ML19338B866
| ML19338B866 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 10/10/1979 |
| From: | Keaton R, Schierling H GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES CORP., NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001280632 | |
| Download: ML19338B866 (99) | |
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i IN THE MATTER OF:
I THREE MILE ISLAND SPECIAL INQUIRY DEPOSITIONS DEPOSITION OF ROBERT KEATON D
Place -
Middletown, Pennsylvania Date -
Wednesday, October 10, 1979 Pages 1 - 98 C ' % i3i [3 IS I '? 7 II\\Ij 0, l I
Ub&Isa %kkM T.I.pben.:
(202)347 3700 ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.
OfficialReporters 444 North Capitol Street 800128o43 2 Wcshington, D.C. 20001 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE DAILY
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION xs 2
X 3
In the Matter of:
4 THREE MILE ISLAND AL NOUIRY DEPOSITIONS 5
- -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X DEPOSITION CF ROBERT KEATON 8
Trailer #11 9
Three Mile Island Middletown, Pennsylvania 10 Wednesday, October 10, 1979 11 9:30 a.m.
12 BEFORE:
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For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
14 HARMUT SCHIERLING, Special Inquiry Group DENNIS ALLISON, Special Inquiry Group 15 BARRY HORVICK, Special Inquiry Group 16 17 18 19 i
20 21 22 23 9erJ Reporters. Inc.
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'_C O _N _T E.N T S 1-f WITNESS:
EXAMINATION 2
3 Robert Keaton 3
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PR0CEEDINGS 1
2
( 10: 00 a.m. )
()_
3 MR. SCHIERLING:
This is an interview of
-4 Mr. Robert Keaton of GPU by the NRC Special Inquiry Group.
5 The interview is taking place at TMI-2 site on October 10, 6
and the time right now is approximately 9:50.
7 The people present are -- why don't we introduce 8
ourselves for the record?
9 MR. KEATON:
I'm Bob Keaton from GPU.
10 4R. SCHIERLING:
Excuse me, Bob, is that spelled iI K-E-A-T-E-N or 0-N?
12 MR. KEATON:
0-N.
13 MR. ALLISON:
Dennis Allison for the NRC.
14 MR. HORVICK:
Barry Horvick, Consultant with the
()
15 NRC Special Inouiry Group.
16 MR. SCHIERLING:
And my name is Harmut Schierling, 17 also with the NRC.
18 Whereupon, 19 ROBERT KEATON 23 was called as a witness and was examined and testified as 21 follows.
i 22 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
23 0
Boo, before we go on the record, I showed you our 24 standard witness notification form.
Did you read that 25 notification and do you understand its meaning?
4
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3616 01 02 4
mgcDAR 1
A Yes, I did.
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2 0
Okay.
I want to talk today about your 3
participation and knowledge of your -- of the TMI-2 4
accident.
Befor~ we go into details, let me ask you what 5
other depositions or interviews were you involved in?
6 A
There was the NRC/I&E interview.
And then I have 7
testified twice or reported twice before the -- in one case,
'8 the Subcommittee of the Advisory Commission and in the other 9
case. the full Committee.
I have had considerable informal 10 dealings with the staff of the Kemeny Commission, the il Presidential Commission.
12 MR. SCHIERLING Okay, Dennis, why don't you at 13 this time go ahead with the questions that address the areas
^
14 of your concern?
()
15 MR. ALLISuda I would like to go off the record l
16 for a second.
17 (Discussion off the record.)
18 MR. ALLISON:
Back on the record.
19 BY MR. ALLISON:
20 0
Mr. Keaton, your I&E interview on page 5 indicates 21 that at about 11:00 in the morning when you were meeting 22 with a group of engineers, you were talking with them about 23
. going to the site, your interview indicates that Mr. Wilson 24 came in and told you that the accident was more serious than 25 you had previously thought, to break the meeting up, to get 0
7616 01 03 5
mgcDAR 1
the guys on the road, and I presume to come to the office
(( )
2 and talk to him about it.
Is that correct?
3 A
Ye s, yes, that is correct.
4 0
At that time, did he say why the accident was now 5
more serious than had been previously thought?
6 A
I don't remember the detai13 of it, as I did not 7
when I was in the I&E interview, but I think it's possible 8
that that is the time when we first knew that the main 9
coolant pumps had been turned off.
" 10 0
That possibility struck me, because he indicated it
in his interview that it was about 10:00 when he found out 12 ebout that, and that that was a point of increasing 13 concern.
14 A
Yes.
(G_)
15 0
For him?
16 A
Yes, as it was for me since I learned of it.
~
17 0
Did you go to Mr. Wilson's office or Hr. Arnold's 18 office.and meet with him after you wrote that meeting uo?
19 A
My best memory is, I went'first to Mr. Wilson's 20 office, and we had some discussions there.
I think maybe-21 someone else was there, but I'm not 100 percent sure.
And 22 then I believe we went to Mr. Arnold's office.
From that 23 point on in the day, we were casically either in Wilson's 24 office or in Arnold's office, or we were in between relating 25 to something.
Discussions during the day, we were joined
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'7616 01' 04' 6
mgcDAR by other people.
I think it was at my suggestion that Mike
'N 2
Morell, M-0-R-E-L-L, was pulled out of the same meeting _that (J
3 I had. started the day in _ And he joined in the discussions, 4
and I believe Ed Wallace also joined in.
Both of those two 5
gentlemen are ex-nuclear Navy, and that was the particular 6
reason we wanted them.
7 0
Do you remember anything of that first discussion 8
when you went to probably Mr. Wilson's office?
9 A
Not really.
The main thing I remember from that 10 point in time is -- and also into the afternoon -- is the 11 fact that we were concerned that the coolant pumps were off, 12 and at that point we did not understand why somebody did not 13 simply turn them back on.
And we were saying that that was 14 the line of action that we would recommend.
(m_)
15 Of course today I understand that it wasn't quite as easy 16 at that time as we thought it would have been, but our 17 comments were very much along the line that those pumps era 18 to be turned back on.
19 O
Are you pretty sure that you knew that the reactor 20 coolant pumps were off during the morning?
21 A
I think it's very likely.
I can't be 100 percent 22 certain.
I think it was late morning when we first learned 23 of that.
24 0
Your previous interview indicates pretty fully 25-that you were very concerned about the reactor coolant pumps
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7 7616f01 05 l
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being off during that day.
Did you or your people go
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through a. logic process at that time when -- something like U
3 this -- reactor coolant pumps are off, the next way to cool 4
the. core is through natural circulation?
5 Now is natural circulation is working, the core is being 6
cooled and things are all right.
If things are not working, 7
the core is not being cooled, and things are terrible.
Or 8
were you rather in a vague position of wanting the pumps to 9
run without going through that logic?
10 A
I don't believe we went through that careful of a 11 logic process, but to the best of my memory, it was either 12' early morning or late afternoon that we had -- excuse me, I
'3 meant to say late morning, early afternoon.
I hope that's 1
14 what I said.
I believe it was right in that time frame that
(])
15 we received data on the hot leg and cold leg primary loop 16 temperatures, and when we did receive that temperature data, 17 it was certainly indicative of the fact that there was not a 18 normal cooling mode for the core.
19 O
That indicated, then, to you that core cooling 20 didn't seem to be progressing normally.
Mas that a point of 21 increased level of concern?
22 A
Very definitely.
I'm sorry.
I'm a little foagy 23 about the times during the day that this actually happened,
-24
'but I do remember being in Mr. Arnold's office sometime in 25 the afternoon and getting an updated set of temperatures
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that somebody on the other end of the phone line out g'3 2
here -- and I don't even know who it was that we were V
.3 talking to -- in that point of time indicated that there was 4
some sub-cooling, and we were skeptical.
And I personally 5
remember going and getting a steam table, and we looked up 6
and found that in fact the pressure was right on the 7.
saturation curve, and that definitely increased our concern.
8 0
Do you remember what temperature data you got 9
which prompted this increased level of concern, and 10 specifically,.I guess, were. they hot and cold leg 11 temperatures, and did you have readings or just the fact 12 that they were off-scale?
13 A
The data that I was referring to when we were in 14 Mr. Arnold *s office was specifically the hot leg and the
(])
15 cold leg temperature readings from each of the two loops.
16 And we did refer numerical values, and we auickly confirmed 17 that the hot leg value was the upper end of the range of 18 that instrument.
19 0
So you were given a reading?
20 A
A numerical value.
21 0
600 degrees or whatever?
22 A
Right.
23 0
And you quickly found out that that was the upper 24 limit of'the instrument?
25 A
Right.
In fact, the person who called us may have l A
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9 P616 01 07
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told us that either that or someone there knew'that.
So we 2
realized that they were off-scale high, as far as the hot
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3 legs were concerned.
We did not receive any core 4
temperature data at all.
5 O
So you had no core thermocouple readings at all?
6 A
That's correct.
In fact, I did not know the core 7
thermocouples for approximately two weeks.
8 O
So we're at a point -- and I guess the time is 9
uncertain -- but you knew that hot leg temperature, you had
~
10 rwmerical values, you knew the hot leg temperatures were at 11 least a certain value, and that was about the saturation 12 level for the pressure to exist in?
13 A
Right.
14 0
Did that tell you that. natural circulation was not O)
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15 working, or did it only give rise to a lot of concern about 16-whether it was working?
17 A
The implication to me was certainly that natural 18 circulation was not working.
19 0
Do you remember, if you can tell, that the system 20 was highly superheated or just about the saturation 21 tempe ra ture ?
22 The reason I ask that -- let me follow up on this.
I 23 suppose -- and you can correct me if I'm wrong -- that 24 temperature at aoout the saturation level doesn't 25 conclusively prove that natural circulation is blocked.
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10 76i6'01 08 mgcDAR I
A I don't remember for sure how much superheat there 2
was that was indicated by those readings.
My reason for (a~)
3 concluding that natural circulation was not occurring was 4
the large difference between the hot leg and the cold leg 5
temperature reading.
6 O
So at this point, am I correct, you had -- you 7
were pretty sure that natural circulation was not working?
8 Anid so that at this time, you had an even higher level of 9
concern about starting reactor coolant pumps.
Is that 10 right?
11 A
I think that is probably correct, but I should be 12 honest and say that I don't remember that we went through 13 the kind of careful analysis that we're doing today.
I 14 think it w"s more of a reaction to what appeared to be a
()
.15 very unusual and partly undesirable plant condition and 16 strong feeling of discomfort with regard to whether the core 17 was really being adequately cooled, and the natural reaction 18 to that was to turn on the pumps.
19 And I do remember that during that time we were by that 20 time -- I mean the af ternoon -- we were recommending that 21 they increase the primary system pressure.
22 0
Did, a -- this concern about natural circulation, 23 did_you convey this to-Mr. Arnold and Mr. Wilson?
24 A
. Well, Mr. Wilson and I shared the concern, and we 25 agreed among ourselves that we thought the pumps ought to be e
h
7616 01 09 mgcDAR 1
turned back on.
.And, yes, we very. definitely conveyed that 2
to Mr. Arnold.
I believe he was of the same opinion.
It
(}
3 was also during that same time period that we became aware 4
of the problems in the condenser and specifically with the 5
vacuum in the condenser.
We were told that the plant was 6
wqorking to reestablish vacuum, and we definitely supported 7
that activity on their part.
8 0
Do you remember any particular person or time when 9
the concern about natural circulation initiated?
The first 10 question, whether naturcl circulation was working or when it 11 was first questioned?
12 A
I don't remember specifically when natural 13 circulation itself was first questioned, but to the best of 14 my memory in the discussion in Mr. Wilson's office late in
()
15 the morning, in addition to knowing that the pumps were off, 16 I believe that we had at that time some temperature data 17 that made us feel uncomfortable.
18 0
So it sounds like your best recollection is 19 probably about the time you found out the reactor coolant 4
20 pumps were off is when the questioning of natural 21 circulation came up?
l 22 A
Yes, I believe that's the time period in which we i
23 first felt real uncomfortable with the condition of the 24 plant, yes, sir.
l 25 0
Did you use this temperature data to further infer
7616-01 10 12 mgcDAR' I
that there was steam in the core on Wednesday afternoon?
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'2 A
I believe not.
To the best of my recollection. I V
3 do not remember on Wednesday any real concern.that, I felt.or 4.
that I had heard other people express about damage to the 5
core.
And I'm sure we would have felt that on Wednesday if 6
we had thought that it had been vapor blanketed.
7 0
So you were able to conclude that natural 8
circulation probably wasn't working and something had to be 9
done to cool the core, but you.were not able to conclude on 10 Wednesday that the core had been badly steam blanketed for a 1
long time?
12 A
I think that is correct.
To ^5e best of my 13 memory, and I conf ess I'm very much unc;ctain about this, 14 but to the best of my memory, we were aware at the time we
()
15 started getting numerical data that high pressure injection 16 or at least makeup flow was being supplied.
And so I do not 17 remember anyone concluding that the core had been 18 uncovered.
Of course, it's hard to be sure because we know 19 so much more now.
It's hard to go back and remember what 20 you knew at that particular moment in time.
21 0
Well, you led perfectly into my next question.
I 22 guess another way to cool the core is to run the HPI pumps, 23 and you knew the relief was open.
Were you aware that 24
-morning of a B&W analysis on how to cool the core that way 25 without natural circulation or for circulation from the n
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13 7dl 6 01 11 ~
-ngcDAR I
reactor coolant pumps?
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2 A
I was not personally aware of it, no.
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3 0
Do you remember if your people were aware of it 4
and talked about this method of cooling -- well, pardon me.
5 Let me rephrase the question.
6 Did people mention to you either the B&W analysis, or did 7
they state as a fact that this method of cooling would work?
8 A
I honestly -don't remember.
The man who reports 9
to me that I would normally go to with that type of a 10 question was on the way to the site.
That's Gary Broughton, 11 B-R-0-U-G-H-T-0-N.
12 I think it's possible that one of the other people 13 mentioned it, but I just really don't remember.
14 0
Were you ever aware on Wednesday that that was a
()
15 plan the operators were using, that at sometime during 16 Mednesday they felt that that was the way that they were 17 cooling the core, by pumping in HPR water and discharging 18 steam throuan the PORV?
19 A
I don't believe so.
20 0
So far as you knew on Wednesday, the two plans for 21 cooling the core were forced circulation with the reacter 22 coolant pumps or natural circulation?
23 A
Yes, to the best of my memory, that's all.
I 24 think I do remember talking about using makeup or high 25 pressure injection as a method of repressurizing the system, a(%
9616'01 12 14 mgcDAR I
but I don't_ remember any explicit discussion of it as
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2 providing core cooling.
But again, I must tell you that I'm
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3 not certain about thet at all.
4 0
-It sounded like from some of your previous remarks 5
that you micht have drawn some comfort about core cooling 6
from the fact that they were telling you the HPI was on?
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7 A
Perhaps, but I don't remember f ee.'ing very 8
comfortable frankly.
I remember feeling very uncomfortable.
9 0
So that statement didn't give you much comfort 10 about core cooling?
11 A
But I think it is true that to the extent that I 12 knew that it might have not forced me to conclude that the 13 core was not covered, but I would not have felt any comfort 14 from simply knowing the core was covered without having any
_()
15 circulation path.
16 MR. ALLISON:
Let's go off the record for a 17 second.
18 (Discussion off the record.)
19 MR. ALLISON:
Let's go back on the record.
20 BY MR. ALLISON:
21 O
Another plan that the operators had during that 22 day was to depressurize and start the decay heat system.
23 I'm drawing a distinction here because maybe it was all 24 balled up with the previous plan we were talking -- bo u t --
25 flowing the steam out and pumping in high pressure injection
15
- 7616_01 13 mgcDAR 1
water.
But anyway I will draw the distinction and say j\\.sy 2
another way is to depressurize the system and start the 3
decay heat pumps.
4 Were you aware on Wednesday that that was a plan that 5
they had-in mind?
6 A
I'm reasonbly sure that I was not aware of that.
7 I have.aosolutely no memory of it -- any recollection of 8
that being discussed.
9 0
Then if you weren't aware of that plan, did you 10 see any point in having the pressure low?
11 A
No, and as soon as I heard about the pressure, I
' I'2 remem'aer immediately f eeling that the pre ssure should be 13 increased.
Also, though I guess I should make sure that you 14 understand that not only were the communications between us
()
15 and the plant obviously very limited, but we were aware of 16 the fact that they were very limited, and we were aware of 17-the fact that they plant might have much more detailed plans 18 and/or knowledge of conditions than we had.
19 So we realized that we were sort of on the outside 20 looking in.
21 0
ao you were very aware of the limitations on your 22 information and, thus, on your ability to make the correct 23 recommendations?
24 A
Right.
And that changed with time during the 25 day.
And by late afternoon when we were more or less (3
V
T616 01 14 16 mgcDAR 1
permanently meeting in Mr. Arnold's office, and he had been
- (~}
2 directly_ on the phone with Jack Herbein and with others out
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3 there, we' felt that the quality of our information was 4
substantially improved.
And that was the period of time 5
that we actually, formally fed back through Mr. Arnold our 6-
' recommendation to increase the pressure and try to restart 7
.the cooling pumps.
8 0
Was that a strong recommendation, as you recall?
9 A-Yes, sir.
I recall Bob Arnold talking to Jack 10 Herbein on the phone and stating the equivalent that that 11 was a unanimous recommendation on the part of the people who 12 had reviewed the situation there, there in Parcippany.
13 0
So you were pretty sure by that time that you had 14 enough data to say that was the correct course of action?
O is
^
ves-16 C
But that sureness was something that developed 17 during the day?
18 A
Yes.
19 C
So at noon you would not say the same thing or 20 sometime earlier?
21 A
To the best of my memory, along about noon it was 22 simply a feeling of discomfort w*th what we saw, particular i
i 23 discomfort that the pumps were not running, but also 24 discomfort with the amount of information that we had 25 available.
1 i
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9616'01'IS~
17 mgcDAR 1
O In between those two times,'Mr. Arnold in the I&E h]
2 interview says that at 1400, about 1400, he called the n/
3 control room and expressed _ strong concerns about wehether 4
the primary system was solid.
Do you recall that phone 5
-call?
6 A-I.think it is quite possible that that call is the 7'
one that he made after we had gotten data in his office, and 8
as I described earlier, had gone and gotten a steam table 9
and then looked and compared the temperatures and pressure 10 conditions in the primary loop.
And that would ba 11 approximatley the correct time frame.
12 0
That sounds logical, because that's the time then 13 at which you knew the system wasn't solid.
14 A
Yes.
()
15 0
Do you recall what was -- well do you have any 16 idea why that concern was rejected in the control room?
17 A
I don't remember receiving the impression that it
-19 was rejected.
I think it's quite possible that it was at 19-this time that we were told that we were trying to 20 reestablish the vacuum in the condenser and that they had 21
_ regarded that as a necessary step in the progress of 22 reestablishing core circulation.
23 0
riell, that really isn't necessary for forced 24' circulation, is it?
25 A
It's not necessary for forced circulation, but t_/
7616: 01"16 18
<mgcDAR I
it's necessary or at least-it was regarded as necessary for e~s -
2 the heat sink for the forced circulation.
.}
3 O
The point'I'm getting to is that you don't need it 4
for heat circulation either if you are willing to dump steam 5
in the atmosphere.
But the operators were working under a 6:
restriction at that time.
7 A
We did note that we had been told at the recuest 8
of the Governor that the dump to the atmosphere had been V
terminated.
10 O
i.et me diverge just a second and ask you, do you 11 have_any firsthand knowledge about the state's pressure in 12 this area?
13 A
No, I do not.
14 0
Do you know who told you about it?
(~')
15 A
To the extent that we knew about it on Wednesday,
'Q/
16 I'm reasonably certain that the information would have come 17 in through Bob Arnold.
I was again told about it later by 18 Gary Broughton, but that was on Friday.
~
19 0
Okay.
Then the reactor coolant pump was started, 20 strong recommendation was made at about 1630 by Mr. Arnold 21 to Mr. Herbein.
It was accepted and the pumps were started?
22 A
Right.
L l
23 0
Your I&E interview -- first, by the way, I'm just 24
. going to mention for the re:ord that with the damaaed core, 25 I don't think any of these other methods would have worked, l
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f616101 ' ~ l 7' 19 cmgcDAR I
' or at least there is a good chance, so in my previous 7"S 2
auestioning, I have indicated -- well, natural circulation'
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. ould work.
Well.you didn't know you had a damaged core, w
a 3
4 badly damaged core.
The chances are good it would not have 5
. worked, and starting the reactor coolant pomp is the only 6
thing that'would.
7 A
Can I comment on-that?
4 8
0 Yes.
9 A
In fact, if we had been able tc resstablish a 10 solid primery system, I think natural circulation would have 11 worked, even with the damaged core.
But of course --
12 C
Maybe with. the pressure high, it would have.
13 A
Ne ll, I think not only the pressure high, but I 14 think it would have helped to eliminate most or all of the
()
15 voids in the primary system, and that would have been very 16 difficult at that time.
Me didn't know that.
17 0
You didn't now that at the time.
Nell, anyway 18 that's not the point of the interview.
To go on then, your 19 I&E interview on pge 6 indicates that on Wednesday evening 20 when you went home, you were comfortable with the situation, 21 and you stated one of the reasons at least was that the
~
22 radiation releases had been small.
23 A
At that point in time, we -- at least I --
24 believed that they had been small.
Yes, sir.
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CR7616.02 20
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G Now, was-it also a large part of the reason that
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2 you felt comfortable that you had established a core cooling 3
again?
4 A
Yes, very definitely, because after the pump was-5 turned back on, we were given new data-from the hot leg and 6
cold leg temperatures which indicated that they had been 7
converged back into a perfectly normal cooling mode.
8 G
So you knew the core was being cooled?
9 A
We.':new the core was being cooled and I, at least --
10 I believe it is true for most of the others, did not realize 11 that there had been significant radiation releases and so 12 I am fairly positive on this point, because I remember having
()
13 discussed with people and specifically with Mr. Arnold on
-14 Thursday that were directed toward what was going to need to 15 be done to get the plant back on line, a type of discussion 16 that was thoroughly inconsistent with what we now know was 17 the condition of the plant.
18 G
I wonder if you could describe for me the idea that 19 you had in mind on Thursday.
I have a couple more questions 20 to come back to later on Wednesday afternoon, but what kind 21 of an effort did you think would have to be done to get the 22 plant back operating?
23 A
I don't remember too much of the details.
As you
(~)
24 know, on Thursday Dick Wilson had left to come to the site, 1 Ace 4 ist Reporters, Inc.
25 and Thursday. afternoon Bob Arnold called me into his office l
I
21 i
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and was trying to start to think of the organization that would
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()
2 be necessary to get the plant back on line, and the tasks 3
that would be needed, and we spent just a couple of hours 4
discussing it, and things changed so radically the next day 5
that I don't remember very much of the details.
6 I am sure one part of it was investigation of the transient 7
itself, similar to what we had done approximately a year later, 8
when the main system safety valves had stuck open.
9 G
Did you have in mind investigating what happened 10 possible making some equipment changes to prevent reoccurrences?
11 A
Yes, from that part of it I am fairly sure that we 12 were thinking in terms of the effort a year earlier in which ry 13 that is exactly what we did.
We went through both a quali-U 14 tative analysis of what the transient had been on a little 15 slow time scale, and qualitative statement.
16 We did recommend and carry through some recommendations 17 to instrumentation and so forth.
And I think those were the 18 kinds of things we were thinking of.
19 G
Possibly some procedure changes that had to be done.
20 Did you also then think you had to meet with the NPC and 21 satisfy them that the necessary equipment procedure change 22 had been made so it wouldn't happen again?
23 A
I am sure that was underlying our thinking.
I 24 don't specifically remember discussing that, but it may have Ace Ssi Reporters, Inc.
25 not been discussed simply because we all knew it was something l
1
.I 22 rmg 3 1
that needed to be done.
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2 0-And were you also thinking you would have to clean 3
up.the containment, possibly strip insulation and clean 4
chlorides off the pump?
5 A
I think -- I'm sure we were thinking of some clean-up, 6
I don't remember the details regarding that.
7 G
Okay.
Back to Wednesday evening.
Do you remember 8
specifically what you knew about the radiation levels or 9
radiation readings?
10 A
As far as I personall'y am concerned, I believe that 11 I thought that there had been no significant off-site releases.
12 G
And I guess that was a key part of your knowledge,
.(
)
13 then, the radiation readings at that time?
14 A
Very definitely.
15 G
Were you aware of the containment dome monitor 16 readings?
17 A
No, none of us would have felt even the slightest 18 bit comfortable if we had known what the readings were.
19 O
So had you know levels of radiation inside the 20 containment, either the dome monitor or the lower monitors, 21 I guess you would not have been comfortable with that?
4 22 A
My perception would have been quite different as 23 to what had very likely happened.
There again, I think what 24 you are seeing is a reflection of the various limited-information l f^)
- Ace ?aal Reporters, Inc.
25 that we had.
l l
i
23 rmgj4 1
_G-So I guess you made no interpretation -- did you k/
2
'make an interpretation about what you did know?
Did you make 3
any interpretation from what you did know about radiation 4
concerning core damage?.
5 A
I don't remember explicitly discussing it.
I think 6
it's rather the case that not knowing about the radiation 7
releases, we simply didn't.really worry about core damage.
8 Although I think it is likely that in the discussions on 9
Thursday that we included in our thoughts, either some analytical 10 approach to whether the core had been uncovered and maybe even Il some physical inspection of fuel, in spite of what we thought 12 then was the restart effort.
_( )
13 I suspect, again, we were guided by our experience of a 14 year previously when we had been able to show analytically 15 that the core had not been uncovered, and even though there 16 was some void formation in the primary system and I am not 17 sure, but I suspect that we were planning to do the same type 18 of thing.
19 G
And you suspect that you thought if it couldn't be 20 done that way, you can expect --
21 A
That is as good as I can remember, yes.
22 G
But ycu do think that that feeling persisted through 23 your Thursday discussion?
~}
24 A
Yes.
In fact, I believe that I actually told
>..{.an-,. ~.
25 somebody from Argonne National Laboratory, who called me
24 rmg 5 1
personally on the transient, I believe I told him on Thursday
,~%
\\_/
2 that there had been no significant off-site releases.
3 g
And I presume that your inference in terms,f public 4
health was that there had been no effect?
5 A
That there had been no problem, exactly.
6 G
Some key pieces of infcrmation that you said you 7
didn't have on Wednesday are core thermocouple readings, 8
containment radiation levels, the hydrogen, the containment 9
pressure spike, and I guess you didn't have the actual core 10 thermocouple readings -- or pardon me, I guess you didn't have 11 the actual hot leg temperature readings either.
You only 12 knew that they were pegged high?
(~')
13 A
That's correct.
U 14 G
So you didn't know actually how much superheating 15 there was in the hot legs?
16 A
That's right.
In fact, it was a very long time 17 before we got that piece of data.
18 g
So do you think that your reaction would have been 19 much different if you had known any or all of those pieces 20 of information?
21 A
I think there is no doubt that our perception of 22 the magnitude of the core damage would have been quite 23 different had we known about either the thermocouple readings 24 or the real radiation levels in the containment building.
eer;l Reporters, Inc.
Ace.
25 I doubt if having the actual hot leg temperatures would i
I
25 rmg 6 1
necessarily have led us to the same conclusion, if that had 2
been the only extra piece of data that we had.
3 G
Sir, so there is no doubt if you had known the 4
thermocouple readings or the core re-dings in the containment, 5
that you would have reacted differently?
6 A
That we would have perceived differently the core 7
damage.
Now. our immediate reaction, of course, would have 8
been the same, to repressurize the system and get the pumps 9
running, but I don't think we would have gone home feeling 10 comfortable on Wednesday evening.
II G
You might not have gone home at all.
12 A
That's very possible.
33 G
How about the containment pressure spike, do you r'3
'u/
Id think that would have clearly indicated anything to you?
15 A
If we had simply known that piece of data without 16 any of the other things that we were talking about, I don't 17 know, because there might have been a temptation to interpret 18 that as simply a noise spike on the instrumentatien.
I9 G
Is that exactly how many of the operators interpreted 20 it?
21 A
Had we known that and also known things like the 22 core temperature readings and the general radiation level in 23 the building, then yes, we might have correctly interpreted 24 that.
Ace-al Reporters, Inc.
25 G
But just that sharp pressure spike.
I
26 rmg 7-1 A
.That by itself might very well have not.
n) 2 G.
Now, on Thursday, did you learn any more about the
(,
3 condition of the plant?
Did you learn about any of the key 4
things that we were just talking about that would tell you 5
that there was core damage?
6 A
To the best of my memory, no.
I believe that I did 7
have a conversation with one or more of the GPU people who 8
had left on Wednesday to go to the site, but the best of my 9
memory is that the feedback we got from them on Thursday was 10 that.they were just in the process of coll.'eting the data and 11 would be prepared to give us a better report the -following 12 morning.
13 This is borne out by the fact that the notebook I keep (v-}.
14 notes in of telephone conversations doesn't really have a 15 record of that conversation.
And had they been giving me plant 16 data, I would have been sitting there writing it down, and I 17 did on Friday morning.
18 G
Even if you didn't know there was a big problem, you 19 would have written the' data down?
j l
20 A
Right, because there were lots of people who were l
l 21 interested in what.was going on and I would have been taking
(
22 notes to make sure that I passed that along accurately.
23 So I think it is reasonable to infer from that that I 24
("y did not get any significant data on Thursday.
- Am%-.;st Reporters, inc.
25 G
Okay.
Now, I think you did get that report on Friday I
27 lamg 8
'l morning from Gary Broughton?
O 2
A res.
3 G
About what had happened.- Can you recall what data, 4
what information he gave you that indicated that you had major 5
~ core damage at that time?
6 A
I'm sorry, I didn't bring the notebook along with 7
me.
And as this is a critical point, I can get a copy of the 8
notes I took during that period of time.
9 What I remember Gary giving me was a fairly clear description 10 of the transient, including the fact that the PORV had stuck 11 open, including the fact that the emergency feedwater valves 12 had initially been closed, and including the fact that the 13 pumps were turned off 100 minutes into the transient.
{
14 At that_ time we still did not know about the in-core 15 thermocouple readings that had been taken from March 28th.
16 G
You didn't know about containment pressure spike, i
17 did you either?
18 A
I'm not sure.
We did know at that time that there 19 was still a bubble in'the primary system and that it was 20 assumed to be a hydrogen bubble.
And that of course immediately 21 leads the presumption of very much more core dar <3 that 22 we had thought up until that time.
23 G
Right.
(~}-
24 A
I suspect, although I don't remember completely or Ace 4m,Ja! Reporters, Inc.
25 clear.i f, I suspect it was the.information on the hydrogen l
l i
28 rmg 9:
L1
' bubble that led us to think there was massive core damage.
~
~
(m)
Do you remember if you know about the containment
(,
2 G
3 radiation levels?
4 A
I'm not sure, but-I suspect that we did at that 5
point.
6 G'
About the-reactor coolant pumps being turned off 7
at 100 minutes, do you remember if Mr. Broughton had looked 8
at temperature traces of what happens in the hot legs and cold 9
legs when those reactor coolant pumps were turned off?
10 A
Again, I'm not sure, but I believe he had.
11 G
Do you remember if you interpreted in terms of 12 natural circulation, if it was blocked and the core became 13 uncovered?
.{ }
14 A
To the best of'my memory, yes, but again, if-it is 15
'a critical point, I can go back and inspect the notes.
16 Our understanding was growing very fast in this time period.
And to the best of my memory, I got a pretty good rundown on 17 18 all of that from the very first time I talked to him on Friday, 19 but it is possible that over the next 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> that some of 20 it became clearer.
21 G
Have you given those notes to the NRC, to your 22 knowledge?
l 23 A
To the best of my memory, I have not.
I think I
- [(')
24 mentioned them to them.in'the I&E interview and they are i Ace 4_2d Reporters, Inc.
25 available.
1 L
i
29 rmg:10 1
MR. ALLISON: -Off the record.
/~T
+
(_)
2 (Brief recess.)
3 MR. ALLISON:
Back on the record.
4 BY MR. ALLISON:
5 0
Mr. Keaton, will you provide copies of your notes 6
up until April 7th related.to the TMI accident to Mr. Guerin 7
to afford to us?
8 A
Yes, I will.
9 G
Despite some uncertainty as to which pieces of data 10 you had and didn't have when Gary Broughton briefed you on 11 the transient on Friday morning, because it is very clear 12 there was substantial core damage?
/~')
13 A
I would say yes, I also had the benefit of Friday
(>
14 morning of an earlier brief conversation with Dick Wilson, i
15 who by that time was on-site and he communication both that 16 the damage had been more severe than we had originally 17 believed, and also that the plant was not yet in a stable 18 cool-down mode, and specifically the problem with the hydrogen 19 bubble.
20 So based on those two conversations, I think there was no 21 question in my mind at that standpoint that we had suffered 22 core damage.
23 g
_And you also knew that the plant was not yet.is a
~').
24
- Ace-(~J el Reporters, Inc.
stable' cooling mode.-
25 A
That's correct.
l
30 rmg 11
'l
- O So the~ situation had yet to be brought under control?
()
~
2 A
That's right.
And shortly after the telephone call 3
with Mr. Broughton, by-prior arrangement I went and talked to 4
Mr. Dieckamp and Mr. Koons and communicated this information 5
to them.
6 G
Did you go into much detail with Mr. Dieckamp and 7
Mr. Koons?
8 A
Yes, I went into basically the same amount of detail 9
that Mr. Broughton had given me.
10 G
Pretty much everything he told you you told them?
11 A
Yes, yes.
12 G
And Mr. Dieckamp has a strong nuclear background, 13 does he not?
14 A
Yes.
~
15 G
So he understood the meaning of all this, all the 16 data?
17 A
Yes.
18 G
Does Mr. Koons have a nuclear background?
19 A
I don't know to what technical steps he has any 20 nuclear background.
He is certainly generally conversant 21 in nuclear power.
22 G
But did you tell him massive core damage and the 23
- situation had yet to be brought under control?
24 A
Generally, yes, I don't remember the exact words
_ (3
' Acei.,,_ld Reporters, Inc.
25 that I'used, but it was certainly that type of thing and I
31 rmg 12 1
specifically I communicated the fact that Dick Wilson whom n(_)
2 both of them know and have a lot of respect for, had found 3
it very uncomfortable when I talked to him on the phone Friday 4
morning.
5 G
So you are pretty certain that Mr. Dieckamp and 6
Mr. Koons understood what the situation was when you briefed 7
them that morning?
8 A
I think so.
Also, you might remember that during 9
this-period of time the radiation-releases that were occurring 10 on Friday morning were getting publicity and were known to 11 them, so there was no question in anyone's mind that we had 12 a radiation problem at that point.
i 13 In fact, they asked Iae if I knew anything about why the
("}
14 releases were occurring, but I did not.
15 Excuse me, off the record.
16 (Discussion off the record.)
17 MR. ALLISON:
Okay, we will go back on.
18 BY MR. ALLISON:
19 0
So you didn't understand the reascn for the radiation 20 releases at that time?
.21 A
Not on Friday morning, no.
And I think that's 22 understandable in that' Gary Broughton had been sent out --
l
'23 at that point we thought -- what had caused the original l
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24 transient and we had not, at the time of-Friday morning, Ace-k_;)st Coporters, Inc.
25 really switched over from an investigation into a support f
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organization.
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2 G
Do you know if this understanding of the plant's 3
condition that you gave to Mr. Dieckamp and Mr. Koons was 4
news to them at the time?
5 A
Certainly I believe some of the details that I gave 6
them were news, and I honestly don't know to what extent they 7
had a better, big picture than I did prior to Friday morning.
8 G
So you don't really~know if the fact that there had 9
been core damage and that further action was needed, jou don't 10 know if that was news to them, whether they may have gotten 11 that from some other source?
12 L
No, I don't know that, but I would suspect that they 13 already had some awarenass of that.
{}
14 One piece of data along that line is that Bob Arnold had 15 elected to go to the site fi-d thing Friday morning, I presume 16 with the knowledge of Mr. Dieckamp and that certainly would 17 indicate a discomfort with the current situation.
18 G
Do you recall if after that briefing they told you 19 what they were going to do?
20 A
No, I don't remember specifically what they said 21 they were-going to do.
I do remember discussing with them 22 the fact that we were starting to set up a support operation 23 there in Parsipanny.
That's - really all I remember about that t
j ("}
24 conversation.
! Aces _ Jai Reporters, Inc.
25 G
Do you remember what data told you that there was a 1
33 rmg 14 1
bubble in the reactor coolant system, a gas bubble?
Apparently
()
2 you said Mr. Wilson, Mr. Broughton,-both told you that there 3
was one, and in' fact at that time operators, I have 4
from other sources,_were trying to degas and get rid of it.
5 Do you remember if there was any specific information 6
that was based on when they told you, or was it a conclusion 7
that they gave you?
8 A
I don't remember being given the specific cata that 9
they used to determine they had a bubble, but simply I 10 remember being told that there was a bubble.
11 G
Were you aware of the news accounts of the accident 12 on Thursday?
13 A
Yes, I think so.
I don' t remember them very well 14 right now, but I do~ remember that Thursday was the last day I 15 read a newspaper for quite some time to come.
16 G
Did you listen to any radio programs on that day?
17 A
I think I probably went home and watched the 7:00 18 o' clock news Thursday night.
I'm not prepared to swear to 19 that, but I think it is likely that I did.
20 G
Did you have any reason to think on Thursday evening 21 or afternoon that things were worse than what you were hearing 22 in those news accounts?
23 A
No, and I am reasonably confident of that, because 24 g-)
you have got a couple of facts.
Ace 3 si Reporters, Inc.
25 One is that I did not' work real late on Thursday evening.
I
34 rmg 15 1
Second is, late Thursday evening I got a call at home from l
)
2 Bob Arnold who said that he wanted at that time, himself and 3
myself, to get together with Mr. Dieckamp on Friday morning 4
after I had been able to get data back from-people who were 5
at the site.
6 And even with this, I was sufficiently unconcerned, that 7
Friday morning I went down to the local airport and took my 8
previously scheduled flying lesson from 7:00 to 8:00 o' clock 9
in the morning, which I certainly wouldn't have done if I 10 had realized wnat the rest of the thing was going to be.
11 G
Do you remember about what time Bob Arnold called 12 you?
13 A
I think it was about 10:00 o' clock in the evening, 14 to the best of my memory.
15 G
Do you recall any more about what he said, other 16 than he wanted -- what you just told me?
17 A
I don't really remember any more details, but I 18 did not come out of that conversation with a feeling of alarm 19 or renewed concern.
20 G
In subsequent days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, i
21 were you ever. aware of any plans to vent containment?
22 A
You mean the containment building?
23 G
Right.
24 A.
No.
p
! Ap+_ht Remners, lrc.
25 G
Were you aware of any plans to build a huge charcoal
35 rmg 16 1
filter in the spent fuel pool for any purpose?
(~)/
(-
2 A
I believe there may have-been some mention of it 3
perhaps on Sunday when I was out there with the industry 4
advisory group, but I don't believe I took part'in any 5
detailed discussions.
6 MR. ALLISON:
I think that's all the questions I 7
have, at least for now.
8 MR. SCHIERLING:
I have a few follow-up questions 9
on the items which Dennis talked about.
10 First let me ask you, Mr. Wilson -- Mr. Keaton, you mentioned 11 earlier that you were engaged in other activities on March 28thm 12 Were they not related to the TMI-2 event?
(")
13 THE WITNESS:
Initially, on the morning of March 28th}
v 14 I was in a meeting in a motel down the street discussing 15 administrative systems, and I was called out of that meeting 16 by Dick Wilson, maybe 9:00 o' clock or something like that.
17 From that time on on March 28th I don't recall having done 18 anything other than concentrating on what was happening at 19 TMI.
20 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
21 g
The first telephone call from the site upon which 22 you were called in by Mr. Wilson, were you aware at that time 23 of a site or general emergency that had been declared at f')
24 Three Mile Island-2?
Ace-k_ Jet Reporters, Inc.
25 A
No, I was not.
l l
36 rmg-17 1
G You were not.
As you indicated earlier, during the t-(_)8 2
entire day of March 28th, starting at about 11:00 o' clock, you 3
became more and more aware of the seriousness of the event at 4
TMI-2 based on the information that gradually became available 5
to you.
6 Did you make any attempts to get in touch with the control 7
room to obtain additional information'to substantiate your 8
concern or evaluate your concern?
9 A
I did not personally make any direct attempt to 10 contact the control room.
11 G
You mentioned earlier that your information was that 12 you had available in Parsippany was limited and that you felt
]
13 that because the control probably had more information available J
14 then you -- could that have been a reason why maybe you did 15 not attempt to get in touch with the control room to substantiate 16 your concerns?
17 A
I don't think so.
I think, insofar as I can remember, 18 I think that we were made aware early on,
' the communication 19 with the control room was very difficult and that I think --
20 I'm not sure of this -- so I believed that we discussed 21 whether we ought to try and directly make contact with the 22 plant and get more data.
We,'being Dick Wilson, myself, 23 and maybe a couple of other people.
l 24 And decided not to do that because of what was known to be l
(~))at Reporters, Inc.
iAce4%
25 the difficulty of communication.
And I think we were relying l
l k-j
7 37 nng 18 1
on the channel which had been set up which I think was A)
~
Arnold to get the data.
(
2 primarily thronit Mr.
3 G
That was the channel of communication between the 4
control room?
Was that'a direct line from the control room 5
to Mr. Arnold's office?
6 A
I don't believe so.
Well, I think -- in some 7
cases, yes, he directly talked to the control room and in 8
other cases he talked to the people, and specifically Jack 9
Herbein, who was located across the river at the visitor's 10 center.
11 I think it is possible, in fact, that we had actually been 12 asked not to tie up communication lines by having superfluous
/~T 13 calls into the control room.
Q 14 G
Did the control room staff ask you for advice?
end #2 15 A
No that I am aware of.
-16 17 18 19 20 t
21 22 23 l
i Am%det Reporters, Inc.
25 i
i
CR #7616' Tape 3 38 cah I
~G Do you recall any discussion that went on on March 28 O)
(
N-2 between-Parcippany and B & W in Lynchburg regarding recommenda-3 tions to pressurize or to run the reactor coolant pumps?
4 Did you personally have any discussions on that day with 5
B & W?
6 A
I did not personally initiate any, no.
What I'm 7
uncertain about is late in the afternoon on the 28th, when we 8
were in the process of really developing and communicating the 9
strong recommendation to repressurize and start the cooland 10 pumps, there may have been a telephone call from Mr. Arnold's II office to B & W on that subject.
I'm just not sure.
I have 12 what seems like a faint memory that there was some, and, if I
(}
13 had, I would have participated in the sense of being in the room Id while it was going on, but I'm not sure.
15 G
Were there any discussions on the event between GPU 16 and the NRC on March the 28th?
I7 A
There were none that I participated in.
18 G
Did you receive any feedback from the group, the first I9 GPU group that went to the site on Wednesday?
Did they provide 20
(
you with any information on that day?
l 21 A
I believe we did receive a telephone call from 22 someone in the group who reported that they had gotten out here.
23 I don' t remember -- and they might at that time have told us l
l f
f ')
2d that it was difficult for them to get on site, but I certainly
- Ace %2al Reporters, Inc.
25 do not remember getting any data on the plant status back from i
cch 2 39 1
them.
.f) 2 G
Did you make any attempt to contact that group to w
3 direct them to obtain information?
4 A
No, because we had already asked them to do.that as 5
part of their initial charter, but again, on Wednesday, when we 6
sent them out, it was as an investigative team, not as a 7
technical support team.
8 And so we still thought that what we wanted was to understand 9
the transient so we would know how to go into the recovery and 10 restart program.
11 G
You discussed earlier your -- the briefing that you 12 received by Mr. Broughton on Friday morning and that at that 13 time there was concern expressed regarding a bubble.
And you
(-
14 mentioned that you concluded it had to be a hydrogen bubble.
15 A
Excuse me.
I don't think so.
I believe that I was 16 told that it was believed to be a hydrogen bubble.
17 G
I see.
What was the concern with regard to that 18 hydrogen bubble?
Was it with regard to establishing natural 19 circulation in the loop, or was there any indication regarding 20 a potential for an explosion?
21 A
I do not remember any concern regarding the possibility 22 or an explosion within the reactor coolant system ever being 23 expressed by anyone from GPU.
24 G
At that time?
g-) t Reporters, Inc.
Ace i je 25 A
At that time or any other time being expressed by I
cah 3 40 1
GPU.
As far aus the problem of hydrogen bubble interfering with
()
2 the ability to go on natural circulation, just how quickly that 3
became a concern, I can't remember.
Certainly during the 4
period Saturday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,- that became a very 5
overriding concern.
But whether that was first thing Friday 6
morning, I just honestly don't know.
Certainly I think right 7
from the beginning there was a feeling that it would be a good 8
idea to get that hydrogen out of the primary loops, but I'm not 9
sure whether our thoughts were as clear Friday morning as they 10 were at the end of tbo day Sunday when we had very specific 11 ideas of getting rid of the gas bubbles.
12 But I'm not sure that we had as clear of a concern about 13 being able to go on natural circulation that we did, for g-(_/
14 example, by the end of the day on Sunday.
15 G
Do you recall if there was any discussion on the 16 bubble with B & W in Lynchburg on Friday on 'the impact of that 17 bubble?
18 A
I do not remember myself participating in any 19 discussions with B & W on Friday on the bubble, and I'm not 20 aware of anyone else in the home office that did that.
Perhaps 21 I should say a few words about what was happening in the home 22 office on Friday.
23 Basically the mode that we set up was to provide assistance 24 on request to the people that were here at the site - and our Ace g get Reporters, Inc.
25 contacts from the home office or to the GPU people who had come I
r
crh 4 41 1
here to the site.
()
2 So that we would not and did not, for example, hear of 3
something like the hydrogen bubble and ourselves start trying 4
to take independent action to evaluate it.
Rather, we were in 5
the mode of supporting the people out here who we felt had a 6
better understanding of what was going on.
7 So we took on, during the course of the day, Friday -- day, 8
evening, and night -- a wide variety of diffe' rent technical 9
projects, but they were all things that were requested from the 10 site where we were asked to carry them out or get Burns and Roe Il to carry it out.
12 But the primary organization that I remember as dealing with 13 on Friday and Saturday was Burns and Roe, and I think the 14 primary contacts with B & W were made directly here from the '
15 site to B & W rather '_han through us.
16 G
We will get into those aspects later on -- the support 17 of Burns and Roe of B & W.
Right now, back to the hydrogen.
18 Was the hydrogen of any concern to you in Parcippany, and 19 I'm talking about the hydrogen inside the containm2nt, not in 20 the reactor vessels.
Were you aware of the hydrogen concentra-
'l tion that existed at that time, and were you requested to come 22 up with a recommendation what to do about it?
23 A
At that point in time, we did not know what the 24 hydrogen concentration in the containment was, although we did Ace al Reponen, Inc.
25 believe there was hydrogen in there.
I specifically remember l
I
crh 5 42 1
this because I personally carried out severr' conversations with (O
_,/
2 Atomics International personnel.
~
~
~
3 Atomics ' International ha( suppliFd 'the hydrogen recombiner 4
for units 2, and we were concerned with getting their support 5
to get the unit on line.
And during the period of Friday and 6
Saturday, when I was involved in these activities at the home 7
- office, Atomics International raised the concern of lighting 8
off the hydrogen recombiner without knowing the concentration 9
of hydrogen and the possibility that it might cause a flame to 10 propagate back to the containment building.
11 And so as a result of that concern, there was a new 12 installation put in in a fashion that allowed the containment
(~}
13 building atmosphere as it was transported to the hydrogen N_/
14 recombiner to be diluted, so that there was no possibility of 15 igniting a flame in the hydrogen recombiner.
And we did that up 16 to the time the recombiner was in operation, and then we could 17 use the measured temperatures in the recombiner as a means of 18 measuring the high concentration in the incoming gas.
19 O
And was that diluted with nitrogen?
20 A
Yes.
21 O
This all took place on Friday, Saturday?
22 A
That's right, because, well, the discussions with the 23 Atomics International and the concern about lighting off the 24 hydrogen recombiner and the desire to have it diluted occurred
- Ace (~. }.i seconen, inc.
25 on Friday and Saturday.
I don't remember exactly when the final I
(
cch'6 43 1
int'allation was completed.
I believe it was another couple of I)
2 days before we actually had it in operation, but the concern and V
.3 decision-making process was in the Friday, Saturday time frame.
4 0
Who was the individual at Atomics International that 5
you talked with?
6 A
Wayne Meyers -- M-e-y-e-r-s.
7 G
In your I & E interview, you stated that on Friday in 8
the af ternoon Parcippany was doing analytical and design tests 9
in support of requests from the site.
Can you elaborate on that 10 or give an example what you mean by that?
11 A
I just can't by my memory tell you exactly things that 12 were started specifically on Friday, but I can give you examples 13 of the type of things that were done somewhere in that time 14 frame.
15 For example, between our home office and Burns and Roe, 16 there were calculations done of the peak pressure that could be 17 withstood by the containment building.
There was a lot of 18 analysis done regarding the possibility of flooding the contain-19 ment building with water as an ultimate heat removal mode.
20 There were attempts to analyze the various degassification 21 possibilities for the primary system, and many, many more.
22 And let me tell you that I believe that we have reasonably 23 good records of those task requests that came into the home 24 office and the dates which they came in.
We have what was done g
s,
- Ace (jaf Reporters, Inc.
25 with them.
f-t L
cah 7 1
44 1
G These were task requests that came from the site to
(
)
2 the home office?
3 A
Right.
4 G
Which you then either evaluated at the home office or 5
worked to gather with Burns and Roe?
6 A
Right.
And we may have, upon occasion, during Friday 7
and Saturday, to an organization other than Burns and Roe.
I 8
just remember very heavy involvement with Burns and Roe plus 9
work that we were doing ourselves.
And it was on Friday that 10 we at the home office set up and implemented a
24-hour 11 operation.
12 MR. SCHIERLING:
Off the record for a moment.
13 (Discussion off the record.)
(
)
14 MR. SCHIERLING:
Okay, we can go back on the record.
15 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
16 G
Mr. Keaton, we discussed the existence of task 17 requests that were issued to the site to the GPU office, and you 18 indicated that these, indeed, are available at the site.
Would 19 it be possible for us to look through these records in 20 Parcipanny and, if necessary, request specific copies of 21 specific tasks that we identify?
22 A
Yes, I'm sure that can be done.
23 G
Okay.
We will probably come back to you on that 24 issue --
Ace.
Reorters, Inc.
25 A
You understand that these task requests that I'm I
c2h 8 45 1
referring to are largely items which were written down in 2
Parcippany as a result of a telephone request from the site.
3 They are not a piece of paper that originated here at the site 4
and then was transmitted to Parcippany.
5 g
You mentioned earlier that the involvement of B & W 6 during the first few days -- and I think we probably are talking 7
March 28th through Saturday the 31st?
8 A
Yes.
9 G
-- was primarily from the site to B & W?
10 A
I think that is correct, and, in fact, it extends 11 qver the entire period, and not just those first few days.
12 O
You also mentioned that the site -- by the site I mean 13 the operation staff here -- would request your assistance at r3
\\ _)
14 the home office.
Was there at any time the need that you, 15 from Parcippany, had to contact B & W?
Were there cases where 16 you were not able to -- where you were not able to respond to 17 the site or provide the information requested?
18 A
I think there were probably cases where tae home 19 office staff did contact B & W, yes.
Certainly we would have 20 had no reluctance to contact B & W.
It's just that my mencry 21 is that the types of problems that B & W was involved in --
22 they were being turned on more by the GPU people here at the 23 site or by the Met. Ed. people here.
24 0
You mentioned that during Friday, Saturday, that i AceSrol Reporters, Inc.
25 there were quite a few requests where you called in the Burns I
46 1
& noe people from -- I think it's Paramus.
2 A
That is spelled P-a-r-a-m-u-s.
3 4
Can you elaborate on that, what some of the items 4
were?
You mentioned already containment peak pressure, the 5
flooding of containment.
6 A
Yes.
They certainly worked with us on the containment 7
pressure, and I'm sorry, I just don' t remember other specifics, 8
but I think we can recover that information.for you.
9 G
All right.
Now, these were mostly items as follow-ups 10 to some of your earlier statements.
I would like now to get II into questions regarding your participation in the recovery 12 effort here at t..e site.
13 Off the record.
14 (Discussion off the record.)
15 MR. SCHIERLING:
Back on the record.
16 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
17 0
Mr. Keaton, during earlier statements, you mentioned 18 already your contacts with Atomics International, Burns & Roe.
I9 Can you indentify any additional contacts that you had with 20 organizations outside the GPU, Met. Ed. organization through 21 Saturday the 31st?
22 A
In terms of the support operations at the home office, 23 as I mentioned earlier, we may have contacted B & W directly.
24
{}
I don't remember for sure whether we had contacts with some of Ace %2af Reporters, Iric, 25 the consulting firms that we normally use, such as Pickard, I
cch 10 47 I
Lowe & Garrick; MPR.-- I.just don't remember.
I know they were 2
involved later on, and I can't remember whether we, from there, 3
contacted them.
4 Now on Saturday, I did have fairly extensive discussions with 5
representatives from Cumbustion Engineering.
This was really 6
the start of the -- what later became known as the Industry 7
Advisory Group.
8 G
Would you -- can you recall who these contacts were 9
with at CE?
10 A
Off the record for a minute.
11 (Discussion off the recol'.)
I2 THE WITNESS:
There was John West, Fred Stern, Jack
()
13 Moulton, and two or three others on Saturday.
I don't remember.
Id They had come down to Parcippany at the request of Mr. Dieckamp, 15 and also at Mr. Dieckamp's request, I met with them on Saturday 16 af ternoon and discussed their knowledge of the situation.
I7 G
Do you recall what the purpose was to call these people 18 to Parcippany -- why they were called?
19 A
Yes.
Mr. Dieckamp already at this time intended to set 20 up what became known as the Industry Advisory Group, and the 21 Combustion Engineering Contingency was simply the first of that 22 group.
23 They stopped by Parcippany on Saturday afternoon on their way 1
9ud Reporters, W.
24 out here to the site, and, in fact, on Sunday morning I came outl Aw 25 I
here with them.
During that same time frame, Mr. Dieckamp was
(
cah 11 48 I
calling individuals from a large number of other organizations,
~
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(,),
2' most of whom came directly to Harrisburg, rather than going via 3
Parcippany, and were here in Harrisburg on Sunday.
4 G
These individuals became part of the Industry Advisory 5
Group?
6 G
What was your personal. involvement in the formation 7
of that industry _ advisory group?
It's my understanding that Mr.
8 Dieckamp had asked you on, I think, Saturday, to come to the 9
site and coordinate or direct the efforts of the Induscry 10 Advisory Group from the GPU management.
II A
Yes.
I think that is correct, and I think coordinate 12 is a better description than direct their activities.
He asked 13 me to serve as a liaison between the remainder of the GPU and 14 Met. Ed. organization and this1 industry advisory group.
15 G
What was the basis for the selection of different 16 organizations or individuals to that group?
17 A
I think it was partly to try to get a good representa-18 tive cross-section of the nuclear industry in this country, to l9 get individuals who could serve as an entry point back into 20 their organization, so that it was not visualized that the 21 individuals here on site would be the only ones working in 22 support of the activities, but that, simply, they would be the l
j 23 focal point for anything that was being done by their 24
(~)
orgnization back home, and, in many cases, which is exactly Ace %;el Reporters, Inc.
25 what happened.
4 1
.cch 12 l
49 1
The selections were also made based on Mr. Dieckamp's (n_)
2 personal knowledge of people.
Of course, he has a very broad 3
knowledge of the nuclear industry, and in a couple of cases, 4
I discussed'with him suggestions of people.
5 We were looking for people with a broad understanding that 6
could come in, understand what we had been through, and under-7 stand what the current problems were, and help to bring to bear 8
all the resources that we could find.
9 G
When were the first requests for participation filed 10 at on the Industry Advisory Group?
When were they made?
II A
I believe that they started on Friday.
In fact, I'm 12 reasonably certain that they started on Friday.
If there were 13 any before Friday, I'm not aware of it.
Id MR. SCHIERLING:
Off the record.
15 (Discussion off the record.)
I6 MR. SCHIERLING:
Back on the record.
I7 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
18 G
Mr. Keaton, to what degree was Mr. Dieckamp involved l9 in the operations of the Industry Advisory Group once it had 20 been formulated on Sunday?
21 A
Mr. Dieckamp was very directly involved in the -- what 22 I might describe as the kick-off activities of the Industry 23 Advisory Group.
He came down to the armory on Sunday afternoon 24
(-)
and spent a significant amount of time talking to the group Ace (,rJ Reportm inc.
25 about the types of things that he' wanted the group to do and 1
cch 13 50 1
the kind of support that he was hoping to obtain from them.
t'
(_)/
2 Once that was done, then over the course of the next week 3
or two, Milt Levenson became the spokesman for the activities 4
in this group, and, with assistance from a few others such as 5
Ed Zebrowski, participated in the major decision-making meetings, 6
which were held largely at the time in a trailer sitting across
's the river from the island.
And I don't remember Mr. Dieckamp 8
getting back with the total Industry Advisory Commission and 9
participating in. detailed technical discussions after the 10 initial kick-off of the activities.
11 He did frequently, however, in the meetings that I referred l
l 12 to, where he and Milt Levenson and others were present, he did 1 {}
ask Milt Levenson to get the Industry Advisory Group to do this 13 14 or something else.
15 0
You mentioned that you were acting as a coordinator 16 and also as liaisonbetween GPU and IAG?
17 A
Right.
18 G
Can you elaborate on that?
What specifically were 19 the functions that you performed?
l 20 A
Yes.
My initial function was to brief the members of 21 the Industry Advisory Group on what we knew of both the transient 22 that had occurred on the current status of the plant.
I l
l 23 mentioned earlier discussions with the Combustion Engineering l
(]
24 people on Saturday.
And then I had a much more extensive
' Aces _ast Reponm, Inc.
25 briefing with the majority of the group on Sunday here and C'en
- cah l'4 51 continued in the role of feeding the Industry Advisory Group
)
information, updated information on the status of the plant.
()
2 I participated in the group's deliberations, primarily on 3
Sunday afternoon, late, and on Monday, in which the advisory 4
gr up itself set up som substructure assigned task, and then I 5
w rked with some of the groups in actually carrying out their 6
tasks, and also served to get people to obtain information on --
7 f r them.
8 I had three or four people from GPU who were working for me, 9
10 simply in an information gathering role for the advisory group, 11 and then carried out aMfunction of communicating the results of 12 the Industry Advisory Group's activities back into the GPU 13 organization here at the site.
ba 14 G
That brings me to the next question on this issue.
1 15 How were the results and recommendations of the Industry 16 Advisory Group -- how were they integrated and implemented 17 witi._n the Arnold recovery organization?
i jg A
In more than one way.
For the first two or three 19 days -- by that I mean Sunday, Monday, and I think Tuesday --
20 the Industry Advisory Group had Jeen assigned a certain number 21 of aspects of the operation in which their : recommendation was 22 sought, and they prepared written documents which did tnis 23 evaluation and made certain recommendations.
These documents 24 were used by myself and others to feed the information back into 74 Acei.
al Reporters, Inc.
v 25 the remainder of the Arnold organization.
i i
I
cah 15 l
52 I think more ef fectively than that, however, was simply the 1
direct participation of Milt Levenson in the planning and
_j 2
decision making meetings.
Starting on Sunday afternoon, this 3
rganizational structure under Bob Arnold was developed, and 4
there were a number of what in a conventional organization 5
might then be called department heads, who were set up under 6
Bob Arnold and who participated in these planning and decision 7
making meetings, And Milt Levenson was one of those.
8 So that when the meetings were held, and there were decisions 9
to be made, Arnold would ask for the input from the Industry 10 11 Advisory Group through Milt Levenson as well as, for example, 12 asking for the NRC viewpoint, requesting for the technical
(')
13 support organization's viewpoint.
14 Then, a little later, and this is perhaps past the time 15 frame that you're addressing, there were cases where, for 16 example, a specific plan or a specific procedure even was 17 reviewed by members of the Industry Advisory Group, and their comments factored back in.
18 19 For example, the procedure for transition to natural circulation was reviewed this way.
During the first two days, 20 I think, the major contribution that the Industry Advisory Group 21 made was on the subject of the possibility of a hydrogen 22 23 explosion inside the primary system, and specifically, Ed 24 Zebrowski from EPRI took the lead in pulling together a cross-9eral Reporms, Inc.
Ace.
25 section of the industry knowledge on whether such an explosion I
cch 16 53
{
was possible and, in fact, arranging for an outside expert in j
i
)
hydrogen explosions from NASA, N-A-S-A, to come and work with us 2
n this issue.
3 S
I w uld say that the feedback from the Indust y Advisory 4
Group on that subject was probably the first concrete assistance 5
that this organization, as a whole, had.
And, of course, in that 6
case, the feedback was primarily into the NRC who had been the 7
ne who had taken the lead in the concern on this.
8 0
You mentioned that the input was primarily to the 9
NRC --
10 A
In the specific case of the possibility of a hydrogen 11 explosion, the primary system, this is a concern that had been 12 raised by the NRC, and the NRC was very anxious to get all the
(~)
13
% _J ja possible information in order to see whether their original 15 concern had been valid or not.
And so in this case, although 16 the input came into the total organization, the people that it 17 was really directed toward was the NRC, in an attempt to end T-3 18 convince them that they concern was not valid.
19 20 21 22 23 1
24 Aa. ewsI Repomrs, inc.
25 1
1 5616'04 01 54 l r'ic DAR I
O Can you comment on the-interaction of the industry
()
2 aavisory group and the NRC?
3 A
In general, it was only through the total 4
organization that was set up under Bob Arnold, the senior 5
NHC person present, sat in on the. planning in the same way o
that the senior advisers did; and interaction was largely 7
through the mechanisms of those meetings.
6 In the particular case of the possibility of a hydrogen v
explosion, I believe that there was some more direct 10 interaction in the sense that Ed Zebrowski and the people 11 su pporting him, I believe, fed directly to the NRC some 12 reference in the technical literature that were relevant to 13 the question being considered.
I4 0
You mentioned tha t the potential for a hydrogen
(}
15 explsion was one of tne I AG evaluations of the aspects, was 16 one of the major contributions by the IAG.
Can you mention 17 any others, any major conti utions?
le A
Yes, I think there were others.
One was the 19 general consicerations associated with the transition to 20 natural circulation.
This wasn't a unique contribution f rom 21 the inaustry by tne group in the sense that there were other 22 organizations ano other groups also working on tnis, but the 23 industry advisory group was asked to participate in making 24 the recommendations and to review the plans and to 25 indepenuently critique the idea of what we wanted to ao, and O
u
1616~04 02-55 rW) OAR they did in fact do this.
.I
- (#
And in the case of the transition to natural circulation, 2
3 they and the other parts of the organization, our own 4
support organizations and so forth,.were able to agree on 5
what was a desirable plan.
And so -- but it was a strong o
contribution in the sense that it gave us confidence that an 7
independent review arrived in the same result as what we had 6
arriveo at.
V O
Do you know of any difficulties that were 10 er. countered in the operation of the I AG in its interaction il with GPU or with NRC?
And le t me expand on that a little 12 bit and ask you what the GPU response to the accident would 13 have been without IAG?
14 A
The first part of your question -- I am not aware
(~}
U 15 of any peculiar aifficulties that arose in the relationship to
'between the industry advisory group and either the GPU or 17 the WRC.
I am sure you understanu that there were lo continuing difficulties of the type a ssociated with the f act 19 t ha t this was a very newly formed organization wnich had 20 been sort of, in some sense, grown on and ao hoc basis.
21 Communications, even once we were here all on site, were
+
22 extremely difficult.
23 It was very difficult to get accurate information to 24 everyone and make sure tha t 'cVeryone had the same 25 information.
So, there were continuing difficulties of that
()
4 m
T
1616 04:03 56 7' quar-1
' type that the industry advisory group simply shared in along
~
2 with all the rest of us.
3 And as time went on, the organizational portion of t ho se 4
difficulties at least did tend to smooth out as we got a 5
be tter understanaing of how the organization functioned and, o
in f act, made some provisions to the way that the 7
organization f unctioned.
6 In gene,al, I think our operations here would have 9
proceeced pre tty much the same way without the industry 10 acv'.sory group as they functioned with it.
Generally 11 speaking, as for an example, in the case of the transition 12 to na tural circula tion, the industry advisory group simply 13 concurred with the plans which we had already developed
(])
14 independent of them, or they participated in developing the 15 pla n s, in many cases but it's impossible to single out their lo specific contributi^n rather than just being a group 17 activity that mace the decisions.
t to I think that one important part of their activity, l
19 though, was to give-us a confidence that an inde pendent 20 review dion't snow any oversight, or, if there were any 21 oversights, ~ ;at they suggested them to us.
There were 22 specific things thr.t participants in the industry advisory 23 group cid that maybe we would have found it more difficult
- 24 to ao without their assistance.
I mentionea already the 2b hydrogen explosion issue, and certainly GPU itself did not O
r7cl6 04 04 57 r UAd I
have immediate access to all of the resources that the 2
industry advisory group was able to draw in order to address 3
that issue.
4 Another example haa to do with the core thermocouples.
5 And it was, in fact, the activities of the industry advisory 6
group, or at least partici ents in the industry advisory 7
group, that eventually leo to a direct readout in the 6
control room of some of the core thermocouples.
This was specifically Bert Ackermann -- A-c-k-e-r-m-a-n-n -- I think, y
10 who was of great assistance in some of the electronic 11 arrangements there.
12 And then in si tting in the planning meetings, I can 13 remember many cases where there were specific suggestions 14 tha t came f rom the representative of the industry advisory f
Ib group, who was initially Milt Levenson, that were lo incorpora ted into the basic plan.
My memory is not good 17 enough to completely list them of f, because they were lo par ticipa ting as part of the planning group, and certainly IV they, you know, were of a ssistance, but it's hard for me to 20 answer the question would we have gotten to the same place 21 without their assistance, and as f ar as those pla nning 22 things are concerned.
Anc ocubtless we are be tter of f with 23 them there.
24 0
Do you recall any disagreements on technical 2D i ssues between the IAG ano other participants?
t
1616 04 05 58 p,y OAR 1
A I don't remember any continuing disagreements, 2
no.
I think, to the best of my memory, we were generally 3
able to arrive at a consensus position that was basically 4
shared by everyone.
There might have been differences of 5
opinion on some of the details, but I don't think that there o
were diff erences of opinions on any of the discussions.
7 Sometimes it took a few days to arrive at that consensus.
o 0
How long did you particj pate as a liaison for the v
IAG?
10 A
only three days:
Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
By 11 Tuesday, it had become clear that the industry advisory 12 group had gotten itself organized and was functioning.
And 13 we assigned a couple of people to continue to work with them 14 as information gatherers.
But on Tuesday evening, to the emb 15 best of my memory, Dick Wilson asked me if I could relieve 16' myself f rom the advisory group in order to become his deputy 17 on the technical support group.
lo-0 The GPU people that provided the information to Iv the IAG, were they unaer Mel Lieb?
Is he the person who was 20 involved there?
21 A
I am sorry, I don't know that name.
That does not 22 ring a bell.
I t could be.
I don't want to say "No."
23 o
Mr. Keaton, you mentioned earlier of planning 24 se ssions that were being held.
Are those the meetings that 2S were conducted in the technical working group?
O A_/
t
)
7610 04 06 59 UArt 1
A Yes.
2 0
Could you identify briefly what the operation of 3
that group was and what its purpose was?
And I am also 4
interested in how Mr. Arnold acted within that group.
5 A
Yes.
As the group finally settled into its 6
operations, it met initially twice a days at 9:00 o' clock 7
in the morning and early evening -- I don't remember the o
exact hour, v
Mr. Arnold served as the chairman of that group and ran 10 the mee tings, both in the sense of se tting the agendas f or li meetings and in the sense of actually physically personally 12 running the meetings and making sure that his objectives 13 were achieved during the meeting.
14 The meeting typically consisted of a review of the plant r]
t 15 sta tus, a review of the current staths of ongoing activities 16 such as some of the emergency modifications that were being 17 made to the plant and then a discussion of plans, new to courses of action or important decision points.
19 Typically, for example, a decision item would be taken up 2C twice.
It would be teken up at one meeting at which 21 someone, very frequently f rom the support group, would make 22 a recommenda tion for a specific course of action, usually 23 with some wri tten support, although perhaps only in outline 24 fasnion.
This would be discussed at the mee ting, wha tever 25 written material was available would be passed out to the
loI6 04 07 60
.pv DAR I
- partici pants.
And then Mr. Arnold would ask the various
/ N kl 2
members to have this recommendation reviewed by their 3
support staff s and come back, typically to the next meeting, 4
either the one la ter that day or the next morning, as the 5
case may be, prepared to make a recommendation on that o
course of action.
7 Then, at the second meeting, individuals would be asked 6
to literally, by going around the table, to specifically 9
indicate what their portion of the organization recommended 10 with respect.to that course of action and whether they had 11 any questions, whether they thought there was additional 12 analysis or other su pport activities that needed to be 13 carriec out before the decision was made, and then, provided 14 that there was a concurrence or that a consensus could be 15 reachea, then Mr. Arnold would instruct us to go ahead and 16' carry this out.
17 If a consensus was not reached, then w a a ttempted to 16 understand what was the problem, what was keeping whoever it 1v was out of the consensus group.
And assuming that there was 20 time to ao so, we would then be instructed to do the 21 ne cessary additional work in order to try and arrive at the 22 consensus.
l 23 So the basic decisionmaking process was an attempt to l
24 reach consensus among the technical suoport group, the 1
26 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Babcock & Wilcox, the Met Ed (a~\\
'7o16 04 08 61 r DAR 1
operations people, and Bob Arnold himself.
2 0
Whenever consensus could not be reached, were 3
there cases wnere the issues were so that you could not 4
reach agreement?
5 A
I do not remember any significant issue 'n which 6
we were not able finally to reach a consensus.
There were 7
some which required a great deal of time to finally achieve u
the consensus.
9 I guess the one that I remember as having taken the 10 longest time was the technical question of once an a ttempt 11 was made to pu t the plant on natural circulation, as we 12 intendea to do, what would be the specific criteria that 13 would be used to decide whether or not natural circulation
('
14 was in fact satisfactorily achieved and specifically what
\\..)
15 ather criteria that you would use to determine that you 16 would try to restart the reac tor coolant pumps or the 17 high-pr e ssure injection s,_.em.
1d Ar.d tnat was debated over a course of, I believe, a 19 couple of weeks, off and on, among various bodies, and it's 20 a complicated enough issue that everybody had their private 21 ideas.
t!e were e ssentially able to achieve something tha t 22 everyone would accept, and we were able to do this prior to 23 the tin.e that we transitioned to natural circulation.
24 How, I should clarif y that.
In the sense that it sounds 25 perhaps even worse than it was, we did have, right from the g
n.i
bl6 04 09 62 DAR I
beginning, a set of criteria that had in written down, if 2
you go on natural circulation and if these criteria are 3
exceeded, then you try to restart t he pumps or take other 4
actions tha t were oefined.
And those were, in fact, pre sen t 5
all the time that this debate was going on.
And the debate o
was simply to arrive at an improved set of criteria.
7 But had it been necessary to use a natural circulation at b
any time curing the time the debate was going on, this was an approvea set-up in the control room, so we were not going y
10 without criterial we were Just going with a set of criteria 11 that I believe everyone chought could be improved upon.
12 (Brief recess.)
13 B Y 1.tR. SCdIERLING:
f 14 0
Mr. Keaton, based on earlier statements, it 15 appears that you were very li ttle involved in tne support 10 provideo by B&W auring the first days of the accidenti is 17 tha t correc t?
16 A
Yes, that generally is correct, although I had 19 some contact with the B&W people here as part of the 20 three-phase liaison with the industry advisory group.
21 0
Did your interaction with B&W increase af ter abou t 22 Sunaay, April l?
23 A
Yes.
Tnere were, as you know, certain B&W people 24 here at the si te, and thare was interaction between those 25 people ana the industry advisory group.
i
9616 04 10 63 DAR I
In addition, there was a presentation made by B&W personnel from Lynchburg, who came here to have discussions 3
with the industry advisory group.
I don't remember 4
specifically what day that was.
5 0
You mentioned that B&W people were here at the o
site.
Was that John McMillan?
7 A
Yes.
And others.
e O
And others?
Y A
Yes.
10 3
Where would they fit into this organizational 11 structure that we are looking at?
Were they only in the 12 technical -- in the industry advisory group, or where else 13 would they interact?
e; 14 A
They were primarily not in the industry advisory 15 group.
Their primary interaction was through the technical to working group.
The senior B&W representative, who was 17 initially Jonn 14c!/111an, was a member of the technical lo working group; anJ they were also represented in the 19 discussions which led to plans and decisions.
20 0
Is it correct to assume that maybe somewhere else 21 on this organization there is a B&W element that was not 22 directly integrated into the GPU recovery organization, but 23 only inoirectly through John nicMillan into the technical 24 working group?
25 A
That is very defini tely correct.
I think probably
/
s
l616 04 11 64 JAR I
that the reason it was not shown on this particular chart 2
was that most of that most of that type of su pport pe rsonnel 3
remained in Lynchburg rather than coming here.
And this 4
chart really was addressing primarily those people that were 5
physically located here at the si te,
o But it is certainly true that the interactions with B&W, 7
right f rom the beginning of this organization, were very 6
strong.
And they really occurred in two diff erent manners.
9 One was through the B&W senior representative here and 10 through the tecnnical working group, but also the GPU 11 technical support group had constant interactions with B&W 12 and was constantly drawing from them technical information 13 on specific questions that we requested.
(
14 In fact, we had, from the time that the support trailer 15 was initially set up, we had an open line to B&W, Lynchburg, lo wr.ich would f unction 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a oay.
They had an 17 organization in operation 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day.
And it sim ply to requireo one of us to pick up the tele phone and talk to IV wroever was the senior watch-stander at that hour of the day 20 or night, to institute a new support task.
21 Frequently, these were of a nature that we would call at 22 1800 or 2:00 o' clock in the morning and ask for technical 23 analysis, and by 8:00 or V: 00 o' clock the nex t morning, it 24 would go on the telecopier.
25 0
Those requests would initiate here in the f
7616 34 12 65
/9 UAR 1
technical support group by -- primarily, that is where they 2
would originate?
3 A
I tnink tha t is primarily true, in the sense tha t 4
the technical support group was doing the background work 5
f or a lot of detailed - technical planning that was going o
on,.
But there certainly were many, many examples of 7
questions which were raised in the general technical working 6
group meeting wnere the requests went from the B&W 9
representative here on site rather than going through the 10 tecnnical su pport group.
So, really, it's both ways.
11 MR. SCHIERLING - For the record, I think we should 12 identify the recovery organization chart that we are looking 13.
at.
We will maxe this organizational chart part of the 3
14 t ranscri pt, I suppose.
I t is an organization chart, dated J
15 April 4, at II 00 o' clock in the morning.
It's lo handwri tten.
I think that that suffices.
17 THE WITNESS: In discussing the B&W support, let me 16 he very specific, that particularly starting on the lv Nednesday after the accident, when I took over as deputy 20 director of tne technical support functions --
21 SY AR. SCHIERLING:
22 0
That would be. April 4, I think?
23 A
The 4 th.
Yes, I think that is correct.
24 0
April 4.
25 A
Rignt.
From the period of time from then on, we l
7016 04 13 66 UAit I
had almost constant interactions with the B&W organization 2
in Lynchburg, as well as with the people here.
And they 3
made every a ttempt to be fully responsive to our requests 4
for technical support.
5 0
Can you identif y any difficulties that were 6
encountered in the interaction with B&W where there was 7
maybe difficulties in disagreements in technical approaches e
t ha t were taken or recommended?
9 A
I will nave to tell you honestly that the major 10 difficulty may sound trivial, but it simply was that the il telecopier equipment that we were using was such that 12 frequently the B&W technical support documentations arrived 13 here in an almost unreadable fashion.
And that was not a r
14 problem with the B&W equipment so much as it was a problem LJ 15 witn the equipment that we had here on site.
lo In terms of general technical support, I do not recall 17 any aisagreement on really major items.
There was le disagreement between ourselves and B&W on some of the 19 technical details, particularly areas that were subjective 20 in nature, such as the one I mentioned earlier on what 21 should be the specific criteria for de termining whether 22 natural circulation was successf ul or not.
And there was a 23 very subjective decision to be maae as to how conservative 24 these criteria should be, and we had technical 25 disagreements on those.
(
i
~
x
f61604 14 67
/~t UAH I
.But as f ar as basic matters, I don't remember any 2
substantial proolems in that area.
3 0
You mentioned that Babcock & Wilcox made a 4
presentation on their recommended approach to natural b
circulation.
Do you recall when that was made and who the o
individuals were?
7 A
There was more than one presentation made on 6
natural circulation.
But the first presentation I remember 9
Babcock & Wilcox making was, I believe, more on their 10 perception of wha t the transient had been and what the 11 current status of the reactor was.
This was a presentation 12 tha t was made to the industry advisory group by a taam, and 13 the two members that I am sure participated in this were 14 Allen P!olmack -- W-o-1-m-a-c-k -- and Bruce Karrasch --
15 K-a-r-r-a-s-c-h -- maybe.
lo They were on the subject of natural circulation, many 17 communications cact and f orth between the on-site t' 'hnical Ic support group ana B&W, both verbal communications and 19 wri tten telecopiec communications.
20 Subsequently, a team of, I believe, four of us from GPU 21 went to Lynchburg ano spent the day discussing the BaW 22 resul ts and the.r prediction of what natural circulation 23 would be, and comparing them with results that we had both 24 f rom GPU analyses and f rom analyses f rom other organizations 25 t he n --
t
l616 04 15 68 DAR I
O Do you recall when that trip was made?
2 A
No, I don't.
But that's probably recoverable.
3 0
Okay.
Would you know if it happened before April 4
7 or afterwards?
5 A
I am sure it was after April 7, but it ha ppened 6
before the final transition to natural circulation.
7 And then, subsequently, when some questions were raised o
-- I think this is af ter we were on natural circula tion --
V tnen B&W sent a team of two or three people up here to work 10 with us.
11 And so interactions on natural circulation extended over 12 a very long period of time in a variety of dif ferent 13 interactions.
r',
14 0
.'ou men tioned tha t the mee ting in Lynchburg on U
15 natural circulation -- you used GPU analyses and tnose of lo other organizations?
17 A
Yes.
Io 0
h' hat were the other organizations that providea 19 input to tha t?
Were there other NSSS vendors?
20 A
Yes.
We had analysis done by both Combustion 21 Engineering and Westinghouse.
22 0
Let's talk about the support by Burns & Roe 23 Company.
First of all, where would they fit into the 24 organizational structure that we are looking at nere?
2b A
Okay.
The primary -- let me addre ss tha t que stion
'J
'2616 04.16 69 pv UAR I
in two parts.-
2 O
Yes, s 3
A Initially, f rom Friday, March 30, until this 4
crganizatic e really set up and operating, which was 5
about hednesday, April 4, the primary focus of the Burns &
6 Roe effort was through the GPU home office support 7
organi zation, although I believe there were some contacts o
made directly from GPU people here at the site or 9
Metropolitan Edison people here at the site, to Burns &
10 Roe.
11 Primarily, tne contacts went through the Parsi ppiny 12 support organization.
When the so-called "TMI recovery 13 organization" was set tp, this underwent some change in that 14 one of the major sections in that organization was called b-~
15
" plant modifications," and the director of that section was lo Buzz Cobean -- C-o-b-e-a-n -- who is vice president of Burns 17
& Roe.
lo So, for those types of plant modification activities, 19 then, Burns & Roe fit directly into the on-site 20 organization and, in fact, brought over a very substantial 21 engineering organization to work here on the site on those l
22 modifications.
23 But it's also true tha t during that time there was 24 continuing Burns & Roe support both to the on-site GPU j
25 technical support organization ano to the continuing i.
O' i
s_J
'016 04 17 70 pv._ DAR I
Parsippiny engineering support organization.
4
't
^/-
2 So, the Burns & Roe really plugged into the organization 3
really more than one place.
4 0
How many Burns & Roe people do you estimate were b
here at the site?
o A
I believe at the peak it was of the order of a 7
hundred, but there were other people who would know that 8
number be tter than I do.
9 0
You mentioned Buzz Cobean as probably the major 10 contact between GPU and Burns & Roe.
Who else on the Burns p
-Il
& Roe staff were the major indiviauals involved?
12 A
Right.
Buzz Cobean was the senior Burns & Roe 13 representative all the time, but we had other, what mig'it be 14 called " project engineers" or " project managers" from Btrns 15
& Roe, particularly during the time that we were on two-and io tnree-shif t operations, and those were -- one was Scott Dam 17
-- u-a-m -- I tnink i s. how he s pe la s i t.
I am,Jst drawing 10 a blank.
I would recognize.the names.
19 0
Tha t is all right.
I just wondered if you can 20 recall any.
21 A
Yes, I can, but they just won't come up right 22 now.
23 24-25 0
71 1616 05 01 jlDAR I
J Fine.
Can you identify any of the major Burns in 2
your activities here at the site --
~ (}
3 A
Yes.
as f ar as the modififications are concerned?
4 J
a A
Y3s, very definitely.
5 Burns & Roe took the lead in the so-called
/
Dee-lose d-cooling loop, which was the f allback cooling 3
system for the bee sting generator.
They were heavily 9
involved in many of the other. modifications, including some 1) of the changes that were made to the rad waste systems.
11 0
- a re they involvea in the filter system that was 14 insta11ea?
13 A
Ye s.
In one way or another, they were involved in 14 casically every modification that was done.
()
15 0
Is it correct to assume tnet they more or less la actid as an engineer here on sight?
1.
A Ye s, in general, that's true.
There were a few 19 specific modifications where the load was taken by another 1/
orgenization.
For example, the added decay heat system was 2J done for us cy destinghouse rather than oeing a Burns & Roe 21 projecti out generally speaking, y3s, it is true that 22 Burns & Roe served as the engineer nere on site.
23 0
How would the assignments ne made to the plant 24 modifications group?
How was the interection been 22
-Surns 1 Roo and Mr. Arnold.
Did he make th3-assignments, or l
l r
%I '
l
'616 05 02 72 jlDAR I
how old that take place?
4 A
In terms of a decision to start or contruction of
-(^x-)
'3 a major modification, those decisions were made in the 4
technical working group under the direction of Mr. Arnoldt 5
that's right.
An Burns & Roe would be asked to carry out 6
that activity.
From there on in, the primary interaction became between 4
3 the 3pU technical support group and Burns & Roe.
The
/
technical support' group would either provide the criteria 13 for the new systems, or it would review the Burns & Roe 11 criteria for the new systems, and would continue to interact 12 with Burns i Roe in and overseeing mode as far as the 13 technical characteristics of the joos being performed.
14 As f ar as the scheduler aspects of those jobs, that was t( )
13 normally reviewed on a day-by-day basis in the technical 13 working group sessions.
14 0
Con you iJentify any other outsida organizations 13 that contriouted to or participated in this review, recovery l>
effort?
23 I'm speating now about NSSS vendors, and I am also 21 thinking aoout the use of reactor operators f rom otner 22 utilities.
23 A
0% ay.
As part of the so-:alled G?U technical 24 support group, we had very extensive participation both NSSS 2;
representatives and by representatives from other l.
L-
73 I616 05 03 jlDAR I
u tili te s.
/le specifically had working with us, on a
's 2
day-cy-day or, in many cases, night-Dy-night basis,
.[^)
N-3 perso nnel f rom Combustion Engineering, General Electric, and 4
.1estinghous?1 and, in addition, MPR and Pickard, Lowe &
3 Garrick, and Energy, Incorporated.
5
? rom the utilities we had support from Duke Power,
/
0-u-k-e, TVA, FloriJa Power & Light, and a variety of 3
others.
I don't think I could recall them all.
d O
Hon were the utilized witain that organization?
10
's t's first talk about reactor operators, if there were 11 any.
Do you have any knowledge of how they were utilized?
Il Wes it in this organization -- I knew Dick Wilson -- or 13 were they also used in plant operations and Herbein?
14 A
Let me address what I know first.
I know we had
,m q_)
13 in the technical support group many people, whose specialty la was reactor operations, that came to us f rom f rom outsid? ;
il and they were put into assignments most closely related to 13 reactor operation, such as preparation for emergency l>
procedures.
They were also assigned to duty in the control 23 room, since during all of tnis time the GPU technical 2
support group was maintaining at least one person in the 22 control room on a 24-hour-a-day basis.
23 I_do know, of my own knowledge, %qow whether there were 24
'other operational people 'that went into the Met Ed plant, 20 plant operation organization.
)
h
(
0
74 616 05 04 jlDAR
.l.
O Can you comment on the effectivene ss of technical
(~)
2 people from GE, destinghouse, and CE being f amiliar with G'
3 their design as compared to people f rom B&Pl.
4 A
Tnere was-a necessary transition period for the people from the othsr vendors.
In.the case of destinghouse 5
and Combustion Engineers, the transition would typically 7
~take a couple of days and consisted of, in part, simply S
lesening the Bln terminology, because the different PriRs do call the same thing something different.
But there were IJ also problems in that many of these people who had-intimate 11 knowledge of their own de signs woule tend to jump to 14 conclusions that mignt not ce applicable for the Bra design.
13 And so we and they, as well, had to carefully cross-check 14 this type of thing to make sure we were not oeing let astray
()
15 by their knowledge of the wrong system, la 30 there was a learning curve.
In the case of tne ll.
General Electric representatives, tne learning curve was, 13 of course, more extenseive; and we tended to use those I/
people in specific systems, rather tnan something tnet 20 required broad knowledge of the plant.
21 3
Oun yo; identify, in broad terms, the assignments 2d that were given to these engineers f rom GE, aestingnouse.
23 and CE?
.That ectivities were they involved in?
.24 A
faey were involved in a wide spectrum of 2;
activities.
One of the key groups <tithin tae technical mk
'75 161'6'05'05' jl0AR I
support : organization was the technical planning group.
And
/"T
~ we used, to my memory, representatives from all three of the LV
-3 vendors in'that.
This group was lending the plans for what 4
would be done over the next several weeks and months with 3
the. plant, ooth big picture and then some technical detail.
5 We ~also used people from the nuclear vendors in the shif t 7
opera tion,- the technical short shif t operations, where they 3
wers located either in the control room or here on the
'sland, supporting tasks that were going on, supporting i
/
IJ pro:edure-writing, and the other activities ~that were Deing Il carried out oy the. shift operations.
le So, in general, with all the support people that came in, 13 whetner they were from USSS or from a utility or from a
.I*
consultant, we tend 3d to bring them in, talked to them on en
,- m
(_)
16 an indiviouel basis about what their background and la
- apaciltiy was, plugged them into the organization et a 1.
place that looked like they would fit the besti and then we 14 constantly encourageo these people to come occk to us, the I/
maqegers, if they saw a place where they could fit cetter, 23 Decause they knew their capacilities better thaq we did.
21 30 we heJ nany examples.cf where someone came in citer
'22 two or tnrei days ana would come osc% and say, " Hey, that 21 operation over here, I really know aoout that," then -- then 24' so we woulJ reassign him ov3r to taet one.
23 And tne other thing is that in some cases where se saw a
(-
[. 1 b,!
'616205 06~
76
- J1DAR
'l particular need, where we had to remove momecody from a (S
2
.particular type of operation, we might call, fo t example,
-V 3
Comoustion-Engineering and say
" Hey, send us s;mebody with.
4 these specific ~ characteristics.
We need that in our a
o rg an i z at ion.'"
And they would attempt to respond to this 6
request.
a O
Another element in this organization chart is what 9
is identified as task management and scheduling under
.Jred Stern..
13 A
Yas.
11 3
do you know what tais organization was assignec to
.id do?
13 A
Ye s, the idea was to set up a detailed senedula 14 for the various tasks, including coth a plant modifications
- (]')
la and analytical' task, then planning tasks to'have 13 identification of all of tha various tasks ano suo-tesks in I/
detoil with an individual assigned to them, a completion 14 dete.
1/
And then this organization was intended to track thet and 23 to report cock as -to what extent we were mee ting the overall 21-scheoule sad where the proolem areas seemed-to lie.
22
_I should comment that while that activity did co on --
23 anJ I'm. sura it Jid perform some us?ful functions -- my 24 personal interaction with it was - such that I don't nelieve L
21 thst it ever-really f unctio,ed as productively as thet type
~
I i.
i '
s
77 M'16 05 07-
-j lD AR _
1 of an operation would function in a more well-defined
T 2
organization in a more stable environment.
V 3
There were severe problems' in those people being acle to 4
carry out waat-they were assigned to do, partly do to the-f act 'that during the period that we initially start 3d this a
our perception of what need3d to be done was still changing a
/
very rapidily.
3 And what was perceived to be realistic scheduling was y
chcnging very rapdily, and partly oecause the organization IJ as a whole did not function as smoothly as an organization
'la that had been in place for some period of time.
Ic Q
Telking aoout this organization as a whole, there 13 are quite a few places, individuals with management 14 responsio111 ties that are outside the G?U-Met Ed
'[]
'l3 organization.
.13 Jan you :omment on their e ffectiveness as you, as a G?U ll employee, c1 oringing in this outsiae expertise, and te ll 13 them to ta%e over s Jch ma jor management f unc tions and
-Iv inter jec t tnem into this organization?
23 I 31most aave to answar tnat on a c ase-oy-c ase
?!
nasis in looting through th) organiza tion.
The dir30t 21 opera tion of the olant, of course, continusa to b9 umder tna 23 mana gement of-Me tropolitan 3dison.
I thin % it coula havs 24 been very difficult to put an outsiaer into the position 22-that was oc:opied by, for example, Jack Heroine.
f i
b L
78 1616.05 08.
-jlDAR 1
3 i mi la rl y,' the technical support was undar the management
~'t 2-of-G?U people.- And I think it might not have been 9asy to (J
3 have an outsider there.
4 fne waste management organization was managed by a
outsi de rs.
Eventually, as you know, it was Ben Rusche who 5
really became the director of this.
And, frankly, my
/
perception is that this has been fairly effective, thougn I S
will tell you, honestly, that I have had less contact with 9
the waste management organization than I have had with 1) almost anytaing else on hers.
li Su't cert 9 inly I am not aware of eny lack of effectiveness 12 there, assoc iated with the f act that it was an outsider who l.
13 was running the organization.
I suspect the contrary is l
14 true becausa of Mr. Rushe's very particular capabilities.
1 l
(-)
is Plant operations activities under Buz Cooean really, I la taina, was not an indication of having an outside manager, 1/
in tne sense that all of the people working on these plant 13.
modification activities wera basically Burns & Roe people.
l/
So Buz was really managing his own sta ff, and w3 still 23 had the control of the criteria for the these modifications 2l under the 3?U people.
22-
\\s f ar as the task management and scheduling activitias 23 under Frid 3 tern, I don't Delieve that naving an insider 24 manage tnat would have made that Joo any easier.
I thin'<
-2)
.Jred did as much as anybody coula have done there.
ss
1616.05'09 J1DAR I
And administration and logistics, under dooidieux, will
(~N 2
-- of course, he is Metropolitan Edison, so if you look at
/
U-
~
3 the line.responsioilities. I don't see any case where having i
an outsider, I see, was a detriment.
- a'
]
From your experience, it didn't create any proolems?
A From my experience,'I don't think that oringing in 3
an outsider created any proolems, no.
/
I want to return, also, to something else.
In talking 13 aoout the bringing in of people into the technical support 11 opera tion from outside, I want to comment tnet while there 12 was _ an educational perica involved for most of the people 13 from the nuclear vendors, tnat was not necessarily true for 14 the people that came in from other utilities.
(])-
la And, in fact, we nad people from some of the other la utilities in from various -- and very specifically-from 1/
Duk3, wno walked on this site and were productife tne moment IS the/ arrived.
l/
J
'Ino was that in perticular?
23 A
Jute Power was the outstanding example oecause of g
21 these people's knowledge of the Oconee Plant and tne very l
I 24 great similarities of thet and IMI.
Ana either in aavance I
l 23 or on th? airplane up, these guys had done enough homework 24 that by the time they got hare they %new already where TMI
.25 was different fron tne other plant.
And some of tnose n
80 G16 -05 10 jlDAR I
people were enormously valuaole to us.
~2 0
Let me propose this, or propose to you the 3
following:
Some people gave us to unders.and that while 4
mayos some of the outstanding mansoement people were indeed 5
needed, however you probably could have done without them, 5
they were extremely valuable in making their entire organization accessiole.to you.
a 8
And, for example, in the case of Oconee and Duke Power
/
Company, tha t through V.r. Lee or Mr. Owen, you nad access to is that organization.
And witnout those people you procaoly' 11 woula not have oeen sole to obtain taese operational people 12 from Oconee.
13 Jan you :omment on having outside management available in 14 that aspect?
({')
la A
tie ll, certainly it is-true that the aoility to la draw on the resources of organizations such as Duke, who was I,
-- was extremely important to us.
I think that it would oe 13 possible to set up an emergency response organization that 1/
was managed simply oy GPU sad Metropolitan Edison people.
23 I think that one of the things tha t is -- that is 21
- haracteristic of tnis specific organization was, numoer 22 one, it was an orge,12stion that was really put together 23 ver/ quick 1f, and tnerefore had to oe b'filt around the 24 resources taat were immediately at nand; and, secondly, that 2;
there was delicerate desire to involve outsiders in the 1
[ )
,(>
l l
81 l616 05 11 jlDAR I.
organization partly because of just making sure there was
((,)
2 ready access to the resources of those organizations.
3 So in terms of what would be done in the future, I'm not 4
sura that this is tne optimum organization.
It appeared to 3
De the optimum for the particular enaracteristics that we had right following March tne 28tth.
a
/
.J Mr. Keaton, I think you answered most of my 3
questions, including evaluation of the entire GPU recovery
/
organization.
IJ fwo final items that I have regarding the evaluation:
Do il you %now of any requests that you made for support that 12 could not os met to organzietions?
And the other one is --
13 well, let's answer this one first, tne requests that could 14 not ce met 3r where you had extreme difficulty in ootaining r~N)
\\_
la the help or tne equipment that you needed, 13 A
Inst was somewhat variaole in time.
I would say 1,
tha; for th? first two weeks, threa weets, maybe even four 13 weeks, that we really got_ wnat we asked for, to the extent 1/
that it was possiole to do it.
23 I think the support of tne industry as a whole was really 2i outstanding Juring the early periods of time.
As time war?
22 on and, as I say, tnis transition.maybe started af ter a 23 couple of weeks and continued on -- and as support 24 organizations, such as, for-example, the Westinghouse or i
i 2;
Comoustion ingineering or General Electric, oecame' aware
016 05 12 82 jlDAR l'
that the situation here was more stable,. that the~ major part
_(~}
2 of.the emergency had passed, then there was more of a V
3 tendency to regard our requests as simply one more.
4 comp 3 titor fer their attention.
3 And so tne response was a little less dramatic than it 6
was in the oeginning of the accident.
For example, in order to free up some of our own staff -- and now this is like 4
d five weeks after the accident, we wanted to get two or tnres 9
-people to come here and stay on-site, full-time people from 10 nuclear vendor who would oe doing day-by-day analysis of 11 the plant.
12 And where it stood, it was something that fell into the 13 capacility of GPU, but our resources had been spread so 14 thint that de were trying to supplement it from outside.
( )-
15 And we had more difficulty in doing this because the people l$
.that we were going to perceived this was not an emergency Il need on our part, and balan ed this against the other 13 aspec ts of their cusiness.
~
1/
But during the first period, when we clearly did nave an 20 amergency situation here, every case that I am awars of, 21 people Jid everything they knew how to Jo to answer our 22 request.
l 23 J
07e last item, regarding the timeliness in 24
-requesting tne support Do you thin. G?U could have L
22
- reg'Issted assistance in certain areas sarlier, and how would I
O 1
83 l.o!6 05 13
)
jlDAR I
that have made any difference in the development of the 2-accident?
()
~3 A
From the period of, say, Friday, March the 30th, 4
on, I tnink we were requesting assistance in getting help in 6
here as far as we knew how to use it, maybe in some cases 6
faster.
We nad people pouring in.
/
J And more.
8 A
And more.
9 And our real challenge was not that we had enough people, iJ out how to get it organized and productive in the shortest 11 length of time.
In principle, had we really understood whet 12 the situation was, mayoe we would have oeen requesting that 13 help on.iednesday or Thurday, but we just didn't know at 14 that time that we needed it.
()
15
%f. SCHIERLING:
Mr. Keaton, tnat concludes my la questions.
1.
Jo you have any questions?
Do you have any additional 13 questions?
19
- 44. ALLIS0:18 A couple.
23 dl MR. ALLISON:
21 0
Did you have NRC people working with your 22 technical support group?
23 A
ibt in the sense of oeing integrated in the 24 1 technical support group, no, we did not.
However, we had a 20 continuing and close intera: tion oetween the on-site NRC O
r
84 7616 05 l-4 jlDAR I
Staff and the technical support group.
For example, when 2
technical -- when technically complicated questions arose,
,/ }
3 like the one I mentioned to two or three times, criteria for 4
whether or not we had natural circulation, we had meetings 5
with NRC representatives here, not in a presenter / reviewer 6
type of meeting, but in a technical discussion type of I
meeting, wnst do all of us think?
6 So in that sense, there was a closer tecnnical coupling
)
at the lower levels in the organization than would oe 10 typical for an NRC review process.
.N e di dn' t wa i t un til we ll had all of our plans developed and then present them to the 12 NRC.
13 J
For the recora, I woula like to develop what that 14 means.
If I understand you, the NRC people were
()
15 demonstrating a different attitude than is -- than you were, 13 too, than is normal in our normal ousiniss relations with 1,
each other?
13 A
Certainly curing the first two or tnree weeks of l>
the accident, I think there was a relationship here oetween 23 the aifferent participants, including NRC, that was quita 21 different than any relationsnip that I have ever seen in the 22 past.
23 0
Ta ll me if I'm wrong, normally if you come to the 24 NRC with an idea, we would generally tell you something like 2;
"Thare is some thing wrong with it," or "I am not sure tnet Ov i
85 1016 05 15
-jlDAR I
it is right," right?
"Go off and do some more work, and 2
prove that tha.'s okay."
3 Is that what you kind of characterize as normal NRC 4
attitude?
5 A
Yes.
5 2
Hare the people -- again, correct me if I'm wrong
/
-- shif ted gears and tried to figure out how to solve tha 3
prool em ?
/
A Very definitely that was true.
Aqd in many cases lJ the.1 RC, in fact, gave themselves action items to work along 11 with us in trying to evolve a plan of action or something of 12 that type.
s 13 And, also, I think the NdC Senior Staff made a really 14 nonas t and I think generally successf ul attempt to judge, in
(
la their own mind, waat should be the balance oetween, on the 15 one hand, digging into ever/ possible technical detail, and, 1.
on the other hanJ, ge tting on with the job tnat may oe 13 really needed to get on witn.
19 And I feel, in my year's interaction with the NR2, that 23 the period following the accident was the olly time I have 21 ever been repeatealy criticized by the HRC for not getting 22 on wi th my joo.
23 0
fnet's another general thing that the NRC seems 24 interested in understanding something, whether it makes any 2;
sense or not, in your opinion?
q
%./
l
86 1616 05 16 J1DAR I
A And let's stop arguing about it, and do it in some 2
cases.
So I think many people nave said -- and I certainly Os x
3 would reiterate it -- that time contributions of the NRC 4
Staff were very, very positive during biis period of time.
3 And I think they shifted gears into what I think was a 6
very appropriate mode quickly, and really on their own 4
initi ative, rather than us going and saying, " Hey, you ought 3
to go work dif ferently."
I think they recognized it even sooner than we did.
13 0
But you don't recall that people were actually -
11 along and working alongside of your people in the various 12 groups?
13 A
My memory was that that did not occur.
14 0
Do you remember who initiated the action to get
(}
15 the extra diesel generators on site, and when that happened?
16 A
I don't know who initiated that action for sure.
II
- think it may have been the on-site shift, technical 18 support organization thet was more or less headed up by 1/
Gar / Broughton.
2)
And I believe that probaoly happened along about Friday 21 or Saturday, but I'm not certain.
22 3
You think it probaoly happened then before you 23 came on?
24 A
Yes, my memory is that was already underway at the 25 time I first heard of it.
O
87 L616 05 17 J1DAR I
Q Do you remember if the diesels were in place when
-( }-
4 you came down?
3 A~
No, I don't rememoer.
I 4
0 Do you rememoer about how many people were working 5
in Fred Stern's task management and scheduling group?
6 A
I don't believe it was very many.
I believe there i
s were initially meybe three or four people, maybe as many as 8
half a dozen later on.
i e
10 i
il 12 13 n
is 1/
Id 19 2J 21 21 i
23 24 23 O
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-CR'#7616 88
' Tape'6:
- cch:
El G
Last question.
Can you explain to me what these
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2 NRC interface points mean on the organization chart?
3 One under technical support labeled " licensing," has an 4
arrow with-an NRC interface to it, and one in the plant 5
operations organization, " Shift operations,"' has another arrow 6
with NRC interface.
There is another one reporting to Dick 7
Wilson.
8 A
Right.
The NRC interface into licensing was the 9
interface that I might describe as the traditional NRC inter-10 face.
If there were te: i spec modifications or if there were 11 NRC bulletins that we had to respond to or the reporting 12 requirements for this accident itself, that's what that interface
/7 13 was.
Q) 14 4
Can I interrupt for a second?
Was that a significant 15 part of this effort, making reports on tech spec cnanges and 16 formal orders and things like that?
17 A
In terms of the total percentage of effort, very 18 definitely not.
There was ongoing effort and there were one or 19 a few people assigned to that, but it was a very small part of 20 the. total effort.
21 O
Just a few people at most, would you say?
22 A
Yes, and I doubt that there were a few people.
I l
23 would suspect that there were one or two of them.
As a matter
("]
24 of fact, the NRC interface into the shift operations was the I Ace 5..Ost Reporters, Inc.
25 people who were assigned in the plant who were both reviewing I
I
.cch-j 89.
1 the status of the plan and the actions being taken and who were f
i
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2 also doing very operationally: oriented operations, such as 3
approving changes to procedures or approving new emergency 4
procedures, this type of thing. ~ And that interface is shown 5
there, where it was a procedure that was prepared by the GPU 6
technical support organization.
7 We frequently were the ones also that interfaced with them 8
there, and I think that is what the dotted line shown under 9
Wilson is, because our normal route for approval of emergency 10 procedures, if it wasn't the type that was going to involve the 11 entire technical group, if it was to be approved by the technica:
12 support organization and then it would be approved by the 13 plant operation group, and specifically by the PORV.
And then (s
wsj 14 it would be reviewed with the NRC people who were in the plant, 15 and, at that point, if they had questions, typically it would be 16 the technical support engineer, or, in some cases, myself, who 17 would get to go with the NRC people and discuss what the 18 technical itaues.were.
And if they could get it approved, they 1
19 would sign it off.
If we ran up against a hard spot, which l
20 happened once or twice, then we might delegate it to the level 21 of the technical working group and get the more senior NRC 22 people involved in it.
23 0
So you described three interf acc points shown on the i
r^w 24 organization chart, and you led into another one, which is the
- Acei.
- st Reporte,s, Inc.
25 meetings of the technical working group.
The technical working
cch 3 90 j
group is a committee that met of the managers of all these
(~)
2 various organizations?
w.
3 A
That's correct.
4 G
Did you go to many of those meetings?
A I went to most of them, yes, sir.
5 6
G And is it true that at those meetings Mr. Arnold was the person responsible for making decisions as to what to do?
7 A
That's a hard question.
It is true that Mr. Arnold 8
led the decision-making process, but the environment that 9
10 existed -- and I suspect to some extent still exists -- was not 11 such that really there was one person, but unilateral decision-12 making effort.
p 13 For example, Mr. Arnold clearly could not decide to do an Q
14 operation that the NRC would not approve of.
15 G
Right.
The NRC had a veto --
16 A
Right, right.
G
-- Power, besides just sitting in and being another 17 18 Participant in that meeting, and providing opinions like the 19 others did?
20 A
Right.
21 G
There was a veto power and, I guess, responsibility, 22 too.
23 A
Exactly.
And so, in fact, the way it worked, it was 24 that Arnold might be pushed for a particular decision, but I
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( Amw_Jat Remnon, Inc.
-25 never saw a case where-they had attempted to override people in t
cCh 4 91 1
order to get that decision carried through.
It was rather a
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2 case of he tried to understand -- if one of the other senior i
3 managers objected to it, what their objection was and what 4
needed to be done in order to either get them to change their 5
opinion or get them to change his opinion.
So, in some sense, 6
you can say that this operated as management by committee.
7 G
Did you ever see even one of those meetings where the 8
NRC exercised a veto kind of authority and said, "No, you just 9
can' t do that"?
10 A
Yes, very definitely.
If you want a specific, the 11 one that hops to mind is the plan taat was developed to measure 12 the water level in the containment building, which involved
[^' )
13 opening certain containment penetrations in order to get a uz 14 pressure measurement.
And that plan was developed, and then was 15 held in abeyance, specifically and only by :the NRC veto, until 16 a certain set of prerequisites that Mr. Stello, S-t-e-1-1-o, 17 wanted to see, had come to pass.
18 G
Do you recall any other vetos offhand?
19 A
I think there were probably one or two others.
I 20 remember that one specifically because it extended over a period 21 of time.
I do not know of any case in which the NRC vetoed 22 anything where there was general agreement, if there was an 23 emergency in doing it.
And, as a matter of fact, as I indicated 24 earlier, sometimes the shoe was on the other foot.
Ace -
erst Reporters, Inc.
25 And there were very specific cases where Mr. Stello or the
cah 5 92 l
1 other senior representative would go in and bank on their own 2
organization to be more responsive..
3 MR. ALLISON:
That's all I have.
4 MR. SCHIERLING:
Yes, I think if these are all the 5
questions you have and Dennis, you have none --
6 THE WITNESS:
I would like to make a couple of 7
general comments.
8 MR. SCHIERLING:
Yes, I was just about to ask you for 9
any additional comments you would like to make.
10 THE WITNESS:
I have two or three having to do with Il the operation of this organization.
' ' I would like I2 One, I guess, it's generally recognized now (m}
13 to reiterate that by far and away, the major problem that was es 14 faced by this organization was communications problem.
And 15 that was true even after everybody was physically close enough 16 together that you would have thought those problems would have 17 gone away.
But in f act, they did not, and it was not at all 18 unusual to spend an entire working shift or longer simply trying 19 to find out what should have been a very simple piece of 20 information to obtain.
21 It's hard for me to characterize all aspects of that problem, 22 but one portion of it was the fact that during the first couple 23 of weeks, when the situation was the most complicated, the 24 majority of this organization was across the river, and then l Acs.
eral Reporters, Inc.
25 there was a support organization that was here on the island.
I
93
.cah 6 1
And in the control room and in.the communication chains that
,A 2
were set up from the island to across the river were just
()
3 absolutely not capable of carrying the volume of information 4
that needed to flow.
5 So in the sense of developing future emergency plans, that 6
communication link or links between the off-site or support 7
organization and the on-site support organization are something 8
that -- well, it's just impossible to overemphasize the 9
importance of that.
10 The second thing is, we were really severely hampered, much 11 moreso than one would have thought in advance, by trivia 12 concerning facilities.
The simple fact that when we had new 13 people come in from a nuclear vendor or from a utility or so
(-)x L
14 forth, that there was no place that Dick Wilson or myself could 15 sit down with those people and talk about what was going on 16 and how they could fit in, without our physical presence 17 interfering with all the other work that was going on.
18 It led to a situation that during the daytime, there was 19 very 'little that was done during the first two weeks.
And most 20 of the productive work in the sense of making progress in 21 planning and making progress in procedures, and so forth, was i
22 done in a time period that ran from about 10 o' clock in the 23 evening to about 7:30 in the morning.
And that was simply 24 j)
because the facilities were such that everyone was standing Ac8,jal Reporwrs, Inc.
25 on everyone-else during the daytime.
6
cch 7 y
94 5
The communication links with the outside world -- we had six 1
('j) 2 telephones in one small end of one trailer.
And so if I wanted g
3 to be talking with Babcock & Wilcox, someone could Isot be 4
talking to Combustion Engineering, or be engaged in a shouting 5
contest.
6 I mentioned earlier the problem with the telecopier.
All of 7
these kinds of of things, that if someone had asked me before 8
the fact, I would not have put a whole lot of importance on it.
9 Having lived through it, I put a very great importance on it.
10 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
11 O
Let me follow that up with a question.
12 Was it necessary as far as the response itself is concerned, 13 was it necessary to have that physical separation between on-g 14 site here on the island and off-site at the observation center?
15 Could not some of the work that was being done here on site also 16 have been done off-site in one location?
j 17 A
I think not because the on-site engineering support 18 staff was working on a literally hour-by-hour basis, and l
19 supporting operations that were going on here, making plans for 20 short-term modifications like added instrumentation or direct 21 support for some of the tests that were going on.
And so, 22 physically, they needed to be located here in order to have 23 closer interaction with the operating staff.
^3 24 What might have been able to have been done is to move more Aceh. m lt at Reporters, Inc.
25 of the technical operation that was across the river over here.
1
cah 8 95 1
And eventually, in fact, that is what was done.
()
2 BY MR. ALLISON:
3 G
On unit 1, when you are installing data links to
\\
4 Parcippany, are you not?
5 A
Yes.
6 G
Are yoa putting those into other locations?
7 A
The data link is in the plans.
We haven't mechanized 8
it yet.
The thought is that we would run a similar data link 9
into the off-site emergency control center.
10 0
I believe during the first few days a data link could 11 have taken the place of about 100 communication channels in 12 talking to people and trying to get information.
Is that your 13 opinion as well?
feg LA 14 A
Very definitely.
And not even just during the first 15 few days, I think.
I think that at least, ultimately, the type 16 of data link that we would like to set up, and, I suspect, other 17 people would like to set up, would be capable of really giving 18 people off-site a very good understanding of the total 19 situation of the plant.
20 G
So, I guess my question is, would a data link have 21 helped to alleviate the communication problems you mentioned?
22 A
Yes.
It very definitely would have helped.
It 23 wouldn't have totally solved it, because a lot of communications 24 today have to do with plans or desirable course of action or
.cy
! Ace l<d Reporters, Inc.
25 that type of thing, that the data link wouldn't address, but l
cah 9 96 1
it was true that a lot of our information the data link would
,m) 2 address.
3 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
4 G
Are there any other comments that you would like to 5
make in any area that we either didn't cover in rufficient 6
depth or didn't cover at all?
7 A
One wc sort of hinted at, and I guess I would like to 8
get it on the record specifically, is that certainly we should 9
never again allow the situation to exist where this organization 10 hasn't been thought out in advance.
11 The time to develop that organization is not when you need 12 it, as we learned.
And, developed carefully in:.tthe cold light 13 of day, as we and many others are now doing, should be possible g
14 to have an organization that we can call into place and 15 function more efficiently and more quickly than this one did.
16 BY MR. ALLISON:
17 G
And would it have to be drilled beforehand in order 18 to fall into place cuickly?
19 A
I don' t know that drill is the right word, but I 20 certainly think that the people and their alternates that would 21 be expected to assume key roles in the organization would need 22 to get together and at least spend a little time talking about 23 how the organization would function, and not just passing 24 papers back and forth.
Ace + eral Reporters, Inc.
25 I'm not sure you would have to have monthly drills, but just i
crh 10 97 1
an understanding of who would do what, when, and how.
([
2 BY MR. SCHIERLING:
3 G
Mr. Keaton, again referring to the organization chart 4
here, we talked earlier about interfaces with the NRC.
What 5
are your thoughts about the NRC playing a more active role in 6
this organization than is indicated here?
To the extent that, 7
as you know, it has been suggested that maybe the NRC could take 8
over such a recovery organization.
Do you have any comments on 9
that?
10 A
Yes, I personally feel fairly strongly that that is 11 the wrong way to go.
Aside from problems in communications with 12 the public, I felt that the function that the NRC played here 13 and its relationship with this organization was one of the
{])
14 brighter spots that we went through, and I think that there are 15 two reasons why it is better for the NRC to play an interactive 16 role rather than management role in the case of an emergency 17 response.
18 One is that I think it would be very difficult for NRC to 19 have on standby people with detailed knowledge of every nuclear 20 plant in the United States that would be necessary to come in 21 and take over the management.
And I think having somebody taking 22 over the management that doesn' t know the plant in detail could 23 lead to a lot more problems than it would solve.
24 g
The second thing is that if the NRC came in and took it over,
' Acef ederal Reporters, Inc.
25 then who is going to be the independent watchdog that you i
I
r-cch 11 98 1
bounce the ideas off against?
You lose that.
Whereas if the
(
2 normal management continues, then the NRC has the opportunity 3
to fulfill an interactive and, if necessary, even combative 4
role, in making sure that there is good review of all of the 5
suggested items.
6 So I would personally have much regret seeing an emergency 7
plan that involved takeover by the NRC.
8 MR. SCHIERLING:
If there are no more questions, let 9
me just close this interview with saying that while we could 10 close right now, there is always the possibility that we might 11 ask you for more information or have you comment on additional 12 thoughts that we have.
13 With that in mind, I think we can close the interview for 14 now.
ond T-6 15 (Whereupon, at 1:45 p.m.,
the hearing was adjourned.)
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Ad4hmI Repo, ten, I c.
l 25 i
i