ML20040E441
| ML20040E441 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Ginna  |
| Issue date: | 01/28/1982 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8202040336 | |
| Download: ML20040E441 (89) | |
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PUBIJC MEETING REPORT ON GINNA INCIDENT l
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DATE: January 28, 1982 PAGES':
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UMITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 PUBLIC MEETING 5
R?? ORT ON GINNA INCIDENT 6
7 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N.W.,
8 Washington, D.C.
Thursday, January 28, 1982 9
10 The Consission met at 2:02 p.m.,
pursuant to 11 notice, Nunzio Palladino, Chairman of the Commission, 12 presiding.
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13 PRESENT:
14 NUNZIO PALLADINO, Chairman JOHN AHEARNE, Commissioner 15 PETER BRADFORD, Commissioner VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner le THOMAS ROBERTS, Commissioner
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17 STAFF MAKING PRESENTATIONS AT MEETING 4 18 WILLIAM DIRCKS, Executive Director for Operations 19 HAROLD DENTON, NRR RICHARD DE YOUNG, OIE 20 RON HAYNES, Region I 21 22 23 24 25 4
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l DISCLAIMER
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r This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States 5
Nuclear Regulatory Ccmission held on January 28, 1982 in the
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Comission's offices at 1717 H Street, N. W., Wasnington, D. C.
The y
meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript l
has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccurac:fes.
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The transcript is intended solely for general informational purooses.
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As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the fonnal or informal i;
record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressf.ans of opinion in h
this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or t
beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Comissior in i
any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any sta.tement or ary. ment E
contained herein, except as the Comission may authorize.
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1 PR0CEEDINGS 2
CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s Good afternoon, ladies 3 and gentlemen.
This afternoon we vill be discussing the 4 Ginnt incident.
5 As you all recall, the Reorganization Act puts l
6 the responsibility f or handling any incident or accident I
7 on the Chairman's shoulders, and upon completion of such 8 an incident or accident the Chairman is to present a 9 report to the Commission.
And the purpose of this 10 afternoon's meeting is to do that.
11 So before we may proceed, since this meeting 12 was called on less than a week's notice the Commission 13 has to vote to hold a short notice meeting before we may 14 proceed.
Har I have a vote of the Coarission to hold 15 that meeting?
16 (A show of hands.)
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s And if you vote no we 18 vill close the meeting and reschedule it.
19 I thought that I would proceed in the 20 followin g var s I would highlight -- give an executive 21 overview, highlight some of the activities I was
- m' involved in, then make a few observations on the way the 23 process ven t, th en ask the staff to give a more detailed 24 chronology of the events.
We have Nr. Ron Haynes here 25 f ro m Region I, who can help us in th a t activity since he ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,!NC.
3 1 was at the site for a good bit of th e time.
2 With regard to my own executive report:
About 3 10:33 on Honday, on the 25th, the Chairman's office 4 received a call from Mr. Dircks.
The report was that 5 there was an incident at Ginna, there was a steam 6 generator leak, that Mr. Haynes recommends that NRC 7 headquarters activate its incident response center and 8 we would wait for confirmation.
9 I was having a discussion with a visitor.
At to 10:35 ny executive assistant, Mr. Haller, came into the 11 office and alerted me to the fact that we may have to go 12 to the incident response center and we would be in 13 standby.
14 At 10:45 I received a call f rom M r. Dircks.
15 The center was activated, that I should proceed to the 16 cen ter.
And I asked him to serve as the senior official 17 until I got there.
18 The car left for Bethesda about 10:53.
On the 19 vay I called the center and asked to talk to Mr. Dircks 20 and did talk to him.
I wanted to be sure that he was 21 there.
I asked his whether all the appropriate people 22 had been notified, and at that time I believe the 23 indication was that they had been notified, but he would 24 check.
25 At 11:25 I arrived at the incident response ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
4 1 center and received a briefing by Mr. Darrell Eisenhut 2 on the plant and the radiological status.
3 About 11su0, had a telephone conversation with 4 Mr. Lee Thomas of FEMA headquarters on the class status 5 and NBC response.
We spoke about having the FEMA 8 regional people go to the site and I concurred and felt 7 that these people should be going to the site as soon as 8 possible.
9 At 11:57 I called Governor Carey and discussed 10 the status of the siruation, assured him that we were 11 ready to help in ant way we can, and indicated at that 12 time that we had no protective actions to recommend.
He 13 as a matter of fact were recommending no ' protective 14 actions so f ar as the offsite impact was concerned.
15 At about 1329 I spoke with Governor Carey 18 again, again bringing him up to date and asking him if 17 the State was having any offsite measurements made, my l
18 thought being that it would be desirable to have 19 confirming data, data to confirm the measurements that 20 the Licensee was making.
He indicated to me, while he 21 certainly had the capacity to do that, that was an item 22 that they had covered in their exercise and he would 23 check into it.
24 And the reason I had raised this question is I 25 had indications earlier that there may not have been ALDER"4 son GEPORTING CowANY. INC.
5 1 independent measurements by the State.
2 I received a call from Governor Carey's staff, 3 Er. Natusez, and discussed the offsite measurements.
4 Their feeling was that the measurements were so low that 5 they weren't getting teams out.
I indicated to them the 6 importance of getting some confirmatory data, and he 7 said, well, we will pall the T1D's that the state has 8 and that will give us an integrated dosage at the point 9 where the TLD's are located.
10 He also asked whether they should pull the NRC 11 TLD's, inasmuch as our people weren't there yet.
And 12 aftar consnitation with staff members, suggested that 13 they not pull the NBC TLD's and let our people do it 14 when they got there.
1n00, about 2:00 o ' clock, I spoke with Mr.
15 At 16 Benrushi, who had called in, inasmuch as he and 17 Secretary Edwards were in South Carolina and he was 18 about to go to a press conference and he felt he was 19 going to be asked a number of questions and he wanted to 20 be brief ed.
Mr. Denton spoke to him at some length and l
21 I joined the conversation a t the tail end to confira 22 som e of the things he had been told.
23 At about 1440 I had an indication that Dr.
24 Keyworth had called our office, so I called Dr. Keyworth 25 and discussed with him the status of th e plant.
And he l
ALDER $oN REPORTING CoWPANY,INC,
6 1 asked whether the White House Situation Roon had been 2 notified and I learned that it had been notified, 3 although not as early as I thought it should have been 4 or would have been.
5 At 1508 I called the resident inspector, Nr.
6 Zinnerman, and received a status report and a report on 7 the Licensee 's actions.
By that time the plant was 8 nearing or was on a temperature reduction path that was 9 going to persist for, I was told at that time, perhaps to 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> or more, and that everything was going along 11 fin e.
12 So at 3425 or 15:25 I transferred authority to 13 Mr. Dircks, with instructions that if anything developed 14 he was to get in touch with me and indicate to se when 15 he learned that Mr. Haynes was at the site and keep me 16 informed.
17 Mr. Dircks did call me that af ternoon.
At 18 4:35 Bill Dircks called me to tell me that Haynes is at 19 the technical support center, he is being briefed and 20 vill get back to Mr. Dircks in a few minutes, the l
21 situation is still stabilized and plant is cooling l
22 dow n.
After a report is received from Haynes, if the 23 situation still looks to be under control the incident 24 response center would be deactivated with a small 25 technical staff available f or consultation all night at ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
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1 the center.
2 At 5:10 Mr. Dircks called me again.
He had 3 heard from M r. Haynes.
He said, taking charge, the 4 incident response center was calling other agencies and 5 Governor Carer to tell them of the transfer of 6 authority.
The company, he said, will probably not 7 change the cooldown rate or take other action until 8 morning.
9 Er. Haynes, I was told, had sat in the plant 10 operational review committee meeting.
At that time ther 11 had not changed the' status of the emergency.
The 12 incident response center is going to go on standby 13 status with a small technical support status, as was 14 indicated earlier.
15 I also that afternoon talked with Mr.
16 Stertef sky, who confirmed the status of the plant as I 17 had understood it.
18 Now, continuing the next day, there were a 19 number of other calls, and maybe I'll leave it to 20 questions on those items.
A fe w observa tions wi,th 21 regard to this situation.
There were good features 22 about the way the incident was handled and there were a 23 number of features that were not so good.
24 I was notified immediately in good time and 25 was able to get out to the center on time.
I was ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
8 1 briefed when I got there and I thought the briefing was 2 pretty good.
3 I noticed that the incident response center 4 was not as crowded as it had been in the exercises that 5 we had, and I found that quite refreshing.
The noise 6 level was much lower.
The phones had been improved so 7 that we could communicate well with various people we 8 were in contact with.
9 The staff was quite well disciplined.
There 10 were a few hang-ups, but I thought much improved over 11 the previous situation.
Having the public affairs 12 people making their calls outside the incident response 13 center also I think helped the situation.
14 However, not everything vent off as well as we 15 would have hoped.
I learned some time af ter I was at 16 the center that the automatic notifications to the 17 Commissioners had not been made as they were supposed to 18 have been made.
Now, fortunately, as I lef t my office I 19 asked my secretary to make sure that the Commissioners 20 had been called.
But that is not the role of my 21 secretary.
Rather, it is supposed to be the role of the 22 incident response center staff.
23 As a matter of fact, public affairs and 24 Congressional af f airs offices had not been notified 25 either, although they had learned it by circuitous ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
9 1 routes.
2 Another ites that I observed is that I think 3 ve need to clarify wha t role the sta te should play in 4 offsite measurements, especially when we would like to 5 have some confirmatory measurements.
And a pparently 6 this is not as clear as it night be at the present 7 tim e.
8 Also, on trying to review the situation, I 9 f eel our press releases should have been given wide 10 distribution internally and externally.
As I tried to 11 reconstruct the situation, I would have appreciated the 12 date and the time on each of the press releases and have 13 then sequentially marked as well.
14 There are reasons for some of the things that 15 ve can improve on, but I think the important thing is 18 that we know we have to improve on them and we take 17 steps to do so.
18 Now, I'd be glad to answer any questions, or 19 ve can go directly to a more detailed chronology.
- Bill, 20 would you like to proceed ?
21 MR. DISOKSs Ron Haynes will cove r the 22 details.
I might just mention the fact tha t we have 23 looked into this in the notifica tion system.
I sent to 24 the Commission a meno yesterday.
25 We found out the problem that af ternoon as you ALDERSON REPORTING CCMPANY,INC,
10 1 were doing the questioning of us.
In fact, we were just 2 under the impression that notification had gone out.
I 3 talked to Harold Denton when he entered the room and he 4 asked the same question, had all the notifications been 5ande.
The staff responded yes, that is automatic.
6 4 few minutes later I entered the room and 7 said had all the notifications been made, and I was 8 assured that that was automatic, so I let it go.
9 I might add that the notification system did 10 have some problems.
I think it was because of the war 11 ve got into this issue.
Looking rack at my records, I 12 had not been officially notified of the need for se to 13 go to the incident respoose center.
I think I had been 14 talking to Ron over the ' phone and he mentioned something l
l 15 about the incident and was thinking about recommending 16 tha t the center be activated.
i 17 I think based on his thinking I con tacted you l '
18 and I discussed it with Dick DeYoung.
That may have led j
I 19 the staff to believe that I may have been notified.
But 20 I was only passing on alert notices.
So I think there 21 was a problem all up and down the line.
22 Ihe identification of the problem, I think as 23 I noted in my anacrandum to the Commission, was that we 24 had a substitute taan manning that desk and there was 25 assignments given out and the team 70t diverted from its s
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, s
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1 notification role.
So all we can do is say at this 2 stage, we are sorry for the gap.
The staff has been --
3'it has been brought to its attention that this activity 14 should not be tolerated, that we have to practice a l
5 discipline in this notification.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s I think also we need to 7 make sure that the backup people that could be called 8 upon are well instructed and drilled in the duties they 9 are supposed to undertake.
And I think we may want to 10 consider an actual check-off sheet to make sure that e
11 they have been done and somebody to verif y that ther 12 have been done.
i 13 HE. DIRCKSa Ua will take care of that.
f4 I will let Ron pick up on it.
I don't think 15 there's any more need to go through the chronology.
I would like to add a point
,17 bef' ore Bon starts on the chronology.
You know, this 18 event occurred at 10:30, that I determined that we 19 should activate the centers perfect timing, during the 20 day of work, with the staff there.
It should have 27,'vorked fine.
We should have expected almost a perfect 22 response.
23 But we did have some holes in the proced ure 24 tha t we.will get patched up.
So if it had happened at 25 10:30 at night or at 3:30 in the morning, we could have i
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ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
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r 12 1 expected more problems.
And we'll try to do more than 2 just correct the problems that did occur.
We'll look a 3 little deeper.
It will not always occur at 10:30 on a 4 normal day for work, with everybody available.
So we 5 vill look quite deep into what improvements we can 6 m ak e.
7 A lot of little things are very disturbing, 8 like a notebook for you.
You didn't have one.
I 9
CHAIBMAN PA1LADIN0s I hesitated to put that to down.
That sounded like more detail.
11 MR. DE IOUNGs The little things count.
If we 12 take care of the little things, the major things will be 13 taken care of.
l 14 CHAIRMAN PAL 1ADIK0 I would have added 15 another improvement we should make.
I think there ough t 18 to be available right then and there a diagram system, 17 diagram of the plant so that ready reference could be 18 made by the Chairman and whoever else is working in the 19 room.
And that did not seem to be available.
20 NB. DE YOUNGS I would like to say one more 21 word before Bon gets going, about one of the better 22 things I heard and that was the talk that you had with 23 the man on site, the resident inspector.
I thought that 24 was an excellent interchange and I think he should be 25 commended.
He did a good job.
Calm; he had all the ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
l 13 1 information you requested for, he gave you his opinion.
2 And I,think he dii an excellent job.
3 CHAIBHAN PALLADINO:
All right.
Bon?
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HR. DIRCKSs I think as we get into it, one of 5 the things we found out, the length of time to get the 6 team on scene was also a problem.
I think the center 7 was activated f ar longer than we really had to be around l
8 there, and what we were really doing was waiting for Ron 9 to get on the scene.
We had a gap of a couple of 10 hours1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br />.
Had we had better transportation arrangements, I 11 think we could have deactivated the center at a much 12 earlier stage.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADI.404 I'd be interested in Mr.
14 Haynes* comments on getting there, because maybe this_
15 deserves more attention as a generic issue.
16 MR. HAYNESs Okay.
If I can get started here, 17 get the first slide.
I'll show you briefly what I'd 18 lik e to cover today, if I may:
the reactor operations 19 chronology, the rasctor material releases and l
20 institutional responses.
21 And before I get into this, I'd like to have 22 the caveat, ix I may, that a lot of this information is 23 preliminary.
We're going into more detail, so there may 24 be some inaccuracies.
But we will flesh them out before 25 we are finished.
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16 1
Also, a brief overview f rom my view.
I 2 thought that with respect to the steam generator tube 3 leak that the event was handled well by the Licensee, 4 that the licensee's actions were properly conservative 5 based on what I know now, and that adequate protection 6 was provided for the public safety and protection of the 7 anvironment.
8 Also, the plant emergency systems and 9 equipment worked satisf actorily.
There were some
_A 10 glitches.
Improvements can be made.
However, they are 11 not overriding.
We can live with most of them.
12 But I thought that the Licensee handled it 13 well, and f rom what I saw of the state and local people 14 and FEHA, I thought they did well.
15 Ncw, if I can get on to the next slide, get.a 16 little bit more into the reactor operations chronology 17 highlight.
At 9.25 a.m.,
the operating crews on duty in 18 the Ginna power station got the first indications of 19 steam generator tube leak, and how that was manifested 20 was charging pump speed alarm, B generator steam level 21 ala rs, mismatch; various instrumentation indicated to 22,them that they were having a problem and there was a 23 decreasing of water level in the pressurizer and a 24 decreasing pressure.
25 According to our inf ormation f rom talking to ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
15 1 the shift supervisor on duty, he had started actions to 2 manually trip out the reactor when it tripped out 3 automatically on low pressure, low primary system 4 pressure.
And then there's also --
5 COHNISSIONER GILINSKYa Did they understand at 6 that point that they had a problem with the steam 7 generators?
9 ER. HAYNES They were not sure it was the 9 steam generator.
They were not sure it was the 10 problem.
They didn't know if it was a primary system 11 cooling leak.
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDa How much time elapsed, m.
13 around?
l 14 MB. HAYNES Three minutes.
l 15 Then when the reactor tripped automatically, 18 there was a rapid depressurira tion of the primary 17 system.
Initially they were operating at about 2200 18 psig.
Then the pressure dropped 1,000 pounds over the 19 next three to four minutes, and then it held fairly 20 steady there for the next 40 airutes.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKYa Can I stop you'tnere, 22 Hon?
Someone told me that it actually dropped in a 23 matter of seconds.
Is that not righ t?
I 24 MR. HAYNES:
Well, like I say, it is 25 preliminary.
No, it was longer.
That is not correct.
ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
16 1 It was a longer depressurization rate than that.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN04 About when did it get to 3 1,000 psi, did you say?
4 HR. HAYNESa I've got the charts right here.
S as you can see, it was about three minutes from the time l
6 they were coming off of the operating pressure until l
l 7 ther hit the scram point.
So that was 250 psig drop 8 over about a two or three minute period.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEABNE:
What is the scram 1
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10 point?
11 HR. HAYNES:
It scrammed at 9:28 and the scram 12 point is slightly over 1800 psig.
13 CHAIRNAN PALLADINO:
How much?
14_.
NR. HAYNES:
Slightly over 1800 psi.
15 Of course, the charging pump was trying to 16 maintain pressure.
That is why they got the alarm on 17 the charging pump speed of high speed.
So it is feeding 18 in more water.
19 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD What is the charging 20 pump's maximum rate?
l 21 MR. HAYNES I don 't have that information 22 available to me right now.
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23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I thought it was 24 somewhere in the 100 25 MB. HAYNES They 're no rmally about 100 to 125 J
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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17 1 gpa.
2 Then the pressurizer level vent down low, 3 offscale again, a signal to the operating personnel tha t 4 there was a loss of coolant in the primary system.
5 The next part I wanted to highlight was on the 6 -- there was an automatic reactor shutdown and the 7 emergency core cooling system came into play, namely the 8 safety injection system hits that point around 1700 9 psi.
10 COMEISSIONER AHEARNEa It came in on lov 11 pressure?
12 MR. HAYNESa Yes, it came in on low pressure.
13 COMEISSIONER BRADFORD:
When?
14 NH. HAYNESa That was almost shortly after 15 9:28.
It's like 9:29.
16 I might say, we are doing a detailed 17 chronology on these as best we can, with the time in 18 seconds and so forth.
And I just didn 't ga ther all that 19 type of detail right now.
20 COHNISSIONER AHEARNE4 As far as you know so 21 f ar, all the records are there?
22 MR. HAYNES:
Oh, y e s..
I have a team at the 23 site now tha t is going through putting in the detailed 24 chronology on times and so forth for this.
25 The reactor protection system operation was as ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
18 1 designed, as was the safety injection system.
2 The next thing that I thought was a 3 significant point to cover was that both the reactor 4 coolant pumps vera manually tripped by the operators.
5 This occurred at 9:33 a.m.
6 COHNISSIONER GILINSKYa Can you remind me why 7 the procedures call for tripping the reactor coolant 8 pumps?
9 HB. HAYNES:
Well, the criteria on the 10 tripping on the tripping of the reactor coolant pumps 11 was that if the safety injection pumps are operating and 12 the pressurizer pressure is less than 1750 psi, then 13 they should trip off the reactor coolant pumps.
A 14 couple of reasons for that would be, one of them would 15 be cavitation.
For the reactor coolant pumps 16 depressurizing, flushing would be of concern.
17 The other thing would be e xacerba ting a small 18 break loss of coolant accident, depending if the small 19 break occurred at the pump suction side type of thing, 20 the discharge side.
It's a special procedure they 21 vanted to --
22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY.
Why would it make it 23 worse?
24 MR. DENTON:
Because you'd be pumping out more 25 sass, depending on where the small break was. If the ALDER $oN REPoRDNG COMPANY,INC, 1
19 1 pumps weren't running you 'd be losing steam; if the 2 pumps are running you lose both steam and water.
And I 3 think this was conf:' rmed in some of the LOFT tests, that 4 if t ortain conditions were met and you don' t know what 5 the condition of the plant really is in, it is best to 6 trip it until you have re-established what type of break 7 it is.
8 It is only better to do it for certain types 9 of small break LOCA's in certain locations, but the 10 procedure calls for doing it in order to conserve 11 inventory until the operator determines the exact state 12 that he is in.
13 CONHISSIONEi; BR ADFORD:
At this point does the 14 operator know it's the steam generator tube?
15 NR. HAYNES:
About this time, about 9:33, he 16 is determining it is a steam generator tube break 17 incident that he 's in.
And that procedure also calls 18 for tripping of the reactor coolant pumps.
So the 19 operator's response was in accordance with these f
20 procedures.
21 Now, since he sees that he is -- the operators 22 see that they are in a steam generator tube leak 23 situation, the thing to do now is to isolate the faulted 24 steam generator, that is button it up so that the steam 25 generator can equalire and you are no longe r losing ALDERSoN RdPoRTING COMPANY,INC,
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20 1 fluid from the primary system, which is what they did.
2 And they do this by closing the main steam isolation 3 valve.
4 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO:
This is on the secondary 5 side?
6 HR. HAYNES:
It's on the secondary side.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN04 These do'n't have 8 isolation valves on the primary side?
C HR. HAYNESt They do not.
10 So that is what they proceeded to do.
Ther 11 isolated the steam generator so that it would equalize,'
12 if you will, with the primary system.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
It took some time to 14 equalize the pressure, did it not?
15
- 59. HAYNES:
Yes, it took some time to 16 equalize.
17 COMHISSIONER BRADFORD:
When did they shut the
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l 18 valve?
19 HR. HAYNES:
Those valves were shut at 9: 40 20 a.m.
At that time they declared an alert, which as you l
21 know we have four levels of emergency in our emergency 22 plan, the first being an unusual event.
You 23 automatically use an unusual event when you start this 24 leak sequence.
25 But they estimated up to alert status, and ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
21 1 that was because of the steam jet air ejector indicator 2 indicated readings.
As you know. the steam det air 3 ejectors extract air off of the main condensers.
When j
4 this tube leak occurred, of course it got primary l
5 coolant into the secondary side of the B steaa e generator, which then went on over into the main 7 condenser.
There was flashing and there was some 8 off-gassing that vent on out through the steam generator 9 ejectors, high gases, noble gases, going out through the 10 plant vent, which is a monitored release.
11 But based on those readings, ther isolated the 12 main steam isolation valves and then went to an alert 13 status.
And that of course, like I said, was declared 14 around 9:40 a.m.
15 They were on the phone to the NRC operations 16 center via the ENS phone about 9:33 a.m.
So they were l
17 very quick on the phone.
18 The headquarters duty officer got us plugged 1
19 in onto the event, because we have a setup where as he's i
20 got a call coming from a plant he can push one button l
21 and bridge us in regional right into the phone.
AnC Mr.
22 Sterstucki, who is in charge of our division of 23 projects, resident reactor projects, he picked up the 24 phone and heard what was going on.
l 25 Then he got some flavor of the event that ther 1
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22 1 were undergoing and came up and notified me.
2 COHNISSIONER BRADFORD:
Hcw much were ther 3 able to tell you at that point?
4 ER. HAYNES:
Wha r they were able to tell us at 5 that point was that they were in an unusual circumstance 6 at that time.
They were just -- it looked like ther 7 were in a steam, possibly a steam generator tube leak.
8 They were just determining that.
9 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDa So they actually 10 notified you that they thought they might have a steam 11 generator tube leak in the first call?
12 HR. HAYNES:
Uh-huh, right.
13 Okay.
Then, af ter I got that word, of course 14 I talked to the head of our division, emergency 15 planning, what have you, told him to go ahead and 18 activate our Region I incident response center, which is 17 automatic when you go to an alert status.
18 Then I contacted Mr. Stello, apprised him of 19 the event, and said, at this time I just let you knov 20 that we are going into alert here.
The headquarters 21 duty officer knew we were in alert, but tha t that was 22 all I was saying at the time.
There was no need to 23 activate the emergency management team at this time.
24 Then I proceeded on in to our incident 25 response center.
We started getting data from the ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, R N t3 N M
\\
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l 23 1 plant, operational data as far as pressurizer levels and 2 reactor pressures and these types of things.
And I went 3 into the situation now where the next time I want to 4 talk about is the repressurization of the primary 5 system.
6 With tha safety injection pumps injecting into 7 the reactor coolant system, the water level started 8 recovering into the pressurizer.
It had gone down and 9 the reactor pressure system started to get pumped back j
l l
10 up again.
In other words, it would drop down to about 11 1200 psi and go up to about 1250 psi, numbers along this 12 magnitude.
13 When the operator saw that -- and what he has 14 to protect against, he knows now he's in a steam 15 generator tube leak, so he would be pressurizing the 16 secondary side of the steam generator system.
That j
^'
17 system provides overprotection by safety valves that j
18 discharge to the environs outside, where you would 19 actually hydro them.
And if you are up above that set 20 point, which is around 1085 psig, a number like that, 21 1075, 1085, then those valves would open and discharge l
1 22 essentially reactor coolant to the environ.
1 l
23 So what he needs to do is control the 24 pressure, per procedure, below that set point.
What he 25 proceeded to do then was operate the power-operated ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE. S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202).554 2346
T.
- e 1 relief valve.
This is on top of the pressurizer.
And 2 he performed two or three operations of this.
Two 3 operations of it, the valve functioned properly.
The 4 third time the valve stuck open.
5 This is the PORY, the power-operated relief 6 valve that sits on top of the pressurizer.
That was the i
7 probles at Three Mile Island as well.
But the operator 8 recognized that promptly and closed the manual block 9 valve.
The manual block valve is upstream.
He closed 10 that, so that stopped that pressure decay.
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNEs Do you havn any' rough 12 sense of how long it took him to recognize that?
13 MR. HAYNES:
Just on the order of four or five 14 minutes, where he sees that it's finished, it's below 15 what he wants.
He tries to close it, it won't close, 16 and he has to come over and operate the manual valve and 17 give it time to close and seal it off.
18 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
But he had a clear is indication right away that the valve wasn't closed.
It 20 wasn't like Three Mile Island, where the indication was 21 one var --
22 MR. HAYNES:
No, he was not confused.
When he 23 opened the valve, he figured it may not close.
~
24 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
It wasn't a matter of 25 deduction?
At tha t plant there's a clear indication on ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202).564 2345
l 25 i
1 the control panel that it's open or closed?
2 MR. HAYNES:
I cannot say that I looked at the 3 panel and saw that clear indication.
But when 'I talked 4 to the people they had no doubt in their mind that the 5 valve had stuck open and the next thing to do was to 6 close the block valve.
They had no question at all.
7 They knew precisely what to do.
So they had the 8 information available to them to m'ike that decision.
9 With this depressurization, now, that took 10 place, it drops down.
The reactor pressure dropped down 11 to about 800 psi.
And when the block valve was closed, 12 what this means then is that the pressurizer no longer 13 boccaes the hottest point in the system.
14 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDs In what sequence was 15 the block valve closed ?
18 MR. HAYNES:
The block valve was closed 17 around, shortly after 10:10.
At 10:09 he sees it is 18 open and he tries to give a close signal.
So it would 19 be about 10:13, 10:14, a number like this, hours in the 20 morning.
21 When he closes that valve, of course, the 22 safety injection pumps then increase the reactor 23 pressure up to 1300 psig.
The pressurizer then goes 24 full because it is no longer the hot'.est point in the 25 sys tem.
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 6
26 1
Again, this was not a mystery.
We were 2 getting data from -- at 10:10, 10:14, in the Region I 3 resident response center.
We were plotting the data at 4 tha t. time.
We saw what the vessel h ead temperatures 5 were, because we knew that the vessel head is a large 6 mass of steel.
Now, this becomes like, if you will, the 7 temperature generator, where you would tend to fors 8 bubbles underneath the steel.
9 So we talked to the people in operations about 10 that and said, well now, what needs to be done -- and 11 they were apprised of it too -- is that, go ahead and 12 get the reactor coolant pump back on and get the bubble 13 reestablished in the pressurizer.
14 COHNISSIONER GILINSKY.
Can I just take you 15 back a moment?
16 MR. HAYNES:
Sure.
If COMMISSIONER GILINSKYs You had the steam 18 generator safety valves open earlier, or this is all to 19 come yet?
This is all to come.
I l
21 HR. HAYNES:
I see, okay.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Which?
23 ER. HAYNES:
The main steam isolation valves, 24 the steam generator safety valves, they had not opened 25 y et.
But they opened shortly thereafter, Commission.
l l
ALCERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 6 ERf2L N LRGL A FMS'DMXO
27 1
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
You were on the 2 bubble.
3 HR. HAINES:
Yeah, we 're on the bubble.
l
+
4 Again, they saw the pressure coming back up.
They 5 manually isolated the B steam generator atmospheric 6 relief.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKYs Let me just ask you 8 something here.
What are the procedures or criteria for 9 restarting the coolant pumps, h aving turned them eff to earlier?
11 HR. HAYMES:
We are looking at that now.
The 12 preliminary evaluation I had and the information from 13 Mr. Sterstucki on the procedures, that wasn't too clear 14 on that restart procedure.
15 Rich?
Were you, Rich?
16 VOICES I wouldn't elaborate right now on any 17 specfic criteria.
I want to discuss a little bit more 18 the generic Westinghouse procecures before giving a firm 19 answer.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
But are there 21 procedures for restarting?
22
- 53. HAYNES:
I guess there are plans in the 23 procedures for restarting the pump.
24 COMMISSIONER BR ADFORD:
Why do they say that 25 they did it?
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, e Escm an 9.w w@ TON, D.C. SEM @B.554 2345 s
28 1
MR. HAYNES:
Why did he say he did it?
2 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Yes.
3 MR. HAYNESs Because when he recognized that a 4 steam bubble was forming underneath the -- in the 5 reactor head area, then you are on natural circulation 6 at that time if the steam bubble grows.
7 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDt I understand that.
8 But when did they have the indication that they had the 9 steam bubble forming?
r 1,0 HR. HAYNES:
This is about the 10:10-10:20 11 time.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What is the 13 indication?
14 ER. HAYNES:
The vessel head temperature and l
15 the reactor pressure.
You take a look at those 18 temperatures and tha t pressure.
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
So it is inferred from 18 the steam tables?
19 MR. HAYNES:
Tes, sir. plus you have very good l
20 evidence in that the pressurizer goes f ull and it is a 21 sudden recovery of the pressurizer.
So that gives us an 22 indication that a bubble is forming elsewhere.
23 COMMISSIONER BR ADFORD:
Why then, if I 24 understood the time correctly, wait half an hour to 25 start the reactor coolant pumps?
ALDERSCN REPORTINo COMPANY,INC,
29 1
HR. HAYNES:
It takes a little while to start 2 the oil systems up and this type of thing to get it 3 started.
It isn't like a small pump that you can just 4 go up and start the pump.
It takes a little while there 5 to prepare to start up the pump.
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKYs Would there have been 7 a bubble in the steam generator too, then?
8 HR. HAYEESs Yes, very possibly.
Of course, 9 we have to look at that, too.
As I say, a lot of this 10 is preliminary.
But what we're looking at now, it is 11 very certain it could have been a bubble in the steam j
12 generator.
The faulted steam generator could be acting 13 also as a pressurizer, that 's right.
14 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Is it possible to 15 avoid a bubble during this sequence?
What does the 16 operator have to do in order not to have a bubble form?
17 HR. HAINES:
Well, keep the pressure in the 18 primary system and the pressurirer above the saturation 19 pressure for the vessel head steel temperature.
In 20 other words, at the vessel head -- see, during normal 21 operation the primary cooling system is about 605 22 degrees, the vessel head steel is about 591 degrees, 590 j'
23 degrees.
Ihat corresponds to a saturation pressure of 24 1100-1200 psi, that type of number.
l l
25 So if the reactor pressure drops that low and ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
l MO WMY"'O /Xik RrJm %%TONx.C. WN.M20Zh554 2345 D
30 1 the pressurizer drops below the 591 degrees, then you 2 can get saturation down there.
3 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDs How is he going to do 4 that simultaneously without trying to raise the valves 5 on -- I have forgotten which valves it is, but it sounds 6 to me as though he's got quite a challenge in front of 7 him whils this is going on.
8 HR. HAYNES He's got a challenge.
And of 9 course, you try'to remove the heat from the reactor and 10 control the pressure by using the non-faulted steam 11 generator, the good steam generator, and bypassing steam 12 from that on over to the main condenser.
In other 13 words, during normal operation the main condenser or the 14 steam generator-is normally operated around 900 psi.
So 15 you use that as a heat sink.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Ron, I was told that 17 around that time that with natural circulation they had the inlet temperature to the core 18 a temperature inlet 19 was about 420, the outlet was 460, and 460 being higher 20 than the saturation tempera ture and bringing the main 21 coolant pumps on the line would bring that temperature 22 difference down from about 40 degrees to about one or 23 two and bring you within or below the saturation 24 ter.peratures.
25 HR. HAYNEsa But the core T outlet was not the ALDERSoN REPoRnNG COMPANY,INC, J
31 1 maximum temperature in the systems it was the vessel.
2 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO:
The steel was ev<n 3 higher, I appreciate that.
4 HB. HAYNES That's right, that's right.
5 That's why I wanted to get the forced circulation so 6 that we do get the heat transfer from the core, that's 7 right.
8 CONNISSIONER AREARNE:
Was the decision to put 9 the pumps on something that you recommended or was it 10 something that the company did?
11 HR. HAYNES:
No, it was something that the 12 company was looking at.
And we were working 13 independently, but having considered, yes, that's what 14 you 're looking to, that's what they're going to go ahead 15 and proceed with, yes -- I mean, if I had never said.
16 anything they would have done the same thing.
They 17 would have started the pumps.
I don 't see that I had 18 anything to do with that.
19 Okay.
The --
20 00HHISSIONER AREARNEs Did they put the pumps 21 back on?
22 HR. HAYNES:
Yeah, they got the pumps back on 23 about 11:30.
There was also -- a thing that challenged 24 the operator here was there was a primary coolant spill 25 in containment.
Of course, we get out of sequence ALDER $0N REPORTING COMPANY,INC, C'i3 N /YTlel2cl%fT"MfCk fM5L M MN
32 1 here.
2 Ihe main steam lina safety valves did open 3 around 10:40.
That is, the code safeties.
Their set 4 point was 108S psig.
And of course this released 5 primary coolant to the environs.
6 CHAIBHAN PALLADINO&
What time did that open 7 again?
8 MB. HAYNES 10:40.
That is our preliminary 9 inf ormation.
10 Now, when I heard that they had their site 11 teams out at this time, okay, their site survey teams, 12 they got a reading back, as I recall, that they gave to 13 me of 10 millirems per hour.
When I looked at the 14 'inf ormation, they had full pressurizer, that bubbles in 15 the head, that the code safeties opened and were 16 spilling primary coolant to the outside, I called Mr.
17 DeYoung and told him that it seemed prudent to actuate 18 the emergency management team, okay.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
What time was that?
20 HR. HAYNES:
That was at 10:42.
Well, the 21 conversation started a little bit before th a t, earlier.
22 The conversation started a little bit before that.
But 23 I am taking a look at the data again, talking to Dick 24 and these types of things.
25 Then shortly thereafter and completely ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
33 1 independent, because the people at the site don ' t know 2 what I had done -- okay, I had made an evaluation and l
3 said, well, we had better get the emergency management 4 team notified and start moving into place -- the 5 Licensee then declared a site emergency.
So he did that 6 independently.
7 Now, once a Licensee goes to a site emergency 8 under our procedures, NBC procedures, then it's 9 mandatory and automatic that the emergency management 10 team is notified and informed and reports to the 11 response center.
So we just happened to have parallel 12 thinking and appraisal of the events taking place.
13 Then the operators faced another little 14 challenge coming here --
l 15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Let me back you up one 16 minute.
What is the pressure which the steam valves 17 open at?
18 MR. HAYNES.
1085 psig.
That is the main
)
l 19 steam code safeties.
20 They are into the site emergency at this time 21 and then the next thing that happens is that their 22 pressurizer relief tank fills up, its rupture disc 23 breaks, discharges some contents on the floor of the 24 containment.
25 COMMISSIONER GIIINSKI:
Why is that?
I i
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
[
t
38 1 thcught the block valve was shut?
2 ER. HAINES:
Okay, but there's a couple more 3 sources of coolant that goes into the pressurizer relief 4 tank, and those were -- one is from the letdown system.
5 When one gets a containment isolation signal, which ther 6 had gone into containment isolation, then that blocks 7 off the letdown system.
But when you reset the 8 containment isolation system, the outboard isolation 9 system stays closed, the valves star closed, but the 10 inboard valves stay open.
It And there is a pressure relief valve that 12 provides protection downstream of the restricting 13 orifices between that and tne outside valves.
On high 14 pressure, it opens, it discharges.
It goes over into 15 the pressurizer relief tank and that is the source of 16 water to fill it and cause that falltre.
17 Also, another source is the reactor coolant 18 pump seal return line.
Again, that has a relief valve 19 and that also gets discharged to the pressurizer relief 20 tank.
So a part of this, you see, a part of this, of 21 restarting a reactor coolant pump, one has to make also 22 sure tha t the seal coolant flow is reestablished, 23 because if we restart the pump without having a seal 24 coolant flow it could ruin the seal and then exacerbate 25 the situation by having a failed seal and have a la rge ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
&aMeiE30 m fWAm OR N
I 35 1 loss of primary coolant into the containment.
2 CONNISSIONER AHEARNE:
In this respect did 3 that happen?
l 4
HR. HAYNES:
No.
But I say, if one tried to 5 restart a pump before you made sure that you've got 6 everything in order, you can cause a problem.
So it 7 isn 't quick to start.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKT Why would those 9 release valves be set at something around 1,000 psi?
I l
10 would think they would be up -- was that what he was t
11 ref erring to ?
f l
12 HR. HAYNES:
Well, it's like on the letdown 13 system.
As you know, the letdown system comes from the 14 primar7 system, then it goes through the restricting 15 orifices, goes outside the containment to some more j
16 press ure piping, volume control tank, you know, 17 after-cooler, and then it's outgassed and it goes 18 through th e saal flow and those types of things.
19 The system is designed not to have all high 20 pressure components outside of the containment.
So 21 there has to be the fact that a valve can close.
22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I thought this was 23 inside the containment?
24 HR. HAYMES:
It is inside the containment.
25 But the high pressure piping, if you will, runs out to ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 8 m M FOm N TE1DA A 8 0208X9
7 36 1 the outboard isolation valve.
Now, that isolation valve 2 -- and then af ter that comes low pressure piping.
If 3 that valve closes during normal operation or say 4 somewhere down the line, then one could overpressurize 5 the low pressure piping and break it.
8 So what one has is a relief valve overpressure l
l 7 protection system stem mounted off the high pressure 8 piping just before you get to low pressure, so it can j
9 then relieve the pressure and keep the pressure low.
1 to That's its function.
l 11 12 13 14 15 18 m
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
_ CS3 VIZINIA AS SWyWWTD, D.@, EB3 6823493 fEX9
37 1
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
And you think that's 2 the source?
3 HR. HAYNES:
That's one of the sources in the 4 relief valve.
(
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But you think that is 8 the source of the one that led to the ruptured disc 7 f ailing?
8 MR. HAYNES:
Yes.
But you see, the tank had 9 also been partially let above the stuck open 10 power-operated relief valve, so this was a little bit 11 more of that added to it.
The ruptured disc broke, but 12 then about 1,900 gallons of water than floated over into 13 the reactor sump.
Initially it was reported as 11,000 14 gallons, and the difference is that in this sump which 15 is provided in the containment to take spillage, has two 18 indicators.
One indicator showed a 9 1/2 foot level of 17 fluid in the ' sump, and then the other showed about 5.3.
18 The licensee always take the conservative 19 reading -- the worst case would be a 9.5 foot reading --
20 but then later on came back and checked out the 21 instrumentation and found out that the meter indicator 22 on this one instrument that was indica ting a 9 1/2 foot 23 level had a static charge on it that was holding the 24 needle deflector up.
And when they checked that out and 25 also checkad out what the driving signal was, then they ALDERSON REPCRTING COMPANY. thC.
38
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\\1 saw it was actually at the lower level, the 5.3 feet, P
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25and it was only 1,900 gallons..
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3 Well, that is not a big situation or a big 4 deal, but it is certainly a little bit of that s
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5 discrepancy about how much fluid was spilled during the s
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CONEISSIONER BRADFORD4 Why does that tank
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n 8 have to overflow, though?
Can't it be drained?
4 1
9
\\ MR. HAYNES:
It normally is drained.
It 10 normally is pumped 'out ou over into holding tanks, rad 11 waste holding tanks, that kind of thing.
But of course i:
12 if you have a pilot-operated valief valve that sticks up 13 and it comes into the tank the steam is l
14 suppressed, but it can only take so much volume.
- Also,
' 15 when you get a containment isolation, it's pumped.
It 16 normally pumps it out over into the fluid systems for 1
17 reprocessing.
It would be isolated, so you keep it l
18 bottled up.
19 CHAIRMAN PAllADINO:
So you had input but no 20 output.
'y1 MR. HAYNES:
That's right.
'22 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDa It's the containment
.x N 23 isolation that does it.
Otherwise it would have drained 24 automatically.
@S R. HAYNES:
Yes.
But my experience is that s
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(
ALDERSON REPORTING CCMPANY,INC, g
39 1, when transfers from the pressurizer relief tank is not 2 automatic, that is an opera tor decision, if you will, 3 like during normal operation when you want to transfer 4 fluid f rom the pressurizer relief tank over to a holding 5 tank to process it.
6 COHNISSIONER BRADFORD:
But it is one you 7 would have expected him to make in this case if he could 8 have, because he knew that his valve had been stuck open 9 so he was going to have a problem.
10 Uhr did the containment isolate again?
11 MR. HAYNES:
Well, low reactor pressure i
12 indicating a loss of coolant accident, and you got a 13 safety injection signal, but not the cor.tainment.
14
!;.e next part, I want to talk a little bit i
15 about the response of the faulted steam generator.
like 16 I said, it equalized pressure with the reactor coolant l
l 17 system.
What that' means now is that the steam generator 1
18 was filled with wa te r up to the main steam isolation l
19 valve, so out to the code safety also has water; and the 20 activity subsequently took the samples of the water on 21 the secondary side of the steam generator, ran it 22 through the radiochemical lab and found activity on the
-2 23 order of 10 microcuries per milliliter.
- Normally,
-6 24 the secondary side runs 10
- you know, it's several
-6
-7 25 f actors lover, 10 or 10 microcuries per ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, t"G MINP"O M ftt"L N,TE1 R.@. A NMYG
40 1 milliliter.
So it is a source of roles sa.
2 And when the overpressure protection code 3 safety opened at 10a 85, then this discharged reactor 4 coolant to the environs.
5 Now, if I can go to the next slide now.
6 COHNISSIONER GILINSKY What is the primary 7 system in those units?
8 ER. HAYNES:
The normal operating pressure?
9 CONNISSIONER GILINSKY:
On the microcuries.
10 NR. HAYNES:
Normally in the secondary side
-6 11 about to The reactor coolant system during 12 operation was running a little bit below two microcuries 13 per milliliter.
There 's a tech spec limit of 3 14 microcuries per ailliliter.
It was slightly below 2.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Primary system samples 16 were taken, were they not?
17 MR. HAYNES:
Oh, yes.
18 CHAIREAN PALLADINO Were th e y --
t 19 HR. HAYNES:
There's no indication of any fuel 20 damage whatsoevar.
21 CHAIRMAN P ALLADINo t The samples were normal, 22 were they?
23 HR. HAYNES:
They were normal.
The samples 24 were normal from all of the parameters that are checked.
25 The radioactive material releases, there were ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
M N M % N
@8 MS M
41 1 three sources, as I mentioned, at the start of the 2 event.
There was the steam generator ejector vent 3 that is a monitor of the release -- and the total amount 4 discharged there was about 500 curies of noble gases, 5 the xenons and cryptons.
6 CONHISSIONER GILINSKY:
Where is that 7 sonitored?
8 HE. HAYNES:
That is monitored at the entrance 9 into the stack, the steam generator ejector discharge.
10 There are also releases via the main steam line safety 11 valves.
And this next one, I also want to talk about 12 the onsite contamination and offsite contamination, if I 13 m ay.
14 So vo could get the next slide?
15 (Slide.)
16 Now go to the next one, next slide, please.
17 (Slide.)
18 Okay.
Just before I get over to the releases, 19 let me go back and show you on the diagram here for this 20 PER.
As you could see, the vessel head is a fairly 21 massive piece of steel, and where the bubble was formed 22 was immediately below the top of the dome.
The inlet 23 and outlet lines to the loops are f arther down on the 24 vessel.
25 But the next slide, please.
ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
42 1
(Slide.)
2 I wanted to show you a little bit about the 3 amount of material you've got there.
There's a 4 four-foot deep phlange.
It's about 14 inches thick, and 5 of course it goes all around the vessel, and the vessel 6 done head is about 6 1/2 inches thick.
7 Under natural circulation, of course, there's 8 not auch heat transfer that is going on between the 9 reactor coolant system and that steel, and the steel is 10 insulated on the outside so it cools down rather 11 slowly.
It starts out at 590 degrees.
So when the 12 reactor pressure dropped down to around 800 pounds, 900 13 pounds, then the heat transfer reversed and then it came 14 in and started forming steam bubbles underneath the 15 head.
That's what it looks like to us now.
16 Okay.
Go ahead to the next slide.
17 (Slide.)
18 Here is our estimate of releases, the reactor 19 material releases.
The steaa jet ejector noble gases 20 were about 500 curies, 485 curies.
That's based on our 21' evaluation, our licensee 's evaluation.
About 2,400 22 gallons of primary system fluid was lost.
Tha t is a 23 worst case type estimate.
The iodine 131 that would be 24 in that would be a little bit over 1 millicurie.
25 From the B steam generator the noble gases l
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
43 1 there were low, about 5.2 curies, but the iodine -- I 2 misspoke there a while ago -- but the iodines were 3 around 14 to 15 mil 11 curies, and then there were also 4 some particulates.
5 COHNISSIONER GILINSKT:
Where do these 6 estimates come from?
7 NB. HAYNESS These are estimates from the 8 licensee also that we checked.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Based on how much 10 vater escaped?
11 HR. RAYNESE The B steam generator was based 12 on how much water was lost from the primary system.
13 CONNISSIONER GILINSKY:
And knowing the 14 activity in the water.
15 HR. HAYNES:
Yes, sir.
The top part, the 16 steam jet air ejector, is based on the monitored 17 release, the information we had available to us from the 18 charts, the activity levels and the length of time.
)
19 COMMISSIONER GILTNSKYa And how well do we 20 know how much water escaped?
21 NR. HAYNES&
How well?
Well, pretty close 22 but, you know, it can easily vary from 200 or 300 23 gallons, or 2,000 to 3,000 gallons, in my estimation.
24 COMMISSION ER GILINSKY s Is that what the 25 estimation is?
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 2mcwtJnrevwwn ns mwgumm
The estimation is 2,300 gallons, 1
2 but the amount of activity associa ted with that is low, 3 and again, that was worst case because what that does is 4 assume that with all reactor coolant that was discharged 5 out to the vent and not the mixture of feed vater plus 6 reactor coolant.
So that would be about 14 millicuries T under that case of iodine, which is a low, a very low 8 number.
9 The millicuries of particulates, the cobalt 58 to and manganese, also the chromium 51 and so forth like 11 that, was about 220 to 30 millicuries.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Actually, the number, 13 significant figure is a little misleading.
14 MR. HAYNES:
What's that?
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Our estimates are 16 2,000 to 3,000 gallons is probably 10 to 20 millicuries 17 or microcuries.
18 MR. HAYNES:
Well, that is when you give a 19 f ellow a calculator.
20 COHNISSIONER GIIINSKY:
Microcuries.
21 HR. HAYNES:
Yes, tha t 's righ t.
You know, I 22 was quoted as saying the iodine releases vould be 15 to 23 25 millicuries, because there's a ranges there is an 24 amount of uncertainty in here.
But in any event, 25 whe ther it's 15 to 25, it is very, very lov.
ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
GM 61T@lA RA A 6
45 1
Okay.
So to the next slide.
2 (Slide.)
3 At the time of the event --
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY Those are microcuries 5 or millicuries?
6 MH. HAYNES:
M1111 curies.
7 At the time of the event the wind was blowing 8 toward the southwest.-
It was a fairly strong wind, 20 9 to 25 miles an hour.
10 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO:
You say going toward the 11 southwest?
12 HR. HAYNES:
Excuse me.
Going toward the 13 southeast.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
14 And it was a fairly strong wind, and also it 15 was snowing, which then turns out to make these 16 post-event surveys sort of like an environmental 17 engineer 's dream, because you can go out and take snow 18 samples and count them, and you can say I know that the 19 activity that I an seeing came from this event.
This 20 was the plume line, and here's the droplets, the 21 droplets coming out of the steam.
And so we have been 22 taking quite a few extensive surveys of that.
23 The next slide, please.
24 (Slide.)
25 Onsite, of course, these were the readings ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202).554 2346
46 1 around 11:00.
You can see the millirens per hour that 2 involve saying they're 8 now counts per minute; but the 3 main plume came over toward the training center, and 4 there were some cars, some 18 automobiles sitting over 5 there from people that are employed at the plant that 6 had some material deposited on then..
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO Is that the item right 8 about the center of the slide?
9 HR. H AYNESa Yes.
It's about the center.
And 10 there were some cars parked there.
They got up to 11 20,000 counts per minute deposition.
That of course 12 decayed of f f airly shortly and was washed off.
These 13 cars. were later brought into the decontamination area in 14 the plant and vsshed down, that type of thing.
15 A few people working outside had some 16 contamination deposit on them.
One fellow that had the 17 aost, he was shoveling snow out by a fire extinguisher 18 right below the plume up close to tAe building, and he 19 had a little bit of contamination in his hair and had to 20 take two or three showers to get it out.
Again, that is l
21 not unusual for working around a plant.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You say he had 23 contamination in his hair.
Do you have any idea of how 24 auch contamination?
Was it large, small?
25 HR. HAYNES:
It was small.
It was on the ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
l 47 1 order of a thousand count per minute, and then it was 2 cleaned off and washed up.
That evening, about 7:00 or 3 8s00 that evening it was down to about 500 counts per 4 minute.
5 Go to the next slide, please.
8 Do I have a next slide?
I should have a next 7 slide there because I want to show --
8 CHAIRMAN PAL 1ADINO:
Maybe it's the slide 9 before this.
10 CONHISSIONER AHEARNE:
The one from the State 11 of New York is right bef ore this one.
12 NH. HAYNES:
Well, we must have got out of our 13 sequence.
14 The State of New York pulled the TLD units and 15 their maximum reading on TLD was 9.4 mR's.
We show tha t 18 that was right at the training center below the plume.
17 The normal background you see on there.
You expect to 18 see six or seven aillirens in the length of time that t
19 the TLD had been in place.
So the total contribution l
20 during this event will be somewhere around 4 millirens, 21 something like that.
22 CHAIBMAN PALLADIN0s Were these onsite 23 sea surements?
24 MB. HAYNES:
Yes.
That 9.4, that's an onsite 25 reading.
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
48 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
The State of New York has 2 TLDs onsite?
3 HR. HAYNES They have them onsite.
Ours are 4 primarily offsite.
5 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO Do they have any TLDs 6 offsite?
7 HR. HAINES4 It is my understanding they did 8 not, but we have several offsite.
We pulled those TLDs 9 yesterday, we read them, and we have got our preliminary 10 information now on thone.
When we took a look offsite, 11 frankly we see no difference between the background dose 12 of what you normally get from what the TLDs read now.
13 In other words, we can see no contribution from the 14 event to the milliress that are shown on our TLDs 15 offsite.
So it looked like as far as exposure offsite 16 tha t is not detectable; you know, in the millrem range 17 it's not detectable.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Are these west of the 19 f acility also onsite?
20 MR. HAYMES:
Yes.
l 21 COMMISSIONEB AHEABNE:
Why is that happening?
22 MR. HAYNES4 That's not directly under the 23 plure.
24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But you said you would 25 normally expect 6 to 7.
i l
ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
49 1
HR. HAYNES4 Okay.
That is the State of New 2 York's TLD.
I can show you from our data that we had --
3 CONHISSIONEB AHEABNE4 My point, Ron, is on 4 the 9.4 you mentioned.
That is under the plume.
And 5 rou would normally expect 6 to 7,. but the west of the 6 facility is half.
I was just curious why.
7 HR. HAYNES4 It's about 4.
There's a certain 8 amount of variation is all I can say.
I know that on 9 our data that when we take a look, all of our readings 10 are between 6 and 7, 7 1/2 milliress, and that's from 11 the whole distribution.
And ours were out about the 12 same number of days.
13 Then if I can I want to cover a little bit.
14 There was.some minor deposition offsite.
We have gone 15 out and taken snow samples as well as the licensee has.
16 Our van was down in Salem.
We directed that our 17 environmental mon'itoring van be sent up to the site.
It 1
1 18 arrived on Tuesday mornino.
19 We first verified a lot of the sample results 20 of the licensee.
Then we started collecting our own 21 snaples and evaluating those.
What we found on the 22 offsite, some particulates, the cobalt 58 and chromium 23 51, that kind of thing, down on the order of 5 24 picocuries per millileter, which is very, very low, but 25 that was detectable.
That was in the direction of the I
ALDERSON AEPoRTING COMPANY,INo, i~
1 50 1 plume.
2 Like I say, it was an environmental dream for 3 our people because normally if you go out and take soil 4 samples, you wouldn't have that kind of detection level 5 many times, but now since we have snow right under the 6 plume,. ve just take a scooping of the snow and melt it 7 and then count it, and so we know when it was released 8 and what i*s counts are.
9 And, you know, like I say, 5 picocuries per 10 milliliter, how much is that?
I am given to understand, 11 I guess I have nanocuries inside me, most people do, 12 from just normal eating food through natural radiation, 13 natural background, which is like a thousand times 14 more.
A nanocurie is a thousand times more than a 15 picoeurie.
16 And going to the next slide -- well, I don't 17 have a next slide.
Okay.
I wanted to talk a little bit 18 about institutional responses.
19 COHNISSIONER AHEARNE:
Before you do that, 20 R on, I'm sorry, I seem to have lost you at the steam 21 generator.
The main steam line valve opened, and you 22 initiated the emergency center.
Nothing happened after 23 that?
24 MR. HAYNES:
Well, sure.
At 11:25 the 25 licensee restarted the reactor coolant pump.
That ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
T 51 1 established a good forced convention flow.
I was 9
2 staying at the incident response center at that time.
3 Then they turned the pressurizer heaters on full blast 4 and started re-establishing the bubble in the 5 pressurizer.
They got the bubble in the pressurizer 6 re-established by about noon, so now they are back into l
l 7 a normal shutdown-cooldown mode, a bubble no longer in a the vessel, the pressurizer is normal.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
And you were running l
10 cooling through the condenser, out of the steam l
11 generator into the condenser and back.
12 NH. HAYNES:
Yes, yes.
And so the steam 13 transfer -- the A reactor coolant pump was on, flowing 14 through the core, going through the A steam generator.
15 The A steam generator was removing heat from the primary 16 system by opening the atmosphere dump to the environment.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Now, that is where I had 18 a little bit of conflicting information.
I had a call l
19 at 12:28; I had two conflicting reportsa one, that they 20 were using atmosphere dump on the secondary side for the 21 past hour, and when I told them I had been told' 22 otherwise, they said they're now using atmospheric dump 23 on the secondary side because of vacuum loss.
24 So is that what happened?
25 HB. HAYNES:
Okay.
At the Ginna facility on ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
l 52 1 the main condenser they do not have mechanical vacuum 2 pumps.
They operate strictly by the steam det air l
3 ejectors.
The steam jet air ejectors require about 300 l
4 psi for the steam to drive them.
5 With the limited heat available, if you will, 6 from the primary system, then the secondary side of the 7 A steaa generator, the one that was not producing, if 8 you will, 300 psi steam to where they could run the 9 steam generator air ejectors to extract the gases out of 10 the steam, used the cooling mode.
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Essentially couldn 't 12 use the condenser?
13 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO:
You said they couldn't 14 use the condenser for a while?
They could or could not?
l l
15 HR. HAYNES:
They used the condenser as long 18 as they could, but they couldn't re-establish it.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I appreciate that.
18 MB. HAYNES4 They couldn't re-establish it.
i 19 And what they did was they used the atmospheric dumps 20 off the A steam generator.
However, wha t they did on 21 here, though, instead of using a normal feedvater coming 22 into the steam generators, because now the feedwater 23 t ha t would be coming out of the hot vall of the main 24 condenser would be contaminated 25 COMMISSIONEH AHEARNE:
There 's only a single ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
53 I condenser?
2 MR. HAYNES:
Yes.
They had the common type, 3 res.
4 So it would be contaminated, 5 cross-contaminated from the B steam generator.
And so 6 properly so the licensee operated his auxiliary 7 feedvater pumps, took water from the condensate storage 8 tank as the makeup to the A steam generator to replace 9 the steam that was being boiled off.
And that coolant 10 chemistry on the secondary side of the A steam generator
-6 11 was on the order of 10 microcuries per milliliter.
12 So the steam that was being discharged there was clean 13 steam, so it did not add to any, you know -- the 14 pictures in the paper showed the steam going off, but 15 that is clean steam, and that is the normal heat.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
How long were the 17 safety valves open on the steam generator, on the B 18 steam generator?
,b 19 MR. HATNES:
On the B steam generator the time 20 ve're looking at is about two minutes.
There were 21 several burps.
That was about two minutes total time.
22 CONNISSIONER GILINSKY:
And how do they 23 control it?
24 MR. HAYNES:
All you can do is reduce the 25 reactor pressure to below that point, so how ther ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, M(XELJEL
l 54 1 controlled that was by cooling the primary system 2 through the A stema generator and removing the heat by 3 that means and keeping the primary pressure lover, below 4 that subpoint.
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13
(
14 l
15 16 17 18 19 l
20 21 22 23 24 25 ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
55 1
COHNISSIONER AHEARNE4 So that was their 2 stable mode of operation?
3 ER. HAYNES:
Yes.
And they continued on that 4 nice, slev cooldown mode on the primary system and 5 eventually went to the RHR system.
6 COENISSIONEB AHEARNE:
And that was until it 7 was over?
8 HR. HAYNES:
Until the event was over, yes.
9 Thank you, Commissioner.
The event was essentially 10 over, you know.
They reestablished the reactor forced 11 convection flow, the pressurizer was back to normal, its 12 control of the pressure and so forth.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
There had been some 14 confusing information about the steam dumps and tha t is 15 why I wanted to get at that.
16 NR. HAYNES:
Well, the action that they took 17 was to make sure that they had clean water going into 18 the A steam generator and using the atmospheric oumps.
19 I have taken an awful lot of time here.
20 On the institutional responses, with respect 21 to the -- and again these are my perceptions, I am sure 22 you can appreciate that -- with respect to the utility, 23 they had had a practice one week ago today, so they got 24 exercised again.
That practice paid off.
25 I found that the NRC was promptly informed, ALDER $CN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
i 56 1 that the data flow to us at the NRC instant respcnse 2 center was good.
We started planning the information 3 ready within ten to fif teen minutes of when we had set 4 up our shop there, and we had a good handle on it, along 5 with the licensee, on what was transpiring as far as the 8 bubble shif t and these types of things.
7 The licensee established his tech support 8 center properly, his energency operations f acility.
I 9 They worked well.
His energency operations facility was j
10 located at the seventh floor of the corporate office 11 building in Rochester.
The press center was in the l
i 12 baseeent area.
They were both well run.
13 COHNISSIONER AHEARNE:
What is that, about 16 14 miles away?
15 HR. HAYNES:
That is correct.
It is on that l
16 ord er, 17 When we got there and participated with them, 18 we saw that the plant opera tions review committee was 19 working well with the corporate office.
The people were 20 obviously very professional in their approach, and 21 com petent.
They knew what they were doing.
We found 22 the survey teams were dispa tched, and the data was okay 23 from ?,h e re.
24 Of course, as with anything, things can be 25 better.
When we go out, we like to get laboratory-lik>e l
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
l I
l 57 l
1 results afterwards to do our evau.'.ations.
But we do 2 have good data, and they are very cooperative with us in 3 assisting on the off-site analysis tha t we are doing.
4 With respect to the NRC Region I response, 5 when I checked at about 10s00 o' clock in the morning and 6 started going, we thought we had better go up to the 7 site and get ready to go up to the site and those types 8 things, around 10s30, took a look at, well, our mode of l
9 transportation, because the remark was made later that 10 ve got on the site at 5:00.
That is the team that was 11 responding from Region I.
At 10:30, if I have a 12 helicopter, the helicopter would have taken over four 13 hours1.50463e-4 days <br />0.00361 hours <br />2.149471e-5 weeks <br />4.9465e-6 months <br /> to get thera.
The little small planes, I was 14 given that same type of estimate, it would be about four 15 hours1.736111e-4 days <br />0.00417 hours <br />2.480159e-5 weeks <br />5.7075e-6 months <br /> to get me into Rochester.
16 And there was a jet, commercial jet that was l
17 available that was supposed to take off at 1:00, 18 Allegheny Airlines, from the airport that would get me i
19 up there at 2:00 o' clock in the afternoon.
So it was 20 about the same time or better time.
Plus, when we go, 21 rou know, we take quite a few instruments and so forth.
22 Tha t it is a few suitcases and things.
And I take nine 23 people and that type of thing.
And so I opted for the 24 Allegheny det.
25 That, along with FEMA's assistance, I called ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
~
58 1 ahead and made sure we would be met at the airport with 2 escorted transportation out to the site.
Unfortunately, 3 the plane was delayed, Allegheny; it was about 40 4 minutes' delay.
So we arrived at the airport at 3:00 5 o ' clock.
6 But we got our equipment off rapidly, got 7 out.
And the Rochester Gas and Electric people had 8 their transportation department professional drivers 9 neet us.
The sheriff was there with a car.
Then we got 10 into a blinding snowstorm.
It was really snowing out 11 therer and I was riding in the van and had the sheriff's 12 car in front of me, maybe 25 feet, with his blinkers 13 going on, and I couldn 't even see his blinkers part of 14 the tim e.
15 COHHISSIONER AHEARNE:
Good thing you didn't 16 take the helicopter.
17 MR. HAYNES:
Yes, it's a good thing I didn't 18 take the helicopter and it's a good thing I wasn't 19 driving.
20 But we had very good assistance there.
We got 21 into the plant, and that was a nine-person response 22 team.
23 00MHISSIONER AHEARNE:
Did you say earlier you 24 said you got to the site -- did I hear you correctly 25 at 5:00 o' clock?
i ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY. INC, I
59 i
1 HR. HAYNES:
Yes -- well, I got there --
2 CONHISSIONER AHEARNE:
Or did you mean 4:00?
3 HR. HAYNESs I got thota shortly af ter 4400.
4 CONHISSIONER AHEARNEs 4:00.
Yes, I thought i
5 that is what you said.
l l
6 NR. HAINES:
Well, I have got a scenario here l
7 that says 5 s00, and I know it's better than 5:00.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO Yes.
Well, I just wanted l
9 to check, because at 4:35 Bill Dircks called me to tell 10 se that Haynes is at the technical support center.
11 ER. HAYNES:
I don 't know where they get this 12 number 5:00.
13 HR. DIRCKS4 I think what that was, Ron, when 14 you went to the site, you did what you were supposed to 15 do s you set with the committee, operating committee.
16 HR. HAYNES:
Right.
17 MR. DIRCKS:
And it was only -- we knew that
~
18 he was there at 4: 30.
And when he got out of the l
19 aceting, he reported back to us and said he was briefed, 20 he was ready to take over.
And I think 5:00 o' clock was 21 the time --
22 MR. HAYNES4 At 5400 o' clock I was taking 23 over.
24 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO I just wanted to make 25 sure of the record.
1
.1DERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
_ ED VIRGINIA AG S.W, WASHINGTON. D.C. 20C24 QSiED 554-2345
60 1
HR. HAINES:
I was not keeping my eye on my 2 vatch.
But this thing said 5:00 o' clock, but I knew I 3 took over at 5:00 o' clock.
4 Let me say a few other things, if I may, along 5 this line.
Of course, the first response was -- our 6 resident inspector was Roy Zimmerman; he was sitting in 7 his office when the event started.
He happened to see 8 the red light flash on.
The end phone was being used.
9 He picked it up.
People were reporting to the 10 headquarters duty officer.
So he immediately got up and 11 vent up to the control room and started doing his thing, i
12 his review of what the licensee was doing.
13 When we became aware of it, we had also 14 resident inspectors over nearby at the Fitzpatrick and 15 Nine Nile Point 1 plants.
So we dispatched two of our i
that plant towards the site.
l 16 inspectors from 17 We also had two environmental engineers in 18 Albany that were working on the state program.
So we 19 contacted them and dispatched them towards the site.
20 COMNISSIONEB BRADFORD:
Ron, what is your most 21 remote plant?
Is it Maine Yankee?
i 22 MR. HAYNES:
Yes, yes, sir.
23 COHNISSIONER BRADFORD.
How long would it have 24 taken you, do you suppose, to get from Maine Yankee, 25 given the same general set of events?
l ALDERSoN REPORTING CCMPANY,INC, l
I W ffD 41Cb M M @B, M M
61 1
MR. HAYNES Well, it is on the order of -- if 2 I take a helicopter, I would have to say six or seven 3 hours3.472222e-5 days <br />8.333333e-4 hours <br />4.960317e-6 weeks <br />1.1415e-6 months <br /> to get out there from the time I say I want to 4 go.
5 COHNISSIONER BRADFORDs Could a helicopter fly 6 in this weather?
7 ER. HAYNES4 Well, I could have come in the 8 airport.
The airport was clear.
But I would have had a 9 heck of a time landing out at the site under those 10 conditions, yes, sir.
And, of course, I don't know what t
11 was happening up higher.
The det ride was smooth but it 12 was real tough westher.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Do you have a series of 14 transportation --
15 NH. HAYNES:
Alte rna t e s, yes, sir.
16 CONNISSIONEB AHEARNE:
For each plant?
17 NR. HAYNES4 Yes, we do.
And many of the 18 plants in Region I, we are fortunate because we go by 19 ca r.
We can be at the Millstone f acilities and those 20 types of things in four hours.
Pilgrim by car is about i
21 six hours.
So by flying just commercial, we normally 22 take four hours, that type of thing, to get to the 23 Pilgris site.
Maine Yankee is the farthest.
24 I might aantion also we had a good flow of 25 informa tion all during this event, but there were some ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
62 1 things that were a little bit-unique, in that our 2 resident's office is immediately adjacent to the tech 3 support center.
So we immediately went there and set up 4 shop very well with all of our phones, information, 5 printouts, that type of thing, and immediate contact 6 with the licensee with all of his gear.
7 I also found that what was good along this 811ne was that the early assurption of -- to take over as 9 the director of site operations was good.
I was --
10 before I left the Region I, I had a good handle on what 11 was going on there, and the plant was under control.
12 But, you know, things could always go wrong later on.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
What did you use as the 14 decision point to decide to go?
15 HR. HAYNES:
At 10:42, when I said actuate the 18 emergency management team or at 10:30, that type of 17 thing, that's the time we did get going, yes, yes, sir.
18 By that evening we had 14 people from the NRC 19 on site.
Then I got a backup team, a nine-person backup 20 team -- not a nine person backup team, I got a 21 seven-person Region I backup team in place to come in to 22 relieve for the night shif ts or early-morning shif ts, 23 and also got a public aff airs officer in Region III come 24 o ut.
So we had 22 people available.
25 With respect to FEMA, my review there is that ALDER $oN REPORTING CCMPANY,INC,
l 63 1 a team out of New York City.
There were three people 2 a public affairs officer, a person vent into EOF, and 3 also the manager at the hotel and also at the EOCs.
I 4 thought the FEMA role in this was well, and my 5 perception was well.
They played the proper role.
I 6 had an excellent meeting with thee as we de-escalated i
7 and what have you.
Their table at the EOF was right 8 next to ours.
9 Through our previous relationships with then 10 and interfaces with them as well as the state and the 11 locals, we found that to be very valuable because Dr.
12 Voorhees, who is a fellow that I had in charge of the 13 off-site dose assessments at the EOF, he knew all these 1
14 people and they all knew him, they had confidence in one 15 another.
And so there was a good working relationship.
16 I do -- sa w tha t their role was one that they 17 had their presence, they were available to assist if 18 needed.
The very important role that they played during 19 the planning and preparations stage, I think, played off 20 because the state and locals were acuated and ther 27 responded.
22 I know that -- I understand that there may be 23 a push for higher visibility or more active 24 participation by FEM A on some of these things.
In my 25 own view, I think that should be thought out long before ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, CB M ATb fkek N1Rk [0R A ASfD6L9
64 1 ve go into a lot of active participation there, because 2 ve do not want to get too many cooks in the kitchen.
I 3 thought the role that I was playing was proper with the 4 licensee from the technical, technical assessment.
I 5 was keeping FEMA apprised.
They were satisfied with 6 that.
They were comfortable with their role. '
T But I often hear tha sometimes there might be 8 more of a thrust, the "I am in charge" type between 9 groups.
I do not know if that is true or not.
But I 10 think the way it worked here is the way it ought to 11 work.
12 The state and local agencies, I watched their 13 performance, from the role of the Wayne County people, l
14 professional solid people doing their jobs.
15 And the media coverage, I thought it went te well.
The licensee established his credibility early,
(
I 17 f rom the press releases.
That is according to my PAO.
18 I saw that there was a little bit of a flap about on 19 Wednesday, the Wednesday papers, about the steam void in 20 the vessel that -- the bubble, you know, the bubble 21 syndrome, that maybe the press was not told that the way 22 they should have been told that.
23 I as told tha t by my public af f airs officer.
24 All I know is that I did discuss it on Tuesday with AP 25 a'nd the news vire services and people like that.
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
65 1
CHAIRHAN PALLADINO:
In one of the reports it 2 uas said that the temperatures got so high that it 3 formed a steam bubble rather than the pressure coming 4 down.
5 ER. HAYNESS Yes.
But it was the 6 depressurization that formed the bubble.
7 So that is about the size of my longwinded 8 presentation.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Are you going to get to 10 the steam generator itself, the break?
What do you knov 11 about it and what do you think --
12 MR. HAYNES:
Well, I do not know anything 13 about it.
What I know now is that the licensee entered 14 the containment yesterday, their plans are to go in and 15 drain the steam generator, make an entry, find out which 16 tube is leaking, blow a tube or two, determine the cause 17 of f ailure.
18 COMNISSIONER AHEARNEs Can they make any 19 estimate of the size of the leak?
23 NR. HAYNES:
Sure, they can make some 21 estimates --
22 COHNISSIONER AHEARNE:
There was a quote in 23 one of the papers that the licensee 's vice president was 24 quoted as saying the tube was just sheared off.
i 25 ER. HAYNES:
No one knows that.
No one knows ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIR38NIA AVE., S.W., WASNINGToN. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2346
,s a
s 66 1 if it's one tube or several tubes.
It's more than 2 likely one tubs.
Whether it's a double-ended break or 3 whether 'it's a split along the side or -- no one has a 4 __
5 COHNISSIONER BRADFORD What kind of estimate 6 do you have for the rate of water flow through the 7 leak?
8 NR. HRTNESt I do not have an estisate.
That 9 type of data is being gathered and information is being
\\
10 evaluated' now.
11 COHNISSIONER BRADFORD:
You must have had some
^
.s
.t 12 sense of how fast you are losing ' water during the 13 event.
14 HR. HAYNES3 Oh,. sure, yes, but when you get 15 into those in times -- you get into time estimates, you 16 can get way off on the leak rates.
s 17
\\
All I can say is that it is my recollection 18 that the Point Beach f ailure was around a 400 g.p.m.
19 laak rate, that we had,-- it's about a 150 leak rate at 4
~
20 Prairie Island, or it's' vice versa.
So it could be 21 sever:a1 hundred gallons per minute leak ra t e, y e s.
22 COHNISSIONER BRADFORD:
But it would vary with 23 time, would it not?
24 MR. HAINES:
Certainly.
25 CHAIRMAN PAL 1ADINO Initially, you would have ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE, S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 564 2345
67 1 a high pressure differential.
Now, I was told at 11:30 2 that the rate at that time or that information I was 3 told was 75 g.p.m.
4 MR. HAYNESt Yes, that was the makeup rate, 5 yes.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s I am not saying that was i
l 7 the maximua, not saying it was the average, I just said 1
8 that was the number I was told at the time.
l l
9 MR. HAINES:
Yes.
Now, when I arrived at the 10 site a little later on, the steam generator was the 11 hottest point in the system, the source to cool down.
12 So it was forcing wa'ter back into the primary system.
13 CHAIRMAN PALIADIN0s Yes.
You have to fill 14 that -- when the break starts, you start to fill the 15 steam generator, especially after it's isolated, and 18 then later it will come back.
17 MR. HAYNES:
Yes.
And that is what occurred.
l 18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
So really, we do not 19 have any estimate?
20 MR. HAINES:
I do not know, sir, but there 21 will be one.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE4 And what is the program 23 that the licensee has to try to decide what happens?
i 24 MR. HAYNES:
Well, that is what we talked to 25 him about, of course, and they said, well, we are up ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
_ 400 VIRGINIA AyEL. S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202).554 2346
68 1 there now on our part with our environmental van.
It 2 vill be coming back tomorrow.
We are doing some 3 preliminary inquiry, getting the data.
We have made 4 inquiries to the licensee and said, okay, now, what is 5 going on.
He is making assignments, he is scoping out 6 his investigation at this time.
7 The role that IMPO, the owners group, INSAC 8 and IPRI plays is under review at this time by the 9 licensee.
We have talked to him, Mr. White, who is the 10 vice president, Hr. Stericecky spoke to him.
And ther 11 are into that plan now, approach of, you know. what type 12 of report to put in, evaluation to be done with respect 13 to the transient itself, the system response to those 14 procedures.
15 And then later on, get into the steam 16 generator.
We won't know what type of failure mode it 17 as until they get the tube out.
They will pull that out 18 to determine if there is more testing that is required, 19 they will do those types of nesting, see if it's a 20 generic problem but --
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Will the tube be sent 22 to laboratory analysis?
23 NR. HAYNES:
Yes, that would be the normal 24 course.
I would expect that.
I don 't have that 25 commitment now, but when we find out what we get, I ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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69 1 would expect that that is the normal course, to pull out 2 the tube and send it --
3 COHNISSIONER AHEARNE:
And do I gather that 4 that is what you would vaat done?
5 ER. HAYNESt Absolutely.
And the history with 6 the Rochester Gas and Electric Company is they are as T vitally interested as we are in what is the cause of 8 failure and what type of corrective actions can be 9 taken. And so that plant has done quite a bit with 10 respect to protection of their steam generators.
11 Of course, they switched from the phosphate 12 treatment to the all-volatile treatment, but I knov 13 before 1979, when I was up there, they had gono to the 14 full-flow domineralization design, adding that system 15 in.
So the feedvater in the secondary system goes 18 through a full-flow demineralizer.
They have been doing 17 a lot to take care of the steam generators, a lot of 18 testing.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Do you know whether 20 there have been any indications of an incipient leak ?
21 HR. HAINEss I asked that question, and the 22 answer I got --
that there was no indication that ther 23 had a probles pending.
24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
So that the normai 25 seasurements of leak rates or the radioactivity levels ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
70 1 in the secondary system had been going on?
2 NR. HAYNES:
Oh, yes, and they were normal.
3 COMMISSIONER AREARNE:
They were normal.
But l
4 there was not a lag in time that --
5 HR. HAINES The infornation I have now, there 6 is no indi=ation that there was a buildup, that they had i
l 7 a leak in the offing or a slow leak, trying to chase it 8 out.
9 COHNISSIONER GILINSKYs Are you finished with 10 that line of questions?
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes.
12 CONHISSIONER GILINSKY:
One of the handouts 13 You gave us of the summary of steam generator tube 14 rupture events, I wonder if you could say a word about 15 how this compared with that, or is that somebody 16 else's?
17 MB. HAYNE7+
I will turn that ove r to Mr.
18 Denton.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKYs What is this?
Are you 20 through, Hon?
21 HR. HAYNES:
Yes, I as through.
22 NH. DENTON:
I had a few handouts to, not talk l
23 about Ginna but tsik about the history of steam 24 generator problems, in general.
Let me start with 25 this.
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
71 1
COHNISSIONER BR ADFORD:
Let se ask one other 2 question about Ginna-then before you leave that 3 entirely.
4 Ron, the pressure fell very fast in the first 5 four or five minutes.
The temperature did balk during 6 that same time.
How rapidly did the system cool down?
7 HR. HAYNES4 There was not a rapid cooldown.
8 It's like a, you know, 450 degrees.
I remember 9 temperatures of f400 to 450 degrees.
As far as the 10 challenge to the embrittlement type situation on the 11 vessel steel, I did not see that that bec2ae a concern.
12' There was not a rapid cooldown of the --
13 CORHISSIONER BRADFORD:
What was the cooldown l
14 rate?
15 HR. HAYNES:
Hell, that would be on the order l
16 of 150 degrees, I think, for the initial event.
Then it 17 stayed f airly constant for quite a while and then slowly 18 gradually came on down to below, you know, hours and 19 hours2.199074e-4 days <br />0.00528 hours <br />3.141534e-5 weeks <br />7.2295e-6 months <br />.
20 00HNISSIONER BRADFORDs Then what is the 21 f urthest the pressure went back up aftec that initial 22 drop?
23 HR. HAYNES:
1300 p.s.i.
24 COHNISSIONER BR ADFORD:
So it never really 25 vent back up more than 100 p.s.i. over the 1200 that it ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
\\
72 1 dropped to in the first few minutes?
2 5B. RAYNES:
Yas.
And generally, after about 3 10430, the pressure came down to 1000 p.s.i. and it kept 4 down, because again they kept the pressure low to keep 5 the main steam safety valve closed safety from opening 6 any significant pressure trips.
7 CHAIRHAN PALLADINot May I ask a question, 8 Harold?
How long is your presentation going to be?
I 9 as trying to see what sort of time f rame we are getting 10 into, whether we should take a break.
I presume the 11 Consissioners have questions.
12 MR. DENTONs I just had three slides to 13 present.
14 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD4 Could I ask one 15 further question?
16 Ron, the steam generator, is this -- I gather 17 that the way with the signal conde'nser and the way this l
l 18 particular system is designed, that on any time that you 19 had a -- is it correct that any time you had a break in 20 one of the steam generator tubes, that you would have to 1
21 automatically shif t over to this steam dump method of 22 cooling, that you would not be able to use the 23 condenser?
24 MB. HAYNESs Their procedures called that ther 25 try to maint'ain on the main condensers that they can.
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,lHC, 8 N A6L BDn WmM O.@. A G564 2346
73 1 Okay.
But this type of sudden break and under these 2 types of conditions, I think it would just get a repeat 3 of the same thing.
4 COBRISSIONER BRADFORD:
So basically the 5 condenser then has to be on them for that mode of 6 cooling?
7 ER. HAYNES4 Now, when you say, you know, like 8 a single condenser, as I recall, this has like two 9 low-pressure units on the turbine, you know, 10 high-pressure and th'e two low-pressure.
And there is a 11 condenser under each one, but they have common --
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDs Common lines.
13 HR. HAY {ES:
-- common lines and common steam 14 systems.
15 MR. DENTON:
The practice in industry varies 16 considerably on the air ejectors..
Some have auxiliary 17 boilers.
Some have nechanical vacuum pumps.
Most only 18 have the type of air ejector that Ginna has.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARHE:
Thank you.
20 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Let me ask a variant 21 of a question I asked you earlier, Hon.
By and large, 22 you f eel that the operators handled this pretty well.
23 Does that mean that it is inevitable in a steam 24 generator tube break in this plant that you would get a 25 bubble?
ALDERSON REPoPTING COMPANY,INC,
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74 1
HR. HAYNES:
No.
Well, I cannot answer that, 2 really.
I got two things going there, is that we get 3 the bubble formed because it dropped down the PORY stuck 4 open, went down to 800 p.s.i. and then came back.
5 However, if you are going to keep the pressure below the 6 set point of the main steam isolation valve, which is
~71085, that means you have got be operating at about 8 1000.
That's 545 degrees F. saturation.
The vessel 9 head steel is going to be pushing to get down from the to 590 degrees during normal operation down to 545.
11 So it is possible that one could get a bubble 12 there.
If the reactor coolant pumps stay on, though, 13 okay, you get better circulation, better heat transfer 14 under the head and that might cool down a little 15 f aster.
So the natural c.$rculation, you see, is a 16 slower cate.
17 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
But they are supposed 18 to turn the pumps off?
19 MR. HAYNES:
They are supposed to turn the 20 pumps off, yes.
Under the present procedure -- and tnat 21 is why part of our review and evaluation that we would 22 expect to see is that -- is that under this type event, 23 it is best to keep perhaps the reactor coolant pump on.
24 Okay.
Or restart it as soon as you can.
25 But what trap may tha t lead you in?
I mean ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AQ @(WyW M TML@8 @ q$}$) M
75 1 why was it required to be shut off to begin with?
If 2 you have a severe enough leak that where it does not 3 stop at 1000 pounds, you keep the pump on, you get 4 cavitation, you can cause a seal failure, dump the 5 primary system into, you know, have a larger leak or 6 loss from the primary system.
7 So it.has to be looked at and evaluated of 8 what is the best course of action for the operators.
9 The course that was followed and the course that was a 10 minimal event, if you will, as f ar as releases go, there 11 was adequate protection provided for the public.
So it 12 did not work bad.
13 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDs No, I understand 14 that.
What I am trying to get a feel for, though, is 15 whether the operators were doing the best they could in 16 following the procedures we have laid out for them and 17 so on.
If they are always going to get a bubble, then I 18 gather from what you say that it if the P0HV does not 19 stick open, that will make life a little easier.
20 MR. HAYNES:
Make life a little bit easier, 21 but one could still get some flashing underneath the 22 h ea d.
23 MR. DENTON:
You get boiling anyhow.
24 MR. HAYNES:
Yes, sure, you get boiling.
25 ER. DENTON:
Whether or not it is going to ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VmG.NIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
76 1 accumulate in a bubble, but it is so likely, a pretty 2 likely event.
3 COHEISSIONER AHEARNE4 On the PORY, you 4 mentioned that the PORY vas stuck open.
On this 5 particular plant, have they had much of an experience 6 with that?
Is that a --
7 ER. HAYNES I do not know, Commissior er.
We 8 vill be taking a look at that.
9 CONNISSIONER AHEARNE:
Obviously, ro t. have 10 stressed the point what they did right, and we all knov 11 there was one time when it did not work that way.
But I 12 thought we had gone through a procedure trying to make 13 sure that they were tested and that --
14 MR. HAYNESs Oh, they are tested and we also 15 qualify the valves for. vater steam flow and also to make 16 sure that the block valve works.
And tha t all worked 17 properly.
And the valve opened and closed the first two 18 times okay.
The third time it did not close.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes.
But you will be 20 looking at their previous experiences?
21 MH. HAYNES:
Sure.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Okay.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, Harold.
24 NR. DENTON I think it is very short.
I just 25 had three supplemental slides, not focused on the Ginna 4
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, I
77 1 event but more on other steam generator-related 2 information.
3 Let us start with the one labeled " Summary of 4 Steam Generator Tube Rupture Events."
I just want to 5 show you there have been three previous ste'am generator 6 tube failures in the last seven years in the U.S., and I 7 have also shown one that occurred overseas.
8 CHAIHHAN PAlLADINO In addition to these, are 9 there leaks or leakers or --
10 NE. DENTON:
Quite a lot, and tha t results in 11 extensive plugging and inspection history.
And one 12 point I did want to make about the size of the leak 13 here, originally, you remember in the emergency response 14 center we were talking about a possible leak rate of 75 15 g.p.m., an d yo u an d I were first in there.
16 I agree with Bon that we do not have firm data 17 ret, but depending upon how you approach the problem, 18 Tou can calculate numbers as large as pre-Allen or even 19 larger, and I think we will have to await good results 20 --
21 CEAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Is that momentary, the 22 rates, or are those average rates or --
23 MR. DENTON:
I think it is -- until the Region 24 has a chance to collect accurate data, I would no t want 25 to support any number too strongly.
Ihe pressurizer ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W. WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202).564 2346
78 1 level fell very rapidly, indicating a big leak.
2 And some members of the staff have done 3 back-of-the-envelope calculations that are saybe more of 4a 1000 g.p.m.
But that is without full knowledge of 5 what was going on in the system, and I think once we get 6 all the data, we can recalculate.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNEs Is that system 8 performance or is that from an estimate of what might 9 have been --
10 HR. DENTON:
It is system performance with 11 very sketchy data.
And I think everyone is a little i
12 leery about quoting a number until actually we get firm 13 numbers from the company or from the residents.
14 Normally, you would not think any single tube l
15 f ailure, even if it were double-ended pipe break of this 16 size, would result in a leak rate of more than about 500 1
i 17 g.p.m.
So that has led to speculation within the staff 18 that maybe there was more than one tube failure, but we 19 will have to avait real good data befor we can 20 back-calcuate what the leak rate was.
2t The next chart I have labeled " Steam Generator 22 Tube Inspection and Plugging Hist ory."
This is --
l l
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKYa Can you tell us 24 something about those events that are listed on your 25 previous chart?
Are they similar to this one or are ALDEESoN RFooRTING COMPANY,INC, 6 N R R A M 2346
79 1 they mildar or ara they less mild?
2 MR. DENTON Well, the Perry Allen one 3 occurred af ter THI, and we did have the incident 4 response center manned at least at some standby level.
5 And my memory of that is that it went very similar to 6 this event, same sort of --
T COHEISSIONER GILINSKY Time period.
8 HR. DENTONs
-- time periods and releases and 9 off-site doses were all very comparable.
10 The other two occurred earlier, and I do not 11 have the same memory of those, but I think all three --
12 all four events have gone pretty much the same var in 13 terms of system response and consequences.
None of then 14 resulted in any fuel damage, but I think they all l
15 resulted in opening of the steam dump valve.
That is l
I 16 what ther --
17 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD Did they all result in 18 a bubble?
19 MR. DENTON:
I do not know.
I assume that 20 they did, if they went a comparable way.
Back then, of 21 course, we were not requiring the pumps to be turned of f 22 until af ter THI, so that might have resulted in a more 23 rapid cooldown of the head.
24 I have not attempted to go back and dig up all 25 the f acts.
I have asked the staff tc compare once we ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
.@ E~ZINIA AQ 9,W WMTA @).@ WMN y
4 pt 80 1 get a good handle on this one.
2 This chart is specific to Ginna.
It is not 3 labeled Ginna, but it is a history of the tubes 4 inspected and the leakages that occurred at Ginna.
5 There's a note that shows one tube was plugged in the 6 factory.
And there were 122 tubes plugged in about the 7 siddle of last year in stens generator A and 113 in 8 steam generator B.
And also there were some tubes which 9 had been -- sleeves had been put into.
There were a 10 total of 21 sleeved.
11 And I have one slide here also which shows the 12 sleeving experience in the U.S.
There have been four 13 steas generators which have been sleeved.
I think it is 14 speculation to talk about what the real cause in the 15 steam generator tube f ailure was until someone is able 16 to get in there and examine the circumstances.
17 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Ginna did not have any 18 bra zed joints?
19 NR. CUMMINGS:
Excuse me, let me clarify the 20 slide here a little bit.
That is really the primary i
21 neans or the first means of how the sleeve was put in.
22 Actually, on Ginna the upper joint was tachanical 23 expansion and also had a braze boost around it.
For 24 example, the expulsive welding at the bottoa also has 25 the standard expose effects, then it has another veld ALDER 8oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
81 1 beat around it.
2 The slide is a little misleading.
There is 3 actually primary ways, backup ways, et cetera.
4 HR. DENTON:
So the sleeving has been used 5 minimally up to San Onofre 1, which was the primary 6 repair there.
7 CHAIRHAN PALLADIN0s And San Onofre has 8 different type steam generators, substantially more 9 tubes.
10 NR. DENTON Yes.
Well, no, it is about the 11 same kind of steam generator.
1C CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s They are all Westinghouse 13 designs?
14 HR. DENTON:
Now, BCW did the resleeving at 15 Ginna, but it is s Westinghouse steam generator.
So 18 they are all very comparable steam generators in the 17 beginning.
But the sleeving that was done happened to 18 be done with B&W as a contractor, whereas at Ginna and 19 San Onofre they were done as Westinghouse as the 20 contractor.
And different sleevint operations have been 21 done by different firms.
22 COHNISSIONER AHEARNEs How many steam 23 generators does San Onofre have?
24 MR. DENTON It is a very compara ble plant.
I 25 think it is a two-loop plant.
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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o 82 1
COHNISSIONER AHEARNE4 So essentially every 2 tube has been sleeved?
3 NR. DENTONa I think they intended to resleeve 4 every one at San Onofre, and there were access problems, 5 and I think there were 7000 tubes altogether at San 6 Onofre, so they alaest got every tube.
7 But whether sleeving played any role at Ginna, 8 we will have to wait and see.
And I think the follow-up i
9 actions would be as Ron proposed.
We would certainly 10 vant the licensee to remove, make every eff ort to remove 11 the tube that failed, get it to a laboratory, determine 12 the cause, reexamine the condition of the other tubes 13 once he has determined the cause of the f ailure.
And 14 tha t the staff would review that program and order a 15 corrective action if it were needed prior to their going 16 back into operation.
17 That concludes my presentation.
18 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO.
Were there any questions l
l l
19 by the Commissioners at this time?
20 This question of steam generator tube 21 dif ficulty is going to be a continuing ites of attention i
22 by the Commission, and I as sure we will have more 23 questions on it.
24 Any questions specifically with regard to 25 Ginna ?
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC,
83 1
COMMISSIONER AHEARNEs Only one question, 2 which would be:
I recognize that it is still hard to 3 get a good estimate, but could you give just a very 4 rough estimate on when you might be able to say what the j
5 trouble was with the steam generator?
I would take it 6 over a period of a week or weeks or months.
7 HR. HAYNES:
At Ginna with this particular 8~ tube?
9 CONNISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes.
10 HR. HAYNES I would think within a couple of 11 weeks they would have the tube out.
That way we will 12 know, before the time we will know which tube it was, 13 whether or not it was one that had been sleeved or or 14 something about its history.
We should know that 15 probably in about a week.
16 In a couple of weeks we should hav'e it out, at 17 least have it to the Met lab, have preliminary results l
i 18 from that lab.
It is that order.
l 19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY Can a tube whip around 20 and damage other tubes?
21 MB. HAYNES:
Unlikely, Commissioner.
They are 22 packed very clos ely together.
23 COMEISSIONER GIIINJXY I just have two brief 24 questions.
One is where is the sleeve is on PORVs?
25 What are we doing?
A number of them have f ailed to ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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84 1 clo se.
2 MR. DENTON :
This is one of the items, what to 3 do with PORVs has been a continuing problem to the 4 staff.
You need them in some accidents and not in 5 oth ers.
I think Roger Mattson, who has been looking at 6 that, is here in the audience and maybe is able to 7 discuss the status. of that.
8 CORBISSIONER GIIINSKYa If it were available, 9 ve would not have been in this fix in deciding whether 10 to open the steam generator or put up with a bubble.
11 HR. DENTONs Well,maybe he is not here.
12 YOICESs Yes, he is.
13 NR. DEETON:
Do you want to go into that?
You 14 do not have to go into it now if you do not 15 CHAIREAN PAL 1ADINO Well, why don't you give 16 a summary?
17 ER. MATTSON:
There are a couple of questions 18 that you have asked that are associated.
One is this 19 business of the pumps on and the pumps off, which is 20 something we clearly have to look at again af ter this 21 event.
And in conjunction with that, the use that was 22 made of the PORY.
23 Basically, both pieces of equipment can be 24 used to equilibrate the pressure between the primary 25 system and the secondary system.
The way the procedures ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
85 1 vent at Ginna today, the first thing they used was the 2 PORY, and that was evidently correct.
3 If the pumps had not been off, a better way to 4 decrease pressure in a more controlled way is to use 5 sprays and pressurizer,- but you have to have a pump on 6 to do that.
7 Of course, we went through all of this af ter 8 THI.
And because early in the accident you cannot 9 detect how big the break is, the first thing tha t 10 Westinghouse and the staff and the utilities have agreed 11 is important to do is to get control of primary systen 12 inventory and pressure.
Once you do that, then you 13 restart the main reactor coolant pump.
14 Well, the procedures e.s they exist today call 15 for you to use the PORY as part of gaining control of 18 the primary coolant system pressure and volume.
That is 17 the kind of tEIng we will have to go back and look at 18 aga in.
19 There are people who are suggesting maybe 20 instead of all the pum ps off, all but the one pump that 21 controls the spray to the pressurizer.
That might be a 22 com promise between trying to guard a very large break, 23 which is why you shut some of these pumps down, and 24 still providing this convenience of not having to use 25 the PORY for the very small break.
We will be looking ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
l 86 1 at that very closely.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNEs' I thought one of 3 Commissioner Gilinsky's questions, though, spoke to the 4 PORY itself, and here you have another case where the 5 PORY failed.
6 HR. NATTSON:
I should have started this by 7 saying I got the systems part of it.
Dick Vollmer is 8 here for the qualifications part of the valve.
9 I think these valves are undergoing testing 10 now, are they not, Dick?
11 HR. VOLIMER:
All of the PORVs have been 12 tested, including the types that they use at Ginna.
13 They are the Coke's Vulcan valves.
They are operated --
14 they have been tested for steam two phase and liquid 15 flow, and they passed with flying colors under the test 16 conditions in configuration simi[ar to Ginna that was 17 used.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Mcitiple operation; 19 right?
20 ER. YOLLMER:
Yes..
Now, the Ginna tests -- or 21 the.Ginna valves are twelve years old, and I think we 22 have to take a look if there is something specific about 23 the valve, its saintenance or something of that nature 24 which caused this.
25 But the valve testing progras of PORVs is ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC,
1 l
87 1 completed, and these particular valves did very well in 2 the testing.
3 COHNISSIONER AHEARNE:
Okay.
So what I think 4 you are saying, Dick, is that based upon your test 5 programs, you are surprised that this valve stuck open?
6 HR. VOLLMERt That is correct.
T COHEISSIONER BBADFORDs Were they tested for 8 aging?
9 HR. VOLLMERs No.
The valve testings were 10 relatively -- they were new valves, new configurations.
11 They were tested under different types of piping 12 configurations and under different types of liquid 13 pass-through; in other words, two-phase flow, water and 14 steam.
15 But aging, they were given a sequencing of 16 tests and things of tha t na ture.
But as far as the 17 twelve-year valve and the number of cycles that this 18 one, this particular one may have gone through, I cannot 19 answer that.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKI:
Can I just ask whether 21 H r. Michelson was involved in reviewing this incident?
22 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO:
Have you been involved in 23 reviewing this?
24 HR. NICHELSON:
EDT is going to look at the 25 event af ter the inf ormation comes in.
We a re not in the ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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88 1 incident response business.
We are following and
! collecting information and intend to become very active 3 as soon as IEE here has finished their preliminary 4 investigat.i.on.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0s Are there any other 6 queations?
I wonder if I could ask the audience's 7 indulgence for about two minutes?
I as going to adjourn 8 this meeting.
I am going to ask you please to not get 9 up and move, because we have only one item on the 10 affirmation session.
11 So I would like to convene the information 12 session.
That should take us about a minute or less, 13 and then I can adjourn the second sessicn.
But if we
_14 start to get up and move around, that will take longer.
15 So I will adjourn this one.
18 (Whereupon, at 3:58 p.m.,
the meeting was 17 recessed, to reconvene immediately in executive session. )
l 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W, WASHINGTON. O.C. 20024 (202) 564 2345
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NUCLEAR REGULASCICE CD.W.23SICN
.his is Oc certify chat the attached ;rectedings before 'the COMMISSION MEETING
.3 the 3atter of:
P.UBLIC, MEETING - REPORT ON GINNA INCIDENT
- Oste c f ?t*ccetding :
January 28', 1982 Occkec Mu:n' az :
c Place Cf ?rcceeding:
Washington, D'.
C.
Wort held as harein appears, and that this is the criginal transcript thereof for the file of the Cc=z::1ssicc.
Alfred E. Ward Official Reporter (Typed) v of ficial Repertar (signacu: e)
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