declared the plant to commercial too early in
~
14 relationship to receiving rates to cover the cost versus 15 the risk of the plant of going commercial sometime beyond 16 the end of the rate making test year for'one of our cases.
17 That to me was the trade off.
I think from my 18 own personal view of that was that I was more concerned about
- 7 l the earnings attrition from declaring it commercial before i
the rates were in effect than I was a few days or weeks 20 21 beyond the test year in the Penn-Elec case.
That was my own sort of weighing of some of these considerations.
22 i
23 j 0.
Let me asid you to explain for the record the l
24 disadvantage of declaring commercial well before you receive approval to include the entire unit in the rate base.
j 25 l
l u.
.c=. m o.....oc..
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a l
63 I
A Well, the declaration of the plant being
(
2l commercial in accordance with the FERC accounting principles i
3l really signals the change in the accounting for the plant.
r i
k 4!
At that time one ceases to capitalize returns' 5 !
on the capital employ, one begins to charge operating an 6,
maintenance expenses directly to income and stopping to i
7{
capitalize those.
One begins to take depreciation on the I
8i investment and so to the extent, those expenses are recog-1 I
9 nized in the income statement and are not either taken --
10 not taken or capitalized; one impacts on the company's 11 earnings very directly until such time that rates are in I
12 place to provide revenues to offset those costs.
()
13 G
Let me go back to see if I understand this.
t i
la Before the unit is declared commercial, there 15 are certains costs of the test program which can ultimately 16 be capitalized and put into a rate base?'
A Yes.
17 is G
Those include both the cost of money and the 39 actual cost cf operation or some of the actual costs of 20 operating the plant during the test period?
Most of the costs of construction, operation, 21 22 maintenance that is going on, start up test. program, as 6
well as the allowed cost of money both for the borrowed 23 l
t
(
24 funds as well as the equity portion of the investment.
G When the unit is declared commercial, after that y'
i i
mon.cz stumooma*=ic esavecs. tais oto week acao wvomissmo. as veeso
.. = -
j 64 I!
point in tire under FERC rules, those expenses are no longer
(
eligible to go into the rate base for FERC purposes, is 2
3I that ri*ght, for wholesale rate purposes?
r 4
A Without getting too narrow about it, I would say 5
in general the reauirements are that those expenses no longer i
6l be capitalized but be incurred currently in the operating 7
income statement.
I 8
The question of rate base, I think, you have got I
9l to watch that terminology.
That is why I say capitalized.
10 i While it is an investment, we usually say it is rate base.
I i
11l When a regulatory commission has accepted that investment i
12 as a basis for determining rates.
13f G
Is it your understanding that the State Public
~
14 Utility Commission usually gives you rate relief based on 15 the additional plant as of the date it decides to do 'that, i
16 or as of the previous date on which it decides that the plant 17 was eli,gible for such treatment?.
18 A
I think the record on that is extremely clear.
It 19 is if and when they get around to it, and that is a very i
20 difficult problem.
I think you can look at the record on 21 Three Mile One, Homer City.Three.
Whatever major investment.
22 In general, there is a delay between the time that that 23!
plant goes into service and those costs are no longer i
(
24 capitalized and the time which rates are granted to compen-sate for those costs.
25 WOm8CM GTEmogmaP**IC St#W'CE. 8413 OLD MeLL SOaO. wvoue99tmo. 84. 99410
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+
G You suggested in the deposition taken by the
(
2l President's Commission that in' the interim period, there is a i
3' danger of losing the benefits of the operating expenses and
{ '..
3 i
the interest costs, the cost borrowed, but in this time 5
period between declaring commercial and getting rate relief, 6!
can you explain how those expenses are considered operating 7
expenses?
8l A.
Those expenses are not benefits.
9 0
Getting credit for them in effect?
j 10l A.
I think what I said there, once incurred those 11 expenses are never recovered.
Once they are gone, one only i
12 I achieves rates -- maybe I should say normally achieves the 13 rates prospectively.
Once the rate order is handed down 14 ;
and the extent to which the revenues match the expenses to l
15 !
make you whole, you are okay.
The prior absence of revenues l
l 16 to offset those expenses is never recovered.
That is lost 17 '
forever..
I think I said to the President's Commission that 18 for that reason and when plants have significant expenses l
19 and significant levels of investment involved in them, a 20 major incentive or major objective that we have is to try to 21 plan ahead so as to synchronize the rate making and the 22 date on which the plant.goes into service.
23 0
I think in some earlier testimony, public testimony 24 before the President's Commission, you mentioned that one of 25 I the reasons for wanting to get into comercial operation in I
.. ~......
... =
u..
s 66 I
1978 was the testing or potential problem with the test year.
(
2' It is my understanding that only one of the three
\\
3' operating companies had a test year, the end of which co-4l incides with the end of calendar '78, is that right?
5l A
I think that is right.
6 G
You were aware of that at the time?
7 L
Yes.
8l 0
By the time, I mean in late
'78.
9' A
- Yes, i.
10 t 4
Can you describe why it would be desirable to go i
11 commercial with.in the test year with respect to that utility 1s 12 pending application?
13 A
Yes.
It simply eliminates a technical argument 14 as to whether or not those expenses should be recognized i
15 in the rate making.
16 i However, you can also look at the record and I l'7l think you will find that many commissions permit rates to i
18 go into effect and recognize plants that have come into 39 being modestly be; md the test year.
It is a very pragmatic thing.
20 It would be extremely disadvantageous if you 21 waited until your test year could. reflect a full year of 22 23 f expenses for that plant.
()
What that means is that you would have the entire 24 i
duration of the rate case with no revenues for those expenses 25 i
I escasiCst STgneceSa****C St#Vect. 1493 OLp nesLL eCao wroesessame. pa. 19eto
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67 1
so you almost end up with a recuirement for some normalization
(
to adjust the test year expenses to reflect what they would 2
3l be had the plant been in service as well as any other offsets i
b'
~
4 that may be incurred because of the plant being in service.
I 5l Then you get into the question of regulatory practice, 6
precedence and the like as to the degree to which the 7
commission will reach out and recognin a plant which is not i
8!
yet in service in that process.
I 9
But as.such reaching out is done, the business 10 of having the plant commercial during the period of test year, 11 in my mind, simply closes or constrains the opportunity for 12 !
a very, very narrow technical argument to not reach cut i
13 and normalize for those expenses.
9 G
What would the technical argument -- what result would the technical argument have if it prevailed?
In other 15l w rds, if you had gone commercial on January 5th and the PUC 16
- said, "No, no, you did not make the test year," what would they 37 do; would they set up a new test year of June to June or 18 something like that?
What would be the possible --
j9 A.
I think if you looked at the -- if indeed it
,o t
happened exactly that.way,,certainly there would be a signifi-g l
cant impact until such time as that plant was filled -- on g
the other hand, if you look at the practices, I think in g
l fact the Pennsylvania Commission has made statements about 3
y'T their willingness to reach out and recognize the plants that e
eschsCm sitNO4eaMo*C gamvir.g. Iets OLO ulLL moao, wvoesisessee. pa. toeso
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+
68 I
are.ot yet in service.
There is a limit to that.
2
(
Any number of things can be done to adjust for 3i that.
We, :.n effect, went'through that because we originally 1
(n
- I were planning that the plant would be in service by May 31st.
i 5!
It was necessary to kind of recycle one of the cases in order 6
to bring it into coincidence with the plant going into 7l service.
8l g
Do you recall any discussion about whether it would j
9i be desirable to have the plant in commercial service prior to l
1 l
10 the oral arguments before the PUC that were scheduled for 11 !
mid-January, I believe, of '79?
12 A.
We may have talked about that kind of thing.
I 13 can visualize it as being the kind of thing we would recognize 14 as a factor.
15 g
So you wouldn't be surprised if it was recognized 16 but you don't recall conversations about' it?
17 A
I don't recall a specific one that was set up on 18l a date based on that basis.
Again, it gets back to the point l
19 l in my mind that says, "We are involved in a process that 20, has certain opportunities for technical argument.and we would l
21 l like.to minimize our vulnerability of those technical 22 arguments."
23 S
Was there ever any meaningful concern about whether h
24 failing to make the FERC Rule 9D deadline might actually
' Q 25 result in disallowance of some of these expenses?
That rule me.en struoen...e senvice. i.i s oso..w.o.a. wro-......
...so
-+
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69
(~'}
requires you to make a report in explanation if you don't
(_/
(
2 i
meet the 120-day deadline.
3i A
Yes.
l
- l 0
was there any concern that some expenses might 5
actually be disallowed if the time period dragged on too long?
6 A
Certainly that is a concern.
I think my own 7
impression of that also is that we, on occassion, sensed i
8 that the regulators, the state regulators, would like for us 9
to defer completion of the project and continue to capitalize 10 costs and not recognize the cost of the rates.
The FERC 11 l guidelines of 120 days also constitutes an argument as to 12l why you cannot or should not continue to defer coming to
/
(,)s 13 grips with the issue of declaring the plant corrercial.
14 0
When you say the state regulators, is it the 15 state regulators or the company that has an incentive to try 16 to capitalize as many of these test expe'nses as possible?
17l A
The company has an incentive to convert capitalize 18 earnings to true earnings as early as possible.
The regulators 19 seem to have a desire to delay coming to grips with the issue.
20 g
The rates may be higher due to the delay?
21 A
Yes.
You_ will find in the record cases where they 22 have suggested that the absence of rate making is not impor-23 tant because one can just go ahead and capitalize these
("'\\
- l. expenses.
,\\s.4) 24 I
k "s i
O Was that a perceived position of the Pennsylvania 25 l
i i
monica sisaceaani.ic scavies. uns oto una soao. wvomissmo. en issio e
c-u a_
.. ~
70 I
O PUC on your part?
v (
2l A.
We were concerned about the Pennsylvania Commission's 3l behavior in this regard.
I think their behavior in the 3
f.
Philadelphia Electric case on Salem one was a good indic'ator l
5!
of their preferences or their thinking so as to say I felt l
6!
in my mind that the importance of the FERC standard or the 7
FERC criteria on 120 days was a basis to suggest to the 1
3, regulator why we needed to come to grips with this matter 9l and could not in turn delay the rate making process.
i 10,
Granted, if we had engaged in that game planning 11 ;
of delaying the coming to grips with it and appearing to 12 !
be happy because of the capitalizing expenses, we would have f
13j then opened up a vulnerability to a later disallowance on 14 the FERC audit.
15 ;
G What penalties or disadvantages, if any, was i
16 '
GPU or the operating companies suffering' as a result of not 17 having met the original committment to go on line in May 18l or June of 1978?
19 A.
I don't recall that we were suffering anything i
i
~
20 significant relative to the pool.
I am sure there may have 21 been some capacity payments because of the absence of this 22l generating capability for GPU, but that is not an extremely i
23 large quantity.
I think that was running 20 at that time,22, 24
$25 a kilowatt year.
25 O
But that was not in your view a substantial 1
l t
tsomCst STENOGRA#mC SERV 8CE. tela 060 48s66 'O AO. WTOes*S$3886. P A. 19460 L.
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incentive to get the plant commercial compared to various t,
I 2l
(~
other measures one way or another?
}
3 A.
No, I don't think so.
I am sure all nickels add 4l up to dollars and what have you, but I would not in my mind i
l 5l have identified that as an overriding consideration.
1 i
6l MR. FRAMPTON:
Off the record.
7l (Discussion had off the record.)
8 (Short recess.)
I 9l BY MR. FRAMPTON:
I 10 !
G Mr. Diechamp, do you recall making any calls to i
11 people at EPRI on Thursday, Thursday night, about getting 12i some help to Milt Levinson or Mr. Zebroski or anyone else?
I 13l A.
I might have.
I think I was in contact with them.
14 I don't know whether it was Thursday night or Friday morning, I
15l I really don't.
I 16 MR. LIBERMAN:
Off the record'.
17 (Discussion had off the record.)
18 BY MR. FRAMPTON l
19 0
We were speaking before about the IAG.
How did 20 the results of the group's work or of the various. groups' 21 work.get input into the operations?
(
22 A.
That input came mostly, I think, a number of ways.
i 23 I suspect it really did not start having a significant affect O
24 until we set up the organization and people like Zebraski and L,i.
25 Levinson sat in on the working group -- technical working esomeCR STEmConAPMic samv1CE. f 483 OLD estLL moAD wyonessgino, pa, speto
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, -. _ - =.,. -
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~
72 1l group and began to make direct input there.
Then as time
(
2i went on, other people, and I don't know whether that i
3 i
started exactly on Wednesday.or Thursday, but people began to
(
4i j
do things.
5!
I think that for the first several days the role l
6; j of the Industry Advisory Group was one getting up to speed 7'
and beginning to look as some of the longer range issues and 3l later began to do specific things like planning for natural i
9i j
compaction, doing some diagnostic work on looking at the 10!
self-powered neutron detectors, Ackerman hooking up this or 11 that or other things of that sort began to get in.
12 ;
I don't think'in the early days they did not have
)
13 a significant impact on the direct cperations.
14 l
0 When they did have more of an inpact, how was that 15l structured?
Was it through Bob Arnold or you?
16 A
No, it was direct from Levinson sitting on the I7 technical working group of the organization and its daily 18 meetings.
Then by setting up, you know, sort of collaborations 19 for working arrangements between specific people in the i
20 Industry Advisory Group and the plant staff people that were 21 concerned about something.
22 When you look -- in my' mind, and again just kind 23 of a summary about it,.the role of the IAG, that sort of 24 surfaced early on, was the added confidence that it gave 25l both us and the NRC that there was ' a separate set of guides secheCK STtMcGNapeetC SERveCE. tela OLO tesLL 2040. wrowissiNo. PA. toevo
-v
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- = -._
73 I
I with a recognized degree of competence that were looking at O.
1 2
some of the problems and coming up with some independent a
(
3!
impressions and judgments And anticipations.
(~'
i 4
I think it was that rule in let's say the first --
s i
5 let's say you had two or three days of getting up to speed 6
and then you went into this phase of some added confidence 7l from the presence of these extra analysis, advisors, antici-S I pators, then you went into a later phase of more detailed 9
interactions of Ackerman hooking up this or that, a tempera-10 ture reading; or Zebroski talking to somebody to dig out 11 some data about reconstructing the core damage or Levinson i
12 i and others, Leavy, getting very specific in consulting on 13{
the transition to natural confection and the anticipation l
l of how that was going to go and those kinds of things.
14 I
15 You mentioned earlier about the comment about 16j whether the industry ought to have such 'a thing set up 17 '
ahead of time.
I think one, in order to do that effectively, l
18 one has to assume that our experience here would constitute i
19 a model and the benefit of having some kind of a. prearranged
\\
20l situation would,be to kind of anticipate, provide earlier
~
21 awareness of what spectrum. of skills you wanted, what kind 22 of basic organization you ought to have, what kind of people 23,
would be able to move in and provide leadership.
It would
^
)
24 not take as long to develop a sense of priorities and a 25 sense of structures that was.necessary to get there.
s mecastCit STthcenapweC SEnvect. tasa OLO usLL moan, wronsegging, pa tseio e
ie-
,m,-
3 f
74 1'{
Maybe there was somebody that was a much better 2i 1, crisis manager than I happened to be or whoever else happened 3 I to be that could have done this in one day instead of three i
C 4l s
or four, but that is how long it took us in this case.
I 5
think the objective, the next time around, would be to 6
compress that time scale to get to the point where such added 7l resources were useful and meaningful and helpful.
j 8
0 Are you aware of any cutback in maintenance or 9'
j decision not to increase the maintenance budget or effort 10 in the time frame of December, 78 or early '79 with respect II to unit two?
12f A.
I am not aware of anything in terms of specific I3 details or specific numbers or specifit people or activities.
~.
14 !
I am clearly aware that at all times we are trying to look at 15 the budgets for our major activities.
16 I am also keenly aware that because of the costs 17 that we. were experiencing, we made an effort to analyze 18 our cost experience with that of others in the industry to 19 the extent we could by accessing the FPC form something or 20 other, which reports these costs.
We were always concerned about whether these c'sts were uniformly reported under the 21 e
22 same ground rules so that the comparisons were meaningful.
23 We derived the impression that we were among the 24 higher plants, whether it was Oyster Creek or Three Mile 25 Island, we were among the higher organizations in terms of 8804eCM STE400massesC StevtCE. f et 3 OLO tesLL #C AO. wv0 MESSING. 84. 19410 0
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,r 75 I
the amount of money that we expended on operating and mainten-i 2l ance for the plants.
a 3I We also felt that our plants had an outstanding 4
capacity factor of records.
I personally felt to the degree 5
that those expenditures contributed to those capacity factor 6l performances, we were doing the right thing, but I couldn't 7
prove that there was a one to one corelation between those j
8, two.
I 9
0 So you are not aware of~any overall cutback?
10 A.
I am not aware of a specific cutback.
I am sure we had budget restraints and pressures.
11 I
i 12 l Again, we attempted to assess those in relationship I
i 13l to the experience and practices of others.-
14 By the way, there is a GPU report on that subject-15 where we attempt to corelate cr compare our experience with l
16 that of others.
t 17 '
MR. FRAMPTON:
Off the ;ecord.
18 (Discussion had off the record.)
19 MR. FRAMPTON:
For the record, we have just 20l requested to see if we can get a copy of the document that i
21 }
the witness referred to.
72 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
I l
23j G
Mr. Dieckamp, one of the things that we have 24 certainly --
't.
i 25 A.
You know -- let me.just back up for a minute.
I i
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i 76 1 i think at the last management and review meeting the corment 2 lI was made about O&M restrictions and cutting back on simulator
(<k l
3' l training in order to, you know, reduce expenses, at which 4
1 time'I said, "No, we will have annual simulator training; 5'
You know, we l don't go to the once or every two year side."
i 6
were trying to balance those things.
OL One of the things that we have certainly tentatively.
8 identified as a serious problem has been highlighted by the 9!
accident here is that neither the industry nor the government I
i 10 '
seems to have done a very good job in the past of evaluating 11 operating experience and getting information that can be 12 '
learned from that experience back to the people who need it.
O)
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In particular, nobody has really heretofore thought about 13 14 setting up a system that would be effective in weeding out 15 tlie important information from all of the unimportant 16 information and seen that it gets to the right place.
17 In a prior deposition, you had some pretty 18 interesting things to say about the advantages of having what 19 you would call an operations analysis type person working 20 for you to look at your own operating experience and other 21 people's.
I wonder i'f you have some thoughts about what the 22 utility company -- the utilities can individually do in this 23l area and how they might go about doing it and what they 24 can't do; what is it, if anything, that is better done by V.)
l 25l industry as a wh61e or by the NRC or the government of somebody MO8e:CK STEN 00massesc stavict. tot 3 OLO usLL, NOaO. wrouttst%e. Da 19eto
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77 1
else?
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2.
A Well, you put your finger on alot of the pieces 3
of it and I did elaborate on scme thoughts for the Fennedy
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Commission deposition and I continue to feel that that-is 4
l 5'
an extremely important piece of learning.
I would character-l 6{
ize it as none of us having recognized the importance of 7
using operating experience as a source of development of 8 i a sense of values for the maturing of the technology.
I I
9i think it becomes complicated because you said a key thing C
10!
when you said prioritize and you also used a key thing in l
11 terms of sorting out and '.dentify which things are important i
12 and not imcortant.
l
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13 I think there is also an opportunity here for u
alot of loss if you end up with alot of duplication.
I 15l think it might not be best if everybody tried to do it for i
16l themselves.
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l
- 7 The kinds of thoughts. I have is that when we ig think of putting a degreed man in the control room in all 1
19 l shifts, I think one of the things you also have to think about l
I is what intellectual pursuit do you give that guy in order i
20 l
21 l to keep him engaged and happy and make his position meaning-ful.
I think: this business of the operations analysis, the 22 m
pursuit of the understanding and the operational events that 23l
(' p 24 l you observe is one of the kinds of things that that guy
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25l could do that would be synerg.istic with this task of a80NIC88 STENOGR ApestC gg3y gg, tag 3 gLg agrLL A0A0. wv0asessiese, pa. teeto
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I 78 i
I understanding the safety and being there as a resource person O
2 in case of an emergency.
j 3i I think one needs some kind of a structure where each company does a good job of analyzing its own experi~ences 4
5f and then somehow comes together on an owner's group basis J
6 or something to get the crossfeed from the other companies 7i and to do that on a fairly frequent basis.
I think in that i'
8 duposition, I suggested monthly.
9; I also suggested that I think there would probably I
10l be merit then in someone like the NRC doing this essentially i
11l in parallel so that we perhaps,have the benefit of a degree I
12 of redundant look at those issues.
13i I think the problem here, when. you try to trace 14 back specifically through Davis-Basse, is that that event i
15 was just snow into a mountain of other analogous pape'r.
The 16 only report with significant details in terms of the event, I
is the one that came through a private ~ reporting service, 17 but even that report provided no evidence of the significance 18 of the observations, no derivation of the meaning.
It was 19 i
all just very matter of factly reported as A did this, B did 20 this, C did something else.; no derivation or meaning.
As j
21 far as I can tell, Toledo didn't, pick it up, B&W didn't pick 22 23 it up, the NRC didn't pick it up, we.didn't pick it up, the significance of that event.-
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24 When you look at the forms of the official reporting 25 asemeCit 9?th00marteeC stav'Ct_ 1483 OLO metLL ocao. wwoessessee4. Pa. t oe ts,
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79 channels, those were all so sketchy as to -- well, a guy I
i 2
M, would really have to be looking -- like walking across the 3
United States and stop off'in Kansas and reach down and pick j
l up a nugget of gold.
It is just a needle in a haystack.
4 5l Ycu do have the problee of looking beyond these i
6 events, not just accepting these events as the ordinary I
7 behavior of components, but rather analyzing those events I
8 for their meaning in terms of the system and safety assump-9 tions, the operator training procedures and the like.
l 10l The very, very fundamental thing in the Davis-11 l Besse matter is that that signal that there had not been a i
12!
proper anticipation of system behavior in response to a leak
(
13 from the pressurizer and that then significantly undercut U
the validity of the prior procedural reviews and training 14 15 !
and the like.
That wasn't detected.
Here with one kind of a leak, the system behaves fundamenta11y'different than it 16 -
l 17 i does for most other leaks.
One has to recognize that and
~
18 make sure that the procedures and the training are recognized 19 and that was missed.
20 I do believe that one of the most important things 21 that ought to be. learned out of this is to treat these plants 22l as maturing technology, which means you learn from the L
l i
23 l experience with them'as you go.
b 24 0
On Wednesday, March 28th, it appears that there A
^
25 was quite a bit of advantage in being away from the control MO NIC M Svth04 A A*MIC S ERYrCt. 1413 OLO MILL NOaO. wvCMassiNo. pa 19e90
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room in terms of the ability of people to diagnose what was
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happening even though they had alot less information.
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3I There were quite a few people with experience,
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competent people, who got themselves pretty well organized I
5l in the control rocm and had alot of information available to 6
them but they were having really a terrible time, it appears, 7,
throughout the day really doping out what the situation was.
31 At the same time, people with much less informa-9 tion in places like Parsippany and Lynchburg, Virginia c
10 seemed to be able to take some of that information and 11l diagnose what was happening by mid-afternoon and wanted to I
12 get back to the control room with input.
[Gh 13 I think you have discussed in prior testimony l
the desirability of having an experienced engineer in the I4 l
15; control room knowing something perhaps a little more than i
16 an operator or even a shift supervisor about the way in
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17 !
which the system may be working or not working as expected.
18 Q.
It has also been suggested that it might be 19,
advisable to have some kind of a national centralized command I
20 center where basic plant perimeter data can be talemetered i
I 21 through the same channels that are set up for a reactormeter t
22 and where you have, instead of having hotlines to the NRC, 23 you have a hotline from the control room to this place so
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24 that instead of speaking with people _with engineering degrees g^
25 in every one of 160 control rcoms, you have people at the 2
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central location who can do this kind of a diagnosis.
Do g
2 l you have any reactions to that latter suggestion?
3 A
I don't think the perimeter of importance is
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4 proximity.
I think the perimeter of importance is breath 5j of knowledge about the basic phenomenon involved in training.
I 6
Again, I think the problem of the limitation of I
7l the fellows in the control room was that their experience 8
and their training was heavily concentrated under the 9
presumption of operations in the normal regime and that they 10 were not knowledgeable enough about all of the transfer fluid 11,
flow, safety phenomenon that manifest themselves when you I
12 get into the way the hell off normal regime as we did.
. ()
13 I think, again, the advantage of the guys at a j
distance was not their dictance, but rather their depth of 14 15 knowledge in their training.
If you say.then that there is 16 such a limitation of people with such knbwledge, maybe then 17 in order to get broad coverage, one needs to centralize them.
18 I am not sure that is necessarily true, because in 19 turn you still have got a problem of'a backlength in terms 20 of how does that knowledge on the part <f those sep.arated observers get back to.the control room and get. translated 21 into actions and decisions and the like.
22 23
.IIwould definitely be against any_ concept of
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24 remote control.
I just can't conceive that that could ever work.
I guess I think of the, guy in Bethesda who doped it 25,
i womeca avamoanapu c samvice. tais oLo meL6 mono. wrouessimo. pe. seeio o'
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out towards the end of the day, Vic Stello.
Well, I think
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i 2! Vic is an unusual guy in terms of his breadths and depths of i
~3 ;
knowledge.
I don't happen to know who may have known how 4
much at B&W and Lynchburug or even Parsippany.
I think our 5l guys in Parsippany were restricted by the amount of informa-tion available to them.
Their ability to contribute would 6j 7
have been enhanced had they had more information directly 8l available to them without the impedances of a commu stion
'I i
9l lack.
j c
I tend to think the dominant line of defense 10; i
11 needs to be in the plant.
I think there has got to be a i
i 12 I tight loop there for observation, deduction, conclusion, action.
13 ;
l I don't have alot of confidende in the remote i4 control concepts.
Perhaps when I say remote control I am 15 i purposely using demeaning adjectives, but I don't have alot 16 of confidence in the real ethicacy of that.
Maybe it can 37 w rk.
I think it is different than the Savannah River, which 18 is a remote emergency control, b'ut that has kind of, as I 39 understand it, one purpose.
That is where the ultimate guy g
mashes the button that gives the ultimate shutdown.
That is 21 a very narrow kind of a thing.
Here we are talking about 22 all of the analysis,~all of the understanding, and all of 23 the decisions to begin to operate and maneuver the plant in i
24
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the event that it is gotten far outside its normal regime.
25
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p It is one thing to control the plant if it is still solid 2l water with pumps running.
It is another thing when all of I
3l a sudden you have no pumps', no natural circulation, a large 4
amount.of non-condensible gas, et cetera.
5 I personally tend to think that there is not going I
6!
to be an easy substitute for solid competence on the plant's I
7 site.
That doesn't mean that remote observers and remote 8f diagnosticians can not be useful, I don' t mean to say that.
9l I don't think that is the route to a permanent fix, but that i
l 10 is a personal judgment.
11!
MR. FRAMPTON:
I think it is a couple of minutes t
12l before 12:30.
We promised to finish by then, so we will.
13 Thank you very much for your time, your cooperation.
1.1 This has been very helpful for me and we appreciate it.
15 THE WITNESS:
We hope so, and we hope it has been 16 i useful to you and we hope the final report will be useful.
17 I think, our feeling has been that we have a special obligation 18 to be as open and cooperative as we know how on all these i
19 investigations because we think it is critically important 20 that the full range of the facts come out in our report, in 21 laymen's language.
22 MR. LIBERMAN:
Mr. Dieckamp earlier referred to 23 the level of power operation of TMI-2 during the power n
l
(
24 essention program at various levels.
I would simply like to
,i _,
i 25 call to your attention, because of the flood'of papers you 4
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I 84 i
1i l
perceive, that on August 23rd I sent Mr. Vandenberg a copy of
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I a letter and some enclosures that I had sent Mr. Whitman in 3i a letter of August 20th that. included a graphic form and also i
4f l in a very short summary a level of energy generation and I l
think it may be a useful document to refer to.
l 6j The question I have is that in the deposition of 7:
Mr. Toole, he had a very large diagramatic presentation of a
sequence of the test program.
I don't know if Mr. Evans 9
and Mr. Vandenberg are aware of this form, but it may be 10 of some useful purposes for you.
If you don't have it I would II like to renew the offer to get it to you in some form that i
12l would be useful to you because I think it tends to present
)
13 as well as I think we can what the program was in graphical Id form.
15 -
MR. FRAMPTON:
I think we would l'ike to have that.
I 16 Thank you very much.
17 (Whereupon, the deposition was concluded at 18 12:30 p.m.)
19 CERTIFICATE I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence 20 I are contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me on the hearing of the foregoing cause, and that this copy is 21 a correct transcript of the same.
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23
'oseph'C. Spontalli, Peporter I tary Public in and for the 7 s, x -), 24 mmonwealth of Pennsvivania t 25 MONICK STENOGRAPHIC SERVICE l My commission expires July 20, 1981 MoheCst STENOGR APMIC St4WICE, 1413 OLD MILL 0o4 0. WTOMISSING. Pa. 18810 -%,m.--m. --~}}