ML19323B861

Annotated Transcript of Jg Keppler 790824 Interview W/Tmi Special Inquiry Group in Glen Ellyn,Il.Pp 1-53

ML19323B861
Person / Time
Site:	Crane
Issue date:	08/24/1979
From:	James Keppler NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III)
To:
References
TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8005140358
Download: ML19323B861 (55)

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IN THE MATTER OF:

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I THREE MILE ISLAND SPECIAL INQUIRY GROUP INTERVIEW OF JAMES G.-KEPPLER 1

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August 24, 1979 Pages 1 - 53 1

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September 12, 1979 MEMORANDUM FOR:

Richard C. DeYoung, Deputy Staff Director, NRC/TMI Special Inquiry Group FROM:

James G. Keppler, Director

SUBJECT:

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT In response to your memorandum of August 28, 1979, and our subsequent telephone conversation, I am enclosing a " marked up" copy of my interview t ranscript.

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James G. Keppler Director

Enclosure:

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f O n, i 1j U NUCLEAR REGULATORY CO.1?lISSION 1 e 3 U,: IN THE MATTER OF: a1 l THREE MILE ISLAND 5; SPECIAL INQUIRY GROUP I 6 ! i l 7 i INTERVIEW j 8 OF 9' JAMES G. KEPPLER 10 Glen Ellyn, Illinois 11, August 24, 1979 12 l f 13 The interview commenced at 1 : 0 5 p.ra. on i 14 August 24, 1979, in Room 3, Building 4, 799 Roosevelt Avenue, j l 15 Glen Ellyn, Illinois. 16 l, APPEARANCES: 17 FRED FOLSOM, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff; i 18 PRED FOLSOM, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staf f. ! 19 20 i 21 l 22 23, 24 l Ace-F ederal Reporters. Inc. l 25 \\\\ e ] e 'l t

h I nte 9 2 3 il i j n l G Mhat was your position in late 1977? i 2 A. Same. 3 G How many people reported to you? 4l A. Now or then? I 5 G Both. O6 6 A. We get about 100--between 150 and 160 right now. 7 .and $t that time my guess would be around 100, maybe a little 8 bit more. 9 G To whom do you report? 10 A. I report to the Director of the office of II Inspection & Enforcement. 12 G Has that been the relationship since 1977? 13 A. There is a Deputy Director position, which isn't 14 filled right now. 15 G Nornially do you report to the Deputy Director or 16 the Director? 17 A Well, that is a good question. We recort to the WW W W 18 Director' box; let' sa i that way. AM enn W Y $Lcari h cide. b I OW A3Md &. W g g 19 ^^ c,m n n,, m Q ~ & )' & reuh9u$) N 5 % 'A t h $ W W. I 20 G Would you describe your employntent history, 21 including positions held at the NRC? 22 A. Well, I graduated from college in 1956 and I worked forGeneralElectriqattheirdircraft clearfropulsion 23 24 program in Cii.cinnati, Ohio, from '56 to '61. In '61 I was Ace Fed;rst Reporters. Inc. 25 l, transferred to their kontic fower kuipment hpartraent in o 4

f ll 1 mte 9.-3 [ 4 i l I California, and I remained there until 1965, when I joined 2 d the Atomic Energy Commission as a reactor inspector. I was i 3 ~ assigned to'the Chicago office here, where I stayed from '65 4 to '67. I i 5 1967 I was transferred to Washington, where I 6 sc ' as a senior reactor inspection specialist up until 7 1971, when I was made the Chief of the Reactor Testing 8 Operations Branch. And it was in 1973, toward the end of 9 '73, that I was transferred out here as Regional Director. 10 0 So you've been Regional Director since 1973? II A. Yes, since September '73. 12 G What is your educational background? 13 A I have a bachelor of science degree in physics. 14 Q From what institution? 15 A. LeMoyne College in New York State. 16 G Nhat I would like to do next is ask you some 17 questions concerning an incident that occurred at Davis-Besse 18 on September 24th, 1977. Particularly I'm interested in what 19 your knowledge was prior to the accident at THI. t 20 . Prior to Mtrch 28th, 1979, what knowledge did you 21 have concerning the incident that occurred at Davis-Besse on 22 September 24th, 1977? 23 A. Well, I was aware of the incident. I guess I would f 6Y hbi'ffice I am afafe of the types ofM$ 24 say as the Mirector of 4Ao n Am-FWwel Reportets, inc. things that are made the subject of hreliminary h tifications, 25 0:.

f mt.e 9[4 ljI 5 u I R I 1 Pt:s, and that -ihe PK was issued, I believe, on that incident. 2 ft And I' recall the incident hacn' "c ;! ouwc1:b=" ef a rather mm i 3 dramatic type nature,'because steam and water was flashed p;e up T 4 around the containment as a result of the relief valve being 5 stuck open. And I remember that thhr was an incident that 6 we responded to with some ,le over there. And I was aware 7 also that who invicent had some -- or resulted in some potential 8 concerns 01 the part of my staff with respect to some of the 9 problems that were encountered in the incident. 10 In terms of its connection to Three Mile Island, 11 I mean, Three Mile Island had not occurred, and I guess I have 12 no way of being able to connect the two. In fact, I guess it 13 even took severhl weeks or so before I realized the event at 14 Davis-Besse was somewhat similar in nature. 15 G Could you describe some,of the concerns that you 16 mentioned that members of your staff had had concerning that 17 particular incident? 18 A Well, let me'see if I can try to put together how 19 I interfaced with the problems at Davis-Besse. IJ- +vy4""

• p 20 th 4 r h ~' tn got startad bare.

21 Let me describe our experience with this company 22 and this reactor, and then come back to the incident. That i 23 might be the simplest way. 24 .The Davis-Besse project was not untypical from i 4; Au-Fustrel Reprters. Inc. j 25 most new power plants that just started up. They go through l I ld' i

a mte 9-5 4l 6 - t a il it1ji problems. There is a period of learning that seems to go on l n 2R between the utility and the reactor, and this is particularly l 3 ) true of new utilities 'with a new power plar.t. i f i i 4 The kinds of problems that were experienced at I i 5 Davis-Besse during-this first year I would have to say l t i 6 probably were about the same level of magnitude as the kind i i -y d /4 o m & perienced at the othergplants that started up, pan +*h that were ex 7 p. i 8 There were several personnel errors and there were several 9 equipment problems. 10 In August of '78, I guess you would say that that 11 was the first time where I became heavily involved in problem areas at Davis-Besse. Here lfhe plant had been in operation 12 j 13 for a little ov'er a year and the rate of problems that was 14 occurring at the facility had not seemed to drop off any. 15 The problems were continuing at about the same level-and we 16 decided to have a management meeting with the company to talk i 17 about some of the problems. l 18 And it was during that' period of time that.I became 19 aware that we still had some unresolved concerns regarding 4 i 20 the September incident at Davis-Besse, the September '77 21 incident. I knew the staff had been dealing with -- my staff 22 had been: dealing with the company. But the issues had not .23 surfaced to me, surfaced at my level as anything to be j I i 24 concerned t.bcIt. Nobody raised -- I guess what I'm trying to. l 'Aa Faferal Reprters. inc. I 1 l s j 25 say is that the issues were going on between the inspectors l l t' j. i

p mte 9-6 1 7 }' I and the supervisors in the company at that stage. 2q" One of the points that we discussed with the g 3l utility when we had th'e meeting was how long it seemed to i I 4,! take them to resolve issues that we brought to their attention. I 5 And one of the issues was this September '77 incident, in 6 which eur i nepecterc rai sed ecme qucctica er enc cf c u r __ 7 i""P0ctorE-Mr. Creswelly raised concerns heind with regard 8 to whether or not.the pressurizer level would ever sink to a 9 point so low that the pressurizer would become empty. 10 0 Let me clarify a point here. Was Mr. Creswell's 11 concern about the loss of pressurizer level low and the voiding 12 of the pressurizer associated with the September 24th, 1977, 13 inciden' or the November 29th, 1977, incident? sp 14 A I'm not sure, to be honest with you. I'~ not into-Q ffe & & sel re'.4Cef &* 15 those kind -ef +k i nns tha.t-wel-1. I know there were the two 16 incidents and & horn worn two different incidents. But he -- 17 his general concern was one of pressuriner level and the adequacy of being able to know what the level was in the 18 19 pressuricer. 20 0 Excuse me. If I could just ask one more question f r clarification: Was it your perception that his concern 21 was with high pressurizer level as well as with low pressurizer ~ 22 level, or was it siraply a concern with low pressurizer level? 23 24 A. I don't think I'had a perception., I wasn't into + Ace Fecf tret Reporters, Inc. h i the detail'at that time. You know, pc den with many probler. s, 25 l \\ l t e l

'II r.te 9-7 a 8 O Il many plants, and so forth. And my job as the Director is to 2; focus o n issues that aren't being handled and get them into i 3 the right direction. I don't get that involved in the technicai 4 aspects of it unless it is an issue that requires my ddrect l 5I involvement N f ~ f I 6 I guess I was concerned at this point of the fact l 7 that here the inspoetnr and the supervicor seemed to be dealing: I 8 back and forth with the company on this and not getting anywher i 9 with it,withh the issue. And I was d6ncarbed uhy it hadn't i 10 been flushed up quicker, if you will, if it was such a nagging j ll concern to people. 12 It didn't come to me as being a nagging concern to people, if yoft know what I'm saying. 1:obody came to me and 13 14 said, hey, we've got this problem and we're not getting it 15 resolved. It sort of grew out of the discussions that we had 16 in getting ready for the meeting. And it was used as an i 70dr/o M h 17 example to make a point with the company that the company j i i 18 wasn't being quick to deal with regulatory concerns. 19 So we had the meeting with the company. We used 20 that as a vehicle to -- I am pretty sure it was August -- to i 21 let them know that, hey, here you have been in operation now l t 22 a year. We are not seeing any reduction in the problems 23 you're having and uc're getting a little uneasy abo t them. & YY fric=11y 4* 4e = 24 That was the thyust of the meeting, anA Ace-Federat Fleporters. Inc. QM d W h w A 3 & g sI,j l 25 r w h g where we want to put you no notice a little bit ..nilU n u,

p.t e, 9-8 9 -:t. h that'we start expecting to cce these~ problems drop'down. C-9 s i a 2l Th en it wa s -- wr. n: :: t --

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I t 3; two problems that occu'rred in the early nart of tlie' year that ' 4 heightened.our concern again with Davis-Besse, problems in i i .:3j which there were cither -bad judgments made on the part of the i 6 utility people or personnel errors that 4"A "'Fod some i i 7 safety-relatec equipment. i i I 8 ano of.these was a valving problem associated with ] 4+AAAL. j 9 the emergency core cooling system, wheen they valved out at l I fW W 10 least half of the ECCS system. And the other was a problem n j II in which they had a frozen section of piping in the high } l 12 pressure safety injection system, which they didn't think was I 13 needed for the' proper operation of the system. It was in a c.asA4 14 bypass line and it weetd have invalidated the system. j 15 Those two errors -- incidents, if you want to call \\ l l 16 them that -- in my view-represented an indication to me that 17 we were going to have to take more firmer action with the 18 utility. h +d e had planned to set up a meeting with the 19 company, which'had been scheduled prior to Three Mile Island. 4 20 But when Three Mile Island occurred we had to defer the I i 21 meeting because of the staff involvement with the Three Mile l 22 _ Island accident. I ~ 23 And so we ultimately met with the company -- I-d ;!-l ' forget the date. May or Junc, I guess it was June. A&FMerat Returters. Inc. P d 23 f Let me go back nov, ir you will, to~'the event,.the - i f H y e yy---w w

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10 l l! rgte 9-9 l l' event or events that you are talking about, the September and j 2, Novenber events. The concern that we discussed <h when 4 you mentioned Creswells concerns was the fact that who' "a 3 i 4l talked-at the Angnnt moa+4r;, ar th2t he was being unable to }' i 5' get the kind of information that he wanted to get relative i 6 to those, either one or both of those events. I'm not sure 7 which. Dut - that ][t was taking co long to obtain the informa-8 tion, and he thought the company was dragging their feet cn1 9 it. 3 10 Now, that information was eventually obtained, I I I 1 11 guess in the latter part of the year, from the company. And l 12 the information was forwarded to the people in Washington for ~ $b had evaluation,and'*be concern with pressurizer level th'* ha i 13 was viewed by the licensing people as not being an unreviewed i 14 15 safety question. 16 How, that is the extent of the knowledge that I i l'7 have of the problem. Do you recall writing an ((mmediate hetion letter 18 G i 19 associated with the letter on September 24th? lot of $f amediate kction 20 A I nay have. I write a [etters. If you could show it to me, I could comment on it. 21 i Has it got my signature? 22 1 t j 23 G Yes. k 24 Let's-go off the record for a minute. Ace-Federal Reporters. Inc. 25 (Discussion off the record.) n h

I rpte 9-10 11 I f l ,1 MR. IIEEDOM : Let's'go back on the record. 2 -BY MR. HEBDON: 3 G For the purpose of the record,.this is a letter 4 signed.by Mr. Keppler to Toledo Edison Company, attention 1 5! Mr. James S. Grant, dated September 30th, 1977, and stamped 6 at the bottom are the words "Immediate Action Letter."~ J 7 Do you recall that particular letter? i 8 A Yes. That is my initial. i 9 0 What was the basis for the requirements that are 10 included in that letter? j II A I don't know that I can tell you, to be honest with O you. I am assuming that this"was based upon discussions with 12 13 my staff and the people in NRR. 14 Let me see. This occurred, the event occurred on 15 the 24th. That was a Saturday? I 16 0 Yes, sir. 17 A. And this is the 29th, which makes it -- 18 g Thursday. 19 A So we would have heen to the site during that time. A Mw 20 I know hhe NRR people looked at the site. I can only assume % TAL 21 that D( was based upon the collective judgments of my staf f r 22 and the people they consulted with back in Washington. 23 0 What is the nornal procedure _for preparinc an 24 uaediate btion I,etter? i f Ap.Feue Reponen, inc. 25 A The nornal procedure that is used -- what an

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e i- , mmediate $ction detter is is an informal mechanism by which } 1 i s i 2hyouconfirman.agreementreachedbetweenthelicenseeandthe i 3 NRC,for'the purposco vf Zura;alizing it. It is prepared to confirm a comnitnent or to confirm an action that is being 4; 1 5 taken. 6 It is prepared, generally reviewed with the utility i 7 to make sure that they agree to it. It is checked out with 8 Washington. 9 G With whom in Washington? 10 A The appropriate I&E division that may be involved. C aedad M l v 11 For example, this would have beeg the Division of Operating 12 Reactors, Operating Reactor Inspection. 13 G Would it be c hecked out with NRR? 14 A .Tt may or it may not be. That is up to them. 15 G Up to whom? CCdf V 16 A. Up to the people in headquarters. Sometimes they 17 do, sometimes they don't. Whether this one was or wasn't, I don't know. 18 19 G Do you recall by any chance at that particular point in time who the individual would have been that that 20 w uld have been checked out with in Washington? 21 A No, but sometimes our yellow would show that. 22 G That copy there looks as though it is a copy of the { 23 24 yellow, because it has the concurrcnce blocks on it. l Ace-Federst Fleporters, Inc. A Y u might check with'Mr. Knop. _I don't recall. 25 i 4 h i n.: i i N l

1 t ste-Q-12 13 h 4 1} I will tell you, normally -- normally Mr. Norelius ) 2 is-on these for concurrence, and why he wasn't on this one 3 I can' t answer. But he is usually the one that gets the 4 concurrence. 5 l I guess, to answer your question -- I'n being a 6 little cute about it, but what this is is an informal order. Q It is a rautually agreed upon hbder? 7 8 A That is correct. 4 9 G What would happen if the utility didn't agree with i 10 something that you wanted to put in an immediate action letter? II A Then we would issue a formal order ordering thera 12 to do it. 13 0 And 'they, I am sure, understand that. f 14 A I think so. We don't write an immediate action 15 letter on something we are not prepared to go to war on. 16 G Do you ever have much problem with utilities I i 17 arguing over requirements that are included in an immediata 18 action letter? 19 A-No. 20 G Do they usually acquiesce? 21 A I would say that if there is any disagreement, it 22 is_usually over the feasibility of doing something we think j 23 ought to be done, and they will-counter-it with something 24 else. But generally speaking, I guess I would say that they Am Feierst Reporters, toe, } l 25 view an inmediate action letter as the lesser of evils. i \\ i i i !i !l t

mte_9-13 ll 14 p [ 1 G All right. In this particular immediate action 2[j letter, as I understand it, the utility was required to 3 complete these actions'before returning to power. 4 A That is-what it says. 5 G How was it verified, is it verified, that they do 6 indeed complete those actions? 7 A By inspection. 8 g So then it is the responsibility of the inspector 9 to certify that those actions are completed before they are 10 allowed to return to power? 1 II A I don't know if I would use the word " certify." I 12 don't know what that means. But he would go back and verify obu4Jn3 13 that these"had been done to'the satisfaction of.the NRC. 14 G All right. So it is his responsibility to ensure 15 that those actions are in fact done before the piant returns 16 to power? i 17 A Yes. For example, he.may go back there and he may 18 find -- I don' t know how many things there are in here, six 19 things. He may_ find that -- let me answer it a different way. 20 It is our job to.make a determination that the 21 licensee has completed the items. ~ 22 O Before he returns to power? 23 A Before he returns to power. l 24 G You have to take'thac determination before he I Ace-FMeral Rep f ters Inc. 25 returns to power? f n

t, p.te'9-14 15 1j-A.- Yes. That is why we. writo it. ~

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/ B Okay. And it is the inspector,.then, that r,akes 3i that determination? l 1 4? Ucil, "he ger: =t ' %n: it. E"1 how i 4-is donem ^ 5 y-OL :01 Y2 hh =c""1 J'3ETi" U" t 6! just have one inspector per plant. We have many inspectors. 7 Whether the same inspector will check every one of these i 4 8

things, I don't know how that is done.

9l What I'm trying to, I guess, tell you is that i i 10 l there is not a regimented procedure that says Inspector A will i 11 ! go out and do checks one, two, three, four, five. 12 Q. But there is a mechanism by'which I&E ensures that s 13 those actions are completed before the plant returns to power? l c-10 14 A. You bet. 15 k 16 17 I 18 l i t 19 20 21 I 22 23 Ace Federal Reporte*5, Inc. 23 6 !I.

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For the_ record, I have here a document from } HEE O mgc 11-1 2( Mr. D. F. Ross. It is a note to Carl Seyfrit, dated October'20, d f 3l 1977,

Subject:

Davis-Besse Abnormal Occurrence, 9/24/77. I J! Do you recall ever seeing that document? 5 A I don' t ever recall seeing this. 6 G The particular document refers to the incident and 7 forwards some concerns that were raised by Mr. Muzetis of the 8 staf f of NRR. Would you have expected to receive a copy of 9 a note such as this? I 10 A Sure. i II G Do you think you would recall having seen such a 4 12 document? 13 A Not necessarily. 14 G But you don't recall -- 15 A I have not seen the document before. But I don't i 16 see all the mail that comes in on a particular project. As 17 you can imagine, we have an enormous volume of mail in this 18 office, and my role is really one of a technical administrator 19 of the of fice. I don' t get into every piece of paper that is 20 generated on an LER. I think you can appreciate I j us t - 21 co uldn ' t. 22 G Obviously. 23 A. Sc ! Ann't aer in*^ 'hne kind of dmLa21. My 24 philosophy of operating an of fice like this is that I look for Ace FrJeral Reporters Inc. 1 25 the staff to flush out issues that they feel warrant my l l I l a 4 w ._.m w,

l 17 . }; i I mgc 11-2 'I attention, and I am assuming that other than issues that ' I 2. might raise as a result of my own reviews of the. morning 3 reports,.I do see all of the LERs that come in, and I look 4 at them, and I may jot a little note to a branch chief -- 5 ! what about this or that -- but I don ' t get into. all of the 6 ) details of every case. I just can't. 7 G Do you recall over discuacing the its:ident -- I CM 8 A Let me#on that piece of paper, if that were to 9 come into my office -- 10 MR. HEBDON: Let's go off the record for a second. II (Discussion off the record.) 4 I2 THE WITNESS: I would expect that if that piece tata L 13 of paper got out to the region, and we had to check our file i 14 to see if it's in the file, it would be routed to -- it would 15 have a stamp on it who'it was routed to, and it would be 16 routed to the branch chief and the section chief and the 17 inspector. 1 18 BY MR. HEBDON: 19 G If I left a copy of this with you, would it be 4 20 possible for you to' have someone in your organization check 21 to see if this document was ever received ~ here? 22 A. Sure. Well, I can check to see if it-is in the 23 file. 24 G See if it is in the file. See if it arrived at !' Ace-Federat Reporters, Inc. 25 the Region. i 1

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Did you ever discuss the incidents that occurred j 3 at Davis-Besse or any of the issues raised by those incidents f fwithaMr.KellyoraMr. Dunn or any other employees of. B&W? 4 l i-5 A I've had no discussions with B&W. 0 0 Were you aware of the concerns about the September f 7 24, 1977, incident? 8 A No. 9 0 I'd like to talk in a little more detail about Mr. Creswell's concerns. As I understand it, he ha.s 11 basically two issues that are relevant to.our review of the 12 accident at TMI and the events that preceded it. One is a I3 concern that he raised following his review of the documenta-Id tior and the incident that occurred on September 24, 1977. 15 That concern was with securing high pressure injection pumps, 16 possibly prematurely. Are you aware at all of that concern? I7 A No. IS G The other concern is associated with the November 29, i 19 1977, incident where he was concerned about the fact that the 20 ] pressurizer level went of f scale low, and possibly the 21 . pressurizer was voided. 22 A I am aware of that concern. 23 0 I ~ think we have discussed that one a little bit 24 L already. And as I understand it, that concern came to your ! Aerwnai neonnm, re. 25 ? attention in August of 1978,- as you said earlier, in d 3 I 4

mge 11-4 , preparation for a management meeting withithe Davis-Besse manacement. A. Well, it may have come up in the interim between a i

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>4(r, eos% with e-tunt -- we' re still trying to get this piece of S + i i information, and we haven't gotten it yet. It wasn't until the preparation of the August meeting that I guess I realized j l that here we were waiting on some information 'for a good 9l i t. eight months and still hadn't gotten it yet. And the licensee i i 10 t seemed to be slow in getting it. l 1 11 ! i 0 Mr. Creswell also was1 concerned about low pressurizer! l to' level in a Board Notification on January 8, 1979. Could you describe your understanding of the handling of that particular 14 Board Notification, why it came to be, and what was done with 15 i t? l 16 A Well, I nc a my understanding is that after we had u ' obtained information from Toledo Edison relative to the IO pressure -- what I will call the pressurizer level problem -- \\ 19 l j that information was reviewed and discussed -with I&E Headquarters 'O l people and NRR people. Their review concluded that the concern', 2I relative to pressurizer water -level or pressurizer water-l 22 volume-did not represent an unreviewed safety question. -In 23 fact, subsequent to Three Mile Island, I've.heen told other kl I 1 4 Acerewe Reorim,inc people h+ve raised the same concern before at an Arkansas plant r 'S i pnd a couple of the other plants. In fact, I think Three Y i h t

w l-20 3a mgc 11-5 qMileIsland,asen. But at any rate, I was aware that Mr. Creswell did not accept or did not take comfort in the r i 31 { conclusion by the Washincton people that this was not an { T /t 4l unreviewed sa fety question. And one-of the. is' sues brought S. l l before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Boards -- an? I 7"aee l 6li for the B&W plants under hearing considerations -- consistent I I 7 with that request, although we did not agree with his position, 4*.TE 8 Y we forwarded it -- to be forwarded to the ASLB. 9 0 Do you know what it was that caused him to take 10 exception to the conclusions reached by the people in NRR? 11 j A. No, not really. I guess I was a little bit taken 12 back by it. I guess I have to go back a little bit and talk 13 about my interfaces with Mr. Creswell., &&A Jim Creswell is not an easy guy to get to know. I found 15 him very difficult to talk to. My impression of him is that 16 he is a sharp engineer. He knows the physics of reactors I7 quite well, but I found him very dif ficult to communicate with. 10 You couldn't lay your hands on what was bothering hin. One I9 minute he was happy; the next minute he wasn't happy. And 20 he raised -- I guess since his involvement in Davis-Besse, 21 going back to when the plant first started up -- he 22 raised a number of questions, wrote a number of m,emos relative se'ee' 23 to concerns he had. We would respond to these things. There 24 wasn't one of them that was ignored. The issues raised we l AoFerral Reporters, Inc. j responded to, but he would take that response, and he would go ]- 25 4 A

!i. s i 21 j a^ i it j away. A couple of months later he would come back with a j! mac 11-6 2 slightly dif ferent slant to the problem, and I guess I would 3l l say that his supervisors viewed him as a frustrating individual to deal with. You just couldn't get from him whether he was d 4 t 5l totally satisfied, totally unsatisfied; he just wouldn't take a position at all. I 7 Then he would come back a week or two later with -- 8 you'd think everything war all put to bed with him -- and he'd come back with a slightly different approach to the problem. L 3 10 We have a system in this office which I set up to try I 11 to handle inspector concerns. This individual neve-ned that system at all. He -- G Is there a name for that Systen? A Yes. We have a regional procedure on it. I think 15 i it is a manual chapter on handling inspector concerns. L i 16 0 You say it is a regional procedure? u 17 j A Yes. 18 G Would it he possible to get a copy of that 19 procedure? 20 A Certainly. I guess what I'm trying to tell you is i 21 from my perspective, I was aware that we had some level of 22 discontent down here, but that it was one of these things that 23 was going back and forth, and when it came time to -- when 24 it came to the' matter of notifying the Board, my reaction was, Ace FMud Reporters. Inc. 25 well, if he is not happy, he hasn' t told me this. But if he -u ~- y e y..

O i f I 1 1 il 22 1E I mgc 11-7 l wants to notify the Board, we will notify the Board and let j i , d them nake their decision. Tha t is about the way I viewed it 4" at the time. 4 G What significance did you assign to the issues that C. 'l he raised in his mero? i 0 A The significance that I viewed was that the staff 7 j had looked at these. issues, and I had been told that they had 8 all been reviewed. Co from my perspective, I viewed his j l 9 approach as one of not being satisfied with answers that he got i 10 and wanted to bring them up in new form for review, which he I had the right. to do. 12 G Do you feel that any of the issues raised by 13 ] Mr. Creswell were relevant to the accident that occurred at 1 i I4 TMI? i { 15 A I don't think I can answer that at the moment. I i 16 have not read the TMI report. I don't know what the conclusions I7 were. The report came out just before I went on vacation. IS Your question is a good question, and I just don' t have a good I9 answer to it. 20 I think if you were to sit around this of fice, any of 21 the regional offices, and follou the activities that go on, 22 there are a number of-problems that are reported to the NRC. 23 They are. reviewed. We try to highlight generic concerns, i 24 and I guess you say to yourself, well, what do you set with

AeFMtral Reporters, Inc,

_j 25 after TMI, and I guess with that kind of hind.71 ht you ser 9 i l y y- - - - - - +, w

23 W n a_ c 11-3 with the fact that we obviously have not done se searching rcview of LERs that we should perhans he doing, and ue've got to upgrade that. I can't tell you off the top of my head how much review 'i went into this particular event. I think quite a bit did. 1 4 Obviously, if it is connected and there was a warning message, 6 )itwasn'tenough. But I guess what I'm suggesting is that j Bl there are an awful lot of problems that are flushed out during ; 9 the course of a year's worth of surveillance of nuclear power r 10 'l plants, and I don't know that -- I cuess I don't know what l

d i

you can do to bat 100hspercent. II i I2 I think we do have to do a better job of LER review. I 13 Whether that would have prevented TMI, I can't say. Id Q. Are you aware of any investigation that was i 15 conducted by Mr. Kohler and Mr. Foster of this region? i 16 A Yes. 17 0 Who initiated that investigation? 18 A We did. I9 0 Uho specifically? 20 !' A. Mell, Mr. Creswell asked for the investigation, 1 I 21 l and we conducted it. I l 22 h 0 In what form did he ask for that investication? 4 ~ 23 A. Well, he told these people that he though t the 1 24 0 comnany -- either the company or perhaps its contractors e.x rem m anm e 25 nay have been deceiving in terns of when they had information

u 24 i 1 6 l mg 11-9 land when they presented it to us. -G Do you recall specifically what th'at information 1 3i i related to? l l. i A. Yes. I believe it related to the pressurizer le"el i e '[ evaluation. 6 B Do you recall what Mr. Kohler and Mr. Foster were 7 told to do? 8 A No, I wasn't involved directly in that. I was 9 involved in' the fact that they came to me and asked me, did I l l 10 g, feel an investigation should be conducted. s I O Who is "they" now? 12 A. This would have been Heishinan and Norelius would have U come to me with that. I'm not sure whether Knop was still .nvolved at that time. But in any way, it would have been 15 i;upervisors that came fo r th. They c,ame to me and told me they g n JJy 16 thought an investigation should be conducted _ Did-I agreek i I7 And I said yes. And they also came forth to tell me that it 18 was their decision not to use Mr. Creswell on the investigation 1 I9 $ ecause they thought he was emotionally involved in the issue, Ch4f v 20 a nd that he was the guy bringing forth the allegations that j we should have somebody independent. Aa4LMhonlycommentto 21 22 them was that I agreed, but get somebody that is acceptable 0 23 o Mr. Creswell. t 24 Aco-Fedorat Repotters, Inc,, 25 ! k ,n,

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~... - - II mte 12-1 i; i I 1 l G Is it common practice to conduct investigations of- ! I 2 allegations raised by inspectors? [ + 3 A Yes. 4 G Is it common practice to include the inspector in 5 the group that investigates the allegation? l 6 A No. 1, 7 G So then it was the normal practice? 8 A Mr. Creswell was not very happy with that decision. 9 G But it is your perception that the normal practice l 10 would be not to include the inspector who raised the allegation? 11 A Right. 12 a What was the result of that investigation? 13 A Well, I don't know that I can give you all the 14 details. But the result of the investigation was that we had 15

oncluded that' there was no deliberate attempt to mislead the 16 Commission.

17 G Did you reach any concitsions about the technical 4 18 content of the concerns that Mr. Creswell had? 19 A I can' t answer that. I don't know. 20 G Do you recall how Mr. Creswell responded to the ~ 21 results of the investigation? l l 22 A Well, I was told initially _that he was very i 23 unhappy. I was then. told by Mr. Norelius, after he and-24 Poster had briefed him, I was told by Mr. Morelius that he was t , A&FMad Reporters. IN. l 25 happy. i j l d

t ete 12-2 i d i I I'm not sure when that investigation was done. 1 ;; . I.believe it.was in early March. 2F 3 l} G It was around that time frame, February or March of I j r O l 4' '79. l I guess the next contact that I had directly with 5 A. He Mr. Creswell was when I was in the bathroom one day. l 6 walked in and I asked him, how did the investigation go, 7; I because I was under the impression at that time that he was 8 i 9 happy with the results of dua investigation. And he made n ss to know.,? And I said, 10 some comment like, do you really want 1 I I wouldn't ask you if I didn't want to know. And he t 11

yes, 12 said, well, I still have some concerns and I will talk to you

// I I3 about it. I 14 ALd I gucas AL

-- I had to go back to 15 Washington, I=guas; it.;c that next day.

Ahd when I got back from Washington my secretary said that he wanted to see 16 17 me. So I went upstairs to see him one day. Jewt I recall the t. But it was day because it came up later in the discussion. 18 19 six days before THI. He wanted me to shut down Davis-Desoe. He felt 20 that the Davis-Besse plant was unsafe and it should -be shut i 21 7mub I must have spent about three or three an'd a half 22 down. ~ 4 hours with him.. The concerns-were people-oriented concerns 23 rather than design-oriented concerns. He thought the company 24 l i 25 l was incapable of doing the-job right. He concluded that

Ace-Federal Fleporters, Inc.

i 11 I' j! - i i i-l- n 1 r-- ,w-n. .~nne -.-.v.-

h. ute 12-3 N 1 1' 1h they were incapable of getting their act in order. .And it was t i I ' a verv subjective, emotional ty,:.e of discussion. 3?

,ed I pointed out to hin that -- we talked about 6

the investigation and a few other things. But I told him that i i l my bottom line was that I could not support his recommendation ! 5 i i I 6; for a shutdown without some evaluation on my part that said { 7l that a threat existed to the public health and safety. i 8 0 Did he provide you with any specific examples? 9: A. No. His main concern seemed to be oriented that..the l i i 10 people were incapable of doing the job. 11 G But did he cite any specific examples of their lack ! s 12 ' of competence? 13 n. He brought forth the fact that it took them so long 14 to get tmst. evaluation done. And he talked about the fact that i 15 they have a number of design changes that have not been acted 16 upon, a big backlog of design changes. And he talked about 1 17-the fact that they were making a lot of personnel errors, tha t - 18 kind of thing. i 19l' G Was-it your perception tha t the number-of design 1 l 20 changes that they had backlogged uas any greater or less than 21 another' utility in a comparable position? Wb 22 A. It teas ny perception that th 's utility m qg 'hb5 f Xe Of * * * <s s ruf'Q'*ar 23l s pttv c'r '^, but m' cm-e non + en ch e <3~ m _ I guess l e," 21 that is a judgnental decision. But I feel to_ shut do; n t'% i +- Ace-Feceral Rwters, tr : 25 powe plant I have to have what I would call a reason to 4. e g

't i mte 12-4 !j 28 i !l I 3j believe that the public health and safety is jeopardized. And j d 2,; the fact that they've got a big backlog of desian changes a I i 3 doesn't give me that feeling. It is something that needs to I be taken care of and it should be taken care of. But I don't 4 5 judge that as warranting a shutdown of a facility. j I 6 0 Did you feel that the number of operator errors 7 that they were having was greater than a comparable or greater ' i 8 than other plants,in a similar stage? 9 A. Yes, and that was a point of discussion. I feet 10 that the number of operator errors was quite high., On the 11 other side of the coin, most of the operator errors were not 12 of the type that posed what I would call a serious problem 13 for the facility. They were failures to do certain surveil-14 lance tests, or they made -- but lhey weren' t the type of a errors that placed the plant in a highly degra'ded condition. 15 16 I;evertheless, my view of the matter was that f(g "e8 17 operator errors were being condoned r there, and the more errors the greater the likelihood would be that you could have 18 19 a more serious problem later on. And that was, as I mentioned, 20 ' the thrust of _ the.reeting that we had set up as a result of the evehts that had occurred in March over there. That led 21 & hrs- - ~ us to have a top-level r g with khe company and to discuss 22 n re than discuss, but to lay out plans for corrective actions. 23 BY MR. FOLSOH: 74 f A& Federal Remrtett inc. ) 25 O. That is the roeeting you speak of a year before I n 0 1

j ws M y y- !i ?l t 4 i j A. No, that is the meeting I'm talking.about that 4 l i 2 took place this year. f i B This year? I 4l A. Yes. 4 5 i BY MR, HEBDON: 6 G There was one meeting around August, I believe, I that you mentioned it was during the preparation for that i 8 meeting that Mr. Creswell's concerns originally came to your 9 Tttention. i i 10 A That's right. i 11 4 G Now, there was another neeting, as I understand it, I2 { and that you are referring to now, some time around March of 13 1979. I4 A. The meeting, the first meeting with the company 15 took place in August of '78. Then, as a result of the fact 16 that things weren't improving a lo't and a result of the two i 17 events that vere reported in March, we had set up another 18 meeting with the company to take place in early April. Then 19 TilI came along and I think die meeting was ulticately held in 20 mid-May. I i 21 G But dais subsequent meeting that was scheduled in 22 April and eventually held in May was to discuss mainly the 23 same types of concerns that had been discussed in August? 24 A. It was to discuss -- it was more.than that. ~ It was Ace Fediral Reporters, Inc. 25 .to discuss the repeat of'the concerns, but it was also to k il

30 l mte 12 6 lrequirethecompanytocomeforthwithagameplantofixthem a 1 o 2j and deal with them. He felt that they were taking much too long 'to get ' the . cration turned around the way they were 3 L 4l going, c.nd that we, while we were not in a position to say ? .. ation was unsaf e, we f elt uncomfortable with the 5 that the ' operation, and we felt that actions had to be 'taken to minimi'zb 6 i 7 the problems that were taking place. j 8 So this led to -- we defined in Sreat detail the I 9 concerns we had. We gave examples for the concerns. Some 10 of this information was provided by Mr. Creswell. We have,. I Il since that time, had two additional meetings with the company ~ where they have discussed with us the status of the corrections l 12 4 13 and corrective actions they have taken. i 14 G Do you feel that the utility has now begun to 4 15 resolve the prcblems? l think they are in the right direction right now, f 16 A I j ) 17 yes. I 18 G To your knowledge, has consideration ever becn given to shutting down a plant as a result of a lack of 19 20 competence on the part of the management? 21 A Yes. 4 ~ 22 G Do:you know if any plants have ever been shut 23 down for that reason? 24 A No, there hasn't been. Aco Federal Reporters, tre. Do you recall any speci.fic.cxamples where 25 o b l d it if

i mte 12-7 31 i 1j consideration uas given to shutting them down? 2 ! A. Yes. We had some serious discussions raised about ! L I 3 shutting down Commonwealth Edison's nuclear plants. 4 Q How was that eventually resolved? l 1 I 5 li. Through the approach we used at Davis-Besse. He 6 had top-level meetings and required the company to take A 4p2ftac<a W 'f& f'*r M certain specific actions thet '-e eutlinaa-the remedia-to, 7 if y u will -- let ne try to tell you the problem or a problem, 8 9 if I could put it this way to you. 10 I think a utility that owns a multi-million or 11 billion dollar project, whatever it is these things cost, I 12 think generally speaking these are responsible organizations. i 13 I don't think any of them want to have a blemished record. 1 ja They live in the public limelight and, if nothing else, they want to have a good reputation. 15 1 Some of t hem have greater difficulty than others 16 in achieving compliance. I think our threshold for getting 17 n top of utilities is such that we generally start with an 18 observation, if you will, that things aren't headed in the 19 right direction. -And if things don't improve, then you set i 20 l up another level of management meetings and so on. And 21 w= ge generally speaking, I would say it is the feeling om emo p-le 22 that by talking to responsible levels of nanagement you get l 23 l 74 the job done. Ace Federal R*portert Inc. If there is ever a clea: health and safety type 25 1

l' mte 12-8 [ 32 i l 4 i i I] 'c o ncer n, I have never seen the Commission hesitate to act on i h't 2 !! that and move in and require a plant to be shut down. But if 1' n i 1 3 you run into problems that are what I would call less than i 4l desirable performance on t'2 part of the utility, if icu teill, l 5! if you can understand what I'm talking about, I thin k tha t i 6 there has been a reluctance on the part of the agency to take 7 action that would require a shutdown of a f acility. And I ) 8 guess the reason I would say that is probably because of cost 9 considerations, probably, because of maybe a lack of belief 10 that that is the best method to serve the public health and 11 safety. 12 But normally speaking our philosophy has been that 13 you don't shut down a nuclear power plant unless you can show nt<A.- M 14 that there is a seriouc safety problem lurking in the winds. 15 And when you run into a licensee whose performance is not 16 as desirable as it should be, I think the general approach 17 has been one of working with that utility to improve its 18 regulatory performance and upgrading it that way. i 19 I don't know whether I am answering your question j f 20 or not. 21 G I think you have. 22 Were you' aware that Mr. Cresuell discussed his- ~ i 23 concerns with Commissioners Bradford and Ahearne and their t i 24 staffs? Ace Federal Reporters, Inc. - 25 A Eventually. a v y

il l mte 12~-9 {i 33 i 1 G Nhen did you become aware of that and by what J I' 2 nechanism? 3 A I'm trying to think how I did become aware of it. i 1 4 I can't recall when I became aware of it. 5 Q Was it before or after TMI? 6 A After. 7 At one point in time--I told you that I talked to 8 Mr. Creswell on March 22. That was the date that I had ny 9 discussion with him. 10 By the way, a very important point on that discus-11 sion. I feel it is a very important point. I told 12 Mr. Creswell that I could not support his position of wanting 13 to shut the facility down, and I told him what my game plan 14 would be and why, and so on and so forth. ~ 15 G Theprogram of meetings with management? 16 A. Right. 17 But I also told him that j,f he felt that he wanted 4a fm% 18 to go talk to somebody esse about it, he had ny blessing and 19 I would be more-than happy to see,that he talked to other 20 peopio; but I would also_ send in my assessment of the e-12 21 situa tion, too. 22 ~ 23 24 Aca Federal Reporters, lec. 25 t 1 I .'I l

t 34 i mgc 13-1 l Now I guess when I did hear that Mr. Creswell had l l' q e fl -talked to Commissioner -- I suppose he talked to Commissioner i 3 Ahearne, ted " hen ta A4A 4' ' b t e -h n.., ,m d I rans when they were holding Commission neetings back on TMI and so forth, 5l felt a little bit concerned that the Commissioner had never I i \\ l I / come to me and asked me or asked the people in the region j 7 about the matters that Creswell was talking to him about, l 8 and I was bothered,-I gness, to some degree that he was hearing a one sided story. l 9

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10 So I made a decision with the-ticscing of my management l f I in Headquarters to go see Commissioner Ahearne. I had never f 12 met Commissioner Ahearne, and I wanted to meet him, and I f 13 wanted to go in and tell him why I did what I did in handling i Davis-Besse -- not to repudiate Mr. Cresuell or anything, but i 15 just to tell him my side -- why I did what we did. And when I was back there, he had Commissioner Bradford there, and at 17 that time I found out that, from them, that Creswell had been ) 18 back to see them before he had come to me on March 22. That came out during that discussion. 20 G You don' t recall ever receiving some questions 21 from Commissioner Ahearne that seemed to be related to the 22 issues that had been raised? 23 A. Yes, I do. 24 G When were those questions received?- Was it before Ace. Federal Reporte,s. Inc. 25 or af ter-your conversations with Commissioner Ahearne?

l 35 i i i l j i IO A Those questions were before. i I, 3 : mac 13-2 'i 0 Did you connect those questions with the concerns l 3 that had been raised by Mr. Creswell? i 4 j A In part, because I knew uhen that letter came that 5 Creswell had talked to Ahearne. 6 G So then, prior to your meeting with Commissioner 7' Ahearne, you knew that Mr. Creswell had talked with him? O A Yes. That is the reason I went back there. 9 0 And how did you become aware that he had talked 10 with him? I II A That is what I'm trying to think. I can't tie it. i 12 I'm sorry. I've drawn a blank on how I found out. 13 0 Now as I understood you -- A It may have been -- oh, I guess I know. It was 15 during the Commission meetings subsequent to Three Mile 16 Island that Mr. Creswell was called upon by Commissioner I7 Ahearne at that meeting. 18 G I'm getting confused here. When did you go back-to talk to Commissioner Ahearne? 20 A I can get you that date. It would have been I 21 probably May. 22 G So this was after TMI-2? 23 A Yes. I guess we're getting off. .Let me start 24 over again. Ace-Federst Reporters, Inc. 25 G Okay. lt

u .t 3 36 mgc 13-3 A In order of sequence, swell expressed his .m y i. concerns to me about Davis-Besse, 3{ i 0 And the fact that it should be shut down? 4l A. Yes, on March 22. I will tell you what. Could a 5{, ! I get my notebook, my calendar? 6 i O Certainly. Let's go off the record for a few 7 minutes. 8 (Discussion off the record.) 9 a MR. HEBDON: Let's go back on the record. 10 THE WITNESS: I met with Mr. Creswell on March 22 11 i and TMI occurred on March 28, I believe. My meeting with I Commissioner rn nd Bradford were May 2 3. Now the 13 purpose of the Commissioner Ahearne and Bradford, that meeting 14 initiated at my request with a call to Commissioner was 4 15 Ahe a rn,e. I didn't know Bradford was involved at all. I called } c,,1e =M Q Ahearne, because I was concerned that Aheetpe had gotten a { 17 one-sided story from Mr.. Creswell. And I felt compelled to i I8 go back and tell my side of why we acted the way we did on 19 Davis-Besse. bs m -w 20 Now you mentioned the letter that Ahearne raised, and i 21 I don' t have tnat in here, but I had a neeting with my staff 22 an April 4 to discuss the Commissioner Ahearne letter on 23 I 3 avis-Besse, so I was aware of that letter at that time. l 24 L l that letter -- what we did, we prepared a response to that Ace Fedtro Reporters, Inc. 24 d etter at the regional-level, and that was sent back the week b. i J- ~i a -. ~.

hl 37 ..l ngc 13-4 I I was at Three Mile Island, which was the week of April 9, j u 2j and that response was never sent to Commissioner Ahearne i 3f until late May. l 4l BY MR. HEBDON: I 5 G Okay. When you got the letter from Commissioner 6 Ahearne, did that in combination with anything else tell you 7 that Commissioner Ahearne and Mr. Creswell had been in 8 communication with each other? 9 A Yes. I knew at the time of that letter that a 10 there was some tie between them, and it wasn't because of the II letter, but I believe the Commission hearings that had taken 12 place -- I'm saying hearings -- the Commission meetings that 13 taking place during this period of time had discussed, were I4 had involved Mr. Creswell appearing at the meeting in response 15 to an invite from Commissioner Ahearne. 16 G Now these were the Commission meetings concerning i 17 Three Mile Island? J i 18 A. Yes. But during one of those meetings -- and I 19 apologize; I just can' t pick the time of it -- but during that i 20 week or so after Three Mile Island, there were meetings going 21 on every day in which the press was involved and so on. I'm 22 sure that we have -- we can pin that down, if you like, in l R 23 terms of when Mr. Creswell got up at a Conmission meeting. ~ 24 0 That's all right. We can just ask Mr. Creswell. I Ace.Fedirst Reporters. Inc. 25 A. . Fine. But there is a document like that that has { 'l i N I 1 i. m +

d I 1 'l il 38 i ' j.I. mgc 13-5 {ithemeetingminutes. i 2 *: G So as I understand it, it is the fact -- a f A I am assuming that that is the tie-in I have as i to why I would know. It seemed to me -- and I just can't S' remember precisely -- that I was aware at the time we got 0 the Commissioner Ahearne letter that I had known at that time i 7 that he had talked to Creswell. 8 G Now as I understood you, you said that when you 9 went back to talk to Commissioner Ahearne that is when you 10 became aware that Mr. Creswell had actually gone back to i 11 Washington and talked to him personally? I 17' ]s A I was told by Commissioner Ahearne's assistant -- 13, one of his assistants -- that Creswell had been back there N prior to the time he talked to me on March 22. 15 0 And that is the first tire that you realized that 16 i he had actually gone back there as opposed to just talking to l I7 him on the phone? hh 'Q{ 18 A Well I don ' t know how it was done. APd been in i l9 touch, I should say. 20 0 All right. What was your understanding of the 21 concerns that he raised with the Commission or with the 22 Commissioners? l 1 23 A I didn' t have any understanding of them. i y' G Well, you knew they related to Davis-Besse. Ace-Fedsrd Reporters, Inc. ;l 75 1, A Yes. I'm sorry. I

ll { 39 0 0 mgc 13-6 1l 0 Do you recall any more detail of your understanding? I, 2 ll A. No. But basically the things that were in the i 3 letter -- the companies performance, the problems with LERs, 4 fthe problems with design changes, basically the material that S' was in the letter. None of it was what I would call a surprise 6 to me. i 7 G Could you describe what you recall from your meeting 8 with Conmissioners Ahearne and Bradford? 9 A Well, it was a very cordial meeting. I spent about 10 an hour with them, and the tone or the purpose of requesting 11 the meeting was not to discuss Creswell but was to go back -- 12 I knew the Commissioner had concerns about Davis-Besse -- to 13 tell him what I was doing about those concerns and why I had 14 acted the way I did. 15 He brought up Creswell very early in the discussion, 16 and we talked about some of the points that Creswell had been 17 concerned about. I think the Commissioner was surprised to 18 learn that -- I think the Commissioner was surprised to learn 19 that Creswell had - not tried to come to me before he went to 20 the Commissioner. j i 1 21 I gave the Commissioner a copy of our procedure for i 22 handling problems. I explained to the Commissioner some of the things that I do in the office to try to elicit information j 23 24 from the staf f on concerns they have. I would call it a very l Aca-Federal Reporters, Inc. 25 friendly discussion -- one that it was hard to predict in i !I - h- ?

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3, O l ll I i mge 13-7 y terms of how useful it was for him. But I felt somewhat l 2 Ilf better after it. l I i. 3 i l l Q. Did the Commissioners give you any indication of 4l uhether or not they felt that the actions taken at Davis-S Besse were appropriate? 6 A I would say the feeling.T got from the Commission 7 was one of -- that they felt that we were too complacent, 8 that perhaps not -- I wouldn ' t say complacent from the stand-9 point of derelict in handling things -- but that the safety 10 record of the industry had put us in'a position of being l 11 complacent. 12 I think the Commissioner expressed a view to me that 13 \\ he thought that if we have some plants that are hble to 3 14 .\\ \\ operate at this level of performance 1 15 1' (indicating) 16 and we have others only operating at this level I' l'7 I (indicating) / 18 / that maybe we ought to shut them down until we can get them 19 / to operate at this level. / I 20 (indicating) i I remember making the point to Commissioner Ahearne 22 I that he would be the first one to throw me out of his office i J 23 if I came down there and suggested shutting down a nuclear 24 A& Fens Reponen. Inc. power plant without a _ health and safety reason, and he i 4 Y '25, indicated that may. or not be true. d i i

y l' + '.l il 41 b 1 ;' r.gc 13-8 But I would say, one, that indicated -- that we have Nf A 2 got to be tougher on. the industry > t'i u. ,.c uld 2:= c a te 3! l that our threshold for actions is not low enough. 4i i l 6l 7 8 9 10 1 1 12 ' 1 13 14 15 16 l 17 18 19 20 21 i 1 22 23 24 l-Aes.Fedtrst Reporters, Inc. j 25 l 1 i! !i

mte 14-l~ ll i a 42 G 'Did he give you any indication that he felt that 2 Davis-Besse ought to be shut down? 3 A Mo. I told him what we were doing and I told him i i 4, we would keep him informed. Of ccarse, we did subsequently j \\ \\ 5 have a Commission meeting on the restart of Davis-Besse. 6 G But that was as a result of the TitI accident; is that correct? That wasn't associated with the s pecific 7 8 concern about Davis-Besse management? j A If you go back and take a look at that, it was 9 i 3g almost all concerned with it. They did not hold meetings on 11 the restart of all of the reactors, you will recall. They 12 selectively picked Davis-Besse, and about 90 percent of it 13 was devoted to Commissioner Ahearne's concerns about manage-ment. ja 15 G As I understand it or a,s I recall','the Commission 16 did eventually decide to allow them to restart Davis-Besse. 3 A Yes they did. 37 G S that even in light of the raising of conscious-18 ness that occurred after TMI, they still determined that the 39 management at Davis-Besse was capable of operating the plant g safely.- 21 A Yes. G Why was Mr. Creswell sent to.TMI following the accident? l ,4 Ace-FMwat Reportert. inc. f A We sent a lot of people to-TMI. I x il : i

9 43 ..;. c e 4-2 9 ?,pproximately ho/ rany? 3 I think tha t first week there might have been 3 i. seven or eight, il 4j 0 Out of apprc::imately hor' many? 5] E Out of naybe 25. ~i 6' G Did Mr. Creswell's concerns about Davis-Besse and f 5 7' the issues that he had raised and the interactions that he had ; i 8; had with the management here at Region III play any role in i 9 h, his being assigned to TMI? l i 10 A. In fact, when TMI occurred we were not aware -- I 11 mean, I was aware that he had had the discussion with me. IIis 12 supervisor, his branch chief, became aware of it because I 13 told him. y But no, we sent Mr. Creswell to TMI because we 15 thought he was highly qualified and could make a contribution. 16 0 And the fact that he had been involved with these 17 various concerns, that didn't play any role in the decision 18 to send him? i9 L You mean in terms of knowledgeable about B&W? 20 0 Hell, it would seem lik.e for an assignnent such as 21 the assignment to TMI, you vould want to pick people that were 22 technically qualified and mature. o 23 [ A. I think what we did was t o pick people tha t were l 'l 24 0 technically competent on pressurized water reactors. That Ace Fe1."s Reporters, Inc. !! 73 h was our first criteria. M1 didn

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} I i 1 ll the people that went. It was done by the branch chief and it b. 2 0 was done looking at' the schec'ules and who was available. There th n y:,& 3 were a lot of factors. But we obviously wouldn't send a guy who was only skilled on a boiling water reactor, 4 f 5 Q. What I would like to do is ask you some general 6 questions concerning the functioninq of I&E and the relation-7 ship of I&E to some other organizations. 8 What is your general perception of the relationship between I&D headquarters and the I&E regions? 9 10 A well, that is c cubject I vuuld Lolk abet

• fnvaver.

k m+ W l 11 I think the relationship is not as it should be. There is a 3 12 certain lack of sensitivity, if you will, between the two 13 organizations. The role of I&E headquarters is primarily oriented at dealing with the Commission and answering their 14 15 questions, keeping the Congress informed, dealing with issues t 16 that might come down fron higher up, if you will. 17 They are understaffed, and as such, when an issue a 18 cones in from the region whi^ you have en r M back for some 19 help on, I-think that it is not viewed as their primary -- it 20 is not viewed as a major item to them unless it is the type of 21 issue that would impact on people higher than them. 22 So what I am saying is that the concerns of head-23 quarters are not the primary concerns of.the regions, and i 24 vice versa. So if you were to bcuJy, take a'look at the. numbers ' Ace Fede,si Reporters, Inc. t 25 bf technical issues that have been sent in to headauarters-and a I . L? -

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, acon at the types of response and action that has beer uken 2

on them, you would find that there are varying degrees of 2 success achieved. s a I think headquarters is grossly rnderstaffed for ' chat they have to do. 5, I 6 i O Uhat is your perception of the relationship between 7l I&E regions and p r A. I think it is highly de,o.endent upon personalities. 8l l 9 I think some inspectors have a very good relationship with i 10 some of the people in MRR and some don't have. I guess I 11 i would view it as a case by case type basis. I thin? you would I i 12 find that there is more shortcuttinq that goes on than people 13 might like to admit, in the sense of the I&E people in the 1.4 field keeping ERR informed, rather than going through I&E 15 headquarters, simply because they feel they ca'n'get better 16 results wi th NRR. 17 G Would it be fair to say, then, that you feel that 18 I&E headquarters is to some extent a bottleneck in the formal I 19 relationship between I&E rey, ions and NRR, and as a result 20 l people tend to bypass around that bottleneck and go directly to NRR? 21 A. I w uld say it id viewed that way, yes. 22 h ,36 e How ef fectivelv does the relationshio between I&E n a and NRR facilitate the feedback of operational experien:e into y aese c., n.m.c,, s thc licensing process? Q M Q & >4(42 &.$!llAo,A W / d/ M W W M %M b MfMr.

0 mte l'4-5 l.i 46 1 A Would you say that again? 2 0 Let me rephrase it a little bit. liow effectively do the concerns and the problems and the issues that the 3 inspectors are seeing in the field get fed back to the people 4 that are doing the design reviews and the licensing reviews 5 ) 6 of new facilities? l i 7 A. I don't know that I can give you a quantitative J 8 type answer. I guess my feeling-is that it isn't bad. I think the feedhack on operating problems is pretty good, in 9 I i J 10 that in terms of the reviews of new plants that come up, that I 11 a lot of that information is gleaned into.the process. i 12 i Where I would be critical and depart a little bit 13 in the answer here is I think that a problem may be identified 14 at a given facility and we think it is a potential safety 15

problem, let's say, and the regions. inform headquartets concern-)

ing the problem and headquarters turns it over to NRR to look 16 i for the other operating reactors that are already licensed. 17 at And MRR might _take the position, well, we just have got so 18 i 19 many other things going, we will put this on the back burner 20 to be looked at two years from now. I bOLGU i 21 And the regions hear that, -d ' tc aa we aave 22 'fluched-up an i mper tan *- probier.. J hay Aqn't havej Mc to Q 23 at i t E 43 n t ab a2, eni it discourages, if you will, theapproach.! t 24 As an exanple, we ident1Eied a probleu a couple of t Ace-Fedtrat fleporters, Inc, 25 years ago at a facility, maybe even longer ago than that', about b,

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3! The company came back and said, hcy, rie are discontinuing the 4 5 practice because $healize/under certain accident type. 6 conditions this could be pretty bad. k NQ S &stobelookedatgenerically. tb&a 7 We forwarded that 8 That problem still hasn't got off the board. That is the type 9 of thing. Now, we have no control over that. Here we have 10 identified what we think is a pretty good issue. We are captive 11 of NRR in terms of their deciding what issues will get-12 priorities. 13 Hb. t we don' t have is the capability to impact on 14 their priority system, i0 you omil. 15 G Is there a method in I&E to axchange information 16 among inspectors of similar plants in different' regions? 17 A. No. 18 ' 0 Would such a. system be useful? 19 A The answer would be yes. But how practical it would 20 be I don't know. Let me give you an example. Back when there i i 21 were very few reactors, it used to be fairly ccamon practice ~ 22 for the inspectors to exchange inspection reports. They would 23 have time to read them. They could see them. They could see ~ 2a what;the other people were finding and compare notes that way. Am FMetaf Reportert lN. 25 They used to talk a lot.- j i i 1 I

mte 14v7 !l 48 o i 'tjj The growth of the organization and the numbers of { 11 facilities and the numbers of_problen and so forth has put up 2 a barrier to accomplish that. The inspectors don't have time 3 to read other inspection reports now. 4 What we have attempted to do or the approach that i 5 i has evolved is one of trying to inform the indu'stry, the j 6 i other regions, of people with common problems throughnotices,l 7 circulars, the bulletin concept, which I think is a good 8 system, but which is not foolproof. I' am sure that you j 9 could go through all of the LERs that have been reported and [ 10 raise several that you think should have been the subject of 11 bulletins or circulars or infornation notices. 12 think is needed and what I support is the What I 13 I think that concept of a centralized LER review program. 34 the regions still need to r3n +-hai t-N ' individual review ~ 15 f LERs, but I think we need to have people who focus solely 16 on potential generic problems and get those into the system. 37 Now, if you want to talk about inspectors comparing jg notes and so forth -- j9 G Well, the type of thing I had in mind would be a f 20 pr gram where, say once a quarter, you brought together all 21 the inspectors that inspect B&W plants, either at one of the i 22 ti-regi ns or at some centralized location. 23 A That might be practical when you got seven or {- 24 eight or nine B&W plants. But what do you do when you want ! Ace Fedtral Reporters, Inc, 25 I n. 9 t

..=- n mte 14-81 ll. 49 1 l-l ![ t 1 N to talk about all the Westinghouse plants? -And then, you see, i-I i 2L you-have another problem. We talk about the B&W plants, but 9 3 there are probably, I. daresay -- well, I' won't say for sure. I 4I There are differences between the B&W plants. Some of them -l 5 have different architect-engineers. These plants aren't 6 duplicates as you think of them that way. There are major 4 7 differences between the plants still, and what may be a 8 problem at one plant may not be at another plant. 4 9 You are not dealing with 100 percent duplication 10 here. 11 BY 21R. POLSOM: 12 G Could it be the fact that there isn't a problem 13 at one plant and there is at another, that that would be a j j 14 basis for exchanging information? I don't have this problem i 15 in Plants A and B in my district because of this design. 16 Would you consider in your district suggesting to your t 17 licensee a change? 18 A. Well,;I would sooner take the approach that'I 19 heard recommended by somebody, that says that when an LER 20 occurs at -a given ; plant,. that you require all of the other ' licensees with that plant to a'ddress that LER in terms of the 21 I, 4 j. 22 need for corrective action. That-nakes more sense to me j i than. bringing the inspectors'together and asking then to go 23 i e-14 2a, out and check on certain. things. [ . AeFMmI Reponen, ld l l .25-4 1, op

50 4 1 CR 6516 BY MR.~HEBDON: HEE 4 7g mgc 15-1 p wouldn' t the answer from the other licensees he, 3I I ! that can ' t happen here? 4k l l A Not necessarily. I don't know. I wouldn't infer that from my expe'rience. 6 0 Do you know of any other events that are precursors 7 4 of the accident that occurred at TMI? 8 A No. 9 G Do you have any additional information that might 10 he relevant to our inquiry surrounding the accident at TMI? 11 A. No. I Lhink I guess I would comment that I've 12 heard complaints that the utility was a weak utility, perhaps 13 not relatively well prepared to deal with the problems they've 14 had and so forth. I don't know how true those statenents are, 15 but I destroyed' the myth that Three ' Mile Island or that 16 Metropolitan Edison was inferior to other utilities, and it 17 couldn ' t happen there. would say that kind of problem A 18 could have happened at a number of plants -- maybe not that i 19 specific type thing, but the combination of equipment problems 4 O I and people problems and so forth. ^1 I don't think, in other words, that comments that I've 22 heard that would rank Metropolitan Edison as a real loser in l 23 dur business are comments that should be taken seriously. .i t, 24 ' i Ace Federal Reporters, Inc. i think a lot of attention has focused on Davis-Besse and on 25 h} he adequacy of Toledo Edison Company. t I would dare say that i, i 1

t 1 51 I mgc 15-2 if ~you looked into Sacramento Municipal Utility District, t 74fi if you looked into Florida Power Corporation, if you looked i 3

into Arkansas, I think you would find the same problems that e

4! 4 i existed at Davis-Besse. 5' Q And the same problems that existed at TMI? 6 A Pardon? 7 Q And the same problems that existed at TMI? 8 A Yes. I*think so. I don ' t think you would find -- 9 in other words, I am trying to say to you I don' t think that 10 Davis-Besse is as poor a licensee as people have made it out 11 to be. I think we have surfaced a lot of problems at-Davis-12 Besse, and I think we have made a lot of these problems at 13 Davis-Besse. I think you will find the same number of personnel I# errors and so forth exist at other facilities. BY MR. FOLSOM: 16 G If I gather the content of what you are just saying I7 is that if you've got a very well trained and critical 18 inspector group, you are going to turn up more operational I9 problems with a licensee. 20 A -I think 'there is some truth in that. 21 G And that might not necessarily be a criticism of 22 the licensee, as compared with other licensees in other 23 districts. 24 A Yes. You have thc right context. l Acs. Feds,cl Reporters, Inc. l 25' { -l .i L. J

i i i 52 i 1 I mgc 15-3 BY MR. HEBDON: 2! Q I've also heard an argument put forth that one of 0 3 the reasons that Davis-Besse had so many LERs, for example, that possibly they were a little bit more zealous in their was 51 l reporting of incidents than some other utilities might be. 6 And there is considerable variability in what needs to be 7 reported under an LER, and that Davis-Besse tended to be in 8 the direction of -- 9 A. There is some truth to that. And also -- I don't 10 want to make light of it. Every time you make a comment, it 11 sounds defensive, and I don' t want to be in' that posture. 12 If you take a look at the LERS reported by Davis-Besse, you-I3 will find that about 10 percent of them are inadequacies of I4 performing surveillance tests. 15 u.. _, _1 +b=* imnortant? YOu bei yuut LOO Ls it ic ir?Crtant 4e 16 impotLant. I don't dismiss it, but it isn't the kind of IL s 17 a. problem that poses a threat to the public health and safety 18 either. I9 So I guess my feeling is that I watch the way -- let 20,e say it off the record. 21 (Discussion off the record.) 22 MR. HEBDON: Let's go back on the record. 23 MR..FOLSOM: I have no further questions. {. 24 -MR. HEBDON: No, I don't have any more. Au Fencl Reporters. inc. 25 i ~

l o l t p I 53 , ;ll 'l BY MR. HEBDON: l ngc 15-4 } (> Do you have any additional comments to add. j 3i A. Not that I can think of. 'L MR. HEBDON: Okay. That completes the interview. 51 j Thank you very much. 6 (Whereupon, at 2:45 p.m., the interview was 7 con.;1uded. ) 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2.1 i ACd ffdirr) Reperters, Inc. I 25!! tj 1 _}}