ML19338B806
| ML19338B806 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 08/01/1979 |
| From: | Helfman S, Lafleur J NRC OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS (OIP), PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ACCIDENT AT THREE MILE |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 7908290014 | |
| Download: ML19338B806 (91) | |
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 7'
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2 PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ACCIDENT N._
AT THREE MILE ISLAND 3
4 5
6 DEPOSITION OF:
JOSEPH D. LAFLEUR, JR.
7 8
9 10 11 Room 8119 12 Maryland National _ Bank 7735 Old Georgetown Road 13 Bethesda, Maryland f4 August 1, 1979 9:30 o' clock a.m.
15 APPEARANCES:
17 On Behalf of the Commission:
18 STAN M. HELFMAN, Attorney 19 Associate Chief Counsel 2100 M Street, N.W.
r; Washington, D.C.
20037 21 On Behalf on the NRC:
22 MARK CHOPKO, ESQ.
Office of General Counsel 23 1717 E Street, N.W.
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Washington, D.C.
20037
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INDEX 1
[
WITNESS:
DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS V) 2 3
Joseph D.
LaFleur, Jr.
5 1
4 EXEI3ITS 5
6 NUMBER:
FOR IDENTIFICATION LaFleur No. 1 5
LaFleur No. 2 24 8
LaFleur No. 3 53 9
LaFleur No. 4 69 to LaFleur No. 5 73 11 LaFleur No. 6 74 12 LaFleur No. 7 76 13 LaFleur No. 8 79 t4 LaFleur No 9&l0 87 15 LaFleur No. 11 84 16 LaFleur No. 12 86 1-LaFleur No. 13 87 13 LaFleur No. 14 89 19 20 21 I
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3 PROCEEDINGS 1
e'N MR. HELFMAN:
Mr. LaFleur, would you please raise f
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3 Whereupon, HOSEPH D.
LAFLEUR, JR.
,O having been duly sworn, was called as a witness herein,and 6
testified as follows:
a MR. HELFMAN:
Would you please state for the record your til name?
THE WITNESS:
Joseph Celta LaFleur.
MR. HELFMAN:
Have vou ever had vour deoosition taken before?
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THE WITNESS:
On this subject?
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MR. HELFMAN:
On this subject.
THE WITNESS:
No.
15 MR. HELFMAN:
Have you ever had your deposition taker before on any subject?
THE WITNESS:
I can't recall anv soecific one.
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18 MR. HELFMAN:
Let me go through some characteristics of a deposition then.
The testimony that you will be giving today will be sworn, and as a result will have the same force and effect as if you were giving your testimony in a court of law.
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At the conclusien of the deposition, the court (v) l 24 reporter will reduce your testimony to transcript form and l
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in the course of events you will be provided with a copy of nk, 2
the transcript and given an opportunity to read it and make 3
changes that you deem necessary.
4 You should be aware that we would have the 5
opportunity to comment on any changes that you make and should 6
the changes be substantial, it could adversely affect your 7
credibility.
As a result, it is important that you try to 8
be as accurate as you can today and that you ask for a 9
clarification of any questions that I ask that you don't to understand.
11 For the benefit of the court reporter, it is 12 necessary that your responses be audible since it is
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13 difficult fer her to record gestures.
14 It is also necessary that you allow me to 15 complete my question even if you anticipate where it is 16 going and I will try to allow you to complete your answer 17 before I ask the next question since it is difficult for the 18 court reporter to take down two people talking at the sametime 19 It is our practice at the end of the deposition to
'9 recess it rather than terminate it in the event we have 21 further questions to ask you.
We simply reconvene the 22 deposition.
It hasn' t happened yet. but we like to maintain 23 3
that option.
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^4 Do you have any questions about any of that?
25 THE WITNESS:
No.
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DIRECT EXAMINATION 2
BY MR. HELFMAN:
xJ 3
0 You were asked to bring a resume with you.
Have 4
you done so?
A Yes.
5 M. HELFMAN:
I have here the resume of Joseph D.
6 LaFleur, Jr., and I would like this marked as the first 3
exhibit to the LaFleur deposition.
(LaFleur Exhibit No, I was 9
marked for identification.)
10 BY MR. HELFt1AN:
11 12 Q
Does this resume accurately reflect your educational
)
and employment background?
13 A
Yes.
14 0
Could you please describe for the record your 15 present title at the NRC and generally what your duties are?
16 A
I am the Deputy Director of the Office of 7
International Programs.
I am also the Assistant Director 18 for International Cooperation.
19 Q
Are the duties under these two positions different?
20 A
There are two halves to the office.
One half is
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3._3 cocperation, and the other is the export / import licensing function.
Q 24 Most of my time I serve in the cooperation side, 3
but I am the second ranking person in the office and serve i
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2 3
Q What are your duties as Deputy Direcror of the office of International Programs?
4 3
A My primary duty is.the' function of cooperating with other countries aniinternational groups to improve the nationa l 6
and multilateral programs in nuclear safety.
The majority of my time is spend doing that, maybe 3
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80 percent.
Twenty percent is spent acting as director over that function, that function of cooperation, plus the function 10 of Commission staff work of export and import licenses and 11 the policy work that goes along with that.
12 Q
What part does the NRC play in the import / export
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13 license function?
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A The NRC has to issue export licenses.
15 Q
For what?
1 16 A
For basically, mainly for production and utilization 1-facilities as defined in the Atomic Energy Act, which mostly 18 includes, mainly includes power reactors or research reactors 19
.and it also has to issue export licenses for fuel and by-20 product material, meaning other radioactive products, fuel 21 for those reactors and byproduct material.
gg The NRC also has to comment and concur in other
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actions related to that such as transfers, retransfers of fuel i
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1 export.
(n) 2 O
Would that be retransfers to this country or s,
3 transfers among--
4 A
Anywhere.
5 Q
I see.
6 A
Between the other countries, or back to the United 7
States; when they come back to the United States we also have 8
to issue an import license which is one of our main 9
functions.
10 0
In the export licensing function, who applies for 11 the license?
Is that the vender or is it the country that 12 would be the recipient of the reactor or the fuel or the (O
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13 byproduct?
14 A
An exporter is usually a commercial organization, 15 either the manufacturer or somebody designated under contract 16 for the export functicn.
17 In the case of the reactors, it very often is the 18 vender, the manufacturer of that equipment which is being 19 exported.
20 In the case of fuel and material, sometimes it is 21 a middleman.
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O In the expert licensing?
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Often it is a middleman.
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For other than the reactor itself, for such things l
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1 A
I think that is a fair statement.
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2 Q
For the reactor, it is usually the vender?
3 A
Yes.
4 Q
In the export licensing process, what type of an 5
application does the vender provide and basically I am asking 6
does the vender provide an equivalent to the SAR which must 7
be provided for the construction of a domestic plant?
8 A
No.
His application is more in the nature of filling 9
out a form and then substantiating it with statements and to answers to questions dealing with the special requirements 11 of national security and non-proliferation, assurances that s
12 the fuel or material or material beine exported will indeed
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13 be placect under appropriate safeguard agreements, international 14 safeguard agreements, and assurance nhat the material will 15 indeed be used for peaceful purposes and details about 16 transport and so forth.
17 Much of our advice on export licenses comes from is the Executive Branch.
As soon as we get an application, we 19 send it to the State Department who coordinate the views of 20 the Executive Branch on the application and who then answer 21 us giving advice on whether the export license should be i
22 issued.
I rT 23 Although one of the considerations is the health 1
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24 and safety, the dcmestic health and safety implications of 25 a license, that is usually a fairly small one and their finding l
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is that it is not, that the important finding to make is that 1
2 the export will not be inimical to the national security.
3 Q
Does the NRC do the primary evaluation of domestic 4
health and safety conce.rns or does the State Department concarn itself with that?
5 A
No.
The State Department does not concern itself 6
with domestic health and safety.
l O
So that would be primarily your function?
8 A
They might.
They might.
If they turned up anything, 9
there would be no reason why they couldn't list it to us.
I 10 don't recall that they ever have.
11 On the other hand, there have been generic studies 12 done on the environmental impact of the licensing program--
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13 I mean, I'm sorry, of the nuclear energy export program, and 14 that generic analysis is a part of this picture.
It is 15 cited each time or generally as a description of the domestic 16 impact on the environment of this program as a whole, the 1-export program as a whole.
is Q
When you refer to generic, you are not referring 19 to B&W plants, but plants in general?
20 A
Right, but you see the plants and their fuel do not 21 operate nuclear in this country.
They are shipped out and 33 then they operate in another country, so the impact en the
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environment here or on safety here is negligible.
3 N w in the near future a new censideration will be 25 I
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made of the environmental effect of each export of reactors,
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but not of fuel.
This first generic statement that I
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4 this country, on the high seas and in the global commons.
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The Executive Order issued by the President in j
6 January will require that a certain consideration be given to the environmental impact of each export of reactor in the 3
country in which it will operate, and in the neighboring countries as well.
9 10 0
Would it be possible to obtain from you a sample it questionnaire such as an applicant would fill out for an 12 export license?
13 A
Yes.
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Q Could we get that during the deposition?
If we 14 15 could, I would like to have it marked as a exhibit.
A Yes.
16 Q
And also so that we can do it at the sametime if t-18 you have a copy of the Executive Order handy?
MR. HELFMAN:
Of f the record.
19 (A discussion was held off the record.(
20 21 BY MR. HELFMAN:
3 Q
Are you aware generally speaking of the course 23 of events at TMI 2 in March of this year?
_s A
Yes, pretry well.
24
- 25 l Q
Are you aware that among the factors which caused Acme Reporting Company
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t or exacerbated the problem included a PORV which stuck
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open, a pressurizer level indication which indicated the
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presence of ample coolant in the core despite continuing loss of coolant from the core and avoids in the core, the 4
5 operator relying on pressurizer level terminated HPI?
6 A
Yes.
0 Were you aware at the time of the Three Mile Island 3
incident in March of this year of any transients in this 9
country of abroad which followed a similar course of events?
A It 1 my impression that one or more of the elements 10 it that you described, that you selected as important here have 12 occurred in many places in this country and presumably overseas.
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0 Were you aware--
14 A
I was not aware, well, I was aware, I am aware of 15 some incidents that have occurred overseas,not with both 16 factors that you mentioned I think.
1 1
MR. CHOPKO:
I just want to fix the time of your 18 question.
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I was going to fix that myself.
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21 22 O
Were you aware of such transients at the time of the Three Mile Island incident in March of this year?
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In the broadest sense, that is the incidents overseas, centaining one or more directly or closely somewhat 25 l
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How many such incidents were you aware of, more V
3 than two?
A This is a very common type of transient.
The closer 4
5 you get to exactly what happened at Three Mile Island, the 6
more, of course, you narrow down the answer, but in the con-text of there having been overseas incidents with some of 3
the elements in it, yes, more than two.
9 Q
How would you become advised of such transients?
10 Is it similar to the domestic procedure whereby the NRC 11 is notified via LER's and investigation reports?
A
- ' e question was how do I normally, how am I 12 13 normally advised?
Q Of overseas transients.
g4 A
Yes.
The NRC has agreements with foreign countries 15 16 that have active nuclear energy programs, about 18 of them.
l It is either 17 or 18, that do exchange information that is 17 18 useful or that is interesting to the other country, each to provide information to the other country about nuclear energy 19 20 safety.
21 Q
Is this a mutual exchange of information?
A Yes.
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23 Q
So foreign countries with nuclear programs would
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1 that might be pertinent to the domestic industry?
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A That is the intent of the agreement.
3 Q
Does the information come from the country, or 4
does it come from the vender?
5 A
The obligation is on the part of the country, an 6
agency of the country, of the government of the country, 7
like NRC.
It is an agency-to-agency agreement.
8 Q
The agreements are between the NRC and the pertinent 9
agency?
10 A
That's right, but very often we get the information 11 through commercial channels, usually clearly blessed by the 12 country, by the agency.
bs 13 Q
Is the existence of such an agreement a pre-14 condition to the granting of an export license to a vender 15 to supply reactors to a country?
16 A
No.
17 Q
Has this country issued, has the NRC issued an 18 export license for the export of a reactor to a country that 19 does not have an agreement to engage in mutual sharing of 2
pertinent information with the NRC?
21 A
Yes.
Has the NRC done this?
l 22l 0
Yes.
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Walt a minute now.
That requires my figuring back
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25 Yes, we have done so, yes.
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O Is it current practice to issue such export C) 2 licenses in the absence of an agreement, or was that an (s_/
3 older and superseded policy?
A The law requires that they be an agreement for 4
5 cooperation with a country which does provide generally 6
for cooperating and would certainly sanction the exchange 7
of information between the two governments, usually a
specifically culling, I think usually specifically culling 9
out safety information.
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intent to cooperate on a scale that would certainly be it consistent with having detailed cooperation in safety is in 12 O
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13 the agreements for cooperation.
That is a government-to-14 government agreement.
That authorizes, with all the other procedures 15 16 that I mentioned, authorizes the export; both parties then recognize later the benefit of sharing safety information 17 and of other cocperation that might be done in safety and 18 voluntarily as a separate action come up with this, with an 9
agreement to cooperate in regulatory matters.
.)y The answer is that I guess yes, it has always been 21 the policy not to require a safety cooperation agreemen: as 22 a condition of license.
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Q Would it be accurate no say that the agency-to-24 25 agency agreement implements the government-to-government Acme Reporting Company
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agrsoment concerning cooperation?
2 A
Yes.
It is part of the implementation.
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3 Q
Does the domestic vender, supplier of a reactor to l
4 a foreign country, have an obligation to report to the NRC i
5 concerning transients or does the obligation fall solely on 6
the regulatory agency of the foreign government?
7 A
Part 21, which is based on I think Section 206 of a
the Energy Reorganization Act of '74, requires that certain 9
parties, including designers and construction companies and 10 operators and licensees of U.
S.
reactors, report to NRC 11 any safety defect, safety situation,which could reasonably 12 be considered to be a hazard to cause a safety problen, and n
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if one of those people knows of a defect such a defect in 13 e
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reactor, and he knows about this as a result of 15 overseas, whether he gets it in as an exporter or a vender 16 overseas or something else, he has to report under Part 21 17 the deficiency or the problem as it exists in the U.
S.
18 reactor.
19 Q
Would that include generic problems.
20 A
Yes.
What I am trying to say is that he is not 21 required to come home and tell us what is wrong with semebody else's reactor overseas.
n 23 He is required to come here and tell us what is 24 wrong with our reactor here.
25 i Q
Based as it may be on information gained from i
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experience with overseas reactors of the same type?
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That's right.
2 3
Q So you could conceivably receive details about an f
4 overseas transien' from the agency in the foreign country 5
which regulates their nuclear effort and from the domestic 6
vender who supplied the reactor to the foreign government?
A Yes.
8 Q
Customarily do you receive such information from 9
both sources?
10 A
Often when we receive information of this type, it 11 comes from several people involved, including our vender, la yes.
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Are there time requirements imposed en either the 14 vender of the agency concerning how soon after the occurrence 15 of a transient the transient be reported to the NRC?
16 A
I didn't get all the cuestion.
17 Q
Within what peried of time after the occurrence is of an overseas transient which bears on the domestic 19 industry must the vender report to the NRC concerning the
'N transient?
21 A
That is a detail of the regulation.
I am sure l
I that it is essentially as soon as he can convince himself
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sure what the regulation says.
Part 21 would say it.
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i 17 Q
From your recollection of the requirement, such t
as it may be, would a six month period of time be the d
3 outside period of time?
A From the time that the party in this country knows 4
about it, I would say in the case of most safety problems, 5
6 certainly most serious ones, he should be able to recognize and report within six months.
3 Q
It is my understanding that the vender remains g
intimately involved in the operation of a reactor which it to has supplied.
It may, for example, provide training programs for the utility, operator, operators.
It may provide it technical advice to the utility.
It may provide the technical 13 assistance in drafting responses to inquiries put to the A
13 utility by the NRC.
14 15 From your experience, does the supplier of a reactor 16 retain some involvement in the operation of a European reactor which it has supplied?
17 A
Yes.
ig Q
Is it along the same lines as the vender would 19 remain involved in the operation of a domestic reactor or 20 is it different?
21 A
I think it is probably roughly along the same lines, gg at the same magnitude of effort.
The scope might be a little
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05 Acme Reporting Company
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1 You can't call as fast on such a vender who happens to be (h
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'many miles away as a U.
S.
company can, and in each country v)
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3 there is a different kind of effort to create and support its own national industry, its own domestic industry.
4 5
Q Would a domestic vender be involved, for example, 6
in training the operators of a European plant?
A Could.
It is my impression it is a common, 3
continuing function.
9 O
Would the U. S. vender be involved in supplying to technical advice to the operator of a--
A Could be.
11 12 O
Is that a common occurrence, as far as you know?
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13 A
I think it is.
I couldn't tell you what percentage of the plants still retain the vender for technical advice.
14 15 Q
In your effort to keep apprised of European transients 16 that may bear on the domestic industry, do you also try to t-keep abreast of domestic transients which have highlighted 18 problems in the domestic industry?
A Only to the extent that we try to arrange 19 consultations.
Part of our function of exchanging go 21 information is trying to call regular meetings or ad hoc 23 meetings on important topics dr current topics, so to the i
extent that we had to know what the important current tcpics 23 s
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here.
n (v) 2 Q
Are these in-house meetings that you are referring 3
to?
4 A
No.
The meetings with other countries that we have 5
agreements with.
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I see, 7
A Mostly with the leading countries that we have 8
agreements with, the countries that have the most active 9
programs, mainly Germany and Japan.
10 0
How many countries has this country supplied with 11 nuclear reactors?
12 A
That question comes different every time it is
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14 O
Could that question be rephrased and produce a 15 different answer?
16 A
I guess not.
I am surprised that I don't right i
17 off recall how many countries there are.
These 18 that we 18 have agreements with, I think most of them have been supplied 19 with U.
S.
reactors and then there are a few others that, as 20 I said earlier, have been supplied U.
S.
reactors which we 21 still don't have agreements, so I guess that is how I come i
22 to the conclusion it is 10 to 20.
23 Q
And these are the agenc1-to-agency agreements that
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25 A
Yes.
In all cases, there is an existing agreement l
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for cooceration, as I said.
I might have said also that
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in the case of some of the international organizations, 3
notably the only one I know of is EURATOM in the European 1
4 countries, we now have agreement for cooperation with the 5
organization rather than with the individual country.
6 0
EUBATOM?
7 A
It is an acronym describing that community of the S
communities of Europe which is responsible for contracting 9
for and monitoring and safeguarding the fuel within the 10 European cccmunities.
11 Q
How old is the agreement with EURATOM?
12 A
In the mid '60's, the various country programs, fs I
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13 country agreements in Europe I believe were all melded into 14 the community agreement and that set up EURATOM.
15 Q
Is this an agreement between the NRC and EURATCM, 16 or is this--
17 A
It is an agreement between the U.
S.
Government 18 and EURATOM and the European communities.
19 O
Dces that supersade the previously existing 3) agreements of cooperation between government and government?
21 A
Between the United States and several of the 22 l
other governments; I am not sure whether the six members of t
23
(N tne EURATOM at that time all had agreements for ccoperation
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21 Q
Do you know the six members of EURATOM?
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I should--West Germany, France, Benelux, and Italy, 3
and now there are another three, so it is the nine--Ireland, r~
4 UK, and Denmark I believe.
I'm pretty sure that's right.
5 Q
So that would be nine?
6 A
Right now, but originally it was six.
. Q Which countries do you include in the Benelux 8
group?
9 A
Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg.
10 Q
In your effort to apprise foreign nuclear regulatory 11 agencies or foreign governments of transients which have 1
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occurred in this country which may be pcrtinent to their A/
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nuclear industry, do you recall if the NRC advised foreign 14 governments of the Davis-Besse transient which occurred in 15 September of 1977?
l 16 A
No, I don't recall.
Much of the advice that we give is by automatic distribution of published documents, 1
18 so unless.semething is really likely to cause a stir, an 19 I
interest, press interest and political interest in the i
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countries that have these kinds of reactors, we don't usually l
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prepare special correspondence on an incident.
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none overseas so that would have accounted for a little idfferent interest.
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0 There are no B&W plants in Europe?
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2 A
There is one that is being built.in Germany, but
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there is none in operation.
It has some differences, too.
4 I am not familiar with the details, but there are some 5
differences that have been mentioned by the people that we 6
have talked to about it casually as being either like some 7
of the plants, but not like TMI or like none of the U. S.
8 plants or something like that, that were talked of in the 9
context of being a little better from the point of view of 10 this kind cf transient.
11 Q
Has the German government been advised of transient 12 history with domestic B&W plants such as the Davis-Besse
)
13 incident in September,'77 or the Davis-Besse transient in
'14 November of '77 or the March, 1979 transient at OMI 2?
15 A
I don't know.
I am sure that they have, but I have 16 not specifically called it out to them that I recall.
I can 17 go back and try to look at the various distributions we 18 have made of operating reports, and I am sure we will turn 19 up some on this, but I am not sure, not absolutely sure.
20 Q
Is this something that could be done during a break 21 in the deposition, or would it take some time to compose a 22 list?
23 A
That was a long time ago.
I will see if it can be (A
24 done while we are talking.
25 MR. HELFMAN:
Let's go off the record.
Acme Reporting Company
a 23 (A discussion was held off the record.)
g O
BY MR. HELFMAN:
j
(%
2 0
Y u have brought with you a document which is 3
entitled "LER Monthly Report" dated July lith, 1979 and it 4
1 ks like a sof t-bound booklet of some 91 pages.
5 Could you explain for the record what this is and 6
who receives it.
A We receive it monthly as a listing of all the 3
reported licensee reports.
I think they are all included g
and it is distributed in this country within the NRC report to system to whoever is interested, and we distribute it to it the people, the contacts designated under our agreements for g
O i
regulatory information, cooperation overseas, including 13 Germany.
14 Q
Do you eliminate from the LER n.onthly report g
LER's concerning plant designs which are inapplicable to 16 European plants?
A No.
73 Q
They get everything?
g A
They get everything.
,y Q
These are basically summaries of LER's?
gg A
They are the important narrative description of aach incident, of each report.
23 s
O I see.
For example, on page 81 of the LER monthly report there is a reference to Three Mile Island 1, and 3
i Acme Reporting Comoony L
24 t
there are three series of numbers following the identification 7
's i
2 of the particular facilities.
3 Is there a date somewhere in these numbers that 4
indicate the date of the LER or the date of the transient?
5 The title of the column is event date, report i
6 date, and report type.
I O
So for this particular transient, what would be l
8 the date' 9
A The first item is the date, so it must be the 10 second, or February 28,
'79.
11 Q
I see, so the second column of numbers indicate the 12 dates of the particular transients?
i(' j 13 A
Yes.
14 MR. HELFMAN:
I would like to have this document 15 marked as an exhibit to the deposition.
May we retain 16 this for the purposes of the deposition?
17 THE WITNESS:
Yes.
13 (LaFleur Exhibit No. 2 was 19 marked for identification.)
20 BY MR.'HELFMAN:
21 Q
This LER monthly report is dated July lith, 1979.
2 How often do these appear?
23 A
Monthly.
,_\\
(s- /
\\
24 Q
Co you distribute them on a monthly basis to 25 European countries which have American-supplied reacters and Acme Reporting Compony
25 t
have agreements of cooperation with this country?
h A
To foreign countries, including European and others.
2 d
3 Q
Do you distribute these LER monthly reports to 4
countries that do not have an agency-to-agency agreement 5
regarding sharing of information?
6 A
I will have to answer that exactly--I am not sure.
We have about four different mailing lists and some go only 3
to those designated contacts under the agreements.
Some go to all of the people who have any form of cooperation, 9
10 including v3ry informal with us.
Some go to people it designated to receive urgent messages in the countries, and 12 so as to the LER, I am certain that the countries that have
\\
13 the agreements with us, that have light water reactors, do s) s s
receive them, but I am not sure exactly who else might 14 receive that one.
15 16 Q
Would it be pos'sible to obtain the lists to which 1-you just referred, the routing lists so that we could see 18 who gets what?
A
- Yes, 19 y)
Q Could we do that now and then perhaps make that an 21 exhibit to the deposition?
22 A
Okay.
1 MR. HELFMAN:
Off the record.
93 l
/^'\\
\\m,)
(A discussion was held off the record.)
24 l
MR. HELFMAN:
Back on the record.
25 Acme Reporting Company
26 t
I BY MR. HELF EN:
p
(
2 Q
Does the NRC receive similar regular notification 3
from any foreign agencies or governments concerning 4
transients at plants in their countries?
5 A
Yes.
6 0
Is that the bulk of countries or is it to a few 7
you are providing such regular information?
8 A
The information we receive from the foreign 9
governments depends largely on how they normally repcrt it to domestically, each country.
Most of them don't have nearly 11 the reporting detail or the requirements for open use of 12 the information that we have.
O)
'\\s /
13 We have not adopted a system in this country for 14 selecting and reporting the incidents that are important and 15 that have to be distributed to everybody; although 16 important incidents by various systems of recognition here 17 are distributed dcmestically, we have not come to a standard 18 format for reporting of foreign information.
19 In the absence of that, we have asked the other 2
countries to send whatever they can, which is their usual 21 form, in their usual form, and several of the countries send 1
22 good information.
I think the Germans do.
I think the I
23 f 'y French.
We get scme good selection of important information.
t
- \\
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l 24 Our use of the information is to see that it gets l
25 distributed to the people whohave a need to know around our Acme Reporting Company
27 I
agency, depending what what is the information, what is in 1
w
/
s o
i
( )
the incident report.
i 3
Does that answer the question?
4 0
Yes, it does,and it answers that question and the 5
next two questions.
6 Where information is received from a foreign I
government or a foreign agency and the NRC receives it, and 8
I assume some evaluation occurs, is that information then 9
transmitted to venders or utilities in this country that 10 operate similar plants' 11 A
Our responsibility is to transmit it to the people 12 here in Inspection and Enforcement and in licensing or in s
)
13 s,/
research who have the responsibility in turn to digest it 14 and to evaluate it and to distribute it for them.
15 Q
Is such information pretty much handled the same 16 as would a domestic LER once it is received by the NRC and i
17 put into the normal staff processes?
IS A
To the best of my knowledge it is, yes, 19 Q
So far as you know, has the NRC sought additional i
20 information or details from foreign agencies or governments 21 regarding transients reported by them?
A I can think of at least two transients that we t
23 inquired further about.
24 Q
Dces the NRC ever send investigators to the site 25 of a foreign plant to do on-site investigations such as might Acme Reporting Company 1
28 e
be done in this country with a domestic transient?
1
,O A
Yes.
Transients--the answer: is yes, and also other
(
2 safety problems such as long-term damage that might be studied or leaking of pipes and that kind of thing, we discuss in l
ad hoc or periodic meetings with the foreign parties.
Q Does the Office of International Programs have its own investigators for the investigation of overseas transients?
A No.
8 Q
Whose services do you employ?
Wot$1d that be I&E investigators?
A In the ad hoc side of it, we would make up a team of whoever NRC is interested to go talk about a problem.
p We have been in addition conducting with the two main
~
countries that operate most of the light water reactors of 14 the U.
S.
type overseas, Germany and Japan, trying to set
~~"
I "9'
"9
- 16 annually a meeting with each of these two other countries either there or here to scecifically discuss current generic IS l
problems and for either side to tell the other of important 19 l
things, recognized to be important, that they hadn't told 20 about in the cast.
~
21 I have been exploring this as a way of attempting to get more information in addition to the lack of public l
23
' q
(,,,/
reporting in the other countries.
There is a reluctance by many parties, many people to talk abour embarrassing l
Acme Reporting Company
29 1
nuclear incidents, and I have hoped that by these meetings 2
we, these meetings would tend to overcome the reluctance to
/V) 3 write a report about something and also having a suitable 4
and appropriate time and place for both parties to sit down 5
and discuss that as a matter of the agenda I think is a 6
goed way of encouraging more flow of information of this type.
0 With respect to on-site investigation of European a
transients, has the NRC been able to send inspectors to the 9
site of a European facility to further investigate the 10 details of a reported transient?
11 A
With respect to what?
12 A
To a reported transient.
j 13 A
Yes.
v) i4 Q
Is that generally an acceptable procedure to the 15 foreign government with whom we deal, or are there some that 16 are receptive to that and some that are not?
t-A We have never been refused a request that we make tg for us to make a visit to a country to talk about a new 19 problem that they have, or a recent report that we got from 3
them.
21 Q
I am referring to on-site investigation rather than 22 conferences or discussions.
23 A
The three or four times that I can recall that l
(3
()
we have requested meetings of this kind, on site or off site,!
24 25 we have gotten what we requested.
Acme Reporting Company
l 30 t
Q You referred to a reluctance of some foreign
(/)N 2
countries to report embarrassing transients.
3 Is this a common problem with foreign governments who have been supplied with American reactors?
4 5
A The United States has by far the most open system of 6
reporting everything,as I said, so much so that we have so 7
much, the problem is how to use it.
g The other countries invariably report less for 9
domestic and outside consumption than we do.
Among the ohter to countries, the amount reported varies from practically 11 nothing to almost as much as we report.
12 Q
Is there such a wide variation among say European
~~
- U countries?
Are there some European countries that supply 13 virtually nothing and others that supply much more?
14 A
Yes.
Now one of the mechanisms that we use to 15 overcome this--
16 (A discussion was held off the record.)
17 MR. HELFMAN:
Would you read back where we were?
13 13 (The record was read by the reporter.)
THE WITNESS:
One of the mechanisms we use is' to 20 honor confidentiality of information when it is requested, 21 22 and we as a policy have agreed in these agreements, these 7N 23 agency-to-agency agreements and in all of our subsequent U
relations with these countries that if they can supply us 24 some information only on a confidential basis under the 23 i
l l
Acme Resortine Comr-lenJ/
31 f
I condition that it be kept confidential, not given public fx
(
disclosure, we can accept it that way,and we agree to 2
n 3
keep it confidential.
4 BY MR. HELFMAN:
5 Q
How would the NRC go about advising a domestic 6
vender or domestic utility of a significant European transient if the information regarding that transient were provided--
g A
In confidence?
9 0
In confidence.
A There are t'Jo or three ways.
10 (A discussion was held off the record.)
it 12 THE WITNESS:
So the question was something to the i
i effect of how do we tell our licensees when we know of such h_,/
13 14 a problem but it is received on a confidential basis?
15 BY MR. HELFMAll:
16 Q
Yes.
t-A First, as with the gimmick used in Part 21, as I 13 mentioned earlier, we don't have to tell them anything about I
tg what happened in the foreign country.
All we have to tell 3
them is what we know is wrong with their reactor.
2t (A discussion was held off the record.)
THE WITNESS:
We don't have to tell them what is 22 fy 23 wrong with the foreign reactor.
All we have to tell them is i
(
i
\\
24 what we know to be wrong or potentially wrong with their 23 reactor, so if we knew from foreign experience of a dangerous j_
Acme Reporting Compony i
32 4
i situation in one of our reactors, we only have to tell our (9) 2 operator to show us how he can avo.id such a problem or hcw 3
he can fix it or that he doesn' t have the problem.
That 4
is the first way.
5 BY MR. HELFMAN:
6 Q
Are there others?
A The way ways are that we don' t have to, although 8
we have authority under the Executive Order to classify 9
this information as national security information, we don' t to have to do that in every case.
11 We only do that in the very serious cases where we 12 really feel that there is a fairly high potential for
,s
/
i
[\\-)
leaking the information otherwise because of the interest, 13 14 the heat of the moment, of where we think there is some other 13 factor that would make it serious enough to apply that 16 protection, that level of protection.
t-We can do it in administrative ways.
We c an is protect it.
We can mark it with a marking saying do not 19 disclose without permission of the NRC or the International
.)
Program of NRC, and there are other exemptions, for e.~ ample, y
21 Exemption 4 which applies to commercial information, 22 Exemptien 1 being national security information, under the l (N 23 different regulations such as FOIA procedures.
1 l
Q FOIA?
24 i
A Freedom of Information Act--but some of the Exemption 25,
I i
l Acme Reporting Company l
33 i
a i
t 4 being, is commercial.
Exemption 1 is national security
(
)
information.
There are other exemptions such as personnel 2
N-3 matters and so forth, among the other, that might sometimes apply, but those two are the ones that we usually discuss.
4 We can protect information if we don't think it is 5
1 6
important enough to require the full national security j
7 protection and still make it usable, and thereby make it more l
usable to our staff and to licensees and venders and other l
S 9
people who have a need to know.
to The other thing we can do is if it is serious 11 and if we do classify it, we can require that the licensee 12 and the venders have cleared people to receive the informatior,
s
/
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)
hs /
13 but usually that is the extreme because what we begin to deal with soon after we obtain che information is something 14 15 wrong in our plant, not somathing wrong overseas, so we can 16 usually use the information without identifying the source and without making it evident that there is something wrong 17 13 in an overseas plant.
Q So basically you are able to use the information 19 00 that you gained from the overseas transient without 21 identifying the plant and the countries involved?
22 A
Without even saying it happened overseas because 7x 03 it is getting different now, but there were so few reactors
(
)
k/
overseas if you say where it happened and you say the kind 24 25 of plant and you say when it was shut down or you imply when i
l I
Acme Reporting Company l
34 it was chut down, then it is easy to ::ero in on which foreign 8
i 2
plant it is, and there have been some instances of that kind of thing.
3 Q
Would I be correct in assuming then that 4
5 confidentiality of such information applies primarily to 6
identifying the source rather than to the information
- .tself ?
7 A
That is true, but it is a trap that we have to be a
g very careful of.
to It is very difficult to say that something happened 11 overseas and still protect it just by not saying in what 12 plant and what country.
Q S
if y u receive information concerning an overseas O
13 t
transient and you wish to advise domestic venders or 14 utilities or to pose questions to them concerning the transient, 15 you could describe the sequence of events involved in the 16 transient as the information was provided to you from the 17 13 foreign source and protect that information by not dis-closing the name of the country, the name of the plant, and 19 the fact that it was a foreign transient?
Is that generally 20 correct?
.,1 A
It is very difficult to apply that generally.
I gg 23 would say that you can protect the information by digesting it and dealing with the problems in the U. S. plant and 24 I
not describing the incident in the overseas plant any more 23 l
l l
Acme Reporting Company
.u v n......
35 r
i than you have to to get to the information.
h Q
So you would attempt to exlude--
(
]
2 tv A
The other ways you can do it are to require an 3
agreement of confidentiality from the people who ceive 4
the information in the case of not classified, protected 5
6 information, or to require clearances and a clear understand-ing of wl.c is classified in the case of classified 7
information.
3 0
In either the former or the latter case, protected 9
L2t not classified information, and classified information, 10 you would then provide the vender or the U ility with the 11 full story?
13 (O) 13 A
Yes.
i;v 0
Which is the more commonly used approach to digest 14 the information, to withhold the name of the country, the 15 16 name of the plant and the fact that it was an overseas transient, or the use of confidentiality agreements or t-security ratings of the information and then supplying the 15 entire story to the vender or the utility?
- 9 A
In the context we are talking about, operational 3
information, I would say the digestion in the staff here of 21 the infcrmation usually pooled with domestic information 3
to form a composite picture end d.cn discussing with the
-33 7-s
)
cperators the licensees or incorporating into regulations
.,4 or new designs requirements of the information without 25 l
Acme Reporting Company l
36 I
any reference at s'.1 to any foreign plant, but we are 7
(G
)
2 dwelling upon a very small percentage of the total information 3
that we get from overseas, or that we use in our regulatory 4
actions here.
5 Q
Is it true that most of the information you receive 6
is provided without a request for confidentiality or pro-7 tection of this sort?
8 A
Yes.
9 Q
Is that becTuse there are very few countries that to require this type of protection?
11 A
No.
It is because only a few of the incidents are 12 so sensitive, information about very few of the incidents
/~h Q
13 is sensitive.
14 Q
As a general matter, the request for confidential 15 treatment of information would be made on a case-by-case 16 or transient by transient basis?
17 A
Yes.
I don't think that would be the case.
I 18 think it will be a.little different when we get a more 19 standardized reporting from overseas, but when we start 20 telling the people overseas we now have a system for using 21 foreign information along with our own information and we E
would like you to furnish all of the information in the r
23 following categories in the following format, or at least l [-~s
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24 including information enough for us to put it in the follow-25 ing format, then if we pressed the other countries to give l
i Acme Reporting Company l
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37 e
i us all of that information, I think we would get more n
(V) 2 routinely marked confidential things.
3 I mentioned a while ago that there was what we 4
talk about as operational experience information.
We also i
5 have agreements in research, and in many of the countries j
6 overseas, the research information may come out initially 7
in draft form or it may come out always with some kind of 8
a protection, copyright or marking on it saying this is the i
9 property of somebody, and it is not to be given to anybody 10 freely, not to be given away without any restrictions.
It 11 is restricted in fact, so in that case, it is more of a 12 routine policy of the owner, the originator, that is involved (O
g 13 there I believe.
14 O
That applies far less to normal operating information and experience?
15 16 A
That's right.
17 Q
Are there any overseas countries that as a general is matter require information they provide concernining operat-19 ing experience to be held confidential as a general matter 20 on a transient-by-transient basis?
21 A
Most countries have a national policy that 22 information is not released by the government until it has 23 been approvad for release, and many countries in addition-
,. s t
}%-
24 have a strong policy that any information that is given to 25 them in the course of their official duties by a private Acnue Reporting Company l
~.
38 I
source remains to a certain extent the prcperty of the private p
2 source, or even by a public corporation in the case of a 3
nationalized utility, so that unless the country had 4
established a policy and a system for publishing operating 5
information, it would just be unusual to release it without 6
any controls at all, and if it had, well then, it would have 7
been culled in some way to provide a certain selection of 3
what is important and what can be released and so forth.
9 Q
Is what you are saying that there do not exist any to foreign countries that have a general requirement that 11 information be provided to the NPC be held confidential 12 because there is already some pre-screening that goes on in i
13 those countries?
4 A
Usually in most countries there is some system 13 for reporting, and it may be very sparse and it may be very 16 well laundered--please strike that--it may be very well 17 edited before it is released.
Is Q
Are you speculating or do you know of countries that 19 do launder or edit transients that are reported to the NRC?
20 A
I think much more so overseas than here; everything 21 that is officially released for public use is edited.
22
-Q Overseas?
23 A
Yes.
24 Q
Does the NRC have an agreement with any overseas 25 country to hold confidential all information received from Acme Reporting Company
39 1
that country concerning operating experience?
/o
(
n A
No, and most of what we get from every country is
~~
3 open information,but we have agreements with all countries 4
to protect what they ask us to protect.
5 Q
On a case-by-case or transient-by-transient. basis?
6 A
That's right.
I Q
You indicated a few noments ago that you were 8
aware of a number of overseas transients that had some 9
similarity to the TMI 2 incident in March of this year.
10 Do you recall now specifically which transients you 11 were referring to?
12 A
There was a well-publicized incident in Germany 13 at Gundrimmingen.
14 Q
When was that?
15 A
I think the beginning of ' 77.
Announcements were 16 made about it in Germany, about its effect and what happened 17 there was a transient which led to opening of a pressure 18 release valve.and the pressure relief valve was damaged and 19 didn't shut as it was supposed to.
20 This is, as you know, a very common concern with 21 pop. valves, and a lot of water was spilled on the ficor and 22 it was in effect a blowdown of a system.
23 In that case, we talked to the operators and the l (x) l d'#
24 covernment people soon after it in a lot of detail and l
25 understood fully the kind of incident involved and used the Acme Reporting Company
40 I
information here, and it was released through--I don't f %.
()
recall just how it was released, how it was used in our 2
3 regulatory or the licensing and inspection side.
I don't 4
know if I knew all the details, but I know it was thoroughly 5
considered here.
It was well understood.
6 Some of that was confidential and some wasn't.
I I
think I mentioned there have been a lot of information 8
worldwide about cracking of stainless steel pipes in BWR's 9
pipes.
This is a continuing generic concern in BWR reactors.
10 Q
Is that a concern which arises from plants going l
11 solid?
1 12 A
No.
It is because of the boiling regimes in the
\\
e~
13 steady state operation of BWR's.
The tendency toward a s-l 14 certain kind of stainless steel uracking is greater in BRW 15 than in PWR's, and the cracking so far has not been 16 catastrophic.
It has been gradula, and it is a well studied, 17 well publicized phenomenon that we have to watch out for, is and we have gottea a lot of experience from overseas that 19 has been factored into our data base here,and in the usual 20 way we get such information, it is usually in an internal 21 report being used currently in an overseas agency, and it has some kind of protection on it, so usually what we do in 23 a case like that is we use it and when we are. getting ready 7y\\)
to publish something like an annual c; a current, an update
\\
24 25l of the BWR cracking phencmenon report, we would look at what I,.
Acme Reporting Company l
41
)
l finally came out of the report and see whether it reflects 1
s) closely enough something that happened overseas that hasn' t (d
2 been publicized overseas, and then check if necessary with 3
the owner as to whether we can release that or whether 4
we have to modify it.
5 Q
With regard to the Gundrimmingen transient, were 6
you provided with the German equivalent of an LER on that transient?
3 A
I don' t know.
I would have to look back and see.
g We were t ld about the incident directly by the government 10 and by a captive contractor of the government in Germany.
11 Q
An American?
12 T
A And I don' t know whether one of the listings that 13 we get f German continuing experience had an incident 14 on it.
I'm sure it did.
la.
Q Would that be an American contractor?
16 A
No.
After we learned about this, we had many g
discussions with the German Ministry of Interior, which is ig the regulatory organization, with the state, the German 19 state government of Bavaria, pecople there, with the GRS, gg which is their, it is an rganization that does technical 31 l
support work and research for the Ministry of Interior on a continuing basia, and I don' t know what the words are.
33 GRS is the outfit, and in that case, we also eventually (s
3 involved the utility because we visited there and the l
25 I
Acme Reporting Company l
[
42 1
General Electric Company was involved because they were fh 2
there and built the plant.
J 3
0 Was this a boiling water reactor?
4 A
Yes.
5 0
Would it be possible for you to get ahold of 6
whatever report was provided to you on this transient?
7 Perhaps we can mark it as an exhibit to the damosition.
8 A
I can give you what has been released, approved 9
for release.
10 Q
Let's take a look at that.
Shall we go off the 11 record for tPat?
12 A
Yes.
hh 13 (A discussion was held off the record.)
g j
14 MR. HELFMAN:
On the record.
15 THE WITNESS:
The use of such information in our 16 report, of course, is where it really, is its usefulness 17 to us and where it makes a contribution to our safety in 18 this country.
19 BY MR. HELFMAN:
20 0
Oces your office keep track of the use made by 21 the NRC of information?
Z!
A No.
23 Q
Do you recall any other overseas transients that I
! L/
24 have some common marks with the TMI 2 incident of March l
l 25 of this year?
l l
Acme Reporting Company womam
43 A
Th3ro was a French incident that happened sinco then, 1
by the way, since the Three Mile Island, at a reactor s
3 called CAP in southern France which had c failure in a 3
It was a special kind of reactor with a 4
steam generator in the head of the reactor, and it resulted 5
in a transient and some leakage of a small amount of 6
radiation.
I think if you analyzed, which we are presumably 8
doing because we furnished the information to the staff g
here, it you would find some elements very similar to what to happened at Three Mile Island.
13 Q
Do you recall if PORV failure was involved in this?
gg A
No, I don' t think it was.
13 Do you recall whether in 'he German transient which Q
c 14 you described operator action was involved in that transient, lo.
09" " O
" #0#
8 837 16 A
I don' t recall.
There was another incident in g
Germany after that one I think.
3g Q
Prior to TMI 2?
g A
Yes--wherein operators didn't believe some g
instruments or for some other ::eason made an error permitting 3
a continuing, an incident to aggravate.
3 Q
Do you recall when that was?
,,3
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It was after the Gundrimmingen one, but it was A
1
.,4 before Three Mile Island.
The occurrenca, the fact that an
.,5 i
i Acme Reporting Company 1
f 44 incident of that kind occurred were publicized, ware in j'~h the papers, and there were a couple of others that happened.
2
\\v)
There has been an incident that you asked about earlier, 3
the one in one country in Europe where there was a ~ Westinghouse 4
type reactor.
5 e
s e second German incident 6
before we move on to others.
Do you recall the vender?
7 A
No.
As I recall, the special interest in that one 8
was the operator error, the operator inaction that might g
have, that if continued might have caused serious incident to and if terminated earlier would have cut down on the 11 importance of the incident.
13 m
(
)
Q Would it be possible to get the equivalent of an LER 13 v
whatever was provided to you on this second German incident?
14 A
I guess so.
5 Q
Perhaps we should go off the record while you make 16 the arrangements?
A Do you want to be in all of these incidents?
Do 18 y u want all the information, and am I to make a complete 19 search of all that we have and all that we have reported on gg this?
I There are incidents that have occurred, they 1
gg 03l haven' t cccurred, but our discussiona dn cur interest have
/ \\
/
\\
(
)
occurred in one or more meetings and in several documented ems
.,4 rep rts, and it would be a research project to do this.
25 Acme Reporting Company
45 Q
What I would like is initially whatavar you can find and if there is additional material available and you can
/m 2
)
get your hands on it after the deposition today is 3
recessed, I would appreciate your providing it to me, perhaps through Mr. Rehms' secretary or directly from your office, 3
and if we have any questions, we can perhaps get in contact 6
with you and ask you if there is additional information.
A You are just selecting the ones that I choice to remember as examples.
Do you want everything we have ever g
reported on a foreign incident?
g Q
Is there some list that you could refer to that would give us an idea of overseas reported transients and a O
rough idea of what was involved in the transient?
I
'd A
We could make one up, but I don't know if it would 14 be complete and it would require a lot of work.
O Well, I hate to add to the burdens that your l
16
)
office already has in handling its workload, but despite my 1,.
oersonal reluctance, I think that I have an obligation to l
request the information, and so would it be possible for you g
l to arrange to have made up such a list which would then be transmitted to our office upon completion?
A Transients overseas?
Q Overseas transients with a brief description of the elements of the transients.
w A
You have thcusands and thousands of transients in 25 Acme Reporting Company a
.e......
l 46 1
the United States.
2 0
All right.
Let's try to limit it then.
Perhaps 3
we can confine ourselves to overseas transients which 4
involved PORV failures, open or closed; pressurizer level 5
indication problems; containment actuation problems; operator 6
error based on disbelief of indicator readouts; core 7
uncoveries; divergence of core coolant inventory and pressure 8
level indication.
9 A
Pressure level indication?
10 0
Yes.
11 A
Operator error, disbelieve of instruments probably 12 is in every transient that ever occurred.
(
13 Q
Well, perhaps ye ought to limit that further--
s "14 operator error based on disbelieve of indicators indicating 15 core coolant level or pressure level, operator interruption 16 of HPI; I think for the moment that should do it.
17 Do you have any idea how long it would take to put 18 together such a list?
19 A
My problem is we have a room full of foreign 20 reports, some of which we haven't translated.
1 21 Q
Well then, let's put an additional limit on that 22 anc donfine it to pre-TMI 2 transients, overseas transients, 23 and perhaps that will exclude the bulk of material that has p!).
24 not yet been translated.
J 25 A
Would you want to confine it to those that have come Acme Reporting Company i
u......
47 i
to the attention of the people here, of the technical people
,}
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g here?
'O 3
Q How would you be able to provide me with a list of transients that did not come to the attention of the NRC?
4 5
I don't see quite what you are asking.
6 A
We send routinely copies of reports that we receive from the foreign governments, but I am not sure how much a
they are used, just like our LER's are used.
I am not sure 9
that there is any systematic evaluation that goes on, but I think those that we know are important or we are told are 10 important by the overseas governments or make the headlines 11 12 are picked up by people doing periodic studies or studies
[G
)
13 of special kind of problems, those would be the ones that
[4 might have been studied by NRC.
15 Q
Now I don't think that we want to limit it to those 16 that have been reported in the papers or those that t-received particularly intensive study by the NRC.
I think 18 we will just leave it, A
At the end of the question, my question is why are 19 go we picking on transients,because just that is what happened 21 at TMI?.There are other kinds of safety problems that go on that are studied in various countries all the time.
22 23 Q
That's a good point.
Would a foreign government
,r'w i
(
)
report to you a defect they found ina picce of equipment, 44 x/
even if a transient didn't result?
25 Acme Reporting Company 272 12A'dtes
48 e
1 A
Yes, like the cracking business of stainless steel.
[
2 O
Okay.
Let's include in that list then reports b}
3 of problems with or defects with the PORV, pressurizer level 4
indication, procedures concerning operator interruption of 5
HPI, and containment actuation, whether or not they resulted 6
in transients or accidents.
7 A
This will ignore all of the unreported, I mean all 8
of the unwritten meetings where much of our information 9
transmits.
10 Many times someone comes here to ask about a current 11 problem and he discusses it with the people who are here.
12 Q
Would there be some way of including in the list 13 material that is received in that fashion?
14 A
I doubt it, unless we started interviewing every 15 visitor to the staff.
16 Q
Let's divide the list into three parts--the first 17 part dealing with transients or accidents involving the items 18 listed; the second part dealing with the particular pieces 19 of equipment or procedures which were noted but did not 20 result in accident or transients; and the third part, whatevem 21 information you can gather concerning informally relayed 22 information about either accidents, transients, or the 23 material covered in the second part, recognizing that the m
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24 material on the third cart of the list will be incomplete 25 since it is not--
Acme Reporting Company
49 A
What in tha third itcm?
1 Q
Information concerning either accidents and V}
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2 transients or the material covered in the second part, which 3
information was transmitted to you through conversations or meetings or discussions and which was not reduced to official reports, LER's and so forth, the material that you suggested would require interviewing everyone on the staff to get all of it, and then we would recognize that the third part would be incomplete due to the fact that it would be based on the memory of people and so forth.
A I will furnish you a list of visitors who come on the tocics they have discussed.
12 Q
And where they came from?
O 13
(
I A
Yes.
14 1
Q All right.
Let's make that the third part then.
A I frankly think you are wasting your time, but that's 16 okay.
It's not my business to think that.
Q Why do you think we would be wasting our time?
A Because you are asking for everything that exists.
Do you plan to take all of this stuff like that book there
)
and go back to day one?
There are hundreds of thousands of entries.
I won't have a hundred thousand.
I will have 22 what we have gotten in our more or less successful searches.
'O O
Shall we start with 1973?
24 A
That won't make any difference.
There wasn't an 25 Acme Reporting Company l
m,
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50 1
NRC before '75.
~
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2 Q
Let's start with 1975.
The problem is I really i\\
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3 don' t know how useful the material is going to be until I i
see it.
4 5
A It will be about as useful as what is in there.
a After you see it you say well, a transient, and it is going i
to take a he.1 of a lot of work to put together.
I think I 3
will do it.
I wil) check and see if I can do it.
g Q
If you complete the first part before you complete to the other two, you can complete that and if you complete the 11 second part before you do the third, you can transmit that.
ig It will probably be easier for us to get it as you complete
(,h I
13 it*
/
A The stuff that I have read before we passed on it 14 15 comes in the form that was in these gray books--a brief 16 narrative description of the problem that might have t-occurred during the period.
13 0
Would it be with a composite of all overseas 19 transients, or do particular countries provide gray bcok 20 type summaries of the transients they have experienced?
21 A-There is a report from the IAEA on important gg operating experience of all the world reactors or all member 23 reactors during a year.
p 24 0
IAEA?
A The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and 3;
i Acme Reporting Company
t l
51 i
there is a similar report by EURATCM, but the basic (n
2 problem here is that we will have a certain bulk of data
)
s
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v and it will be difficult for you to see how somebody might 3
have used it.
4 5
Q In any event, that is not something that your office follows?
6 A
No.
3 Q
So that information we would have to get from another office or branch within NRC?
9 10 A
Yes.
11 Q
When you receive this information dich branch do you transmit it to?
Is that I&E, licensing?
12
)
13 A
At least to NRR, licensing that is, and usually s_-
I&E and maybe research if it has to do with non-reactor 14 facilities, to NMSS to material safety and safeguards.
j 13 i
16 Q
Do you also transmit information to operating reactors?
t-IS A
Oh, no, to the division in NRR, yes, we send it to NRR, and then they are usually our contact and we either 19 29 send it to them directly if we know they are the ones who 21 are interested in it, or we send it to NRR and let them decide 22l what to do with it.
Q Okay.
So just to summarize now, you are going to
[ _
23:
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? (_-)
24j provide to us today before the deposition is completed the l
.,3 LER type report, whatever #orm it took on the, and I still l
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l Acme Reporting Company l
52 1
can' t pronounce the name, Gundrimmingen transient, and then n) 2 the second German transient which you mentioned which
(
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3 occurred af ter the first, but before TMI 2, which involved 4
some sort of operator action or inaction based on disbelief 5
of indicators.
6 A
Yes.
7 Q
And then some time after the conclusion of the 8
deposition, the list that we have composed concerning 9
overseas transients.
10 Do you have any idea how long it would take?
11 A
I am not sure we have kept them all.
That's the 12 problem.
We have passed them on cnd we have increased here
/'
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13 from a staff of 2 to a staff of 10 or so in the last three t
f
%j 14 or four years, and I'will have to go back and see how good 15 we have kept copies of it.
What I will give you won't be 16 complete in any way.
17 0
Would two weeks be a reasonable time estimate?
18 A
Yes.
19 Q
All right.
You were mentioning a few moments ago 20 another incident involving a Westinghouse overseas reactor.
21 Could you continue with that?
i 22 A
Yes.
I have a statement here that I can give you 23 on it.
G
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I
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24 Q
May I have that?
3 A
I cangive you a little bit more information.
l i
t 1
Acme Reporting Company r,
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53 9
1 MR. HELFMAN:
Before you do, let's mark this as 2
)
an exhibit to the deposition.
\\d s
3 (LaFleur Exhibit No. 3 was 4
marked for identification.)
5 THE WITNESS:
For the time being, we are treating 6
that as confidential, but not as classified.
7 BY MR. HELFMAN:
8 Q
All right.
This statement which you have provided 9
me has been marked Exhibit No. 3 to your deposition.
It is to a two paragraph statement beginning with quote, the 11 paragraph, and then unquote, and then at the end of the 12 statement, unquote.
13
$v!
Could you tell me what this is quoting from?
14 A
It is a statement that we sent to the originators 15 of the information proposing after some discussion, proposing 16 what we ndght say in public about it.
17 Q
I see.
is A
And then it says how about the following statement 19 being used, and quote, unquote.
'N Q
Did they request deletion of some information that 21 you had originally suggested might be disclosed?
'M A
I don' t recall.
I didn't do it.
23 Q
Is this the entire statemen that was sent to the I
)
's
/
24 originator?
i 05 A
I don't recall.
I think it was.
Acme Reporting Company
54 Q
Would it be possible for you to find out if there 1
(~)
were?
2 V
A This is all that is approved for release.
3 Q
By the NRC?
4 A
By then.
5 (A discussion was held of f the record.)
6 MR. HELFMAN:
Back on the record.
7 3Y MR. HELFMAN:
3 0
I note that this report, the statement which you 9
have provided and which has been marked as Exhibit No.
3, 10 refers to a Westinghouse reactor in which a PORV valve was 11 challenged and failed to close, that the valve is essentially 12 I
D the same as those used on Westinghouse reactors.
/
13 O
The statement does' not indicate the date of the 14 transient.
Are you aware of approximately when this 33 transient occurred?
16 A
Yes.
17 13 Q
When is that?
I A
.I can't tell you, only because it is not included 19 i
20 in the complete statement that we were allowed to release.
gg Q
Okay.
The information which is held confidential I
i is pursuant to an agreement between the NRC and--
gg A
One of the other countries.
23 t
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34 Q
Between the NRC and that country?
s A
Its regulatory agency.
l 25 Acme Reporting Company
r l
55 l
l Q
And the information that you cannot disclose 1
/~
includes the date of the incident?
(x A
The only information that I have permission to l
3 disclose is what is in the statement.
4 Q
I should note for the record that the statement 5
does not contain the name of the country, the name of the 6
reactor, the date of the incident.
It does not indicate what 7
corrective measures were taken.
It does not indicate the g
date on which the incident was reported to the NRC or who g
reported it.
l l
Now with respect to this transient, is it possible l
11 for you to disclose when the NRC became aware of it?
'(G A
I don' t know as to whether I could tell you what I L s 13 know about when we learned about it.
I guess I am l
obligated to tell you.
I don't know of any basis for denying to.
l 16 It came after the Three Mile Island incident.
It l
happened before.
g Q
Since the time this transient was reported to the l
NRC, has the NRC communicated with Westinghouse concerning
,,0 this transient?
21 I think they have.
I think I have heard that they A
l have.
I have not.
[
t Q
- Your office has not been involved in that?
k.)
24 A
I don't think so, no.
Acme Reporting Company
56
~
1 Q
Are you aware of whether this transient also 2
involved a containment isolation problem?
\\x_
3 I have been led to believe that this particular reactor--strike that.
Are you aware of whether this 4
transient involved an HPI actuation problem?
I have been 5
led to believe that the design required both a pressure 6
indication and a coolant level indication to actuate HPI 8
but that during the course of this transient, pressure.and g
coolant level diverged.
10 A
I would rather not answer.
I feel comfortable only 11 in talking about what is in the statement there.
12 Q
Would it be possible to confer with Mr. Chopko
'( )
concerning my question and perhaps he could advise you as to 13
.v 14 whether you can discuss that matter?
A We can confer separately, but I think I made it 15 clear that the only permission, release that I can make about 16 it is there.
t-MR. HELFMAN:
Shall we go off the record for this 13 conference?
19 (The witness conferred with his counsel.)
20 21 MR. HELFMAN:
Let's go back on the record.
Could i
22 you read back the last exchange?
l, 23 (The record was read by the reporter.)
Q)
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24 MR. EELFMAN:
Mr. Chopko has a statement to make 1
23 concerning the confidenriality of the information as it Acme Reporting Company i
i
57 t
relates to Exhibit No. 3.
(
2 MR. CHOPKO:
As I understand, based on off the iN w, 3
record discussions, Exhibit No. 3 marked for identification 4
in this depcsition is the only statement now which the 5
NRC has had approval from the originator to release, and it 6
is,the four corners of the document represent the now authorized publicly available information on the incident.
3 I will point out for the record that the NRC 9
regulations specifically prohibit the production of exempt to material in 10 CFR Section 9.12, anithe matter of it confidentiality of this information is still t.be subject of 12 discussion.
O t
13 I have proposed and Mr. LaFleur has agreed to follow s_
s 14 up discussing this matter with staff counsel and with 15 chief counsel for the President's Commission, Mr. Gorenson, 16 and that I expect that either more information will be t-approved for release, or there will be some confidential t3 agreement executed with the President's Commissicn.
19 MR. HELFMAN:
We should add to that that 3)
Mr. LaFleur has indicated that it would be possible to 21 contact the originator and request that addicional information 22 concerning the transient be disclosed.
23 Do you think that might be done today?
(,)'
24 THE WITNESS:
No, it couldn't be done that fast.
25 We discussed this yesterday and decided we would get together Acme Reporting Company
58 1
and decido what to ask the other guy because there is a
()
2 danger that he could over-react and give us very negative
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/
' ~ '
3 response unnecessarily if we approach it wrong, so we are thinking in terms of going back to him and trying to see what 4
5 more we can get released, but we haven't decided yet when 6
or how to do it.
I think we can do it in a couple of days.
The last 8
time we got a clearance in a matter of two or three days 9
to release that statement.
10 BY MR. HELFMAN:
Q Then if you receive such a clearance from the 11 12 originator, you would I presume notify the President's
['
Commission and we could reconvene the deposition and O}
13 obtain that information from you at that time?
Does that 14 15 seem a workable arrangement?
A Yes.
16 Q
You have indicated previously that this transient t-.
- g occurred pre-TMI, and the NRC was notified of the transient 19 by the originator post-TMI.
3)
Could you be more specific in terms of providing the timeframe?
Could you tell me the year in which it occurred 21 l
22 and the date on which the NRC was notified by the originator?
A No.
I don't know the date on which it was notified 23
(
by the originator, and I would prefer not to talk about when 24 25 it happened.
Acme Reporting Company I
s w m o.enon
1 59 t
Q Do you know whether the vender of this particular
(~'N 2
plant which according to this statement is Westinghouse
\\,
found out about the transient?
3 4
A Do I know when he found out?
5 Q
When the vender was notified and when you say you 6
do not know, are you saying that you cannot disclose the information or that you do not have the information?
a A
I do not have it.
I do not know when Westinghouse 9
learned about the incident, and I am saying that because I 10 don't have the information, not because I am bound not to 11 disclose it.
12 Q
Do you know if Westinghouse found out pre or post-o h
13 TIM?
(G i4 A
No.
15 Q
This statement which is marked as Exhibit 3 confines is itself pretty much to the part played in the transient by 17 the PORV and its failure to close during the transient.
13 However, the statement does not address the ECCS actuation involved in the transient.
Are you aware of the 19 20 role played by ECCS actuation in this transient?
21 MR. CHOPKO:
I don't know that there is a way to 22 answer that question without some breech of confidentiality.
23 Mk. HELFMAN:
I haven't gotten to that question O,)
24 yet.
I imagine if I asked for the disclosures of the 1
- s. J 25 information, if he has it, that the question of confidentiality i
Acme Reporting Company l
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60 I
would arise.
m (V
)
2 MR. CHOPKO:
Just the fact that you are asking a 3
question th?.t doesn't appear in:the four corners of Exhibit 3 I
4 Ehink you are asking into protected areas.
5 THE WITNESS:
I would rather not answer.
l l
6 MR. HELFMAN:
Do you know whether following the 7
disclosure of this transf ent the NRC issued a regulation 8
requiring Westinghouse planta in the United States to change l
9 ECCS actuation?
1 10 MR. CHOPKO:
I am going to object again.
It is 11 obviously the factual material that is restricted.
12 MR. HELFMAN:
Well, the question I am asking Ak,)
13 concerns a reg directed to domestic plants.
14 MR. CHOPKO:
But the beginning of your question is 15 based on first knowledge of the details of the transient, 16 and then an implicit assumption that the details were somehcw 17 factored into an analysis.
18 MR. HELFMAN:
My cuestion was quite specific and 19 that simply establishes a timeframe.
I will repeat the
'M question.
21 Are you aware of whether after this transient came I
22 to the attention of the NRC a regulation was prcmulgated 23 to the operators of Westinghouse plants in this country f'
N/
24 requiring a change in the ECCS actuation system?
r l
5 MR. CHOPKO:
I will renew my objection based en the l
Acme Reporting Company l
61 same grounds.
[m)
MR. HELFMAN:
I will reframe the question.
U Are you aware of whether post-TMI, NCR promulgated a
'~
regulation requiring the operators of Westinghouse plants 4
in this country to alter their method of ECCS actuation?
a MR. CHOPKO:
If you know.
THE WITNESS:
I am aware, yes.
I personally worked on the distribution to all the other countries of this 8
statement, of this requirement.
BY MR. HELFMAN:
10 Q
Do you have a copy of that new requirement available?
f 12
('~')
A I think so.
(
j Q
Could we obtain a copy for the purposes of the deposition?
la, A
Okay.
MR. HELfMAN:
Let's ao off the record.
17 (A discussion was held off the record.)
BY MR. HELFMAN:
19 Q
When you receive notification of a transient such as the statement contained in Exhibit No.
3, do you distribute this in accordance with your foreign distribution list?
A No.
We are obligated to tell people about what f-~x 23,
(t__,)
happens here, but not what happens overseas.
So the obligation to spread the information on an
,a, l
Acme Reporting Company
62 1
international basic rests with the originator?
o_
A Yes.
However, again after we digest and make this,
-~
'x-
/
after we use this information in our process and do 3
4 something with it to our reactors, then it gets into our own instructions.
It is factored, it has been factored into our 5
cwn instructions for shutdown of U.
S. plants or review of 6
design or operational procedures or something like that, and then we do distribute it in the usual routine to others as 3
9 reflecting what we are doing in our plants.
'10 Q
I se.c.
In this stat'ement marked as Exhibit No. 3, 11 there is indicated a statement from Westinghouse that l
13 "Although PORV's are expected to only relieve steam, they are
/
13 nevertheless capable of passing 2 phase and liquid water
.t4 and that no destructive failure of the valve body will occur 15 for any fluid conditions passing through the valve.
The 16 staff does not have documentation to support this contention."
t-Was this statament by Wastinghouse made in response to an NRC inquiry based on the notification of this transient, 13 19 or was this a statement made by Westinghouse which pre-dated the notification from the originator concerning this transient?
3 A
I don't know.
21 22 0
Are you :1 ware of who had the--
A It is a fact that most of these valves that are 23
- ~h 44 designed to handle steam can handle a certain amount of two
~
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.ua,........
63 i
reporting Westinghouse having said that it should be
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applicable in these designs.
[b 2
3 Q
You don't know if this was the response to an 4
inquiry which was incited by this report?
5 A
No.
6 Q
Do you know who in the NRC had the contact with Westinghouse following the receipt of this report?
3 A
People in NRR; I don't know.
I think I heard that this fellow Thadani had been in touch with them.
9 10 Q
Did the notification from the originator come to it your office first within NRC and then did you notify NRR or 12 was NRR made aware of this by the originator prior to your ex
(
)
13 office?
x_-
A I think NRR got it first.
Because of this 14 15 sensitivity, sometimes we receive information not directed 16 to us, to the NRC staff, but through a vender or some other 17 non-government agency in another country, utility, for j
16 example.
19 I reason this is because of the extreme political 29 sensitivity of releasing such information in these 21 governments.
Most of the people don't want to be associated 3
with having released it when it is sensitive information, 23 and in several instances, we have received information frem
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24 such a third and on inquiry established clearly that the I
government party that was responsible for getting to us was 25 l
l Acme Reporting Company
i 64 I
really aware of that transmission, so it is not unusual nv}
2 to receive it when the government over there decides that
(
3 it is time that they are obligated to tell us.
'(
4 I am not talking about his instance, but in all 5
instances, it is not unusual to receive it from another 6
party.
7 0
If the information is received from the vender or 8
the operator rather than directly from the government 9
involved, does that information nornally get transmitted 10 to your office rather than some other branch within the NRC?
11 It is unusual that this information was transmitted 12 first to NRR.
/~x (v) 13 A
The several people hear about it sort of 14 concurrently, and NRR is really stuck with the question of 15 how do we use it and all these protection problems I have 16 been mentioning and so they for that reason forward it to 17 us and we start working with it to define the regime of 16 protections that is required.
19 This is not only government secrecy.
It is very 20 often protection stuff.
It very often involves, I think 21 I mentioned earlier the rights of the commercial source.
i S
It is real clear.
It is really clear in the laws, for exampid, I
I 23 of Canada that information obtained frem a private utility I
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24 or other private source -nich is his information which 4
25 belongs to him is to be treated, obtained by the government Acme Reporting Company
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65 1
in the course of its regulatory actions, activities, is to
h 2
he protected, is to be treated still as though it were the (b
3 information of the source, and the property of the source, 4
and this definition goes considerably beyond what we would 5
tolerate and accept as proprietary rights in NRC.
I think you 6
realize that in our own government, the various functions 7
deal with a little bit different definitions of proprietary 8
rights.
9 For example, the laws requiring, the laws concerning 10 commerce exploiting of material require much tighter 11 protection of the designers and the sellers secrecy rights 12 in his property, that he is exporting, than we would normally Ih G/
13 accept because of our open system of regulation.
14 Do you follow me?
15 Q
Yes.
16 A
Do you agree?
Do you know that?
t; Q
Well, what you say doesn't appear on the face to is be unreasonable.
A Certainly among the other countries, the people 19 33 who work with proprietary information here as being exempt gi under the fourth exemption initially react with non-belief, 23 with disbelieve that something that we got frcm a foreign 23 country that we are looking at is proprietary.
y j
They say we would never accept this as proprietary i
24 s
25 here and the fact is that the laws of that country have Acme Reporting Company
66 defined it, and the practices are a lot different than here and we are ;rotecting it at their request.
We are not v
protecting it by our direct definitions.
3 O
Would iti be fair to state that the concern of the f reign origine. tor is that if this confidential information 5
Were disclosed to the IAerican public it would inevitably be disclosed to the public of the originating country?
7 A
r ma ywa we are a
ng a s
n rma n
8 that they feel they owr, and that a competitor might benefit g
from, or that they feel they own and although they are giving it to the government because the government has an obligation to regulate them, nevertheless it is to be used
/m%
only for that curcose and they have a right to prevent its 13 (a/
use in any other way, and so the other reason, to prevent 14 embarrassment, I guess in that case the answer would be lo.
yes.
They assume if it came out in our headlines tomorrow morning, it would come out in theirs, too.
Q And would embarrass them at heme?
g A
Yes, to the extent that that is the reason for it.
It is more.
The basis for doing it is more a traditional, a long-term policy of not letting any such government i
information out.
It is not a question of just nuclear energy safety information.
That is only one of many, many categories (v
of information considered to be not for release unless snecia lv 24 cleared and edited for release by the government.
Acme Reporting Company
l 67 1
Q For a number of reasons, including the proprietary
/^)
2
'\\
rights of the owner of the information and also the desire v,
3 of the originating government to avoid embarrassment by 4
disclosure of such information to their own domestic 5
population--
6 A
You have to go about it the other way.
Our policy 7
of full disclosure to the public for the cood of the society 8
and for the protection of the public is a very novel one.
9 That is what is radical in this international relation j
10 business.
It is not that we can pin down some reasons why
.l 11 we think they are protecting it in the other countries.
It 12 is rather our experiment in democraev that is unusual.
A,,
13
( A discussion was held off the record.)
s 14 BY MR. HELFMAN:
15 Q
Mr. LaFleur has handed me IE bulletin No. 79-06 16 dated April 11, 1979 entitled " Review of Operational 17 Errors and System Misalignments Identified During the Three 18 Mile Island Incident."
19 A
Did you read this?
20 Q
The number?
21 A
Yes.
S Q
Yes.
Could you find in this bulletin for me the 23 g-'S reference to HPI initiatien based on pressure level and i
!'~'/
24 coolant lavel indicatiens?
05 (A discussion was held off the record.)
I Acme Reporting Company l
i i
l 68 i
BY MR. HELFMAN:
[mh 2
Q Mr. LaFleur has pointed to page 2, paragraph 5 of L./
3 bulletin No. 79-06--excuse me, paragraph 3, which reads, 4
"For pressurized water reactor facilities that use pressurizer 3
water level coincident with pressurizer pressure for' automatic 6
initiation of safety injection into the reactor coolant system, instruct operators to manually initiate safety 3
injection when the pressurizer pressure indication reaches 9
the actuation set point whether or not the level indication to has dropped-to the actuation set point."
11 Now would I be correct in concluding from this 12 paragraph that the solution mandated bv bulletin 79-06 is a
/^s
(
)
13 procedural solution rather than a design change?
1 v
14 A
Yes.
It sounds like it to me.
I am only trying 15 to find something that pertains to this.
I mm not familiar 16 with all the response that was made to this kind of problem.
17 Q
Are you aware.of any bulletins that may have come 13 af ter this requiring a design change in actuation of ECCS?
19 A
I believe the recent report to the Commission cn lessons learned from Three Mile Island prescribes some 20 21 changes in desicn concept that would include this.
22 Q
Would that be the short-term lessons learned 03 which was issued on July 19th of this year?
( j) 24 A
I think so.
25 C
But you are not specifically aware of any such--
Acme Reporting Company
69 1
A I am not aware of whether that, exactly how it is
(~')
dealt with in that report or of whether there was some other 2
\\
/
ss 3
actions between here and there.
4 0
On the basis of the report that you have in your 5
hand, would it appear that the automatic actuation of ECCS or HIP remains tied to the coincidence of pressure and level 6
indication?
3 A
Just on the basis of this paragraph; there is no indication that it has been taken off of that.
9 10 Q
All right.
MR. HELFMAN*
We would like to have thin bul.letin 11 marked as an exhibit to the decosi tion, Exhi bit 4 I beli eve.
12
/'
(v)s (LaFleur Exhibit No. 4 was 13 marked for identification.)
14 31' MR. HELFMAN:
15 16 Q
Was your office involved in the preparation and/or nromulgat on of b'111etin No. 79-06?
i t-A No.
13 19 Q
Was this bulletin distributed on a worldwide basis 20 to the peccle on your distribution list?
21 A
I think after discussions with some of the venders e
and licensses, I think it mentions in some of these that 23 there had been a meeting with the venders involved to
(_,)
discuss the apolicability.
Scmewhere as I recall when that 24 came out that was noted.
25 i
l Acme Reporting Company
70 l
Q Was your office involved in meeting with venders, p-~
I o
\\~
j z
the discussions concerning this?
3 A
No.
4 Q
Would this bulletin have been distributed to the 5
originator of the information concerning the transient 6
addressed in Exhibit No.
3, Westinghouse's transient?
I A
I think we have already told you, it came from one 8
of the people we cooperate with and this went to all the 9
people we cocperate with.
10 0
So bulletin 79-06 would have gona to the originator 11 of the Westinghouse transient information?
12 f-s A
Yes, by mail; it would have taken a week or two.
'N,'g) 13 Now we might have sent it also in a telegram, the substance 14 of it.
15 Q
Are you aware of whether that was done?
16 A
I will have to dig out the telegrams.
17 MR. HELFMAN:
Off the record.
13 (A discussion was held off the record.)
19 MR. HELFMAN:
Anticipating what your response will 1
20 be, let me indicate to you some questions that I had l
l anticipated asking you about that Westinghouse transient and 21 l
i l
22 if you feel that you are unable to orovide information about l
(h any of them, clease do so, and if not, please indicate that 23 N
/
\\_/
24 you are unable tc.
25 '
The statenent which has been marked Exhibit No. 3 Acae Repo@nnq Company
71 i
does not mention coincident pressurizer level and pressure
(
2 level as part of the transient.
' \\--
3 Are'you aware of whether pressurizer level and 4
pressure level as actuation for ECCS was involved in that transient?
5 6
MR. CHOPKO:
Objection.
THE WITNESS:
I can't answer.
8 MR. HELFMAN:
Are you aware of whether the transient 9
involved a cavitation of pumps due to plant reaching the saturation point?
10 MR. CHOPKO:
Obiection to the whole line.
11 THE WITNESS:
I can't answer that.
12
(
MR. HELFMAN:
Exhibit No. 3 as I have mentioned is 13 14 concerned almost exclusively with the PORV, but does not 15 mention whether the operator was able to detect the problem 16 and block the PORV at any point in the transient.
t-Are you aware of whether operator action was involved in the PORV's involvement as addressed in Exhibit 3?
13 MR. CHOPKO:
I am going to object again and I am 19 20 going to have a continuing objection to every single 21 question that you ask beyond the four corners of the document.
23 You may want to consider whether you want to put it on the record.
23 N
MR. HELFMAN:
Do you kncw whether ocerator
/
34
_/
termination of HPI was involved in the transient?
3 Acme Reporting Company 1
i
4 72 1
1 MR. CHOPKO:
Objection.
]
A 2
MR. HELFMAN:
Do you know whether in this country
(
)
N.J 3
plants other than Westinghouse plants prior to the issuance
< - n of bulletin 79-06 relied on coincident actuation of ECCS?
'.)
4 5
Are you aware of whether the B&W, CE, or GE plant 6
employed such a system?
MR. CHOPKO:. If you know.
i THE WITNESS:
It is my impression they did, but I 8
don't know for sure.
I assumed they did from the way it has 9
been deduced since the incident.
to BY MR. HELFMAN:
11 12 Q
Does that discussion that you refer to relate to any
-(sh 13 specific vender other than Westinghcuse?
v)
A It related generally to all of the venders, but t4 15 to no specific one.
MR. HELFMAN:
Let's go off the record for a minute.
16 (A discussion was held off the record.)
t-MR. HELFMAN:
Back on the record.
You have 18 indicated, Mr. LaFleur, that following TMI 2, the information 19 which is contained in IE bulletin No. 79-06 was provided to
.y) certain overseas addressees and originators via telegram, 21 and you have handed me what looks like a Xerox copy of a 22 33 telegram.
It is entitled "US NRC, J.
D.
LaFleur, Jr.,
,m l
(
S
\\__)
24 4/11/79" followed by a phone number.
l We would like to rave this marked as the ne::t Exhibit 3
i Acme Reporting Company l
73 1
No.
5' I believe to the deposition.
)
I 2
(LaFleur Exhibit No. 5 was 3
marked for identification.)
4 BY MR. HELFMAN:
5 Q
Would this telegram have been sent to all of those l
l 6
on your addressee list as recipients of telegrammed 7
information?
8 A
Yes.
9 Q
You have provided me with two addressee lists.
10 One of them bears the title " Air Gram," and a message 11 reference number A-0221, and to the right of that is a list l
12 of what is entitled technical notification addressees.
!. /, (_,
13 That list continues on to a second page.
There are 14 a total of 29.
Does this list contain the names of oversees 15 persons who received this telegram that has been marked as 16 Exhibit No. 5?
17 A
Does it?
I am worried about one or two changes.
Is (A discussion was held off the record.)
19 BY MR. HELFMAN:
l l
20 Q
The 29 addressees that are listed on the document 21 to which I have referred normally get the cabled informarion, l
22 would that be correct?
I a3 A
Yes, plus the 6 or 7 on the other list that is iO
\\s 24 among these things--those 6 in your left hand go by way of
{
I l
25 commercial cable whereas all the others go by way of diplomatic I
Acme _ Reporting _ Company u
)
74 1
communications.
(
)
2 (J
O So there are the 29 addressees listed on the 3
document which is entitled " Air Gram"?
4 A
Some of those are two to a country, so we don't 5
send it to 29 different embassies.
We sent to a lesser 6
number of embassies.
7 Q
And the embassies will then do further distribution?
8 A
In the same country, yes.
9 Q
Then there is a further list of 6 addressees that to receive telegram notification through commercial means?
11 A
Yes.
12 MR. HELFMAN:
Let's go off the record on this,
(, )
s, 13 (A discussion was held of f the record.)
14 MR. HELFMAN:
Back on the record.
I would like 15 marked as the next exhibit to the deposition the list of 16 cable addresse, including 29 who receive cable notification 17 through diplomatic channels, and 6 who receive commercial 15 cable notification--three pages all together.
19 (LaFleur Exhibit No. 6 was
'T marked for identification.)
21 BY MR. HELFMAN:
22 Q
While we are awaiting the list of addresses who 23 received the cable of 4/11/79, let me ask whether the fs
(
\\N' 24 information which is contained in the cable is confidential l
3 or classified or privileged?
Acme Reporting._ Company _
3 L
75 A
No.
1 Q
Let me read to you the third paragraph from the
,o 2
cable of 4/11/79.
"The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power 3
Plant Unit 2 e.werienced significant core damage which 4
resulted from a series of events initiated by a loss of 5
feedwater transient and compounded my operational errors.
6 Pressurizer level indication appears to have been a 7
contributing factor by leading to erroneous inferences of g
level in the reactor coolant system.
It has been determined g
that in some Westinghouse designed facilities, coincident to low pressurizer pressure and low pressurizer level signals g1 are required to actuate safety injection and further that 12 (3
preliminary analysis of a small break in the pressurizer 13 i
9 indicates that LP may remain high while PP continues to decrease.
In such a case, safety injection would not 15 automatically occur and reliance by the operator on LP 16 could possibly lead to erroneous actions.
On April 7, 1979 Westinghouse advised owners with plants having coincident g
logic for safety injection signals that operators should g
manually initiate safety injection if PP drops below the 3
safety injection initiation setpoint."
3 Do you now have the list of the actual recipients of this telegram?
3
/m\\
A Yes.
\\v) 24 0
May I see them, please?
33 Acme Reporting Cornpony m. u,-...
76 t
A Let me just check one here.
That tells the
(^s,)
2 embassies.
g 3
(A discussion was held off the record.)
~d 4
BY MR. HELFMAN:
5 Q
You have handed me a list of embassies entitled 6
" Department of State Outgoine Telegram."
7 Does this list accurately depict the recipients a
of the 4/11/79 telegram?
I 9
A That list of embassies plus the airgram list
)
10 designating who in turn sreceives from the embassies copies j
i 11 of the substance of these cables is a list, together 12 constitute a list of everybody who received telegraphic
(N
(,,)
13 notification of those summaries in that telegram.
14 Q
You are referring to Exhibit No. 6?
15 A
Right.
16 MR. HELFMAN:
We will have the list that you have 17 just handed me marked Exhibit No.
7.
is (LaFleur Exhibit No. 7 was 19 marked for identification.)
y THE WITNESS:
That list is the complete State 21 Department telegram that went out with his notification in 22 it.
23 MR. CHOPKO:
Do you want the whole document or just
'w 24 the list as an exhibit?
25 MR. HELFMIdi:
This entire page which on its:~ ace 1
Acme Reporting Company
77 t
also contains the text of the telegram as Exhibit No. 7.
~p\\
BY MR. HELFMAN:
g 3
Q I also have been provided by Mr. LaFleur with five lists of recipients of notifications.
4 3
A Of mailings.
6 Q
Are these the receipients of notifications by mail rather than by telegram?
g A
Yes.
When we say technical notification, we usually 9
are referring to the list on the airgram who receive thr.
10 advice of telegrams through the embassies.
When we send it the telegram, we sent one telegram to an embassy that 12 advises the people of the embassy who includes the science 7-s
(
)
13 counselor in the embassy who is usually the staff member
\\m,/
1 14 of the embassy who is interested, and then he in turn is j
15 obliged by that airgram to ao and give copies of the 16 substance of the message to the people in the tech i
t-notification list, which is on the airgram, so by sending is these cables, we disseminate the information to the embassies 19 and to these official contacts designated under the terms 20 of the agreement to receive early notification cables.
2t In addition. for TMI there is that short list of 3
commercial cables, and then this whole list here is the 23 mailing list.
(O/
y Q
Let's see if we can get this laid down in the i
I record.
The list on Exhibit No. 7 are American embassies that 25 i
i Acme Reporting Company l
t receive the telegrams and they are then obligated to O) distribute the information to the addressees listed on (V
2 Exhibit no. 6?
3 I J A
Right.
4 5
Q Then in addition to the telegraphic notification 6
and the dissemination by American embassies abroad, there 7
are lists of recipients who receive notification by mail, 3
is that not correct?
9 A
Right.
10 0
And the list of mail recipients are contained in it five lists which you ha~e handed me?
12 A
Why don't we count the pages and make it all one Oh list?
13 14 Q
Perhaps we can make it one exhibit, but identify 15 them by title.
The first is entitled "U.
S. Embassy Science 16 17 Attaches and Counselors list, Revised March, 1979,"
13 consisting of four pages.
19 The second list is entitled, " Foreign Embassy l
Scientific Counselors List C, Revised May, 1979," consisting 20 21 of four pages.
22 The next is entitled, "Techn1.a1 Notification l
Addressees List A, Revised May, 1979," c.msisting of three 23 n/
24 pages.
l Then there is a list entitled, " Administrators and 25 I
l I
Acme Reporting _-Company _ _ __
79 Othors Not on ths Tsch Motico List," consisting of a cingle 1
r~w.
page wita five addressees listed, and the final is a single
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2
/
page with the handwritten title "GSA Cable Addressees for 3
TMI," containing 6 addressees.
Were these lists that were employed in notifying the receipients concerning the TMI incident?
A Yes.
s Q
Were these same lists used to notify the recipients ofother transients or was this list composed for the TMI notification?
10 A
The permanent list, this is the list primarily used for TMI, modified from permanent lists for use with TMI.
/T Q
For TMI, was the list expanded?
i 1
13 t
A Yes.
14 MR. HELFMAN:
Let's have these lists marked as 15 a single exhibit to the deposition, Exh!. bit No. 8 l
(LaFleur Exaibit No. 8 was 17 marked for identification.)
18 MR. HELFMAN:
Before we turn f rom the subject 19 ofthe telegram, I call your attention to page 2 of the telegram, Exhibit No. 5.
It indicates that on April 7th, 1977 Westinghouse advised owners with plants having coincident logic for safety injection signals that operators should
/
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(
)
manually initiate safety iniection if PP drops below the N_/
04 safety injection initiation point.
,o, e
Acme Reporting Company
80
~
g Are you aware of whether NRC had been advised by G[N 2
Westinghouse prior to Westinghouse advising owners with 3
suc plants?
~4
~
THE. WITNESS:
I am not.
4 MR. HELFMAN:
Concerning Exhibit No.
3, which is 5
6 the statement describing the European Westinghouse transient based on your knowledge of that transient, do you belief that if that information had been available to the NRC 8
prior to the occurrence of TMI 2, that such information 9
10 could hve been heleful in preventinc or mitigatina the TMI 2 transient of March of this vear?
11 MR. CHOPKO Objection unlass vou ?re willina to 13 N
confine your question to the four corners of the exhibi t.
)
13 are v u villina to stinu1=te *hae you ara only 11 concerned wi th the four corners of the exbibi t?
15 Let the wi nass confina his an?we".
MR. FELFMAN:
t 16 TFE WTTWPSS:
Based on what is in the four corners, 1-I w uld say it would have been interescing and possibly is useful.
19 BY MR. HELFMAN:
20 Q
In preventing the transient at TMI 2 of March of 33 this year?
Interesting, certainly; useful, certainly.
.;g A
I think we are trying to attach a lot of significance 23 l)h.
to one or two other incidents that really would have, might
(
,4 us have crevented TMI, and I think that in each incident thac
..,o l
Acme Reporting Company
81 t
one examines, one sees special things about that incident 7-(
)
2 at that plant at that time that make it a special case, and v
3 that are recognized as such, and that that special case J
usually means, usually leads to it being considered with 4
5 other special cases, but not immediately translated into 6
direction to all plants or to all similar plants or to all plants having any one of the characteristics of that incident 3
plant, so I think in reality very few individual incidents j
9 immediately get translated into directions to change something i
to that will affect or prevent scmething at Three Mile Island, so on that generalization, there are many, many incidents j
11 i
12 over the history of reactor licensing that might have
,\\
k) contributed, that being one of them, what you see in those 13 14 four corners being one'of them, and in that context, it would 15 be very useful.
16 It is very difficult to say that this incident t-as recifed there is that significant.
33 Q
Recognizing that the failed PORV was one of the 19 important ingredients in the TMI incident of March of this y) year, and that Exhibit No. 3 which is concerned with the 23 European Westinghouse transient focuses on a failed open gg PORV, and putting aside the procedural or administrative l
7._
33 matters which may have delayed or impeded or enhanced
/
)
24 notification of utilities or venders of this informaticn, s/
doesn' t it appear to you that this information bears 25l; Acme Reporting Compony i
c 82 1
directly on the type of PORV failure that occurred at IMI 2 x
/
)
2
\\m,/
in March of this year?
3 A
Both incidents involved failure of the PORV.
I
-m 4
can't get much from this or from what I know about TMI to 5
say just how similar the two failures of PORV's were.
6 Q
All right.
Ara you aware of why Westinghouse did 7
not report this matter until after TMI 2, and I am 8
referring again to the incident described in Exhibit No. 3?
9 A
No.
10 Q
Do you know if Westinghouse was obligated to report 11 such overseas transients to the NRC in timely fashion?
12 A
No, because I haven't made the judgment that I would 7-~
13 have to make, and Westinghouse would have to make in accordance 14 with the requirements before they would find it necessary 15 to report.
16 Q
There is a reporting requirement, however, regarding II overseas transients?
IS A
There is a reporting requirement if Westinghouse 19 knows about a plant in the United States that has a similar, 3) if Westinghouse knows of a safety problem that exists in a 21 plant for which it has a responsibility as defined in Part 22 21, Westinghouse is within the limitations,given they are 23 required to report that deficiency or that safety prcblem
(S
(
/
%J 24 to NRC.
i 25 i Q
Let's go through scme of the exhibits which have Acme Ropcm00mq C omaposy
33 1
not yet been marked and which you have provided.
p)
's,
We have here a document entitled "Allication for 3
License to Export Nuclear Material and Equipment,"
W 4
accompanied by a copy of Part 110 of Title 10, Chapter 1 of 5
the Ccde of Federal Regulations, and we would like to have 6
these two documents marked together as the next exhibit I
to the deposition.
8 (LaFleur Exhibits Nos. 9&l0 were 8
marked for identification.)
10 BY MR. HELFMA!T:
II Q
With respect to Exhibit No. 10 which has just to been marked, is the information that is requested in the
(
13 application described or is it required by Part 110, is 14 Part 110 basically instructions to filling out this 15 application?
What is the relationship between these two 16 documents?
II A
The requirements for submission of an applications 18 are given in Part 110.
The form for submitting an export 18 application is the other item.
Part 110 says that an oo import application is done without a form, but in a 41 letter.
22 i
O Then I show you an Executive Order dated January 43
('N) 5th, 1979, which consists of five pages followed by a dccu
\\xl ns ment entitled " White House Fact Sheet" consisting of 3 pages 25 followed by a document entitled " News Release" dated January Acme Reporting Company,
84 1
5, 1979.
('
2 A
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
I think that's the 3
wrong one.
l (A discussion was held off the record.)
4 5
MR. HELFMAN:
Let me show this to you and perhaps 6
you can determine whether this is the document we have recuested from you.
8 THE WITNESS:
As I recall, we were discussing the g
Executive Order dealing with the environmental effects to abroad of major federal actions, and indeed this is the it correct one.
12 MR. HELFMAN:
As I was saying, follpwed by a b) q 13 news release consisting of one page dated January 5,
- 1979, 14 followed by a document entitled " Executive Order for 15 Environmental Effects Abroad of Major Federal Actions 16 Promulgated by the Executive Office of the President, Council 17 on Environmental Quality," consisting of five pages, followed 18 by a document entitled " Questions and Answers on International Environmental Executive Order" consisting of five pages, 19 20 the first being unnumbered, followed by a letter signed by John Heinz and Adlai S tvenson.from the Udted States Senate 21 addressed to the President dated December 18th, 1978 consisti.dg 3
23 of two pages, I would like to have this marked as the next s_/
24 exhibit in order.
25 Acme Reporting Company i
=
85 (LaFleur Exhibit No. 11 was
(~~)
marked for identification.)
\\
/
%./
MR. HELFMAN:
Mr. Chopko, could you please 3
I) describe for the record these two packages of documents which will be marked together as the next exhibit in order.
5 6
that I am not under oath.
s handed to me by you, Mr. Helfman, I recognize 8
these documents as Xerox copies evidently reflecting some g
information that occurred in West Germany and was discussed during the course of this deposition.
I will stipulate that it is Exhibit 12.
(
)
MR. HELFMAN:
Mr. LaFleur, these two packages of N/
13 documents refer to the Brunsbuttel Nuclear Power Plant disturbance of June 18th, 1978, and the transient at the Y
16 Would you please look these over and see if both-I and Mr. Chopko have given an accurate description of these g
documents for the record?
19 (A discussion was held off the record.)
MR. HELFMAN:
Back on the record.
BY MR. HELFMAN:
O Is it correct that Mr. Chopko and I have 23 f-ss l'
accuratelv described the two documents which you have reviewed?j t
\\v 24 A
Yes.
,,a i
t Acme Reporting Company I
86 1
MR. HELFMAN:
Let's have these marked together as s
I 2
Exhibit EL
(
3 (LaFleur Exhibit No. 12 was L.)
4 marked for identification.)
5 MR. HELFMAN:
We have also been provided by you 6
with a document entitled " Enclosure List" dated January 25, 7
1978 signed by you.
Let me show you this document and ask 8
you what that is.
9 THE WITNESS:
The answer to the question is it 10 is an enclosure list of those enclosures to the transmittal 11 that we made uo foreign addressees on our mailing list on 12 January 5, 1978.
s 13 BY MR. HELFMAN:
14 Q
And these would be the addressees who did not is receive the telegraphic communication only?
These are the 16 enclosures with the mail communication?
17 A
That's right.
18 O
Now under Part 3, special reports, it indicates 19 that current event. power reactors 1 September through 20 ILOctober 1977 was an enclosure.
Would it be reasonable to 21 assume that if a transient were described in current 22 events, that that description would have been transmitted
'M
($
to the addressee en the mailing list?
\\ ')
\\
24 A
For that period, yes.
25 Q
And concerning the Cavis-Eessee transient which we Acme Reporting Co rnpany
s 87 t
addressed earlier of Saptember 24th, 1977, are you aware
,N 2
of whether that transient was described in current events in
'^
(
)
\\' '<
3 this edition of current events as described in the enclosure list?
4 5
A On the basis of what the person who makes the mailing 6
list was able to determine by calling back to the source 7
of the current events report to NRC, the answer is yes.
8 MR. HELFMAN:
We would like to have this document 9
marked s Exhibit 13 to the deposition.
10 (LaFleur Exhibit No. 13 was marked for identification.)
11 BY MR. HELFMAN:
12
'~^
)
13 Q
Are you aware of a document which has beccme
-(Q known as the Ndchelson memorandum?
14 A
No.
15 16 Q
Are you aware of a document that has become snown as the Novak memorandum?
17 13 A
I have heard of the Novak memorandum, but I am not aware of what is ~ in that document.
19 20 0
You haven't seen it?
.;t A
No.
l 22 O
Are you aware of a document known as the Creswell memorandum?
23 x
(
)
24 A
NO-
\\J 0
Are you aware of whether any of the three dccuments 23 Acme Reporting Company i
-, nn.nnnn
4 a
88 i
that I have referred to have been distributed by your 1
7s office to overseas governments, operators, embassies?
('
A I am not aware.
3 Q
If such item had been distributed, is it likely that you would have been aware of it?
A Not very likely.
O Who in your office would be aware of such
\\
transmittals?
8 I
i A
Bud Levine, William Levine, to whom we have been J
9
)
talking and who has furnished these, Exhibit 13.
MR. HELFMAN:
Off the record.
11 (A discussion was held off the record.)
12
/'
BY MR. HELFMAN:
B 13 O
Mr. LaFleur, you have handed me a packet of materials.
Could you please describe for the record what this is?
16 l
A This is a package of information supplied to, under a Freedom of Information Recuest on the incident in 16
~
Germany at Gundrimmingen and Wurgassen.
1 Q
Is that the second of those two transients that 20 you referred to but did not recall the name of the facility?
A No.
That was Brunsbuttel.
22 MR. HELFMAN:
Let's have this marked in order, 03 s
which would be Exhibit 14.
s 2.,
l 05 l
Acme Reporting Company
t y
89 1
(LaFleur Exhibit No. 14 was J1 2
marked for identification.)
'J 3
MR. HELFMAN:
That concludes the questic7s that we 4
have today.
Mr. Chopko, did you have any questions for 5
the witness?
6 MR. CHOPKO:
No.
I MR. HELFMAN:
On that not, we will recess the deposition, as I indicated earlier.
If we have need to 8
i l
9 ask you further questions, we will reconvene the deposition, i
1 10 but for today, that's it.
11 Thank you very much.
12 (Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m.,
the deposition of n
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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE e,(
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4 CCCKET NUMBER:
5 CASE TITLE:
DEPOSITION OF JOSEPH D.
LAFLEUR 6
HEARING DATE:
August 1, 1979 7
LCCATION:
Bethesda, Maryland S
9 I hereby certify that the preceedings and evidence 10 herein are contained fully and accurately in the notes 11 taken by me at the hearing in the above case before the 12 PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ACCIDENT AT THREE MILE ISLAND (m) 13 and that this is a true and correct transcript of the 14 same.
15 16 17 Date:
August 2, 1979 18 m,
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Official Recerter 9
Acme Reporting-Cs=pany, Inc.
1411 K Street, N.W. Suite 600 21 Washington, D.C.
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