ML19318A657
| ML19318A657 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 11/16/1979 |
| From: | Bores R, Lynch O NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE, NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8006230600 | |
| Download: ML19318A657 (2) | |
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UNITED STATES y g( ( j NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION G.*Q j.y WASHINGTON, D. C. 20555
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g NOV I 6 1979 MEMORANDUM FOR:
Files / Task Group 3 NRC/TMI/SIG FROM:
- 0. D. T. Lynch, Jr.
NRC/TMI/SIG 3
SUBJECT:
TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH ROBERT J. BORES, IE REGION I, ON USE OF ARAC DURING TMI ACCIDENT On November 11, 1979, between 1437 and 1520, I discussed the IE Region I use of ARAC with Robert Bores. The substance of our conversation is indicated below.
Bores indicated that the ARAC information was useful but IE Region I did not use it. They were too remote from TMI to use it to direct teams.
- However, they did look at the plots to see where the plume had been with the idea of perhaps developing the offsite population doses at a later time.
When Bores went to the TMI site, the ARAC plots still were transmitted to IE Region I, where they were filed for-future reference.
No further use of the plots was made at the Regional Office.
When Bores arrived at the Capital City Airport he obtained copies of the ARAC plots from DOE and provided them to the NRC staff at the NRC trailer. He attempted to explain what the data were but was unsuccessful in getting the staff to appreciate the information.
And, when he left, they turned the product off.
The NRC staff at TMI was performing simple eind speed and direction calcula-1 tions to predict where the plume would be i later times.
They did not calculate dispursion nor concentrations down wind.
Prior to the TMI accident Bores did not have any real knowledge of ARAC, but did recognize its utility when he saw the plots.
Subsequently, he was briefed by Herb Hahn of EG&G at the Capital City Airport when he obtained the plots from D0E.
He still didn't have any great knowledge of the capabilities of the ARAC system, including grid size variability.
We also discussed coordination of environmental monitoring during the accident.
Bores indicated that there was no coordination of the various agencies environ-mental monitoring efforts, although he suggested it several times. Each agency, 8006230 %
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. wh'en it arrived, set.out to do its own thing regardless of what other agencies were.doing.
at the same spot a number of times. Samples and TLDs were located by different ag of the. agencies' efforts to fill in the holes in the monitoring scheme.The
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,o RECORD OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION Tuesday, September 18, 1979 10:10 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Mr. Richard Blakeman Former Shif t Foreman, Mechanical Maintenance Metropolitan Edison Co.
Gibson B.C. Canada 604-886-2466 I called Dick Blakeman because he was quoted in an April 16, 1979 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper (attached). Mary Bishop was the reporter for the Inquirer who had called Dick in preparing the story.
Dick believes that generally he was fairly and accurately quoted by the Inquirer.
Dick worked at the TMI site for eight months, December 14, 1977 to August 14, 1978.
He had never worked at a nuclear facility before. His job was is Shift Foreman Mechanical Maintenance and he though he was responsible for both Units 1 and 2, he spent only 10-20% of his time on Unit 2 because Unit 2 was not in a maintenance mode at that time.
When TMI-1 was shutdown for refueling, he spent all his time there (46 days).
-Nobody really wanted to work on Unit 2 because it was a mess - equipment was not uniform throughout the unit (e.g. many different brands of similar pumps) and nothing ever worked right. Unit 2 was always talked about as a joke. General attitude was that Unit 2 was a white elephant.
Overti=e work was excessive. He personally knew of two employees who worked 32 hours3.703704e-4 days <br />0.00889 hours <br />5.291005e-5 weeks <br />1.2176e-5 months <br /> straight. McGarry, a higher level manager, of ten ordered Blakeman to work overtime.
McGarry was not a good manager,'came to work drunk, and no foreman had a good word for him. Most people wanted overtime money, even if it neant working 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. When Dick quit, he laid everything on the line in his exit interview with Personnel Dept.
Dan Shovlin, Superintendent of Maintenance, hired Dick. When Dick left, Met Ed offered him to come back within 90 days as if never lef t.
The only specific shoddy work Dick recalled was the snubbers testing and lack of =achine maintenance.
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. He feels the snubbers were tested with a piece of junk. Sam
,a young engineer from Reading, poked nearly all the snubbers "with a magic pencil." Dick recalled that the attitude was that the snubber testing was on the critical path and that things had to get moving.
Regarding machine maintenance, failure to perform lube and oil changes were the.most flagrant violations.
Minor work orders sat around for years.
The most knowledgeable person about the plant is A1 (unknown), a Mechanical Maintenance Foreman with an engineering degree. Reportedly he disappeared after the accident. N'orm Reismiller and Dick Snow should know how to contact Al Also, Gene Light an electrician, knew alot about the plant.
Dick never spoke to an NRC inspector and didn't know of anyone who did.
People would be reluctant to talk to NRC even if they had a complaint because of fear of 16 sing job.
One concern Dick had was the ease of getting a workers exposure limit increased.
If a worker was nearing his quarterly limit and was needed to perform work that would increase his dose, it was easy to get a HP to "up the quotas" Employees went along because they wanted the money.
Regarding problems with Lonergan valves, the decision to replace came down after weeks of testing. Dick recalled an older man from Lonergan, possibly Jerry Schmidt (Chief Engineer for Lonergan) tried numerous tests but nothing worked out.
No one ever told Dick that TMi-2 had to be on line by a certain date.
There was a general attitude that the quicker we get it on line, the quicker we earn some return on the investment.
Even though he lives in B.C.,
Dick is still a U.S. citizen.
An awful lot of Furmanite was used in Unit 1.
One valve he remembers had 5-10 Furmanite plugs. The attitude was if Furmanite holds, don't replace the valve.
Dick wrote two letters to Shovlin explaining why he lef t af ter 8 months.
Dick can't recall any instance of someone being ordered to f ake a test.
Employees were generally a bunch of dedicated people. However, they never went home with a sense of accomplishment, so eventually they said the hell with workmanship.
Larry Vandenberg a