ML20040A273
| ML20040A273 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/11/1981 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8201200670 | |
| Download: ML20040A273 (52) | |
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AND ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS Friday, December 11, 1981 Washington, D.C.
Pages 1-50 Rsepered 5 9%erewn Office of the Secretary 00hk0B11211 lI PDR l
1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUAFDS 5
6 ACBS MEETING WITH THE COMMISSIONERS 7
8 Nuclear deguitory Commission Doom 1130 9
1717 H Street, N.
W.
Washington, D. C.
10 Friday, December 11, 1981 11 The ACRS meeting with the Commissioners convened, 12 pursuant to notica, at 9:u0 a.m.
13 14 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
15 NUNZIO PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner 16 PETER BRADFORD, Commissioner JOHN AHEARNE, Commissioner 17 THOMAS ROBERTS, Commissioner 18 ACRS MEMBERS PREFENT:
19 J. CARSON MARK, Chairman of the ACES 20 MIL"CN PLESSET MYER BENDER 21 MAX CARBON JESSE EBERSOLE i
22 HAROLD LEWIS l
WILLIAM KERR 23 WILLIAM MATHIS DADE MOELLER l
24 DAVID OKRENT JEREMIAH RAY 25 PAUL SHEWMON t
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1 ACRS 3 EMBERS PRESENT:
(Continued) 2 CHESTER SIESS DAVID WARD 3
HAROLD ETHERINGTON ROBERT AXTMAN 4
5 DESIGNATED FEDERAL EMPLOYEES 6
RAY FRALEY 7
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10 11 12 l
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CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
The meetino will please come 3 to order.
4 The purpose of our meeting today is to meet with 5 the Members of the Advisory Committee on Reactor 7
6 Safeguards.
We are very pleased to have them with us this 7 morning.
8 They have suqqested several items for discussion.
8 So I am coing to turn the meeting over to the Chairman of to the ACRS, Ca rson M a rk, and have him lead the discussion.
11 MR. 5 ARK:
We had a little discussion as to 12 whether this was meeting of the Commission or a meeting of 13 the committee, snd I was rather happy to get the feeling 14 that neither from Joe's point of view and certainly not from 15 mine ths t it didn't matter.
It is a meeting.
16 So lets proceed.
There are two or three things 17 which we had though t were either of interect to us to bring 18 to you or might be of interest to you to have us brine to 19 you.
20 The first item I believe will be that of the plans 21 we are trying to formulate for a report on the Commission's 22 program of research and Chet Siess will discuss that.
23 MR. SIESS:
Just to bring you up to date, on 24 October 20th we addressed a letter to the Chairman pointing 25 out that we felt there was some duplica tion or triplica tion A4.DERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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1 in our reports rela ting to our reviews of the NRC research 2 program, specifically the report to Congress that is 3 required by law, the report to the Commission in July a t the i
4 timo you formulated the budget and at least one attempt at a 5 report on the long-range research plan.
6 We have had a reply from Chairman Palladino dated 7 December 10th agreeing in part and making some additional 8 suggestions and I would like to address that.
9 First, regarding the advice that we provide to the 10 Commission when you are considering the budget in July, the 11 so-called report to the Commission.
12 You may recall that NUREG 0795, that is the report 13 we did last July, had two parts.
Part one was General 14 Comments.
This was really advice to the Commission on the 15 budget, some general statements and directions and it 16 mentioned priorities that included a table of what we 17 thought constituted comments on the dollars.
Part two was 18 called Specific Comments.
If you read them, th ey were more 19 addressed to the staf f.
20
.Now we use the same sort of f orma t in our report 21 to Congress, a Ps.rt One that we think the Congress may read 22 and a Part Two that is the more detailed that is advice to 23 the staff.
24 It was not our thought that we did not want to 25 give you advice in July on the budget, but that we would t
4 ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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5 1 prefer to teep that advice at the level of the Part One of 2 that report.
Clesrly, if you ask for advice you are going 3 to get it.
That is our job and is part of our name even, 4 not our middle name but our first name.
5 So we would still expect in July to prepare 6 something in the form of advice to you, but it would be more 7 like the Part One of that report rather than a NUREG report.
8 Now, does that'seem reasonable to you?
8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
That is excellent, because, 10 as you may have noticed by my paragraph toward the end, I 11 found that advice very valuable at the tices you have done 12 it.
It is the only place that I find some critical advice 13 on the research budget which is the hardest part of the 14 Commissien's budget for me to come to grips with because of.
15 both the size of the follars and the wide number of programs.
16 That report has always been invaluable to me and 17 i t is that Part One type that I find most useful.
As far as 18 I am concerned, and I think I share with you, that that is 19 the part th a t you were writing to the Commission.
I am 20 delighted and had intended to ask you for it anyway.
21 3P.. SIESS:
There was no dicaqreement on the 22 report to Congress.
The other question had to do with the 23 long-range research plan.
We in effect said in our letter i
24 that we didn't think that reviewing a long-range plan like 25 the last one we looked at was worth our eff ort.
I guess i
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6 1 there is an implication there that if it is better that we 2 sight find it is worth our effort.
3 We certainly agree tha t a long-range research plan 4 is desirable and even necessary.
We weren't very 5 complimentary about the first one and we made some 6 suggestions for its improvement and the staff has indicated 7 they took some of those suggestions.
Right now I would say 8 we are looking forward to seeing the next one.
9 I don't think there is any question about our to commenting on it, especially since you have asked us to.
If 11 it is a very good one, you will get some comments.
If it is 12 a very bad one I am sure you will get some comments there 13 and maybe more.
14 It is not clear right now just how our review and 15 comments on the long-range research plan can or should be 16 coordina ted with the preparation of report to Congress.
17 There are questions of timing and questions of scope.
The 18 Congressional report is for a particular budget.
The 19 long-range plan, if it is a good one, will be a long-range 20 plan,
- t may help us.
I don't think it will hurt us unless 21 we get into a time problem.
22 All we can say rioht now is that we will work with 23 Bob *inogue and the research staff on this to see if we can 24 work out some procedures and schedules to coordinate that.
25 Fight now our work on the report to Congress on 1
1 ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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7 1 the FY-83 budget is well underway and we haven't yet gotten 2 the long-research plans.
So I can't really tell you.
We 3 haven't seen it and don 't know what its nature is.
4 Once we see it we will have a better idea of how 5 we can do our jobs more efficiently next year and we vill 6 certainly try to work something out that gets comments back 7 to you on the plan and utilizes it in our reviews as much as 8 possible.
I don't think we can go much farther than that.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
Well, I do 10 remember quite vividly your comments on the last long-range 11 plan and I can't say that they were unjustified.
He still 12 f eel that your comments on the long-range plan, whether the 13 plan is good or bad, are very important to us and we would 14 like to still receive them.
15 We are interested in helping to reduce your 16 workicad, bu t apparently you have developed contacts so that 17 perhaps you can work more efficiently on some of these items.
18 3R. SIESSs We will work on it.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
20 COMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
Could I make a comment?
21 CHAISMAN PALLADINO:
Yes, sure.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Were you still on the 23 long-range plan or were you going to something else, Carson?
24 MR. MARK I was going to say on the long-range 25 plan that my only anxiety is that nobody should for a moment t
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1 take it seriously no matter how well it is done.
It is 2 capable of including things which ought to be carried across 3 a long time but it is not capable of describing the next 4 five years.
As long as one has that firmly and clearly in 5 mind, and the Congress, too, well and good, it may not do 6 such harm.
7 But to read this plan and then argue about 8 deviations from it six months f rom now is of course a very 9 questionable thing.
I don't hope we have an accident to 10 bring that to attention.
We don't need another one to do 11 that.
The last one ought to do tha t.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
John, do you have a comment?
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
My comments were more in 14 the line of agreeing with Chet as the brief sentence I put 15 in the letter indicated.
16 MR. SIESS:
I interpreted it that way.
17 (La ugh te r. )
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, we appreciate your 19 comments on long-rance plans, Carson.
I auess-we have all 20 been through r.any phases of long-range plans.
21 MR. MARK:
Well, there may be people who can see 22 further into the future than I can, but I think about three 23 mon ths is my limit.
I 24 CHAIRNAN PALLADINO:
Well, all long-rance plans 25 should be rolling long-range plans where you drop off one i
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9 1 one year and pick up another one and you revise your focus 2 on the forthcoming year each year.
MR. MARKS That is perhaps f ar enough on that 3
4 general point.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN04 Do any other Commissioners 6 have comments on the 1cag-range plan or any of the research 7 reports?
8
- 0MMISSIONER AHEARNE
One other point.
You 9 mentioned that you are well on your way in the re view of the 10 '83 budget.
I guess I would just point out that it is not 11 obvious that we have the '93 budget fixed.
12 MR. SIE55:
We are well on our way of reviewing 13 the proposed '83 program and the tentative '83 budget.
Next 14 month will be our main focus and I hope you will have it by 15 then.
16 MR. MARK.
A point which is very evident is that 17 in discussions of the sort that we are involved in, plant 18 licensing and plant arrangements, there is in the last 19 couple of years an enormously large increase in discussion 20 of the quality of the human staff.
It is all the way from j
21 the top to the bottom, the operators, the management and 22 eve rything else.
Human factors, and these are very correct 23 things, but which is difficult to be sure exactly what 24 should be said.
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25 I think, Ch a rlie, you had some points you wanted t
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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MR. MATHIS:
I think David will cover that.
3 MR. MARX:
Excuse me.
The two of you have been on 4 this, but it is Dsvid.
I a m sorry.
David Ward has spent 5 some time in the last couple of months having his nose 8 rubbed in these questions and I think he has raised more 7 questions than he hss f ound solved and he wants to say a bit 8 about it.
9 MR. WARD Thank you, Carson, and I will certainly 10 invite comment from Charlie and everybody else on the 11 committee ss we go along.
i 12 Last May the committee addressed a letter to Mr.
13 Dircks in which it expressed the continued interest in 14 seeing the staff develop some criteria for the 15 infrastructure or for support personnel at nuclear power 18 plants.
In many ways maintenance and testing and such 17 functions as that have as many implications on reactor 18 saf ety as more direct operating work.
19 We didn't want to and we don't want to imply by 20 tha t letter that we necessa rily expect that the staff will 21 develop some sort of very detailed or organizational or 22 personnel qualifica tion requirements because in f act in 23 several recent ope ra tin g license letters we have expressed i
24 concern about the overall quality of the applicant's 25 organiza tion and management even though the organization on i
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1 paper wa s okayed.
The staff indicated that the organization 2 filled in all the blanks and all the people in those blanks 3 set the minimum requirements.
4 Still, we felt, and to a certain extent the staff 5 indicated it felt there was something missing.
Now I think 6 a lot of our members are less comfortable in forming i
7 opinions and giving you recommendations in areas such as 8 this than we are in response to more traditional technical 8 questions.
10 So I think one thing we would like to hear from i
11 you is how you see our responsibility and how you will value 12 our advice in this kind of soft but perhaps very, very i
13 important area.
14 I guess our concern is that the evaluation of what i
15 we might call management competence is quite soft.
It is I
16 very highly subjective.
We can ' t make any numbers on it and l
17 we have dif ficulty even listing the criteria by which we l
18 made judgments.
19 I think your staff has to make the same sort of 20 evaluations and it has difficulty.
It acknowledges the 21 e valutions a re subjective.
In fact, we have heard remarks l
22 to the point that what they look for is a warm feeling, and t
23 that certainly is not a highly objective way to look at it, 24 but still it is something that has to be dealt with.
25 We think that we and your staf f ough t to be a ble 1
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12 I to do better in this area.
We think that routinely business 2 and industry makes judgments about thu quality of management 3 other than just filling in the blanks in the management 4 organization.
5 There may be other regulatory agencies that have 6 to make such judgments.
The FAA comes to mind.
I am not 7 clear to what extent the FAA makes judgments about the 8 quality of operating airline management organizations.
We 9 have asked that of your staff and they are not clear about to it ei the r.
11 I think that there can be and there is maybe a 12 need for research to develop more objective criteria for 13 judging the quality of management other than seeing that an 14 organization chart is filled in.
15 We have talked a little bit about that in 16 connection with th e review of the 1983 research program with 17 some people on the staff and they express coma doubt about 18 their ability to do or to manage such resea rch.
! think are 19 not particularly happy with that response.
I suspect that 20 Harvard Business School people would tell you that there l
21 certainly can be some f airly objective and se mi-scien ti fic 22 evaluations and procedures requirements for such things.
So 23 ve would like to see research efforts proceed along that 24 lin e.
25 As far as that is concerned, in the whole area of 1
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13 1 human factors we certainly applaud the increased effort tha t 2 the Commission and their staff is giving to research and 3 other work in human f actors and we want to see that
' continue.
5 We note that in the '83 budget plan, at least the 6 research dollars sllocated for the general area of human 7 factors only, only four percent is going to, as I interpret 8 the writeup, that only four percent is going to this area of 9 management qualification.
As I said, it is an area in which 10 ve are all groping for some hard bases and some criteria.
11 The research might be tough and there might be some false 12 starts with it, but I think that is exactly what research is 13 needed.
14 I would like to bring up one other problem, and 15 this certainly doesn't necessarily represent a consensus of 16 the committee and maybe it is just my own, but I will b ring 17 it up.
I am concerned that in the staffing of new plants 18 experience is both desired and demanded but there is kind of 19 a Catch-22 there of course.
It is like being critical of a l
20 recent college graduate for not having work experience.
21 There are some rather explicit requirements which l
22 the staff has placed on applicants.
Eo the applicants have 23 no choice but to draw from other operating power plants for I
24 experienced personnel.
That is good in some ways, but I 25 think it has some negative aspects.
It depletes the 1
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In 1 operating organizations.
2 Also, and I think more importantly, I think 3 perhaps in an effort to fit these kind of semi-legal 4 requirements it has maybe a negative impact on the 5 applicant's organization in terms of organizational 6 cohesiveness I think that it is an organization that has 7 to operate a plant and not a collection of individually 0 qualified people.
9 I think it is probably just as important or more to important that the employees of the applicant have a sense 11 of corporate loyalty and a tradition of working, together as 12 a team.
I don't mean just the two operators on a shift have 13 practiced together on a simulator, but rather that the wholo 14 organization has s sense of cohesiveness as a team.
15 What I am concerned about is that the very 16 specific and detaile'd requ*e trehts on experience and 17 education and other th r a: n/ sometimes run counter to an 18 applicant's ability to develor that type of organization.
19 I think as more and more plants apply for licenses 20 the present practices are coing to tend to keep moving 21 people around.
I don't know if we are goin6 to have a 22 tendency toward seeing sort of gypsy FRCs and free-agent ops 23 m anagers, b ut if there is too much of that I think it is not 24 a healthy thina.
25 I think the last thinq ! would like to say is tha t i
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE. 3.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (ES 554 2345
15 1 I think we would like to hear your comments on what you are 2 looking for from us as far as opinions or recommendations on 3 the quality of management that an applicant has.
If you are 4
4 looking for something from us on that, I think we need to 5 address the problem of the timing of our operating license 6 reviews.
7 He are sometimes reviewing plants for operating 8 licenses two years in advance of when they plan to start up 9 and the staff that is going to operate the plant isn't there to yet.
They are in skeleton form and it is forming.
The 11 principals may be there, but I think there is some problem 12 in us giving these sort of reasonable assessments of the 13 people that are going to be operating the plant two years in 14 advance of their start-up date.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Go ahead, Mike.
16 MR. SENDER:
Dave has been very articulate and I 17 just wanted to add a rouple of points to what he said.
18 Generally I agree with everything he said, and I just wanted 19 to amplify two areas.
20 First, when we talk about this concept of 21 infrastructure there is the matter of supporting resources, 22 but it is not just in-plant resources that we are talking 23 about.
i 24 When you start with a plant that is coming on line 25 for the first time there is always a group of people that ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
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16 1 has to help in getting the plant started.
That usually 2 comes from some combination of the architect / engineer, the 3 nuclear steam supplier and the constructor.
That cadre of i
l people is not well defined at all and it is not really clear 4
5 as to what is needed.
Generally they show up in some way, 6 but it would be nice to note just what it is.
7 That may be the place where the hand-holders ought 0 to be if you are going to have some rather than saying go 9 out and hire somebody from off the street because he has ten to years of experience in operating a plant.
He needs to have 11 a loyalty to something, too, in some place where you can 12 hold him responsible.
13 The other aspect that I have been conscious of 14 nowadays is that even when you decide that you hn're an 15 operating organization there are a lot of things that have 10 to be done by some other organization and we hardly see how 17 they are integrated into the plant.
For example, if you 18 have to shut down for refurbishment of the equipment, you 19 always have to bring in other kinds of people to do that 20 w o r k.
Some thought needs to be given to where those 21 resources are.
22 We only have a few plants on line right now by 23 comparison with what we are going to nave.
So the growth of 24 the whole industry has to deal not j us t with what is in the l
t 25 operating organizations but what else is out there that has i
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGIN 4A AVE. S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
1 17 I to come along with it.
2 That is the extent tha t I wa n t to amplify Dave's 3 remarks.
4 MR. MARK:
I guess I would like to amplify them 5 and I f ear it doesn 't help very much.
There is a tendency 6 of course to look a t the ma nagement, the real controllers, 7 if you like, and the people whom the agency licenses and not 8 necessarily give the attention that probably is needed to 9 the people a t lower levels than that, the ones who in fact 10 make sure that the switches are where they need to be and do 3
11 the maintenance and are called in for fixing something.
12 Now it is not that I am suggesting they should be i
13 licensed, that would probably be a mistake, but they need to 14 be capable, they need to be responsible, they need to be 15 loyal and devoted and they need to be there.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINC:
I think Max had a comment.
4 L
17 MB. CARBON:
Yes, I too, agree with most of what 18 Dave has said.
But, as he indicated, there is a different 19 of opinion on the matter of the staff's requirements for 4
20 experience within the plant.
21 I disagree quita strongly actually with Dave's 22 thought that perhaps the most important thing is loyalty.
I i
23 support quite strongly the staff requirement in the
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24 direction of experience and past experience.
In fact, I 25 thinx it is so important that I think perhaps the staff
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1 requirements are not adequatr 2 very important.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
3111.
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MR. KERR:
I want to express what is perhaps a 5 minority opinion.
I am considerably skeptical of research 6 or any other method that is going to give us a good way of 7 judging management before one has seen the products of their 8 management.
8 I am afraid that I think one can' t judge 10 management very well without seeing an example of what they 11 do.
I wouldn't want to spend a lot of effort trying to help 12 the Harvard Business School or anybody else come up with a 13 recipe that would permit me to choose good management before 14 I have seen the results of they have managed.
15 MR. SIESS:
We haven't seen any success in judging 16 the results of their management.
The first step would be to 17 decide which plants are well operated or well managed and 18 which ones a ren' t.
There have been four attempts I believe 19 to do that, none of which I would consider successful, the 20 SALP and its four.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, it is obvious we a re in 22 an area where there are many different opinions.
As a 23 matter in trying to prepare for the meeting I find that 5
24 there are varying points of view within the staf f on, f or 25 exa m~ple, this inf rastructure question.
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Nevertheless, I do think that there are 2 improvements that can be made with regard to the 3 qualifications of people in the maintenance area, for 4 example, as opposed to the strict reactor operating or plant 5 opera ting area.
6 I do believe that there would be some value for 7 any specific recommendations that the committee might have.
8 For example, should they be certified in some way or some 9 other means to demonstrate their qualifications.
I don't to know if that is something that you have in mind or not, but 11 I think recommendations on that point would be very helpful 12 to us.
13 I wanted to go to your second point.
14 COMMISSICNER AHEARNE:
No, go ahead.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
With regard to the whole 16 question of staffing of reactor plants, I do think we have 17 an industry-wide problem.
This question I don't believe is 18 being addressed early enough by the management people in 19 these utilities.
They are usually so busy tryi.lg to get the 20 plant built and licensed and put off until perhaps a little 21 too late the question of developing the staff and getting 22 them trained and gettit.; them to work as much as pcssible as 23 a team.
I 24 There is I think a generic kind of question that l
25 deserves some attention.
I will defer to some of my 6
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1 colleagues, but my own opinion would be that the committee 2 could benefit us greatly by addressing this question of 3 development and training of reactor staff treating it as a 4 generic item and perhaps using examples as a vehicle for 5 exploring the issue and see if there is some advice that you 6 would want to give us that would be helpful.
7 John.
8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes, I would like to 9 comment on a couple of p oin ts.'
l 10 Chet, you mentioned that there is some difficulty 11 with previous attempts we have made at trying to decide wha t 12 is good management and which plants are well managed and 13 that is certainly true.
14 But the experience I have had in discussing with a 15 lot of the staff, particularly those that have spent much of 16 their time out in the field looking at plants, leads me to 17 conclude, and a not very surprising result, that the plants 18 that are known to be well managed, and in general there 19 seems to be a reast lably consisten t interpretation among the 20 senior staf f which plants those are, is that there are two 21 main cha racteristicu, and the second is a lot more important 22 than the first.
23 The first is that they do have enough resources to 24 work with. They are not skimping at providing resources but 25 it isn't a torrent of money that comes to them.
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The second, and the most importan t, has to do with 2 specific individuals.
The characteristics of the well-run 3 plants seem to always end up being the characteristics of 4 specific individuals and that is very hard to then match a 5 template.
It is hard to ma tch a template, first, because 6 trying to pin down what makes the person that type of person 7 seems to be very difficult.
Second, there is a great 8 reluctance on the part, and it is not unique in our staff in 9 most places, of identifying and ending up saying well, these 10 individuals are rea lly the things that make this work.
11 MR. SIESS:
Can you measure those individuals in 12 terms of years of experience in the nuclear business to 13 which the yardstick is being applied?
14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE The management 15 unfortunately can't.
It is ha rd.
16 Dave, you asked how would we look at comments from 17 the ACPS in this matter.
For myself I would look at it a 18 little mora skeptically.
19 (Laughter.)
20 CHAIRMAN PALlADINC:
You mean the management?
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes, and just for some of 22 the reasons that you have been mentioning, because your 23 g ro up is not unlike th e rest of the people who have been 24 trying to grapple with this subject.
Although in general 25 all of you have been chosen because of outstanding ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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22 1 performance in various areas, management ha sn ' t been one of 2 them.
3 NR. BENDER:
I am saying we are not managers.
4 (Laughter.)
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
No, I didn't want to say 6 that because some are or have been.
The point is it is not 7 that therefore I would disregard that.
All I as saying is 8 that I think that would be for myself that you would have to 9 do a little bit more showing that this is soundly based 10 advice than normally.
Normally, at least for myself, when I 11 get advice from the ACRS I tend to assume that it is coming 12 from experts.
In this particular case I think the ACES 13 would have to, perhaps using its staff, build up some larger 14 amount of evidence or a case for this particular conclusion.
15 MR. MARK:
Just right.
16 (Laughtar.)
17 COMMISSICNER AHEARN :
I am not saying ther 18 shouldn't do it.
19 CHAIRMAd PALLADI.10:
No, but I think-there are 20 specific areas, such as addressing the question of 21 development of staff power for operating plants which I 22 think is an item in which some real contribution could be 23 made.
24 I think Dave Okrent wanted a chance to comment.
25 MR. OKRENTs I will try to enter where angels fear ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINGA AS S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 GEi) GD3fB23
23 1 to tread, but I will be very narrow in my suggestions and 2 maybe thereby stay within the background of competence.
3 (Laughter.)
4 MR. OKRENT:
In the area of maintenance one thing 5 that has been called to my attention is tha t there is a 6 variation in its practice from plant to plant.
It is not at 7 all clear to me tha t this is in any way regulated or 8 controlled or examined.
In other words, whether one 9 schedules it in a quarterly way or brings in a thousand to people sort of milling around, as it were, may be a topic 11 that can be looked at as a narrow one.
12 With regard to what I will call the technical 13 capability of the off-site personnel for a plant it seems to 14 me from my probing questions that I rarely find among the 15 people who come in to meet with us more than one who has 16 even gone beyond the executive summary in WASH-1400.
I 17 think that is really a deficiency.
18 At this stage of the game I think that the bulk of 19 the people in the company who have anything to-do with 20 advising or instructing the people on site should have some 21 reasonable knowledge, not all all of WASH-1400.
22 (laughter.)
23 MR. OKRENT:
In other words, they should know what 24 a re the kinds of f ailures and what are dominant sequences, 25 e t cetera, and what are consequences in a general sa y.
You i
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24 1 don't find that.
2 I think one could look at this kind of 3 organization in the same way as when we try to think about 4 membership on the ACES and think about what kinds of skills 5 should we have and wha t kind of background.
6 If they don't have somebody who knows something 7 about systems analysis for whatever kind of a plant they 8 have, they should have one.
If necessary they will have to 9 have a skilled person, not just meeting on the review 10 committee once or twice or three times a year, but there to 11 give the necessary input.
12 You can go through I think a list, and I don't 13 think you need research in my opinion.
My guess is a few 14 knowledceable people meeting for one or two days could come 15 up with a list of the kinds of skills and backgrounds that 16 either they have in-house or they have really there enough 17 of the time during their first year of operation which is 18 the one experience tell us is an important one.
In other 19 words, not something they have built up by the.u0th year.
20 I don't think that is available from the staff's 21 c ha rt and I dont think it exists among any of the groups 22 that we have heard.
They may have in one or two areas what 23 I would consider the prerequisite knowledge and background, 24 but in general what we hear maybe are good words of, you 25 know, we are going to look in this area and build up a
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25 I
1 capability and so forth.
Those are things that I think are 1
l 2 doable and you don't need to go to the Havard Business 3 School.
4 COMMISSIONEB AHEARNE:
Can I make one comment on 5 the first part, and not mea ning to dis, agree with the second, 6 but on the first part on maintenance which was the third 7 item on my list which I hadn't gotten to.
I would agree 8 with Dave that that is an area where we could use some 8 additional review, particularly across the operating 10 practices.
11 Frankly, I had read the May 12th letter as focused 12 primarily upon that side of the plant operations, and I felt 13 that the point that the May 12th letter was making is that 14 in your reviews of several of the plants you had reached a 15 level of concern that the maintenance activities in the 16 plants veran 't being staf fed adequately.
Is that an 17 incorrect reading of that letter?
18 MP. MARK 4 Ferhaps it is a little overdone.
The 19 maintena nce level concern is in part because so many 20 unfortunate evidences have come from inadequacies there.
21 How to go about it I don't think we had any idea except that 22 i t should be given more thought than we feel it has received.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes.
24 MR. BENDER 4 The matter of organizational balance 25 is one that Dave touched on.
I think that in our review, t
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1 I and I am less modest than some members about this matter and 2 I have seen enough of these licenses to know generally what 3
l ought to be in them, but usually in looking at them you find 4 that there only are a couple of knowledgeable people in a 5 plant that is costing a couple of billion dollars or 6 the reab o uts.
7 I think it is necessary to press the point of 8 having more knowledgeable people in them and not aecessarily 9 people that have operatino experience but have have an 10 appreciation of the technology.
'4hile they do not need to 11 be research people and should not be research people, they 12 need to be people that know how to interpret the research 13 programs that are going on and the technology programs that 14 are going on and there seems to be a major deficiency there.
15 In fact, most of the people are not even aware of 16 wha t programs ato goina on.
They just say we are on the 17 EPEI distribution list.
Now I think that needs to be looked 18 at very carefully.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Do you think there would be 20 value to the industry in developing what I will call 21 orientation programs, and I don't mean to demean this 22 program by using that word, but a program for top officials 23 of utilities that are either gettino into the business or 24 are about to get into the business to let them know what the 25 power r2 ant is all about and what sort of t ra n sien t problems t
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27 I they are going to face and what sort of risks they are goinq 2 to face so that we make sure that at least the initiating 3 group has some barkground in the field ?
Do you think that 4 would be something worthwhile?
5 I only use the word " orientation program" because 6 no other better word comes to mind.
Unfortunately, too many 7 people think of orientation programs as something casual and 1
8 trivial and I am thinking of an in-depth program.
9 HR. SHEWEAN:
Joe, this would be done by EPRI and 10 not the NRC.
11 CH AIREAN PALLADINO:
I don't think it is our job 12 to try to train them, but it might be a suqqestion that is 13 developed for industry.
14 MR. BENDER:
I wouldn't want to discourage that.
15 I think it is going on, as a matter of fact.
I think there 16 are such orientation programs but there is the problem of 17 having a receptive ear.
18 COMMISSIONER 3RADFORD:
Who is the target of them, 19 Eike?
If you a re talking about orienting, are-you talking 20 about the top management in the utility, th e people who are 21 actually going to be running the plant?
22 MR. BENDER:
It is hard to know who top management 23 i s, but I think you will find if you sample the industry 1
1 24 tha t there e re meetings at which the senior executives of 25 the company that are supposed to know about the problems are ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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l 20 1 getting together to try to mutually determine how they 2 should respond to things.
That is how INPO came about, for 3 example, and INPO is a very good idea and nobody should try 4 to downgrade that thing.
5 It is just that until there are a few people that 6 are a part of the company, that are recognized parts of the 7 management that understand the technology just telling them 8 doesn't help all that much.
You have got to insist that 0 there be training of various sorts.
10 If all the organization has is a history of having 11 people that have operated and have never done engineering 12 the chances are they are going to have engineering 13 problems.
If there are people that have a history of never 14 having operated anything but only building things you will 15 have the reverse problem.
I think it is very important to 16 recognize that balance is needed and to show the balancing 17 o f th is.
18 The other aspect is to be sure there is a 19 communication arrangement that enables them tolget the 20 people with the mcney to discuss the problems with the 21 people that are running the plan t so they spend the money at 22 the right times in the right places.
23 5R. MARK:
Without trying to be dogmatic, and it i
24 is only an impression that I have and may not be enough to 25 be taken seriously, but it is my impression nevertheless.
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29 1 There was never a nuclear commercial enterprise so well 2 staffed with absolutely brilliant comprehending people as 3 General Atomic.
It brought in the most fantastic crew of 4 people who knew absolutely everything about nuclear physics 5 and their engineering was lousy.
8 (Laughter.)
7 HR. BENDER:
As an engineer who has seen some of 8 that I really disagree fiercely.
9 (Lauchter.)
10 MR. BENDER 4 There was some bad engineering but 11 there was a hell of a lot of good engineering.
12 MR. MARKa Well, it was relatively unfortunate 13 then.
Let's not call it lousy.
14 MR. BENDER 4 There were bad decisions made.
15 (lauchter.)
16 MR. MARK.
Dut you see they had met that 17 absolutely top billing in anything you could have written 18 down about knowledge, understanding and experience, but to 19 some degree that group of people collected there was 20 com pletely unmatched.
71 MR. BENDER.
Since this is a meeting with the a
22 Commissionera, I just want to say that Dave Ward made a 23 point that is really pretty important, and that is i
24 developing a team ca pability is pa rt of the trick and they 25 have to be there soon enough to be a team.
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30 1
I think you are seeing right now that three months 2 before th'e plant is to operate suddenly all the people show 3 up on the scene and that absolutely is not going to make a 4 workable system.
5 MR. EBERSolE:
Ma y I make a comment on that line 6 and also on Dave's comment.
I think you will find if you 7 examine it carefully there is an intrinsic opposition to 8 what is called systems analysis because these people are 9 troubleshooters and they are trouble-finders.
Toward the 10 end of a project to invite them into the project itself they 11 begin to look at the project critically and it invites large 12 troubles in the design organization which has been put 13 together along functional channelized lines.
14 These people are not welcomed generally by 15 management.
They have insecure futures and they are not 16 wan ted intrinsically by management because they cause and 17 find a great deal of trouble.
Until we can find sone way to 10 convince nanagement that in the long run th e se people a re 19 going to help them we are going to get in trouble.
'd e a re 20 falling shor* in doing what we ought to do.
21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I am sorry, Jesse, who do 22 you mean by these people?
23 MR. EBERS01E:
The systems analysts who come in 24 and find a patchwork job done in situ and make such findings 25 known and become extremely unpopular with the management of ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE S.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
31 1 the organizations that put that type of design together.
2 MR. SHEWMAN:
If I might get personal, I think he 3 means people like Jesse Ebersole and Carlisle Michaelson 4 interacting with TVA.
5 (Laughter.)
6 MR. EBERSOLE:
One reason Carlisle Michaelson is 7 here is that he wss extremely unpopular because of his 8 finding of deadly defects in design.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN04 Perhaps we need to bring them 10 in earlier.
11 MR. MARKS With your permission, sir, we have made 12 it clear to you that we have very' little solid advice to 13 of f er in this field.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I am serious with regard to 15 seeing if you can offer some generic advice on development 16 of staf fing personnel.
17 MR. MARK:
I am sure we will continue to try to 18 get ideas to the extent *nat we can.
19 COM*ISS!ONER BRADFORD:
Well, it sounds to me as 20 though at least on a generic basis you actually have quite a 21 lot of solid advire to offer, Carson.
I mean, it may not be 22 quite ready for the offering yet in the sense that the 23 committee hasn' t brought it together, but there is quite a 24 lot tha t is interesting.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I would say they have a lot i
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of advice.
2 (Laughter.)
4 j
3 MR. fARK:
I would like to before we have to break i'
4 up, as we may have to do shortly l
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I don't quite want to 6 leave this one yet.
I am sorry.
You made one other point 7 that I think is worth paying some attention.
You had said 8 that your reviews came too early on the individual plants 9 for the advice to have all that much meaning in terms of the i
10 structure that would actually be in place at the time the 1
11 l
plant was to be operated.
l l
12 Does that suggest tha t what you really should be i
13 doing is working on this matter generically or are you i
1' looking for some change in the timing of your review?
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
It is two step.
There is a 16 second revisit as f ar as the management structure is L
17 concerned.
18 YR. WARD:
Well, if our recommendations or advice 19 in this area are 7eing to be looked at with complete 20 skepticism it probably doesn't matter.
21 (Laughter.)
22 MR. W ARD :
I think you are right in that we should 23 work a little more and we really need the staff to work l
I 24 toward a more generic solution by developing some criteria
]
i 25 f or a judgment.
If we are going to be in a position of, you i
l ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) $54 2345
33 1 know, forming opinions and giving recommendations about th e 2 quality of the staff for an operating reactor, somehow our 3 review of that has to come closer to the start-up date, 4 unless somehow, as Mike suggests, the applicants would be 5 required to put their staff together two years in advance.
6 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
What are you looking at 7 now?
In an individual plan t what is there there for you to 8 get your teeth into in terms of who the actual individuals
)
9 are going to be and what their qualifications are?
10 MR. WARDS You mean who is s vailable?
- Well, 11 typically, as I said, the principals of the applicant are in 12 place.
We see something of them in the presenta tions they 13 give us on the technical subjects.
In some cases, for 14 example, an applicant didn ' t have its training manager.
We 15 heard talks and heard a description of their training 16 program but not from their training manager.
17 MB. CARBON:
They should have had him and we knew 18 i t at the time and they knew it.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You are touching on a very 20 f undamen tal point.
You don 't want a snap-shot picture of 21 wha t the organization is at that date or the date just 22 bef ore they are going to operate, but do they have an 23 attitude and an approach that is going to serve over the
(
24 long haul?
Do they have in place the various kinda of 25 people they need?
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34 1
I think if they don't have them in place, that is 2 evidence that perhaps they are not quite ready to start 3 taking o ver this plant.
I think on those kinds of things we 4 should act accordingly.
If they are not ready, they are not 5 ready.
6 MR. BENDER:
Joe, it would be presumptious of 7 anybody to say he knows how one of these organizations ought 8 to be organized.
There are a hundred ways to do it.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I was getting at specifically to training.
One of the problems is they don't hire the 11 training person soon enough and that is why they are in 12 trouble at the end when they come to operate.
13 MR. BENDER:
It seems to me that if the regulatory 14 function can do anything it can determine the rate of 15 build-up of a staff.
I't is hard to see now that that has 16 been taken into secount.
It seems to me if you are going to 17 ste rt anywhere I would start with that and never mind about 18 whether we have the right criteria.
19 When should they be in place and how-much of it 20 o ug h t to be there in order to have some time to get 21 organized is something anybody could start with and I think 22 you could do that without any advice from us.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I want to answer something i
24 tha t Dave just said.
Because I am skeptical doesn't mean 25 that I won't listen to what you have to say.
It just means ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, GNMMG_M@@@ W 8 N
35 i
1 that I would hope you would work a little harder at 1
2 MR. WARD 4
--- building the case.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes.
4 COMMISSIONER AHEABNE:
If you think it is 5 important you ought to persevere.
6 MR. MARK:
Shall we go on.
7 l
MR. SIESS4 One problem I have is we seem to be i
8 very concerned about the plants that are starting up.
What 9 is our concern or what should be our concern abcut the 10 60-some-off plants that are operating from which many of the l
11 senior people to run these new plants are coming?
1 12 I mean, we know some of the existing plants are 13 not well operated.
They are below average at least.
14 MR. SHEWMAN Half of them.
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Right.
16 (Lauchtar.)
17 MR. SIESS:
I didn't define average as medium.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You can ha ve people below 19 average without having any 20 MR. SIESS:
You can have them all at average but i
21 tha t is unlikely.
We are seeing companies staffing new 22 plants at higher levels with very experienced people from 23 old plants.
Maybe we don't need to go back and look at the 24 old plan ts, but my point is we are civing a great deal of 25 attention to the management of the new plants without givinq ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, CMEMA AS SCy WToN. D.C. SM GSES) N
36 1 the comparable attention to existing plants where the 2 management by the standards we are applying to the new ones 3 may be getting worse because the experienced people are 4 leaving the staf f th e new ones.
I am not saying those 5 standards are correct, but if they are correct for one they 6 should be correct for the other.
I am not sure whether we 7 are not lowering the average.
8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
By and large the standar'ds 9 are the saae and the operating plants are held to those 10 standards.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
That is some thing I want to 12 look into a little more.
Somehow I get the impression that 13 we do have teams that are looking at management performance 14 at operating plants.
15 COMM.ISSIONER AHEARNE:
That is right.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO.
But whether or not they are 17 looking at all of the aspects that you are aiming at here, I 18 don't know.
19 COM"ISSIONER AHEARNE:
As f ar as theispecific 20 standards of qualifications of the people on whom we lay 21 qualifications for new plan tc they are also laid on the 22 a pplicant.
23 MR. SIESS:
We had an applicant in and they have
(
24 got two men up at the top with 25 or 30 years experience 25 which were hired away from some other operating utility t
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37 1 which now no longar has some msn with 25 years experience.
2 Maybe it has two others with 25 years of experience.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE4 It is obvious, Chet, that t
4 they don't have that person, but whether they couldn't 5 replace him is not obvious.
6 MR. SIESS :
I am not sure whether the man-years 7 are accumulating faster enough to staff the new plants or 8 not.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO4 We have another comment.
10 MR. MATHISs Yes.
Well, in that connection there 11 is I think an emphasis on this point, that there is a lot 12 pirating going on at the moment.
This is because of the 13 sudden influx of plants coming in for operating licenses.
14 Ihey have been kind of sitting back waiting for something to 15 happen and it is all happeninc at once.
16 Ihere isn't enouch supply, if you will, to go 17 along with the market demand at the present time.
So 18 somebody has to go up and somebody goes down.
19 MR. MARK:
As John said, the total man-years that 20 a re experienced in the country is ne vertheless increasing a t 21 this moment.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I do think you touch on the 23 basic problem of developing staffs for all of these plants 24 and I think it is something tha t deserves more attention 25 than we have given to it.
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1 MR. KARK A thing on which I think we would like 2 to spend a few minutes, since you probably don't have all 3 day here, we do ---
1 l
(Laughter.)
5 MB. MARK:
but some of us have become 6
l impressed with the essential impossibility of reading 7
comprehendingly the mass of paper that is likely to descend 8 on one about two or three days before one is supposed to sit f
l 9 back and think through the thing being p resen ted to you.
I 10 i
think it is commendable of the staff to put the amount of 11 j
work that must be required to assemble that amount of 12 paper.
It takes a lot of doina.
Nobody sn write more than 13 about f our or five pages in the course of a day, and 14 evidently there have been 40 or 50 people working on this 15 for quite a few days.
16 (Laughter.)
l 17 MB. MARK:
Mike wants to say something about the j
18 nature of communica tions.
1 19 MR. EENDER:
Thank you, Carson.
That is a fairly j
20 good preamble.
It used to be that when the Commission went i
21 to the Congress they took photographs of a row of books like 22 that which said this is how we know that the plant has been 23 designed snd will be operated safety because we have got i.
24 this big documented PSAR which is converted into an FSAR.
25 I used to be f airly impressed by that, but now i
,t l
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39 1 that I have looked at a few of them and decided if you have 2 room for one in your working space it is some kind of a 3 miracle.
if you multiple it by the number of plants we j
4 have, it is obvious that now even a good library could store 5
them whe re they were accessible.
6 I have concluded from looking at a lot of them I
7 that most of what is in there is, the wrong kind of stuff for 8 people at sur level and probably at your level to find in a 9 form that is useable and it ought to be condensed.
One of 10 the things that I was successful in getting some people to 11 work on was how to compress it some way.
12 Ray has been nice enough to prepare some hardbound 13 copies of what is a condensed version of CESSAR and Falo 14 Verde.
I wouldn't have put it in a hardbound book because i
15 that takes up too much space and I have to carry around a i
16 notebook.
This ic the Palo Verde report an d it was just 17 selected out of the FSAR by some of our fellows.
It is f ar 18 from being perfect.
I 19 What it suggests is that one could have 20 MR. MARK.
That is a rondensed version.
i 21 MR. BENDER:
That is a condensed version.
There 1
22 are certain kinds of information in the FSAR that could 23 easily be put in what in sometimes called the Exective 24 Summary.
I don't think that is quite the right term, but a 25 selected set of inf orma tion tha t the people that are working i
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1 on the pisnt could have accessible to them when they need 2 it.
This sized document is the sort which you can have a 3 number of.
4 It has the kind of information in it that micht 5 even avoid things like Diablo Canyon because it does in fact 6 have a f ew a rrangement drawings th a t the people that are 7 doing the analysis of the plant could look at to see whether 8 their analysis applies.
9 That kind of thing could be done when the PSAR is 10 written.
It could be updated effectively at the FSAR stage 11 and it might be better than all the massive documentation 12 that you require for the FS AB because it really should have 13 the f undamentals in it.
14 I would add that this things which are the things 15 tha t the staff makes are a lot thicker than this.
They are 16 w ritten on a ta pe ty pe w rite r.
It is a job to find out what 17 is different in these things from plant to plant.
I would 18 be much happier if they had some tables with checks on them 19 that said this has been checked and that has been checked 20 nnd it was tabular form and the y only called out 21 exceptions.
It wo uld n ' t make it so hard to find out what 22 was in the plant and it was in a predictable location.
23 I don 't know whether this is necessary for legal 24 purposes.
Some people say it is.
I think it only puts you 25 in a position of having to interpret a lot of English
(
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41 1 jargon.
Msybe that is not the right combination of words, 2
but anyhow words that people are putting together in a form i
l 3 where they are subject to many interpretations.
1 4
Engineering people would do much better in reading 5 these things if they used tabular kinds of information and 6 had numbers and answered questions in the form of yes or no, 7
j ve have checked this or we didn 't check tha t, and that those 8 questions were generall bre-established.
8 I believe we could have better information.
It i
10 would be easier to review.
People could know more of what 11 is quantitative and wha t is non-quan tita tive and the 12 management of it would be a lot easier to deal with, 13 i
Whether you can change it not, I don 't know.
5 14 Some of our staff was much more perceptive than I 15 was and they concluded that you could condense them a lot I
16 more.
The Xerox machine is much smarter than we are.
17 (Laughter.)
18 COMw!SSIONER AHEARNE4 That ta ble that in the
]
19 other version was very hard to read, what does_it look 11F9 20 in this one?
21 TR. BENDER:
It is still readable to some degree.
ZZ (Laughter.)
23 MR. BENDER:
I promise you that if I reslly wanted 24 to make it readable I could.
(
25 (Laughter.)
i r
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3R. BENDER:
The Xerox machine has to start with 2 something better than this.
3 MR. WARD:
The probability that it would have 4 prevented the Diablo Canyon problem is very small.
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I think it was pretty 6 small to begin with wasn't it?
7 (Laughter.)
8 MR. SIESS:
I am not sure I agree completely with 9 Mike.
I believe that you could put everything that Mike to Bender is interested in into about 1/15th of the space we 11 nos have.
I suspoct you could put everything I am 12 interested in into about 1/15th of the space.
But I think 13 if you vent around the committee you might end up to sa tisf y 14 everybody having an SER just about as long as it is now.
We 15 are not of one mind about what is important which is very 16 nice.
All of us are not reviewing everything.
17 I would sort of like to go back to the good old 18 days when the staff's report to the ACRS was about 50 pages 19 long and only addressed those things that they thought the 20 ACRS should be interested in or tha t they thought we were 21 interested in and in those days they were pretty good at 22 i t.
If th e y knew we weren 't in terested in so many things 23 maybe they were smarter.
I 24 I suspect now that what would satisfy Mr. Bender 25 might be too much for somebody and r.ot nearly enough for
(
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43 1 somebody else.
2 MR. BENDER:
Well, I think that is possibly the 3 case.
But if you don't try you will never know.
I have to 4 say that no effort is being made yet and I think that is 5 inexcusable.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, having lived with many 7 of these documents and having carried many of them and wated 8 the SERs grow, I am quite sympathetic with the point of 8 view.
However, I believe we have got to recognize that 10 these documents have a number of functions and not all 11 functions are going to be servad by particular extracts.
12 I have slso got to make another point on SARs.
13 There are changes coming about constantly, although the re is 14 basic boilerplate.
I think tha t there may be considerable 15 value in trying to get a basic summary of the plant and some 16 o f the f eatures highlighted in a digest form because I had 17 found it necessary when I was on the ACRS to have a student 18 who just told me what was different about thir report as 19 compared to last report.
Oftentimes he would say, oh, this 20 is all boilerplate and you don't really have to read that 21 and here is what is new.
I certainly see some value to that.
l 22 MR. SIESS:
There are two things.
One is a i
l 23 description of the plant.
Another is a definition of the I
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24 statement of the issues that we are trying to review and 25 resolve or issues that we have raised and how they have been l
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44 1 resolved.
Those are quite different things.
2 The first I think is pretty much factual 3 information.
The second is what lawyers get in as to what 4 is written about issues.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
There are, germs of some good 6 ideas here and maybe there are some specific succestions you 7 would like to make.
8 (Laughtar.)
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s Incidentally, on this copy I 10 haven't seen anything I can read yet and I am a little 11 younger than you a re.
12 (Laughter.)
13 MR. SIESS :
This is the one, Joe.
14 (Laughter.)
15 HAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I was going to say if there 16 are some specific points that you have developed it might be 17 valuable for us to get them.
18 MR. 3ENDES:
Well, there are some copies here and 19 you are welcome to have that one if you would like.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I was think if you have a 21 specific point, for example, that the description might be 22 summarized in a note concise way.
You have a point tha t the 23 issues might be described in s more concise way by the SERs.
I 24 MR. MART:
The SER, which is in one case this, it 25 serves a purpose I expect and I am not sure what 4
l ALDER $CN REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRONA AVE., S.W, WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
45 1
(Laughter.)
2 MR. MARKS but it tells you, well now, the 3 eme rgency : ore cooling system is intended to do the follow 4 thing and it has these things and those things and those 5 things and somebody has been asked to write that section and 6 he has written down wha t is necessary.
If you saw it for 7 the first time, there it is.
But by the time you or some of 8 us have perhaps seen previous plants the pure pagination of 9 a redescription of the function and na ture of an ECCS or of 10 a pump or somethina which is different in this plant than it 11 is in a BWR, and it is explained why it is different, it is l
12 repeated plant after plant.
13 Now that is not serving a purpose for us.
It may 14 be serving a purpose for the people who live out in the 15 desert near Phoenix who have never seen one of these before.
16 MR. BENDER I don't want to belabor this point, 17 but everything that is in that is taken out of the SAR.
18 MR. SIESS:
That is what is wrong with it.
19
- 53. SENDER:
Well, that is not what is wrong with 20 it.
21 3R. SIESS It came out of the SAR and it is not l
22 all correct.
i j
23 3R. BENDER I didn't say that it was necessarily t
24 correct.
If the SAR were correct it would have the 25 inf orma tion that is needed.
It is better to have tha t I
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46 1 correct than to depend on this being correct because this 2 one isn' t necessarily correct either.
It is just one guy's 3 interpretation.
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Now, Mike and Carson, would 5 what you are proposing be reached if there was a standard 6 document and then for each changed plant there was a 7 separate small set of tables tha t then referred to the 8 specific plant?
8 MR. BENDER:
Well, I think that would do most of to what needs to be done and it would ensble you to eliminate a 11 lot of descriptive material in here that could be just be 12 selected from the SAR and say here is the plant and here is 13 the commentary on the plant.
14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
That might then meet both 15 the need for those ---
16 MR. MARK:
This is probably needed in some 17 con text.
It is not needed, however, if it is going to cost 18 you, as it will, or cost somebody, five or six dollars to 19 asil that to me first ciasc mail to Los Alamos.
This other l
20 thing could go for 40 cente.
2' CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
There are a lot of things l
22 tha t we could do and I am really not clear yet on what you l
23 think we ought to be doing to this extant.
There are some
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24 thinos that perhaps the resources of the ACRS could be put 25 to use and developed for your use.
Perhaps you are
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ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINEA AVE, S.W, WA3HINGToN, o.C. 20024 (202) 554 2346
47 1 suggesting that we should have the staff pcepare some 2 different version of the SER or the committee's use.
3
' I think jotting down specifically what you have in 4 mind would be helpful.
5 MR. MARK 4 It is not only for the committee's use, 6 although that is where it strikes us, but I believe for your 7 own use.
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8 MR. KERR:
Mr. Chairman, it occurs to me that the 9 Readers Digest has a great deal of experience in this field.
10 (Lauchter.)
11 MR. BENDER 4 Well, Joe, what I was ocing to 12 suggest was t t: a t you get somebody, one of the contacting 13 organiza tions to try to put some format together.
We could 14 of course suggest what needs to be done.
This was just done 15 with our fellows.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE4 Did you give guidance on 17 wha t ought to be extracted?
18 MR. BENDER 4 Well, I sat down with a couple of our N
19 fellows and we talked over how to do it.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE4 I gather there was some 21 disagreement on it.
22 (Laughter.)
23 MR. SIESS:
He sat down with the fellows and there
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24 has been no input from the other members of the committee on 25 wha t should be in it I think.
I have got a feeling that
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48 1 some members want more than is in there.
2 MR. EBERSOLE:
Mr. Chaircan, I would like to 3 comment on the SER in the following respects.
The ultimate i
4 SEB would be just a batch of descriptive material and the 5 statement that there were no outstanding issucc.
Then it i
I 6 seems to be practice of the ACRS to say, well, that are 7 great, there is no outstanding issues.
8 The real issue is this.
There were at one time a 8 number of outstanding issues a fraction of which were 10 settled with extreme difficulty through compromises.
We 11 never know which ones of those were so settled.
We need to 12 know that.
We don't need to know outstanding common issues 13 which will be resolved in the usual way.
We need to know 14 those issues which have been put to sleep but with 15 dif ficulty and I don't see any mechanism at present which 18 let's us see that.
17 MR. OKRENT:
I would like to back that up.
It 18 seems that that is the bigcest deficiency in my opinion in 19 the SER.
I don't know where the problems were-in the review.
20 and where somebody just made a judosent and on what basis he 21 m ad e a judgment, you know, but without really a solid, 22 clearly well-defined answer that there was only one way to 23 go and so forth.
It is just not there.
I consider them
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24 very obscure in that regard.
25 MR. MARK.
I think it is suqqested tha t we can't
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ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE, S.W., WASHtNGToN. D.C. 20024 (202) 564 2345
49 1 solve the probles just within our own staff of saying what 2 are the tables we would like.
It is going to require some 3 collaboration.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s We will glad to get our 5 appropriate staff to work with you.
6 ER. MARKS I believe there would be a point to 7 trying to get a condensed or at least internal version which 8 would serve the sort of purpose that you fellows must have 9 as well as people like ourselves.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s Well, suppose I try to get 11 some staff attention to it.
It would be helpful lf you 12 would put on paper some of your thoughts.
It doesn't have 13 to be a formal letter.
14 MR. MARKS I think that was ali de had to trouble 15 you with.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s I was going to say with-17 regard to getting experts, we at the university in the 18 college of engineering hirad some experts to simplify our 19 paperwork and we ended up with having to ma ke more copies as.
20 a result of that simplification than we eve r did before.
21 (Laughter.)
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO4 Any other questions or 23 comments that either the Commissioners have or the members
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24 of the consittee?
25 (No response.)
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400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
50 1
CHAIREAN PALLADINO:
Well, again we appreciate 2 very much the opportunity to meet with you and we will look 3 forward to meeting with you again.
4 MR. MARK:
Thank you very much.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO Thank you.
6 The meeting is adjourned.
7 (Whereupon, 10:50 a.m.,
the meeting adjourned.)
8 9
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ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINGA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2346
k UUc:.ZAR REGUI.ATolt! CDMECCSSICN This is to carcif7 t: hat the. attached proceedings 'cefors the o
t is the sattar cf:. Icas MEerING WTrH TIE CIEISSICtERS Caca of Proceecing:
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4cro held as hers1: appears, anc cha't. this is the crisisal transcriE thersef fcr :he file of the Cc-tssica.,
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