ML19320D323
| ML19320D323 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/07/1979 |
| From: | Geoffrey Miller METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8007210246 | |
| Download: ML19320D323 (78) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR' REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
In the Matter of:
2 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3
of 4
Gary P. Miller Station Superintendent 5
6 7
g 8
Trailer #203 9
NRC Investigation Site TM1 Nuclear Power Plant 10 Middletown, Pennsylvania 11 N
May 7,1979 12 (Date of Interview) 13 July 3, 1979 (Date Transcript Typed) 14 159 and 160 15 (TapeNumber(.))
16 17 18 19 20 21 NRC PERSONNEL:
'22 Owen C. Shackleton, Investigator 23 Dale E. Donaldson, Radiation Specialist 24 Dorwin R. Hunter 2S 80072104%
i 1
SHACKLETON: This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Gary P.
2 Miller, the time is now 12:10 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 7, 1979.
3 4
DONALDSON: Gary, we were talking about approval for exposures radiation 5
control procedures things of that nature, I believe you had a comment.
6 7
MILLER: I want to clearly state that I gave guidelines to Dick Dubiel g
8 that he was to specifically monitor exposure separately and independently 9
and that he was to approve those exposures and I would have trusted his 10 technical competence to approve exposures such as 100 mR, 200 mR, up to 11 an R probably since we were in such, we were in areas of 25, 100, 60L 12 R, rem.
I would have let Dubiel approve up to like an R, and I didn't 13 give him a specific guideline.
I trusted and know him well enough that 14 when he had anything of significance or something that bothered him, he 15 came into me and I specifically would approve entrance to high areas or 16 guide men that were goin,g to get doses of any level, of any level to me 17 means over 1 R.
Following the first day I instituted a shift superin-18 tendent type set-up shift superintendent / emergency director and there 19 were two persons I appointed to that, myself and Jim Seelinger.
For 20 the-first, I don't remember exactly, probably the first 5 to 7 days 21 either myself or Jim Seelinger worked that job in the control room, 22 reporting to Jack Herbein.
23 24 25 I
n
i 2
1 DONALDSON:
Gary, do you recall, and this is going to be tough, but 2
approximately in the morning or afternoon when you instituted this 3
approval scheme, and I'm talking about the approval scheme where Dick 4
would approve say 100 mR up to one and you would take over for anything 5
above that.
6 MILLER: And again I must say that say that the one is the figure that 0
I'm bringing out that I would have guided Dick by, I don't remember if 9
I said one to Dick, that would have beer in my mind and I believe his 10 commonly agreed to our interface in the past.
In the morning that 11 occured.
12 13 DONALDSON:
Let me ask you, did you have any knowledge or approve the 14 exposures of Mr. Houser or Mr. Velez?
15 16 MILLER: I don't specifically remember, but I do believe that I was 17 aware of that and that I was told aftert i of the exposure.
18 19 DONALDSON: Do you recall whether or not you had any discussions, not 20 only regarding the level of approval for various exposures but the need 21 to solicit volunteers for certain of these operations?
22 23 24 25
B I
3 1
MILLER: Yes.
I and Dubiel and the command group that I discussed in my 2
transcript I discussed earlier, of myself, Dubiel, Seelinger, let me go 3
back and give you some names, myself, Dick Dubiel, the radiation pro-4 tection supervisor, Jim Seelinger the Unit 1 superintendant who I was using for technical advice, Mike Ross, and Dan Shovlin. To that group I 6
would have discussed this -type of item with them and approved specifically 7
jobs of a nature like you're discussing.
8 9
DONALDSON: Is this authority for an individual to accept certain exposure 10 levels?
11 12 MILLER: I didn't address one part of your question. Early in the day 13 and I can't give you a time, we had agreed that anybody amongst that 14 group that anybody that took any exposure would do it on a voluntary 15 basis.
We would not press anybody to do any service that they wouldn't 16 do. To my knowledge there was never a man sent the whole day anywhere 17 that he objected to going.
18' 19 DONALDSON: Are you aware of a sample that was requested of the make-up 20 tank...a gas sample?
21 22 MILLER: No, I'm not.
That could mean that I don't remember it though, 23 but I don't remember it.
24 25
i 4
1 DONALDSON: Do you want me to give you some background that ycu can 2
follow?
3 4
MILLER: Yes.
5 6
DONALDSON: I believe a make-up tank sample was requested one of the HP 7
foremen who reviewed the procedure, noted that the sample could not be 8
taken because the time the make-up tank was under zero pressure and 3
that a valve which would be necessary to be operable, the sample would 10 be taken, was in fact inoperable. And the discussion was that the 11 sample would result in needless exposure, and I believe that sample was 12 ordered to be taken anyway. Were you involved in the discussion sur-13 rounding that?
14 15 DALE: Was that on the 28th?
16 17 DONALDSON: It would have been in the first three days that, thereabouts.
18 19 MILLER: I don't have memory that on the 28th.
I do have knowledge of 20 that occurring after the 28th.
And I do have knowledge that there were 21 certain people who objected to taking reactor coolant or reactor building 22 or make-up taak samples.
Those objections, I felt were not valid.
I 23 did not disagree with the samples we took, even if we were not totally 24 sure that valve was inoperable we had hope of getting, we felt the 25
5 1
benefit of the possibility of the sample outweighed this specific 2
exposure.
There was not total agreement on that within the unit. I did 3
not expect that we would have total agreement about that.
I think that 4
if we controlled the exposure to the individuals involved the benefit, we could have gotten outweighed.
I didn't disagree with that, I believe 0
it was directed from the higher management that we try to do that.
7 O
DONALDSON: What you're saying is that you wer e in involved in it, you 9
did do some sort of risk benefit trade-off?
10 11 MILLER: I accepted the risk benefit trade-off with respect to Dick 12 Dubiel, and with respect to management.
I didn't object to it, is what 13 I'm saying.
14 15 DONALDSON: Let me ask just one other question, is the authority for 16 this kind of emergency operation, that is the controlling of exposures 17 and the authorization of the taking of certain exposures clearly de-18 lineated in the response plan?
19 20 MILLER: To my knowledge, it is delineated that I have that responsibility.
21 22 23 24 25
6 1
DONALDSON: In looking at this, you were personally or Mr. Dubiel were 2
approving certain exposures, do you know if anyone were keeping any 3
records of these discussions or records of these approvals that were 4
being given to the various exposures?
5 6-MILLER: To my knowledge, we were attempting to keep those records through people like Jim Seelinger and Dubiel asking other people to 0
write them down.
I don't think we did well enough at that.
I came 9
back after that a couple of times, but I didn't have the time or didn't 10 take the time, didn't really have it to go look for those records at 11 the time.
I certainly wish I would have gone harder after that but I 12 would expect that I'd think that now, since I have the time to think 13 about it.
To my knowledge, they were being written down.
We could 14 have fallen down on that item.
15' 16 DONALDSON: You did see someone documenting these?
17 18 MILLER: I saw at various times people writing things down, at various 19 points went after George Kunder and Jim Seelinger and Joe Logan those 20 three pe.ple to assure that was occurring.
21 22 DONALDSON: Then we might try to look into records of these individuals, 23 or at least a verification of...
24 l
25
7 1
MILLER:
If there are records, GPU would have had those and they came 2
in the night or the next day of the incident and started assembling 3
all my records and I couldn't get to them either.
But that was an 4
attempt to collect them and make sure that if there were any records 5
they were preserved.
6 7
DONALDSON: Was there a conscious decision made or discussed as to 8
whether or not the normal RWP procedures or chose kinds of health 9
physics control procedures would be followed or would be abandoned, and 10 would be controlled by Mr. Dubiel or yourself? Or did it just happen?
11 12
-MILLER: There was not a discussion about abandoning procedures. The 13 discussion we had was that we would look at all our normal guidelines.
14 We might not necessarily take the time to fill in all that paper because 15 of the situation. But the clear direction from my part, and I believe 16 Dubiel's clear understanding was that we would review all the normal 17 types of items that would be reviewed, the type of exposure the reason 18 for the exposure, the amount of the planned exposure, the tagging part 19 of it, all that sort of thing were on my mind as something we had to 20 do, but I would not necessarily taken the time to go through a switching 21 order to put a tag on it.
22 23 24 25 1
8 1
DONALDSON: To your knowledge do you' recall Mr. Dubiel briefing people 2
who were to make entries as to protective clothing requirements, instru-3 ment requirements doses allowed to be taken?
4 5
MILLER: Yes, Dubiel briefed anybody who made any entry that I know of.
6 He either briefed them or made sure they were briefed and assured me that was done at all times, and I witnessed more than one of those.
8 9
DONALDSON: Could you tell me some of the people that you did witness?
10 11 MILLER: There was one instance that I was personally involved in, we 12 were discussing sending in a CR0 control operatoi-to check a valve in 13 the letdown system a valve in the valve alley, and the area was like a 14 600 R area and he had 10 minutes.
We were considering that, we did not 15 do that, we were considering it, as part of that consideration Dubiel 16 actually inspected the guy's suit, inspected his dressing of his respirator, 17 the whole works plus he briefed the man individually on the number of 18 minutes, who he would have with him the signals they would use to get 19 out and the, Mike Ross briefed him on exactly what he was going to do, 20 about how much time he had.
21 22 DONALDSON:
Was this pretty much the standard routine?
23 24 25
9 1
MILLER:
That was the routine that was followed for every job that I 2
was aware of, I was told that was done on every job.
We especially, 3
tried to pick people who knew exactly where things were so that there 4
would be no' groping around, we used a team concept and we assured that 5
they fully understood the area they were in, the latest survey and that 6
they fully agreed to go.
7 8
DONALDSON:
Was this also being followed for the HP chem technicians in 9
routine building...I don't want to say routine but in building surveys?
10 Pulling of samples.
11 12 MILLER:
To my knowledge, yes. I was assured by Dick'Dubie', that this 13 was true.
14 15 DONALDSON:
00 you recall whether any of your consultants performed any I
16 actions inside of the plant, mainly what I'm referring to is Mr. Porter, 17 are you aware of Porter /Gertz?
18 19 MILLER:
My memory is that Sid arrived...we asked Sid to come, he got 20 there around, we had been on the phone with Sid the 28th, he got there 21 around 8:00 that night and he brought four technicians from Salem, as I 22 remember, to help us.
23 24 25
10 1
DONALDSON: Now Mr. Gertz, or Mr. Porter did personally take r sample 2
out of the 219 sample holder.
Do you recall whether or not he was...he fell into this briefing kind of thing.
Do you recall Mr. Dubiel briefing 4
him, checking him, and authorizing that entry?
5 6
MILLER:
To my knowledge that was authorized, I did not specifically 7
see it.
8 9
DONALDSON:
You do have knowledge that...
10 11 MILLER:
I do have the memory of that occurring that he was handled it 12 the same way anybody else was that day.
13 14 DONALDSON:
That gave you no problem that he did it, you were aware 15 that it was going on?
16 17 MILLER:
It gave me no problem that he did it because we felt that he 18-was, to my memory in specifics, that he would be as good as anybody to 19 do that, rather than have to explain it that he knew where he was r
20 going. He has been familiar with us, wit.'; that Unit before.
He helped 21 us set up the radiation monitors at the site.
22 23 24 25
11 1
DONALDSON:
One other area regarding interface.
I believe later in the 2
period we're talking about, sometime late in the 29th or on the 30th, 3
you began to receive the support from other agencies, one of the largest 4
groups to come in was Electric Boat and they came in with the health 5
physics group, I believe Mr. Graber was given some direction or 6
some responsibility.
Was the intent or were his duties discussed with 7
you before he was integrated into your organization? That he was coming, O
what his limitations were?
9 10 MILLER:
I don't remember such a discussion, I was aware though that he 11 was here, to my knowledge I was aware that that external group was 12 formed to help us from an ALARA standpoint to keep our exposures to a 13 minimum, and provide another base number of people to spread out the 14 exposure.
I didn't have a specific set of job duties for him but I was 15 aware once he got here that he was here.
I still interfaced with my 16 people at that time.
17 18 DONALDSON:
Do you know who Mr. Graber and his group interfaced with in 19 your organization?
20 21 MILLER:
To my knowledge they interfaced with Mr. Herbein and Mr.
22 Limroth.
23 24 25 1
O 12 1
DONALDSON:
Now we had some interviews and gotten the statement that 2
Mr. Graber was placed in charge and had told a couple of individuals 3
namely Mr. Mulleavy, and I believe Mr. Dubiel later that they were 4
working for him.
Do you recall either Mr. Mulleavy or Mr. Dubiel coming to you and discussing that statement?
6 7
MILLj_R:
I don't recal; that specifically.
I do recall that the amount 0
of people we had come to the scene in all areas, that the interfaces 9
and the communications were very difficult.
I kept an open door to my 10 key people for that reason, to the Dubiels, the Mulleavys the Limroths, 11 and tried to front end one at a time their concerns that were brought 12 up, I don't remember that one.
13 14 DONALDSON:
From a cost-benefit, or from a benefit detriment trade-off 15 kind of thing as the emergency director, did you find that your control...
16 that bringing all these people in maybe had too much help and began to 17 degrade your organizational control?
18 19 MILLER:
I personally felt that we had far too much help the day or two 20 afterward, a way ahead of our ability to organize it and effectively 21 use it, but I also must say that we needed an awful lot of help and 22 that it would have been very iierd without a plan, which I, to fully 23 implement that kind of help.
It became very...it became to some degrer 24 frustrating becau3e we ended up in some cases with people that I considered 25
13 1
more useful with in the ur outside the unit.
I worked to change 2
some of that around botn. engineering and in places like health physics to get the Mulleavys and Dubiels back in the Unit, and not have 4
them put in the command centers.
5 6
DONALDSON:
Now what part-of your organization was it GPU or Met Ed 7
division headquarters that was arranging all this interface, this 8
support for you?
9 10 MILLER:
To my knowledge, it was GPU that was arranging, Herbein was 11 aware of some of that.
12 13 DONALDSON:
Were you being apprised of who these people were and they 14 placed under your control as the emergency director?
15 16 MILLER:
I was being apprised in that they were not really being placed 17 under my total control, they were more under the control of senior 18 management above my level.
19 20 DONALDSON:
Then what I'm hearing you say is that the way this fell out 21 is it began to work somewhat to the detriment of your organization in 22 that it began to pull people away that you felt were better, under your 23 organization, rely upon to keep that in plant and the normal emergency 24 plan rolling.
25
I 14 1
MILLER:
I don't know that detriment is the right word.
It began to 2
become very awkward, it did not detract from car ability to do the 3
plan, it did seem to cause an awful lot of 0xtra communication to do 4
anything and I think it slowed down our progress and maybe that's the 5
way it should have been, or maybe it isn't. I didn't feel it increased 6
our purposa or decision making ability. I didn't feel at the immediate 7
time thereafter that it made us make any better decisions.
8 9
DONALDSON:
Now does your plan or at any time in the period prior to 10 this event, had you discussed how the interfacing of support agencies 11 would be accomplished. Who would be in charge? You mentioned GPU, did 12 Mr. Arnold coordinate with you at all? Did you know who was in charge?
13 14 MILLER:
I, when Arnold and Herbein formed up out in the observation 15 center, they essentially were responsible, in my mind for the organization.
16 I specifically stayed inside on my own choice as the emergency director 17 and in fact appointed one other one, Seelinger who had good familiarity 18' with the plan, good familiarily with the organization.
So I felt by 19 leaving just me or Seelinger in the Unit as the what I call the emergency 20 directcr shift superintendent, so that no matter what the external 21 organization were building did, we could still control the events 22 within the unit and flag any problems which were of a public concern or 23 of a unit concern to Herbein.
That - the way I was feeling was the 24 best way to go to make sure the organization didn't hurt itself at that 25
1 15 1
time because we were assembling an awful lot of people awful quickly, 2
it's hard to get organized when we had more help than we could use at 3
that time.
4 5
DONALDSON:
Let's go to Friday.
On Friday, there were some recommendations 6
for protective actions made by the State.
To your knowledge, had 7
anyone from the site discuss either directly or indirectly the possibility 8
that protective actions in off-site areas may have to be considered?
9 Specifically, Jim Floyd is who I'm thinking of.
There is some indi-10 cation that Jim Floyd had contacted with the State Bureau of Rad Health 11 and mentioned that there was a high reading plant then and that you 12 were taking some action in the plant and that you may come back with a 13 recommendation for evacuation of certain areas downwind.
14 A rerp.u o 15 MILLER:
I recall,..when I arrived here Friday morning, I was surprued 16 that there was, I believe I was M *s'eT by Mike Ross, Unit 1 Operation 17 Supervisor that there was a situation in Unit 2 developing with respect 18 to a release in the make-up tank.
I went down to Unit 2 and I don't, I 19 think, this is around between somewhere in the hours of 8 or 9 in the 20 mo.iing.
I went down to Unit 2, Floyd was already there and he had 21 done some communicating and I was not aware of what he had communicated.
22 I got involved with the reading the off-site, I got involved in the 23 e argancy plan all over again.
At this time though both Floyd and I 24 25 i
16 1
ended up reporting what we were doing to the off-site organization any 2
further communication would have occurred at that level to my knowledge, 3
okay.
4 5
DONALDSON:
To your knowledge there were no recommendations...?
6 7
MILLER:
To my knowledge there were none, but Floyd had done some 8
comunicating and when he was in the control room, that's possible, he 9
did talk to someone.
10 11 DONALDSON: What turned out in a nutshell to be the evaluation of that 12 make-up tank release?
Was it anticipated to be lengthy, to result in 13 any protective action guides being exceeded?
14 15 MILLER:
To my knowledge, we weren't expecting to exceed any protective 16 action guide but we did have a release.
We did, we do look hard, we 17 did look very hard to try and terminate that release when we got there.
18 We didn't fully understand the make up tank and it's releases at that 19 time either, with pressure, when we seemed to have an increased pressure 20 in the make up tank we seemed to have a release. To my knowledge, I 21 didn't understand and I didn't know anybody up there that did understand 22 it. Specifically what you could do. The waste gas tanks were pressured 23 we weren't necessarily getting effective waste gas compression discharge 24 25
f 17 1
all the time and the make up tank level would go up to pressure would 2
go up and let down and let down would go down and it was this sort of a 3
situation.
4 DONALDSON:
Do you recall any time during the 28th, through the 30th, 6
when there were, if there were planned releases? Either liquid or 7
gases.
8 9
MILLER:
The...
10 11 DONALDSON:
By planned I mean that it was planned in the sense that 12 manipulation of some control or valve resulted in the release occurring 13 at a pre-determined time.
14 15 MILLER:
I don't have as good a specific recall as I would like there.
16 I do believe though that we had instituted procedures for approving 17 releases by the...in those first...I mean at th first day, because the 18' next two days we did release, liquid-wise things like the IWT sump and l',
to my knowledge the state and the NRC were aware of those kinds of 20 releases.
We may have released from Unit 1 in accordance with our tech 21 specs. We may have released something like miscellaneous waste to make
'l some room rather than dump-it on the ground, such that our evaluation 23 24 25
1 18 1
was it was within the limits and that was a...and we would go throuch 2
an approved discharge path rather than just sit inside.
Gas releases were a lot more complicated.
4 5
DONALDSON:
You mentioned that there was an approval person designated, who was that person?
7 8
MILLER:
To my knowledge, we used the normal approval paper plus we 9
would, we eventually ended up with the command center having to approve 10 and have knowledge of any release.
And that would have been the Herbein 11 and Arnold chains.
12 13 00NALDSON: So that any planned gaseous as well as liquid, after the 14 first day would have gone through this normal procedure?
15 16 MILLER:
Right, it would have gone through the normal procedure plus 17 the additional approvals and eventually and I'm not sure exactly when, 18 ended up with people in the State and the NRC and the ALARA groups 19 specifically being at least aware of the releases.
20 21 DONALDSON:
Then to your knowledge you know of no planned release that 22 was made without prior notification of the State or the NRC?
23 24 25
19 1
MILLER:
To my knowledge that's true, but I think you must remember 2
that wo did not understand all the releases that were occurring, to my 3
knowledge. In other words the make up tank pressure releasing caused our radiation monitors to go off scale, we might have had an additional 5
amoun't of release.
6 7
DONALDSON:
That's not really the kind of release I'm talking about.
O I'm talking about one that you had control over.
9 10 MILLER:
One that we had control over would have been done for the 11 normal paper, plus we would have made an cttempt to notify anybody 12 involved.
For instance, I was involved in releasing the IWT and we 13 specifically talked to the State, and in fact on ThurrJay when Lieutenant 14 Governor was over here, he was told about it, by Jim Seelinger.
15 16 DONALDSON:
In regard to the...what we'll call unplanned releases, the 17 lifting of valves on the makeup tank, continued releases from the aux 18 building, various areas, whenever there was a spike, or an' indication 19 that these releases would go up, were you also apprising the State or 20 the NRC when you saw changes in these levels?
21 22 23 24 25
7 20 1
MILLER:
To my knowledge, when we saw an increase on any of the monitors,
'2 we apprised both the NRC and the State and the command center and we
-3 also took immediate cction in the plant, to attempt to terminate, or to 4
understand and to terminate.
5 6
DONALDS0l; Do you have any. idea if you can recall, when it was dis-covered that the Unit 2 turbine building sump that was going to the 8
IWTS, was contaminated?
9 10 MILLER:
I don't specifically remember, but I think it's in the 29th or 11 30th time frame.
My memory says Thursday the 29th, but nrobably on the 12 29th I decided, I initially decided that it would me or Jim Seelinger, 13 probably backed away from that on the 'Oth when there seemed to be some 14 communication confusion and said, alright, only one guy does it.
15 16 DONALDSON1 Could you elaborate on the actions that might have been 17 taken after that discovery?
18 19 MILLER:
Following that' discovery, to my memory, the actions we took
'20 were that we then put a procedure into effect that essentially required l
21 a shift superintendent, myself or Jim Seelinger to approve any discharge i
l 22 from any sump to any other point.
We would get an~ activity sample,
(
23 look at where it was going, look at the consequences.
I'm not sure l
L 24 when that was put into effect, I believe on the 29th of thereafter.
So 25 1
o o
21 1
that one of us had to know of any transfer essentially transfer. I also 2
additionally imposed that myself only could approva transfers between 3
the units.
4 5
'DONALDSON:
Then, so the transfer of water of from say the Unit 2 bleed 6
tanks over to the Unit 1 misc water storage tank, all these would have 7
come with your approval?
8 9
MILLER:
I'm not sure exactly when, but probably on the 29th, I decided...I 10 initially decided it would be me or Jim Seelinger.
I probably backed 11 away from that on the 30th when there appeared to be some communication 12 confusion and said, alright only one guy does it.
13 14 DONALDSON:
Is that also true for dumping of the bleed tanks on the' 15 floor or into the bleed tank room?
16 17 MILLER:
That's true.
18 19 DONALDSON:
Were you ever informed or were you aware that the final 20 effluent monitor that being RML-7 ever being either in alarm or alert?
21 22 MILI.ER:
Not to my knowledge.
I specifically don't remember being 23 informed at any time of it being in alert or alarm.
24 25
22
~
DONALDSON:
There's also bits of discussion that the train back and 2
forth, that the one train, blockage of the site or transit of trains 3
across it.
Could you just briefly detail the kind of agreement you had 4
had with railroad and'how they're notified, what requests may have been 5
made for were their control of transit of rail traffic?
6 7
MILLER:
I think, I may not specifically remember which trains went by, but I think it should be noted that we have in our drill scenarios here 9
in the past two years, practice contact with both Conrail, and the 10 airport and the Coast Guard with respect to water, air and rail.
There 11 was communication that day with Conrail about trains, and Jim Seelinger 12 if I remember right did that communication. I don't remember the exact 13 words, but we considered things like stopping the train and swiping it, 14 I think we decided not to because of the levels that were in existance 15 at that time from the off-site monitoring, we had the agreement with 16 Conrail that to my knowledge, that we could have stopped traffic or we 17 could have assured when traffic went by.
18 19 DONALDSON:
Was there any discussion of the fact or the need for Conrail 20 to keep both entrances to the site clear and not stop trains?
21 22 23 24 25
23 1
MILLER:
I believe there was but I think I'd have to defer and I believe 2
it's Jim Seelinger or Dubiel that made the communications, but I do 3
remember that we did communicate with those people and I do remember 4
that we had a positive communication.
5 6
DONALDSON:
Gary, from listening to one of your earlier tapes, the Met 7
Ed tape, you discussed that the helicopter that you dry land this and 8
thought about this in your own mind and the original helicopter came 9
from Pennsylvania State Police.
When did you have other helicopter 10 support, do you recall?
11 12 MILLER:
Yeah, we have thought of this possibility and have dry runned 13 it before.
That morning, I think it's fair to state that I now look at 14 data from the State police who say that the helicopter landed on site 15 at 8:30, I believe that to be a misnomer in their log.
When I got to 16 the site and took me about 10 minutes for me to become the emergency 17 director, from about 5 after 7 to 15 after.
I got a projection for 10 18 R at Goldsboro at 20 after or somewhere after in that time frame and I 19 immediately ordered a helicopter through to Dubiel. First thing, I 20.
believe that that helicopter was on site by 7:35 or 7:40 and in Goldsboro 21 by 8 to get...
22 23 DONALDSON:
I think at least the log from the site protection officers, 24 at the north gate, shows that the first helicopter at 8:30.
25
24 1
MILLER:
And I believe that's an error.
And I believe that's an error 2
because things do get fuzzy on a day like this, but that's the first 3
thing I remember doing, and I believe that you could get testimony from 4
separate, from me from tt re's 200 people, Dubiel and Seelinger who 5
have asked separately and independently to write down what they thought 6
and come hack with very similar times.
7 DONALDSON:
Did Jim contact the State police to find out what they had 9
logged.
10 11 MILLER:
I believe Lex Tsaggaris did as a part of his and...
12 13 DONALDSON:
Did it confirm your understanding that it was earlier?
14 15 MILLER:
I don't know the answer to that.
I might say though that one 16 of the things that makes me remember it as I do is that Dubiel described 17 to me that we beat the vind to the west shore that morning, and I 18 distinctly remember that.
We had a team on the west bank, we had a 19 team in the car and a team in the helicopter and I got that projection 20 before 7:30 and ordered that helicopter right away.
Cause I knew that 21 it was 7:30 in the morning and getting over there in a car was not 22 going to be any easy task.
23 24 25
25
-1 DONALDSON:
Where did yoti receive other helicopter support?
2 3
MILLER:
I don't from where, I knew we had them.
I don't the organi-4 zation we got them from.
I know that the RAP teams was there in the 5
morning, fairly promptly and I don',t know whether they had a fixed wing 6-or a helicopter.
I think~we got a separate contractor to give us a 7
copter, but I knew we had teams in and in fact, you'd look at my testimony 8
once or twice during the day, we had readings above the tower and above the reactor 'Juilding.
10 11 DONALDSON:
These were not essentially then formal agreements or formal 12 plans of something you were...
13 14 MILLER:
To my knowledge, this is not in the formal plan, but I might 15 say that there is some formality with the State police that we have dry 16 runned it and confirmed with them many times that that copter would be 17 available to us.
I think there is more than an implied agreement with 18 the State police.
'19 20 DONALDSON:
Do you recall when you received notification that accounta-21 bility had been completed?
22 23 MILLER:
My memory says somewhere around 8:30 in the morning.
24 25 i
26 1
DONALDSON: -Were you aware that as late as approximately 10:00 in the 2
morning that Mr. Dubiel was given the name of two people that were not 3
accounted for.
4 MILLER:
Yes, I'm not sure that I remember exactly two, but I knew that 6
we had one or two. To be honest with you at that time in the morning 7
one or two to me seemed pretty decent as far as, certainly I wanted to 8
find those two, but there were...
9 10 DONALDSON:
Did you find them?
11 12 MILLER:
To my memory they found out the reason.
I think one of them, 13 we found one of them wasn't here, I think one of them was a gate problem 14 and one of them we found. I probably could remember the names, but 15 they've just slipped my mind.
I might say one thing, one of the things 16 we did also, due to the fact we realized the wind was very slow, we 17 knew from the beginning that the radiation readings were going to occur 18 on site.
We very carefully and very often monitored the areas, the 19 assembly areas.
In fcct, we moved people to the observation center as 20 soon as we saw the site going up and in fact around noon, we sent as 21 many home as we could tend home.
Seelinger had people go through every 22 building'on the site to make sure nobody was here.
23 24 25
27 1
DONALDSON:
Now your arrival time on the 28th was when?
2 MILLER:
My memory says 5 after 7 and I came through the south gates so 4
I'm not on the gate log.
S 6
DONALDSON:
Let me just ask you a general question this would be in 7
retrospect I guess after you'd gone back and looked things over.
I 8
know you're emergency plan has three categories, local, site and general.
9 Now, in looking back over the sequencing of events and looking at 10 action levels that exist in the plan.
One thing we are looking at 11 from your viewpoint, is are the action levels that you have listed in 12 the plan sufficiently comprehensive to allow an operator to say judge
.13 the severity of what they have, based on potential?
In other words it 14 looked like there were things that we would indicated as a category'in 15 the reg guides that talks about an alert category. Where you sort of 16 put everybody on standby.
It looks to me like you probably did that 17 without falling into the alert category.
But to look at your actual 18 action levels there's one that's high reactor pressure coincident with 19 low pressurizer level and believe me this is specifically indicative of 20 a LOCA. I believe that occured earlier in the morning, and if you 21 looked at that it would look like the emergency would possibly have 22 been declared, maybe as much as an hour earlier.
Did you take any look 23 at that at all?
In forming your opinion about that?
24 25
1 28 1
MILLER:
I have got a couple of opinions, recommendations which I've 2
transmitted to my management.
First of all, from my internal bird's 3
eye view of this thing.
I think you should, in the context of the way 4
these units run, you can isolate on an instance, you could have started 5
earlier, you certainly can never fail to start early enough.
The 6
trouble is when you start early I'm not sure that all of the people who communicate this type of thing will ever understand why you started 8
early. Since nothing...most of these things turn out to be nothing.
9 What I'm trying to get to is, Unit 2 had had severe trips and I think 10 any of us who had been involved would say that we go back to April of 11 last, of 1978.
But severe ic more, an economical severity.
We had the 12 steam problem and we had ES's, they're safeguards initiations. When you 13 go outside of this site, which I have, and you talk to people like 14 Toledo Edison, they had ES's, safeguards initiations on trips, so 15 whereas three years ago I might have really been alarmed at that, I 16 was not as alarmed in Unit 2.
I've thought about it, but I think we 17 need to very carefully look at what, how we do the alerting and who 18 gets alerted.
I don't think the press needs alerted, but certainly the 19 civil defense people maybe could be alerted earlier.
I think, I was 20 involved in conversations from 4:00 on that morning and I never reached 21 the state of alarm till around quarter till 7 when I heard machine shop 22 readings.
Possibly you're right, ve could have maybe, maybe defined 23 some criteria for an alert state that are ahead of a radiation state, 24 because as we've learned through this when the radiation occurred it, 25
29 1
we were there, there was no...from there on in went very quickly, from 2
quarter of 7 to 7:30 we went from local to site to general.
And we 3
probably could have been general at quarter to 7 had we recognized it.
4 5
DONALDSON:
Now I think this is what I'm hearing you say, there's no...
6 MILLER:
I agree with that, there's a merit to that but I think it has 0
to be defined as to who, what parameters do it, and also as to who is 9
in alert.
10 11 DONALDSON:
And that would take some detail to look at the way you're 12 individuals...
13 14 MILLER:
That's right, so you don't end up you know, if you alert too 15 much you end up with people not being alert.
And they were alert, when 16 this was real you look at my own opinion of the performances is excellent, 17 it went right on.
You wouldn't want to alert people four times a year 18 and the one time you needed them like this, having them sit around an 19 hour2.199074e-4 days <br />0.00528 hours <br />3.141534e-5 weeks <br />7.2295e-6 months <br />.
That was trade-off there, but it's one that ought to be looked 20 at.
21 22 DONALDSON:
That's really my last formal question, what I'd like to do, 23 at least in my area, that is the area of emergency planning itself is 24 within the context of this event, and you have the unique position of 25
30 1
being the emergency director and the station manager.
If you have any 2
comments that you would like to make that may be genaric in nature or 3
lessons learned, in terms of planning, that you'd wish you'd done that 4
you feel should probably be considered by other people in a similar 5
position, more factual than opinion if you can do that.
I'd like to 6
give you the opportunity to turn the microphone over to you and make 7
any pertinent comments you think that we should all be aware of, 8
9 MILLER:
Internally I've made some recommendatio,is which I think would 10 help our organization function better.
One thing I wanted to correct 11 earlier I said we had had, we typically didn't have readings of concern, 12 we had 1 mR/ hour, 2 mR/ hour.
The highest readings I heard external 13 were like at ten at night, up near the turnpike of 10 or 14 millirem.
14 And those were not readings that stayed that way.
They were short 15 bursts we were apparently having some discharges.
There were a couple 16 of times on the site when the wind totally died when we got 60 and 70 17 mR at a point for a very brief period of time, which was the reason we 18 kept the site evacuated, we ran out of respirators the whole day.
So 19 the reason I've given none of them, except some of the radiation levels 20 in the aux building are in terms of rem, all the rates I've given 21 off-site or anywhere else are in millirem.
As I've thought about it, I 22 feel that the communications in the plan worked and were effective.
I 23 feel the plan worked.
I feel the plan worked extremely well.
I felt 24 that if you look at the organizations involved before 10 in the morning, 25
31 1
everybody involved was here.
From the NRC, to the State, the the RAP 2
team to the State police, to the people on the site.
So the communi-3 cations that had to exist to protect the public worked.
There were two 4
areas we obviously fell down in, one was we had no way of really ef-5 fectively communicating with senior people within the government, State 6
government or national government.
It was obvious to me, standing in 7
the Unit 2 control room that the Govenor had no understanding of radiation and some of the people in the NRC the high level, maybe didn't understand 9
it as well as they should have.
Beceuse I was standing there when some 10 of their people were screaming readings at them and they didn't comprehend 11 them as well as they should have in my mind.
That did not disturb the 12 event.
Nothing was detered, when I went to the Lieutenant Govenor's 13 office I told those people I would not change anything I was doing 14 because it was part of a plan that had been conceived over a period of 15 years and not minutes.
We had enough monitoring teams, we had enough 16 help, the other recommendation that I have was a strong one and that is 17 that all the organizations involved with these nuclear plants.
When I 18 say all I mean Burns and Roe, the Architect Engineer, B&W the NSSS 19 supplier, the NRC, and the State.
At a senior level have a crisis 20 team, that they trust and they practice.
The reason Tom Gerusky and I 21 get along is because we practice once a year and he knows when I say 10 22 mR/ hour he doesn't then ask me what.
I think the same philosophy would 23 have helped if I could have talked to John McMillan of B&W rather than 24 have ten B&W people trying to call me.
If I could have talked to one 25
32 1"
guy in the NRC.
Cause he's got to remember that my problem with that 2
whole day was that I was extremely pulled by phone, by questions, and I 3
would at times disappear, because I couldn't focus on the events and I 4
force myself to focus on them, because in my mind I clearly had that 0
responsibility'and I would have performed that at the exclusion of all O
communication.
I'm just trying to say that there needs to be a crisis 7
team in every organization and there also needs to be a guy in the 8
facility who talks the emergency plan with people on the outside, other 9
than the director.
A guy that is a communicator if you will.
10 11 DONALDSON:
What I heard you say was that in terms of the emergency 12 director, someone has to have the presence of mind to resist the pres-13 sures from outside and keep what's important, important.
And yet try 14 to keep things in perspective.
15 16 MILLER:
That's the way I feel.
I also feel you can't run it from the 17 group, you have to run it with one guy, with the riglit talent. He could 18 not have been run by committee on the 28th.
19 20 DONALDSON:
One final question in that area is that on the, regarding 21 the interface of various and sundry agencies, the coordination do you 22 feel that ought to be more centralized in the interfacing?
23 24 25 1
\\
33 1
MILLER:
I felt that at the working 1evel, that the G. P. Miller to
~
2 your level, the G. P. Miller to Mr. Haverkamp the region inspect]r, 3
principle one, the principle inspector, the Gerusky, of the BRH to a 4
sit quarter, it's people like that it was working with no problem, it 5
was interfaced at the right level, but all of our organizations including 6
my own, a level above that, I think didn't know how to react because 7
they couldn't get enough good information.
They tried to react and 8
provide direction and many times the direction, I did not take direction from anyone because for instance, I was told the secure steaming many 10 times.
I could not secure steaming, it was my oniy heat sink.
And I 11 wasn't steaming the 8 generator no matter what the press thought.
12 13 DONALDSON: What I'm hearing again now is that the response plans are 14 normally written and I think this is generic, to cover the facility'and 15 the people that are at the facility what you're saying now is perhaps 16 there ought to be a procedure or a plan for the duties of an X-level 17 office part of this overall gambit that needs to be interfaced with the 18 facility.
19 20 MILLER:
That's right.
And that needs to be very clear, to be practued 21 and to be able to be assembled in an hour like ours is.
22 23 24 25
34 1
DONALDSON:
I'd like to, if I could, make a formal request for your 2
recommendations that you've submitted internally, if you're amenable to 3
that.
Would that be acceptable?
4 5
MILLER:
I would request that Bill Behrle get and clear that with you 6
people.
He doesn't have my recommendations, but he's the guy that I 7
would use as a clearing house.
I don't have a problem but I think it's 8
fair, I think they were written for my company.
They were written as a 9
internal document, not as a secret document or not to avoid telling 0
anybody anything, but they were clearly written from an internal stand-11 point for this organization and I think they'd have to be viewed in 12 that context.
13 14 DONALDSON:
I understand that I certainly would use them in that context.
15 16 MILLER:
I think Bill Behrle owes you that answer.
17 18 SHACKELTON: We've only got three minutes maximum left on the tape and 19 Mr. Miller has people waiting for him for a meeting in his office, so 20 do you want to use up the last three minutes?
21 22 DONALDSON:
I've completed my questioning and I very much appreciate 23 your candor, I think it gives us the view from your end what was going 24 on, and I think a lot of times in an organization, we need to get to 25
35 1
the central location who's really controlling it. Thank you for taking 2
the time and going over with me the grounds that you plowed before, you 3
know all I can say is thank you.
4 5
MILLER:
Yes sir.
6 7
RESNER:
Gentlemen, we need to talk to talk to Mr. Miller again.
Gary 8
if we may, then sometime in the future I would like to have another meeting so that we can get into more specifically in some of the opera-10 tions.
And we'll.
11 12 MILLER:
Anybody else in my office? Will you verify that? We can talk 13 more now if there's nobody there.
I think I have a 2:30.
14 15 SHACKLETON:
We'll close this tape however, because it is nearing the 16 end. The time is now 1:53 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 7,1979, 17 pardon me, 12:53 p.m.
18 19 SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Gary P.
20 Miller.
The time is now 1:03 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 7,1979.
21 For a matter of the record, Mr. Donaldson, of the U.S.N.R.C. has left 22 from our interview and now sitting in on the interview is Mr. Mark E.
23 24 25
36 1
Resner.
Mr. Resner is an Investigator in the Office of the Inspector 2
and Auditor at Headquarters of the U.S.N.R.C.
I'll now turn the in-3 terview back over to Mr. Hunter.
4 5
HUNTER:
Gary would please go through a general description of your 6
involvement starting on the morning of the 28th and through the...we're 7
interested in this group in the first 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br /> of that day.
8 9
MILLER:
I would like to state again that the testimony that I've 10 written up contains what I believe to be the best factual description 11 of what I did that entire day.
It covers in detail the events from 4 12 a.m. to the time of the trip that morning.
Briefly, just to get us 13 discussing that in this room.
At 4 in the morning I received notifi-14 cation of a Unit 2 trip. Received that notification from Mr. Dale 15 Pilsitz who was a Unit 1 Shift Foreman.
That notification occurred to 16 help he would have obviously made some phone calls to help the Unit 2 17 people out, that's the reason it came'from the Unit 1 shift foreman.
I
?8 was informed simply that we had a turbine and reactor trip.
That 19 particular day I was scheduled to go to our Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant 20 to attend a refueling critique and I as a normal part of my life get up 21 fairly early in tha morning and do paper work.
At around quarter till 22-5 that I was beginning to get ready to go down to Oyster Creek, because 23 I had to leave at 6 in the morning.
I called back into the unit to 24 give myself assurance that the recovery was under way and to what the 25
37 1
plan was for the day and whc we understood the trip.
When I called 2
back in I'm doing this from mem y, somewhere a quarter to 5, or 5, 3
George Kunder, I believe answered the phone and he described the fact 4
that the turbine reactor had tripped that it had been probably a feed 5
system loss that initiated trip that they were recovering in accordance 6
with the procedures but he informed me that at that time, that the 7
pressurizer was solid and I believe he may have told me they had a 8
safeguards injection.
If he...and the pressure was down around 1100 pounds.
These two items didn't set well with me, so I told George that 0
I wanted to set up a conference call to assure myself that we were 11 asking the right questions and proceding the right way.
I called the 12 conference operator, and the discussion with Kunder probably lasted 15 13 to 30 minutes, not pinpointing on a time, following that I had a con-14 ference call set up.
Somewhere around 6:00 we had Mr. Herbein of Met 15 Ed, Mr. Lee Rodgers of the B&W, o w local representative on site, 16 myself at home and George Kunde. in the Unit we had a discussion where 17 we again discussed the plant and the conditions that we were in, and 18 the trip. At that time, it was decided that I should'get into the Unit 19 and call Mr. Herbein back and I believe Mr. Herbein was in Philadelphia 20 this particular week on reserve duty.
Following that, I made the 21 appropriate phone calls...I had to make other phone calls too. I had to 22 notify various people who I was supposed to pick up that were going to 23 Oyster Creek with me, till I got through all that, I began to make 24 preparations to physically come to work, I got a call around 20 till 7 25
38 1
or quarter to 7 from Mr. Dan Shovlin.
Also, I should say that I had at 2
sometime in this sequence called Jim Seet 'nger, the Unit 1 Superintendent i
3 and Dan Shovlin the Maintenance Superintt.ndent and essentially told them to come into the plant bect.use of the need of some senior support.
I might also say that George Kunder had called in the lead engineers to 6
provide their support for their...which we would normally call them in 7
.following a trip condition.
Quarter till 7 Dan Shovlin called me at home and told me that they had had a radiation reading in the hot 1
9 l
_ machine shop of 1 R and that they had activity from the sample lines.
10 1
From the actual sample they had drawn from reactor coolant system.
He 11 felt that we had a radiation problem.
Dan's not an operator, he's a 12 Maintenance Superintendent, but Dan seemed to indicate a level of 13 concern and I immediately left the house and started toward the site 14 while I was on the way, they apparently just declared a site emergency.
15 I-came in through the south gate. I lived south of here, it was the 16 quickest way to the control room.
Therefore my name does not appear in 17 the gate logs as I had to go around the traffic and through the guards.
18 I arrived in the control room at about 5 after 7, at that time there 19 were a group in the control room already.
Basically, Mr. Ross was in l
20 the control room he had been called over from Unit 1, he's the Unit 1 21 Operations Supervisor.
Dick Dubiel was in the control room, he had 22 come through the auxiliary building about the same time frame. We had r
l 23
- evacuated them.and had done a survey in them.
Mr. Kunder was in the l
24 control room, Mr. Logan was in the control room.
I was briefed between 25 L
39 1
Ross, Logan and Kunder. Following that briefing I assumed the control 2
of the unit, I appointed myself the Emergency Director, and I announced 3
that I was in the control room and announced who was in charge in what 4
area.
Essentially, I put Mr. Ross in charge of operations. I instructed 5
him to provide directions to the shift supervisor and report to me as I O
did with all these individuals I'm now going to throw out.
Mr. Shovlin, was in the control room, was put in charge of emergency maintenance.
8 Mr. Dubiel, was essentially put in charge of the radiation 9
concerns, and by that I mean, a kind of communicate with any outside 10 organization.
Mr. Dubiel, was essentially put in charge of my radiation 11 concerns. By that I mean making sure the accountability was started, 12 the assembly was started, the off and onsite teams were being brought 13 up, that we initiated surveys inside the unit.
Jim Seelinger was in 14 the Unit 1 control room.
He was put in charge of assuring the Emergency 15 Control Center was in full set up, that Unit 1 was monitored.
Unit 1 16 at this time was in the hot shutdown condition following refueling.
So 17 Unit 1 was stable.
Jim was in the Unit 1 control room. He was also in 18 charge of the Emergency Center which is normally located in Unit 1.
19 Additionally, George Kunder was told to get logs started with the 20 engineers and to start.. to make sure the notifications were being 21 made.
Both Mr. Logan and Mr. Seelinger were directed to get the procedures 22 out, both the Emergency Plan and the Unit's procedures and assure that 23 we were performing all the required steps.
And I further directed the 24 control room that those people would be the only people I would talk to 25
40 1
and they should provide their information through those people as 2
appropriate.
Then essentially what I did from there on was...I met...and also at that time the notifications were already underway in the Emergency 4
Plan.
The projections, the isopleths, and all that sort of...the 5
requirement was already in progress and very prompt.
At that time I O
instructed the group I just enumerated that we would meet periodically, 7
about every 30 minutes, or if something made us meet so...or something 8
in the Emergency Plan, we would meet in the shift supervisors office.
9 We were at that time assessing where we were with respect to the plant 10 and the Emergency Plan and assessing the next step which I would decide 11 and also these people would communicate with any outside organization.
12 That's how we started off.
The first meeting we held was probably, 13 7:30-8:30 time frame.
Our immediate concern that we defined our goals, 14 our major goal was to protection of the public and keeping the core 15 covered and then protection of our own people being second and minimize 16 the plant damage being third.
We assessed those as our objectives in 17 the order of the objectives and we told ourselves that the whole day so 18' that we maintained our priorities in perspective.
19 20 HUNTER:
Okay Gary, thank you.
Let me get back to a couple of not...
21 and as you indicated I think some of the information certainly is going 22 to be on the transcript, and knowing that I'm at this time indicating 23 that we'll be back to sit down and cover some of the detail areas that 24 you were...that will come ott of the review of this tape and also the 25
l 41 1
other tape. On the conference, call can you highlight the points of 2
discussion at that point, excuse me, at 4:00 you indicated that all of you had been told that you had a Unit trip and Dale called you, Dale 4
^
Pilsitz I quess, at 4:45 George Kunder had called back and at that time 5
you had indicated pressurizer level was colid and you had an ESL...had 6
been intiated but I quess the pressure will be 1100 pounds of some low 7
point, okay.
8 9
MILLER:
I had actually called back in at a quarter till 5.
10 11 HUNTER:
And at this particular time, 5:45, can you generally describe 12 your complete, your understanding and what was disturbing you at that 13 time?
14 15 MILLER:
I quess that from my standpoint I had assurance from George 16 and he's the Technical Superintendent in Unit 2 that they had had all 17 their procedures out and they had done their turbine type procedures 18 and they were within procedures that were defined.
I quess it just 19 bothered me that the pressurizer was solid and the pressure Was low and 20 they really didn't know why.
21 22 HUNTER:
That was your impression is that he really didn't know what 23 what he might have said.
24 25
42 1
with the situation, with the pressurizer solid.
I think you can also 2
say that was somewhat based on maybe just sixth sense knowing we had 3
those types of trips and we didn't have a pressurizer out the bottom.
4 The recovery didn't seem right to me, that's the best way I can describe 5
.I t.
6 7
HUNTER:
Recovery not seeming right, apparently you're indicating to other trips or other recoveries that you were aware of that had been 9
through at this plant.
Can you describe the significant differences?
10 11 MILLER:
I quess the biggest thing was that we if we'd of hit a turbine 12 in a reactor trip I would have expected the pressurizer to local to 13 have gone toward the bottom and I would not have expected us to fill a 14 pres 3urizer back up, even though we had HP injection, we would have 15 seemly could have terminated that in my mind before we filled that 16 pressurizer.
17 18 HUNTER:
Okay, when you became aware that the pressure was at 1100, 19 1200 pounds, what did that indicate to you? Did you have any feeling 20 about that at that time?
21 22 MILLER:
I didn't have any feeling about that, but like I said, pressure 23' being low and the pressurizer being solid at that hour in the inorning, 24 I quess bothered me.
I could be specific now cause I've looked at the 25
43 1
curves but if I go back and say what did I think that morning, hey I 2
thought something didn't seem right.
That's the reason I set up the 3
conference call.
4 5
HUNTER:
It's my understanding that you're looking at...you're looking 6
into the licensee event reports of previous history.
I would assume that you're under...you're having this type of trip before, that it is O
normal, that the pressurizer level decrease rapidly and in some cases 9
depart the indication, the indication range, but it would recover.
You 10 have had, had you not an ESL condition before on a transient or a 11 turbine trip type transient?
12 13 MILLER:
To my knowledge we have had those and other plants of this 14 vintage in megawatts, 2700 plants, like Toledo Edison.
That that was 15 not considered to be abnormal to the point of an extreme situation of 16 public concern.
Anytime you have an ES you'd like to understand why, 17 but in this plant in it's first year's history, we had had other ES's 18 on this type of a trip.
We'd also, I might say ridden out trips like 19 this with reactors staying on.
We all knew that that was a one out of
]
20 two type thing.
21 22 SHACKELTON:
Mr. Miller, for the benefit of some people who aren't 23 familiar with the terminology of the nuclear industry.
Could you just 24 briefly explain what an ES stands for?
25
44 1
MILLER:
ES is an actuation of the engineering safeguards system which 2
essentially is to assure a water flow into the reactor in a condition 3
where there has been a loss of coolant flow to the reactor.
4 5
SHACKELTON:
Thank you very much.
6 7
HUNTER:
Okay, can you, when you called Gary...when you called' George 8
Kunder in the morning was there any discussion concerning reactor 9
coolant pumps?
10 11 MILLER:
At quarter to five, there was not discussion because they were 12 still running to my knowledge.
At the six o' clock conference call, we 13 were informed that the pumps, two of the pumps I believe had been 14 turned off.
And during that call I think Lee Rodgers even asked the 15 question of whether or not the electromatic was shut, of course we all 16 know that the electromatics become famous thereafter but he did ask the 17 question and I, my memory, is somebody looked at the panel and looked 18 at the signal light the command signal thought it was closed.
I do 19 note that in the sequence of events now that the thing was closed 20 somewhere around 6:20. We might have generated that thought process or 21 help generator, which I think the operators had been through two or 22 three times up to that point. Maybe that was the thing to roll the 23 stone over, I don't know but, to my knowledge, we, at 6:00 we were 24 25
45 1
aware of cavitation of the reactor coolant pumps.
Of course that was 2
the point where Jack Herbein told me to get into the plant, and get 3
back to him.
4 5
HUNTER:
Okay Gary, was there any other significant plant problems or 6
items discussed in that phone call besides the pressurizer level? The 7
question was asked is the power operated leak valve closed, yes it is 8
closed.
And the reactor coolant pumps at that time were in fact riding the actual saturation curve and were in fact in alarm according to the 10 computer print outs.
What was the general discussion around that type 11 of a problem?
12 13 MILLER:
To my knowledge at the 6 to 6:20 phone call, we didn't discuss 14 too much about the reactor coolant pumps.
We discussed more about the 15 trip, and how come the trip occurred and tried to discuss why a pressurizer 16 was solid to some extent and why pressure was low.
I think that's the 17 reason Jack...and that's probably, that may have been the reason Lee 18 Rodgers asked the' question is the electromatics shut you know, ne may 19 have instinctively asked that question.
We didn't tumble to the full 20 logic of the situation at that point.
I think that's why Jack in-21 stinctively said to me to get into the plant and get back to him. The 22 thing we did also discuss, you know we've been trained pretty harshly 23 in following accepted procedures and we did go after the plant pretty 24 hard...was were they following procedures? Did they have the procedures 25
46 1
out? That's you're beer at 6 in the morning.
Somebody's operating on 2
their own. We've got the assurance that more than one guy nad looked 3
at the recovery procedures and were within the steps of those procedures.
4 5
HUNTER:
Gary, do you recall which procedures they were using?
I've 6
already picked up turbine trip procedures obviously reactor trip pro-7 cedures they were using?
8 9
MILLER Turbine trip, reactor trips, safeguards.
Safeguards, you know, 10 when you have a safeguards initiation you get that procedure out. That 11 traces you through when you can say...it tells you to throttle the 12 automatic and manual actions but you know, you get up on sixteen valves 13 which are inlet valves, you throttle them down and it tells you to look 14 at your indication it tells you how to look for a small or large leak, 15 that type of thing.
Plus, you know, they had the loss of feed, that's 16 a procedure in itself.
So I would, you know...I specifically I believe 17 I'd asked George earlier you know, turbine trip, reactor trip, emergency 18 feed safeguards, that type of thing. Fully confident that he knew the 19 procedures as well as I did.
20 21 HUNTER:
Was the discussion of a loss of coolant condition discussed 22 at that time?
23 24 25
47 MILLER:
Between the two phone calls, we discussed the...we discussed 2
the thing and we had agreed that number one, that the pressurizer 3
instruments were what we would believe.
We didn't believe we had a 4
leak in the building, we did discuss the fact that rupture h5d blown.
5 George and operators had recognized that, so therefore that explains 6
the coolant in the building.
And there wasn't significant building pressure.to us at that time there was I believe discussion that we...that 0
they didn't believe they had a primary leak or a LOCA.
9 10 HUNTER:
Okay Gary, let me pursue that a step. Did the fact that the 11 reactor coolant drain tank rupture disc had blown, is that a normal 12 evolution or is the fact that the reactor coolant drain tank was bot?
13 Is that a normal evolution?
14 15 MILLER:
I...in Unit 1 and 2 we have reactor coolant drain tanks.
Unit 16 2 it is a little different and I don't specifically remember how often 17 we've blown that rupture disc.
But in Unit 1 on this site we had blown 18 that ruptured disc four or five times in Unit 1 in the initial cycle.
19 So the fact that disc is ruptured, didn't in itself indicate a new kind i
20 of problem, just that it meant we may have started out with a high 21 level in the drain tank, or maybe ruptured that disc with the trip we 22 had had. Although we weren't cognizant of exactly when it ruptured on 23 the finders.
If you look at the traces now, you can see quite a number i
24 25
48 1
of minutes.
It wasn't in that kind of time frame so you could make a 2
nice analogy of it. We didn't look at that as an indicator or another 3
kind of problem at that time.
4 5
HUNTER:
They heard the reactor trip following the turbine trip by 8 6
seconds giving a high pressure alarm. The high pressure reactor trip
'normally ends up with the power operated and or safety valves with the 0
end... depositing the energy in the drain reactor tank, that's the 9
normal.
10 11 MILLER:
No, I don't believe we that to my knowledge opened any code 12 relief valves around here, cause you normally on a high power trip 13 don't get the code relief hours, you get, you know, you get your usual 14
. things but the reactor trip generally terminates that.
But the electro-15 matic has gone by that time, it has lifted by that time, we are aware 16 of that. I don't, we didn't go through a discussion of that in those 17 specifics. We also knew they had measured...I think we may have talked 18 that they had measured temperatures on the pipes. It's hard for me to 19 separate, because I've seen data afterward, but I don't believe they 20 thought they had leakage through the electromrtic.
I think when Lee 21 Rodgers asked that question he was trying to give himself assurance 22 that the electromatic was shut. I think we all assumed that initially, j
l 23 yes, from the background that it was shut.
l 24 25
49 1
HUNTER:
Okay, and, again George Kunder was your primary contact ini-2 tially and then very shortly though there were a number of people in 3
the control room and that apparently Seelinger came in, in between...
4 5
MILLER:
I think you've got to say that George Kunder lived right 6
outside the gate, so he can get there pretty easily, he lives within a 7
mile.
So that's one of the reasons George was there first.
Joe Logan 0
was probably on the way in, he lives 70 miles away.
Dick Dubiel was on 9
the way in, early in the morning.
He got called, I don't specifically 10 know why. He may have just come to work.
All these guys in Unit 1 were 11 in refuel were coming to work for meetings, and they were coming at 6 12 in the morning.
A lot of guys like Mike Ross went to Unit 1 initially, 13 because that's what his normal duties were, then when he got there the 14 shift supervisor called him for help.
Jim Seelinger went to Unit 1 and 15 I directed him to come to Unit 2 around 8 in the morning because I 16 wanted his technical help.
He worked Unit 2 for a while and I wanted 17 his technical advice.
Once the ECS was in automatic and we had Tom 18 Mulleavy up there, and so fort, I brought Seelinger down to Unit 2 to 19 be part of my think tank.
20 21 HUNTER:
Okay, during the Unit trip, the emergency feedwater that 22 were... the emergency feedwater pump started but the EF 12 A & B valves, 23 the individual valves to the feed generators were closed.
When did you 24 become aware of that particular item?
25
50 1
MILLER:
I can't truely honestly remember, but I believe I was aware 2
that we had a problem with the B generator somewhere in the 6:00 phone 3
call or at 7:00 when'I got there.
I was not aware the valves were shut 4
until I was briefed from 5 after 7 on. Somewhere in that next hour or 5
two, I was aware that we had had a problem with those valves on the 6
trip.
7 HUNTER:
Who briefed you at that time on those valves?
9 0
MILLER:
My memory says Mike Ross.
You have to remember all so that 11 one of the reasons Mike Ross was down there was that Mr. Floyd who was 12 the Unit 2 shift supervisor was at training in Lynchburg at the simulator.
13 So while I normally would have had Jim Floyd down there, I had Mike 14 Ross. Mike Ross was a Shift Supervisor and is dual licensed, licensed 15 on both units.
16 17 HUNTER:
That's a good point, Gary, let me ask you.
In your background 18 are you licensed, or have you been licensed on either Unit?
i 19 j
20 MILLER:
I was licensed on Unit 1.
21 22 HUNTER:
And George Kunder, is he licensed?
23 24 25
51 1
MILLER:
George Kunder is licensed on Unit 1, he was assuming the Unit 2
2 duty as Technical Superintendent and he was in the process of trying 3
to get a license in Unit 2. The Shift Supervisor, Bill Zewe is licensed 4
in both units.
The man I had down there, Mike Ross from Unit 1 was 5
licensed in both units.
Joe Logan is licensed in unit 2. Jim Seelinger 6
is licensed in both units and that covers pretty much the licenses that I had.
8 9
HUNTER:
Okay, thank you Gary..
10 11 MILLER:
I might also mention Herbein was licensed in Unit 1 at one 12 time.
13 14 HUNTER:
Okay, good.
Do you know of any reason then or do you have any 15 feel'..igs for why you were not made aware that the eme*gency feedwater 1
16 system was abnormal during the trip?
17 18 MILLER:
I really can't answer that and I may have been told something 19 about it but I don't remember, but I think I would have picked that up.
20 Okay, I don't remember being told about that.
21 22 23 l
24 25
52 1
HUNTER:
Were you involved in the...at the time you came on site and 2
became the emergency director, did you get involved specifically with the reactor coolant pump, cavitation problems, the alarms? And did you 4
strictly start at that time and move forward?
5 6
MILLER:
The time I came on site was 5 after 7, the pumps were all 7
turned off.
At the time I got briefed, my first concern was the em-8 ergency plan since we were in it and I was convinced we had it and that 9
it was real.
Then I began...I came back to the plant...we as I remember, 10 decided immediately to try and start the pumps and we started one or 11 two or three and we got 100 amps, totally no flow, which told us we 12 weren't pumping anything and that's what I'm saying when we talked 13 earlier about whether I thought we had a bubble. We all thought we had 14 a bubble, right then and there.
We thought the pump was running, we 15 felt the pump was running 100 amps because it wasn't pumping any water.
16 The only thing I did at that point was I told Mike Ross that we kept HP 17 injection on unless I specifically said otherwise that whole day.
The 18 operators were still tending the, at least I perceived, the operators 19 were still tending to use the pressurizer level as their indicator of a 20 full system, and they were still tending to throttle HP injection and 21 try and recover pressurized level which I think is an instinct that all 22 of us have in this program, the present and past.
I had just told Ross 23 that we did not secure HP injection without me personally knowing it.
24 25
~
53 1
HUNTER:
Gary, can you elaborate a little bit on the that that was that
-2 I think your saying 7 to 7:05 or...
3 MILLER:
7:30.
5 0
HUNTER:
7:30 when you had control of the situation, you had assumed the side of emergency director and you talked to Ross. What did that 8
mean to you? You said do not secure the emergency high pressure in-8 jection without your specific concurrence.
Did you give him any other 10 instruction as far as in gallons / minute, pumps?
11 12 MILLER:
I don't remember if I gave him gallons / minute or pumps. I was 13 afraid that the HP injection would get turned off without me knowing 14 it.
All I told Ross in very strong language was that it didn't get 15 secured without my knowledge.
I didn't...I don't remember giving it a 16 number.
17 18' HUNTER:
At any time during the daytime, did he come back and indicate 19 to you that the HP injection had in fact been turned off or had not 20 been operating?
21 22 MILLER:
My memory is that somewhere between 8 and 9 in the morning, it 23 was turned off.
See, I've got to phrase this really when I got the 24 watch between 7 and 7:30, it was on to my knowledge, it didn't bother 25
54 1
me.
The statements I just made really occurred somewhere between 7:30 2
and 8:30 when I was told or when I remember hearing, they had turned it 3
off at that time, I pulled Ross back into the shift supervisor 's 4
office'where I could be alone with him and I told him in quite strong 5
language that he should not turn it off without talking to me personally 6
the rest of the day.
That was one thing that he couldn't do without 7
seeing me.
8 9
HUNTER:
In your understanding, and in our understanding a little bit 10 more of what the definition of high pressure injection is. If you 1
indicate to not turn it off, what would...what's the normal injection 12 mode and the normal injection flow that you...as would understand it?
13 14 MILLER:
Well the design point in the system is probably like 500 15 gallon a minute pump down at 600 pounds on the accident.
So I m uld, I I
161 didn't...to be honest with you, I felt telling Ross to keep it on gave 17 him enough direction since he's licensed to keep the HP injection on.
18 All of us recognized that you could probably have a LOCA with a failure 19 and have one make up pump supplying the HP injection.
I would have, I 20 would have counted on him to pick a minimum number is what I'm saying.
21 22 HUNTER:
Okay.
23 24 25
55 1
MILLER:
In fact at that time, our hope internally was to charge it 2
solid somehow.
3 4
HUNTER:
To take the system...
5 6
MILLER:
To get the system solid again.
We did recognize that from 7
pumps starts that we didn't have a solid plant.
8 9
HUNTER:
Were your discussions at that time centered on pump cavita-10 tion, pressurizer levels or reactor coolant pressure, for instance?
11 For the key of not being solid?
12 13 MILLER:
The discussions we...I think you've got to look at...what we 14 looked at as I remember it that morning was we started, we tried to' 15 start pumps right away.
In fact Lee Rodgers was the big driving force 16 trying to start pumps.
We didn't get anywhere and that made us feel 17 there was a steam bubble in both candy canes, the hot legs which are 18 higher than the pressurizer. We felt that through the steam generator 19 we had one left, the alpha steam generator, steaming internally, and HP 20 injection we were getting some circulation.
Our concern was fourfold, 21 from time one, in maintaining core coolant, the other thing is that I 22 had Ivan Porter read out the thermocouples on the in-cores which are 23 not a device that are extremely accurate, but they are an indicator, it 24 came out question mark on the computer.
He sent an instrument tech 25 l
I
s-e 56 1
down, the instrument tech came back and Ivan told me that some read 200
~
2 some read 400 and some read 250' and some didn't read.
Then he explained 3
to me that if they were really hot they would melt and form other 4
junctions and that the calibration wouldn't be good anymore.
So, you 5
know, the bottom line here was that they're hot, they were hot enough 6
that they scared you, as far as what you're looking for. It told me the 7
reason the computer was.off scale at 700 degrees. So I came in at 15 8
after 7, T was pegging high, T was pegged low. The in-cores were h
c 3
reading anywhere from 2500 or so, and I picked 2500 it could have'been 10 higher than that.
But that, you know, I war
'ing for a gross in-11 dicator and I had it.
Our goal was to maintain HP injection, maintain 12 steaming, core cooling and attempt to go solid.
I know that we were 13 super heated and all that sort of thing, I don't think we tumbled to 14 that kind of lodge but we just knew we didn't have a control, we were 15 out of control. We knew the situation was one we hadn't anticipated too 16 many times here.
17 18' HUNTER:
In your discussions from the time you became site emergency 19 director until, throughout the day, the think that Mike Ross was your 20 key individual and Joe Logan or was it just Mike Ross that you...
21 22 MILLER:
If I had to pick the key individuals that day, it would have 23 been Mike Ross, Lee Rodgers, Dick Dubiel, and Jim Sealinger. Dick 24 Dubiel from the emergency plant and exposure and survey point, Jim 25
57 1
Seelinger because he's got a good tech.aical head on his shoulders 2
licensed iri both units, Mike Ross was a good operator, Lee Rodgers as a 3
B&W guy with a lot of experience.
Those guys I assembled together, now 4
they... Lee tried to talk I think to Lynchburg probably through various 5
channels' and he was talking to Greg Schaedel at times of course talking 6
to Lynchburg.
To my knowledge, there were some of your people were up 7
there and I was very open with them and asked for anything they could 8
tell me.
They were very cooperative, they didn't really know what else to do either. So we tried to use that whole group to talk to anybody 10 that would talk to us.
Following each one of those meetings we made a 11 decision and...I made a decision and then that's what we did.
12 13 HUNTER:
Were minutes kept of these meetings or what went on in the 14 room? At all?
15 16 MILLER:
No. And like I say I wish we had a tape recorder because...I 17 did attempt to keep Seelinger and myself and Ross tried to keep some 18 personal notes. Things move at an incredibly fast rate from the time we 19 spent...
20 21 22 23 24 25 l
l
\\
58 1
HUNTER:
Question concerning use of procedures again, Gary, as far as 2
the use of procedures and the ones that were used, you did discuss that 3
with George Kunder? Zewe and Scheimann as far as what the status was 4
and what procedures were in fact being used?
5 6
MILLER:
Yes.
7 8
HUNTER:
Okay.
Did you discuss, either in the conference call or after 9
you got in, natural circulation with Kunder or the group? When you 10 came in, T was past high and superheat, T was low you might if you h
c 11 can indicate what that meant to you?
12 13 MILLER:
I don't remember natural circulation discussion in the 6 14 o' clock phone call. Somewhere, remembering that I got there at 5 after, 15 it took 10 minutes till I got briefed.
It took the next period of 16 time, time does get compressed for some reason and it does go faster 17 than I think.
It took me some period of time to get the Emergency Plan 18' rolling and assure myself.
My biggest concern wasn't the plant at that 19 time, my biggest concern was the radiation cause I considered that to 20 be my primary purpose at that moment. So my big concern was accountability, 21 mustering of people, getting the notifications made. In fact I have l
22 that stuff pretty well memorized from the drills.
In fact I have white 23 cards with the emergency drill on it. I was more concerned with the 24 fact that the teams were out with a meter on that the meter at Yorkhaven 25
1 1
59 1
was on, we have a radiation meter at Yorkhaven, got a State Police 2
Helicopter to come in.
That consumed probably my first half-hour.
3 Then...I depended on Ross at that point.
Then we sat down it the 4
shift supervisor's office, somewhere around eight o' clock or so, and 5
agreed the Emergency Plan was under way and then started talking about 6
the unit.
How the hell we get the unit solid again?
7 0
HUNTER:
Okay.
9 10 MILLER:
And at that time we discussed natural circulation and we 11 discussed how we were cooling the core.
Our only concern, you know, we 12 had very low pressure on A steam generator which indicated to us we 13 weren't getting much natural circulation.
And the plant's T ffscale h
14 high we put a recorder on it so we could read it.
We knew it was 15 between 700 and 800 degrees.
T being 1 w indicated we were having c
16 some effect with HP injection.
Because the T thermocouples...we went c
17 over and looked at the elevation drawing, my memory is that it is on 18 the suction leg of the reactor coolant pump.
So we did feel...plus 19 steam generator downcomer temperature, and some of this is covered a 20 little better in my testimony.
Amongst those parameters, we felt we 21 would g_L some natural circulation, with the HP injection, we didn't 22 know what flow we needed really, we were trying to keep it on.
We felt 23 24 25 l
8 60 1
between those things we were getting something. We weren't totally 2
convinved the core was covered.
But we didn't know what instrument to
~
look at to tell us that.
4 5
HUNTER:
Gary, had you seen decay heat curves, calculations at that 6
time? Minimum flow required to cool the core?
7 8
MILLER:
I had not myself seen those.
OK.
I believe though that 9
Mike Ross would have been pretty much aware of what decay heat was 10 like.
But I think...to ping on some of my other people, that were 11 helping me, I don't believe we have, as far as the amount of flow 12 needed in this conditions, it would have been a tough one to call 13 beca'se of were we were.
You know, it wasn't like we had a break, it 14 was like we were pumping water in, taking some out with a steam generator 15 and I'm not sure that would have told Mike Ross exactly what he had 16 versus what he needed. We had some fears the core wasn't totally covered.
17 We knew we were throttling, see we were throttling with the electromatic 18' block valves.
See I was pumping 2000 pounds, that's what our goal was.
19 Pump 2000 lbs and drop it on the floor.
We didn't know how much of the 20 water was going to cross the core.
We weren't convinced in our own 21 mind that every gallon per minute...we were concerned getting cooling 22 but we weren't in our own mind convinced we weren't short circuiting 23 24 25
l 61 1
the core.
We really didn't know what indicator told us the core is 2
covered.
Now we were being conservative. And the radiation monitors 3
were still going up.
4 5
HUNTER:
Gary, the question 1...go back we passed it very quickly and I 6
want to make sure.
At that time were you throttling power operated relief valve or were you opening and closing it?
8 9
MILLER:
To my knowledge, we were throttling with the block valve.
And 10 the other valve was open.
11 12 HUNTER:
You were maintaining pressure with the block valve?
13 14 MILLER:
With the block valve. Specifically we had discussed going 15 against the code safety valves which would not have bothered us.
We 16 just didn't feel we would get anywhere.
We thought we needed...we just 17 couldn't seem to get the plant even going towards a solid condition.
18 We discussed going against the coded relief valves, the only reason we 19 didn't do that I guess was because we didn't feel we had to yet and we 20 weren't sure that would take us solid.
And we did have pressure indi-21 cation and we probably who have gone beyond the range of the.nstrnments.
22 We didn't want to loose that till we had to.
Plus we had control with 23 the block valve.
24 25 U
e 62 1
SHACKLETON:
Gary, you indicated when you throttling that the radiation 2
levels on your readouts were going up.
Is that correct? Cause you 3
said they were going this way and that doesn't come on the tape.
4 5
MILLER:
I might say that when I got there at 5 after 7...let's not 6
talk dome monitors, let's talk to the other ones, all the other monitors 7
were going to the alert and alarm state.
The dome monitor passed 8
through 8 R somewhere right around 20 after and it was still going up.
9 When I say it was still going up, I'm talking mainly the dome monitor.
10 I don't know what acceleration rate it had, but it was going up into 11 number that you'd read about in your life before but you'd never though 12 you'd see.
I'm talking in terms of 30-40,000 R.
That type of thing.
13 14 SHACKELTON:
Thank you.
15 16 HUNTER:
Okay, this was at the time that you were controlling pressure 17 and...out the power operated relief valve / block valve and charging into 18 the system, with the makeup system running.
Hopefully, cooling the 19 core, hopefully that the water is going through the core.
20 21 SHACKLETON:
I think you'd better break at this time on this tape and 22 we'll change to another tape. The time is now 1:45 p.m. Eastern Daylight 23 Time, May 7, 1979.
24 25
63 1
SHACKLETON:
This is a continuation of the interview of Mr. Gary P.
2 Miller.
The time is now 1:48 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, May 7, 1979.
3 Please continue.
4 5
MILLER:
Let me say one thing, and I've said it in my testimony and 6
it's an honest thing, I was here that day twenty-four to thirty hours 7
and I have, also, I've had a problem remembering exact times and I'm 0
sure of a couple of them. But a lot of them the time past and I don't 9
have as good a handle on the exact hour.
That's not just true of me, 10 I've talked to other people so I think it has something to do with the 11 kind of stress we were under up there.
12 13 HUNTER:
Okay, Gary, let me cover another area.
Basically, the plant 14 was at pressure, the high pressure injection was running, you were 15 controlling pressure through the power operated relief valve block 16 valve and then there was a decision to depressurize the plant and go to 17 a lower pressure.
Can you elaborate in that area, of that, the reasoning 18 of that decision and where you were headed?
19 20 MILLER:
We met some time... we had been through the hours of the 21 morning... couple hours in the morning, we had pumped somewhere, I 22 guess twenty foot of the borated water storage tank into the reactor 23 tuilding, we were getting some circulation, some natural circulation 24 25 l
64 1
with the steam generator, we had kept the Bravo Steam Generator isolated 2
because it was determined that it might had a leak possibly earlier in 3
the incident, we done everything we could to attain better natural 4'
circulation, we pumped HP injection in, we, as I said earlier, we were 5
concerned that core was covered, that we had enough natural circulation and we didn't see our way to a stable condition. A stable condition 7
meant a reactor coolant pump running or the decay heat system in effect 8
and we...
I, also, personally, didn't really desire to pump all the 9
water out of the BWST in the building on the floor and then try go to 10 what we call the " piggy-back" mode although I would've would have done 11 that.
Those kinds of concerns made us decide that, possibly, if we go 12 down to the core flood pressure, still maintaining HP injection as we 13 could... there was one other concern, the RCV 2, the block valve for 14 the spray valve... sit in top pressurizer, it's a gate valve, not a 15 throttling valve has failed open and closed on this unit and on other 16 units.
We were somewhat concerned that the cycling on that valve might 17 cause it to fail open or shut and that would, that would give us a very 18 limited."Jmber of paths in and out of the system without a break.
In 19 other waris, we'd of had the pressure under... vent and code relief 20 valves and that would've been it.
So, based on a lot of that kind of 21 discussion with the command group I've discussed earlier we, I decided 22 to go ahead and come down towards core flood. We did that and we did 23 get to 440 pounds, as as I say our hope was either a reactor coolant 24 pump or decay heat.
We got down to 440 before flood tanks responded, 25
~
65 1
they responded by going down in level a foot or a foot and a half, and 2
that gave us an assurance that the core was basically covered and the 3
HP injection path we were on was not short circuiting the core, and we 4
had to hope that at that time that we might be able to get lower in 5
pressure but we were not able to get below 440 pounds.
6 HUNTER:
Okay.
8 9
MILLER:
At the same time, we didn't deduce this, but when we did get 10 down towards core flood we saw the first... additional response from the 11 A temperature instruments. In that, I mean, T seemed to come down, T n
c 12 seemed to come up.
So, for some reason, quite honestly, I don't think 13 we technically understood why.
We got some response from the instru-14 ments by playing with core flood pressure, when getting down to core 15 flood pressure, and also by, I forget which, I think its' the C leg, we 16 favored the one injection leg which seemed, which seemed to encouraged 17 the response in collapsing that bubble in the A loop.
So, we had hoped 18 to stay in that condition long enough to get enough water in the loop 19 to start a pump or to get down in pressure.
l 20 21 HUNTER:
Miller, in this same tirre frame, speaking of different flow 22 paths, did you discuss the use of the pressurizer spray valve or was it 23 being used?
24 25
66 1
MILLER:
Yes, it was.
To my memory we used it and the block valve to 2
get down in pressure.
3 4
HUNTER:
Okay. What about the pressurizer vent line that epparently 5
parallels the power operated relief valve, goes to the reactor drain 6
tank?
7 MILLER:
I don't believe we were using that line.
It would've been a 9
path we could've used but it's a smaller line.
I don't remember using 10 i t.
Mike Ross could've used it without me knowing it.
He would've 11 been smart enough to do that, I might not be aware of that.
12 13 HUNTER:
Can you elaborate some of the use of the spray line? Do you 14 recall why it was used, what the benefit was for using the spray line?
15 16 MILLER:
I don't recall.
17 18 HUNTER:
Alright.
Then you gat down to the point and you made 440 19 pounds.
Do you recall whether the pressure was decreased quickly or 20 slowly or?
21 22 MILLER:
Not quickly, but I don't remember the exact ramp down, it came 23 down, it came down steadily would be the best way I would describe it.
24 25
l 67 1
HUNTER:
Did you try to dump the core flood tanks totally?
2 3
MILLER:
No, we were not trying to dump them totally.
I think we 4
should say we thought if they dumped totally that would've indicated to 5
us that the core wasn't being adequately covered by the methods we were 6
using.
When the core flood tanks leveled out at a foot or a foot and a 7
half down, that gave us assurance that we were...that we were putting 0
enough water in to keep the core covered.
We had seen a level decrease 9
in those tanks about a half, a half a tank.
That we would've been 10 looking to increase HP injection. I guess we'd a had a hard time evalu-11 ating that. Knowing it went down a foot, a foot and a half gave us 12 assurance.
Had it gone down a lot we'd of probably attacked the problem 13 a little differer.t.
14 15 HUNTER:
Did you try to reduce the pressure further to your knowledge?
16 17 MILLER:
Yes.
18 19 HUNTER:
And in fact put more core flood tank water in the plant?
20 21 MILLER:
We tried to reduce, I think it's fair to state that right 22 after we got on core flood I went to the Lieutenant Governor's Office.
23 At that time, I think Mike was still tr.ying to reduce pressure further 24 and still hope for decay heat to be honest with you.
25
68 1
HUNTER:
And he could not in fact reduce pressure?
2 3
MILLER:
He could not reduce pressure further than my watch.
The other 4
thing is I think the only...
We know that we had to blow down through 5
the block valve cause the spray line wouldn't do much for us...
So we 6
discussed earlier... Mike might've used that other vent to help it and I 7
might not be aware of it.
8 HUN 1ER:
Alright.
The attempt at tha time was to core flood tanks and 10 get on the decay heating system.
Decay heat system, then, would take 11 the suction off the hot leg so the plant could be...and cool the water 12 and discharge it back to the cold leg.
13 14 MILLER:
That's right.
15 16 HUNTER:
These pumps are located outside the containment.
17 18 MILLER:
They're located in the auxiliary building in vaults.
19 20 HUNTER:
Could you give me a feeling of your knowledge of the conditions 1
21 of those pumps?
22 23 MILLER:
We ran those pumps in preparation for that.
24 25
a 69
- 1 HUNTER:
And what did you...what did you...?
2 3
MILLER:
To my knowledge they were ready to run.
4 5
HUNTER:
Were they leaking that at time?
6 7
MILLER:.Not to my knowledge.
That doesn't mean they weren't leaking 8
but not to my knowledge..My under...as I remember it the operators were told'to start them and run them maybe on recirc, I'm not totally 10 sure and they did.that and it was reported they were ready to go.
11 There was not valve line up made with the primary system that I was aware of.
I might also say in this same time frame in the afternoon we 13 also were looking at the reactor coolant pump and we had problems with 14
.some of the motor driven lift, oil lift and back stop pumps. We we're 15 trying to get...we had lost some switch gear that supplied those. So I 16 didn't...we didn't have the ability to start a reactor coolant pump 17 unless we were appraised of the oil pump. At that time so we were also 18 working on that angle too.
Plus we'd lost most of the pressurizer 19 heaters, or at least-half of them, and we were trying to get the elec-20 tricians to regain some of those. Since that was...you know, if we 21 get...if we could get a bubble in the pressurizer we also felt we could 22 shove water back in the legs.
We never gained that control either.
-23
'24
- 25 h
70 1
HUNTER:
Okay..Another area I want to touch base with you on is, 2
during depressurization of the system, it becomes apparent that the 3
pressure, the hydrogen concentration in the containment was increasing, 4
would you... was that discussed at any time during the day time?
5 6
MILLER:
That was not discussed to my memory, could've been but I don't
'7 remember discussing it.
8 9
HUNTER:
No discussion of the possible increase of the hydrogen concen-10 tration?
11 12 MILLER:
Not to my knowledge.
13 14 HUNTER:
Were you aware that you had the 28 pounds?
15 16 MILLER:
I was aware of a loud noise in the reactor building, I heard 17 it at the control panel, in fact, I asked what that was.
To my know-18 ledge the other people standing there didn't hear it.
One operator 19 tells me or one engineer tells me that when I said that he looked over 20 and the building spray pumps had turned on which means that we had over 21 28 pounds.
22 23 24 25 l
71 1
HUNTER:
Let me give you some information and see if you...if it ties 2
something together in somewhat of a form of a question.
Were you aware 3
that at the instant, or had it come to your attention that the instant 4
within the computer printout time frame and the operators discussion 5
that the ignitiois occurred at the same time the power operated relief 6
valve was opened?
7 0
MILLER:
No.
9 10 HUNTER:
And the computer, the reason I say the computer, because the 11 computer showed pressurizer heaters tripping at that time, you couldn't 12 construe that either one of those conditions might have...although 13 pressurizer heaters tripping basically is outside, it can't...it would've la been a hot short or something to give a spark. When or had you become 15 aware that the Shift Supervisor was aware that the spike occurred at 16 that time?
17 18' MILLER:
He could've known.
I did not at that time have that knowledge 19 and also you've got to think, you have to remember that right after 20 that time I was preparing to leave the site.
So, I was out on the 21 panel watching us going to core flood.
Following that noise and so 22 forth, I went back in and prepared to go and he could've talked to Mike 23 Ross and I wouldn't have known that conversation occurred.
24 25
72 1
HUNTER:
At this point, Jack Herbein...and you still have the control...
2 your previous discussions indicated that, you maintained control and 3
were issuing orders throughout, throughout the evening.
4 MILLER:
From about 8 p.m.
6 7
HUNTER:
At that point, you indicated then that Jack Herbein took the 8
control at the command center.
9 10 MILLER:
That's right.
The 8 p.m. is the time that I picked.
It could 11 have been a different time but it's in that time frame.
During the day 12 Jack could've had discussions with Mike.
He's people. But there was no 13 move I know of that was made that I wasn't aware of and secondly, I 14 guess the one point that were around five in the evening or so Arman 15 and Herbein directed me to take the plant solid at a higher pressere or 16 try that again. That's one point were I accepted that decision and 17 started trying to raise pressure and I said that somewhere around 7 or 18-8 or 7 at night I began to fully communicate them and get direction 19 from them.
20 21 HUNTER:
Was that repressurization which was really the next major 22 event to get at least to a stable condition? And you said that was a 23 decision made by you after a lengthy discussion with Herbein?
24 l
25
~
7h 1
MILLER:
They and I and my understanding was that GPU Engineering and 2
B&W and GPU concurred on that course of action.
Thought that was the 3
best way to go.
Inside the plant our primary goal was to run a reactor 4
coolant pump, repressurize and run a reactor coolant pump and that's 5
the way we were proceeding inside.
6 HUNTER:
Alright. Available to you as far as consultants, inside the 8
plant at that time you had your think tank set up, it included Lee 9
Rogers, B&W didn't it?
10 11 MILLER:
Yes.
12 13 HUNTER:
Are you aware that he had...or did he have any communications 14 with Lynchburg to your knowledge?
15 16 MILLER:
To my knowledge he had communications with Lynchburg and in 17 fact he had communications with Mr. Greg Schaedel who I understood was 18 having some communication with Lynchburg and also as an evidence of 19 tnis, when I decided to run the reactor coolant pump, he was on the 20 phone with either Schaedel or Lynchburg and getting advice as to what I 21, should to do to bump that pump.
For instance, I didn't have any AC 22 back stop or AC lift pump.
I wanted to run the pumps on the DC lift 23 pump without a back stop pemp.
The did not object to that and, in 24 fact, I would've run the pump without and an oil pump if I'd of come to 25
C D
74 1
that at that time because the pump was the way out in our minds at that 2
time.
So, during that time frame he was discussing it with them, I 3
didn't...they didn't never concur running the pump but I used any 4
information that was useful they gave me.
5 6
HUNTER:
Of course you had communica ions with Met Ed - GPU through 7
Jack Herbein, I presume?
8 b
MILLER:
Through Jack and also Jim Seelinger and Lee Rogers both had 10 talked to Jack at various points.
11 12 HUNTER:
Was there anyone else that you were discussing...?
I 13 14 MILLER:
I...not talking the emergency plan, I was talking to people 15 like Sid Porter and the State.
Talking the technical portion of it, I 16 also had some communication with some of the NRC people but nothing 17 which was a formal type thing.
They would ask questions and I would 18 give them answers and they would provide advice and we took their 19 advice.
20 21 HUNTER:
Now, Lee Rogers was onsite, anybody else from the outside 22 organizations like John Flint I think was available.
23 24 25
C
=
75 1
MILLER:
There were others onsite and I wouldn't want to get in my 2
memory because I stuck pretty hard on the five or six people I wanted 3
to deal with because I didn't want to get deluded. But there were other 4
people...there were other people onsite, for instance the Unit 2 lead 5
engineers, the Unit 1 lead engineers were around, the OC head was 6
around, some of Lee Rodger's people were around.
7 8
HUNTER:
The use of the in cores has been discussed, the self powered 9
in core detectors, did you have any... aid you use those or was it 10 discussed during the event to use the in cores?
11 12 MILLER:
I, early in the morning used them ar, my first indicator because 13 there aren't many indications in the core and they are one of them.
To 14 be honest with you, Unit 1 only, I believe has those thermocouples 15 wired out.
I was aver trained that those thermocouples were too much 16 of a device you were to use but I used them because they were the only 17 the only indicator what was going on in the core I had that was direct.
18 So, I did utilize them but only to tell me that what I had was that 19 severe, more than to prescr ice a rocedure or action or something.
c 20 21 HUNTER:
Okay.
What about the self powered in core neutron detectors?
22 Was that discussed?
23 24 25
O 76 1
MILLER:
That was discussed plus the excores.
We watched both of 2
those.
Early in the morning that was discussed if some thing had 3
occurred. You know, we did not see, that I remember, after seven in the 4
morning any kind of an upward response on those.
We were looking at 5
those. They had showed an upward response earlier in the morning.
In 6
fact early in the morning they probably emergency borated it... things 7
based on the excores going up.
Arid you.know they had low baron samples 8
early in the morning and they thought they were getting a low baron 9
when they were probably taking water of the damn core.
10 11 HUNTER:
I understand.
I don't have any further questions at this 12 time, Gary.
I appreciate your time and would also like to indicate 13 that after I review this t.onversation and would also like to review 14 your transcript. I would like to indicate that I would be getting back 15 and try to cover some of the specific decisions at that time.
16 17 MILLER:
I don't have any problem with further interviews.
I think you 18 got to remember the further we get the harder it is to become honestly 19 specific and I'll give you the answer as honestly as I can.
Testimony 20 gives my logic as best as I can present it and I, also, might say that 21 the level of stress that I felt under that day was almost intolerable 22 because, I think the situation as I've said was one I wasn't schooled 23 in, secondly, the amount of communications I was trying to accomplish 24 were almost intolerable and that I actually removed myself at times 25
t
.as.
77 1
from that to think.
There u s very'little time to think, I just want 2
to make that point and not that that won't happen the next guy.
It's 3
very hard to focus on the plant when it's in an unschooled condition 4
and you're trying to explain it. Otherwise, any time you want to interview 5
me, I'm available.
6 7
SHACKLETON:
Thank you very much, Mr. Mi,.er.
We really appreciate all 8
this time from your busy schedule.
We'll close this interview now.
The time is 2:08 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, May 7, 1979.
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18' 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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