ML20040D380

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Transcript of Util Testimony by Rv Bettinger on 811217 in San Francisco,Ca.Pp 167-186
ML20040D380
Person / Time
Site: Diablo Canyon  Pacific Gas & Electric icon.png
Issue date: 12/17/1981
From: Bettinger R
PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC CO.
To:
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ML17083A976 List:
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NUDOCS 8202010239
Download: ML20040D380 (19)
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_____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

{':

3 4 INVESTIGATION OF 5 DIABLO CANYON UNITS 1 & 2 6 INTERVIEW OF 7 RICHARD V. BETTINGER 8

9 Pacific Gas & Electric Headquarters Offices

  • 10 Law Department Conference Room 77 Beale Street 11 San Francisco, California 12 Thursday, December 17, 1981 13

( 14 The above.-entitled matter came on for further hearing, pursuant to adjournment, at .1:51 p.m.

15 APPEARANCES:

1S 3 On behalf of the NRC Staff:

g 17 OWEN C. SHACKLETON, JR., Mod erator -

g 18 B. H. FAULKENBERRY j 19 ii 20 0

". 21 o

22 23 24 25 8202010239 820127 PDR ADOCK 05000275 G PDR

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ERRATA SHEET Interview of R. V. Bettinger, December 17, 1981 The following correction should be made:

Page~170, Line 20 - Change questionning to questioning.

The above corrections have been identified by Bobby H. Faulkenberry.and-R. V. Bettinger.

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P,R,p'g { _E D_ I,,,N,,G_ E~

2 l (fg 1:51 p.m. i 3

MR. SHACKLETON: This is December 17,21981 4

and the time is 1:51 p.m.

5 This is an interview of Mr. Richard V.

6 Bettinger, Chief Civil Engineer for the Pacific G5s, 7

and Electric Company. l 8 This interview is taking place in room 3101 9 of the corporate headquarters of Pacific Gas and Electric 10 Company at 77 Beale Street, San Francisco, California.

11 This interview if part of the investigation 12 currently being conducted by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission concerning the facts and happenings 13

(' 14 surrounding the present reverification program of the 15 seismic design of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

16 Present for this interview from Pacific g 17 Gas and Electric is Mr. Bettinger and from the United l

l g 18 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region 5, conducting l

j 19 this interview and investigation is Mr. Bobby H. Paulkenberry i

l 20 who is Chief of Reactor Constructions Project Branch.

21 My name is Owen C. Shackleton, Jr. and I am l '

t 22 the Senior Investigator assigned to Region 5.

t 23 Mr. Bettinger, prior to going on record, I I

i

! 24 had discussed with you that you have a right to have your k 25 personal legal couns el present.

I

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1 Do you co dO3iro to hr.vo lcgal counac1 prc:2Cnt?

o 2 MR. BETTINGER: No.

k3 3 MR. SHACKLETON: You waive that right then, sir?

4 MR. BETTINGER: Yes.

5 MR. SHACKLETON: Thank you.

6 And at this time, Mr. Bettinger, would you please 7 stand while I administer the oath?

8 Whereupon, 9 RICHARD V. BETTINGER 10 having been first duly sworn, was called as a witness herein 11 and was examined and testified as follows:

1 12 . MR. SHACKLETON: Please be seated.

13 Mr. Bettinger, I would also like to repeat the

(

14 information I provided to you before we went on record 15 and that is, the Cummission would ask of you to please 16 keep the testimony that you will be giving .to us here i

g 17 confidential.

g 18 MR. BETTINGER: Y es .

j 19 MR. SHACKLETON: And now I'll turn the i

20 questionning over to Mr. Paulkenberry.

l f 21 MR. FAULKEIDERRY: Mr. Bettinger, can you giver i

22 me your job title and a ' summary of your current job 23 responsibilities?

21 MR. BETTINGER: My job title is Chief Civil o

25 Engineer and I am responsible for all Civil Engineering work

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I that's done in connection with our electric facilities. I 2

({J;;, This includes generation, transmission and distribution 3

and some limited amount of participation in Gas Department 4

projects where they may~ request our assistance.

5 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Battinger, did you 6 receive a draft copy of reports from Dr. Cloud' dated 7 October 21st, _1981 and November 5th,1981 which contained 8 the results of *his design reverification review of 9 Diablo Canyon?

10 MR. BETTINGER: Yes, I did.

11 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Do you recall when you 12 received copies of the draft reports?

',, 13 MR. BETTINGER: My recollection is that we

( 14 had those on a transmittal from Mr. Rocca on the 21st 15 and on again, I think it was November 5th to my recollection 4 l 16 MR. FAULKENBERRY: If I urderstood you correctly, i

i g 17 you stated that you received these draf t copies from g 18 Mr. Rocca, is that correct?

j 19 MR. BETTINGER: That's correct.

.i

,5 20 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Were you asked to review

! 21 and comment on each of these draft reports? '

i 22 MR. BETTINGER: I don't remember the exact 23 wording in the letter but the intent was that I understood l

l 24 that we were to look at them and review them for accuracy, 25 yes.

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MR. FAU LKENBERRY: Did you assume then -- you 2 stated that no one actually asked for the review but 3 since they were submitted'to you from Mr. Rocca, did you I 4 assume that Mr. Rocca wanted you to review them?

5 MR. BETTINGER: Yes, I don't have the transmittal 6 from Mr. Rocca before me.

7 It could be that that transmittal does say 8 for your review and comment. But that's .certainly the 9 understanding I had, was that we were to look at them to ..and review them.

11 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, how did you 12 submit your comments on each of these reports to Dr. Cloud?

13 MR, BETTINGER: They went -- we marked up

( 34 the copies that we had based on the comments from various 15 people in the department that were involved and those 16 are transmitted through Mr. Rocca's department specifically

$ 17 to &, McCraken. .. ,

e

- 18 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Okay, to the best of your i

ig knowledge, were all of your comments both by yourself and 20 members of your department submitted back through Mr.

l  :

21 Rocca as notations on the draf t report or were any comments l

, I

  • communicated directly to Dr. Cloud or any of his people?

22 23 MR. BETTINGER: I did not communicate anything

(

l 24 directly to Dr. Cloud's people, Dr. Cloud or his people.

k 25 I know of no direct communications between my people and

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. j

.- 4 1

1 Dr. Cloud. Our approach to this was that we were going 2

(.5; to feed everything back through Mr. McCraken.  ;

?

3 MR. FAU LKENBERRY: Would you identify for us l 4

any other person within your department that commented 5

on eithar of these two drafts other than yourself?

6 MR. BETTINGER: There would be Mr. Wollak, 7 that's W-o-1-1-a-k, Mr. Ghio, G-h-i-o, I don't know 8 whether Mr. Lenfestey actually made comments. He would 9 have been asked to look at as far as it affected his work.

10 Mr. Hanusiak, that's H-a-n-u-s-i-a-k, Mr. C.M. Li, that's 11 L-1, a nd Mr . M. E . Lee, that's L-e-a, Mr. Sokoloff, 12 tha t's S-o-k-o-1-o-f- f. I don't know whether Mr. Rocha 13 made any comments or not. He is in that department and

('

14 there is a possibility that he did get to see it although 15 I doubt it because he has only been brought. into. that work 16 recently.

g 17 Mr. Steinhardt, that's ' S- t- e-i-n-h-a-r-d-t --

g 18 I may have the "e" and the "i" backwards, Mr. Mao, j 19 M-a-o and I think -- that's all I can think of at the moment

! 20 and there may have been others but I don't think of others.

l 1 l $ 21 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, with regard 3

  • to the October 21st, 1981 draft, I'm showing you a copy 22 23 oflthis draft that's identified as number 3.

24 Would this be the copy that was submitted to k 25 you in. which you and your people . entered your comments on?

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1 MR. BETTINGER: YG2.

2 Our comments were in here in various colors 3 as I recall.

4 MR. PAULKENBERRY: With regard to the November 5 5, draft report were you and your people's comments entered 6 in the same fashion as notations on the:draf t report 7 itself?

8 MR. BETTINGER: Yes, our comments whenever 9 we made them were directly entered on the ' copy.

10 We did not, in otherwords, make a transmittal 11 delinea ting each of the comments we had. Rather, they 12 were made directly on the copy.

13 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, .at the time

( 14 you reviewed and commented on the October 21st report, 15 had you ever been made aware by people within PG&E, 16 within the NRC or any other persons that- the results h 17 of Dr. Cloud's work should be reviewed by PG&E or should e

, is not be reviewed by PG&E before being 'put in final form i

ig for submittal to the NRC?

20 MR. BETTINGER: No, nobody told me that we should 21 n t review them. We were told that our purpose in review-I 22 ing these was to make certain that an accurate transmittal 23 of inf rmation had been obtained, and specifically, 24 in your providing information to Dr. Cloud and his people, k 25 did they interpret what they got correctly and is it

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I properly shown and that was the extent and intent of our 's 2

review. Nobody ever told me .no , I should not look at them.

3 MR. FAULKENBERRY: What about at the " time that /

~

4 you reviewed the November 5th,1981 draf t report, had anyone 5 explained to you by that time how -- that PG&E should 6 not review Dr. Cloud's work prior to submittal to the NRC?

l 7 MR. BETTINGER: No. I 8 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Have you since that time 9 been made aware of this?

10 ,

MR. BETTINGER: The fact that you're having 11 this investigation appears to imply that but nobody 12 has specifically told me no,, I should not look at some 13 auditor's review of my ' work and not have an opportunity k.

14 to say whether or not he properly interpreted what he had 15 seen. ,

16 No, I have not.

t 17 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Betting er, ,were_any of g

18 the comments that you provided to Dr. Cloud intended by j 19 you to remove adverse information from Dr. Cloud's reports?

i 20 MR. BETTINGER: It it's incorrect information l

21 that's adverse, yes, but not correct information.

22 There's-no intent was there to remove true 23 information, even though Lt be adverse. .

24 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Were any of the comments 25 that you provided to Dr. Cloud intended by you to place PG&E-

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or it's contractors in a more favorable light?

2 MR. BETTINGER: Only with the condition I

{ l 3

mentioned in the previous question which is if the  !

4 auditor has misinterpretsd how we: .do business and it casts i

5 us in an anfavorable light, and I ask that he remove that, 6 would I be asked, would I suggest a correction.

7 What I really should say is we were looking l

8 for accuracy. It was not to down play the truth. 1 l

9 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, I think 10 you answered this question earlier but just for the 11 record so it comes out clear, would you restate what the 12 intent of your comments were as related to these draft 13 reports. of Dr. Cloud's?

) 14

  • MR. BETTINGER: The intent I understood and 15 carried out with my people was that we had had an 16 exchange of information with the Cloud people. They i

17 looked in our files, they had talked to our people, g

18 It was our intent that we look at the report to make a

j '19 certain that they had properly interpreted what they i

20 found in the file or what they .found in talking- to our l

21 people.

. 22 That's the total extent -- that was the 23 intent-for accuracy and correctness.

24 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Dettinger at the

( 75 November '3rd meeting back with the NRC in Bethesda, Maryland

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in which you were present, Mr. Norton stated that as of 2

November 3rd, 1981, no report on Dr. Cloud's work had (I%

3 been submitted to PG&E, yet you and other persons present 4

at the meeting knew of this transmittal'of October the 5

21st draft report.

6 Now, first of all, did you hear Mr. Morton 9

7 make the statement at the meeting?

l' 8 MR. BETTINGER: Mr. Norton.

9 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Norton, excuse me.

i 10 MR. BETTINGER: Yes, I heard him make the 11 statement.

-12 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Could you explain to us 13 why you did not correct Mr. Norton at that time?

l4 MR. BETTINGER: I was not clear of the is subj ect they were discussing. There were a number of 16 Cloud reports and the actual arrangements of these 17 reports were something between Mr.

!' Norton and Mr. Maneatis g

18 and Dr. Cloud and I really was not well enough informed j 19 to know exactly which reports they might be talking about.

l ,j } '

'j 20 .. Is MR. FAULKENBERRY: Was there at that time l d

21 or any titne therafter any concern in your own mind that 22 Mr. Norton may have provided incorrect information to p

23 the NRC?

.- 24 MR. BETTINGER: Well, I didn't -~ no. I 25 . simply thought I didn' t understand what their conversation

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I wac cbout cnd I didn't concern myaolf with it further.

2 MR.FAULKENBERRY: You've already stated that 7.

fd 3 at that particular time you did not correct Mr. Norton.

4 Did you inform Mr. Norton or apy of your 5 superiors from that time up until this time of the possi-6 bility that Mr. Norton had made an incorrect statement 7 to the NRC7 8 MR. BETTINGER: No.

9 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Dettinger, have you ic received any other results of Dr. Cloud's work other ij than that which is contained in the two draft reports ,

12 that we've identified as having been received by PG&E on 13 October the 21st and November 5th?

34 MR. BETTINGER: I think there was also a mmunication on the 26th of October which was a re-15 l

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  • MR. FAULKENBERRY: Did you cr any of your

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, jg people comment on the October 25th draft?

8 jg MR. BETTINGER: We made some comments on

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!. i t. I think we missed the deadline for getting them g 20

$ into anybody but there were some comments made.

. 21 3

22 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Do I understand that these 23 comments that you made were never submitted back to 24 Dr. Cloud?

25 MR. BETTINGER: I couldn't say they weren't.

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. . 1:

I We provided them to Mr. McCraken, I believe, 2

(,}p but I don't know the timing of when we did it and in fact, 3

on a copy, it' states these are to be b ack by 5 p.m. and 4

I don' t know what date. I have a fear that, pardon me, 5

that in the press of other things we were doing, it may 6 not have made it back in that time frame.

7 NR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, I want to 8 'refhr heck to the November the 3rd,1981 meeting again.

9 In the transcript, specifically on lines 23 to through 25 on page 215, and lines 1 through 4 on page 11 216, in response to a question by Mr. Eisenhut and I'll 12 quote, "When will we be expected to see that short term 13 report? Bob Cloud said it is essentially complete."

(,

14 To which Dr. Cloud was then asked by Mr.

15 Norton to answer and Dr. Cloud responded and again I 16 quo t e, "I believe it's -- we'll be turning it in either g 17 this week or next, so you should have it shortly thereaf ter. "

y 18 I assume that since you were at the meeting j 19 you also heard this statement, is that correct, Mr. Bettinger?

i l 20 . MR. BETTINGER: I don't recall it'but I must

$ 21 have heard it.

I 22 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Could you explain to us why 23 you did not mention at that time a draf t report Dr. Cloud 24 had submitted to PG&E on October the 21st that already 25 had been received by PG&E?

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i'.

1 MR. BETTINGER: No, as I said, the arrangementd for providing this material were at a level diff erent

{ 2 3 than mine and I was not involved in that particular 4 communication string so it wasn't, I didn't f eel 5 a part of that.

6 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Okay, Mr. Bettingar, if 7 I understand you correctly, are you saying that Loth 8 of these conversations, the one I just quoted with regard 9 to Dr. Cloud's statement at the November 3rd meeting and 10 the statement made by Mr. Norton at the November the 3rd 11 meeting, in no way triggered your thinking to the extent 12 that these were erroneous statements that should be 13 corr ected?

(' 14 MR. BETTINGER: That's right, that's correct.

15 I really wasn't in that particular communica-16 tion and I felt the people who were communicating were

~

h 17 together and understood each other.

I had no thought of that, as you say.

18 i

MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, does PG&E j ig i

j 20 have a policy written or otherwise of not volunteering 21 information to the NRC unless it is specifically asked for?

i I'know of E

22 MR. BETTINGER: I don't_know) 23 no such policy. -

MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, what are 24 25 the ground rules within PG&E as you know and und erstand

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I them as of today with regard to the way the results of 2 Dr. Cloud's work or as a matter of fact of any other

{,

3 consultant's work involving Diablo Canyon reverification 4 activities, should be handled prior to submitting to the 5

NRC?

6 MR. BETTINGER: Would you mind-the start of 7 that -- what's my understanding or what's the policy?

8 MR. PAULKENBERRY: What a.~e ground rules 9 as you understand them as of today with regard to the way 10 PG&E should handle either Dr. Cloud's work or any other 11 contract work relating to the reverification work activities 12 a concerning Diablo Canyon, prior to their submittal to the Il 13 NRC?

k, 14 MR , BETTINGER: I have not been given any 15 specific ground rules other than what I've been acting 16 on up to this point, which is that if somebody reviews 17 our records, and makes a report on it and it's provided 18 to me to, with the question, does this properly . represent l l 19 the facts, that I would respond to that request.

i l

l 20 That's the ground rqles as far as I know f 21 them. I have seen no other written or instructions i

22 about not looking at such reports.

23 MR. FAULKENBERRY: The ground rules that you 24 just explained to us -- would you consider these to be

( 25 both the standard procedure or standard ground rules within

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l

- ~ - -

1 .,

1 PG&E regarding the review of the results of any contracto'r 2 work prior to submittal to or prior to being published

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3 in the final ferm?

4 MR. BETTINGER: Well now, if you're talking 5

about a r eport I might get from a design consultant, 6 I certainly want to see a draf t to make sure he has

. 7 properly interpreted the charge he has to do work for us 8 and he understands what his job is.and is properly 9 carried out and we'd look at that and before ever 10 forwarding that on we would want to make sure that it 11 was properly done.

12 With respect to this, as I say, I don't 13 see anything different; 14 My situation in this is that it comes to 15 me from someone that I assume has had proper communication 16 about whether or not wa. should review and he writes me a i i l

j 17 letter saying, please review or give me cauments, or g 18 whatever -- and, I don't " remember the exact ^ wording of j 19 his transmittal but we complied with the request from i

20 another organizatica. Please look this report over and l.

21 give your comments.

i 22 There were also instructions that we were not 1 23 to change the -- we weren't to edit the report. Let's 24 Put it that way. We were to look at it to make sure that 25 it's accurate and that was the extent of what we were to look

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s.

I et it for.

(s 2 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Could you tell us where 3 these instructions came from with regard to not to edit a

4 the report?

5 MR. BETTINGER: Specifically, my recollection 6 is that Don Brand, the vice president of engineering instructed 7 us that way and I don't remember whether I heard it from l

8 any others but Mr. Brand would be the man I report to 9 and he's the one that s-ld, ye' r function in looking at 10 this is to make sure it's accurate, and you 're not to 11 edit it.

12 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Do you recall when Mr.

13 Brand issued those instructions to you?

c', .

14 MR. BETTINGER: Off-hand I don't. I ca n' t 15 relate it to especially that November 3rd meeting. I 16 don' t know whether it was before that or af ter it.

17 MR. PAULKENBERRY: Do you recall whether those

is instructions were received by you prior to your review i '

j 19 of .the October the 26th draf t report?

i i 20 MR. BETTINGER: It must have been prior 3

i 21 h to our receiving any of them because that's always been i 22 the instruction in dealing with the Cloud report, that 23 ,,,re looking at it from the standpoint of accuracy.-

24 So as I say, I can' t tell you the tine, but it had to k 25 be prior to the tLme we got those because always in our

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l 1

I review of those documents, it was always from that stand- I 2 a point -- make certain the Cloud people have gotten (f3 3 correct and accurate picture and are presenting it correctly 4

and accurately.

5 Mr. Bettinger, going back MR. PAULKENBERRY:

6 to the draft reports from Dr. Cloud that were submitted 7 to you by Mr. Rocca, if I understand correctly --

8 MR. BETTINGER: Y es .

9 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Did you when you received to these draft reports.and' were asked to review and comment 11 on them, did you consider this procedure for Dr. Cloud's 12 work to be different than any other work activities from 13 any other contractors with regard to the review of their k 14 work?

15 My. question is directed to whether or not 16 you considered this to be a standard routine review or

! 17 did you consider this to be a special review of the

18 contractor?

I 1 19 MR. BETTINGER: I would consider it somewhat j 20 specialized in that with some contractors, we would take 21 greater pains to make editorial changes to make sure I'

22 that the content is more lucidly explained.

23 In this case, our only criteria was, is it 24 accura te? Is it correct? Somewhat dif ferent but just 25 a shade.

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11 1 MR. SHACKLETON: Of f the record.

2 MR. SHACKLETON- On the record.

3 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, do you know 4 of any effort that has been made by any employee within 5 PG&E including yourself, to revise the results of Dr.

6 Cloud' 9 w ork, such that it does not reflect a true, 7 complete and accurate record of his findings?

8 MR. BETTINGER: No, no I don't.

9 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Bettinger, that's the 10 extent of the questions I have.

11 Owen, do you have anything you'd like to add?

12 MR. SHACKLETON: Yes, pleas e.

13 Mr. Dettinger, for _ the record, so that

(.- 34 people reviewing the transcript have a better understanding 15 of all that has transpired here, could you please tell 16 us how many years you have been employed by PG&E7 j 37 MR. BETTINGER: It will be 35 years next . July.

2 u3 MR, SHACKLETON: How many years, sir, have you j n) been in your present position as the Chief of Civil a

j 20 Engineering?

2 d

21 MR. BETTINGER: Since April 1st, 1971.

r i

22 MR. SHACKLETON: Thank you. I have no 23 further questions.

24 Mr. Paulkenberry?

t 25 MR. FAULKENBERRY: None other than if Mr. Bettinger

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I has any further comments that he would like to make on 2

{;% his own?

) -

3 MR. BETTINGER: I think not.

4 MR. SHAC KLETON: All right, gentlemen. We ' ll 5

close this interview and go off the record.

6 The time is now 2:27 p.m.

7 Off the record.

8 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 E

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