ML19320D332
| ML19320D332 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/01/1979 |
| From: | Wilson R GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES CORP. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8007210254 | |
| Download: ML19320D332 (32) | |
Text
,
o UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
In the Matter of:
2 IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3
of 4
Dick Wilson Director of Techrical Function 5
7 8
Trailer #203 9!
NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10 Middletown, Pennsylvania lli June 1. 1979 12 (Date of Interview) 13 July 6. 1979 (Date Transcript Typed)
,4 1
292 15 (Tape Number (s))
16 17 18 19; 20l.
21 NRC PERSONNEL:
22 Robert Marsh, Investigator 23 Anthony N. Fasano, Inspection Specialist l
25 E
80h721Odf[
t
0 1
MARSH:
The date is June 1,1979, the time is 8:26 a.m..
My imme is Bob 2
Marsh, that's M-A-R-S-H, and I'm an Investigator with the U. S. Nuclear 3
Regulatory Commission, assigned to Region III in Chicago, Illinois.
4 This morning here at the facilities of GPU, their Corporate Headquarters 5
at 260 Cherry Hill Road, in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.
We are here to 6
conduct a series of interviews and the first individual being Mr. Dick 7
Wilson, W-I-L-S-0-N, who is Director of Technical Function. At this 8
point I'd like to go around the table and have each individual identify 9
himself to spell his last name and state his position.
Tony if you 10:
would start.
11 12 FASAN0:
Anthony N. Fasano, F-A-5-A-N-0, Inspection Specialist, NRC, 13 out of Region I.
14 15 WILS6N:
R. F. Wilson, Director of Technical Functions, GPU Service 16 Company.
Last name is spelled WILSON.
17 18 H0VER:
G. J. Hover, Manager of Generation Division Support.
Last name 19 spelled H0VER.
20 21 MARSH:
Thank you, Mr. Hover.
Mr. Wilson before we began I presented 22 you a two page memo.
I just want to make a brief reference to that at 23 this time.
This memo basically gives the purpose scope and authority 24 for NRC's investigation and on the second page as you noted were several 25
P 2
1 questions which I would like to make a matter of record on the tape as 2
well as the written record.
First question reads, do you understand 3
the above making reference to the two page memo?
4 5
WILSON:
That's correct.
6 7
MARSH:
Do we have your permission to tape this interview?
8 WILSON:
Yec.
10 11 MARSH:
And finally would you like a copy of the tape and/or the transcript?
12 13 WILSON:
Yes, I would.
14 15 MARSH:
We will provide those...the tar: I can do as soon as we get 16 back to TMI; the transcript may be delayed a little bit in getting 17 done.
We will get those to you.
Mr.' Hover, to begin with we'd appreciate 18 it if you would give us a brief summary of your background, education, 19 and your experience in the nuclear field and a description of your 20 duties with GPU.
21 22 WILSON:
I think you said Mr. Hover, I think you meant Mr. Wilson.
23 24 25
3 1
MARSH:
Let me, there's one think I've skipped here.
An additional 2
question on that memo which is not called out specifically is your 3
right to have a company representative present during the interview.
4 And it's my understanding that's why Mr. Hover is present that you 5
requested that he be in.
6 7
WILSON:
That's correct.
8 e
9 MARSH:
Fine, thank you.
I knew I had you on my mind, Mr. Hover.
10 11 WILSON:
Ok, back to your original question.
I have a B.S. Degree in 12 mechanical engineering, University of California in '51.
Masters 13 Degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 14
'53.
I attended the Oakridge School of Reactor Technology at Oakridge.
15 And from '53 to '54 I worked since '54 in one or more phases of the 16 nuclear industry.
Most of that time was spent from '54 to about '73 17 with the Atomics International Division of Rockwell International.
18 While employed Atomics International at various positions in the en-19 gineering department was project manager 1 at Snaps Systems and at the 20 time of leaving the Atomics International group was the chief engineer 21 for the breeder work for Atomics International.
After leaving Atomics 22 International in '73 I spent approximately three weeks offshore power 23 systems in Jacksonville, Florida where I was manager, manufacturing 24 engineering since joining GPU Service Company in approximately April of 25
4 1
'75 I joined the service company as manager of quality assurance, held 2
that job until approximately September or so of '77, time I was promoted 3
in my present job.
4 MARSH:
Thank you.
6 FASANO:
Fasano speaking. What we'd like to do today is get your 8
briefing on your involvs nt with the March 28th event at Three Mile 9
Island and I like to do is if you could as a function of time your 10 involvement from the time you were notified till the time that day that i
11 you ended involvement.
AT least for the first sixteen hour and if 12 possible if you were involved for the next three days to what extent 13 you were involved in the event.
With that I'll let you go ahead.
14 15 WILSON:
Well, my involvement started initially on the morning of the 16 28th when I reporte to work about 8 or 8:15.
I was notified at that 17 time by Mr. Arnold that there was or had been an incident at T I.
We 18 spent about 15 or 20 minutes in his office reviewing a conversation 19 that he had with the site.
I am not sure at this point in time exactly 20 who that conversation had been with but I think it had been with the 21 reactor control room.
That conversation provided some sketchy details 22 of the problem at TMI and we discussed very briefly some activities we 23 should undertake.
Shortly, thereafter, I gathered up some of the 24 members of the technical staff at the service company.
I believe these 25
l 5
l 1
were Jim Moore, Gary Broden, and one or two others and we reviewed that 2
information very early in the morning and asked them to start...themselves 3
review the data discuss it with other people here in the service company 4
to start to gather up back ground material and information on the Unit 5
1 reactor.
6 7
FASAN0:
Excuse me, Unit 1?
8 9
WILSON:
Unit 2, excuse me...and to be prepared for some further discussions 10 as soon as we can obtain more information from the site.
Throughout 11 the morning we had one or two further conversations directly with the 12 Control Room in Mr. Arnold's office.
There was also a conversation 13 which I can't recall directly but I believe it took place with the B&W 14 Company.
Those conversations provided some more general information on 15 the status of the reactor of about nine or ten o' clock in the morning 16 we decided it was necessary to send people to the TMI site.
We gathered 17 up a group of five people.
They asked them to get prepared to go to 18 the site as soon as they could.
This was Gary Broden, who is our 19 manager of control and safety analysis, Jim Moore, who is our manager 20 of mechanical component engineering.
George Leman, senior engineer in 21 the systems grot 7.
Julian Abrahamavich an Engineer in the mechanical 22 component group, and Richard Lentz, who is junior engineer in the 23 control and safety group.
Those five people were asked to get their 24 things together and get on the way to the TMI site and to check back
?S
6 1
in with Js when they got there to see what additional information that 2
we would learn about the incident while they were on the road.
I think 3
those people left in the notes here roughly between eleven and twelve 4
o' clock that morning and arrived on the site somewhere between three 5
thirty and five o' clock Wednesday afternoon.
They did not actually get 6
on the site, they actually got to the Observation Center at which time 7
they checked back in with us.
In the mean time we had had one or two more conversations or more with the TMI-2 Control Room.
We had picked 9
up some more general information about the status of the plant, but did 10 not pick up a great deal of quantitive technical information thr.,t would 11 allow some systematic analysis of the plant to start.
I think as I 12 recall at first became known to me that for example the reactor coolant 13 pumps had been turned off... I'm guessing now about ten o' clock in the 14 morning.
I think at that time some of us began to suspect that the 15 damage to the reactor might be greater than the implications of the 16 conversations with the Control Room, the fact that the pumps were off 17 that the information became known to me the high radiation alarms after 18-lunch, those were the principal subjects of discussion throughout the 19 day.
We spent most of the time in reviewing TM that afternoon through 20 about as I recall 8 o' clock or maybe 9 o' clock that night.
When the r
21 people checked in from tha Observation Center after having arrived at 22 the site those people having not gotten on to the site still did not 23 have access to the detailed technical information we wanted.
We made 24 arrangements for as I recall Rich Lentz specifically since he had 25
l 7
1 worked for a year or two at the site to get on the island and to start 2
to gather up as much specific technical data as he could do so.
And the other people starte to undertake various other investigative tasks of their own.
I was still at the time that to the completion of that 5
day while our perception wasn't as significant incident at TMI my 0
particular impression was that based upon the conversations with the 7
Control Room that the reactor was in a stable mode, was being shut down 0
and essentially the incident was over.
And that impression obviously 9
turned out not to be a correct one later on.
10 11 FASANO:
You had information on the reactor coolant pumps at ten o' clock 12 that they had been closed shutdown and I guess they were shutdown 13 probably about three or four hours earlier.
Is that correct?
14 15 WILSON:
No, we didn't know it at the time.
16 17 FASAN0: I mean did you know that they had...what time they were...
18 19 WILSON: I did not know when they were first...when we first heard they 20 were off we did not know to my recollection as to the exact time they 21 were turned off.
It turned out I guess they.were turned off 5:15 or 22 6:00 that morning.
23 24 25
8 1
FASANO:
The information that you did have from what I gather you are 2
unable to really do an offsite analysis of the situation to any detail, 3
is that correct?
4 5
WILSON:
That's correct.
6 7
FASANO: When your people arrived on site and began to collect data was this fed back to you and how was it handled did you have information 9
out to do any engineering or analysis?
10 11 WILSON: Well, it wasn't fed back from the standpoint that the time by 12 the time they had gotten the data more of us were at the site.
The 13 principal piece of data was the reactimeter information that wasn't 14 really obtained until reduction of that wasn't really obtained until 15 Thursday sometime.
It was decided before we had left Wednesday evening 16 that I and some others would go to the site early in the morning.
That 17 was now Thursday morning the 29th I guess it was.
And I was really...origina'ly 18 setup on going to the site to be the chairman of an investigative team 19 to review the incident, try and ascertain more specifically what had 20 happened, how it had happened so forth and so on.
So I left for the 21 site had a few more conversations Thursday morning reporting to s --
22 and I left for the site with two others, Ed Wallace, who is our it-t
- g 23 manager, and Don Reppert, who is a health physicist in the safety and 24 licensing group, left for the site Thursday morning, arrived at the 25
j 9
l 1
site about...oh it must have been about two o' clock or so Thursday 2
afternoon.
Again we did not get on to the site.
We go to the Obser-3 vation Center that time there was a news conference or some kind of conference with Senator Hart, which didn't allow us to talk to the people that we had come to talk to immediately.
At the conclusion of 6
that that conference we made arrangements to talk to people of the TMI 7
staff at five o' clock on the island as I recall about five o' clock 8
maybe it was five thirty or six.
We did gather up the people that we 9
had sent the prior day, we talked to Gary Miller, George Kunder of the 10 plant staff I believe Lee Rogers was there, who is the B&W representative, 11 we had a brief review of what we still at that time thought was our 12 mission on the site namely to investigate the incident.
We had some 13 brief...about a half hour, fourty five minute discussions and it was 14 now at this time that shortly thereafter that meeting which took place 15 in the administration building of Unit 1.
No...that meeting took place 16 in the security center outside Unit 1.
It was about that time or 17 shortly thereafter that it became apparent based upon some of information 18 that had been gathered up by the other people that the state of the 19 reactor and the magnitude of the incident was substantially different 20 than the impressions from the prior days of old conversations.
Shortly 21 after the meeting two or three people went to the Control Room, they 22 stayed there most of the night.
It was during that period of time I 23 think the people developed the appreciation for the non-condensible gas 24 evolution during the incident, the fact that there was probably a great 25
10 1
deal of gas within the reactor vessel, and those people worked most of 2
the night on that problem.
Other people were sent to start to look 3
into other data, radiation data and so forth.
I spent several hours in 4
meetings on and off the site and met with the... Richard Vollmer of the 5
NRC for some period of time that night.
I think it was clear that as 6
the dcy became more available that the scope of the incident wa5 became 7
substantially greater than originally thought that the reactor was not being and could not be shut down in a routine way and by shutdown I 9
don't mean from critical to subcritical but from temperature and pressure 10 to. ving those being reduced in a normal manner.
That evening I can't 11 remember the exact time I reported back to Bob Arnold that the situation 12 was much different than the perception on Wednesday. that scope of the 13:
accident or incident was believed to much greater that the damage to 14 the reactor was substantially more that the their was a serious radiation 15 problem on the site and that we should send additional resources to 16 help at the 'ite and he should plan on being at the site as soon as he 17 could.
On Friday I believe tht.t was the day the trailer park was 18 getting set up around the Observation Center.
We spent most of the day 19 initiating contacts with outside support groups or with groups who 20 might be able to provide support, to the site.
We set up a tentative 21 organization to provide additional technical support directly to the 22 plant staff and the Control Room. We set up a rotating shift of people 23 at the site.
This was as I recall initially one shift under the leader-24 ship of Gary Broden and one shift under the leadership of Bill Lowe.
25
11 1
These people's jobs were to continue to gather up the data, continue to 2
analyze try and ascertain more directly what was a happening on a real 3
time basis, start to provide some secondary technical guidance to the 4
operating staff.
We did start to place people on the Control Room on a 5
full time basis.
Most of the a'.:tivities on Friday of the technical groups were still revolving al'out the large amount of gas in the system and try to insure that a significant part of the technical effort in 8
the operations was directed toward starting to degas the primary system.
9 Some additional people were assigned to me at the Observation Center 10 and we also started to assimilate some data, and start to look at it 11 and start to make little longer range plans as to where we might be 12 going and what we might be doing.
During this period of time as I 13 recall telephone communications we being set up and a lot of getting 14 organized kind of thing.
Many additional people showed up on Friday...I 15 can't remember who and what they were but basically those were assigned 16 to the support groups on site on a rotating shift basis.
A few of them 17 were signed up at the Observation Center.
From that point in time then 18 I was assigned to lead the technical support group on the site and that 19 group was in being for about the next roughly six or seven weeks and I 20 spent most of the time at the site for about five to six weeks.
21 22 23 1
24 25
12 1
FASANO:
Going back to the first day, were you, say by eight o' clock or 2
so, knowledgeable of the hot leg thermal couple readings or incore 3
thermal couple... the, any indication as to these temperatures, 4
pressures of the primary system?
5 6
WILSON:
Eight o' clock a.m. or p.m.?
7 FASANO:
A.m.
9 10 WILSON:
On Wednesday?
11 12 FASANO:
On Wednesday.
Approximately.
13 14 WILSON:
As I recall, we did not have specific knowledge of the, of the 15 temperature readings ', hat occurred during, during the incident' at that, 16 at that point in time in the morning.
iMst of the information was was 17 pretty qualitative about the reactor having gone through a scram then 18 due to a, a trip originating in the feed system, having lifted the 19 relief valves, this is really the electro magnetic valves... there 20 was, had been a potential for uncovering the core, so forth and so on, 21 but not, not specific hard, hard data.
22 23 FASANO:
You say potential for uncovering the core, was that thought of 24 at, on the first day by your people?
25
13 1
WILSON:
Yes.
2 3
FASANO:
The... you mentioned that the reactimeter data was quite 4
important to you in your analysis, and that was available, available on 5
the second day. De yce think, it was enough information to evaluate if 6
you had gotten the information on the first day to evaluate the situation 7
better, as you eventually did evaluate it?
8 WILSON:
Oh, I think as soon as the reactimeter data was available and 10 reduced, it stai-ted to become very clear... not so much exactly why 11 things had happened but, but what had happened in the way of temperatures 12 and pressures the transient the system went through, the probable 13 condition of a lot of things in the plant.
14 15 FASANO:
What... just to clear up something in my mind, what is the 16 role really with GPU in an event like this, are you the, the technical 17 support to the extent of outside advisement or, how do you really get 18 involved or...
19 20 WILSON:
You're talking about the service company, I...
21 22 FASANO:
Yes.
23 24 25
14 1
WILSON:
I presume.
Normally most of the activities of tt.
technical 2
group in the service compano can be divided into, I guess, about three 3
general generic categories.
One, we provide the engineering and con-4 struction management for new generation construction for the entire system, and a large fraction of our engineering staff basically is, F
working on projects in the construction phase, foa example at this 7
point in time, or at that point in time, Forked River, so 8
forth.
Secondly, we provide some continuing, ongoing technical services 9
for the operating companys, a very specific example of that is, we we 10 procure and see that nuclear fuel is delivered to the site for all of 11 the nuclear units in the system.
Essentially do the, the fuel management 12 and, and reload analysis and so forth for for nuclear fuel, so that's 13 kind of a ongoing assigned task in the, in the service company.
The 14 third generic area that we work in, is we provide technical support on 15 a request basis to various, various operating plants, and that's done 16 on a case by case kind of a basis, as the operating company or ourselves, 17 or as management might perceive it that there's some specialized skill 18 or expertise or something we can do for the operator plants.
We do not 19 normally work in a full time capacity as a full time, in as the sole 20 technical support for operating plants.
Each of the operating companys 21 have their own engineering department.
22 23 FASANO:
Say in this case it would be Met Ed?
24 25
15 1
WILSON:
Normally the Met Ed engineering department would provide the 2
full time dedicated norma'i routine kind of support to the operating 3
plants, in this case Met Ed to TMI.
4 5
FASANO:
Alright, you mentioned that the second night you got involved 6
very heavily in the gas that might have been in the reactor vessel and 7
I guess this is hydrogen that we're talking about.
8 WILSON:
Yes sir.
10 11 FASAN0:
At that time was the data looked at as showing the 28 psig 12 spike on the reactor building trace or...
13 14 WILSON:
We did not, as I recall, we did not pick up that data until 15 very early Friday morning...as a matter of fact I think, as I recall 16 that very early at breakfast Friday morning, this was maybe now 7:00 in 17 the morning 6:30 in the morning or sometime like that, we were notified l
18' of the existance of the pressure spike within containment.
19 20 FASAN0:
The, Fasano speaking, with the information you had available 21 on on Wednesday, or in retrospect with the, the information that was 22 available, the pressures, the temperatures, the offscale temperatures, 23 the... the general condition of flow degradation on the reactor 24 25
16 1
coolant pumps, and from this information do you feel that this information 2
if you had it, you could have evaluated at a sooner time, that you were 3
headed for a major problem?
4 5
WILSON:
Yeah, I think if we had basically the information that's on 6
the reactimeter I... and by this I mean not just point in time data 7
but, but traces as a function of time of certain things like pressures, 8
like temperatures like flows, like... various specifics of the times 9
that the pumps were turned off... that, that yeah, that that the data 10 could be analyzed much faster here and the condition here would be 11 known much much, I mean about a day sooner than it really was.
12 13 FASAN0:
Some of this data, I said probably was available on charts in 14 the control room, not only on the reactimeter.
15 16 WILSON:
That's correct.
17 18 FASANO:
And... so if you had this information sooner it would have 19 been possible for you people to have made suggestions earlier?
20 21 WILSON:
I think, I think without without a doubt, yes.
22 23 FASANO:
Got any questions?
24 25
17 1
MARSH:
Mr. Wilson you discussed that on Wednesday you had meetings 2
with Gary Miller, George Kunder, and Limroth...
3 4
WILSON:
No that was on Thursday.
5 6
MARSH:
On Thursday, I'm sorry.
During these meetings were these 7
taped, or were there notes taken to support your investigation?
8 9
WILSON:
No there was no taping, there were direct notes taken of that 10 meeting, that meeting was principally to appraise them oi why we thought 11 we were there at the time...we had come prepared to start the interviews, 12 at least as part of the investigar. ion, to start the interviews of of 13 some of the operating staff, we wanted to do that early so that things 14 were fresh in their mind wouldn't be forgotten in case we got around to 15 it days and days after that.
And we had three tape recorders with us, 16 we actually did start some of the people after the meeting, we did make 17 arrangements to start to interview people and throughout that night we 18 did, I think this was Don Reppert and Bob Lowe, actually did start the 19 interview process with some of the operating staff and I think they 20 must have interviewed six or eight or nine people at night starting, oh 21 I'm guessing now, it may be nine or ten in the evening and maybe some 22 of them went through till very early Friday morning... so that was 23 the beginnings of, of the, trying to pick up from the operating staff 24 their, their recollections of, of a what had happened during the day.
25
18 1
While that was going on of course or while that was playing Thursday 2
afternoon, while the perception of the magnitude of the accident was 3
becomming much more apparent to us our, our mission as of five o: six 4
o' clock that night was still one of an investigative one and there was 5
still not the appreciation of the current, or not at least a detailed 6
appreciation of the current state of the, of the reactor.
And as 7
subsequent events turned out, starting late that night or certainly 8
first thing Friday morning the whole character of us, of our presence on the site changed from one of being a group to look at and accident 10 that had happened to one of the group providing real time support to 11 what was going on on the site and so actually the interview process 12 really stopped I think after the initial interviews late that night and 13 people just got caught up in the, in the ongoing activities.
14 15 FASANO:
When were you made knowledgeable of the emergency feed water 16 valve 12A and 128 of the block outs and their situation with respect to 17 the steam generator?
18 19 WILSON:
Oh that was not till some time I think later on after peopk 20 had looked at the data, I can't remember exactly when but I think 21 certainly it was past Friday, it was... I just can't recall the 22 exact time.
23 24 25
19 1
FASANO:
So it was not the first day definitely. And...
2 3
WILSON:
Not to, not to my knowledge no.
4 5
FASANO: Were you knowledgeable on the first day of the boron indications of 700 parts per million, 400 parts per million and also the intermediate range and source range indications, these were things that were going 0
on earlier than the 10 o' clock call that you had.
This was not discussed 9
with your people.
10 11 WILSON:
No, no.
Not not to my recollection; at least.
12 13 FASANO:
Apparently you were just getting general conditions, you 14 weren't getting specific...
15 16 WILSON:
That's correct.
17 18 FASANO:
Information...
19 20 WILSON:
That's correct. Our conversations were all with people with 21 operating staff people directly in the control room, those people 22 obviously had a lot of other things to do and we did not feel that we l
l 23 could tie up the operating staff almost full on on a phone conversation 24 trying to read out, read out data to us.
25
20 1
FASANO:
How about the pressurizer level, was this discussed with you 2
at all, I mean by phone... apparently this was one of the key features 3
that was being watched by the operators?
4 5
WILSON:
Not, not to my knowledge no.
Not to my recollection.
6 7
FASANO:
In retrospect, do you think that the role that GPU played was 8
the role that was required by the understanding of the service group?
9 0
WILSON:
Well that's hard to answer, the situation was certainly a 11 unique one and the first of a kind so I'm not sure that that role, you 12 know, had clearly been totally thought out and preordained in the, in 13 the company and secondly, the the biggest problem is really getting 14l factual, essentially real time quantative technical data out of the 15 plant in order to start to do, do work.
And it's hard to do that, at 16 least we're not set up to do that directly 150 miles away.
17 18I FASANO:
The... Oh, as your group functions do you review previous 19 licensee event reports or major occurrences at the units? Do you 20 review these with a, a technical review, to design, or to consequences?
21 22 WILSON:
We review those predominate like I&E Bulletins and that sort 23 of thing we review those and insure that action is taken on new con-24 struction as they might affect for example, in this case the Forked 25
I i
21 1
River plant.
We do not routinely review those from the standpoint of 2
incorporation into, into... into operating plants as that normally is 3
done by the operating company.
4 5
FASAN0:
Again then your mainly involved with the construction and 6
pre-op phase?
7 WILSON:
That's right, in, in general, in the GPU system the service 9
company has direct responsibility for a new plant up through the time, 10 up through start up and tests and until it's declared commercial. At 11 that point in time then the direct responsbility in the plant shifts to 12 the operating company who becomes the operator of the plant.
13 14 FASANO:
Ok, then if you're up to the point where it becomes commercial, 15 I guess TMI-2 became commercial sometime late 1978?
16 17 WILSON:
Sometime late in 78, that's correct.
18l 19 FASAN0:
So then would you people be reviewing the various trips where 20 ECCS was actuated, I think it happened at least three or four t~imes 21 maybe five times in 78, and as they relate to the design of the plant 22 or any, or would you relate stuff that happened like at Davis Besse 23 with regard to your plant?
24 25
I 22 1
WILSON:
Well we specifically did not have the awareness of the Davis 2
Besse trip which vas similiar to TMI lata 78, we do, review ond look at 3
and becoine involved if necessary with, with startup and test problems at the at the Unit 2 site itself.
5 FASANO:
I think they have two instances where they actually lost level in the pressurizer that's why I asked about the pressurizer level if 8
this was brought out to you. Do you reco?1 these.
9 10 WILSON:
No.
11 l
12 FASANO:
You don't?
I think that's all I have right now.
13 14 MARSH:
One other brief question, Marsh speaking, the relationship of 15 GPU to other subcontractors during those first few days, such as B&W, 16 to what degree was their contact back and forth, GPU and B&W?
17 18 WILSON:
Generally about GPUSC in contract to Metropolitan Edison?
19 20 MARSH:
Correct, right.
21 22 WILSON:
First day, Wednesday there was one or two phone calls in 23 contact with B&W the Lynchburg, from the service company, starting 24 t'nough about the second day, Thursday and certainly in full swing 25
23 1
Friday, we essentially had dedicated communication links with B&W in 2
Lynchburg, and both the site groups the groups had been headed up by 3
Gary Brodyne and Bill Lowe and myself spent hours on the, in in direct 4
communication with the B&W people predominently in Lynchburg.
5 6
MARSH:
So that's float both ways, both back to corporate headquarters 7
here with yourself as well as directly to the control room?
8 WILSON:
I'm not sure what you mean by that, there was yeah we...
10 11 MARSH:
In other words it's not, the information is not coming from 12 Lynchburg to corporate headquarters and then being relayed back to the 13 Control Room.
t 14 15 WILSON:
No, no, no, no.
Most of the direct contact work was really 16 done through the site group or myself at TMI by Friday we had, we had 17 pretty much dedicated communications with B&W, we had a staff back here 18 which had not been sent to the site, was starting to operate on a round 19 the clock basis and the site back here was, we were funneling work from l
20 the site back here, the group here then was interacting to a large 21 extent with, well either doing work themselves or interacting with 22 Burns & Roe.
So they were in in a sense gathering up and providing 23 data to the site, sometime I believe on Friday, I think it was Friday, 24 it could be early Saturday, we had pretty much direct communications 25
24 1
set up with people like Combustion Engineering and Westinghouse, again 2
from the site and most all of that interactive, communications with 3
those, with those people were handled the first several days pretty 4
much by myself or one or two people helping me, and then I had direct, 5
..., well I was still not on the site, I was at the observation center, 6
I, I had direct communications to the site, so basically the site myself, and Lynchburg and the home office were was pretty well, including, 8
of course the plant was pretty well tied together, fairly good communi-9 cations link and I had direct communications to other people and used 10 those mainly to funnel our questions or pick up data or give support on 11 special on special problems as we saw fit.
12 13 MARSH:
Do you have anything else?
14 15 FASANO:
Yes..
16 17 MARSH:
Alright,' excuse me for a second, let me just turn the tape 18 here.
I'm going to break at this time, reading 701 on the meter the 19 time being 9:12, and just break the tape momentarily.
20 21 MARSH:
The time still being 9:12, reading 704 on the meter we are back 22 Tony, you had a question.
23 24 25
25 1
FASANO:
As a service company during the pre-op and escension the power 2
to commercial, would your function, meaning the service company, be 3
also to review design considerations or design difficulties that the 4
plant is more or less reporting or at least noting for action?
5 6
WILSON:
Yeah we got involved in in what seemed to be design problems, 7
we would get involved through the startup and test group where, where as a plant went through testing, whether it appeared that the problems 9
were not simply one of tuning up systems or something like that which 10 was done basically at the site where it appeared there was substantial 11 engineering or design deficiences, we got involved in a typically the 12 one being the problems that we had with the, with the code safety 13 valves on the main steam system which we had a major problem with 14 during the year, did away did away with commercial operation for some 15 period of time, problems like that we got involved in and worked with 16 Burns & Roe or others.
17 18 FASANO:
The atmospheric dump valves where the I guess belows went 19 also, do you get involved in that?
20 21 WILSON:
Yes.
22 23 24 25 ll
26 1
FASAN0:
The, apparently there were' problems with the condensate polishers 2
and the non-automatic bypass, do you get involved in the secondary 3
side, the balance of plant as well?
4 5
WILSON:
We would normally get involved, once and if there's identified 6
as a major aesign deficiencies, I think we were aware of startup problems of those systems but it had not gotten to the point as I recall of 0
being identified as a major design deficiencies, we knew that there 9
were modifications that would have to be made in the plant and we in 10 fact did have a team of people this year working on revealing both 11 TMI-2, that system on TMI-2 as well as reviewing essentially the same 12 system on Forked River from the standpoint of making, making modifications.
13 We picked up many modifications from TMI-2 prior to that time, and 14 forwarded them into got them into work at the Forked River system, but 15 were not actively making the modification on TMI-2.
16 17 FASAN0: Well at this point, now that we've had this experience and..
18
. what do you think would improve the possible role of a service company 19 involved with a nuclear power plant.
Would you have any suggestions at 20 this point?
21 j
22 WILSON:
Well that's a hard question to answer, I think there are some 23 things in hindsite that are fairly clear, one the, the prior pretty 24 much...
. absolute change over of people from construction, or 25
27 1
design and construction to operation that occurs, where where the 2
people that have been with the plant for a while pretty well drop out, 3
other people pick it up, that transition probably should not be really 4
so abrupt or or as complete as as it is.
Secondly, it probably should 5
be, in my opinion, continuing independent operational analysis function 6
in the service company which essentially independently assesses from a technical point of view how plants, how they are performing and performed 0
and how they might be expected to be performed, be performing in the 9
future, which means a current ongoing analysis of data.
The third 10 thing which I think is pretty obvious is that there needs to be an 11 ability to read out technical data pretty much at the engineering 12 offices here directly from the plant so they don't depend upon tying up 13 operating staff or other people or having to go through a lot of special 14 requests to get data that can be automatically transmitted through some 15 data link or some computer link or in some manner obtained in a very 16 rapid real time basis.
I think, I think those two or three things are 17 pretty obvious.
Probably in a broader perspective the emergency planning 18 probably ought to be much more specific as to, as to what various 19 groups and functions and pieces and parts of the of the system do under 20 under conditions that existed at TMI.
So that's kinda thought you 21 into, that might have been to much to much greater degree than I'm 22 aware of within Met Ed, but I think that did not fall necessarily the 23 rest of the company to the extent that it obviously turned out to...
24 25 I
28 1
FASANO:
As far as this, going back'to what you were saying, as far as 2
the information on an ongoing basis to analyze the operating plant 3
would you like more information on similar plants B&W particular to to 4
a least evaluate on a timely basis with regard to your own plant?
It 5
seems like you got data quite late on the Davis Besse, at least that's 6
what I gathered from what you said.
7 0
WILSON:
Yeah, I, I think a similar operations analysis function probably 9
in all, all companys operating nuclear plants ought to be performed in 10 some manner and while most of the operating problems at other plants 11 eventually surface through problem reports or surfacas in a round about 12 way back to the NSS vendor when it involves the NSS, although an awful 13 lot of problems which are equally important might be in secondary 14 systems or someplace else where an NSS vendor never really gets involved, 15 it's a, it's a fairly tortious tortious link it's a fairly long time 16 constant in many cases in that link and it it would be good if more 17 directly there was some interplay.
18 19 FASANO:
As being involved in the contruction phase, what do you feel 20 about the categorizing of safety related systems on the balance of the 21 plant?
It seems like a lot of problems were initiated at these based 22 on the nonsafety related systems, do you have any feel for this being 23 that you have quite a bit of experience in the construction phase?
24 25 i
29 1
WILSON:
Well I'm not sure that it's obvious at this point in time that 2
the categorization of systems is necessarily bad or erroneous, the 3
plant theoritically is designed to take a loss of feed, it's a, I won't 4
say it's a normal occurrence but it certainly is an expected occurrence, 5
it is suppose to be provided for in the plant, in fact it was provided 6
for in the plant, therefore, I wouldn't necessarily conclude that whatever caused the loss of feed you know, we should have made that 0
system a safety grade, safety grade system, I I don't think that was 9
necessarily where we got our trouble on...
10 11 FASANO:
The engineering aspect of it, I would think, I was wondering 12 in otner words, the idea of not having major transients in the design 13 of that particular system say, condensate polishers, did you people 14 evaluate its potential for initiating sequence of events? How far 15 really do you think we should go? Again your saying it's designed to 16 take a feedwater?
17 18 WILSON:
I don't, I don't think you can design a plant not ts take any 19 transients or any failures of components or subsystems within the 20 plant, that's not, that's not a realistic expectation, components are 21 gonna fail, things are gonna happen in the plant,... and the best 22 way to circumvent that is one, obviously do the best to to m:nimize J
23 those kinds of failures, but having done that the plant still has to be 24 designed to take those kinds of failures and faults and...
25
30 1
FASANO:
In this ; eticular plant it seems that on similar events of 2
turbine trip you do have in some cases the high pressure safety injection 3
actually, it seems like its almost part of the operation, I would think 4
that the requirement for high pressure injection is to m'edigate the 5
consequences of a major concern or major problem yet it seems to always, 6
it seems, not always, but many times to be actuated... would you 7
consider this as part of a normal design for the operating of a nuclear power plant?
9 0
UILSON:
I'm not sure I understand the question, it is part of the 11 normal design to actuate the system on on depressurization.
- Maybe, 12 maybe I don't quite understand what your getting at I...
13 14 FASANO:
Well, it's usually my, I would think that the actuation of one 15 of the ECCS systems is sort of reserved for loss of coolant accidents, 16 or an accident type, not a transient that is sort of expected maybe 17 once, twice a year, two times a year, in fact I think it happened 18 probably at least that many times in the first year.
That, that was my 19 question really.
20 21 WILSON: Well, well there were some prior prior transients, which did 22 actuate high pressure injection at TMI and in the context for normal or 23 frequently expected transients, I agree you should not be in a pt sition 24 of having what you might call, emergency or backup safety system te 25
C 31 l
actuate the plant ought to ride though it.
As a matter of fact we 2
should ride through a trip without injection of without high pressure 3
injection.
4 5
FASANO:
I have no more questions.
6 MARSH:
I have no more either, so'the time being 9:24 and reading 951 0
on the tape, we'll draw interview to a close with just a word of thanks 9
Mr. Wilson for you time we appreciate very much your coming in.
9:25 10 then we'll end the tape.
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 sd
.