ML20028E886

Affidavit of L Smith Re Working Conditions & Procedures at Plant.Requests Protection for Self & son-in-law

ML20028E886
Person / Time
Site:	Comanche Peak
Issue date:	01/23/1983
From:	Laura Smith Citizens Association for Sound Energy
To:
Shared Package
ML20028E876	List: ML20028E874 ML20028E878 ML20028E886 ML20028E890
References
NUDOCS 8301280259
Download: ML20028E886 (5)

Text

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AFFIDAVIT OF LESTER SMITH My name is Lester Smith. I live at 108 Sandra Drive, Azle, Texas 76020.

I began working at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in March of 1979, as a pipe fitter. I stayed down there three months and quit about June of 1979.

I had an excellent work record when I quit and was offered a foreman's job on the day that I left. I left because I was just fed up with it. I had been used to working a full day's work for a full day's pay (a hard dollar job, where you earn your money). The last day I was there, my crew (me,- and a fitter, and a welder) sat for eight hours and there were three tack welds made in that period of time. This was on the Unit 2 steel stainless liner (I'm not sure what the liner was for now - I don't remem ter exactly after all this time), and we had to wait for another craft to come up and do the cutting and drilling of holes before we could do anything else to it. We only had time to make the three tack welds before the end of the day.

Before that, I waited twenty-four hours for the ANI (authorized nuclear inspector) to come look at an arc strike on a pipe. In other words. it was twenty-four hours between the time he was called and the time he showed up, l

I had to stay there because I had to be there if and when he showed up, but I didn't have anything to do. My foremtn knew about it, but that's the way' the rules were set up and there was nothing he could do about it either. This was typical of the way things were down there. I sat there about ten hours.

I stayed gone four months, then went back down to Comanche Peak in October,1979.

I came back because of money. I just couldn't make as much money anywhere else in this area as I could at Comanche Peak. I was there about three weeks or so when they offered me a foreman's job again. This was a pipe fitter and welder foreman's job. At that time the General Foreman down there was Wayne Dennis.

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This time I took the foreman's job. During about late 1979 and early 1980, the as some problem about Brown & Root not producing enough to suit TUSI.

hMy'reforeman, Wayne Dennis, told me to start making 3/4" socket welds so that 3

we would be able to increase our production to hundreds of socket wclds each day. This would make our' production look better to TUSI and they would go ahead and give Brown & Root the money to go on, according to wh6t my general foreman told me. Supposedly this came to him from Gene Everso'n (not sure of spelling),

who was pipe superintendent. Wayne Dennis used the term something like""We're gonna blow smoke on TUSI" but he said it in more vulgar terms. And apparently it worked and TUSl turned loose the money.

I had the foreman's job about two or two and a half months, then I told Wayne Dennis I wasn't satisfied with it and wanted to go back to being lead man if it was all right with him. He said it was all right and I went ahead and finished out the week (that was on a Wednesday). After that I was a lead man until I had to have an operation. The last day I worked that time was 6/5/80.

On my Tennination Interview form, it shows that nt/ performance rating was EXCL.

(excellent) . It was signed by my inmediate supervisor, Dave Frederick.

I was off a couple of months for my operation and recovery. I called Brown & Root and told them I'd like to come back to work (I was on an official leave of absence). Terry Easton, who was a General Foreman in Unit 2 (the same category as Wayne Dennis was for Unit 1), referred me to Gene Everson and said I was on the lay-off list. He said he would have Gene Everson call me. Gene Everson never did call. When I called back down there late that afternoon, I couldn't contact either one of them. The next morning, I called l

Doug Frankum's office (the Brown & Root Project Manager). He wasn't in and his secretary had Charlie Scruggs (who was known as "two-check Charlie" because l

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he was noted for firing people and giving them both checks) call me. He told me that I was laid off and I told him that I was on an official leave of absence from the Brown & Root Houston office. He said that being on a leave of absence didn't guarantee me a job. I said 0.K. and wrote Houston about my R&S (retirement and savings) and they wouldn't let me have it while I was on a leave of absence even though the local Brown & Root office was showing me as being laid off. I had to wait about six months before I could even file for my R&S.

I went to work somewhere else and went back down there to Comanche Peak in about July of 1981. They hired me back then as a pipe fitter. Buck Hill, who took Terry Easton's place as General Foreman in Unit 2 (or they might have had another General Foreman in between times), told me that he would put in for me to be lead man if I did a good job after a couple of months or so. I told him at that time that Gene Everson wouldn't sign it. He said something like "He will if _I_ take it to him." But according to what Buck Hill told me, he did take it to them twice for me to be promoted and Gene Everson wouldn't sign i t.

Between July 1981 and- now or,so, I work,e,d as alpipe fitter (kh is.ys on all the main steam and feedwater 3 except putting it inside the compartment (they had another crew who did that).

We had a fit on the main steam pipe which is 32". The bends were 45 . When I went to make my fit, we had a gap so they would have to take Iit about1nch one^M on one side to make it fit. I told my foreman and he said 0.K., fine. I told the men who would have to do it and they were moving their equipment to do it when Buck Hill came up a asked what we were doing. I told him we were going to have to cut the one nch off so it would fit. He said no, that he would have he engineers shoot it. They shot it three times and finally decided that the one ch had to come off, just like I had said at first. It took at least

a month and a half before we ever got it done.

There was a problem on the same main steam line with a weld data card.

The weld data card was lost. It was cut out and refit and redone the way it should have been done. Later there was another problem on another similar main steam line whem the weld data card was lost. A new data card was made up, but it didn't show the fact that two previous repairs had been made on it. There was a red hold tag for the nonconformance report (NCR 113425 dated 1

4/16/82, signed by R. E. Walters) on the pipe because the original weld data card had been lost. One day I noticed that the red hold tag wasn't on the pipe any longer. I saw the new weld data card and the two repairs that were made on it previously were not shown on it. They- should have cut:it out and redone it the way they did on the other one. They did not go by procedure.

They took the new weld data card to QC and QC just laughed at them because nothing was verified on it. QC wouldn't approve it. It was taken back to Buck Hill and he was told that QC wouldn't buy it. The card was left with I

Buck Hill at his instructions. The next morning the card was bought off by QC, I don't know that the weld isn't good . It may be. But there's no record of what kind of material went into those two repairs and it didn't indicate on the new card that the original card had been lost, so nobody knows. The line number and weld number are: MS-2-RB-19-FW1.

One day Buck Hill and I got into an argument about the main steam line pipe. He made the statement that carbon pipe (carbon steel pipe) had to be 7500 to move a 1/16 of an inch. I asked him where he'd been all his life and told him that if he had ever worked in the oil field or put up a barbed wire fence in the summer time (as I have) he'd know that heat and cold are going to expand and contract a pipe. On the ground in the oil field, you can see dirt piled up on each side where the pipe has moved back and forth from the temperature change. You don't have to be an engineer to figure that out.

I have been shown a copy of NRC Form 3 (6-82), Notice to Employees, on which it is stated that " copies of this notice must be posted in a sufficient number of places in every establishment where activities licensed by the NRC are conducted, to permit employees to observe a copy on the way to or from their place of employment." I have never seen a copy of this Notice at Cornanche Peak, to the best of my recollection. I'll try to take a good look when I go back to work tomorrow.

I didn't even know that there was any kind of protection for anyone turning in any problems to the 'NRC until last week (1/18/83). When I found out that there was some possibility of -+ action, I decided that I should tell what I know about and am concerne?, m dt Comanche Peak. I'm still concerned that they may fire me because I've done this and I want protection from that. I'm also concerned that th^y .ny fire my son-in-law, Freddy Ray Harrell, may also  ;

be fired because he is my helper at work and will confinn some of the things I've said. I think he should also be protected.

I will testify if I am allowed i

to in the operating license hearings and so w Jil my son-1,n-law.

, s i rb$f  ??;'  ?

Lester Smith g

Date: January 23, 1983 W D

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'Wi tness '

g N STATE OF TEXAS E 1

On this, the 23rd day of January,1983, personally appeared Lester Smith, known i to me to be the person whose name is subscribed to the foregoing instrununt, and acknowledged to me that he executed the same for the purposes therein expressed. s:

Subscribed and sworn before me on the'23rd day f January,1983. 5

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! s.A2 mm e s 1.1 l.. My Comission Expires: / M d' / Notary Public in anti for the State of Texas 5

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