ML20063E914
| ML20063E914 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | LaSalle  |
| Issue date: | 06/24/1982 |
| From: | Swartz D AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20063E917 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-82-248, FOIA-82-A-15 NUDOCS 8207140491 | |
| Download: ML20063E914 (10) | |
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lly name is Dennis Wayne Swartz. I am submitting i this affidavit freely and voluntarily, without any threats, inducements or promises of reward,.to Mr. Thomas Devine, who has identified himself as the legal director of the Governnent Accountability Pro' ject of the institute for Policy Studies. I wish to register my concern about safe-ty defects due to construction shorte'uts at the LaSalle nuclear powcr plant. These defects.are massive and, in my opinion, must be correc+ed before the plant goes into operation. -
t I worked at LaSalle on and offias a laborer between .
1973 and early 1982, when I resigned:in protest. During ny employment at LaSalle I was bothta steward and a fore-man at vari'ous points. My job gave me a chance to directly ;
observe concrete work throughout the: plant. I also worked on mixing mortar. Now that the plant is so near to com-pletion and the flaws were iot repaired, I have to speak out about what I saw. .
- 1 Prdbably the most serious . construction deficiencies that I. personally observed occurred during a February-h 8' f N_
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M s A i s March 14, 1980 stretch that I worked at LaSalle. The flaws
' involved the concrete in the containment wall and the reac- +
. a tor pedestal. We were helping.toainstall supports for .
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- s large tubes that came out of theesuppression pool between
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Bridge and Iron cut out stainless steel panels and then the concrete was core-drilled to inst:all the supports. I personally saw holes at least a foot to twenty inches deep being drilled into the containment:at the 710 foot elevaa tion. In the process,.nany of the reinforcement bars were severed. I personally saw a half: dozen rebars severed on each of two or three occasions during the first few days of core-drilling. This scared me..because cutting through tbd pedestal rebars is like takingjout your vertabrae. ( "lhe pedestal is the backbone of the i reactor - - it holds 1 the reactor up. , s - The problem of shattered rcbars iis not limited to the pedestal. I saw rebars; severed"all over the plant l l during core-drilling. Construction
- crews should have known where the rebars are located, if the blueprints had been accurate.
It is not as if the concrete were so solid that it i did not,need the reinforcement bars.. I was struck one , day as I was climbing up a ladder on my way to lunch. I 11 . L -
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! was about 25 feet above the suppression,pool .
or one- " !
, third up the east side of the reactor <pedest a s l l Chicago Bridge and Iron had just . .- on Unit I. ;
cutting out, a steel panel.
' finished scarfing, or . -
Removing.the pe.nel revealed a glant void in the concrete, .so large th climb right in and lie down. at a man could I couldn't believe it. Construction crews patched up the hole
.with grout, but the bonding is not as strong as if -
to start with. More important, the concrhte were solid I wondered how many other spots on the pedestal were honeycombed o es. with h l The construction check. crews did not renove all'the steel plates to I have seen enough cases .of shoddy c my question is not oncrete work that a shot in the darka , the poor work was because of press Most of the time Construction shortcuts have been goinure!to rush the job. g on for years. For ' i instance, in 1974 construction crews the screenhouse. poured concrete for ' it was supposed to, however.The concrete. hardened m - days to harden, but you could walk oIt should :take three to : half hour. n this concrete su a That is unrealistic, sin ~ce the floors four feet t. hick. were
\ When concrete hardens that quickly you -
cannot count on the strength of the bondin
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It wa's not a mystery why -the concrete .-
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set so fast. S t ' l L- -
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. ' The chloride was very hot and would burn your hands and face if it splattered..,
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i, pours ,I repeatedly saw the results,of sloppy concrete
- holes and honeycombs in <the concrete .
Often the reason was because the areas were not cleaned out properly before the pours. , I first in 1974 at noticed fhe problem the outer containnent walls. We were supposed to cle.~.n out up a-clean surface accunulated area. debris so the concrete could fill The debris included wires, paper cups, soda pop cans, beer cans, by-fours. and even timber-like two-Unfertunately, constructicm crews had i the rebars and nstalled cleaned out. ties for the walls bef. ore the area as w bris. As a result, we could 'not reach all the de-You couldn't even . slide your hand in to debris. reach the Even worse, the crews poured the concret - e before we were done eleaning the area andithe junk j ust stayed there. One tine they.went so quick 1.y that the . on 'op of one man's head. t concrete was pour,ed I personally saw hundreds of items left behind. the outeg containment wall and generallI observed floors' . y on the concrete II saw the same type of probl , em in 1975 at the 6 e 1 -
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OO r. 3 J-line wall that separates the reactors from the auxiliary, , building. '
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- Other times the da' mage was due to ' pouring too much concrete at once in a limited area. Concrete has to sit long' enough to hold its own wei.ght. Due to the speed-up, though, the pressure would b'e t9o great and the walls would push out. For instance,.I can_ point oyt one section
. of the outer cont'ainment wall poured in 1974 that site about four inches off-whack. In 1978 I saw another example when the excess pressure blew out a section of the turbine wall separating the turbine from radwastes The blast blew one fellow 20 feet away.
A final reason for the shoddy, concrete also involved speed-up pressures. Before a pour, concrete has to be
" vibrated" to get out the air; bubbles and be bondable.
- I observed the process in 1975 or'1976. But construction was in such a hurry that the bubbles were not all removed.
That may be'another reason for the-honeycombing in the con-crete.. Similar to the concrete miseries, I do not trust the mortar work at LaSalle. Sometimes the problem was that the mortar was not used. The walls are constructed with high- . density blocks five to six feetathick. The blocks.have ,._ s
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, I All the blocks are . supposed to be packed metal inside; '
The construction acrews would pack . together with mortar. . h
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the outer two or three blocks with mortar and Jyst s ove g When I complained to a the rest in without any' binding. I ob-foreman he said that Quality Control' did not care. build- . served this practice in t e h radwaste and auxiliary ings, as well as the turbines.. Even when mortar was used, it was shoddy quality. Sometimes you There was too much sand in the nortar. There was so much could take'a nail and write in it... the bricklayers couldnt pound the blocks down. sand that when I worked mi x- . I witnessed the abuse during:1976-78', ing the mortar, and later asia foreman and steward in the same area. You are supposed to, nix,7 shovels of sand with each That.is how I mixed it bag of nortar and some watere But around, a third of the time my t when I worked alone. superintendent was present and ordered me to add extra I'd ' estimate about three to four bags of sand were sand. d than involved for each bag, which meant up to 507. more san There All .that ; mortar is suspect. , there should have been. the superintendent always knew when were nortar tests, but
- me do it right then. .
the tests were scheduled and l'et
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Walgreen, the contractor, finally lef t the site. e
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- of the masonry was done; to the best of my knowledge, .
the I shoddy mortar was never found and replaced. ; . ; l Another LaSalle worker told me of a particularly I frightening incident in 1978. It makes me wonder if LaSalle is ready to start opernting. In 1978 there was a reactor pressure test that literally blew the roof off. . It'was replaced, at several million dollars expense. _ Even after such a shocking incident, management tried to cut corners. The accident.also ripped out the bolts for sone of the piping. Instead of doing the holes over, they . The just redrilled the old holes and m'ade them bigger. and the ripes may be less secure now than during the test, bolts didn't hold then. I am not aware of any new pressure test since tne roof blew off. I believe the plant should have to pass this test before operations begin. If the top , I blows during a test, it"can blow when the plant is running, l All of titese disasters have. lef t tbc morale very low It is frustrating not to be allowed to l among the workers. ' There is;"No Nukes" graffitti scattered 1 l do your job right. l throughout the plant periodically. , 1 The "No Nukes" graffitti turned.out to illustrate ' more th.an \jhe insight of nuclear construction workers. It showed,the problem of worker safety. Management had us , ,, ;GP clean th.e walls with a poisonous substance called electro-4
clean that was making us sick. I There was a skull and 1 crossbones right on the label. Therlabel
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" Toxic,.do not breathe, use in,a well-ventilat ed area." .
I resigned in protest. This was not the first time management has 16nored : the workers' health. Over a half dozen workers have died at'the plant, due 'to getting' hit with steel that fell, or ' falling due to unsafe hand railings or holes in the floor . Management just did not care.about the hazards. As a steward for a year during 1975 and:1976, I pointed out unsafe condit ions to Fred Hill,. the. company saf ety man . It was like talking to a brick wall. , He would not take reasonable steps to pro'tect us. It reached the point of total. disregard for human ' life. In 1975 or 1976 a' man fell through a hole and had to be scraped up off the floor. It was awful. Management had the laborers clean up the mess. l Even with the puddle of blood still on the floor, the superintendel.t wanted us to just keep working. He said that :ft would not help the ' worker any to stop. We insisted on' paying our respects by leaving. I told the superintendent that a man had just i lost his. life trying to make bread .and butter for hi s fam-ily. We left. : u
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I am sorry that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission * ("NRC") has not had any noticeable impact on these ~ prob- a Management always kn'ew t.wo days in advance of NRC lems. superficially. . inspections and had us clean up the plant That was good enough. The NRC never took initiatives to t In fact, during all?my. years at : talk to us workers. " resident inspector named LaSalle I had never heard of t / cone We always wondeted why' the NRC didn' t Roger Walker. ' Maybe the in-when the utility didn' t know in advance. , vestigators would have found more Problems. 6 It is not too late'to repair the damage, however. tour, I would be glad If the NRC wants help on a plant to point out holes in the concrete,. areas where concrete " id was poured over debris, and areas where blocks were la . without mortar. I an speaking out pub 13 cly because the plant was not
- built right. I spoke out for years wittiiri the company. i any followup. ,
The response was always noncommital without
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to work at LaSal'le I thought we were . When.I first went I But many workers
- helping to solve the energy crisis. .
s Like others, have seen how this nuclear plant .was' built. t I don' t want to be living in the. area when this thing kicks . OI e off. ' I have read the above 9 page affidavit and it is true, - S
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accurate ibc15cf. .' and completes to the be tand- of my kno ' s
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