ML20041C496
| ML20041C496 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 02/26/1982 |
| From: | Stucky S NRC OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SECY) |
| To: | NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE LEGAL DIRECTOR (OELD) |
| References | |
| CLI-82-01, CLI-82-1, ISSUANCES-OL, NUDOCS 8203020088 | |
| Download: ML20041C496 (7) | |
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OFFICE OF THE
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q'\\ P MEMORANDUM FOR:
Persons on Service List for CLI-82-1 (Dockets 50-275 O.L. and 5.6-323 0.L.)
Scott W.
Stucky, Chie DcI keting and FROM:
Service Brangh j [ b'/" N
SUBJECT:
ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF COMMISSIONER GILINSKY REGARDING PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC'S MATERIAL FALSE STATEMENT On February 26, 1982, Commissioner Victor Gilinsky released his additional views relating to the Commission's order CLI-82-1 of February 10, 1982, in the Diablo Canyon matter.
A copy of Mr. Gilinsky's statement is attached, and should be appended to your copy of CLI-82-1
Attachment:
As Stated g>o3 II 8203020088 820226 PDR ADOCK 05000275 0
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
'82 FE9 26 P2 20 COMMISSIONERS:
Nunzio J. Palladino, Chairman Victor Gilinsky Peter A. Bradford John F. Ahearne Thomas M. Roberts (ih',2.; Edb b b 'l331 f
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In the Matter of
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)
PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC CO. )
Docket No. 50-275 O.L.
)
50-323 0.L.
(Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power )
Plant, Units 1 & 2)
)
)
ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF COMMISSIONER GILINSKY REGARDING PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC'S MATERIAL FALSE STATEMENT On February 10, 1982, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission charged Pacific Gas and Electric with making a ma'terial false statement in discussions of the D,iablo Canyon' seismic design with the NRC.
The Commission's Order was brief to the. point of being telegraphic, and I sense that the public was left wondering about the Commission's finding as well as its significance in view of the Commission's failure to impose a civil penalty.
What follows is my own view ~of the matter:
Last September, PG&E informed the NRC that errors had.been discovered in the seismic design of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which had just received NRC permission for test and low. power operation.
The NRC suspended the low
2-power license and required a reverification of the plant's seismic design.
On November 3, the NRC met with PG&E officials, led by the Company President, Barton W.
Shackelford, and with PG&E's consultant, Robert L. Cloud, to discuss the seismic reverification program being conducted by Dr. Cloud's firm.
As a result of questions raised by other parties to the case and in Congress, NRC was becoming increasingly interested in the extent to which Dr. Cloud's review would be conducted independently of PG&E.
The Company naturally had a strong interest in emphasizing Dr. Cloud's independence since NRC's early acceptance of him as an independent reviewer might have speeded up the reverification program which stood in the way of the power plant'r, startup.
At the meeting, Harold Denton, NRC's Director of Nuclear Reactor f.egulation, asked whether NRC would receive the same reports which Dr. Cloud gave to PG&E.
George Maneatis, a PG&E Senior Vice President, responded "You'.just got it.
And I have to say, Mr. Denton, that some of these things have just been disclosed to'me, so you got it almost the same time I did."
Bruce Norton, PG&E's attorney in the Diablo Canyon case, stated "I might add we do not have it [ Cloud's report].
It's not a question of us reviewing it.
We don't have it m
r either.
It just hasn't been done yet...."
He then added, with considerable force, "I frankly resent the implication that Dr. Cloud is not an independent reviewer because he "
is...The report itself hasn't been prepared.
If you want a copy of it before we get it, fine, or simultaneously.
It is an independent consultant, and you know, I don't know how we can show you that more than to give you the reports when they are prepared."
In fact, as NRC pieced together later, at the time these statements were made PG&E had already reviewed and commented on two separate drafts of Dr. Cloud's report and, unbeknownst to NRC, was about to receive the third draft.
The NRC's subsequent investigation revealed that six of the PG&E officials at the November 3 meeting, including Donald' A. Brand, the Vice President of Engineering, who was responsible for handling the Cloud contract, knew of PG&E's review of the Cloud reports.
The Company's officials failed to' correct the false statements made in the meeting.
Perhaps more importantly, neither the Company nor Dr. Cloud corrected these statements after the meeting although they had ample opportunity to do so.
Mr. Norton, who had insisted at the November 3 meeting that PG&E had no access to Cloud's reports, told NRC investigators that he did not learn about drafts of the Cloud report submitted to PG&E until December 14.
He had
4-asked PG&E before the November 3 meeting about the status of Cloud's report and was apparently misinformed by his clients.
He told the NRC investigators that, "If I had known the report of October 21st had been received by PG&E, I would not have said what I said because when I used the term report, I was encompassing any report whether it be preliminary, interim, final, whatever..."
Mr. Maneatis told the NRC investigators that, at the meeting, he was referring to Dr. Cloud's oral report of November 3 to the NRC.
Mr. Maneatis explained that he did I
not know that PG&E had received written drafts of the Cloud report until he was told of such reports by the NRC on December 10.
The other PG&E exployees and Dr. Cloud have said that they assumed that the questions raised related to the final report, not to the draft reports.
This last artificial distinction won't wash.
Even PG&E's General Counsel, Malcolm Furbush, agreed that the Company's I
statements " appear to be incorrect" and said that, "Had I known about those reports, I would have said something at the meeting."
In fact, in this context, the draft reports are inherently more significant, it is the drafting which determines what will be emphasized and what will not.
Where does this leave us?
It is troubling that a company which seeks permission to operate nuclear power plants
should be so insensitive to its obligation to inform federal regulators and the public.
The issue is not the circulation l
of the reports but the false portrayal of PG&E's relationship with Dr. Cloud's firm.
When we grant a utility the authority to operate a nuclear power plant we must be confident that its officials will be forthright with.us.
That is why the Commission's finding that PG&E had made a-t material false statement is so important.
I would have gone beyond the terms of the Commission's Order and imposed a civil penalty to underline the seriousness with which the Commission views PG&E's actions.
Nevertheless, the Commission did require the top management of PG&E to meet with NRC officials to discuss ways of ensuring that this problem will not recur.
A meeting between the Chairman of the Board of PG&E and the NRC Director of Inspection and Enforcement and the NBC Regional Administrator is scheduled to take place in the near future.
PG&E should lose no time in acting to restore confidence in its integrity.
Ac for Dr. Cloud, we cannot, in my view, simply ignore the fact that he also had an obligation to inform the NRC that his draft reports were being reviewed by PG&E.
Again, it is not the circulation of the report which is of concern, but the failure to disclose the iateract' ions between Dr. Cloud's firm and PG&E when the question was raised by NRC.
The only
f o -
reasonable course, at this point, is to regard his report I
as, in effect, a PG&E report and to look to someone else to perform tho independent audit of the reverification program.
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