ML19322C861
| ML19322C861 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 10/11/1979 |
| From: | Rivenbark G, Galen Smith NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE, NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001290074 | |
| Download: ML19322C861 (72) | |
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Telephone:
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(202)347 3700 1
p-ACE -FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.
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OfficintReponers 444 North Ccpitol Street.
Washington D.C.20001 ggQ g
NATIONWIDE COVERAGE. DAILY
_ _._~~ _.__ __.__,_ _
JS4946 -
1 nb 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
X 3
BEFORE:
4 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION THREE MILE ISLAND 5
SPECIAL INQUIRY GROUP 6
X 7
Oral Deposition of GEORGE H. SMITH 8
APPEARANCES:
9 GEORGE W. RIVENBARK 10 NRC - Special Inquiry Group for Three 'ille Island.
11 PETER SICILIA, JR.
NRC - Special Inquiry Group for Three Mile Island.
12 13
\\;:
14 TAKEN AT:
15 631 Park Avenue
- Thursday, 16 King of Prussia, Penna.
October 11, 1979.
17 18 19 20 21 Gr 22 l
23 l
24 25
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MON #CM Stt%OGR4*w'C St hviCE 1413 OLD M tLL #0 A D WTOM+S9 tNG. Pa 19610
2 INREE 2
WITNESS:
EXAMINED BY:
PAGE NUMBER 3
George H. Smith Mr. Rivenbark 3
4 Mr. Sicilia 47 5
Mr. Rivenbark' 49 6
Mr. Sicilia 51 7
Mr. Rivenbark 55 8
9 EEElaIIS 10 Marked 11 G.H. Smith A-5163 - Resume 5
12 G.H. Smith B-5164 - Letter dated October 4, 3
1979.
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 i, i!
'l 20 21 22 i.
23l 24 1
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PggqEEglHQS 2
GEORGE H. SMITH, sworn 3
Mfi. RIVENBARK:
This is a deposition being d
conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 5
Special Inquiry Group on Three Mile Island of Mr. George H.
6
- Smith, Chief of the fuel facility and material safety 7
branch in Region 1 of the NRC at King of Prussia, 8
Pennsylvania, on October 11, 1979.
9 Pres ent in addition to Mr. Smith are Peter 10 Sicilia and George Rivenbark of the Special Inquiry Group.
11 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
12 Q
Mr. Smith, you received a two-page letter dated 13 October 4,1979 from Mr. Rogovin which described the 14 nature of our interview and the possibility of its becoming 15 pub lic, is that right ?
16 A
Yes.
17 Q
Here is a copy of a letter addressed to you 18 from Mr. Rogovin marked G.H. Smith Exhibit B.
Would you 19 look at this letter and see if it is a copy of the letter 20 that you received from Mr. Rogovin?
21 (Whereupon, the reporter marked the two-page u
22 letter dated October 4,1979, as G.H. Smith Exhibit B-5164.)
23 THE WITNESS:
Yes, it is.
24 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
25 Q
Have you read it and do you understand it?
MOS s C E STf %OG#aPM'C Stev'C E 9 4'S OLD MsLL RO AD WVOM6 sting Pa thet0
4 I
1 A
Yes, I have read it and I do understand it.
2 MR RIVENBARK:
Mr. Smith, you should be aware S
3 that the testimony that you give has the same force and 4
effect as if you were testifying in a court of law.
5 M'y questions and your responses are being taken 6
down and they will later be transcribed.
You will be given 7
the opportunity to look at that transcript and make changes 8
a s you deem necessary.
9 However, to the extent that your subsequent 10 changes are significant, those changes may be viewed as 11 affecting your credibility so please be as complete and 12 accurate as you can be in responding to my questions.
13 If you at any point during the deposition don't 14 understand a question, please feel free to stop and 15 indicate that and we will make the clarification at that 16
- time, i
17 Let me ask you to follow two basic ground rules 18 in replying; to my questions.
One is that you permit me 19 to finish my questions before you give your response even 20 if you know what the question is going to be because the 21 reporter cannot take down both of us speaking at the same u
22 time.
23 The second is that you respond audibly.
Motions 24 such as nodding your head cannot be taken down by the 25 reporter.
MON'Ch STENOGnapwiC staveCE tela OLD wiLL moaD W YCues stNG pa testo
5 I
BY MR. RIVENBARK:
2 Q
Mr. Smith, I have here a two-page document which 3
appears to b'e a summary of your professional experience and' educational background.
It is headed with the words 4
5
" George H. Smith" and we have marked this as G.H. Smith 6
Exhibit A.
Would you look at this and see if this is indeed 7
your professional resume and if it accurately summarizes 8
your educational and employment background.
9 (Whereupon, the reporter marked the resume as 10 G. H. Smith Exhibit A-5163.)
11 THE WITNESS:
Yes, this is a s umma ry of my 12 educational and employment background and is accurate, 13 to the best of my knowledge.
14 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
15 Q
Mr. Smith, it is my understanding that you were 16 one of the first people in the Region 1 headquarters office 17 at the Region 1 office here in King of Prussia to be 18 informed of the events at TMI on March 28, 1979?
19 A
That is correct.
20 l
Q I understand that shortly after you were 21 informed of the event that yr.a selected Don Neeley, a
22 Carl Plumlee, Ron Nimitz and Chick Gallian to go to the 23 site as members of the initial on site inspection team, is 24 that correct?
25 A
That is correct.
Chick Gallian is actually Dr.
l women ste %oo...mc s env.cc ius oto mu. acao. wvowssmo. n vesio
6 1
Charles 0. Gallian.
2 Q
I understand that Jim Higgins, who also went 3
in the first' group, was selected by Mr. Keimig ?
4 A
He went in the first group.
Someone from the 5
operations branch sent him.
6 Q
Can you explain, briefly, the basis for the 7
selection of each of the individuals that you selected to 8
T,0 7 9
A Within my branch there is the radiation support 10 section which are basically the reactor health-physicist.
11 The seniormost of the reactor health-physicists in the 12 RSS is Nk. Neeley, that is why he was selected.
He is 13 the seniormost health-' physicist.
14 Carl Plumlee was selected because of his knowledge 15 of the facility.
He was assigned as the inspector to 16 the Three Mile Island facility.
1-7 Mr. Nimitz was selected because he is young, 18 he has got good legs and he has a good background.
He is 19 actually an intern.
20 Dr. Ga llia n wa s a n inves tiga t or, who a ls o -- well,
21 in addition to being an investigator I know that Dr.
a 22 Gallian is a health-physicist so I request.ed that he -be 23 an investigator in the first group.
24 Q
Am I correct in saying thr.t you designated M'.
r 25 Neeley to be the team leader?
was en ricsocaa mc stav.cc $4ts oto not aoao wrou ssmo na testo j
7 1
A I did.
2 Q
Can you tell me the basis for selecting him as 3
the team leader?
e 4
A It was apparently a health-physics problem.
He 5
was the senior health-physicist.
6 I have great faith and confidence in Mr. Neeley 7
and I preferred that he be the team leader.
8 Q
Did you personally give any instructions to the 9
team members before they left for the site as to what they 10 should do ?
11 A
I am s ure I did, yes.
12 Q
Do you recall what that might have been ?
13 A
I am sure the routine instructions would be to 14 start taking radiation readings to determine what kind of 15 relea ses, if any, were taking place.
16 I told them that at least one of them should get 17 into the control room where they could see the health-18 physics incident instrumentation and also determine what 19 the licensee and the state were doing.
20 I don't recall, bur I am sure I would have given 21 them those exact instructions.
ia 22 Q
A short while later two more team members were 23 s ent to the site, a Mr. Ray Smith and a Mr. Kbiter Baunack.
24 Did you select either of them?
25 A
I did not.
l I
wo% Cw STg*,0Gnapwc stewsCE e 49 3 CLD MILL ROa D wv0M'stf NG PA 19410 c
8 1
Q Do you know who did?
I 2
A Mr. Smith is another investigator.
Tha t would
,1 3
probably be Mr. Grier who would make that selection.
I.
Mr. Baunack is an operations instructor and I am 4
l' 5
sure that would be done by the operations branch, L.
6 Brunner's people, perhaps Mr. Keimig.
I O
7 Q
I understand that Mr. Smith also has a health-81 8
physics background.
Are you aware of that ?
Efj 9
A I have vaguely been aware of that, but I have i
i 10 known him for a r aber of years and he has always been an I
es.!
11 invest iga t or.
th 12 Q
That is the reason I asked you the question.
! inn 13 I wondered if his health-physics background was instrumental Mgs k 14 in sending him.
1 Eg Pl A
I think I became aware that he has a health-13 9t 1 16 physics background after.
As I say, in my years of knowing athey i
17 him at headquarters in Region 4 I have always thought of I
gettor 18 him a s an investigator.
weroi Q
After having selected the team members for the 19 but I 20 initial on site inspection team and having these people i
ons.
}
21 leave for the site, can you tell me what you then did on ter tw 22 Wed nesday?
)y Smitl 23 A
I know one of the first things we did is that
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24 we contacted our mobile laboratory which was, at that time, l
1 25 at Millstone Point and requested them to turn around and J.
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WON-C4 STENOGR APwC SINytCE 1413 OLD MILL BO A D W YOMiSS'NG PA 19490
9 I
return to Region 1 on their way to Three Mile Island but 2
to stop at Region 1 for instructions.
.1 This they did and they arrived here some time 4
in 'the late afternoon, and I believe it was at approximately 5
7 :00 p.m. that they arrived at Three Mile Island.
6 Q
There were two people involved there, one of them 7
wa s Mr. Phil Stohr?
8 A
Mr. Phil Stohr who was, at that time, the chief 9
of our environmental and special project section.
Mr. Jim 10 Kottan, who was the hea lth-physicist, who was assigned the 11 principal responsibility for the mobile laboratory who 12 worked for Mr. Stohr at that time.
13 Q
Is that spelled K-o-t-t-a-n?
14 A
K-o-t-t-a-n, yes.
15 Q
Aside from that what did'you do that day?
16 A
We were determining the readings and what the 17 licensee was getting.
What the readings in the environment 18 were and if there were any releases.
We were busy 19 informing headquarters of what we knew.
We a lso were 20 af ter additional instrumenta tion.
7 know we asked for some 21 high range instruments from Brookhaven, cr 22 Q
You are saying, "We were doing this. "
23 Would you do two things for me.
One of them is, 2.5 can you describe for me your specific personal responsibili-:
l 25 ties in the response, a nd then describe for me who the "we"
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wCN#CR S?t%OGR APHic StavrCE 1413 OLD MILL NO A D WYOwi&SsNG. Pa 15 30
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is that you are describing here.
2 L A
I very often as a figure of speech refer to i
3j myself in the plural.
I am referring to myself when I sa y "we. "
I wa s.
a 5
Q How would you describe your specific res ponsibili-6, ties in the response?
h 7i A
My responsibilities as I saw them were for the I
.a radiological protection, the environmental protection and 9
the activation or actuation of the emergency plan at the 10 f facility.
Those are the three areas which come under my 11 privy.
i 12 Q
Did you spend all of Wednesday after you arrived 13 at work in the morning at the Region response center?
l 14 a A
I did.
Y 15q Q
Can you describe for me as best you recall, h
16 how the communications to the site were handled on il 17 ) Wednesday?
Specifically, how you specifically were n
is i involved in the communications; whether or not you talked s
19 ' personally to Gallian or to Neeley or to other people at go the site and then I will ask you to tell me something 21 more general about this.
27 A
My first involvement with the communications would be the actual call that came in on my phone.
Mr.
2:
Brunner_ came into my office and informed me that we had a
an incident at Three Mile Island and they were trying to l
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1 report it and he asked that it be transferred to my 2
phone.
3 W'e then opened my phone, the speaker phone, 4
received the initial report.
We requested that that line 5
remain open.
6 I started activating the center and Mr. Brunner 7
remained getting information in my office.
1 I
8 Eventually and shortly once our center was 9
activated that line was transferred up to the center and 10 placed on a speaker phone in our emergency response center.
11 It was then opened -- intermittently we would 12 lose the connection.
It was then opened for the rest of 13 the time that I was in the center which was Friday going 14 home on occasion.
It was opened on an open speaker phone.
15 That was af ter our people arrived, which was at approximate-16 ly 10:00 o' clock in the morning.
Some time af ter that we 17 opened a line to Chick Gallian in the Unit 1 control is room and this line was then manned by people from my 19 branch, my health-physicists and we essentially received 20 health-physics information over that line and gave directions 21 and asked questions of the health-physicist over that st 22 line.
23 However, I was constantly aware of what was 24 coming in on the other open line and we also talked over 25 that line on occasion.
1 l
wovc= struoomme.oc stavce iais oto u.u aoao. wrou ssr%o na i,sio l
12 1
Your question, did I talk directly to Dr.
2 Ga llia n, Neeley, Plumlee?
Yes, I did talk directly to 3
all of them on Wednesday.
I can't remember if I ever 4
talked directly to Ron Nimitz but the other three I definite-5 ly did.
6 Q
Can you tell me the nature of your communications, 7
whether it was in the form of questions or giving instruc-8 tions how to proceed?
9 A
Both.
10 Q
"oth ?
11 A
Yes.
Asking questions and taking information 12 that they were volunteering.
Asking them to do specific 13 things, such as -- I recall asking Carl Plumlee to go out 14 and nake specific surveys outside the facility.
15 Q
These instructions that you were given from 16 time to time were questions that you were given, were 17 these independent or personal instructions and questions, 18 or were these things that you were relaying from head-19 qua rters ?
20 A
Both.
21 Q
Both ?
O' 42 A
Yes.
23 Q
Now, I have seen that there are a variety of 24 message forms in the record.
Some of them -- the letter 25 C is the first letter, No. C1, C2, C3 and so forth.
There M O *e C M site.comaPwiC 5tny6ct 14 t 3 CL D Mali NO A f5 WVOM 558%G PA
'9410
13 1
are others that are prefixed by the letter R.
There is 2
still another prefix, a B.
Do you see some of these 3
examples ?
4 A
Yes.
You are showing me one prefix with R 5
and one prefix with B.
6 Q
Here is a book full of them prefixed with C.
7 A
Right.
8 Q
One of the things that I was curious about was 9
how were these prepared.
The ones prefixed R appear to be 10 radiological information.
11 A
That is correct.
12 Q
Were these prepa red by people in the region in 13 manning the open lines ?
14 A
These were prepared by people in the region 15 manning the open line to Dr. Gallia n.
This is the radiologi-16 cal line (indicating), not the open line from the Unit 2 17 control room.
This here (indicating) was from Unit 1.
18 Q
The other one that I have here with a B prefix 19 seems to be information from the helicopter.
20 A
What those a re is information that was obtained 21 by Dr. Bores, n
22 Q
B-o-r-e-s?
23 A
B-o-r-e-s, yes.
He wa s in Mr. Stobr's section --
2d is in Mr. Stohr's section, the environmental and special 25 projects section with Nk. Stohr with the mobile van, and movC# Si t Nosa n***C S te w'C f 141, OLO ulLL poac. wvouessimo pa testo
14 1
I&E at Three Mile Island.
Dr. Bores then becomes active.
2 He is the second senior or the most senior member of that 3
section when Mr. Stohr is gone.
He then was preparing 4
these.
5 Basically what he was doing, he was coordinating 6
with the state, with the other federal agencies and this 7
became -- even to this day, this is one of Dr. Bores '
8 principal functions, doing this coordination thing.
9 Q
He was handling this by telephone?
10 A
He was handling this by telephone.
11 Q
Still another line that we haven't mehtioned 12 before?
13 A
If he did not have open lines he would actually 14 have to place independent calls.
He was working out of --
15 not the incident response center but he was working out of 16 either his own office or an office that is close to the 17 incident response center.
18 Q
One of the things that I have noticed in 19 looking through these sets of papers, and I have not 20 checked the R numbers or the B numbers except to note 21 that these copies exist.
I was looking through the C's cr 22 and I see that there is an identical note in the C sheets I
23 as this one in the R sheets --
24 A
That is very interesting.
It d oes n't surpris e 25l me.
e asON'C a st E NOGR A PM*C S E Ws 4 C E.
14'3 OLD MILL #08 D W TOW SSIN G PA 19410
15 1
This could have been written down by the health-2 physicist who was listening to the open lines because it 3
is health-physics information.
4 Q
Tha t is what I was going to ask you.
I wanted 5
to clarify how that would come to pass with respect to 6
the communications.
7 A
Even though information -- this open line was 8
going also directly into headquarters.
This is the major 9
open line from Unit 2.
10 Q
That is the one that is on the speaker phone 11 in the response center here in the region?
12 A
Right.
13 The health-physicist had an open line to our 14 counterparts, the FFMS division headquarters which are also 15 the hea lth-physics groups.
W'e were feeding this information 16 to them not only over the open line where they are hearing 17 the same report that we hear, but we would also feed 18 information that we would pick up over that line 19 independently to the health-physics people down there.
20 That is why you may very well find similar data.
21 Q
I want to ask you one more specific point on this.
tr 22 I guess at this point then I don't understand i
23 [
how the people who are on the speaker phone will be able 24 to pick up what was going on in the HP area.
I am not 25 sure that is what was ha ppening but it appears that on this i
MON CM STENO 4ma pa'C Eg a v Cf
'4'S OL D M'LL ECA" wv0M'SS'NG P4 19410
16 8
1 C9 message form which was at about 11:30 on W' dnesday e
2 that the information was transmitted --
3 A
I am not sure that this wouldn't go the other 4
way.
5 Q
-- from the region headquarters back to the site, 6
A No.
From my people perhaps getting it directly 7
from Gallian and leaving it. over here and having it 8
entered over there.
I think, originally, there is a 9
possibility that they were shooting for a complete record to under the C's and we then split.
11 MR. SICILIA:
Of f the record.
12 (Discussion had off the record.)
13 MR RIVENBARK:
While wetwere off the record, we la had a discussion and drew a little sketch of the communica-15 tions hook-ups between Unit 1 and Unit 2 at the site and 16 the communicators in the region response center.
Mr.
17 Sicilia has a copy of this sketch.
is
,BY MR. RIVENBARK:
19 Q
Sometime in the afternoon on Wednesday, Mk.
20 Neeley, I believe, called you from the Unit 2 control room 21 regarding a request that had been made that he go with cr 22 Mr. Gallian and Mr. Higgins to the Governor's office.
23 I believe the gist of his conversation was that 24 he didn't believe he should go.
Is that about the way that 25 it happened ?
MONTm STENOcna pwc stav'CE I413 OLD M.LL #0A D
- v 0m'S $ s % G PA tetto
17 1
A What happened, I got a request from headquarters 2
that we were to send; two people to the Governor's office.
3 I instructed Mr. Neeley and Mr. Higgins to go as the 4
cenior people, 5
Q This was on Wednesday?
6 A
Ye s, this was on Wednesday.
7 Q
Do you recall who from headquarters that came 8
from?
9 A
I believe from Mr. Sneezik (phonetic spelling).
10 He gave me the names of the people in the Governor's office i
11 that I was to contact and I can't recall those names.
12 Mr. Neeley questioned whether I felt he should 13 go.
My reaction, as I reca ll, was, I am to send my senior ja people and you are my senior man.
15 As it turned out later, Don Neeley got some 16 contamination and had to be decontaminated and Dr. Gallian 17 went in his stead.
That is how Dr. Gallian went.
i 18 Q
Then I was incorrect in assuming that originally 19 the three, Gallian, Neeley and Mr. Higgins were to go?
20 A
You were incorrect on that, yes.
21 Q
Then that explains my next question which was n
22 going to be:' How were you going to assure that the HP 23 aspect of things was being covered at the site while the 24 two people, both Mr. Gallian and Mr. Neeley, were away 25 at the Governor 's of fice?
MON'CM ST C%CC na #**tC SE R w sC E 1413 OLD MtLL mOa D W V OM 6 5 5 t 'w G PA 19610
18 9
1 A
Dr. Gallian did not act in the capacity nor is l
2 he presently assigned in the capacity as a health-physicist.
3 Dr. Gallian opted to become an investigator approximately 4
three years ago -- four years ago, before I ever came to 5
Region 1.
It had to do with grade and such.
6 Dr. Gallian, who was well founded in health-P ys ic s, wa s no t one of my a r s ig ned hea lth-phys ic is t s.
He h
7 8
eventually ended up speaking as a spokesman for the health-9 physics group but this was through the accident in which 10 Don Neeley became contaminated.
11 Q
Did he not also end up directing the health-12 physicists at the site who were not inside the Unit 2 13 control room in some of their activities ?
For instance, 14 when Mr. Neeley was inside the Unit 2 control room, which 15 is where he was for the major part of the afternoon on 16 Wednesday, and Nk. Plumlee and Mr. Nimitz were on the 17 outside, who was directing M'. Plumlee and Mr. Nimitz's r
18 a c t iv it ies, if a nyo ne, or wa s it neces sa ry ?
19 A
I was telling them what they should do.
Whether 20 Dr. Gallian was suggesting to them what they should do --
21 I would imagine he was, it 22 Formally and officially I dbr ected them when 23 Mr. Neeley was inside, l
24 Q
So you were communicating with them either over 25 the line to Unit 1 or over other telephone lines that they
\\
.c.,,........c...c.
... oso m.......... ~......
19 I
had access to?
2 A
Yes.
3 At one time I can recall instructing Mr. Plumlee 4
to go out into the environment and take some readings.
He 5
telephoned us and was telling me what the readings were.
6 I a sked him where he wa s, a nd he said something about, 7
"I have to go outside and see. "
He was in a phone booth 8
and he had to tell me that he was at the corner of such and 9
such streets, but yes.
10 Q
Were you gene. rally aware of the reactor's status 11 and some of the operational status on Wednesday?
12 A
I was generally aware, yes.
13 Q
Did you ever get any reports or have conversations 14 with your HP people regarding the r eactor's status on 15 Wednesday?
What I am looking for, Mr. Smith, is, I am 16 trying to track down whether or not information on certain 17 kinds of events, was available to anyone at the site 18 including whether it was available to HP's, who< possibly 19 were n 't focusing on the operational aspect, but who were 20 aware of an event or a status of some kind.
21 A
I believe the status of the reactor, and I am cv 22 sure Don Neeley being in the Unit 2 control room, people i
23 were not saying, "Do not look at the control board."
I 24 am sure Don was aware of that.
Don is familiar enough 25,
and has been around enough that he can look at instruments I
i WON CK STENOGnaPwiC StMWiCE. 9 4I 3 OLD M'LL PO AD m v0W t S$t%G. P A 196'O i
20 1
and tell.
2 However, I am also aware or probably quite sure 3
that Don was so concerned with his part of the action.
4 We 'were more or less an integrated team.
Hea lth-physics 5
is one discipline, operations is another discipline.
W'e 6
would fully expect, and in my feelings here at the regional 7
office, and I am sure that Don in the reactor, if there 8
were things we had to know about the reactor's status, the 9
first people you are going to tell, I am sure, are the 10 health-physicists because even the operations people rely 11 on us to protect their health and safety.
12 Yes, I am sure we were aware of the general 13 s ta t us.
I was aware of it because I was in the control I as privy to everything.
14 room.
w 15 Q
You mean in the res ponse center ?
16 A
Here in the response center, yes.
17 I was here in the response center and was privy la to everything that came over the open line.
I didn't 19 necessarily hear it all but it was there.
20 Occasionally I would hear something because it 21 had an effect on health-physics on the condition of the cr 22 reactor.
23 Q
Do you recall hearing any conversations on 24 Wednesday rega rding the fact or possibility that someone 25 '
was discussing superheated steam in the reactor, the MON Ca Ef t %OGR APM'C Stew;CE
$ 413 otD wtLL RO A D. W TCuistsNG PA 19510 4
21 1
possibility that the core was uncovered or remained 2
uncovered on Wednesday?
3 A
I don't recall if it was Wednesday or Thursday.
4 I don't recall what led me to that conclusion either.
It 5
was things I was hearing, things that I was seeing.
I 6
can recall very well, it is one of the vivid recollections, 7
having sitting next to Boyes Grier and saying to him, "Is 8
that damn core uncovered ?"
9 Q
But you don't know what day that was?
10 A
It was either Wednesday or Thursday.
11 Q
Were,you aware possibly on Wednesday that someone 12 in headquarters had spoken to Mr. Hitz at bbt-Ed and 13 suggested that they consider whether or not the core was 14 uncovered ?
Does my reference to a message from head-15 quarters to Nk Hitz, does that add anything at all to 16 your memory?
17 A
To be very frank with you, I don't know who Mr.
18 Hitz is.
19 Q
Ek Hitz is a Met-Ed employee.
I believe he was 20 a shift supervisor and I don't recall in which unit.
He 21 was actively involved, from time to time, in communications Cr 22 on the status of certain things.
23 MR. SICILIA:
Shift supervisor in operations.
24 THE WITNESS:
I could have even hea rd such a 25.
conversation, but that wouldn't necessarily mean too much M O *u ' C M Sit NOGma parC S E 8ev e C E.
149 3 OLD Mf LL PO AD W VOMiS SING PA 19610
~., - - - -
22 Ii P
1 ll to me.
3-2[
BY MR. RIVENBARK:
1
~
3 Q
Did anybody tell you on Wednesday that they had I.
4 overheard or had been told by someone from Met-Ed that 5a there had been a pressure spike in the containment on l
6 9lWednesday?
i' 7
A No, b ut I am since aware of a purported pressure a
d 8i spike but I was not aware of it on Wednesday.
l Q
Someone from Met-Ed has said that they told an 9
10 NRC person on Wednesday that there was a pressure s pike, I!
handthenthat person made a notation of it on a pa d.
11 12 We have talked to a number of people from the 13 NRC who were there and so far we haven't found one of them p
14 [ who remembers being told that on Wednesday so we keep 15 asking the next person we talk to if he knew about this c
0 16 e and I was wondering if possibly some of your health-physics i
17 People had encountered someone and they had been told that.
isj The bbt-Ed people not knowing what the NRC people's roles 1
were and possibly that person, since they connunicated I
20 y with you, mentioning wha t they had said.
l 21 A
To the best of my knowledge, no one told me
- 2 about a pressure spike.
I am sure if one of my health-physicists did I would have asked them what the hell that 2
' mea nt.
Was it me they said they told that to?
i 25 Q
No.
They didn't know who they told.
They said l
l
,...~-n u
..s..~.-
.....n
_y-,
23 I
an NRC person.
2 Were you involved in any way in the taking of 3
samples at the site?
4 A
I was involved in that samples were sometimes 5
collected and generally were analyzed by people who called 6
into my crew.
7 Once the mobile laboratory arrived, our mobile 8
laboratory, I have been informed that we were the only 9
operating analytical facility for the next 24 to 48 hours5.555556e-4 days <br />0.0133 hours <br />7.936508e-5 weeks <br />1.8264e-5 months <br />.
10 We were analyzing almost all the samples.
11 Q
Being more specific, the reactor coolant samples 12 or the containment atmos phere samples, were you involved 13 in either one of those in any way?
14 A
By involved --
15 Q
Did you request that they be taken?
W re you e
16 informed and express some view concerning the taking of 17 the samples or the result from the sample, involved in 18 the request for the analysis in some kind of way?
19,
I really would like to know what you know I,
20 1 about the samples, the taking of the samples ?
What were 21l the problems with the taking of the samples ?
What it i
22 l conclusions did the NRC staff draw from the information 23 that they had coming back from the samples ?
24 A
How much of this I knew at the time and how much 25 !
I have since learned, I can't really separate it.
I was t
i ve c sn cc...- < s t v cc m 2 mo un.o.o mees s,se..
i.c o l
24 1
aware that the primary coolant sample was taken.
I am 2
aware that some people received --
3 Q
Are you aware of only one primary coolant 4
sar6ple ?
5 A
Right, on Wednesday.
I guess there was more 6
than one.
7 Q
There was a sample on Thursday that was very hot.
8 A
Very hot?
9 Very hot.
10 Q
Very hot.
11 A
Yes.
12 Q
Are you aware of another sample earlier that
'3 wasn't so hot?
14 A
I don't remember.
It is the very hot samples,
15 I guess, I am aware of.
16 When people were overexposed or received 17 exposures in excess of three Rem during the collectioncof 18 the samples.
It has since been determined to have received 19 some extremity exposures in excess of three Rem as a 20 result of collecting the samples.
21 I am aware that the samples were very hot, very ct 22 high levels.
I am not sure if that was on Wednesday or 23 Thursda y.
It just kind of smears together.
I just have 24 no memory at this time.
25 Q
.Our NRC facility, our van, at the site, was that i
1 wome n st rsoon..-c sanv.cr ia a oto mu acao. wvowssisd ra tosio 1
25 1
used in any way for the reactor coolant sample ?
2 A
No.
3 Q
Wa s it used for the containment air sample?
4 A
It was used for the filters.
However, the initial 5
filter has never, to my knowledge, been found.
6 Q
These are the stack filters ?
7 A
Yes.
Did we take a containment air sample?
8 Q
There was a containment atmosphere sample taken, 9
and I don't know who took it but these were being taken, 10 whether one, two, three I don't know offhand at this 11 moment but they were being taken.
12 A
How were they being taken?
13 Q
How?
14 A
Ye s.
U5 Q
I don't know.
16 A
W' ll, I am not fully aware of them now being e
17 taken.
18 Q
They were tracking the hydrogen.
They wanted to 19 see the percentage of hydrogen in the containment.
20 A
I know they were aware of the percentage of 21 hydrogen.
I never actually questioned how they were cr 22 getting thtt.
23 Q
But you don't recall those samples or those 24 containment atmos phere samples ?
25 A
No.
MON'CM EttNOGR4*NIC S E nvrC E T 413 C LD MsLL WO A D WTOMr5$4NG P4 19910
26 1
Q Tho was in charge at the site in your view 2
for radiological matters on Wednesday night ?
3 A
In my view Don Neeley was still in charge in the 4
pla' nt.
Once Phil Stohr arrived he was in charge in the 5
environmental out of plant activities.
6 Q
Did Don Neeley remain in charge in plant after 7
Phil Stohr arrived?
8 A
Yes.
9 Q
That is your assumption?
10 A
That would be my assumption, yes.
I don't t hink 11 the question ever really came up.
That would be their 12 assumption, too.
13 Q
If Mr. Neeley's presence was required in the Unit 14 2 control room on Wednesday afternoon, why wouldn't it 15 be required on Wednesday evening?
16 A
You are asking me now about who went down to 17 talk to the Governor?
18 Q
No.
I am really wondering why if a person's 19 presence or why if an HP's presence is needed in the Unit 20 ;
2 control room on Wednesday afternoon, why it wouldn't be 21 needed on Wednesday night or Thursday morning or Thursday ct 22 !
afternoon?
I am not sure that there was an HP person i
1 23f assigned to the control room on Thursday.
I recall that 2a!
hk.
after he left the Unit 2 control room and on 25,
his way to the Governor, came back because he found his I
WON Cm S? t NO G E a *** *C % E 4 v'C E t a' 5 CLO WILL MOAO. W WCWiSSING pa 19610
27 1
pants had been -- hh trousers had been contaminated and 2
he came back to Unit I where he, I believe, remained 3
manning that Unit 1 telephone that Nk. Gallian had left 4
to go to the Governor's office.
5 The question is :
Was there a need for someone 6
to be in Unit 2, an HP to be in Unit 2 7 7
A It is desirous.
Are you aware of our role as 8
defined in an emergency situation at the time of Three 9
Mile Island?
10 Q
I am sure that I don't have an adequate awareness.
11 A
Very generally, we were ex pected to be present 12 in 'the control room, someone from IE or NRC, to observe 13 the actions of the licensee, to take notes and to just 14 generally be prepared to investigate; take investigative 15 notes on. what they were doing.
16 Q
An HP person?
17 A
Not necessarily, an NRC representative.
18 W'e, in my view, far overresponded to these 19 initial instructions that we have lived under for the past 20 20 yea rs.
21 W'e did not have adequate people there initially cr 22 to man the control room with health-physicists, to man as a 23 talker on the telephone, to obtain environmental readings 24 and environmental samples on an around-the-clock basis.
25 I would perhaps say I am at fa ult for assuming t
MON-Cp B T I ND G fr A.H i dipv>CE. 1413 OL D M + LL RO A D w v0M'SS NG Pa tveto
28 1
that we operated or were to operate and continue to 2
operate in a classical mode.
3 I think we overresponded to what we had been 4
ins't ruc t ed.
5 Let me put it this way:
If we have Four Mile 6
Island tomorrow our initial response will be on the order 7
of what happened on Friday.
8 Q
Did we have HP coverage in the Unit 2 control room 9
on Friday?
10 A
Yes, we had people in there.
W'e had people in 11 there on Thursday, too.
I am sure Don Neeley was in there 12 Thursday.
Was he?
13 Q
I don't know.
14 A
I am sure he was in the Unit 2 control room on 15 Thursday.
16 l
Friday evening we went to full shift coverage 17 where we are talking three or four health-physicists in
- a plant around the clock.
This was the full response which 19 we entered into on Friday.
As I said before, we were 20 observers and not doers.
21 Q
Nbving on to Thursday now.
tv 22 I believe I have previously read somewhere that 23 you had indicated that you really didn't recall how long g
24 you were in the response center on Wednesday night.
Do 25 you recall that now?
WONiCM ETENOGR APMC SE4 w CE 14 '3 OL D W L t. RO a D W YOMIS $s NG PA 19610
29 1
A No.
I wasn't home very long, I know that.
2 Q
If you did go home, do you recall when you came 3
back on Thursday?
4 A
I know I went home.
5 Q
Do you recall when you came back on Thursday?
6 A
Early in the morning, 5 :00 or 6 :00 o ' clock.
7 Q
Do you recall how long you were here on Thursday?
8 What time did you go home on Thursday?
9 A
Very b te Thursday night.
10 Q
In the order of midnight?
11 A
Something like that.
12 Q
When you came to the response center on Thursday, 13 when you came or shortly after you came, did you hear about 14 releases from the makeup tank or the waste gas decay tank 15 on Thursday?
16 A
I heard about that on Friday morning.
I don't 17 recall hearing it on Thursday morning.
la Q-There were releases on Thursday.
There is 19 something in the records and I am just wondering if you 20 reca ll.
21 A
I vividly remember the ones on Friday morning.
(t 22 Q
I was really wondering if you had remembered a 23 1200 MR release on Thursday morning.
24 A
I have no recollection at all of hearing about 25,
that 1200 MR.
I do recall a 3,000 MR release on Thursday.
l l
uoves stssosaae-c staver sais oto uitt acan wvowssma na iosio
c 30 1
There was a 3,000 MR release above the s tack.
2 Q
Wastthat from the makeup or waste --
3 A
It was a gaseous release out of the stack.
The 4
source of it I can't tell you.
5 Q
Do you remember what the region wa s told at the time?
6 A
Yes.
We were told 3,000 MR's per hour.
I have 7
8 since looked into this, I do recall that it was several 9
hundred MR's per hour.
10 Q
Whs there an off site reading in conjunction with tha t ?
11 A
There was an off site reading.
I don't recall if 12 13 it was taken at the same time or not, but there were a ja number of continuous -- we were getting off site readings n Thursday.
15 16 When I look back on this, and when you are 17 talking about health-physics coverage on Unit 2, I am 18 wondering because even though we may not have had a health-19 physicist in there through the night I believe we had 20 the phone man and we were getting health-physics data 21 through the night on Wednesday night.
a Q
The phone in Unit 1 or Unit 2?
22 23 A
You see, in Unit 1 they were capable of going 24 over to Unit 2 control roora and determine what was 25 ha ppening and get updates.
Even though there was someone WOYCm Ef thCGa&#wiC if evict
'413 CLO M?L L #04 D W TOuests NG PA 196t0
31 i
)
1 not constantly in there, there was NRC health-physics 2
presence on site.
3 Q
Do you recall what kind of data you.got out of 4
Unit 2 as opposed to Unit I?
5 A
Generally, out of Unit 2 was the operations, 6
that is generally what we would get over that line.
When 7
people would go over into Unit 2 --
8 Q
The health-physics data is what I am asking about.
9 A
One of the continuous things that we were being 10 asked about was what is the dome monitor reading.
That is 11 something you would have to go over to Unit 2 and get and 12 come back and report that.
Readings on the monitors inside 13 of the conta inment is generally information you would get 14 on Unit 2.
That is specifically one of the things I 15 remember we were being asked for.
16 Q
Do you recall anything else of significance on 17 Thursday?
18 A
When did the liquid start ?
19 Q
That was on Thursday.
20 A
I recall that very well.
21 Q
You are referring now to the industrial waste a
22 discharge to the Susquehanna River?
23 A
Yes.
Do you want details on that?
24 Q
Inasmuch as we have mentioned it briefly, maybe 25,
a real brief summary.
i M O NiC a STENCGRA PHiC $ E RV>CE 14' 3 OLD M'L L #0 A D WYoursstNG Pa ?9610
32 1
A Ws received a call some time early Thursday 2
from the site, from our HP's at the site, requesting the 3
MPC's for dissolved gases in the liquid waste.
4 Q
The MPC's are the maximum permissible concentra-5 tions ?
6 A
Yss.
Actually, part 20 does not speak to that 7
beca use part 20 was written in the days when your noble a
gases were considered as never tying up with water.
9 Q
That is part 20 of Title 10?
10 A
Yss, the Code of Federal Regulations, 11 Ws obtained these numbers, the numbers that are 12 used, for dissolved gases, transmitted it back to the 13 site and determined that the site was having water problems.
14 They had to discharge this industrial waste.
It had 15 dissolved gases in it which were less than the concentrations 16 we gave them.
17 If they did not discharge it through the routine la path it was going to go over the side anyway, because the 19 sumps were going to overflow.
20 They then started discharging.
I have been asked, "Did you give them permission - " did somebody say, "Can 21 rx 22 we discharge?" and we sa id, "Ye s. "
23 The concentrations were within the limit in 24 part 20.
I did not say, "You better not dump that. "
They 25 were dumping it Thursday night and all of a sudden we got MON Cw $TENOGR A PmC S ERV CE 14'3 CL D MsLL #0a 0 w vowissa%G pa testo
33 1
word from headquarters and informed the licensee that 2
they were to immediately stop.
3 I asked specifically, "Do you realize what will 4
hap ~ pen if we do stop it ?
It is going to go anyway under 5
an uncontrolled release. " They said that was of no 6
consequences and they were to stop.
The release was stopped 7
for four or five hours and then they restarted it.
8 Q
Do you recall who you wer2 talking to?
9 A
No. It came over the open line.
I am not really 10 sure.
I can generally recognize all the voices, having 11 been in headquarters a number of years.
Who this was I am 12 not absolutely sure.
Nobody has come forward and said, 13 "I am the one that you cussed up. "
I don't know who gave la this.
Do you know?
15 Q
No.
16 A
I would like to know.
I was curious.
They say 17 the EMT had given the order.
18 Q
I recall that the EMT had been --
19 A
Blamed ?
20 Q
No, had been pointed to as being the source of 21 the order.
The EMT would be the only group that would be a
22 authorized to make an order.
23 A
Right.
24 Q
Let 's move on to Friday.
25 ;
I guess by this time you were on some sort of a MON C. S*t %CGna n=<C S t av CE.
1415 O L D M rLL mO A D
- v0 mis 5 8NG
.A 196'O
34 1
routine schedule for coming and going home, or were you?
2 Do you recall what time you arrived here at the region 3
response center on Friday?
4 A
Exact time, no.
Probably about 6 :00.
5 Q
Again, approximately the same time you arrived 6
on Thursday?
7 A
Who could go home and sleep?
8 Q
As you are aware now, Friday morning was the time 9
when there were releases from the makeup tank or the waste 10 gas decay tank at the site that resulted in headqm rters 11 recommending to the State of Pennsylvania an evacuation.
12 At that time on Wednesday morning after you came 13 here, did you know then that there were releases taking 14 place from either the makeup tank or the gas decay tanks ?
15 A
Ye s, I did.
I was informed when I came in when i
16 I was being told what was, happening.
They told me that 17 they had been having these releases.
I asked for specific 18 d eta ils.
They told me they were 15 seconds, generally, 19 in duration.
They told me exactly how many of them there 20 had been.
They told me what the readings were and such 21 things.
They told me that they had started very early in er 22 the morning, 1:30, 2:00 o ' clock, something like tha t.
W' re you made aware of any specifics like Nbt-Ed 23 Q
e 24 ha s intentionally vented the tank, the makeup tank.
Met-Ed 25 has notified the state that it is venting this tank.
MON CM ST ENOGRAPhtC S ERViCE 1413 OL D MIL L RO A D W 70MS$ $1NG PA 19610
35 1
Met-Ed has a helicopter up to measure the --
2 A
We had the helicopter up.
3 Q
From the tapes that we had transcribed, I read a 4
tel'ephone call from Mr. Higgenboth to a Mr. Smith.
5 A
I think it ca n be ass umed that it was me, yes, 6
sir.
7 Q
The" gist of that conversation was -- the words C
from Higgenboth were, "Do you know about the releases?"
9 The gist of the response from Mr. Smith was, "We are on 10 top of it. "
11 The questioner didn't say where the releases were 12 from.
It j us t said, "Are you aware of the releases," and 13 the other one said, "We a re on top of it. "
14 Then the questioner said, "Is the ARMS aircraft 15 up?"
The response was, "It isn't up, but it is going up 16 right now."
17 Then the requester said, "Could we have a ground 18 measurement at the same location as the air measurement?"
19 The res ponder said, "Tha t will take a certain amount of 20 time to do.
It will be something in the order of a couple 21 of hours to get the information back. "
tr 22 Mr. Higgenboth said, "Okay," or a s much as that.
23 Do you believe that you are the Smith that we 24 are talking about?
The reason I ask that is because there l
i 25 is a Smith, and I don't know whether he was at the site at i
MON.c4 57t%OGpa***C Stab;Ct 1483 3LD MILL #04D wvcMe59tNG P4 19610
36 1
that time, but there was a Ray Smith but he was in Unit 2 2
from time to time as a communicator.
3 A
Higgenboth had called me.
I don't recall that 4
exact' ' conversation.
But what I say that I was the Smith
~
5 he was talking to, absolutely.
6 Q
The time of this call was very close to 9:00 7
o' clock.
As.I recall, it was a few. minutes a fter 9 :00.
8 It was before the evacuation recommendation call was actually 9
made to the state by headquarters; not a long time before, 10 but before.
11 Do you know whether or not in that conversation 12 anybody asked you to track down the source of the 1200 13 MR per hour reading?
ja A
I had never heard the 1200 MR per hour reading.
15 I am not going to be at all surprised though if you tell 16 me on the tapes somebody said 1200 MR per hour.
17 Q
I have no knowledge of anybody asking about the 18 1200 MR.
19 A
I have been asked and we have gone through our 20 records on that particular area.
I have personally never 21 seen the 1200 MR per hour reading.
Would I have, if t
22 questioned, recommended evacuation based upon a 1200 MR 23 reading at the stack, I would not have if it is a short 24 term release.
25 Q
Did comeone from headquarters try to verify MON'C m 97tNO 3* AP*C S E*v 'CC 14 8 3 OL D F LL RO A D W Y 0 M i S SI N G Pa 4 610
37 1
something that was specifically going on at the site 2
related to the releases and in conjunction with their 3
evaluation of whether to recommend evacuation?
4 By the time of the conversation, as I recall from 5
the tapes, if that had been the thrust of the conversation 6
it would have been an attempt to verify what was going on 7
at the site.
8 I don't have a record that tells me that is what 9
it was for.
I don't have a lead that tells me that is what 10 it is for, but I am asking another person --
11 A
If somebody was calling me in an attempt to 12 verify what was happening, they were hiding it in such a 13 manner, or they were so obtuse that I did not know that 14 they were contemplating or trying to verify information 15 Prior to recommending an evacuation.
MR. RIVENBARK:
Incidentally, Mr. Higgenboth i;
has not indicated -that he was trying to verify that 18 release.
19 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
20 Q
Besides knowing that it had released for 15 21 s eco nd - intervals on Friday morning, had you had any er 22 discussions about the status of the gas decay tanks at 23 that time with anybody at the site?
24 A
I am sure in the description that they were l
25l giving me of why it was releasing from the header...we had i
McN CW s'f N"644PH C S E
38 1
discussed at some length the condition of the tanks, why 2
this wa s ha ppening.
It wa s almost a predictable thing as 3
I recall.
4 In other words, a t one time I was talking to the 5
site about it and they were telling me t' hat there would be 6
another 15 second release in such and such a period.
I 7
would imagine, when I think about it, when you say I was 8
telling Higgenboth that the chopper was getting ready to 9
go out, we had probably been told that there was going to be 10 a release within a certain period of time and that is why 11 we were getting them up.
12 Q
When I jump over to the helicopter that we had 13 going; up, I had moved to that point from talking about 14 what the Met-Ed person had said about having the helicopter 15 going up.
16 Were you aware that Met-Ed had helicopters going 17 up and taking measurements ?
18 A
Yes, I wa s.
19 Q
But you weren't aware that Met-Ed had a helicopter i
20 up a nd had notified the state that they were venting and 21 j wanted to know if the state was prepared to evacuate if
.r 22l necessa ry ?
l f
23 A
I absolutely was not aware of the latter state-24 ment.
You say that they were intentionally venting their i
I 25 waste gas tanks ?
I was not aware of that.
I wa s awa re W O *. C *L ST ENOGn a PMIC S t a v'C E to t S OL D W.LL moa 0 **Cws$rNG PA 19410
39 II d
) that as the waste gas tanks were filling up something was 1
2 ! happening that you wo uld get a lif t ing of a va lve a nd a 3
15 second vent.
Before now I was not aware that they were 4
intentionally venting the waste gas tanks.
Were they?
5 Q
I don't know whether they were or not.
I do know 6
that a Mbt-Ed person has testified that they were.
7 A
This is the first time I am aware of it.
8 Q
It wa s Mr. Floyd, and he testified that he 9
intentionally vented the tank and knowing he was doing i
10 j that, that he had asked the helicopter to go up to measure i
11 I what was going on and he had called the state to ask them 12 if they were prepared to evacuate.
13 i He has explained that not in terms that he was 14 asking them to evacuate, but in the event that his valve I
i 15 didn't close when he wanted it to that he wanted to make 16 sure that they had some alternatives.
I i
17 A
I was aware that what they were doing was I
18ll causing the valve to lift.
As I say, we could, almost at j
0 l
19 !! times, predict, or a c I wa s being told, the valve would l
20 h lift and we will have a burp.
I had not thought of that il 21 ) as an intentional release or an intentional vent.
0 22 F I guess you could say that the action they were i
'23 p taking -- the action that they had to ta ke that wa s
?
24 ' ' causing this means they didn't discontinue the action.
I 9
t i
H Perhaps you would have to say this is an intentional burp.
f
- t
- F *, "
E 4. o r S t asOf 14 3 OL O M-6 L *CEO A V C M' f t
- .4 PA
' 6 4 ' Tv
_~.
40 1
I never thought of it that way before.
2 Q
The NRC people at the site didn't report back 3
to the region, to your knowledge, that Mat-Ed was taking 4
this action?
5 A
They reported back that we were getting these 6
15 second lifts of a valve and they would get the burp 7
a nd then the thing would settle back down.
8 I know that I was askisg why this ha ppened and 9
it wa s ex pla ined to me.
I can't recall the exact explanation 10 now, but it was essentially about balancing the two ta nks.
11 Q
Did you believe on Wednesday morning that both 12 of the gas decay tanks were full?
13 A
At the present time I couldn 't tell you what the 14 status of the gas decay tanks were on Wednesday morning.
15 Q
You don't remember what you believed on 16 Wednesday morning?
17 A
It is very possible I knew the status of the 18 gas decay tank.
I do know the initial report on Wednesday 19 morning was that there was no release off site.
20 Q
The inittal report ?
A Ye s, because I specifically asked the question.
21 er 22 Q
"here is a report at 8 :45 a.m.
on message form t
23 g C56 that alludes to the waste gas decay tank as being i
24 i full.
I 25l Were HP people following the waste gas system?
wo%CM s?tNCGR APm0 s tavict 1413 CLD mLL #0a o wyownstNo ma ipeto
Ob 1
If they were, what was their involvement in it, the HP 2
people at the site?
3 A
I guess that is who I received the information 4
from on the status on Friday morning of what was ha ppening.
5 I am sure through discussions with people, 6
through looking at various recorders and such things is 7
how they would be obtaining the information that was 8
ha ppening in the system.
9 Q
Do you recall anything else that happened of 10 significance on Friday morning?
11 A
You mean other than the order to evacuate?
12 Q
Yes.
13 A
I recall just before we heard the order to 14 evacuate that Chick Gallian called and was rather unstrung 15 a nd wanted to know what in the hell we were thinking about, 16 ordering a n evacuation.
I can recall trying to calm him 17 down and get him back on the track and definitely 18 convincing him that nobody had ordered an evacuation.
19 At which time I heard it go over the radio behind me, I 20 can recall that very well.
21 Q
Did you call headquarters and ask them about that?
22 A
I believe I did.
I think I called them and 23 instructed -- told someone that they should issue an 24 immediate relea se withdrawing this.
I was quite disturbed 25 when I heard it.
wos ca e,asosa
.-c scav ct +=>> oto uu aoao wrow'ss o Pa iss'o
42 1
Q Did they verify that they had issued such an 2
order ?
3 A
They did.
Eley told me it was from someone far 4
above them.
5 Q
I understand you went to the site later on in the 6
afternoon, but between the activities associated with the 7
evacuation recommendation a nd the time tha t you went to the 8
site, what did you do along in that period of time ?
9 A
Tha t is kind of in the way of general.
I know 10 we were supposed to leave almost immediately for the site.
We d id n 't leave until close to 3 :00 o ' clock, 4:00 o ' clock.
12 It was later on in the afternoon.
I believe the initial 13 plan was that Boyes a nd I would leave at 12:30, 1:00 o' clock.
14 Basically preparing to go down and try and find 15 out what was ha ppening.
Again keeping track of what we 16 were seeing in the environment.
17 Q
You learned early in the afternoon that you were 18 going to go to the site.
When you did, were you given a 19 rea son for going?
Did someone tell you why you should go ?
20 6
Not really, no.
21 I think it was very obvious with all the health-3 22 physicists that were flying in from the other regional 23 offices; someone -had to go down and head a rather large 24
- hea lth-physics orga niza tion.
25!
I think it was very obvious for health-physics i
w0% CK ST E % Q CM A P>aic $ t hy1C (
949 3 OLD MILL 40a D WWCWf S5tNr, Pa 196t0
43 1
a nd operations that there had to be someone there from 2
regional management.
3 Q
Do you recall when the decision was made to go to 4
the site?
5 A
Probably about noon on Friday.
That is about 6
the best I can recall.
7 That is interesting, but I don't recall anybody 8
ever really sitting down and saying that, "This is the 9
s it ua t io n a nd we hav e t o ma ke a dec is io n o n it. "
It was 10 j us t a ll of a sudden tha t Boyes and I were going to the 11 site.
12 Q
I was wondering if someone from headquarters 13 had called up and said, "You folks have to go to the site,"
14 that morning and take over the management of the IE people
.15 down there.
16 A
They may have told Boyes that.
I don't r ecall 17 receiving such an instruction.
I do recall being told 18 that they were sending in so many HP's from region 2 and 19,
so many HP's from region 3 and there wa s no question about 20 my being there.
21 Q
Were these HP's that were coming in -- this was 22 to man the IE activities in the HP area on a around-the-23 clock ba sis, is that why you-had to have a lot of them, 24 or wa s it beca us e you wa nt ed to ex pa nd other a rea s tha t 25l you hadn't gotten into ?
n MONdCm strNoccammc stav.C(
i411 Ct p utL L RO A D WTOWtStt%G PA 19s10
44 1
A I have no idea.
I wa s not privy to any of the decis ions.
I was not privy to nothing other than the 3
fa ct that,they were coming aboard.
4 Q
Who called them up and asked them to come?
5 A
I haven't the slightest idea.
To be frank with 6
you, I don't know.
7 Q
You don't know whether it was headquarters or 8
region --
9 A
I am sure it came out of headquarters.
It was 10 not Region 1 because I do know when we first heard that 11 there were X number of them flying out of Region 3 on a 12 charter flight my first comment was, "Who in the hell 13 ordered them?"
Everybody went, "Who knows. "
14 Q
Did you feel, at that time, that they weren't 15 needed ?
16 A
Twenty years of training old dogs at NRC a nd 17 prior to that AEC dies a little hard, 18 Under our previous directions I felt that we 19 were adequate -- more than adequately covered.
I had not 20,
even considered going down there with that force of people 21 and setting up the action that we did set up.
I started cv 22 thinking about what we were going to do, hot we were going 23 i to use it and what this meant on Friday af terc )on.
24 Q
In addition to the HP's that were coming in from 25
.the other-regions, I understand that the NRC was requesting WON cm ST E NCGR 4 PN'C S E'IVtC E 1413 O L D M I L 6 RO4C WTOWiSSTNG RA
'9610
45 l
1 HP's from Argonne Laboratory, Oak Ridge Laboratory and 2
asking for them on a rush basis to get them down to the 3
l site.
4 A
I wasn't aware of that.
They must have had 5
great faith in us.
6 (La ught er. )
7 BY MR. RIVENEARK:
W' re you aware that we did have HP's down from 8
Q e
9 those areas ?
10 A
And worked for NRC?
11 Q
Yes.
12 A
Not to my knowledge.
Who was there?
13 Q
I don't know.
14 A
Do you mean RAT teams out of Brookhaven and 15 Gak Ridge?
16 Q
I mean HP assistants from Oak Ringe National 17 Laboratory and from Argonne Nbtional laboristory.
18 A
These were the environmental monitoring teams 19 that were brought in by DOE 7 To my knowledge there was 20,:
inplant health-physic assistants supplied by any 1
21 national laboratory.
.#1*
22 DOE responded a nd DOE teams that were cloud 23 chasing teams were augmenting our environmental monitoring 24 t ea ms.
25l Q
Nk. Smith, wha t I have is an impression that I l
MC A '.a ST E NOG A A PwC S E
- V6C E t ell CL.D W L L #0 A D.
- v0W4 SING. P A 19410
46 1
have derived from reading the transcript of tapes of 2
communications between headquarters and DOE.
They were 3
conversations asking DOE to expedite the getting of HP's 4
from Argonne, Oak Ridge and possibly other places, to come 5
in and assist in some kind of an operation at the site.
6 Whether those were to assist the licensee or 7
whether they were to assist NRC I do not know.
I was 8
aiming to see if you were aware of that and to see if 9
there were still additional HP's, particula rly in the 10 light of the conversation we just had about a lot of HP's 11 coming in from the NRC and from the regions.
Your view 12 at tha t t ime, wa s it possibly that you didn't need all 13 those HP's at that moment ?
Here I was thinking of well, 14 I know of another conversation where we were getting even 15 more HP's in and I was trying to see how that general 16 subject matter was being coordinated.
I'7 A
There were Oak Ridge people and Argonne people 18 there who were part of the cloud chase or the environmental 19 monitoring teans.
They were coordinated.
W'e had a 20 coordinator in our office -- in our trailer at all times.
21 Q
Are they the same as the RAP?
l 22 A
Kind of yes.
Actually, the initial RAP or RAT; 23 as I prefer to call them, were called out of Brookhaven 24l by the state.
They and us had very little coordination.
- 25l, They were called by the state; therefore, they reported to I
i uomco SY t wone a**"C s t a ve t.
tain oLo urLL nomo. wvowess:No.ea testo
47 1
the state.
W'e had very little to do with them.
2 DOE brought in these additional people who, I 3
believe, they brought in under RAT also, but they worked 4
very closely with this out monitoring the environment.
5 Q
Would you describe the correct title for RAT 6
and RAP?
7 A
I refer to RAT as radiological assistance team.
8 It is the same as RAP.
9 Q
And RAP is radiological assistance program?
10 A
Correct.
11 For some reason many years ago they were radio-12 logical assistant teams and it sounds better just to call 13 them RATS.
14 MR. SICILIA :
George, may I put this in the right 15 time.
16 MR. RIVENBARK:
Surely.
17 BY MR. SICILIA :
18 Q
When you had HP sitting in the trailer to coordinate 19 this effort, can you tell us about when that started ?
20 A
We went down Friday.
We had a large number of 21 health-physicists from other regions standing waiting for
_4 22 instructions on what to do.
23 We established a two -- I established a two prong 24 health-physics operation.
One was environmental and the 25l; other was in plant health-physics.
\\
M O N C at STf NCGes**'C SE RVaCE
'45 3 OLD W'kL #0 AD W vr w! S 94 %G pa 196t0
48 l
l 1
The environmental groups consisted of people 2
who were out taking environmental samples, making measure-3 ments, we would know that the wind was blowing in a 4
certain direction.
W'e would know if we were having a 5
zeon release.
They would be out with hand-held instruments 6
trying to find a cloud exactly what it was reading on the 7
ground.
(sic )
8 Because it is a big area, outside of any point 9
source 360 degrees is a lot of miles.
DOE provided us 10 with a -- the teams from Oak Ridge and Argonne who worked 11 one side of the river and we worked the other side of the 12 river.
13 There was two fellows from DOE who would stand
=n.
14 12 hour1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> watches in our trailer where we directed essentially 15 all of the activities in plant and in environmental.
16 Whenever we knew there was going to be a release 17 or whatever it was, these people would get in touch with 18 their people and tell them where to go; much as we would 19 do the same thing with the NRC people.
20 They would then feedback information to us as 21 to what they were seeing and we would get it to the cc 22 a ppropriate people.
23l Q
That was for the environmental group?
i 24 A
Right.
25l
-Q Did you also say you had DOE people in plant?
q MONiCE $?tNOG# A*mC SE #V-CE 1413 OLD MILL ROAD e v0 MIS $1NG P4 t9650
49 1
A W'e had absolutely no DOE people.
No Oak Ridge 2
peo ple.
No Argonne people.
3 To the best of my knowledge in plant, this was 4
a ll NRC HP's.
They were Met-Ed HP's.
They were Met-Ed 5
contractor people, Met-Ed consultants.
6 I know of no federal health-physicists inside 7
of the fence who were other than NRC people.
Tha t is a 8
pretty broad statement.
There may have been some in for 9
some reason, consulting or talking to somebody from NRC 10 but for the actual working health-physics groups that were 11 under my basic supervision they were all NRC health-12 phys icis ts.
13 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
14 Q
Your conversation about the flow of information 15 from the DOE teams leads me to ask you a question about 16 another instance that comes to mind.
17 At one point, and I believe it was as late as l
Friday, someone from the region or the site, but from NRC, la 19 said over the tapes to headquarters, "We are not getting 20 any ground information, we are only getting the aerial 21 inf orma tion. "
'.t 22 Do you recall that as a problem?
23 A
Yes.
24 The problem was :
We requested the helicopters 25 for their assistance.
Therefore, the DOE helicopters when i
wovcu staNoceA*wie stevrct 5413 OL D MILL to
- C m v ow $1' NG PA testo
50 1
they came in were working under our direction and our 2
request giving us the information.
l 3
The RAT teams out of Brookhaven were actually 4
requested by the state, much to our surprise -- I wa s 5
s urp ris ed.
I found that they would not give us the 6
information we had to get.
We had to get it through the 7
state because they felt they were in there as a state 8
organization.
So yes, we were having problems because 9
they would not feed us direct info rma tion.
10 Q
Do s ou recall how we rectified that situation?
11 What did we do to get the information?
12 A
Further on into the event post-Friday when we 13 were all down there Friday and Saturday, when all of the 14 federal agencies descended upon the area, all of the 15 federal agencies except the NRC were headquartered at the 16 Crystal City Airport (sic ).
All of their information they 1-7 were cross-feeding.
They had periodic updates and briefs.
18 Dr. Bores, of my staff, was assigned to Crystal 19 City (sic).
His specific job was to obtain other agencies 20 information and feed it to us; feed the information that 21 we had into this other a 3ency pool.
Tha t is how we corrected
-y 22 the situation.
23 Q
At that point, is it fair to say that you did 24 get the Brookhaven RAP information?
25 A
Yes, we were getting everyone's information.
MOh ' C at STENCGna PM!C S E *V:Cf 1413 OLD M.LL aca p w roMrss.No ma testo
51 0
1 Q
Directly, not through the state?
2 A
Directly, yes.
I think Brookhaven RAP went 3
ho me.
4 BY MR. SICILIA :
5 Q
You would say that was probably on Saturday when 6
that technique started ?
7 A
Saturday or Sunday, in there.
It wa s a f ter 8
Frida y.
I don't think, actually, the other agencies really 9
started coming in till Saturday and Sunday.
10 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
11 Q
I believe the meeting with all the agencies 12 out a t the Capital City Airport was held Friday night.
13 A
W're they all in?
e e
14 Q
A lot of them.
I don't know if all of them were 15 there, but Friday night, I believe, was the time at which 16 they got together and decided that they had to organize 17 this thing and they selected a group to be the lead --
18 a particular DOE unit to be the lead for coordinating all 19 of it.
I assume then that we fed our information into that 20 group and extracting information from whoever had the 21 lead.
- s 22 A
Dr. Bores can best tell you exactly who he 23 talked to.
24 BY MR. SICILIA:
25 Q
Can you recons *.ruct the situation when you say W O N' C at SitkoGmarseic s tavaCt 14 f 3 OLD MILL AC A D WVOutS5aNG PA 196t0
52 I
that the RAP team would not give us the information that 2
we had to go through the state?
How did you find that 3
out ?
4 A
Here again Bob Bores was calling them and saying 5
would you please give us such and such a reading or would 6
you please go and take readings... I don't recall exactly, 7
but I would imagine that is how this happened.
8 Here again, Bob Bores was my contact back here.
9 Q
After you went to the site on Friday, how did 10 you coordinate with the NRR team?
I am not asking just 11 how did you personally coordinate with them, because I 12 don't know whether you did or not, but how did IE manage-13 ment at the site, which you were a principal part, 14 coordinate with the NRR people?
How was the operation 15 run from an IE perspective and how do you think it was 16 run from an overall NRC perspective after you were at the 17 site?
18 A
Our trailers were essentially side by side.
19 Not quite, but we were right together.
20 Initially and when Mr. Grier wa s a b;a rd, he was 21 the senior IE representative.
He would attend meetings ft ut 22 with Nk. Denton, who would have been appointed the senior 23i NRC pers on, Mr. Stello, their staff that were there.
24 Mr. Grier was not in the Harrisburg area.
I 25 was the senior IE representative and I would attend these en O N. C w $7(NOGN.**C g e n y.C E 14 8 3 OL D MILL #0 A D W tow $3 N, PA 19610
53 1
meetings.
I would receive instructions.
I would feed 2
information into Mr. Denton and Mk. Denton's staff.
3 I know that it must have started perhaps on 4
Sunday, perhaps even on Saturday.
I had a briefing on 5
environmental and general health-physics that was prepared 6
and presented to Me, Denton by 9:00 o' clock, I believe, 7
every day.
8 I would not necessarily give him this briefing.
9 W'e would write it up.
In other words, a written format.
10 Generally, Mk. Grier would give it to him at the meeting 11 if Mr. Grier was aboard.
If he was not aboard I would 12 give it to him. - Tha t is ba sically how we coordinated.
13 Q
With respect to the teams that were set up to 14 coordinate the evaluation or procedures that the utilitr 15 was preparing, did the HP people participate as team 16 members in those evaluations ?
17 A
Did my HP people?
18 Q
Yes.
19 A
Generally not.
There were also NRR HP people 20 aboard who were participating in these types of evaluations.
21 My health-physicists were basically working health-
~4 22 phys icis t s.
They were participating in the actual surveying; 23 assuring that proper surveys were taken.
24 Q
We are talking in plant now?
25 i A
In plant, yes.
Isn't that what you are asking?
MON 4cm St r%OGe&#MC SE*V CE 14'3 QLD MtLL RO* C W TOMa 558%G. ' A 194t0
+- -
54 1
Q Right.
2 A
On Friday I instructed all of the HP's that we 3
were changing our mode of operation.
We were going out of 4
what we refer to as the compliance mode or the inspection 5
mode and going into a health and safety mode and that 6
their prime responsibility was protecting the health and 7
safety of the workers in plant and the general public out l
8 of plant.
9 Q
At that particular point then your in plant HP 10 people were --
11 A
They went from observers to directors.
W' re they also augmenting the licensee's HP 12 Q
e 13 staff and acting as members of the HP staff for plant 14 operations the same as the licensee's HP people or were 15 they merely -- merely is not the correct word -- were they 16 overseeing those activities to see that the licensee's 17 HP people were taking proper action?
18 A
They were overseeing.
To a larger extent although --
19 let me give you an example.
20 At one stage some people were instructed to go 21 down into a room and turn a valve and this was early Friday,
- r 22 Saturday, Sunday sometime.
They gave them some survey 23 data which had been done previously and were told these 24 were the levels and that they were to stay in for a certain 25 l period of time.
This was by the licensee's health-physicists l
i WCA'Cu $7 f %CG#4 P**'C S E N s 'C f 14 ' 1 OL D **' Lt # 0 A D wwvCW5ssNG pa 196t0
55 1
or their contractor.
2 The senior health-physicists that was over ehere 3
from IE did not feel this was adequate.
In this case he 4
went down himself and performed surveys and monitored 5
the entry into the area.
Fortunately he did, because the 6
readings were considerably higher than had been observed 7
prev ious ly.
8 In another instance we had one of our health-9 physicists stop work because of serious deficiencies in 10 I, respiratory protection equipment.
They were overseeing.
11 Ihey were also doing.
They were principally acting as I
12 s uperviso r-health-phys icis ts.
13 (Short recess. )
14 MR. RIVENBARK:
While we were off the record, 15 we had an interesting discussion about why the IE manage-16 ment went to the site on Wednesday.
I believe that you 17 indicated in that conversation Mr. Smith, that you had 18 already planned to go to the site prior to knowing that 19 the Denton and NRR team was going to the site.
Is that 20 a f a ir sta tement ?
21 THE WITNESS:
Yes.
Do the best of my knowledge ce 22 these were parallel actions of the IE response and the 23 Denton res ponse.
24 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
25 Q
And I believe that we mentioned in that off the wo%C4 STENCGm APmc Stev4CE 1413 OLD w+ LL WO A D W f 0*n S $ s%G PA 196to 1
56 1
record conversation that one of the reasons for going 2
was because you had a large contingent of IE people at 3
or coming into the site and you needed to be there to 4
manage that.
5 A
That is correct, yes.
6 Q
We talked a little bit previously about our 7
coordination with DOE.
8 Can you describe for me what the regions 9
coordination role was with respect to or how it dealt 10 with the State of Pennsylvania and the other federal 11 agencies ?
12 A
In our trailer we had an open line to the State of 13 Pennsylvania 's offices, the DER offices downtown.
We had 14 that manned 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day by NRC health-physicists and 15 we were able at any time to pick up the phone and talk to 16 the state and conversely, any time they wanted to ask us 1-7 a question they were able to pick up the phone and it would 18 ring in our trailer.
19 Q
W'e had an NRC man at the state office?
20 A
Yes.
These were both offices of state programs 21 people.
One was Joel Lubeneau and the other was John 22 l Va den.
They were working 12 hour1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> shifts in the state l
23 offices.
Additionally we had a Mr. Dornsife.
Mr. Dornsife l
24 was from the state health department -- not the health l
25j department, but with the group that handled radiological wb% CM ST E %OGm a P M*C S t e W'C E.
1413 OL D W LL MOao w rouissi%Q Pa sotic
57 1
1 protection.
2 He was not with us for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> but he was in 3
and out of our trailer rather continuously through the 4
entire operation.
5 He was privy to everything we did.
We told him 6
everything that was happening.
Anything he wanted to know 7
we gave it to him.
I have been asked, "Did you give him a
written communications ?"
No, we did not.
We didn't have 9
time to write things down.
He was privy to all information 10 and decisions that we were making.
11 Q
Do you think maybe they were also in contact 12 with the NRR group at the same time?
13 A
He was in and out of their trailer, also.
14 Mr. Dornsife was given free run of the NRC 15 fac ilities.
I know he was included in any meetings that 16 he wanted to go to.
He was informed of all meetings.
I 17 informed him of all meetings.
la Q
Before the IE nanagement group went to the site, 19 before we had our trailer set up at the site, how did we 20 deal with the State of Pennsylvania ?
21 A
W' ll, I know that Dr. Bores communicated with e
.y 22 them by-telephone very frequently.
This 1s not unusual.
23 It is that section which generally does all the 24 ;
communications with the various state agencies within 25 Region 1.
i MON C*
ST E %054 A ***sC S t ev.C E.
14 t 3 OL D M
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58 1
Q W're there others from the region office that e
2 were dealing with the state at the same time?
3 A
I know that the office of state prograns --
4 the man who was assigned to Region 1 was at Harrisburg.
~
5 I am sure he was talking to the state people at all times.
6 I know that our PAO, our Public Affairs Office, was 7
in Harrisburg and was dealing with the state and with most 8
everybody from early af ter the accident on.
The names of 9
those -- the state programs man is Tom Elsasser.
The 10 Public Affairs officer is Carl Abraham.
11 Q
What about how we dealt with other federal 12 agencies?
13 A
Here again this would be Dr. Bores, the 14 environmental special projects section.
Prior to the 15 establishment of the Crystal City Airport (sic) facilities, 16 this would have been done by telephone.
17 Dr. Bores had various contacts within EPA and 18 DOE.
Here again, this is the section that handles this 19 type of activity.
20 Q
Did we have some kind of a uniform or standard 21 procedure for when we dealt with them and how we dealt a
22 with them?
23 A
No, I would say not.
24 Such things as the helicopter, we requested the 25 helicopter.
That is done in a standard way.
Once we i
uos en str%ocaa.**c stmet ta a oLD wiLL aoao wwou ss %o na 'tesso
59 1
started talking to the helicopter we would get hold of 2
them at a certain telephone number and ask them to get 3
airborne and they would call back the results of their 4
monitoring from their flight.
5 Q
Before you went to the site, how did you deal 6
with the helicopter?
7 A
That is how, by telephone.
8 Q
From where?
9 A
From here.
10 Q
From here?
11 A
Yes.
12 Q
From IE headquarters talking to the helicopter at 13 the Capital City Airport?
14 A
No, IE Region 1, 13 Q
IE Region 17 16 A
Talking to the helicopter pilot or the scientist.
17 As I recall, they gave us a telephone number and I think 18 it was in a motel room.
We would call there -- it was 19 either a motel room or the airport.
We would keep trying 20 the number until one of them was there.
21 Q
How did you coordinate the helicopter flights
- t 22,
with the activities that were going on at,the plant?
23 A
As best we could predict what was going to 24 ha ppen; that is when we would ask them to get up -- that 25 is where I was discussing that Friday morning where I said M C 'e ' C m sf ge.cCrappic S E nv'CE 1413 OL D *88LL moa 0 w vC WilSING
- a 19610
60 1
the helicopter was getting ready to go up.
I think we 2
were predicting then when these burps would take place 3
and we knew one was going to happen within a certain 4
period of time, and so we wanted the helicopter up when 5
this took place.
6 Q
When you went to the site, these helicopter 7
flights were coordinated from where?
8 A
Eventually we got to the point where we could 9
talk to them on our service radios.
Giving them a small 10 hand-held walkie-talkie type situation.
We had our small 11 hand-held walkie-talkies that Force Service was supplying 12 us that we could talk back and forth.
13 Q
Who was doing the talking from IE at that point ?
14 Anybody in the field that needed to talk to them?
15 A
W' ll, basically we were set up such that at the e
16 trailer we had an environmental coordinator that was 17 the senior environmental man on duty.
He would have people la out in the field who he was directing.
He would also ask 19 the helicopter or instruct the helicopter to do things.
20 The entire environmental group that had the 21 analytical capabilities were under Phil Stohr, who was e
22 section chief of environmental and special project.
l 23 !
I did not, at that time, have a section chief 24 for my radiological support section.
We first used the 25 section chief of RSS from Region 3, Bill Fisher.
He was e.0%+Cm Sit NQGhePWC S tev Cf. 14 9 3 OLD uigg moso vv vow:s$ SNG PA 19610
61 I
called away.
I then used for a short time L. Gibson who 2
is the section chief for this section from Region 2.
3 There were times when I acted in his capacity 4
in the in plant health-physics.
I was the coordinator.
5 Herb Brooke came in, who was a branch chief for Region 5 6
and supervised the in plant health-physics groups at 7
times.
8 Q
You referred to the off site radiological 9
work as environmental work and the in plant work as health-10 physics --
11 A
Not really, no --
12 Q
I was trying to ascertain what the difference 13 between the radiological people and the environmental 14 people was, the difference in their activities.
A The in plant people are handling in plant 15 16 health-physics, observing the in plant health-physicists,
17 the monitoring activities, the jobs and such things,
p3 a ffluent control.
19 The off site or the environmental people are 20 doing environmental surveys.
They are out cloud chasing, 21 collecting samples, making measurements of the environmental..
22 Here is an example.
I think this is one of our very, 23 '
very early, if not our first, organization.
(Indica ting) 2a '
Q You are showing me a chart of the IE group at 25 the site?
wo, c m ST E NOGm4 ** C S E ny'CE
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62 1
A Ye s.
If it wa s n 't Saturday it occurred very 2
shortly thereaf ter.
3 As you can see, we had quite a few people there,
~
4 that is why it was necessary to have organization.
5 Q
You had this organized under environmental 6
analysis, operation support and in plant health-physicists?
7 A
Right.
8 The operation support cere people who are 9
specialists, who were reporting directly to me.
They are 10 not operations ins pect ors.
They are specialist type 11 hea lth-phys icists.
They were given specific special 12 assignments.
4 13 MR SICILIA:
Off the record.
14 (Discussion had off the record. )
15 MR. RIVENBARK:
I think what we will do with 16 respect to this organizational chart, and I see that you 17 have one or two more organizational charts here, I believe la that we will simply try to get copies of these from you i
19 later on.
We will not mark them as exhibits.
20,
THE WITNESS:
Fine.
Here is a third one.
Notice, this is not dated 21
- c 22 but it must have been very early because that is where the 23 agency coordinator was sent out, Dr. Bo res.
24 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
25 ;
Q How did you decide when you needed to call HEW I
ec o c w s?t NcGPa#M-C S tav C f.
1413 OLD MsLL 80s 0. vv voues stNG. P A stato
63 1
or some branch or part of HEW from the region when you 2
had business with them associated with this activity?
3 I understand that HEW offices -- probably the 4
FDA offices were contacted by the region.
I believe an 5
office in Philadelphia was contacted.
6 A
In our emergency plans we have a definite 7
procedure of all other agencies who are notified of an 8
emergency.
This is our interoffice emergency type plan.
9 This is how we would determine where we would call them 10 init ia lly.
I don't recall us ever calling them during 11 the incident, this is specifically HEW, and requesting 4
12 assistance during the initial part of the accident.
13 Q
What about EPA?
a=
14 A
They are the same.
We would have notified them 15 of what was happening.
I do not recall us requesting 16 assistance.
17 Q
Nbving to another subject now, can you tell me 18 briefly what your involvement has been in developing the 19 regional response plan?
20 A
The development of the regional response plan 21 {
initially fell under my particular branch.
My personal 22 involvement, none.
I came aboard here on,0ctober 1,1978.
23 I didn't know if you were aware of that or not.
24 Q
No, I was not.
25 What is your view of what the role of the moo s. c w ST E NC Gmap-C sta v-C E 14?3 OLC nasLL sto A O W V O nei SSt N G P4 19650
64 1
inspectors in the field should be in response?
2 A
This is in the future?
3 Q
Yes.
4 A
We have not, as of yet, received a contrary 5
definition of NRC's role in the event of an emergency.
6 However, as I indicated before, if we had Four 7
Mile Island tomorrow and we responded, our initial response 8
would be, if it were my decision, much as the response 9
was on Friday.
10 We would go immediately into a health and safety 11 mode.
We would not worry about the fact that we have 12 been instructed but we have absolutely no jurisdiction, 13 and this is prior to Three Mile Island instructions.
We 14 1 ave no jurisdiction.
Any business outside of the fence --
15 we would be working outside of the fence.
16 As an example, we set up an emergency dosimetry 17 system around Three Mile Island.
This was one of the many 18 decisions we made and things we did following Friday 19 evening.
20 Right now we are tasked, and by "we" I mean 21 Region 1 in this case, where we are setting up a 50 22 station dosimetry system around every operating reactor 23 in the country.
We have our own thermoluminescent dosimeter 24 readers and this will be our responsibility.
25 Q
At the time of the occurrence of the Three Mile MC NICK $TENOGna *H'C Sim WtC4.
9413 OLD M2LL ROAD, w rowisseNG Pa testo
r
~
65 1
Island incident, what did you believe that the role of 2
the inspectors in the field was supposed to be?
3 A
As I have indicated before, we were to go into 4
the control room and observe what was happening, take 5
notes, prepare an investigative report of what the licensee 6
was doing.
7 With respect to outside the fence, we could make 8
recommendations as to whether we felt, say, an evacuation 9
was necessary, but that this was strictly a state 10 res ponsibility.
11 M'y feeling was, and we were so instructed, that 12 environmental monitoring outside the fence was solely 13 the responsibility of the Environmental Protection Agency.
14 Q
W' s it your opinion that the inspectors were a
15 supposed to evaluate as well as take down and transmit 16 information back to the headquarters ?
17 A
Yes.
18 Q
Approximately what day in the TMI incident l
19 did you come to the conclusion that the role should be 20 different?
21 A
On Friday when I suddenly taalized that somebody
~
i 22 was pouring all of these people in there I felt they were I
23 telling me, " George, you better change your way of l
24 living, " a nd we did,
i 25 i As I say, nobody ever said you will do this.
I WON C w se r %c an a*wie s t eytCE 14 9 3 C L D w : L L, mo a D W TOM'S9t%G Pa 19410
66 1
Nobody has ever said since that you will s1 will not do 2
that.
3 There must have been a reason for whoever sent 4
all those people down there and what their thinking was.
5 Q
At the time of the TMI incident, what did you 6
believe the role of the region office should be in the 7
incident?
8 A
To direct the people in the field.
To assimilate 9
the data that they were transmitting.
Evaluate it and to pass it on to headquarters.
11 Q
Do you now feel that role should be different or 12 is different?
13 A
I will be very frank with you, I am confused as 14 far as that role goes.
Some of this confusion is brought 15 about by changes in the telephone systems, the changes 16 in the way notifications take place.
17 One of the crying needs that we have today is 18 a definition of roles.
What is our role ?
I don't know.
19 At the present time I think we would do what we thought 20 was necessary and what was needed to protect the health 21 and safety of the people.
Let the chips fall where they 22 be.
23 Q
At the time of the incident what did you believe 24 the headquarters' role should be, specifically that part 25 of it called the emergency management team?
W O N C *L STf NQGRAPN8C SERVICE 1413 C LD mal L RQ AQ W T OMeS UNG PA 19610
67 1
A I felt the emergency management team was the 2
NRC senior management people who would receive information 3
from their Irack, which is the people that are receiving 4
the information from the field.
This idformation would be 5
developed, given to the EMT and they would make decisions 6
as to recommendations plus, they would also keep the 7
commissioners, the other people in government right up to 8
the President, if he was so interested on being informed 9
of what was happening.
They would make recommendations 10 based on the information and input they would be getting 11 from their staffs to the state, 12 As an example, I think that definitely we should 13 make recommendations based on staff findings and staff 14 analysis for such things a s evacuation.
15 Q
Did you feel that the headquarters Irack group 16 had a role that was similar or overlap that of the region 17 office here?
18 A
I felt it was overlapping.
That definitely they 19 had, to my feeling, and I was at one time a member of the 20 Irack staff, was that the information had to come into 21 their region and was then disseminated to the people at 22 headquarters, and that there had to be a definite logic 23 to this.
It had to go through certain...
24 Q
Did you believe that the region office had a 25 ;
responsibility to assimilate the information and evaluate uCNrCa ST ENOGn a psese g r ngicg tai 3ogo uitt ooan wyou sgi%c em testo
v 68 1
it and then pass it on to the Irack or that they only 2
had to pass data -- raw data on to headquarters ?
3 A
I think they had to pass raw data on but they 4
4 also had to assimilate and evaluate the information.
5 Q
Do you think that is what the region did?
6 A
Yes, I believe that is what the region did.
7 Q
Do you believe headquarters Irack evaluated 8
the information and made recommendations on to EMT?
9 Do you think they fulfilled the role as you envisioned 10 them as having?
11 A
Not having been there I have no idea.
I am not 12 even going to hazard a guess on that one.
13 Q
Getting down to the wrap up area, how would you 14 characterize the IE, NRR working relationships at the 15 s ite ?
Would you characterize them as one of mutual 16 competence in one another, a unified team approach or 17 as two separate organizations working at cross purposes 18 or do you believe that the roles were adequately defined?
19 Would you like to take that as one overall set of 20 q ues tions ?
21 A
I think NRR and IE at the site during the incident are two separate organizations with a certain 22 i
23 '
amount of distrust for each other -- which are distressed 24 of each other, which individuals within the organizations 25 are able to work together.
Basically, I think one of our i
MON <a ter%osnapwec gamw'CE
'4 t 3 OL D M Lt acaD vv t owe s ts NG PA 19610
69 1
biggest problems is that we don't play well as an NRC 2
team.
3 Q
Do you have any ideas as to why that is that s
way1 5
A No.
It is a historical s'it ua tion.
It is not 6
just something that happened at Three Mlle Island.
I have 7
been with this organization and its predecessors for almost 8
20 years now, and I don't think that the field components 9
or the inspection and enforcement components,
10 irrespectable of what we will call it, have ever truly ti trusted licens6eo nor has the licensee. component truly 12 trusted the inspection and enforcement component.
Wb 13 have always been at somewhat of an adversary relationship.
14 Q
Is there any reason that the NRC is that way?
15 A
I think we are structured that we are designed 16 to be that way.
I am not saying that I think it is bad.
17 I don't believe that the inspection and enforcement 18 function should be done by people who do the licensing.
19 I think that perhaps one of the problems that ha ppen is 20 the inspectors go out and they find some questionable 21 licensing, let 's say tech s pecs or license commissions,
2 and in our very subtle way we have transmitted these back 22 23 to licensing.
By the same mode inspectors go out and 24 make some strange statements or do some strange things 25 from an enforcement standpoint and from licensing's very 1
uosica sithoana.wic sterca s eis oLo w,LL mon o wrowissiNo. ra tosio
70 I
subtle way they tell us over the years that it builds 2
up a true adversary relationship.
3 What is the old saying? "They think we slobber 4
when we talk and we know they do. "
5 Q
Do you have any suggestions as to how you 6
might improve that situation and change it?
I know you 7
have already indicated you are not really sure whether the 8
adversary situation is good or bad.
9 A
It is all bad.
10 Q
It would seem that lack of confidence or 11 distrust couldn't be good by itself.
12 A
However, there is also a lot of confidence and 13 trust in each other, let me say that.
14 I think that in situations where we have the 15 sharp -- the dissolution of the license where we become 16 an NRC group, we should have very sharp and distinct 17 definitions of who does what to who and who has the various 18 lines of responsibility.
Because you take a number of 19 managers and all of a sudden you throw them together into 20 one pot and say this ~ guy is in charge and what is your 21 Line of responsibility and what is your line of 22 res po ns ibility.
I think this should be sharply defined.
23 Q
Sharply defined in the emergency response l
24 role?
25 A
Yes, that is what I am ta lking about, a nd i
MONiCM STENOGoa**C St # w sC t 1413 CL D M'LL RO AD wv0Ms59;NG PA 99610
71 1
especially in the field role because all of a sudden 2
you are mixing two groups of people andi throwing them into 3
a very foreign situation, TMI is very foreign in that 4
those NRR and IE are acting totally different than they 5
have ever acted before and you should have a very, sharp 6
line of responsibility; a very sharp definition of the 7
responsibility of the various people.
8 MR. RIVENBARK:
I have no further questions for 9
you.
10 Before we close, are there any other important 11 matters that I haven't mentioned that you think I should 12 bring up or that you would like to bring up at this time?
13 THE WITNESS:
I am s ure I will think er' 10 or 14 12 of them when I walk out of here.
Right now I can 't think
{e{
15 of a ny, h.
EW 16 MR RIVENBARK:
Mr, Sicilia, do you have anything 17 to add?
~
18 MR. SICILIA:
I have no questic'ts of this witness.
19 MR. RIVENdARK:
In wrapping up today's session, 20 let me say that this is an ongoing investigation.
Although 21 I have completed the questions I have for you today, we 22 may need to bring you back for further depositions.
23 We will, however, make every effort to avoid 24 doing so.
q
-l 25 j I will now recess this deposition rather than
.s MON?CR STENOGR A#mC $EnveCE 14 8 3 OLD Mt LL RO AD WrowSUSO PA 196tO
[
72 1
terminate it.
2 I would like to thank you for your time and your 3
candidness in the discussions with us today.
4 (Whereupon, the deposition was concluded at 5
3 :45 p.m. )
6 7
8 CERTIFICATE 9
I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are 10 contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me on 11 the above cause, and that this copy is a correct tra nscript 12 of the same.
(
. _M.AWIe a M A 13 0%
ar}y Public in and for theSpontar(11 ep C.
14 I
onwealth of Pennsylvania 15 MONICK STEN 0 GRAPHIC SERVICE 16 My commission expires 17 July 20,1981, 16 19 20 21 22 23 i
l 2al 25 l
l
- 0 % O k S'E NOGR APH C S E R WtCT 1413 CLD M LL Roa D WVOMil54NG pa tes10