ML19338B875
| ML19338B875 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 09/28/1979 |
| From: | Frampton G, Grier B NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE, NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 8001280643 | |
| Download: ML19338B875 (84) | |
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1 UNITED STATES OF A'MERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
3
X In the Matter of:
THREE MILE ISLAND SPECIAL INTERVIEWS 6
__x i
7
.c!Ml l l
8 DEPOSITION OF BOYCE H. (a}REER l
l 9
Room 9109 1
10 Maryland National Bank Bldg'.
7735 Old Georgetown Road 11 Bethesda, Maryland l
t 12 Friday, September 28, 1979:
8:33 a.m.
13 BEFORE:
14 For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
15 GEORGE T.
FRAMPTON, JR.,
ESQ.
16 GEORGE RIVENBARK 17 t
18 I
19 I
20 I
21 22 23 1
24 t
i Am.FWwo Rgotters, lx.
25 I
4 I
2
_C _O _N _T _E N_ _T _S WITNESS:
EXAMINATION A
f( C ', '
Boyce H. Corier-3 1
3 i
4 4
5
_E X _H _I _B _I _T _S 6
EXHIBIT N' UMBER:
IDENTIFIED 7
17 4
i 8
10 11 l
12 i
13 14 i
15 i
16 i
i 17 I
18
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20 i
21 22 i
23 24 A.pwera neoorwrs, inc.
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i E-S-S1ES-CR 7264 BWH #1 jc 1 1
MR. FRAMPTON:
On the record.
This is a deposition 2
of Mr. Boyce H.
Grier, being taken by the U.S. Nuclear 3
Regulatory Commission's Special Inquiry Group on Three Mile 4
Island at Bethesda, Maryland, on September 28th, 1979.
i 5
Present in addition to Mr. Grier are Mr. Rivenbark, Mr.
~
i 6
Frampton of the Special Inquiry Group.
7 MR. RIVENBARK:
Boyce, I have been delegated the 8
Commission's authority to take your oath.
Would you raise 9
your right hand?
10 Whereupon, 11 BOYCE H. GRIER 12 was called as a witness and, having been first duly sworn, 13 was examined and testified as follows:
14 l EXAMINATION 15 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
16 O
Mr. Grier, you, I believe, received a letter dated i
l 17 August 27th from Mr. Rogovin explaining the purpose of this I
I i
18 I
interview, your rights in connection with it, and the fact 19 that some or all of the transcript of the deposition may 20 actually become public information.
21 A
I did.
22 O
And have you read that letter?
And do you have any 23 questions about it?
24 i
A I have read the letter and I have no questions.
W F
.r i ceport.... inc.
25 0
And you brought with you today a resume?
/
I
f jc 2 4
f 1
A Yes, I have.
P J
2 MR. FRAMPTON:
Let's have this two-page resume of Mr.i i
3 Grier marked as Exhibit 17 of this date.
i 4
(Exhibit No.17 identified.)
I' 5
BY MR. FRAMPTON l
6 O
As I said before we started, I think we would like 7
to begin by taking you through the events of March 28th and 8
the three or four days thereafter.
I believe you said in 9
prior testimony and interviews that you were told about the 10 incident at Three Mile Island shortly before 8:00 o' clock on 11 March 28th.
And shortly thereafter you talked to Mr. Davis 12 at headquarters in Washington after several attempts to get i
13 through to him; is that correct?
14 l
A That's correct.
15 0
And the first telephone contact from Region 1 to 16 the Unit 2 control room from Mr. Smith's office in Region 1 17 was then broken and reestablished in your regional incident 18 response center?
19 A
That is correct.
i li I believe the first group of inspectors to go to the 20 O
i 21 site left about 8:45 in the morning?
22 A
Yes.
23 O
And then was there a second group that left or a 24 second car shortly af ter that?
Aw L,rel Reporters, Inc.
25 A
That's correct.
The first car was called an
l 5
jc 3 I
emergency vehicle, which is a stationwagon.
There were five 2
inspectors in the first group.
The second car there were two I
i 3
inspectors.
d O
Did you have any role in deciding who would go with 5
that first group of people?
6 A
The persons selected to go were decided by Mr. Smith 7
a nd Mr. Brunner.
I was aware who was going, but did not have 8
any particular involvement in their selection but did not 9
object to the ones being assigned to go.
10 0
One of the things that has been noted in that II connection is that Mr. Haverkamp who was then the project--
12 principal contract inspector for TMI did not go with the 13 first group, but rather stayed in the incident response center.
Id Do you recall why that was and whether that was discussed at l
15 j the time, what his role ought to be?
16 A
I do not recall any discussion on that.
I don't 17 know.
I cannot answer why Mr. Brunner decided to send Higgins 18 and Baunack before sending Haverkamp.
I think there was some l
19 perhaps advantage to having Haverkamp in the office with his 20 familiarity to be available to answer questions.
But there 21 was no particular reason that I am aware of that he was not I
22 sent with the first group.
23 i
O You don't remember that being discussed at all?
24 A
No, I do not.
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21 O
Do you remember whether someone was designated as the I
i
2 jc4 6
1 1
team leader for this group or, in ef5ect, a supervisor that l
2 was going to organize the people when they got to the site?
I 3
A I am not aware of discussion at the time.
I know i
e 4
there is some confusion on this part.
The position I have f
5 taken, I believe in accordance with our Region 1 incident l
6 plan, there is a statement that if the project inspector is l
7 not in the team, that the emergency planning officer --
8 will be in charge of the team.
That was Dr. Gallina and he l
i 9
fulfilled that role.
So I have viewed him as being in charge.
10 I believe Mr. Smith may have indicated that Mr. Neely 11 was in charge, but I haven't viewed it otherwise, but I i
12 understand there was confusion on their part.
1 13 0
When you say there was confusion, was there confusion 14 l
when they got to the site?
15 A
I don't think so.
There is confusion afterwards 16 in different people saying who was in charge, so I guess there 17 must have been confusion, but I don' t think it caused any 18 problem.
f Q
I got the impression from reading some of your prior 19 20 testimony that af ter people were dispatched to the site, you 21 yourself spent a good part of the day in the incident response i
22 center?
Is that accurate?
i 23 A
Yes, I was there essentially full time from when it 24 was manned at about 8:00 until I left sometime 8:00 or 9:00 in LwJ uae'Reonen.ix.
25 l the evening.
I 7
jc 5 l
O Do you remember what the initial information was j
2 that you had from the Unit 2 control room?
And I am talking l
l 3
about 8:00 and perhaps 11:00 o' clock when the inspectors who 4
had gone to the site first got into the control room.
During l
5 the period when there were no NRC people on the site.
i i
6 Roughly do you remember what kind of information you were 7
getting, what information you were getting, and what idea --
8 how serious the problem appeared to be during that time?
9 A
I am not sure that I remember any details, of course,'
10 the initial information was that 6. hey had the turbine trip i
i 11 that had resulted in a transient.
I don't know the precise 12 time now, but sometime, I think, before inspectors were on-site 13 at 10:00, we had gotten some idea of the difficulty they were 14 in.
But I can't now recall specific details of that.
15 I presume you have reviewed the tapes of the telephone 16 conversations between Region 1 and the site.
And I believe 17 those would te'11 you what information was relayed at what 18 time generally.
l 19 O
Do you recall that when Mr. Higgins and Mr. Neely 20 got to the Unit 2 control room, did they make some kind of 21 a general comprehensive report or status repcrt when they had 22 gotten there and looked over the situation?
Do you recall 23 them calling in and saying we are here now, we have looked 24 at it and here is what the situation is?
rice Fouyal C eporters. Inc.
j 25 A
I think generally, though it may have been more in l
i
8 jc 6 I
terms of gathering information in response to questions, Idon'h i.
2 remember that there was any comprehensive report, because we 3
had been in continuous communication with the control rooms through the licensee.
So we had developed the information d
5 and plant status, I think, by the time they got there.
So 6
my recollection is that the initial effort was to obtain f
7 information in response to questions that we developed.
0 I would like to shift for a minute and ask you about 8
i 9
Wednesday and perhaps jumping ahead as well and ask you what 6
10 you can recall about the various telephone links that were in place.
We have had some difficulty figuring out exactly l
12 when headquarters at Bethesda actually was tied in to one of I3 the control rooms and when it wasn't.
A Initially, we had the line to Unit 2 control room I0 from the regional office and we had a line from the regional 16 office to the incident response center, so we were relaying I7 information.
18 But those lines weren't tied together at the beginning?
Q 19 I
l A
That's right.
My recollection is that it wac about 20 11:00 to 12:00 o' clock at the time they were tied together, 21 tied together in a conference circuit.
But the precise time 22 I am not sure.
l t
23 You had also had a line into the Unit 1 control room 0
[2' from fairly early in the morning?
5 Yes, after the inspectors got to the site, we had A
1
F I
jc 7 9
1 Dr. Gallina in the Unit 1 control room, which was their 2
emergency operations center where the radiological-environmental f
3 information was being developed. So we had two lines down, one 4
to Unit 1, one to Unit 2 after our inspectors got on-site.
5 Q
Then it was shortly after that or some period after 1
6 that that headquarters said we want to be directly tied into f
I I
7 Unit 2 control room?
i f
8 A
Yes.
i 9
0 Did that mean that they wanted you to get out of that!
10 loop?
Or do you remember what happened next?
l II A
At the time I know I had discussions with Norm 12 Moseley.
At the time he requested or informed me that 13 headquarters was doing that.
I raised the objection because 14 I thought that would, in effect, put the regional office out 15 of any control because the direct communications between 16 headquarters and the site would obviously take over.
17 My objections did not prevail.
So the circuits were 18 established and indeed to a great extent I think we were 19 simply monitoring the communications between headquarters and 20 the site, at least for Unit 2.
I 21 Q
But my question is whether you were able to listen 22 in?
23 A
We were.
We had, on that particular circuit, we hadl 24 a speaker phone in our operations center, so we were able to Ace-tweral Reporters. Inc.
25 listen to the communications and that is where some of them are 1
3
jc 8 10 I
recorded on our tapes during the first day, I guess.
So, yes, y
l 2
and we were also able to talk.
There was some communication 3
between headquarters and Region 1 and continued between Region 4
1 and the site, but there was also the direct communications 5
between headquarters and to the site.
6 Q
So on the afternoon, on Wednesday, you remained tied 7
into Unit 1 directly?
8 A
Yes.
9 Q
And you had a pipeline into the phone hrokup between i
10 headquarters and Unit 27 11 A
That's correct.
i 12 O
Was that like a conference call?
Could somebody l
13 break in and say, hey,this is Region 17 i.
14 A
Yes, we could.
15 0
But it was headquarters directly that was really 16 sort of controlling that circuit?
17 A
Yes, that is my idea.
18 0
You remember how long that stayed that way?
i 19 A
Well, there were changes in the phones over several l
20 days I'know, but that continued for several weeks as my re-l' 21 collection.
We still had, essentially, that conference l
22 circuit.
After we had the large group on-site starting on l
l 23 Friday there were phones tied into that same circuit.
The 4
24 trailer where NRR, Denton was operating the IE trailer control Ace aret Reporters. Inc.
25 room and Region 1 and headquarters were all tied together on l
l
[
11 1
11 jc 9 I
the-same circuit.
~
s 2
BY MR. RIVENBARK:
li 3
O That isn't real clear to me.
Now, on the same 1
1 circuit do we mean that one line between Unit 2 and headquarterb d
5 that the region could listen into were on the same circuit?
6 Would you describe those connections between the site and the i
7 region a.1.ittle?
i 0
A At sometime after we were on-site, there were 9
essentially five, I believe five phones all tied together 10 on a conference circuit, the Unit 2 control room, Region 1 l
II headquarters, the trailer at the site where Denton was, and 12 the trailer at the site where the IE office was.
So we were I
i 13 essentially all tied together.
I#
Q On one line?
15 A
Yes.
So we could from the trailer, from my office 16 the site monitor communications between control room and at I7 the operations center.
18 Were there other lines in addition to those?
0 i
A Yes, I am sure there were.
20 Q
From those same points?
21 A
Yes.
There were a number of phones set up in addition to the circuit that was kept ogan all that time.
l 23 A number of other circuits or just lines that you Q
24 had to ring up?
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25 A
Z guess all of the others who had to ring up.
This I
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P 1
was the only circuit that was kept open continuously I believe.
2 O
To the best of your understanding,.then, the region 3
had the capability to ring up directly Unit 1, Unit 2, Denton's 4
trailer, and headquarters -- the IE trailers and headquarters?
5 A
Yes.
6 0
On other lines?
i l
7 A
Yes.
Now, I am talking -- well, I don't remember I
8 when that capability was really set up, but I am talking maybe i 9
as late as Monday; Sunday, Monday, something like that.
i l
10 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
i i
11 0
Do you remember what the telephone hookup situation l
12 was on Friday morning when there was the evacuation flap?
We 13 know that Region 1 and the Unit 2 control room were tied in, i
14 but do you recollect whether people in headquarters at 15 Bethesda could get on that line to the Unit 2 control room?
16 A
Yes, they could.
17 0
So that was still in place?
18 A
That was still in place.
I 19 0
So if somebody in the incident response center in 20 Bethesda had wanted to get the Unit 2 control room, all they l
i 21 would have had to do was to pick up the telephone?
1 i
l 22 A
That's correct.
l i
l 23 Q
On Friday morning?
i-1 24 A
Yes.
~
A.pam i c.ponen, inc.
25 0
So it is your impression that that three-way circuit l
I l-
I 13 j
je 11 F
I continued on through Thursday and Friday?
2 A
Yes, and on --
l 3
Q And beyond?
l 4
A Yes, two weeks or so at least and these other circuits i
5 were added on to.that.
That is my recollection.
6 BY MR. RIVENbARK:
l Q
Could headquarters also listen in on the Unit 1 line !
7 8
that the region had open?
I 9
A I don't think that was a three-way circui.t, George.
10 That was between Region 1 and the Unit 1. control room.
Now there was a line put in to -- between Region 1 and headquarters' 11 I
2 I am not sure of the location of the terminal on the headquarte's r
13 end, whether it was in the operations center.
N I have some impression it may have been in Jim Sniezek's 15 office, but there was essentially a hot line put in between 16 those two points.
And when we moved to the site in the trailer, I7 that circuit continued.
We had a hot line -- George Smith had 1
18 a hot line to Jim Sniezek.
O From the trailer?
20 A
Yes, initially that was set up from the Region 1 21 operations center.
22 BY MR. FRAMPT5 -
l 23 Q
Let me go t-sch,, Wednesday and ask you about telephone
~24 communications and other communications that you had to deal
. Ace +euerC) Reporters, Inc, T
25 with, other than with the site.
I think you mentioned in one l
e
i 14 jc 12 ofyourPresident'sCommissiondepositionsthatalotofpeoplef I
i 2
had to be assigned to help Mr. Abraham answer telephone calls 3
from the press.
Was that a significant burden during the i
d first day on the regional office?
I 5
A Yes, it was.
Mr. Abraham was overburdened with 6
telephone calls, and then, of course, in the afternoon he f
7 decided to go to Harrisburg.
So he left with a large backlog j
8 of calls to be responded to, plus calls were continuing to l
9 come in.
So we assigned people who were not directly involved 10 in the operations center to handle those calls and principally II with my assistant Gary Snyder, two section chiefs from the j
12 safeguards branch, Jim Joyner and Jim Devlin.
Those are the 13 three that I believe were principally involved.
From time to Id time there may have been others.
15 They, essentially, over the next few days spent the full 16 time responding to inquiries from the press and the public.
17 Q
Did you have any kind of statement drafted up for 18 them to read or release or anything like that?
l9 In other words, what were they telling people who called?
20 A
They were just responding tn questions as best 21 they could.
They would come to the operations center from time 22 to time to be brought up to date as to what the information, 23 the latest information was.
But, no, there was no prepared 24 statement.
Ace 4. arc $ Reporters, Inc.
O Do you know whether Mr. Abraham c.r anyone else in 25 i
I l
I 15 jc 13 j
i i
the region talked to headquarters about this problem?
Was there any discussion of saying to these people, call Washington!
2 3
Don't talk to us?
Or whether there should be some central-4 ized press thing, rather than just having neople answer 5
questions?
6 A
?b.
I was not involved in any discussion like 7
that.
I am not aware of any.
8 Q
I am not suggesting there was.
I am just curious.
9 A
No.
Our general practice in Region 1 is when we 10 get a call from a member of the public or press whoever gets 11 it will respond to it as best he can.
And so that general l
l 12 procedure was followed here, too.
13 O
And the incident response center itself who was 14 designated to actually be on the telephone to the site and 15 how was that done?
16 A
We had the two stations.
The one for operational 17 information and the line that went to Unit 2 and another 18 station for the radiological-environmental information.
The operations branch under Mr. Brunner manned the phones that went 20 to Unit 2 and he assigned the inspectors or sometimes section 21 chiefs to that position.
Mr. Smith made the assignments for 22 the other communication channel.
23 0
What do you recall about the impressions th.t were 24 being gathered in the incident response center during that l
Lee 4 so Reconer.ine.
25 first day as to the status of the plant?
Was there a concern i
i i
b
e 16 jc 14 1
or awareness that continued over the ' day that the situation 2
was not stable?
I.
3 A
Yes, I think so.
I think there was concern recogniz-!
l 4
ing that the core was not being cooled because all of the I
I 5
pumps were turned off.
And, of course, as the levels of l
l 64 radiation, of radioactivity, were being detected, there was i
7 concern.
No question, j
i 8
Q What do you recall about requests being made from 9
Bethesda or from people at Region 1 during that first day l
10 for in-core thermocouple temperatures?
Do you have a 11 recollection of that information being requested of the l
12 licensee?
13 A
No, I don' t.
I have had occasion just in the i
14 last few days to look back at our Region 1 tapes from the --
15 because of a question about when the information on thermocouple 16 readings was known.
I was unable to find any recorded 17 indication that that information was asked for or received.
18 I don't have a clear recollection of when I first became 19 aware of temperatures as high as 2500 degrees.
I just haven't 20 been able to associate that with anything so that I can identify 21 the time.
But I don't find anything to say that we were aware'
'i L
22 of that during Wednesday'anyway.
23 Q
What about hot leg-temperatures?
24 A
I believe that information was being received co Fes. cl Reporters,- inc.
25 i
regularly.
i f
I
17
' j c' 15 1
Q.
Do you recall any discussion or evaluation of what 2
as the afternoon went on of what the implications were of 3
those temperatures continuing to stay high?
4 A
No, I' don' t recall any particular discussion of that 5
point in the operations center.
6 Q
I may be mistaken but I think I recall in your prior depositions that you mentioned.that the ir.:ident response centbr 7
i 8
was aware of the decision made in the control room to try to 9
blow down the system around 11:30 or noon to depressurize and 10 go on decay heat?
II A
Yes.
My understanding at that time was that the i
12 objective was to get on the decay heat removal system which i
13 meant reducing pressure, yes.
1 14 Q
Do you remember whether there was any conversation 15 about whether that was a good idea or a bad idea about the end 1 16 decision in any way?
17 18 19 i
I 20 l
t 21 i
t 22 l
l i
l 23 24 3
l Ace.Feder7J Reporters, Inc.
25
18 264 02 01
'pv BWH I
A I don't have any specific recollection.
It seems 2
to me it may be later on in the af ternoon that there may 3
have been some discussion about that not being the way to 4
go.
But I don't have any specific recollection.
5 Later the objective became one of ge tting the primary 6
pump back into operation sometime late on Wednesday 7
afternoon.
8 O
At the time that the decision to depre ssurize 9
was made then, you don't remember a discussion being held to 10 evaluate that decision?
11 A
No, I do not.
12 0
We have had some indication that there was a 13 recomendation or strong suggestion made from NRC 14 headquar.ters in Bethesda af ter that decision was made to 15 depressurize -- in other words, that a me ssage was received lo f rom headquarters, saying you ought to try to depre ssurize 17
-- but t ha t that me ssage came several hours af ter the 16 control room people had already taken that course.
Do you 19 recollect any kind of suggestion like that coming f roc 20 Bethesday, say, a t 1:00 or 2:00 o' clock in the af ternoon?
21 A
I don't have any specific recollection.
It does 22 seem to me, as I indicated, I recently reviewed the ta pe s 23 f rom the Region I center, and it may be that that is 24
-something that is recorded in the tapes.
I am just not 25 sure.
1
19 2
f264 02 02 pv BWH 1
MR. FRAMPTON:
Let's go off the record for a 2
minute.
3 (Discu ssion off the record. )
4 MR. FRAMPTON:
Back on the record.
5 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
6 0
We were talking off -the record about what the tape 7
capability was and what tapes were made in Region I of your 8
telephone conversations.
Maybe you can describe that for V
us.
10 A
Yes.
As I indica ted, the line to Unit 2 control 11 room, which included the Region. I operation centers and the headquarters incident 'hesponse center in Region I, we had a 12 13 speaker phone on that circuit.
We set up a recording with a 14 tape recorder similar to the recorder you have here, a 15 microphone and -- actually, it was a miniature cassette 16 recorder.
So, the conversations on that line from the 17 speaker phone were recorded f or the first 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> or so.
18 And those tapes have been transcribed, and they are 19 available, and we were able -- which may be of some 20 assistance to identif y the voices -- so the speakers are 21 identified on our transcripts.
22 0
You transcribed these tapes in Region I?
23 A
Yes.
24 0
And identified the voices insofar as you could?
i 25 A
That is correct.
I l
r
264 02 03 20 s'.pv BWH I
O I think you mentioned that Bob Bernero has a set 2
of the transcripts?
3 A
Those have been provided, and I know Mr. Bernero 4
had them earlier.
If I can provide -- I can provide another
-5 copy if you need them.
We have copies.
I didn't bring it 6
with me.
It amounts to about this much (demonstrating).
I 7
believe it was some 22 of the miniature casse ttes.
8 0
Was this taping part of the emergency plan or some 9
preset procedures?
10 A
It was an ad hoc decision.
11 0
I think you said before that later on in the 12 af ternoon there may have been some discussion about whether 13 depressurization was the.right way to go.
What do you
~
14 remember about those conversa tions?
And do you recall 15 whether anybody at the site was involved in them at all, or 16 whether anything was communicated to the site about those 17 conversations?
18 A
I don't have any specific recollection of those 19 discussions.
It is just my general recollection that that 20 was discussed and that the decision was made to repre ssurize 21 and start the primary pump rather than attempt to 22 depressurize and go on decay heat during Wednesday 23 afternoon.
And about 8:00 o' clock, they got the primary 24 pump back into operation.
I don't remember any specific 25 conversations on that regard.
21
$264 02 04
?
pv BWH l'
O Well, the licensee did make that decision 2
beginning in the late af ternoon sometime.
I was wondering 3
whether you recall any discussions at Region I as the 4
af ternoon went on about whether the licensee was not having 5
success in depressurizing and ought to change its course or 6
any discussions during the af ternoon at the observation 7
center about what strategy to take to cool the core?
8 A
I don't recall any particular conversations.
9 0
Do you remember whether there was any concern in 10 the tegion I incident response center about the core 11 poss 51y being uncovered at any time during the day?
12 A
I know there was discussion about the f act that 13 there were voids in the system, which I think were thought 14 to be steam voids in the primary' legs and in the top of the 15 ve ssel.
I don't remember any particular discussion about 16 the core itself being uncovered.
But we were aware of the 17 voids in the system.
16 0
Do you remember whether there was any discussion IV of whether voids in the hot legs over a long period of time 20 would automatically lead you to be concerned about whether 21 the core was covered?
22 A
I don't remember any discussions to that effect, 23 no.
24 0
I s tha t the kind of thing that one would 25 ordinarily conclude as a result of seeing those kinds of
I~
f264 02 05 j
22 pv BWH I
hot-leg temperatures over a period of time?
In other words, 2
can you continue to have hot-leg temperatures that are way 3
above saturation and still have -- for a long period of time 4
-- and still be pretty assured that the core is continuing 5
to be co ered?
v 6
A I guess you would not be sure of that.
7 Particularly with no pump running, of circulation in the 8
system.
You would not be cooling the core.
9 0
Do you recall whether any suggestions or 10 recommendations or directions were given f rom Region I to 11 the Unit 2 control room during that day?
In other words, 12 were there any occasions on which someone said, somebody 13 f rom NRC Region I said, to the licensee, You have got to do 14 this or you have got to do tha t"?
15 A
I don't think that there was any direction of that lo nature given.
I think our conversation, almost totally, was 17 in terms of gatnering information, relaying it to 16 headquarters.
19 0
What did you perceive the role of the inspectors 20 who were on site to be?
21 A
Well, I viewed Ed as just thatt of gathering 22 inf ormation and providing tha t inf ormation to headquarters.
23 So, I think there were investigators in terms of gathering
~
24 inf ormation and communicating to headquarters.
25 3
In your mind, would they have had the authority to
23 9264 02 06 pv BWH I
veto some. plant operations and step by the control room 2
people or try_ to do that?
3 A
They certainly could have objected and advised the 4
licensee not to take a particular action.
The inspec tor 5
does not have the authori ty to orde.r.
If the licensee did 6
not respond to the advice of the inspector, then it would be 7
necessary f or him to go to headquarters and get the order.
8 The authority to issue orders is retained by headquarters.
Y 0
So, if there was a very substantial disagreement 10 between an -inspec tor and the licensee about a major 11 operational step, he would have to come back to you and you 12 would have to go to headquarters to sustain the authority to 13 tell the licensee to do or not to do something?
14 A
That is correct.
15 0
Let me ask you about your knowledge of the press 16 briefing, or I gue ss what started out to be a briefing of 17 the lieutenant governor on Wednesday.
Did someone call you 16 to request that 1;RC people who were knowledgeable about 19 plant status go to brief the lieutenant governor?
20 A
I believe the request came f rom Mr. Abraham, who, 21 of course, by that time was in Harrisburg in the governor's 22 press office.
I am not sure what time he got there, but-23 t ha t is where he set up operations.
And he requested -- I 24 don't recall whether I talked to him directly or not, but 25 the request came to me for people f rom the site to be at the l
24
- 204 02 07 pv BWd 1
press conference to assist him.
And as a result, we directed Gallina, Higgins, and)lEllll to go to that meeting 2
or briefing.[]lllllf turned out to have some contamination on 3
4 his shoes, I believe.
He was held up at the site.
So, as a 5
r e sul t, 3allina and Higgins were the only two that went to 6
that briefing.
7 0
When Mr. Abraham called you, he knew there was 6
going to be a pre ss briefing of some kind?
9 A
Yes, that is my recollection.
10 0
And he basically was looking for su pport for 11 himself?
12 A
Yes.
Somebody who was on site or who had been on 13 site and was f amiliar with the situation.
14 O
And do you know who arranged f or Mr. Higgins and 15 Mr. Gallina to go?
Was that you or someone acting on your 16 instructions called the site?
17 A
Yes.
I don't reca.11 whether Mr. Abraham 16 specifically requested the individual or just where that 19 decision was made.
But with Dr. Gallina, in effect, being 20 in charge, and Mr. Higgins being in the Unit 2 control room, 21 I think they were two appropriate ones to go.
22 O
Did you understand that this was coming from 23 Mr. Abraham himself, alone, or was he csying that the 24 lieutenant governor or the governor wan' ed somebody up there 26 who knows wha t is going on in the plant' D'
you remember m
25 7264 02 08
~~
pv BWH I
that?
'2 A
I guess I don't remember specifically, no.
3 0
Do-you remember what the status of the plan t wa s 4
when the NRC inspectors lef t to go into Harrisburg?
Wha t 5
was happening at that time?
6 A
No, I don't remember exactly.
It was sometime 7
late Wednesday.
I believe it was before the primary pump 6
had been restarted.
My recollection is it was some thing 9
like 6:00 o' clock or so.
I don't recall exactly.
10 0
Do you remember discussing with either Mr. Abraham 11 or with Higgins and Gallina what they were going to report, 12 what they should say, wha t they should convey in terms of 13 the seriousness of the situation or the status?
14 A
I did talk to Dr. Gallina before he lef t, and 15 specifically instructed him that he should be open and tell 16 i t like i t was.
I don't remember that I specifically talked
^
17 about technical details of the situation.
But I was clear, 16 I think, in my instruc tion tha t he should respond as best he 19 could.
20 0
How about with Mr. Abraham, do you remember 21 whether you talked to him about what kind of general picture i
i 22 he was in a position to convey?
23 A
No, I don't.
I don't recall having discussed that 24 with him at all.
l-25 0
What was your own impression of the situation at i
26 (264 02 09 pv DWH I
that time?
2 A
As I recall, there was continuing concern because 3
it a ppeared things were not improving.
The situation in the 4
reactor core was still not.under control, if you will, 5
because the core was not being cooled, and with the 6
radiation levels that were being reported, there was 7
recognition that there had been core damage or f uel 6
failure.
I don't think at that time I had any appreciation 9
of the real extent ~ -- extensive damage.
10 0
Did you consicer at the time whether you might. be 11 reducing your reporting capability in the plant while it was 12 still unstable by having 'these people go off to the press 13 briefing?
14 A
I don't know that that was a particular 15 consideration.
Certainly, that was aff ectea.
But we had to sufficient people to continue to man the tele phones.
We 17 sent additional people during the day, I guess, one 16 acditional reactor inspector and the section chief.
19 0
Who was the additional reactor inspector?
20 A
Bill Raymond.
And Rick Keimig, the section 21 chief.
But the additional peo ple tha t were sent, they were 22 sent in order -- the recognition that things were not 23 improving, t ha t we were going to need to continue to man 24 essentially through the evening, and they were not sent 25 because of the pre ss, the governor's press conf erence.
I i
27
. 64 02:10 pv BWH
-1 didn't mean to imply that.
2 But I viewed it an important consideration to have people 3
go to tnat press conference with an a ttempt to provide some 4
of the answers to questions that were arising.
5 0
There has been some suggestion or evidence that o
the lieutenant governor and the governor, af ter being 7
brief ea by Met Ed people earlier in the day on Wednesday, 8
were rather dissatisfied as to whether they were getting the 9
straight story, and it was that dissatisf action that caused
-10 them to want to find out from the NRC what the NRC thought 11-about it.
12 Do you remember talking about that with Mr. Abraham, or 13 do you have any knowledge of that?
14 A
No.
That message did not come to me.
I don't 15 recall a request f or. inspectors, that the request for 16 inspectors was based on that at a11.
But I just don't have 17 any recollection.
16 0
When you lef t the incident response center in 19 Region I on Wednesday, I think you have testified before 20 tha t you lef t Mr. Allen, your deputy, in charge, and he had 21 been sent home cy you earlier so he could get some sleep so 22 he could fulfill this responsibility.
23 A
Tha t's correct.
24 0
At the time tha t you lef t, the main pump had been 25 restarted?
28 964 02 11 pv BWH
.1 A
Yes.
It vas sometime af ter 8:00 o' clock that I 2
left.
3 0
And was there a general feeling in Region I tha t 4
the plant was now stabilized, that the accident was over 5
pretty much?
o A
I think there was some optimism, the fact that the 7
pump had been restarted, that represented an improvement.
6 And I think there was some optimism that things would v
continue to improve, ye s.
I don't think there was any idea 10 that the accident was over, t houg h.
11 0
Let's move on to Thursday, and perhaps you can 12 tell us just very briefly what you were doing on Thursday.
13 Did you spend a good part of Thursday in the incident 14 response center itself, or were you holding meetings or 15 what?
16 A
No, I spent all day Thursday again essentially in 17 the incident re sponse center.
When I got back to the office 16 on Thursday morning, I did call of my branch chief s together 19 with Mr. Allen f or a brief meeting.
As I recall, I 20 indicated to them that we ought to be considering -- in 21 terms of what was going on at the site, it was still the 22 objective to get the cold shutdown, to identif y the 23 releases, the source of the releases, and stop them, to 24 determine the magnitude of the releases, and, finally, 25 establish the sequence of events.
I
o 29 264 02 12 pv BWH I
So, I think, Thursday morning still I had in mind that 2
the primary objective was to get to cold sbJtdown.
I 2
remember when I walked into the incident response center and 4
reviewed the status boards it was quickly recognized that 5
there had been essentially no change in plant status since I 6
went home the night before.
The conditions were essentially 7
the same.
6 Q
Let me interrupt you for a moment and ask about 9
the status board.
I s tha t something you had put up on 10 Wednesoay?
11 A
Yes.
We had -- again, as we indica ted, we had the 12 two communications channels, e ssentially two stations, in 13 our incident response center, and adjacent to the 14 communications with Unit 2 control room we had a blackboard 15 which a status of the plant was maintained on.
1o On the other side of the incident response center, 17 communications wi th Uni t 1, the environmental radiological IS information, we had again a status board and maps on which 19 t ha t information was being maintained.
20 0
Do you remember whe ther it was.the status board 21 updated every hour or every so many hours?
Was there any 22 regularity to that on Wednesday at all?
23 A
As f ar as operational inf ormation goes, yes, I 24 think so.
I don't remember exactly when we started keeping 25 the board on reactor status, but it was being maintained
4-13 0 4264 02 13 pv BWH I
' regularly as information came in.
2 0
Do you remember what plant parameters were up on 3
.the ble:kboard that were regularly displayea?
4 A
Pressures snd temperatures, that sort of thing.
I 5
am not sure when this was done, but at some time one of the 6
inspectors had sketched the system, a schematic of the 7
primary system, reactor vessel, the piping, the steam 5
generators, pumps, and so on.
Ibe inf ormation on the sta tus v
was being maintained at the various points on the 10 s c hema tic.
11 That war 'ith chalk on a blackboard.
So there is no 12 re. )rd of that information, unfortunately.
13 0
I believe on Thursday you had requests from a 14 number of congressman and senators. to have people help them 15 brief them and so forth.
16 A
Tha t's correc t.
Some of that information, it 17 seems to me, came in late Wednesday that they were going to 16 be there on Thursday, and we were asked to make preparations 19 f or a ssistance and so on.
20 0
Were you asked directly in some cases, or was it 21 mostly headquarters?
22 A
Headquarters wanted the region to provide -- well, 23 we were_ requested in one instance to arrange transportation 24 f rom the airport, secure rental cars, provide drivers, and 25 that sort of thing.
31 264 02 14 pv BWH I
O When you say "in one case, do you remember what 2
that particular group was?
3 A
No, I do not.
It may have been Senator Hart's 4
group, but I am not sure.
5 0
Do you recall whether anyone balked at that in 6
view of the magnitude of the task?
7 A
I objected.
We did not have resources to do that 8
sort of thing, of course.
We are at least 75 miles away or 9
more from Harrisburg.
I did attempt to see whether or not 10 we coulo possibly do it if it came down to a final decision 11 that we had to do it, and I did find a couple of inspectors 12 f rom the construc tion branch who were not otherwise 13 involved.
They were put on notice to be available to go,
~
14 but in the end they did not go.
15 The only thing that I did specifically was to send the 16 state liaison officer, Tom Elsasser, who had been in the 17 office and, among other things, he had been responding to le some congressmen who were calling.
He was handling that 19 aspect of respo.nding to requests for information.
And so I p/
20 did ask him to go.
He went on short notice and was there 21 for the briefing on Thursday af ternoon.
22 23 24 25
CR 7264' WHITLOCK 32 t-3 mte 1 I
1 0
So the original request from headquarters had been 2
to provide transportation and escorts and everything for a 3
party of Congressmen and Senators?
4 A
Yes, that was the request I got.
5 0
And that wasn't ultimately done?
6 A
That's correct.
7 0
But in fact, there were some inspectors who spent a 8
good-part of Thursday, I think, meeting or briefing Congressmen 9
and Senators, isn't that right, on the site?
10 A
Yes, there were briefings at the observation center.
11 Our mobile lab had set up at the observation center, and that 12 was essentially our point of operation.
13 Phil Stohr, who was in charge of the mobile lab, and 14 Rick Keimig, the section chicf who had gotten over there 15 Wednesday evening, were both involved in the briefings of the 16 Congressmen.
17 O
And then I think that Mr. Higgins and Mr. Gallina 18 and Mr. Abraham were all involved in another briefing of the 19 Governor on Thursday; is that right?
20 A
That's right.
21 O
What do you recall about how that came about, if 22 you were involved or if Region I was involved?
23 A
My recollection of that is -- well, I had sent 24 Keimig, the section chief, on Wednesday to specifically take Am.,w0 Roomrs, Inc.
25 charge of all of the IE effort at the site, as senior man.
i
)
l
mto 2 -
33
?
I It.was my intent that:he should be the one to go to the 2
briefing on Thursday.
But he became involved in briefing the 3
Congressmen and in those tours.
And the call from Abraham i
4 came for. assistance again, to go to the-Governor's office.
5 Keimig wa's not available.
6 Abraham specifically asked again for Gallina.
He felt that 7
Gallina had done a good job on Wednesday night, and he asked 8
that he go back again.
And I don't remember whether he 9
specifically asked for Higgins, but again, there was need for 10
'a reactor inspector.
So, since Higgins had been before, I II directed that the two of them should go again.
12 O
Do you recall what you were told the purpose of the I3 second briefing was?
Was it another daily update or had Id anything changed in the situation that caused Mr. Abraham to 15 be asked to do this or to want to do it again on Thursday?
16 A.
My understanding, it was just an update, as I recall.
I7 0
What do you recall about information that was being 18 received on Thursday about the releases, off-site releases, 19 or about the venting of the makeup tank and any relationship 20 it had to these periodic releases?
A.
Well, I guess I don't have any specific recollection.
21 22 I know that the. releases were continuing.
But I don't remem-23 ber any particular discussion in association with the makeup 24 tank.
Ace.
r:2 Reporters, Iric.
25 g
It. appears that, at least in the Unit 2 control l
1
)
mto 3 34 1
room, as early as Thursday morning, they were venting the 2
makeup tank and observing releases.
And as early as late 3
afternoon on Thursday, they had made a correlation between 4
these two things.
They knew that venting the tank would, in 5
some unexplained way, result in some off-site releases.
And 6
there are notes that show that people in the control room 7
were aware of that.
8 Do you know whether that awareness got communicated to 9
Region I on Thursday afternoon or Thursday evening as to where 10 these periodic puffs were coming from?
II A
I just don't know.
I don't recall.
I don't remember 12 any discussion that there was correlation, no.
13 0
Was that something that you remember being aware 14 of when you went home on Thursday night?
15 A
I don't recall.
16 How was the information that was being received from 17 the Unit 1 control room or from the IE van on site being 18 reported and displayed in the incident response center?
Did 19 you have sheets of paper that were --
20 A
We have log sheets.
Both positions were maintaining 21 log sheets, and those are available, for operational data 22 coming from Unit 2 and the radiological-environmental coming 23 from Unit 1.
There are separate logs.
And as I indicated, 24 there were -- there was a status board and map charts on the Ace erst Reporters, Inc.
25 board er adjacent -- on the wall adjacent to this position, I*
l I
l 6
mta 4 35 N-1 where the information was being plotted to some extent.
2 g
Do you remember getting information about a 3,000 MR 3
release over the stack on Thursday?
4 A
I don't recall that that came to my attention at the 5
time.
It was received in Region I, is in our logs, and I 6
know George Smith was aware of it.
But I have no recollection 7
of being aware of that at the time.
8 g
What about figures like 1,000 or 1200 or 1300 MR 9
immediately over the stack?
Were those the kinds of reading 10 that you recall at all from Thursday?
11 A
I don't recall being aware of them at the time, 12 which I guess is your question.
I am aware of that from 13 looking back at the logs, but I do not recall being aware at 14 that particular time, no.
15 0
From looking back at the logs, I think they show 16 that there was one 3,000 figure.
17 A
That's correct.
18 O
And were there some other figures that were around
-19 1,000, or only one other?
Do you remember that?
20 A
One other is my recollection.
There was another one,,
21 which may be 1200.
I am not sure now.
But I think there was 22 another one, 1,000 or more greater.
23 g
You don't recall there was any discussion of the 24 fact that there were periodic r,eleases during Thursday at the
' Ace oral Reponers, Inc.
25 time?
c t
c
mto 5 36 1
A No, I do not.
2 0
Do you know what the route of information was for 3
this radiological information from Unit 1 back to the incident 4
response center?
Who was getting these figures in Bethesda, 5
if you know?
6 A
The station, as I indicated, in Region I was manned 7
by one of George Smith's inspectors.
He assigned someone 8
there.
My understanding is that on the other end of the phone 9
in Bethesda was someone from Jim Sniezek's division.
I have 10 heard from time to time Leo Higginbotham or Jack Metzger or 11 Jay Cunningham; those individuals, maybe others, were in the 12 incident response center.
13 The data were being reported to them.
14 l
0 We have been told in a previous deposition, I
15 believe it is,3:that there was a request on Thursday evening 16 to pull together all of the numbers for Thursday in some kind 17 of a format and telecopy that to Bethesda.
Did that happen 18 when you were still there, or do you have any knowledge of I9 '
that request?
20 A
I don't have knowledge of the request.
I have 21 knowledge, from having looked back at the logs, that that 22 information is all compiled.
I believe it was compiled at the 23 site by John Sirabian and faxed to Region I and subsequently 24 to headquarters.
Ace
.f3 Reporters, Inc l
25 l 0
Was that a trend data or was that as it is now, l
(
I l
1 l
l
?
mta 6 37 I
picture?
2 A
Just a listing, is my recollection.
3 g
og the readings for the day?
4 A
Yes.
5 g
Do you remember -- you say that was compiled at the 6
site originally?
7 A
Yes, that is my impression.
8 g
And faxed to Region I?
9 A
Yes.
10 g
Would that have been from the van? Did they have a II telecopier machine?
I2 A
Maybe it was on the telephone.
I don't believe we 13 had a fax at the site at that time.
We did have on Friday.
Id I don't believe they had one on Thursday.
So I guess I am 15 wrong.
So it must have been tabulated by telephone in 16 Region I and then faxed to headquarters.
Maybe that is the 17 way.
18 g
I know we have these sheets of paper, but I don't i
I9 happen to have seen them myself.
Have you seen them?
i 20 A
Yes.
21 g
How much paper is involved?
Is this two or three 22 pages?
23 A
Yes.
My recollection, it is -- I don't remember 24 exactly, but it is several pages, yes.
It is in the log Am. des moorwri. ix.
25 sheets from -- from the radiological-environmental information.
I 1.
mto-7 38
~1 4'
Let me ask you some questions now about Friday 2
morning, March 30th.
When you came into the office, was there 3
any conversation about the fact that there had been a 1200 MR 4
release that you recall?
5 A
Not that I recall, no.
6 g
So you don't recall anybody saying to you they have 7
this talease, they are doing this, they are doing that?
8 A
No.
9 4
Do you remember when you came in on Friday, did you 10 go to the incident response center?
II A
Yes.
12 g
And was there any new information conveyed to you 13 at that time?
14 A
Not anything particular that I recall.
15 g
So your impression was thst, again, status was the I
16 same as it had been the night before?
i 17 A
That's correct.
, ;1E k g
And then, I believe, you testified before that the
' !9 lj; first notion you had that something was out of the ordinary d
20 ' was'when someone from the site called and asked whether the 21 NRC had recommended evacuation.
Is that right?
22 A
Ycs, that's correct.
We began getting reports, and 23 I believe they came from the mobile lab initially.
They may 24, have had a radio.
They were hearing radio reports about Ac.. a.e n.oon.n, inc.
evacuation.
And about that time I got a call -- got a request,
-25 I
r
mto 8-39 I
to call or to talk to Tom Gerusky from the State of 2
Pennsylvania Bureau of Radiological Health.
And he asked me 3
if NRC was reconmending evacuation or had recommended evacua-4 tion.
I had received no such information from headquarters, 5
so I could not confirm one way or the other, and I told him I 6
would see what I could find out and call back.
-7 So I attempted then to find out from headquarters.
And 8
specifically, I believe I talked to Norm Moseley, to inquire 9
whether NRC was recommending investigation-- evacuation.
He 10 said, as I recall, that at that time there was some confusion, II and he did-not know what the position was.
He would have to 12 call me back.
13 Subsequently he did call back and confirm that the Chairman 14 had recommended.
I called Gerusky back with the confirmation, 15 and he had gotten confirmation through his own channels in 16 some way, I believe.
I7 So we were not informed in the Region I center, the Region I 18 center, in any way in any discussion of evacuation or recom-I9 mendation.
g Do you remember talking to whoever was in the 20 21 incident response center and asking what this was all about, 22 what could have given rise to it?
23 A
I don't remember now whether I questioned that with 24 Moseley or not specifically.
We got the reports some way A ce-
.,eret Reporters, Inc.
25 that the recommendation had gone directly to the Governor's i
L
mta 9 40 1
office by Doc Collins.
So I think we were aware of that.
But 2
as far as any discussion or basis for it, I don't remember 3
that there was any.
I was not involved in any.
A g
Was anybody in your incident response center in 5
Region I aware of what might have triggered this?
6 A
No, not that I know.
7 0
I believe it was Dr. Gallina who told us that he had 8
some conversations with George Smith.
Would Mr. Smith have 9
been there that morning?
10 A
Yes.
My understanding of what Dr. Gallina's 11 testimony is or has been is, when he came in on Thursday 12 morning, he was aware of the discussion of evacuation from 13 Met Ed operators.
They were asking him what was going on, why 14 was NRC recommending it.
And Gallina was somewhat upset 15 because he, in his view, did not see any change in the situa-16 tion and any basis for evacuation.
17 So he called the regional office to find out what was 18 going on, and I guess talked to George Smith.
19 0
And Smith talked to you then?
20 A
.Or Smith may have gone to headquarters to try to 21 find out independently of my going to Moseley.
But yes, there 22 was_ discussion, I think, of the question at the time.
23 G
It appears that both Dr. Gallina and Mr. Smith knew 24 that there had.been periodic releases the day before and knew Ace.
,r'J Reporters, Inc.
25 I
what the'numbern were, and they didn't see any particular r
l
mto 10 41 1
need to be concerned.
2 A
That's correct.
3 O
My question is whether they communicated that to you 4
at the time, whether you were informed in Mr. Smith's or 5
anybody else's trying to communicate this back to Bethesda 6
saying, look, you guys don't know what is going on, this is 7
not really anything different than what has been happening for 8
the past day and a half.
Do you remember any of those kinds 9
of discussions with Bethesda?
10 A
No, I don't remember any particular discussions on II tha t line.
As I indicated, when I raised the question with 12 Mr. Moseley, I didn't -- he was unable to confirm it, really, I3 to give me any understanding of what was going on.
I had the Id impression he was not involved with the decision.
15 g
So I think you say that you learned, then, from 16 Moseley that the Chairman of the Commission had made a recom-17 mendation.
What did you learn that that recommendation was?
18 A
As I recall, first the information was that the I9 Chairman had recommended evacuation within five miles of the 20 plant.
Shortly thereafter, I believe my understanding was 21 that that was changed to recommend evacuation of pregnant 22 women and pre-school children.
So I think.my recollection is 23 that I had -- first it was everybody, the evacuation of the Ed five-mile radius, and then that was changed, modified to just Amo.,,er) Reporters, Inc.
25 pregnant women and pre-school children.
But I don't remember I
l l
t
42 mta 11 I
hon long._ I would say within less than a half-hour or so.
1 2
g Did Region I or its inspectors on the site then have 3
any role to play in assisting in that evacuation or advisory?
4 A
No.
5 O
So there was nothing that you were then called upon-6 to do when something like that happens?
7 A
No.
8 0
In your conversations with Gerusky, what was his 9
attitude toward this?
10 A
Well, he was upset.
And when I called him back to II confirm that, yes, there had been a recommendation from NRC 12 to this effect -- which, of course, as I indicated, he had 13 become aware of -- his response to me was sc.nething like, yes, 14 I know, the state is ordering evacuation to save face for 15 NRC, words to that effect.
16 My understanding was he saw no reason for evacuation, but 17 the state was acting because of the NRC's recommendation.
18 l
0 In this time period, did you ever hear or learn that 19 the initial decision to recommend evacuation was a mistake or 20 based on inaccurate information?
I am talking about now just 2I on Friday itself.
22 A
No, I don't remember any particular discussion of 23 that, no.
24 0
Did you or anyone else in Region I who you t2.3ed Am t..eret Reporters, Inc, 25 i
to on Friday have an, understanding of the basis for the 1
5 mto 12 43 I
evacuation advisory, whether it was current releases, feared 2
releases, future problems, degradation of plant status, or 3
what?
4 No, I don't think we had any g nd understanding of 5
that.
6 G
I think that afternoon you flew to the site with 7
Mr. Smith, right?
8 A
That's correct.
I received information that a.
9 large group of NRC from headquarters was going to the site.
10 My information came from Dudley Thompson, and I believe his II instructions were that either my deputy, Mr. Allen, or myself 12 should go to the site.
It was my decision to go and to take 13 George Smith.
14 We requested a helicopter to be there 2:00 o' clock Friday 15 afternoon or so.
The helicopter was late, and I believe we 16 finally got off about 3:30 from the Region I parking lot.
We I7 stopped to refuel en route.
So it was about 4:30 when we 18 arrived at the site.
I9 0
Did ycu have conversations that day or later with 20 Mr. Smith about the chain of events that led up to the 21 evacuation advisory?
22 A
I don't recall that I did, no.
23 0
Do you remember him telling you about any conversa-24 tions he had with headquarters about, what is the need for Ace,.. erd Ceoorters, Inc.
25 this, what is the basis for this?
i
Sta 13 44 1
A No.
The only discussion I remember in the helicopter 2
en route had to do with the bubble and some discussion and 3
concern on Mr. Smith's part in that regard.
But I don't' 4
remember that being associated with the evacuation recommenda-5 tion.
6 0
What was his concern about the bubble specifically?
7 A
The discussion about the size of it, I think the 8
release if the bubble should be released, was his concern.
We 9
had no discussion about explosion that I recall.
10 0
When you say " released"?
11 A
Recognition that what we had estimated size at the 12 time of something like 1500 cubic feet, as I recall, at 13 2,000 pounds, and what this would mean at atmospheric pressure.i 14 0
If the system were depressurized.
15 A
Yes.
16 0
Was there concern that the bubble would expand?
17 A
Yes.
18 0
And prevent cooling?
19 l A
I don't know that that was -- I think it was more f
20 on the line of the volume of gas that had to be dealt with if 21 it should be depressurized and get out of the vessel.
I c-3 22 remember that was the essence of our discussion.
23 24 Am o neoone,. inc.
25 I
i l
s
45
$64 04'01
.pv BWH I
o Now, when you arrived on site, the Denton team 11-also arrived?
3 A
Yes.
4 0
Friday af ternoon?
5 A'
They were already there.
They arrived earlier.
6 That is correct.
'7 O
And you attended a meeting about 6:00 o' clock in 8
the house that belonged to Met Ed that had been turned over 9
to Mr. Denton?
10 A
That's correct.
11 O
And was that an NRC meeting?
12 A
Yes.
Denton had called everybody together 13-essentially to see who was there, I think, and who was in 14 charge, and the need to get organizational arrangements 15 straightened out, some discussion by -- the status, I 16 recall, of the plant, and really preparing Denton to go meet 17 with the governor, which followed shortly thereaf ter.
15 0
So, the main purpose of that meeting, in addition 19 to ge Iting NRC people organized, was to get Denton as much 20 information as possible?
21 A
As to what was going on.
Right.
22 0
Do you remember what. kind of communications he had 23-
.at t ha t point, other than a telephone, in that house?
24' A.
The telephone is all I am aware of.
25 0
Were there any White House communications people
46
'264 04 02 pv BWH I
t here ?
2 A
Not t ha t I was aware.
Now, what I can tell you, 3
we were involved in -- my people -- were involved in getting 4
the trailers set up.
We had ordered a trailer -- I yru 5
- ecognized sometime earlier that we were going to need some 6
f acilities on site.
The mobile lab which we had been using 7
as the IE operations center, of course, is not equipped at 8
all.
The van is completely teken up with laboratory 9
equi pment.
10 So, my administrative officer, Mr. Mcoscar, had made JI contacts about a trailer to be set up for IE use, and had 12 ordered a trailer that came f rom somewhere in the -- I was 13 going to say the King-of-prussia area, but I'm not sures it 14 might have been Lancaster.
But the trailer had to be pulled 15 over to the site.
16 When we got there, the -- there were arrangements being 17 made througn Met Ed f or a number of trailers to accommodate lo all of the NRC people.
The trailer that we had ordered 19 arrivec first, and was promptly commandeered as Denton's 20 trailer,. be cau se -- I was not there, but it was described to 21 me that somebody was waiting there with a " hot line" to the 22 Whi te House to put into that trailer.
So the first trailer 23 that arrived was set up as Denton's trailer.
24 I had two people from my safeguards branch who had gone 25 over earlier in the day.
They had taken the thermofax 1
l
47
$64 04 03 pv BWH I
equipment and maybe other supplie s, and they had gone f rom I
2 the office with the intent of returning to the office.
But 3
I askea them to stay and I used them to assist in making the 4
administrative arrangements -- trailers and telephones and 5
so on.
6 So, they were involved in this trailer being set up for 7
Mr. Denton's trailer.
And the " hot line" to the White d
House.
And thst time, I would guess, was after 6:00 v
o' clock.
I don't remember exac tly, but sometime that 10 evening there were trailers placed on site.
11 0
Then you remained on site directing the IE people 12 f or a f airly long period of time thereaf ter?
13 A
Yes.
We had gotten assistance from the other 14 regional offices and had a number of people, perhaps the 15 order of 50 or more, by that time, to ta l.
So, I was 16 involved in se tting up the organizational arrangements for 17 the IE people, the shif t manning, the trailer facilities, 16 the con.munications f acilities, t ha t sort of thing, directing 19 those ac tivi ties.
20 I was there continuously until the weekend -- the 21 following weekenc, April 8 or so, and I was back home for 22 about 24 bcurs and there for another week continuously, and 23 then off and on since.
24 0
I take it, as of Saturday you had IE people in the 25 control room, both control rooms?
L_
48
'264 04 04 pv BWH I
A No, Unit 2 control room.
We were e ssentially set 2
up in thr.ee organizational units involved in the' various 3
activities.
There was the reactor operations unit, which 4
maintained an operations inspector -- at least ones I gue ss 5
two later and maybe more, in the Unit 2 control room.
And 6
in-plant health physics eff ort which maintained the 7
radiation specialist in the plant; and the environmental 8
effort.
9 Now, George Smith was over both the environmental and the 10 in plant HP.
We had a survey team collecting environmental
.11 data, and a group coordinating all of the data from the 12 radiological a ssistance teams.
The DOE effort.
They were 13 controlling the helicopter, airborne surveys.
All of tha t 14 was under the environmental group which was under 15 George Smith.
16 0
Did the IE trailer have a direct line to the Unit 17 2 control room, or radio contact with the IE inspectors 16 there?
IV A
It had a telephone line to the Unit 2 control 20 room and radio communications with Unit 2 control room.
We 21 received assistance from the forestry service.
They arrived 22 on site sometime late -- late Friday -- with mobile radios, 23 communication setup.
And they set up in one part of the IE 24' trailer and provided a communications service.
25 0
Did NRR also have people in the Unit 2 control
49 7264 04-05 pv BWH I
room on a regular basis reporting to the NRR trailer?
2 A
Yes, I believe so.
3 0
Do you know why the two separate organizations 4
within the NRC each had to have its own watch and people 5
communicating to its own trailer?
6 A
No, I don't think there was very clear definition 7
of the organizational responsibilities.
Initially, there 6
was some effort to integrate the organizations.
Some of the 9
IE people were involved in procedure review, f or instance, 10 or working directly with NRR people.
But we also 11 inde pendently had the inspectors in the control room in the 12 plant health physics area maintaining surveillance over what 13 the licensee was doing.
14 At some point -- and I don't remember, but af ter a day or 15 so, t he re, I set up clearly with my people that they were 16 under NRR control.
There should be a memorandum to that 17 effect, to get the documentation that set up the watch, lo watch bill.
They were to take their instructions f rom the lv senior NRR person on site.
20 But I don' t -- I recognize, I think it is true that there 21 was not ever a very clear definition of the -- I would say, 22 first, the NRC role, and then the individual roles of NRR 23 and IE.
24 0
Well, is this something that Mr. Denton set out to 25 do at all in his first meeting on Friday or thereaf ter?
I
50
'264 04 06 pv BWH 1
guess my question is did he ever get the NRC supervisory 2
people on site together and try to set up an organiz.ation 3
saying you will do this, you will do that, and so forth?
A At the first meeting, there was instruction to 4
5 Stello and Vollmer, as I recall, to set up the organization, 6
and I worked with Vollmer initially in terms of supplying 7
people and how things were to be set up.
6 0
Do you think a coherent organization ever got set 9
u p?
10 A
I don't.think so, strictly speaking.
Il O
Why do you think that didn't ha ppen?
12 A
I think there is difficulty in putting such an 13 organization together on short notice.
There are a lot of 14 factors.
The people didn't know each other very well.
IE 15 people, largely f rom regions, NRR people f rom headquarters.
16 They, I think
- what you need under these circumstances is 17 to have people in responsible positions that you have 18 confidence in wnich you have built up over a period of time 19 of dealing with them.
20 And because of our geographical separation -- and perhaps 21 conflicts on particular problems that occurred during the 22 routine events -- when you bring them together, it is 23 difficult' to get a coherent organization, in my view.
24 I think, to do some thing about i t, we need to get more 25 into a situation where it is day-to-day.
For instar:e, what
264 04 07-pv BWH I
I mean is if the division of operating reactors, as it did 2
exist, is to provide this licensing function in this sort of 3
a situation, that maybe that ought to be the decentralized 4
o pera tion.
They were in the regional office with the IE 5
people, and if they worked together day to day, if the 6
problems identified by IE were brought back to the regional 7
office to an evaluation group that is.right there, then, 8
when you had an incident and they went out together to 9
respond, I think it would be a coherent organization.
10 But as long as we are geograpically separated and as long 11 as we have channels to the commission that are separated, I 12 question whether it is ever going to be a very effective 13 organization.
14 MR. FRAMPTON:
This is a good time to take a 15 break.
16 (Brief rece ss.)
17 MR. FRAMPTON:
Back on the record.
16 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
19 0
Mr. Grier, before we took a short recess, you were 20 talking about the relationship between IE and NRR and the 21 way those two offices looked into issues relating to 22 operating reactors.
How much telephone or f ace-to-f ace 23 contact does an inspector or his supervisors, his branch 24 chief s, have with respect to a given plant with the person 25 or people in the division of operating reactors of NRR which l
52
'264 04 08 pv BWH I
also has jurisdiction over that plan t?
Is there a lot of 2
actual direct contact, or is there little or no such contact?
4 A
I think it varies f rom f acility to f acility.
But 5
generally there is communication between the principal 6
inspector or project inspector, as call them, with the 7
licensing project manager in the division of operating 6
reactors.
The instructions that we have are that there Y
should be communications for purposes of exchange of 10 i nf orma tion.
11 But it involves a ma tter of establishing policy or 12 decision that the communications then should be through 13 c ha nnel s.
And our channels from the region are to IE 14 headquarters.
So, if there are problems identified, we 15 forward them to IE headquarters for resolution and get 16 through NR through that way.
17 But I think, between inspectors and licensing project 16 managers, th;re is considerable communication.
I have the 19 impre ssion that with the resident -- at the resident sites, 1
20 there is more communication than there perhaps has been with 21 the region-based program.
22 O
Do you think tha t the division of responsibility 23 between the licensing side of it and the IE inspection side 24 of it is clearly defined?
25 A
In my mind, it is clear 1/ defined.
It is not u
3 264 04 09 pv BWH 1
always clear that the individuals who are carrying out the 2
two functions always understand the division between 3
responsibilities.
4 We have situations which concern IE of NRR people going 5
to the site and, in eff ec t, performing inspections which we, 6
of course, object to, and, in fact, writing reports that you 7
would find the author will say that he went on an ispection 8
at this particular. site, but those are not too common.
Y We have established procedures f or inspectors in terms of 10 inspections that they do and procedues to follow and Ji enforcement action and corrective action.
And I think we 12 generally discipline our people to follow those procedures, 13 and when repre sentatives f rom other offices, in eff ect, 14 seemed to be encroaching on the inspection and enforcement 15 area, why, it causes us some concern.
16 O
What ha ppens when an inspector identifies a 17 potential design problem or a potential def ect in a 16 procedure at a particular plant?
How does that get handled 19 through I&E, and how does it get communicated, if at all, to 20 the licensing project manager and DOR, and who is supposed 21 to deal with that?
22 A
Well, if it is a design problem identified by an 23 inspector, it would be brought to the a ttention of the 24 supervisor and the regional office section chief and then 25 branch chief.
And if it is of significance and needs prompt
264 04.10 54 pv BWH I
resolution, the matter would be forwarded from the branch 2
chief to the responsible headquarters IE office f or 3
resolution.
For operating reactors, the division of reactor 4
operations inspection.
The resolution may come as a result 5
of IE headquarters. action response in a memorandum, or it 6
may be forwarded to NRR for resolution, what we call a 7
procedure f or transf er of lead responsibility, and generally 6
with design problems there would be transf er of lead V
responsibility.
10 That is a procedure that has been worked out between the 11 two of fices, which involves f ormal documentation of the 12 problem and agreement to take the lead responsibility f or 13 transf erring it f rom IE to NRR.
14 Now, you also asked about procedural problems.
I think
~
15 i t depends on the level of the procedural problem.
If an 16 inspector identifies some deficiency with a procedure, you 17 would call it to the a ttention of the licensee.
If there is 18 agreement to change the procedure, why that probably would 19 not require f urther NRC action.
20 Now, all of the -- both in the case of the design problem 21 or the ' procedural problem, the information is documented in 22 the inspection re port.
Inspection reports are distributed, 23 not only within NRC, meaning IE and NRR, but go to the 24 public document room.
25 Again, if the procedural problem were of a significance
55 1264 04 11' pv BWH I
that could not be resolved with the licensee, it would 2
follow essentially the same channel of coming back to IE 3'
headquarters and being transf erred to NRR for resolution.
4 0
In your view, what would the advantages and 5
disadvantages be to taking DOR and IE and combining them 6
into one office that would be, in large part, decentralized?
7 A
Well, I think --
8 0
Whether you called that a new office or called it 9
putting DDR under I&E?
10 A
I think there are advantages.
One I mentioned, I 11 would expect it to improve communications if the people 12 worked closer together, and should improve resolution of 13 problems, I think, on a more timely basis.
14 Let me say, first, I think you need a separation of the 15 functions of licensing the design review, a pproval, and the 16 inspection f unction of v.orifying that the licensee is 17 meeting the requirements of the license.
I believe you need 16 the check and the balance.
19 But the way we are, with these f unc tions going all the 20 way to the commission before they really come together, 21 there may be some proolems.
If you brought them toge ther 22 somewhere at a lower level, you might, I believe, improve.
23 For instance, we have the principal f unctions of 24-standard-setting, licensing i ssuance and inspection.
And j
25 those are separated all the way up.
Now, you might put I
L
i 56 264 04 12 pv BWH' I
operating reactors together and have at least three 2
f unctions in the division of whatever you call it, office of 3
opera ting reactors.
And then have the responsibility for 4
operating reac. tors at a lower level, I would guess you would 5
say.
But whether you need the check and balance, the total 6~
func tion in NRC or whether you need -- whether it could not 7
be done at a lower level, just operating reactors, is what I 8
am trying to say, or reactors under construction or fuels 9
and materials.
10 You could put all these functions, three functions, into 11 a project organization, -I guess, for the diff erent ty pes of 12 licensees and still get your check and balance.
13 0
Do you think pu tting these f unctions, whether 14 distinct or not, in one office for operating reactors would 15 give you be tter oversight over operating reactors in total Ic than the NRC provides now?
On balance, would that be a good 17 crange?
IS A
I think it probably would, yes.
-19 Q
Let me ask you some questions about whether there 20 is any organized or regularized procedure for applying 21 lessons learned in a particular incident in one plant to 22 other' plants of the same design.
23
' What is the procedure, if there is any, or what is the 24 customary practice when a project inspector identifies a 25 c hange tha t has been made, let's say, at TMI-1, t ha t he i
L_.
57 264 04 13 pv BWH I
realizes has some implications for other Babcock & Wilcox 2
plants of the same design?
Whose responsibility is to see 3
that that gets communicated to somebody, and how does tha t 4
work'in your understanding?
5 A
Well, initially, you talkea about response to an 6
event, I guess.
I think that is the best way to talk about 7
it.
6 0
perhaps we can take an example.
The example of V
the March 29, 1976, event with the p0RV at TMI-2 that caused 10 them to change the circuitry so that it would f ail shut.
11 Now, insofar as that is a problem identified in that plan t 12 that perhaps ought to be communicated to other plants --
13 namely, look at how your valve f ails on loss of power -- how 14 does that problem get flagged and communicated?
Whose 15 responsibility is it to see that somebody at another B&W 16 plant, another utility and so forth, gets some information 17 about that?
16 A
Let me say, first, I think the principal response 19 f rom the inspector is to the event at his f acility.
- Now, 20
.within the region, to the extent that we are aware of a 21 problem that has generic applications, then we are obligated 22 to call that to tne a ttention of headquarters and perhaps 23 re commend some action.
Now, we have the responsibili.y to 24 look at other plants that we are aware of and see whether it 25 has generic a pplication and then call that to the attention
58 264 04 14 pv BWH
.1 of headquarters, recommend a bulletin or -- which is 2
generally, I guess, our response to a generic problem on the 3
shor t term. ' We may not always be able to make a 4
determination in the region of generic applicability.
5 For instance, with respect to B&W specifically, Three 6
Mile. Island is the only B&W site we have in Region I.
So, 7
other than the problems as they applied to both Unit I and 8
Unit.2 of Three Mile Island, we don't have any other 9
facility to draw on.
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25~
I.
CR 7264 WHITLOCK 59
> t-5 mte 1 1
But the information is documented in PNs, if it reaches 2
that level of significance, which go to all regional offices.
3 It is documented in our daily reports,. all matters that are 4
subject to PNs, plus matters which don't reach the threshold 5
of PNs, so that other regions are aware of what has happened.
6 G
I am thinking more of the kind of event that 7
causes the licensee t o do an analysis and to say, hey, we 8
have to make a change some time afterwards, whether that is 9
an event that caused an LER to be filed or not, but presumably 10 an event at least of which the inspector becomes aware and II hopefully becomes aware of what the licensee decided to do 12 about it.
13 It is his responsibility then to communicate with his Id section chief and his branch chief on whether he views that 15 as a generic problem that ought to get somebody's attention; 16 is that fair to say?
17 A
I think that's right.
There has to be recognition 18 on the part of the inspector or his section chief or someone 19 in the office that this is a problem that needs to be consi-20 li dered with respect to other plants.
If there is not that 21 recognition and if there is no basis for reporting it in the 22 event report which receives distribution, it may not get 23 distributed.
It would be documented in an inspection report.
I 24 j So that is the mechanism that the information would be Aa see Reorters, lx, 25 available for anyone else.
But I think, if you are talking i
I
mto 2 60 P
1 about some change. that is not reportable as an event, then the 2
only way that information is distributed is by the inspector 3
in the inspection report.
4 Now, the other reporting mechanism that brings it to the 5
attention of other organizations is 50.59 report.
If a change 6
is made under the part of the regulations, 10 CFR 50.59, which 7
requires an annual report of changes that the licensee has 8
made, then that brings the information to the attention of 9
others.
But if it is not the subject of a 50.59 report, then 10 you have to depend on the inspector to recognize that it is 11 a problem that needs attention.
12 BY MR. RIVENBARK:
13 0
But the 50.59 report isn't necessarily one that 14 comes back to the headquarters, is it?
Isn't the licensee 15 under 50.59 allowed to make changes as long as he determines 16 himself that it doesn't have a substantive bearing on safety?
17 A
Doesn't represent a change in technical specifica-18 tions or unreviewed safety questions.
19 G
And under those conditions he doesn't have to submit 20 a report, and the way that the -- that is, to the NRC -- that 21 the inspector -- isn't it true that the inspector then looks 22 over his books at the plant and then becomes aware of that, 23 and if the inspector would agree that, yes,.that is exempt 24 under 50.59, that change, then the r eport would never come in?
Act.Jeral Reporters. Inc.
l 25 Is that a fair appraisal?
4
61 mto 3
~
t>
1 A
I would have to look at 50.59, George.
But it is 2
my impression right now that they still have to report the 3
changes-that they made under 50.59 in a report to NRC, but 4
they don't justify it.
It is the inspector that has to look 5
at their evaluation of a particular change and the basis for 6
their finding that they can make it.
And if he does that and 7
he doesn't identify any problem, then the only thing NRC 8
would know from that report is that they have made the change.
9 0
Do you know if that report he has to make is simply 10 updating the FSAR at some interval?
11 A
I don't believe that is presently required.
I think 12 that was a proposal, that he be reqaired periodically to 13 update his FSAR by actually providing changes -- modified 14 sheets, so that you have a current FSAR.
But my impression is 15 that that proposal never was approved.
l 16 g
Whatever it is, it is something that we could check 17 by simply reading the regulation.
18 A
Yes, right.
And a proposed change in regulation as 19 l f ar as reporting details of the change, updating an FSAR, yes. !
l 20 0
Thank you.
21 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
22 g
I think what you said -- and correct me if I am i
23 wrong -- if the event is reportable, so that an LER gets sent i
l 24 in, or if the change appears in a log or the annual report
, Aa sei n.conm, inc.
i 25 i under Section 50.59, then that is the kind of thing that would l
l
mto-4 62 I
get circulation within the NRC autom' ically.
Other than 2
those two types of things, if it is something that is not 3
reportable, then you have to rely on the inspector picking it d
up on his inspection report and ficgging it to the attention 3
of his supervisors.
0 A.
That's correct.
7 What kinds of things is the inspector required, 0
8 mandated to pick up on his inspection reports?
For example, 9
would any reactor trip, unplanned reactor trip, be something 10 that the inspector would find an account of in a log and make 11 a note of in his inspection report, even if the unit then came back on line in 30 minutes and it was an instrument electrical 13 spike or an instrument failure of some minor kind?
14 A
I don't believe there is any requirement that he 15 put in his inspection report all reactor trips.
If there were 16 no problems, if everything worked according to design and 17 procedure and the plant tripped and it returned to operation, I0 that might not be recorded.
l G
Is there a fairly --
20 A.
He is required to look at operating logs during 21 the course of his inspection to see if there are any things 22 like this.
There may be problems that we are not aware of.
23 But if there is no problem, it might not be recorded, no.
24 Does the IE manual or other documents define pretty Ace. wed Reponen, Inc.
25 closely what kinds of things the inspector is supposed to j
i i
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make a note of, or is there a large amount of discretion there P
2 as a practical matter?
3 A
There is considerable discretion.
The IE manual 4
and the inspection program gives guidance as to what he should 5
look at.
But as far as requirements for what he documents in 6
his inspection report, I don't think it is that specific.
7 O
Do you think that this system is adequate to rely 8
on either an LER or an inspector not only picking up something 9
that happened, but the utility's response to it to flag 10 potential generic problems up the line?
I realize that the 11 LER system is supposed to do this and is certainly very 12 useful.
But should there be some additional way of either 13 requiring licensees or routinizing something within the NRC 14 so that a change or a recognition of a problem that has 15 implications for other plants gets sent to somebody who has 16 the responsibility, primary responsibility for looking at 17 that?
18 A
It seems to me that you are asking whether or not i
19 the threshold for reporting is low enough, or is it too high?
20 I think there are some problems with our having resources to 21 deal with everything we get now.
22 O
I take it the present threshold for reporting of --
l 23 for reportable events is pretty low, and part of the problem 24 may be sorting the wheat from the chaff on even the LERs that Am. Jwet Rgoriers,1N.
l 25 you do receive?
I i
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1 A
I think that's true.
I guess I think we have to 2
rely on licensees to -- we have to expect them to be responsi-3 ble in their reporting.
I don't know how we can take on the 4
full responsibility for assuring the NRC is informed.
I 5
think that our inspecting on a sampling basis to see if 6
particular things are reported is really the way we should go.
7 The only other alternative is to put inspectors on site around 8
the clock, I suppose.
I don't think that is called for, 9
frankly.
10 0
It is my understanding that after the transient at 11 Davis-Besse in September of 1977, which was a reportable 12 event, and the various follow-up efforts, that Toledo Edison 13 actually instituted a new operator procedure there which 14 flagged the problems that they had had, warned the operator 15 about misleading pressurizer level, and cautioned him to be 16 aware of the possibility of a stuck open valve.
That is the 17 kind of procedure, obviously, that might have had some impact 18 on the course of the accident at TMI.
19 But that procedure, the desirability of that procedure, l
20 never got communicated, as far as we know, to anybody who 21 would have said, we should let everybody else who has a B&W 22 primary system in on this.
23 Now, why didn't that happen?
Is there a way that -- is 24 there some kind of administrative structure or requirement Am esI Roorwrs. Inc.
25 on the utility within tha NRC that could make it more likely i
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mto 7 65 I
that that sort of remedy adopted one place would be communi-2 cated to other people who could have the same kind of problem?
3 Do you have any suggestions about that or thoughts about that?
4 A
I think we do need, I guess, an organizational 5
entity with specific responsibility for looking at operating 6
information.
I agree with that.
I think it has not been 7
clear who has had the responsibility for identifying generic 8
problems.
9 I just don't know, with the particular problem you 10 referred to at Davis-Besse, what attention that got within IE II at the time.
It seems to me now, in hindsight, it is the 12 sort of thing that should have been the subject of a bulletin 13 to all B&W licensees.
Why it was not, I don't know.
Id 0
Who makes the decision to send out a bulletin?
15 A.
Headquarters has that responsibility.
We in the 16 regions are charged with proposing -- charged with the 17 responsibility for proposing bulletins whenever we identify 18 an item that we think has generic implications.
19 I
g Do you actually draft up --
l 20 A.
We draft a bulletin and forward it to headquarters.
21 on the other hand, headquarters also has that responsibility, 22 with their broader view cf a problem that comes in from a 23 region, if they decide that it is of a generic nature, to 24 initiate the bulletin on their own.
Normally, they will draft Ace. sord Reporters, Inc.
l 25, a bulletin and circulate it to the regions for comment.
i
mtO. 8 66 I
g A bulletin, I take it, requires an affirmative 2
response from the licensee that it has done something?
3 A
That's correct.
4 0
And a notice only requires that they take action 5
and document it internally?
6 A
Yes.
7 G
And inspectors can check whether a notice has been 8
acknnwledged and something done or a decision made not to do 9
something; is that right?
10 A
Yes.
We now have three types.
There is also an il information notice, which is purely sent for information and 12 doesn't require any action.
13
- O Is that different from a circular?
14 A
Yes.
A circular --
15 0
Is just a newsletter?
16 A
Yes.
The information notice is really a newsletter 17 or advance information.
The intent is to have that as a i
18 mechanism for getting something out promptly but before you 19 really evaluate it and determine whether or not action is 20 required.
You might expect an information notice to be 21 followed with a bulletin after you have decided what has to 22 be done.
23 So a bulletin requires positive response.
A circular 24 requires or recommends action, but doesn't require any Ami sol R oorwes,lm.
25 response.
And then the information notice is purely for i
i i
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information.
2 g
I would like to ask you a few general questions 3
about the inspection program overall.
You are a person who 4
has had an enormous amount of experience with supervising that 5
process.
6 How do you evaluate the major strengths and major weaknesses 7
of the inspection program?
If you could single v.
one or 8
two things it does basically well and one or two things it 9
doesn't do as well as it should, or are problems or weaknesses, 10 what would those things be?
11 A
Well, I think the principal things from the 12 standpoint of strengths is it gives an independent view of 13 the licensee's operation, opportunity to go in and independently 14 look at how things are going, which I think is important to 15 NRC, and I think also important to the licensee.
The licensee 16 is required to have his quality assurance program, which in 17 effect requires him to independently look at his own operation.,
18 But to have the NRC overview, I think, is important.
i 19 I don't know whether all licensees view it that way or not.
20 But there are those, I think, who do.
21 From the standpoint of weaknesses, I guess I think we are 22 not as effective as we ought to be in perhaps getting correc-23 tive actions on problems.
We may not attach sufficient signi-24 ficance to a number of things and recognize their implications.
A=4mee nmonen. w. l 25 lI think we need more discipline in our program in terms of i
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68 mt910 I
evaluating results.
2 We tend to be too oriented to problems and flaps and 3
responding to; events.
Recognizing the importance of resolving d
things that happen, but we need to not let that detract from 5
continuing regular inspections, I think, that try to prevent 6
problems rather than responding to them.
7 I don't know whether that has answered your question or 8
not.
9 To a fairly substantial extent.
0 10 Is it fair to say that the inspection program is an audit 11 program, that a substantial amount of the time is spent 12 auditing the licensee's own books and records?
13 A.
Yes.
Id Is that a drawback to the inspection process?
0 IS Whether or not it is realistic, do you think that you could 16 have the manpower to do something quite dif ferent?
How much I7 do you think this is a drawback to really getting the base 18 information?
I I
l A.
I don't think it is a bic, drawback if -- the I
20 problem comes in devoting too much time to records, if you 21 will, I think, on the part of the inspector, rather than 22 taking these independent -- making his independent observa-tions of what is going on.
A program that is solely one of 23 24 record review would not be acceptable, and I think there have Ac...
..r.i neooners, inc.
25 been some difficulties in inspectors wanting to spend full l
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time in record review.
2 The inspector has to independently observe the licensee's 3
operations and draw his own conclusions as to how things are 4
going.
5 G
It sounded to me a moment ago as if you were 6
saying that perhaps I&E ought to be more aggressive in 7
actually requiring actions or changes to be made when soft 8
spots are identified.
I don't want to put words in your 9
mouth, but I would like to pursue that with you a little, if 10 you had specific areas in mind or specific programs or II systems?
12 A
No, I don't know that I have specifics.
I just 13 think, as a general matter, we identify problems during an N
inspection.
We call these to the licensee's attention at 15 the exit interview at the close of the inspection.
The l
16 matters may not be significant enough to take formal enforce-I7 ment action.
18 We perhaps then do not follow up as we should to ensure l
I9 that a licensee's commitment to do something is done promptly I
20 and in a timely manner.
I think there may be problems at a 21
-lower threshold that we don't give enough attention to, that 22 don't warrant going to formal enforcement or civil penalty, 22 that perhaps we need to give more attention to them, the lesser:
24 items.
' Am.
.,ei nepomri, ine.
25 I
g Is there any procedure by which an inspector can l
i l
mta 12 70 write orders for corrective action on the site and give the
)
licensee a time deadline?
2 3
A No.
The procedure goes like this.
At the end of 4
every inspection, the inspector sits down with the licensee 5
management and discusses his findings and, where he is able, will point out items of noncompliance or matters that need 6
resolution.
I say where he is able beca0se sometimes it may 7
be that he needs to go back to the office or consult with his 8
supervisor and evaluate the item before making a finding that 9
10 it represents an item of noncompliance.
11 Now, during that meeting with the licensee, we expect some 12 response on the part of management in terms of either the item will be corrected and a commitment as to when, or that 13 14 they will consider it.
15 Now, after the inspector has had an opportunity to evaluate 16 his inspection, write down his inspection report, and reviewed 17 it with bis supervisor, we then communicate formally with 18 the licensee, a letter from the region office transmitting 19 the inspection report and, if appropriate, forwarding the l
notice of violation, which will specifically identify items 20 21 of noncompliance, and ask the licensee to respond specifically '
22 what he has done to correct it, when it will be corrected, 23 and what he has done to prevent recurrence.
That normally 24 will be 20-day or 30-day response time from the licensee, Ace,
.r2 Reporters, Inc.
25 that is, to respond to the notice.
l 6
mta 13 71
.I So the inspector does not have the authority to issue an E
2 order or to establish a date.
He'does have responsibility to 3
bring the item to the licensee's attention and to record any 4
-commitment that the licensee may make.
But that is followed up 5
by requiring the licensee to respond to a letter formally as c-5 6
to his corrective action and when it will be corrected.
7 0
Under the Health and Safety Law of 1969, it is my 8
understanding that an inspector who goes to a mine site 9
ordinarily, when he sees items that he regards as items of 10 noncompliance with the regulations, will write out in hand-ll writing an order, which is like a probable cause finding, 12 and says -- describes what he has found and orders the 13 licensee to fix it within a certain period of time -- two Id hours, eight hours, seven days, 30 days, whatever -- and 15 in effect serves that order on the licensee by handing it to 16 the f ellow he has the exit interview with.
And then a copy 17 is later sent for record purposes to the licensee. And that 18 is regarded as an order subject to appeal or requests for l9 delay in time periods, of course, but an effective action, i
20 which requires the licensee to do something.
21 And then inspections are. scheduled so that someone comes 22 back and determines on an eyeball basis whether the deficiency 23 has been corrected or not.
So that the burden -- it is 24 almost an ex parte proceeding.
Ace stel Reporters, Inc.
25 The burden is then on the licensee to say:
Wait a minute.
I l.
?
72 mta 14 I
We don't agree with this finding.
We don't want to do any-l 2
thing about this; or to ask for a delay in the time period, 3
which is very often granted.
4 Do you think that the experience and maturity of the 5
inspectors involved in your inspection program and the nature 6
of the kinds of iten.a of noncompliance that are very often 7
involved would make it possible to have that kind of a system 3
implemented in inspecting reactors?
And if so, would that 9-be of any help?
Would that improve the program?
10 A
I think it is possible.
We have had under discus-11 sion a procedure which would require the inspector to document 12 his findings and give it to the licensee before he leaves the 13 site.
We call it 594.
There is not full support for that l#
procedure with IE.
I 15 0
What are thought to be the disadvantages or drawbacks 16 to such a procedure?
17 A
I think the principal objection in my office is 18 the feeling that there needs to be supervisory review and I
19 that it gives the inspector too much authority on his own, 20 if you will.
Because I think one of the considerations is 21 the NRC requirements -- I don't know anything about the mine 22 safety requirements, whether they are very specific.
But our 23 requirements to a great extent require, I think, judgment to
)
24 apply them.
Am.
ed Rmonm, lM.
{
25 They are not specific in terms of it either is or it isn't. !
l I
4
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And to expect an individual on his own to make all of the 2
judgments with respect to the items may be asking too much.
3 If we get to the point of identifying essential requirements 4
and writing them very clearly, so that there is no question 5
about you are either in compliance or you are not in compli-6
-ance, then maybe that is the time you can.give the inspector 7
that responsibility.
8 But we have in a number of areas difficulty deciding exactly 9
what the r equirement is.
Every time something comes up, I 10 think -- take requirements that relate to having programs, II for instance, quality assurance programs or radiation protec-12 tion or security programs.
The specific requirement is simply 13 that the licensee have a program that meets these criteria and Id implement it.
15 Well, then, there has to be judgment made as to whether or 16 not the program being implemented, I think, meets the 17 criteria.
And it is not -- there are a number of ways you 18 can meet that criteria.
And the inspector may have a prejudice W j that this is the only way you can do it.
But that is not 20 necessarily true.
21 So I think that the present state, as far as I am concerned, 22 of requirements imposed on licensees, that it is difficult to 23 say that an individual can make these decisions without some 24 lexerciseinjudgmentandevaluation.
It may be more than a Act. coral Reporters, Inc.
25 single inspector ought to be obligated to do l
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BY MR. RIVENBARK:
2 O
Isn't the single inspector, though, in essence 3
required to make just that same judgment at the time that he 4
makes his initial review of their procedures and methods for 5
implementing that, prior to giving.them an operating license?
6 Doesn't he determine ahead of time, on the basis of sampling 7
what he has looked at, that the program is satisfactory in 8
those same three areas?
9 A
He does, yes, in terms of the overall program.
But 10 think that is a little different from encountering a specific I
11 situation later, and then determining whether or not that 12 really meets the criteria.
~
13 I don't know whether I can give a specific example of what i
14 But at the time you make the finding for issuance of I mean.
15 the operating license, you are looking at' an overall program 16 meeting the criteria.
But when you are dealing with a 17 specific situation later, there may be some question of whether-l or not that meets the criteria.
j l
19 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
20 What percentage of the time do you think inspectors 0
21 are actually engaged in reccrd review of one kind or another?
22 I would guess it is about half the time.
It varies A
23 from program to' program, I think, because it depends on the l
24 type of activity that you are inspecting.
I would guess it An era n ponen, inc.
l 25 is about half.
l l
5
mta'17 75 I
P O
Let me ask you about some specific types of inspec-2 tions.
How does the -- how do you inspect the quality 3
assurance program at a plant that is in normal operation?
Is d
there any kind of a review or check to see that the program 5
is operating the way it is supposed to be?
0 A
In my view, there are two aspects of it:
One, there 7
are in-depth inspections just of the quality assurance program that are, according to IE manual, I think, an annual require-8 9
ment to look at least at part of it.
10 What does that kind of inspection involve?
What 0
11 does the inspector actually look at there?
12 A
Taking a particular area of the quality assurance 13 program and going in depth in terms of organizational require-I#
ments of the program, procedural requirements, and see that i
15 they are being implemented.
16 O
Can you say basically what the quality assurance 17 program is?
What is it that the licensee is supposed to be 18 doing?
Is it that the licensee is supposed to be giving any 19 kind of change or new procedure within a certain specified 20 group of systems some kind of independent engineering review 21 that determines whether that raises any safety problems?
Is 22 that basically what it is?
23 A
That is a part of the quality assurance program.
l
'24 I think generally cuality assurance -- well, Appendix B to l
Ace wei Reponen, Inc.
25 Part 50 has 18 criteria for-quality assurance.
Those
mto 18 76 1
criteria establish what should be encompassed within the 2
program:
generally, its organizational arrangements, proce-3 dures that cover certain things. La ry irderstanding, not only 4
the act of performing a particular function, but an independent 5
check to see that that is performed. properly.
In other words, 6
if you are going to perform a particular operation, you have 7
to ensure that the procedure for that operation is proper.
8 Now, you do that by going through, developing the technical 9
aspects of it by people familiar with the function to be 10 performed.
II you have a quality assurance function that independently 12 looks to see that that procedure was p roperly prepared.
13 Then you follow the procedure to carry out the operation and 14 you have some quality assurance check to see that it was 15 carried out in accordance with the procedure.
So these are IC the things.
17 It is a system of management controls to assure that all 18 activities are properly carried out.
That is what quality 19 assurance is.
20 0
How does the inspector inspect the program itself?
21 A
I want to differentiate, now, between the business 22 of getting a job done and the quality assurance function.
23 Annually, we look at the quality assurance function.
That is, 24 have they got these controls in place, have they got the Am s3 R@crters, lm.
organization, have they got the procedures, and are they 25 f
i l
I i
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mto 19 77 1
actually doing it by sampling it?
2 But the other point I wanted to make in getting back to --
3 that is the in-depth part that is looked at at least once a 4
year -- every time we look at an operation, we ought to also 5
look at the' quality assurance aspects of it.
If we are looking 6
at a maintenance activity, we ought to see -- we look at that 7
particular activity, nbut we should also see that the quality 8
assurance aspects of that particular activity have been 9
fulfilled.
So we are looking at a little part of quality 10 assurance every time we inspect.
Il So there are the two aspects.
Now, that is the part that 12 I don't know has really gotten through to all of our inspectors 13 There are still those who view quality assurance as this 14 separate thing over here that doesn't enter into everything 15 day to day.
That is, I think, where we have our problems.
16 I am not sure that the licensees understand it.
They look 17 to it to some extent, the quality assurance, as being this 18 function and that function alone.
It is.sa difficult concept 19 to get through in some respects.
20 I think the problem has come -- quality assurance, the 21 idea initially was applied largely to construction, where in 22 building a plant you had the independent quality control 23 check on what was done.
There has been dif ficulty in apply-24 ing that concept to the operating plant when you talk about Ae sa nworms. w.
25 operations as opposed to activities like modifications or 1
i i
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mto 20 78 1
maintenance, which may relate to a construction activity.
It 2
is easy, perhaps, to look at that sort of a thing under the 3
quality assurance concept.
But when you talk about operating 4
a plant, the procedures to operate independent review of that 5
operating activity, it is a difficult concept -- difficult 6
for some people, I think, to understand.
7 G
When an inspector goes in to look at a piece of the 8
quality assurance program itself --
9 A
Yes.
10 0
-- what does he do?
What does he look at?
II A
Let's take a particular part of it.
Let's say 12 design control.
He will first look at what the program says 13 about the licensee's system for design control.
Then he will 14 look at the organization, he will look at the procedures to 15 carry out that program.
And then he will go get some plant 16 modification where there was a design change, and he will 17 look at that record and see if all of the requirements of the 18 program were followed.
19 G
One of the key things in the quality assurance 20 program, I take it, is the determination that the program 21 people ultimately make that a particular change or procedure 22 does not involve any unresolved safety question and does not 23 need to be reported to NRC.
24 A
Yes.
Ace 4..eral Reporters, Inc.
25 0
And should be made, can be made.
l.
mte 21 79 1
To what extent do you think inspectors really look at 2
whether those evaluations are documented substantively as to 3
whether the licensee is really -- the quality of the decision or whether the licensee has really done an in-depth review 4
5 of that subject, rather than just write down on a piece of 6
paper, "no unresolved safety question," and put it in the 7
file?
8 A
This is something we look at.
As a matter of fact, I had a licensee in the office for an enforcement meeting 9
10 this week, and that was one-of the particular areas that we 11 have concern about, because he was not justifying or evaluating 12 his change.
The inspectors had looked at it, identified it 13 as a problem.
We haven't gottten resolution.
We called the 14 licensee in a rd asked him what they are going to do.
15 So, yes, it is an area that we look at, now, not 16 100 percent, but on a sampling basis to make sure that they 17 have got the routine established for doing those evaluations.
18 G
How do you inspect operating procedures and the 19 actual performance of the operations?
Can that be effectively 1
20 inspected?
21 A
I think that is principally done during preopera-22 tional programs in preparation for operation.
23 0
When you review all of the prccedures that are 24 being developed for operation?
Ace.
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25 A-Yes.
And there we can, during the testing program, i
I l
l
mta 22 80 l'
observe their actual carrying out of certain of their 2
procedures.
But during routine operations, it is not easy 3
to inspect their actual performance of procedures if there 4
is'nothing special going on.
5 G
Is there any periodic review by NRC of the validity 6
of the procedures that are being used, procedures that have 7
been previously approved?
8 A
On a sampling basis, yes.
9 G
How is that done?
10 MR. FRAMPTON:
Shall we take a five-minute break?,
II It is probably a good time to do it.
12 (Recess.)
13 MR. FRAMPTON:
Back on the record.
14 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
15 O
Mr. Grier, there a re a number of follow-up things 16 that we want to ask you about, especially with; respect to 17 the inspection program generally.
And I think in light of 18 everybody's time schedule, that we will try to break in a I9 minute.
And perhaps those are some issues that George can 20 follow up on with you when he has an opportunity to be up at 21 Region I.
22 Before we break I would like to ask you a couple of 23 specific questions with respect to Three Mile Island Unit 2 24 and your impressions of that operation.
Am.
s J R uo n m,Inc.
25
- Did you have any impressions of the technical qualifications, i
mto 23 81 f
1 of Metropolitan Edison-GPU relative to the average licensee 2
'over whom you have jurisdiction in Region I?
3 A
I think we considered Metropolitan Edison's Three 4
Mile Island to be an average licensee.
There were no parti-5 cular things that I 'am aware of which indicated they were out 6
of the norm as far as technical qualifications go.
In our 7
dealings with them, they had been responsive to our concerns 8
and we had not identified in any way that there were any 9
problems.
10 g
How about in terms of the support they were getting Il from B&W?
12 A
I had no indication that that was identified as a 13 problem.
14 O
And what about the support they were getting from 15 their architect-engineer, Burns & Rowe?
The company people 16 were aware that they were having a lot of problems with the 17 secondary side relative to the problems they had with Unit 1, 18 and I guess that is primarily the design responsibility of 19 Burns & Rowe.
Was that something that was on the horizon at 20 Region I at all?
21 A
No, not to my knowledge, not particularly.
22 O
Do you know whether Region I had any knowledge or 23 information about.a notice from B&W to Met Ed that the 24 pressurizer relief valve should be put on a preemptive Ace. med Reporters. Inc.
25 maintenance schedule?
f I
mto 24 82
?
1 A
Not that I know of.
2 G
We have received some information, not necessarily 3
from Region I, that there are some inspectors who perceive 4l that there really hasn't been an adequate response within IE 5
to_their concerns about a couple of areas that apparently 6
keep popping up as weak spots.
One of these is emergency 7
planning; a second, the effectiveness of the utilities' QA 8
programs; and a third is the requalification of operators, 9
keeping operators up to date, up to speed.
10 Do you have any thoughts about the institutional responsive-11 ness of IE to these problems or the concerns that inspectors 12 raise or have raised about these problems?
13 A
In the quality assurance area, I know there have 14 been continuing concerns, I think particularly in the area 15 of upgrading programs to meet what is felt to be current 16 c.-ite ria. 3 aides that provide additional information on what 17 is e.xpected under 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B.
Of course, 18 there were plants already in operation or in the licensing, 19 ;i in the process of being licensed for operation, when Appendix B-1 20 was issued, and guidance that developed over the years follow-21 ing the issuance of Apepndix B providing more detail as to 22 what is expected in a program is continuing to come out.
And 23 concern -- I think cne principal concern I am aware of on 24 the part of inspectors was in getting licensee programs Ace e erst Reporters, Inc.
25 upgraded to meet current requirements, sort of a backfitting F
.mto 25 83 1
operation.
2 Because some of the initial programs were approved without 3
having the detailed guidance that now exists, and it was 4
difficult to get licensees to upgrade their programs if they 5
weren't required to.
So I think that is the area that. caused 6
considerable concern on the part of inspectors.
7 Emergency planning, I guess generally I am not sure that P
I am aware of any specific concerns in the emergency planning 9
area.
10 What was the third area?
II O
Requalification of operators.
12 A
Yes.
That, I think, has been an area of concern 13 for inspectors, because the role of the IE inspector in that 14 doesn't satisfy a lot of people.
We have had, I would say, 15 some proble-with the Operator Licensing Branch in terms of 16 what is the role of the IE inspector.
And it was rather 17 narrowly then defined in terms of simply verifying that a 18 licensee was carrying out the training program for requalifi-19 cation.
1 20 We have no function in terms of approving the program or 21 of examining operators.
Maybe this is an opportunity for 22 me to say that I think that is an area that needs reexamina-c-6 23 tion in terms of assignment of responsibilities.
You do have within a ' single office the examination of the 24
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25 requirements, the examination of the single issue, and I l
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i question whether you have the check and balance in that par-2 ticular area that may be needed.
3 G
One last question:
To what extent are non-safety-4 related systems inspected as a customary matter?
For example, 5
the condensate polisher system that was the initiating system 6
in the TMI accident; what kind of inspection, if any, would 7
that system or maintenance procedures on it or changes in it 8
get from NRC IE inspectors?
9 A
Probably not any, so far as I am aware.
10 MR. FRAMP'?ON:
Off the record.
II (Discussion off the record.)
12 MR. FRAMPTON:
Back on the record.
13 BY MR. FRAMPTON:
14 I
G If it is agreeable to you, we will just adjourn 15 the deposition.
And if there are other items that George wants:
i 16 to cover with you, he could try to do that when he is up at 17 Region I interviewing the other people from your office that 18 we want to talk to before the end of our inquiry.
j Thank you very much for your time and your cooperation.
19 20 A
Yes, sir.
21 (Whereupon, at 12:00 noon,-the taking of the c-7 22 instant deposition was adjourned.)
23 24 Ace ar*J Reporters, Inc.
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