ML20040D416
| ML20040D416 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 12/28/1981 |
| From: | Furbush M PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC CO. |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML17083A976 | List:
|
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8202010272 | |
| Download: ML20040D416 (15) | |
Text
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4 1
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
INVESTIGATION OF 4
DIABLO CANYON UNITS 1 & 2 l.
3 5
INTERVIEW OF 6
MALCOLM H.
FURBUSH 4
7 8
i Pacific Gas & Electric i
9 Headquarters Offices i
Law Department Conference Room 10 77 Beale Street 4
San Francisco, California 11 l
- Monday, i
12 December 28, 1981 13 k,.
14 The above-entitled matter came on foc hearing, 15 Pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m.
16 APPEARANCES:
~
17 On behalf of the NRC Staff:
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18 OWEN C. SHACKLETON, JR., Moderator B.
H. FAULKENBERRY
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24 25 8202010272 820127 PDR ADOCK 05000275 G
PDR.
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ERRATA SHEET Interview of Malcolm H. Furbush, December 28, 1981 The following corrections should be made:
Page 431, Line 25 - Change sentence to read: No, I don't think they did intentionally.
Page 434, Line 15 - Change from I heard that to I just heard recently that.
The above corrections we e identified by Malcolm H. Furbush.
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b.f<4 P R Q C E { Q l N,Q S 2
2:08 p.m.
3 MR. SHACKLETON:
On the record.
4 This is December 28, 1981.
The time is now a
i 5
2:09 p.m.
6 This is an interview of Mr. Malcolm H. Furbush, 7
Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Pacific 8
Gas and Electric Company.
9 This interview is taking place in room 3101 of to the corporate headquarters of Pacific Gas and Electric 11 Company at 77 Beale Street, San Francisco, California.
12 The purpose of this interview is part of the 13 investigation being conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regula-(.
14 tory Commission to develop the facts and happenings 15 surrounding the present reverification program of the 16 seismic design of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.
l 17 In addition to Mr. Furbush being present
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18 representing Pacific Gas and Electric' Company, is from the l
3 19 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region 5, is Mr. Bobby
[
j 20 H. Faulkenberry, Chief of Reactor Construction Projects i
t
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21 Branch, and my name is Owen C.
Shackleton, Jr. and I am 1
f 22 a Senior Investigator in Region 5.
l 23 Mr. Furbush, do you waive, sir, the right to 24 have private legal counsel present?
I 25 MR. FURBUSH:
Yes.
f.
l l
l
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1 MR. SHACKLETON:
Thank you.
2 Would you rise at this time, please while I 3
administer the oath?
4 Whereupon, 5
MALCOLM H. FURBUSH 6
having been first duly sworn, was called as a witness
's herein and was exanined and testified.as follows:
8 MR. SHACKLETON:
Thank you.. Please be 9
seated.
10 At this time, Mr. Faulkenberry will begin 11 with the questionning period.
[,
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12 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
Mr. Furbush', for the 13 record, would you please-state your position with the
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14 Pacific Gas and Electric Company?
J j
15 MR. FURBUSH:
I'm the Senior Vice President and 16 General Counsel.
17 MR. FAULKENBERRY: Mr. Furbush, did you attend g
l 18 both the October 9 and November 3, 1981 meetings with the y
19 NRC at Bethesda, Maryland?
O 3
j 20 MR. FURBUSH:
Yes, I did.
21 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
Mr. Furbush, it's been a
f 22 determined that four separate draft reports of Dr. Cloud's I
23 work were submitted to PG&E.
24 These draft reports were submitted to PG&E 25 on the approximate dateslof October 21st, October 26th, i
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't November 6 and November 12, 1981.
Now, the questjon is, 4
2 prior to Ncoember 3, 1981, were you aware that PG&E had I
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received the October 21 and the October 26 draft reports
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4 from Dr. Cloud?,
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MR. FURBUSH:
No.
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.y "MR. TAULKENBERRY:
Could you,telf-us when 3,
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you were made aware (when these drafgs had'b'ecn s3Ibmi t't.ed I
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8 to PG&E7 w'
9 MR. FURBUSII:
I ' ll'h av.o to say ?. hat th'e; o,nly s
3, one with,which I am familiar-of ow?is pe Octob$r 21 10
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12 I have been informed 3 tat there were; subsequent x
r 7 " ;13 drafts wh'i.ch were submitted bu{tthe dates were not that
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I'llhavetotakMlitonyourNordt.hatthe 14 clear't me.
15 d atos you gave were correct.
't' 16 As,to the October 21 report, I was-first i
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informed cif that on the day on which someone from the 17 i
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18 regional office, called George Maneatis who was not in l
l our office at? Nhe time and that exact date escapes me,
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19 4
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20 but be call'ed mp from the place he was located and said e
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g sg 21 he un'derstood there were some draft reports here and that a
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yng'thad' requested him, that region-5 had requested them.
5 22 l(6 4. k.,
23 J At that time, I was advised of it and I inquired
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'i 24 -
- into it and found out that there actually had been a draft 25 report of October 21.
That was the first time I knew about
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the report earlier -- a week or so earlier, there had been 2
some inquiry from the regional office about a report and 3
we thought we were talking about the one which had been 4
submitted to you..
5 So, the date which I am referring which was-6
-December, sometime -- you may have the date yourself and i
7 I don't know the date.
8 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
Mr. Furbush, the telephone 9
that you were referring to, was that a telephone call from 10 Mr. Maneatis to you?
11 MR. FURBUSH:
It was a telephone call from 12 Mr. Maneatis to me who had just received a telephone call 13 from your regional office.
(::-
14 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
And that would be from Jess 15 Crews in our regional office?
16 MR. FURBUSH:
Yes.
g I assume it was Jess Crews or Engelken who 17 l
18 had requested copies of the draft report and I then started g
19 on a search to find them and it was the same day that j
20 your office, perhaps even you were contacting Cloud for ij 21 the report.
f 22 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
Thank you.
t 23 Mr. Furbush, are you aware that possible erroneous 24 or mis-leading statements were made by Mr. Maneatis, by 25 Mr. Norton and by Dr. Cloud at the November 3rd meeting
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.regarding Dr. Cloud's draft reports?.
4 l
.2 MR. FURBUSH:
Well, I am aware of what the 3
transcript states..'I don't~know whether!Mr. Cloud's state-4 ment'was erroneous because I don't know what was on his j
5 mind.
l 6
I assume, which as a lawyer I shouldn't assume, 7
that Mr. Maneatis and Mr. Norton had been exposed to the 8
same situation I had been exposed to and so that their I
9 statements when they made them, they. fully believed in, 10 but may have been incorrect.
11 Now, let me expand on that.
12 Both of them were present at the time I was i
it'was. Sunday and that's -- I just 13
.present on, I believe, i
~
1 44 got a date book.
Sunday, the Sunday.before November 3rd, 15 when the PG&E personnel here in San Franc 13co were pre-l 16 paring for the presentation to be made to the meeting 17 in Washington on Tuesday the.3rd and my experience at g.
i 18 that time was, listening to what they were saying and i
19 Dr. Cloud was preparing to make a presentation, he was a
j 20, writing the presentation and A actually didn't hear his-21 presentation but I assumed he was writing it at that date.
3 f
22 The same thing occurred the next-day, Monday, I
23 when we arrived in Washington, D.C.,
Dr. Cloud was at some-i l
24 screen presentations -- you know, you put them on the i
25
. screen and was writing materials to present and that's --
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i
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r
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1 on those occasions is when we first heard, at least I first 2
heard of any of the things that Dr. Cloud had found in his 3
audit and he was also setting out what his program would 4
be.
5 I guess in answer to your question, I assume-6
.that that's what they heard to the same extent that I heard 7
at that time.-
8 So in answer to your question, I ara aware of 9
the statements that they made.
I don't know that Dr. Cloud's was erroneous to 11 because I don't know what he was thinking about'and I 12 assume that the others were completely ignorant of the 13 facts of the prior draft and if that's an erroneous.
14 statement, it's an erroneous statement,on their part 15 when they said that they learned about it-just recently.
16 The fact is that they had learned about it g
just recently and I believe it was Mr. Norton who said 17 h
18 t hat we haven' t seen the report or something such as that.
19 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
Mr. Furbush, to explore j
ej 20 that just a little bit further, even as of tF.is d::c,
'i 21 in your own mind, do you feel that either Mr. Maneatis, a
d 22 Mr. Norton or Dr. Cloud did provide possibly erroneous i
23 or mis-leading information to the NRC at the November 24 3rd meeting?
25 MR. FURBUSil:
No, I don't think they did.
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4 1
Certainly, Dr. Cloud didn't provide erroneous information 2
.because after we found the drafts, I asked Dr. Cloud just i
(
3 i n passing, of course, I haven't talked to him that much 4
4 since then, I said what were you thinking about and he l
5 said, that was not my report.
He said his report was not 6
completed.
I still had people'out in the field.
I was 7
giving a progress report.
8 I guess that may be one of the questions here.'
9 Subsequent to that meeting, we agreed to give progress to reports and we're giving progress reports now, every 11 two weeks on a Friday, there we go.
The progress reports l
12 of course, come in and if we have a comment we append it 13 to it and send it in.
14 But at that' time, Dr. Cloud was preparing 15 more or less of a definitive report and so as I understand 16 what was in his mind, he did not have a definitive report.
g His people were still working on it.
They had not completed 17 i
l 18 it and so he didn't consider.that to be a report.
- Now, i
19 that's Dr. Cloud.
m j
20 As to the others, the-other two, they did not i!
21 h ave -- I mean, my observation, and I am a lawyer, and
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f 22 I spend a-lot of time cross-examining people and my 2
l 23 observation of them at the time was that they didn't j
24 have any knowledge of any sort of thing which we'd received 25 other than what.we'd been orally told on the Sunday and then
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f 4
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the Monday before that Tuesday which was.the 3rd.
I would t.
2 add that if you read the transcript of which'I have since-3 then and I remember it very clearly, the one part, when 4
they.said we would be happy to have anybody from the NRC 5
present in Dr. Cloud's office at all times'and also, we'd 6
be willing to give anything simultaneously the date which 7
we receive it, j
8 You were probably there.
I was sitting 9
behind them.
I went up and suggested that that be done to and I don't know if they remember it but I remember it-11 very clearly because that was my state of mind at 12 the time -- that we were willing to have the NP.C present-13 a t all times.
(,
14 They could be-in Dr. Cloud's office. they could 15 t alk to Dr. Cloud outside~our presence, they could do 16 any thing they wanted-in order to be satisfied.
i 17 g
So when it comes down to.whether or not there l
18 is anything erroneous I would say that if we're talking 19 about the information which was presented by Dr. Cloud j
20 a t that time, the statement the company as a company had a"i 21 not had any earlier knowledge of that appears to have been a
f 22 incorrect because there had been some technical people I
g 23 in the company who had received it and the people'who 24 were making the statement did not know that to be the case.
25 I can't speak for them but that was my feeling at the time
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1 and certainly on the basis of what my knowledge was at 2
the time.
3 Had I made the statement, that would-have been 4
the situation.
5 I hasten to add, that our goal at all times has 6
been to keep the NRC informed of any subject, at any time 7
and you can fully participate inEthe audit.
8 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
Thank you.
9 Mr. Furbush, did you.ever hear any conversations to
.regarding the Cloud October 21 and October 26 draft reports 11 at the meetings with PG&E personnel either prior to, during 12 or after the November the 3rd meeting?
13 MR. FURBUSH:
The only time, the first time 14 I heard about the October 21 -- I still don't know about I
15 October 26th -- I heard that there were others after 16 the 21st.
17 The first time was the date I referred you l
18 to waen Mr. Maneatis called me and I don't have that date g
19 in mind but ic's within the month of December.
j 20 That was the date on which we were requested a
21 copies of them from the regional office.
3 f-22 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
In the November 1st meeting 2
23 which was the Sunday meeting prior to the Tuesday meeting 24 at Bethesda, did you yourself, hear any conversations 25 of any PG&E people or reptesentatives regarding draft E.
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I 1.
reports?
2 MR. FURBUSH:
None whatsoever.
I was not there 3
all'the time, I did not hear anything such as that, in 4 -
fact, just diametrically the contrary impression was created 5
on me because the times I was there, much of the time 6
I was there, Dr. Cloud was out supposedly writing and 7
apparently was writing because he came back in and made 8
some sort of presentation and I heard part of the g
presentation.
I did not hear all of it.
I heard no conversation from any one individual 10 indicating that they had any prior knowledge.
11 The day on which I heard it,.I was shocked.
12 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
Thank you, Mr. Furbush.
13 14 Owen, that's the extent of my questionning.
MR. SHACKLETON:
Thank you.
15 I have no additional questions.
16 2
MR. Furbush, is there any additional comment 37 j
18 that you would like to make at this time concerning g
19 the questions that you tasponded to?
c j
20 MR. FURBUSH:
I think the only comment I l
w uld like to make is in reference to the question asked 21 i
me about Dr. Cloud giving erroneous information and I f
22 3
consider this to be -- well, I have great -- let me l
23 Put it this way, a very serious implied charge being 24 25 made by this investigation that somehow Dr. Cloud has acted
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1 in an improper manner.
I think my basic sentiments are 2
e videnced by the letter I sent to the chairman, with 3
copies to the service list which I sent last week.
I 4
don't know the exact date which I would have reference to.
5 Dr. Cloud as every other consultant that I have 6
had any experience with who is performing an audit function, 7
do give drafts before their final report and although 8
I did not know about this draft, nor did I give any thought 9
to whether or not we would have a draft'before the final to report was prepared -- I have had the experience with 11 other auditors-of our company, specifically the 12 CPA's as well as a management consulting firm which was 13 ordered to conduct a management audit of PG&E by the k,,~
14 California Public Utilities Commission, and that consulting 15 finn following its usual practice, provided us with a 16 d raf t prior to the final report in order to have the 17 fnctual predicates upon which they were basing their lb c onclusions verified.
19 In otherwords, if the facts aren't right, the j
20 conclusion may be wrong and so it's very important to 21 check the f actual predicates.
a j
d 22 Now, my experience with Dr. Cloud has been one I
23 of a very conscientious, extremely thorough person who 24 happens to have the great virtue of being a highly 25 competent person who can look at a problem and see all the L-
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1 solutions to it rather than just one solution.
That's the 2
k ind of expert' you need.
3 Coming back to the point, his experience'as 4
-I understand it is one in which you did have the facts 5
verified.
Maintaining your integrity as to what your 6
conclusions are, you want to see if you have the facts 7
correct or whether you have the full facts because 8
very often and this is_the situation here as I understand 9
it after I heard about this, the concern uas as to 10 whether or not they had seen all'the material they should 11 see to make their conclusions.
12 So getting to the direct point.here, Dr. Cloud 13 on the basis of my observations and my conclusions, 14 understood that they were talking about his final report 15 which certainly had not been prepared at that time.
16 Now, that has to be understood from his 17 orientation.
j j
18 Had I known about those reports, I would l
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have said something at the hearing.
19 j
20 The reason'I would have said something about i
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21 it at the hearing is_to avoid any possible mis-interpreta-a d
22 tion _that we did not know what Dr. Cloud was doing and i
23 of course, that's out of an abundance of caution because 24 of my training and knowing that people can get the wrong i
l 25 imp'ression.
l
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(O')n 1
.Now,.when I have to set ~myself aside and look 2
at it from the point of view of a person such as Dr. Cloud,
~3 Dr. Cloud would think you're talking about a final report.
4 I can step back now to Mr. Norton.
I would 5
assume-had Norton known about it he would have said it 6
immediately.
7 So would Mr. Maneatis -- would have said 8
immediately that we had seen some because there's nothing, 9
no reason not to say it.
10 There is absolutely in the scheme of things 11 no justi;.ication for not making a statement had you known 12 it to be the case.
13 So, I can only assume that those who did 'know k.
14 about it did not have the training that I have-that Mr.
15 Norton has or that fir. Maneatis who is separate and distinct 16 from them might have, looking at it more or lecs trom the 17
.j p oint of view of a listener as distinguished from a 1
g 18 participant.
And that person, I think, would have said 19 l
l sometling had they known about it.
j 20 MR. SHACKLETON:
Thank you.
I
' :l!.
21 Mr. Furbush, does Mr. Norton as being a retained a
d 22 outside counsel to the company, does he report to you
.I 23 or which one of your staff does Mr. Norton report to?
r 24 MR. FURBUSH:
I would have to say reporting 25 is a very loose term in connection with a professional.
f '
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1 But, I would say that he works, that he is charged with'i 2
handling the licensing proceedings and he works very 3
closely with Mr. Crane and I guess thatnif you're really 4
talking about: reporting as - t'o whether or not we could 5
get someone to make a ' decision to get an attorney other 6
than himself, I would be the one to make that decision.
7 MR. SHACKLETOM:
All'right.
Thank you.
8 Bobby, do you have any further questions?
9 MR. FAULKENBERRY:
No.
10 MR. SHACKLETON:
Mr. Furbush, as a matter 11 of practice during the course of this investigation, 12 we've asked each one of the interviewees on behalf of 13 the commission, to.please keep their testimony to themselves 14 and we ask this also of you.
15 At this time, if there are no further comments, 16 gentlemen, we'll take this interview off record and the 17 j
t ime is now 2 : 31 p.m.
18 (Whereupon, at 2:31 p.m.,
the interview of 19 l
Mr. Malcolm H. Furbush was concluded.)
j 20 a
21 22 i.
23 24 25
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